The Other Payne

Caitlin P.O.V

I woke up in an empty lounge room with a pounding headache, stupid hangover! I clutched at my temples as I got up. I stumbled my way to the bathroom and I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I looked a mess! My makeup was smudged and my hair was slightly greasy. I sighed and jumped into the shower letting the warm water work its way into my muscles and work out all my aches and pains.

I grabbed my strawberry scented shampoo and began to lather up. I jumped out of the shower when I was done and wrapped myself in a purple fluffy towel. I peered into the hallway before making my way to my room. One of the guys was making an incredibly annoying shrieking noise downstairs oh God why? Why must this happen to me?

“Look, I don’t know who you are but if you don’t shut up I’m gonna chop your balls off! You get it?” I yelled down the stairs.

“Oooh, feisty!” somebody said.

“Just shut up for five minutes Lou!” I heard Liam say then the noise stopped. Thank God for that.

I pulled on a pair of black ripped skinny jeans and an electric blue jumper. I threw my hair up into a high wet ponytail thinking that I would straighten it later. My white iPhone buzzed on my dressing table. I had a message from Matt, a message from Grace and a message from Angus.

Matt: ‘So we on for a quick rehearsal this arvo before our gig? ;) x’

Matts my band mate, yes that’s right I’m in a band! He plays guitar and does some vocals. I’m the lead singer and I also play guitar. We have Dan on bass guitar, Angus on drums and Jayson on key board. Our sound is kind of punk/rock/electro/pop but only a tiny bit punk, think Jessie J cross Avril Lavigne cross Miley Cyrus cross Ke$ha. Liam used to be in the band too but for obvious reasons we had to replace him with Matt but that kinda worked out alright for me because Matt can’t sing as well as Liam so I got to be more of the lead singer.

I shot Matt a quick reply before opening the text from Grace. She was like my best girl friend in the entire world.

Grace: ‘Heyy Babes ;) how did it go with Liam & his friends? You kinda just left us last night… xx’

I sighed; it definitely did not go the way I wanted it to. I wanted to get along with them and make a good first impression, I really did but after making myself hate them this past year for stealing Liam from me it was kinda hard to be nice to them plus I would never live it down if my friends found out I was nice to them! This whole thing was stupid I know and I know I shouldn’t have gone out and gotten drunk with my friends; I should’ve stayed and waited for him. I’m just so lucky he wasn’t upset with me. I really had to explain myself to them.

And I still can’t believe that I was so mean to them and then called that one guy, Zayn I think, hot! I mean sure he had on a nice pair of jeans but that doesn’t exactly mean he’s hot and besides if I was going to pick a hot one it would be the blonde one, Niall. Wait did I just say that Niall was the hot one, seriously him? The sweet and innocent blonde Irish boy, no just no Caitlin!

I mentally slapped myself for that because I was not going to let myself fall for a boy like him, a boy that would never even give a girl like me a second look. He’s the type of guy to go out with one of those popular cheerleader types not the shy rock band kinda type. And besides he’s one of Liam’s band mates and best friends it would be wrong on so many levels. But why can’t I stop thinking about him?

I shot Grace a quick reply to say it went horribly wrong and that I would explain everything later. I opened the text from Angus.

Angus: ‘Babe you pumped for our gig tonight?’

He was my ex-boyfriend. He was once everything to me, he was my first proper love and he was also my first time but I caught him cheating almost a year ago and I ended it. Since then I’ve just been playing guys trying to feel something again. He doesn’t seem to understand that ‘it’s over’ means our relationship is over and he has to stop contacting me though. The worst part about it was he was in our band and even though I hated to admit this he was the best drummer in town and we couldn’t afford to replace him over our stupid relationship ending.

I put my phone in my pocket without replying to Angus, I had stopped doing that a long time ago. I went down stairs and the smell of Liam’s cooking filled my nostrils, oh how I had missed his breakfasts. I almost ran into the kitchen where Liam was cooking bacon in a pan.

“Well somebodies an eager beaver!” Liam laughed.

“Shut up,” I replied, “I missed your cooking so much!” He laughed at me before serving me up a plate of eggs and bacon. YUM!

I sat down in the only vacant chair in the dining room in between Niall and Zayn. Zayn smirked at me, awkward ….

“And she’s alive!” The curly haired one, Harry I think, said making gestures with his hands in the air curling his fingers a bit. I laughed awkwardly and the room fell into a very uncomfortable silence. I guess this was the best time to apologise.

“Hey guys?” I asked, “I just wanted to say sorry for last night, I never meant any of that, I was drunk and I know it’s no excuse but I really am sorry. I’d really like it if we were friends and to make up for it I would like to invite you all to my bands gig tonight.”

I got a chorus of ‘it’s okay’ from all the boys.

“Wait?” Louis asked, “You’re in a band?”

I nodded, “Yep, it’s called, ‘Caitlin and The Boys’.”

“Cool,” said Niall my heart raced when he looked at me. What am I a fourteen-year-old-fan-girl? I don’t think so.

“So, like what do you play?” He asked me.

“Guitar and main vocals,” I replied smiling.

His eyes lit up, “I play guitar too. We’ll have to have a jam session later.”

Did Niall really wanna spend time with me?

“Of course,” I replied, “after breakfast?”

He nodded and smiled before he got distracted by Harry and Louis doing something stupid.

“Wait,” Liam said as he entered the room holding his plate, “you’re still in the band?”

