After the Storm

"It's been like 24 hours, Zayn, and you've sat there with that damn paper in your hand without moving this whole time," Louis said in a worried manner. "It's freaking us all out."

Zayn had come back to their flat after picking up their coffee. They'd planned to be songwriting all night and things of that nature, but after Finley had given him her number he couldn't get it off of his mind. She said that she could possibly have dinner with him and it thrilled him. It made his heart sink into a dark pit to learn that she was engaged to be married. But at the same time he was glad she was happy now. He'd hurt her pretty badly and he knew that just having her in his life again would be worth the two years it'd been since she'd stood him up.

The guys had first tried to convince him to just throw the number away, forget they'd seen each other, and move on to working with their album. But they could never convince him to do anything other than sit there and stare at the numbers on the paper. He remembered how much she hated her handwriting even though he thought she wrote beautifully. The guys tried to work, and Zayn did try to pitch in, but it was all for naught. His mind wouldn't stop racing.

"Sorry," he muttered, though he wasn't.

"Just call her up and make a date," Niall said.

"I can't. It's been less than a day. It'd be so desperate."

"Then can we just act normal until it doesn't seem so desperate? We have some serious work to do if we want to make any progress at all," urged Harry. He wasn't wrong. In the last two years, the boys had worked especially hard to focus on the music, remastering their sound. Not only that, they changed up their images a little, as well as worked on how well they worked as a team. Zayn had always felt like they were family but now he could never even have doubts about it. He trusted all of them.

"Yeah, let's get to work."