Taking Chances

I stared at the door that Rebecca had just closed behind her a little too loudly, ready to go on her quest to fix things with Liam.

“Think she’s going to do it?” Zayn’s accented voice broke through my trance.

“She better,” I laughed. “Because they’re too cute not to be a couple because she’s too nervous about what’s going to happen.”

I felt his gaze on me and turned to see his smirk. “Really? So you think that people shouldn’t be so anxious about how they may or may not be in a relationship? That’s great advice, Bailey.”

Narrowing my eyes at his sarcasm, I took away his plate, which still was half-full with pancake. “No more for you.” After gathering my own, along with my glass, I headed toward the kitchen.

“Hey, no!” he tried to stop me, chuckling.

Ignoring him, I put my dishes in the sink and went over to the trash barrel, ready to scrape out the rest of his food into the bag.

But right before I could make a move, Zayn’s hand grasped my wrist strongly, ripping the plate out of my hand. I lost my grip on the fork, and it tumbled into the bottom of the bag.

“No,” he grinned. “This pancake is too good to waste.”

“I know what you mean. Rebecca’s a fantastic cook. But just look at what you’ve done.” I pointed into the barrel, where the fork was lying at the bottom, looking dejected.

“Sorry, fork,” Zayn apologized, reaching into the barrel and pulling it out.

“Please don’t use that,” I begged him.

“Gross, Bailey.” He let out a loud laugh before tossing it into the sink, the clang of metal on metal screeching through my brain. “Just because I’m a boy doesn’t mean that I have no sense of germs.”

I winked at him and quoted one of his signature phrases to me, “Whatever you say.”

“Hey, don’t be patronizing,” he teased, sticking out his tongue. “I’ll have to tickle you.”

“No!” I defied, crossing my arms over my stomach. “No tickling.”

“Then say you’re sorry.”

“No.” Then, anticipating his next move, I darted toward the living room.

After the sound of the plate being thrown onto the counter, I heard him racing after me, the squeaky floorboard reacting to his weight.

I squealed as he knocked me over onto the couch, crawling on top of me. As his fingers danced along the middle of my torso, I laughed loudly, snorting every now and then, gasping desperately to get him to stop.

“I’m…going…to…kick you!” I warned between hysterical laughter.

“Oh, are you?” he questioned with a jokingly arrogant tone. “How’re you going to do that, when I’m sitting on your legs?”

“I’ll bring up my knee,” I said breathlessly.

He glanced down at how inconveniently my knee was placed for him and smiled at me. “That wouldn’t be very nice.”

“Who said I was nice?” I asked.

He leaned forward, keeping his hands locked around my wrists, and kissed me.

My face flushed immediately, and I was desperate to run my hands through his hair, which was my comfort zone, but it wasn’t exactly possible at the moment.

Instead, once his tongue entered my mouth and I let him think I was going along with it, I bit him.

“Fuck!” he chuckled in shock as he pulled away. “Oh my God, I’m bleeding.”

“Sorry,” I granted, not able to keep the fact that I found his pain moderately funny a secret. “But that’s what you get for tickling me.”

“I feel like that wasn’t equal punishment.”

“Oh, it was. I’d tickle you, but you’re not ticklish. So you get bitten instead.”

He got a smirk on his face, making me draw back with anxiety, before he leaned forward and licked my face.

“EWWWW,” I squealed, bringing up my shoulder to wipe my cheek. “Ugh, you little nasty. You got your gross tongue blood on me.”

“Payback’s a bitch,” he told me matter-of-factly.

Just to freak him out, I pretended to jerk my knee upward, and he immediately let go of me and jumped to his feet. “Alright, fine. You win.”

“I don’t think I do,” I admitted reluctantly, wiping off my cheek again. “Because there aren’t many things worse than being licked with tongue blood.”

“Trust me. Getting kneed in the balls is worse.”

I chuckled as the door opened and Rebecca stepped in. “How’d it go?” I fired at her before she even had time to breathe.

She shrugged. “It went fine. He’s not angry at me. We’re fine.”

That was anticlimactic. “Wait, so there was no kissing?”

Zayn groaned from next to me, and I elbowed him in the stomach to shut him up.

She blushed bright red and glanced at Zayn for a second.

“Zayn, go away,” I demanded.

“But this is my flat,” he reminded me.

“No. Just go to your room and think about what you’ve done. Like licking me with tongue blood.”

“When are you going to get over that?” he laughed, but followed my directions anyway.

“DID YOU KISS?” I shouted with excitement the second Zayn’s door shut behind him.

She grinned widely at me. “Kind of. It only lasted a couple seconds, and it wasn’t like the kissing that you and Zayn do…but…yeah.”

I squealed and threw my arms around her. “That’s great, Rebecca! I’m so proud. So are you two, like, together now?” I thought for a second more and added, “And thanks for making Zayn and me sound like whores.”

“That’s not what I meant!” she assured me. “And um…I guess so? I don’t know.”

I stared at her. “Rebecca, honey, you’re not a very good communicator, are you?”

“Not really,” she admitted with a laugh. “But whatever.”

There was a moment of silence before she asked, “So…um…what was with the tongue blood thing?”

“Don’t ask,” I responded honestly.

* * *

Later on, the three of us were sitting around, watching The Outsiders movie on TV. “Why is there so much stuff missing?” Zayn questioned, his eyes narrowed.

“Because this is the edited version,” I told him. “We’ll have to watch The Complete Novel sometime. I know I brought it with me, since I definitely couldn’t have left it behind.”

“Sounds good,” he agreed before turning his attention back to the film.

Just as Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dally drove back to the church to find it on fire, my phone started going off loudly. “Aw, come on, Bailey,” Zayn whined. “This is one of my favorite parts.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, getting up and patting my pockets for my phone. “Shit, where’d it go?”

Rebecca got up and searched between the cushions for a second before handing it over. “Must have fallen in there earlier,” she said with raised eyebrows.

I coughed and blushed, taking it from her. “Thanks.”

Once I was in Zayn’s bedroom with the door shut behind me, so as not to be a distraction, I answered, “Hello?”

“Bailey, hi! How are you, honey?”

“Uh…fine,” I responded, smiling at the sound of Gabby’s voice. “So how did it go?”

“I’m pleased to inform you that you’re now officially a member of Syco records.”

I threw a fist in the air, but suppressed my whoop of cheer, knowing that I’d have yelled over the sound of the movie. “That’s fantastic. Thanks so much, Gabby.”

“No, thank you, Bailey, for getting back into the swing of things.” I could hear the grin in her voice on the other side of the line. “You have a meeting next week to talk about the record itself and the tour that’ll go with it. I’ll send you an exact date and time when I negotiate one with Simon. And I’m going to be staying in the city while you get settled into your new job.”

“That sounds perfect. Thanks so much, Gabs.”

“It’s my pleasure, honey.” There was the sound of another voice on the other line, then Gabby’s reply. “Okay, I have to go. Lots of love, Bails!” She made her kissing noise before the line went dead.

I smiled, taking a deep breath of satisfaction. I was officially on my way to being back in the game.