I nodded and his face fell, did he really think that just because he was gone we would end the band? Liam looked down at his lap obviously hurt. Honestly he can be such a drama queen sometimes, he was being ridiculous. He was off living the high live being in One Direction; he was the one who left us!

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Liam, grow up,” I said my voice laced with irritation.

“What?” He asked, “I thought that maybe you would a least change the name or something.”

“No, Liam,” I said standing up, “you have no right to be upset about this!”

“Yes! I have every right to be fucking upset!” He fired back.

“No actually you don’t, you need to grow up Liam! You’re the one who left us, remember?! You’re the one who decided to run off with four fucking strangers and be famous! You have no right Liam, no right.” I said letting out some of my growing frustration from the past year.

“Whatever, if you want to be a bitch about this then that’s fine, I’ll talk to you when you decide to be mature,” Liam said walking out of the room.

“How dare you!” I yelled after him, “I’m not the one who needs to be mature, you are! The whole fucking world doesn’t fucking revolve around you, Liam Payne!”

I heard his door slam upstairs. Harry, Louis Niall and Zayn all stared at me with their mouths wide open. What had they never seen a brother and sister fight before?

“Are you done staring yet?” I asked coldly.

“Um, Liam never swears like that,” Louis said softly.

“Well obviously you haven’t seen him get angry that many times then,” I replied as a piled up all our empty plates and dumped them in the sink.

Niall and Harry both came into the kitchen; Niall was leaning back on the counter while Harry poured himself a glass of water. I pretended to be very interested in the washing up that I was doing as I wasn’t really in the mood for conversation.

“Are you okay love?” Harry asked his voice as low as his pants.

“Just peachy,” I said offering him a sarcastic smile and an eye roll. I switched off the tap and stacked the now clean plates in the drying rack.

“I feel like we should apologise for Liam’s behaviour, I mean that’s what he would do if one of us behaved like that but he’s your brother so I’m not really sure what to do,” Niall laughed awkwardly.

I smiled, “don’t worry about it he’s such a drama queen, it’s ridiculous.”

“So,” Harry said, “I’m gonna go check on Liam.”

“You do that,” I called after him as he walked up the stairs.

“So…” Niall said, “what about that jam session?”

“Um sure,” I replied, “just give me an hour? I need to straighten my hair.”

~

Sitting on the edge of the vanity in the bathroom I was finishing off the last few bits of my hair. It was sleek, straight and about an inch longer. I switched off the straightener and coiled to cord around it. Looking up I saw Liam’s reflection in the mirror, he was standing in the doorway leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, looking as though he’d been there a while.

“Hi,” he said casually.

“Hey,” I said now turning to face him.

“I’m sorry, I’m such an arsehole,” he said locking eyes with me.

“It’s okay; I can be such a bitch when I want to.”

“You got that right,” he laughed as he pulled me into a tight embrace. I buried my face in his chest breathing in the comfortable and familiar scent of my twin brother. There was something about his hugs that made me want to cry, I couldn’t put my finger on it. I loved him so much and I had been missing him a lot lately, he was my best friend.

This was how we worked we fought and then we made up, just like that we could go from tears to laughter. It was just how we’d always been and I was glad that, that part of our relationship hadn’t changed. I was so glad that we could still make up with each other as well as we could when we were five.

“I think Niall’s holding out for that jam session,” Liam winked cheekily at me as we pulled away.

I hit him in the chest lightly, “Liam Payne, what are you insinuating?”

“That Niall has the hots for you big time! Actually I think Harry does too,” he said scratching the back of his head.

My heart began to race at the mention of his name, I swallowed. Niall doesn’t really like me does he? He can’t, I’m not his type I can tell.

“I have no idea what to say to that,” I replied coolly.

“Just don’t hurt him,” Liam said, “don’t just do what you normally and ‘hit it and quit it’. Don’t do that to him, Niall’s too innocent.”

I shook my head, “That’s not going to happen.” Because he’ll never think of me like that, he’ll never even give me the chance to hurt him, I finished in my head.

We went downstairs and found Harry, Louis, Niall and Zayn on the couch flipping through channels.

“Niall, you up for that jam session?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied jumping up from his seat. We got a chorus of “oooooohhhhhhs” from the boys as Niall followed me out to the large shed in the backyard which we had converted into a space for the band to rehearse.

“Shut up guys! That’s my sister!” Liam groaned.

I pulled the key out of my back pocket and unlocked the door, I pushed it oped and stepped inside. I flipped the light switch, bathing the space in bright white light. We had a pretty good setup here, the drums were set up in the back corner and we had mic stands and amps, we pretty much had everything you needed.

I turned to Niall and said, “You wanna see my babies?”

He swallowed, “Your babies?”

I laughed, “My guitars, silly!”

He laughed too realizing his silly mistake. I grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the wall which had various types of guitars hung on it. I tried to ignore how nice his hand felt on mine. I reached up and delicately ran my fingers over the smooth surface of my deep blue electric fender.

“Fender, nice,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s great for gigs and stuff.”

I pulled down my acoustic and then asked Niall if he was left or right handed.

“I’m left handed but I play right,” he replied.

“That’s so funny because I’m right handed but I play left,” I replied with a smile.

After selecting him a guitar we sat down on the couch and we began to play different songs we knew. We spent the next few hours just talking and laughing. I really had misjudged him, he was actually really down to earth and nice and funny. He was so sweet and he voice was amazing! I hate to admit this but I think I’m really starting to fall for his Irish charm!