Anonymous

“Hey, are you okay?” Niall asked when I rejoined the rest of the group in the studio while we waited for the props to get set up for our photoshoot. “You look like you just got told that they’re going to have to chop off your dick.”

“What?” Liam burst out laughing. “Where did you even come up with that?”

“I don’t know. I just have the talent of wit,” Niall grinned back. “But seriously, Lou, what’s up?”

“It’s complicated,” I responded shortly, throwing myself onto the couch next to Zayn, “but basically, Jess’ best friend told her not to have sex with me because she has no idea what she’s getting herself into.”

“Wait, in, like, a ‘you’re going to blow her mind’ kind of way?” Harry snickered.

"I think it’s more like ‘you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life if you let a pop star have sex with you’ kind of thing.” I nearly said ‘take your virginity’, but I figured Jess wouldn’t love the idea that all the boys knew she’d never shagged anyone before. “And before Jess and I got together, she was always telling Jess to stop talking to me and stuff.”

“Mate, is she one of your exes?” Liam suggested. “Because that would explain everything.”

I shook my head without much thought. “I’ve never been with anyone called Elena. There’s just something about me that she doesn’t like. Even though I haven’t done anything to her, and I haven’t done anything to Jess.”

“Did you ever have someone who didn’t tell you her name?” Zayn offered snarkily, shooting an amused look at the blonde Irish boy across the room.

I glared at him before slapping him upside the head. “What kind of guy do you take me as, Malik?”

“Just making sure,” he insisted, patting down the back of his hair to make sure it wasn’t sticking up at weird angles. “I don’t know if you went through some rebellious phase where you were drunk all the time or anything!”

“Or if you did a little orgy thing in your party days,” Harry offered, his lip twitching as he struggled to keep a straight face.

I shook my head, dismissing their immaturity, as I struggled to figure something out. What could possibly have happened to make Elena hate me so much? Even if she wasn’t a fan of the band, I’d figured that she’d support her best friend in any of the decisions she made.

And then, it hit me. There was only one way I could find out what, exactly, made her want to scare Jess away from me, and that was to talk to her myself.



I knocked on the door and took a step back to give the person answering the call a bit of room, taking a deep breath. Jess had given me her blessings before giving me Elena’s address, and she assured me that I’d make it out in one piece, but I wasn’t totally convinced.

The girl that answered the door was absolutely beautiful, with dark hair and light eyes to contrast. She was probably about Jess’ height, with a soft and thin figure, and she dressed in a pair of dark skinny jeans and a floral top. The blossoms on the various plants were the exact color of her eyes in the sunlight, and I wondered for a second whether that had been on purpose or not.

She looked kind of freaked out when I came back to reality, probably wondering why Louis Tomlinson was standing on her doorstep, spacing out. I would have been confused, too. “Hi,” I finally said with a smile. “I, um, asked Jess where you lived so we could have a bit of a chat. Do you have time?”

“I guess,” she responded cautiously. “But you’re totally not coming in my house. C’mon, we’ll go around the neighborhood in my car.”

She closed the door behind her and hurried down the walkway, just expecting me to follow. I had to pick up my pace to catch up with her, and she barely gave me time to get into the passenger’s seat before she tore out of the driveway.

“God, I don’t know what Jess was thinking, giving you my address. That could have been bad.”

I wanted to ask what, exactly, would have been bad, but I decided against it, figuring that I didn’t want to push any boundaries. I already knew she wasn’t too fond of me, and it was a big enough step that she agreed to speak with me.

“Okay, so Jess told me about the conversation you two had the other day, where you kind of discouraged her from getting…intimate with me.”

Her features darkened as she nodded. “The point?”

“I’m wondering what it is about me that makes you hate me so much.”

Well, that was delightfully blunt. I hadn’t meant for it to come out like that, but her expression made me think that she was actually thankful that I hadn’t spent a long time beating around the bush or going through formalities. She was a direct person. I could respect that. And I knew that meant that she was just going to tell me the truth right off the bat without softening it with a lot of colorful language.

“It has very little to do with you as an individual,” she assured me. “I would be really cautious of whoever Jess found as her first boyfriend. I'm so scared that she's going to let her romantic side run away with her, and she'll just decide that the first guy she sleeps with is the one she's destined to marry. I just… I’ve had more experience with guys, and I know that their motivations aren’t always noble, and I want to protect her from that.”

“I swear I’m not going to take advantage of her,” I promised.

She flicked her eyes over to my face for a second. “I’m sure you won’t. You seem like a really sweet guy. But I am hesitant about the fact that you’re famous, too. You could have any girl in the world you wanted, with a few exceptions, and I’m afraid that you’ll let that get to your head and dump Jess the second some pretty little thing catches your eye.”

Her worries were justified. I knew a fair number of celebrities who had done similar things to fans they’d hooked up with wherever they were. But I wasn’t like that, and neither were the other boys in One Direction. Sometimes we talked about girls in a sort of demeaning way, but that didn’t mean we treated them that way.

“Elena, I get it. But I’d never treat Jess that way, and I need you to believe that. I haven’t told her yet, but I love her, and I wouldn’t ever hurt her. I know that some guys are arseholes, and I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with that. But I’m not one of them.”

She let out a sigh. “I know. And I think I’ve known that all along. But I just…Jess is my best friend. We’ve known each other since middle school, and I just want to look out for her. Wouldn’t you do the same for any of your friends?”

“Of course,” I agreed. “I understand that. I just wanted to clarify with you that I’m sincere with my relationship with Jess. And if I ever end up hurting you, I give you permission to come to wherever I am and kick me right in the balls. I’ll tell my bodyguard to let you through and everything.”

Elena actually laughed and nodded. “I’m going to hold you to that, for sure. Please, just take care of her. She’s a romantic and a dreamer, and I kind of want her to stay that way.”

“I’ve noticed. And I’ll do everything I can.”

The car pulled back into the driveway, and Elena let out a long breath, her hands still on the steering wheel, falling back into the seat.

“That went well,” I laughed. “I thought you were going to bite my head off and tell me to get the fuck away from her.”

“No, definitely not. I know that you make her really happy, and it’s clear to me that she makes you feel the same way. I just want you to be careful with her.”

“I will."