Only Bones

Her encounter with Liam Payne haunted her for two weeks.

She saw his face at every new bar she preformed at without him even being there – every man in those god forsaken bars had his face when she sang. She heard his voice on the radio on her drive to the midlands to visit her parents on the weekend, singing in tones almost to sweet for her to understand. She saw the condensation of his breath when she exhaled her cigarette smoke after a rough night, chiding her for smoking with every new drag.

She wasn’t supposed to be a smoker, but what Liam Payne didn’t know didn’t hurt him.

And that was starting to become her mantra.

On nights she lay at home with her cat, no shows to guarantee her next meal, she stared at her CD on her desk. In her one room flat in South London, a few blocks down from the River Thames, most everything was at least partially viewable from her bed. But when she had nothing else to occupy her, all she could see was that CD.

Estée Croft did not leave a glamorous life, but she did live a life and that was enough for her. She was happy getting up in the morning and making breakfast for her and Cleo, her Siamese, pissing away her day reading or walking around London (most days she really couldn’t afford to refill her Oyster card, that was mostly for journeys far out of the city). She would then either come home to an empty stomach and steal her neighbors Wi-Fi for a while, or go and play a gig. It really wasn’t all so bad.

Oh, who was she kidding. It was pretty fucking awful.

After awhile, she began carrying that stupid CD around with her. There wasn’t much on it, just a few songs she’d recorded herself in the bathroom of her friend Jason’s flat. The acoustics were unreasonably good for a lower-class living apartment, but again, she would take what she could get. Estée was resourceful that way.

But as the weeks past, she began to doubt she would ever see the elusive Liam Payne again. Surely he’d disappeared to some glamorous, far off place with the rest of his band, touring the world for his millions of adoring fans. She’d scoff if she wasn’t so attached to the mystical thought of him.

It was a constant battle of flipping back and forth – she did the right thing, she did the wrong thing. She didn’t want that life, but she wanted it so badly. She would embarrass herself, but she would only truly live once. She was happy where she was, or at least happy enough. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and she passed it up.

One afternoon, the weight of the CD radiating from her bag, she departed her flat and took the Tube, a rare treat. For as much walking as Estée did, she was surprised she was able to maintain as curvy as a figure as she did. Admittedly, she would usually consume the same amount of calories she’d burned in iced coffee downtown, but today was different. Today she wouldn’t be consuming iced coffee at all.

Today, she would be applying for a job. A day job.

Something practical to sustain herself. Something to help pay for student loans so she could go back to school and become something reasonable, like a secretary or a physicians assistant. Something that could get her mind off her stupid dream.

“Hi, I’d like an application,” she asked the barista at her favorite non-descript coffee shop in town, huddled between the masses of popular haunts. She’d been waiting for weeks to see the ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window, and finally it appeared. She had to jump on that opportunity before it passed. Though some would discourage working at your favorite place for fear of employment ruining its magic, Estée didn’t believe in that. Working in shitty bars hadn’t ruined her love of music, had it?

She sat at a table by the window and scribbled her information onto the sheet - Estée Lynn Croft, DOB 04/21/92, Hometown: Grantham, Lincolnshire, England… It could have gone on forever. That is, until a patch of bright flashbulbs illuminated the window.

With a burst of a gust, the door flew open and closed tightly shut. In the commotion, Estée raised her eyes to discover the source. Only to find herself gasping.

His hair was shorter, much shorter at that, and he was dressed in much nicer clothes that she had seen him in that night at the pub. But dear god, he was just as gorgeous as ever, surveying the scene inside the coffee shop. Estée didn’t know what twist of fate had brought him back to her – she could hardly believe her eyes.

It was Liam Payne.

Finally, his eyes landed on her, and her instincts couldn’t decide if she should run to or away from him. In the face of a real situation, Estée had a tendency to panic, the same way she did that night at the Tube station. She had a tendency to run in the other direction from her own happiness, and she was aware of that. Which is why she sat still when he discovered her again, even giving him a smile as he approached her.

“Estée!” he exclaimed, warm smile as bright and beautiful as ever. She could have sworn she memorized it from all the posters for their tour dates all over town.

“Hey Liam,” she replied, standing up from the table and extending her hand for him to shake. Instead, he caught her by surprise and took her in his arms, giving her a tight squeeze of a hug before releasing her.

