Lounsbury Prep

“I have to say,” Harry sighed, crossing his arms in front of his chest and looking down at the two boys in front of him. They were both sitting Indian-style, their knees kissing against each other every time one of them shifted. Zayn was nervous about the next words out of the self-proclaimed Glee Club leader’s mouth, but Louis seemed perfectly at ease, the smallest of smiles playing on the edges of his thin lips. “The fact that two fifths of us are gay makes us kind of like a walking cliché.”

Liam and Niall snickered, Zayn flushed, and Louis protested, “Actually, I’m bi. There’s a difference.”

“Technicalities,” Harry scoffed, rolling his eyes and waving away the addition. “But I don’t think it’ll be an issue, so long as you guys don’t start sneaking off during rehearsals to shag each other backstage.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t notice we were gone,” Louis pointed out. “There aren’t exactly enough boys in the group for us to get lost in the crowd.”

“True,” Harry allowed before clapping loudly. “Alright, everyone off their arses! We’re going to start learning choreography.”

Liam groaned, perfectly expressing Zayn’s sentiments inside. Zayn absolutely hated dancing, especially since he was so incredibly poor at it.

“Don’t you think we should delegate solos first?” Liam suggested with a hopeful smile. “Just so we know who will be singing what words while we’re doing a specific part of the dance?”

Harry turned to face his friends, his green eyes narrowed into slits. “I’m sorry, Liam, but who’s the leader here?”

“Um…” Liam trailed off uncomfortably, not wanting to admit out loud that Harry had sort of taken the position like a dictator and none of the other boys really took him seriously.

“That’s right, me.” He straightened up to look more superior, although Liam was just a bit taller than him. “So I get to make the rules, and we’re starting with choreography.” Turning on his heel, he stomped off to the side of the stage, where a little CD player was positioned, already queued up with music. “Everyone, get into a line.”

They did so, Zayn on the end, Louis to his right. The darker boy felt his stomach start to grumble a little bit, just slightly nervous. What if he tripped over his feet and fell into Louis? God, that would be mortifying, he thought to himself, gnawing on his lip and sliding his eyes to the floor.

“Hey,” Louis whispered, leaning over and putting his lips inches from Zayn’s ear. His breath tickled as he spoke. “Don’t worry about it, yeah? We’re all rubbish at dancing.”

Zayn tried to let Louis’ words console him, but he wasn’t too successful. As Harry pressed the button to start the first song, finally satisfied with the line the four boys had made, Zayn narrowed his honey eyes and focused on the footwork of the curly-haired boy in front of him, trying not to be preoccupied by what the other boys could be thinking.

After all, they were his friends. They wouldn’t make fun of him if he had no rhythm. If they accepted his sexual orientation, which was much more important than his dancing ability, then he should be fine. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.

Harry’s choreography, however, mostly consisted of stepping side to side with a little bit of swaying. And although Zayn never really fancied himself on par with experts like Paula Abdul or Justin Timberlake, he knew that the dancing was incredibly boring and drab. The audience, had there been one, would have been lulled into a deep sleep within seconds.

“Can I say something?” Zayn found himself blurting without taking a second to re-evaluate it. His sudden exclamation threw off Niall’s concentration, making the blonde trip over his feet, which slapped hard against the wood of the stage as he struggled to right himself.

“What?” Harry asked. He actually sounded more curious than irritated, which surprised Zayn a little, although he struggled to keep it off his face.

Zayn played with a few different wordings in his head, trying his best to sound nice and constructive without being rude, until Louis threw an elbow into his side as a sign to hurry up. “This seems really basic,” he finally exclaimed, only pulling his gaze off Harry for a split second to glare at Louis, who merely shrugged in response.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his mop of curls. “I know. But I can’t really come up with anything better. None of us are choreographers, and we don’t exactly have the money to go out and hire one.” He thought for a second and quickly added, “Okay, the club fund doesn’t have enough money to do that. As individuals, we definitely do.”

“Then why don’t you watch Glee or something? Just to get ideas, I mean,” Zayn suggested, ignoring the money comment, not wanting to dwell on the fact that his family really didn’t have the money to hire a private choreographer.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Liam supported. “I don’t want people to throw tomatoes at us again. I was pulling goopy seeds out of my hair for a week.”

Zayn’s eyes widened with fright as Niall mumbled, “At least you didn’t get a potato to the face, mate.”

“Oh my God!” Zayn gasped, but before he could say anything else to express his disgusted shock, Louis rushed, “Don’t worry! They’re kidding.”

The Bradford boy’s shoulders relaxed as he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and winced as he imagined what it would feel like to have a raw potato thrown full-force at his face. He couldn’t have been more thankful that the other boys were simply trying to scare him a little bit.

Once the commotion died down, Harry sighed and announced, “Alright, so meeting adjourned or whatever. Tomorrow, we’ll meet in the common room with Louis’ laptop, and we’ll watch some Glee. Hopefully, no one will catch us.”

“Why Louis’ laptop?” Niall questioned, running a hand through his blonde hair, looking incredibly relieved that the dancing was over.

“Because his has the fastest streaming,” Harry responded with a rolling of his eyes. “Remember the fiasco when we tried to watch Saw?”

Liam winced. “Oh, God. Let’s not revisit that.”

“Wait, what happened?” Zayn tried to question, but he was wholly ignored.

The boys all left, while Zayn stayed behind, deciding that leaving the CD player in the old, decrepit building probably wasn’t one of Harry’s better ideas. What if a piece of the roof fell down overnight and squashed the thing? Not that the building was falling apart (yet), but Zayn didn’t want to take any chances.

“Always the responsible one,” a voice remarked sarcastically.

Zayn glanced up for a second to see Louis pulling himself back onto the stage, the muscles in his arms, visible past the sleeve of his t-shirt, straining to lift his weight. “I just want to be safe,” Zayn mumbled in explanation, turning back around to hide the blush that filled his cheeks.

“Of course you do.” Louis plopped his butt down on the wooden stage, ignoring the creaking sound that made it sound like he’d fall straight through to the floor. “Oh, did you ever learn the words to all the songs?”

Zayn nodded as he pulled the cord out of the wall and started to wrap it around the device. “Yeah. It wasn’t that hard. It just took a couple hours of focus.”

“I figured.” Louis stretched his arms over his head, revealing a thin strip of his tanned stomach. “Alright, are you almost set? Because I’m starving, and I swear to God, if I don’t eat something soon, I’m going to eat you.”

Zayn laughed and pulled the CD player, which was heavier than he’d anticipated, into his arms. “Yeah, we’re all set to go.”

“Hallelujah,” Louis responded sarcastically, grinning as he caught up to Zayn and wrapped his arm around the other boy’s shoulders.