Two Way Street

It was only ten or so at night, but I was already falling asleep on my couch, the hum of some old, boring movie pressing me over the edge to unconsciousness.

I could feel the edges of a dream starting in my mind, my mouth starting to drop open, when the front door opened.

Immediately, I sat up, disoriented, and snapped my head around to face the door. There were Zayn and Niall, grinning innocently. Niall had a stack of DVDs in his hand, while Zayn was carrying a box of pizza.

After blinking a couple of times, I questioned, “What the bloody hell are you two doing?”

“We heard that you gave Mara a chance,” Zayn explained when he plopped on the floor. “And we want all the details.”

“We figured it’d be easier to weasel information out of you if we had pizza and movies,” Niall elaborated before sitting down next to Zayn. Without waiting for my response, he reached over and pulled a slice of pizza from the pie, stuffing it into his mouth and chewing with a grin on his face.

“There’s not really much to tell…” I trailed off, raising an eyebrow. “And you were going to try bribing me?”

“It’s working, isn’t it?” Zayn joked.

I sighed, my sleepiness completely dissipated, as I settled on the floor, the third point of our triangle. “You could have just called and asked me. A visit with food and movies wasn’t necessary.”

“Oh, we figured we’d just hang out afterwards,” Zayn shrugged. Niall nodded in agreement, chewing his mouthful of food.

I shook my head and took a bite of my own slice of pizza.

“So…what happened, mate?” Niall pressed, his voice garbled.

I chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before answering, “Not much. We went out for coffee. We talked about our mutual dislike for Project Runway, her past with Louis, her moving in with Harry-”

Niall choked a little bit while Zayn borderline shouted, “What do you mean moving in with Harry?!”

My eyes narrowed in confusion. “Yeah. Did you guys not know?”

“She goes quickly,” Niall muttered before snickering.

That was as good as an answer in the affirmative; they hadn’t heard a thing about Mara’s situation. I had no idea if it was okay for me to tell anyone, but I figured that she was telling people easily enough, so it would be alright. “No, there’s nothing going on between them. She’s moving in with Harry because she got evicted.”

“What?!” both boys exclaimed at the same time, shooting looks at each other.

“Why’d she get evicted?” Zayn asked with wide eyes.

“She was behind on all her bills,” I responded, taking another bite of pizza. “So Hazza offered to let her move in. They’re just going to be roommates, though. No funny business or anything, as far as she told me.”

Niall let out a snort. “Oh, please. If Harry’s involved, there’s going to be funny business.”

“She’ll fall under his spell in no time,” Zayn seconded.

I shrugged. “I dunno. He doesn’t really seem like her type.”

“Oh, is that so?” Niall teased with a smile. “You know what her type is like? Why don’t you enlighten us?”

Zayn snickered before adding, “Couldn’t be tall, brown hair, brown eyes, solid build, and with a strange obsession with Toy Story, could it?”

I felt my face heat up as I realized what they were inferring. “Oh my God, guys, shut up. That’s not what I was saying.” After a second of thought, I added, “And Toy Story’s a quality movie. Don’t knock it.”

“We’re not,” Niall laughed. “But what did you mean, then?”

“I was just saying that she likes to enforce very often that she doesn’t appreciate Harry hitting on her,” I responded nonchalantly. “That’s all.”

Zayn and Niall exchanged a look that I couldn’t decode. “Whatever you say, Liam,” Zayn said patronizingly.

I shot him a glare before finishing off my piece of pizza. “So, Niall, what movies did you bring?”

“Hey, don’t change the subject,” he responded with a chuckle. “What else happened with Mara?”

“Nothing really. I walked her back to Harry’s place.”

“Has she moved in already?” Zayn asked.

I thought for a second. “Uh…she didn’t say that she had…Actually, she made it sound like she hadn’t yet.”

“Then why the hell did she want to go to Harry’s place?” Niall wondered out loud.

The seemingly only possibility settled on the group at the same time. “Holy shit…” I trailed off, feeling my face heat up with emotion. “She lied to me. She and Harry are totally sleeping together.”

“I have to give her credit,” Zayn voiced as he leaned forward to take more pizza, “she’s a pretty good actress. I seriously figured that she and Harry were just those friends that goof off and put each other down all the time.”

“Me, too,” Niall seconded.

“Guys, this isn’t funny,” I started, feeling my heart race. “Louis told Harry seriously that he wasn’t allowed to put the moves on Mara… So if Harry went against Louis’ wishes, some serious shit’s going to go down.”

We were all silent as we thought about it. Louis was definitely going to be pissed.

“Alright, noses for telling Louis!” Niall burst out rapidly. Immediately, Zayn and Niall put their fingers on their noses, before I even processed what Niall had said.

“Ugh,” I groaned, reaching for my phone. “This is not going to be good…”

The phone rang a couple of times before I heard Louis’ voice on the other side. “Hey, Liam.”

“Hi, Lou.”

“What’s up?”

“You’re going to hate me.”

Louis laughed for a second. “You’re not doing a great job of selling your point, are you?”

“There’s nothing to sell,” I responded. Then, I put him on speaker phone, placing my phone on the ground so both of the other boys could hear Lou’s reaction.

“Um, so you know that Mara’s moving in with Harry, yeah?” I asked, figuring he would.

“Sure.”

“She hasn’t moved in yet, right?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

I swallowed and bit my lip. “Uh…because she’s staying there overnight tonight. Right now.”

There was a long silence.