“Of all the places I would have thought to find you,” he chuckled, gesturing for her to sit down. She raised her eyebrows. It appeared that Liam would now be joining her for coffee.

“This place is one of my favorites,” she disclosed softly.

“How odd,” he hummed, sitting down across from her. “It’s one of mine too. But I never see you here.”

“You are pretty busy, you’ve got to admit that,” she countered pointedly, glancing around the shop. The baristas were hard at work preparing Liam’s drink – or so she assumed because they kept glancing between their work and the man himself. She was proved right when one hustled over and handed him a steaming cup of something and Liam handed her a tenner and insisted she keep the change.

“I hope you tip like that when I work here,” she said flatly, making some of the finishing touches on her application.

“Excuse me?” he replied, sputtering into his sip of coffee. “You’re getting a job here?”

She picked up the application from the table and waved it in the space between them, a wry smile appearing on her lips. With finality, she pulled her résumé from her bag and attached it with a paper clip. But on the way, her hand brushed the hard plastic of the jewel case that housed her CD. She’d almost forgotten she was carrying it with her.

“Estée,” Liam sighed. “Not to belittle you, but are you sure that this is what you want?”

“What do you mean?” she asked guardedly, leaning back in her chair. “I need some way to pay off student loans.”

“You go to school?”

“Not yet, but I will be soon.”

Liam took another sip of his coffee, lips disappearing behind the oversized porcelain bowl. “That’s very admirable of you,” he complimented graciously in that trademark Liam Payne kind of way. “Sometimes I wish I’d done so myself.”

“What would you have been?” Estée asked, out of sheer curiosity, amazed that Liam could have ever wanted anything other than the amazing life he had been chosen to live. If it were her, she would have taken it and never looked back.

“A doctor maybe,” he mused. “Or a teacher. Something like that.”

“Certainly admirable professions,” she applauded.

They were quiet for a moment, Liam taking a large gulp of his drink, eyes glued to her application. She wished she could get into his head, to what he was thinking. She could hardly believe it was him sitting across from her, that by some odd happenstance, the universe had brought them back together again. She couldn’t help but wonder what it meant.

“Estée,” he began again, setting his cup down on the worn, wooden table. “I have to admit, I’ve been kind of looking for you everywhere. It seems that I miss you by a hair every time, every pub I go into having just seen you, but you’re not on their roster anymore.”

Her heart stopped in her chest. “You’ve been looking for me?”

He sighed. “Listen. I don’t want to come off as too forward, but your voice has been ringing in my ears for two weeks. And I don’t want to disrespect your wishes,” he gave her application a final, pointed glance, “but I really just can’t give up on you.”

“You can’t?” she breathed in disbelief.

“I can’t,” he confirmed with a small laugh and a shake of his head. “And I guess more importantly, I won’t. I’m not going to give up on you. I did something that you may not like, but I think it’s for the best.”

Her resolve suddenly stiffened, like she’d been beat with some sort of whisk and suddenly everything was much sharper than it had ever been. “What did you do, Liam?” she questioned firmly.

He gave her a sheepish smile, his deep rose lips curled slightly at the corners. “I got a CD of yours from the bar down in Camden, from the manager,” he admitted, and Estée’s disbelief only grew. “He had a copy that you left and was okay with giving it to me. And I well… I gave it to my recording group and they want to see you for an audition.”

Everything came to a screeching halt around her. When Estée had forcibly stopped her dreams from coming true, Liam pursued them for her. She didn’t know whether to be furious or thankful. It was hard to decide when he was looking at her with such hopeful eyes, nervous but certainly hopeful.

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” he said through a deep breath. “I just… I really believe in you.”

I really believe in you. It resonated between her ears like a gong. He believed in her. Someone believed in her. No one believed in her. But no. Liam Payne believed in her. What was this life she was suddenly living?

Estée sighed and gave him a weak smile. “That’s an outdated CD,” she muttered, reaching back into her bag. “I have an updated one here. I’ve kind of been carrying it around for two weeks hoping I’d see you, too.”

And with a good, hearty laugh, they had lunch together. And they talked about music together. And Estée let her future fall into place, still handing in the application for good luck. Because what was done was done. Liam had given her the swift kick in the ass she deserved, and she would be forever grateful. Even if nothing came of it.