Burn Me Like the Sun

There was always something about wearing a dress that made me feel exposed. And it wasn’t that I felt uncomfortable; I loved to dress up when the opportunity presented itself, especially when Fran felt generous enough to let me raid her closet like she promised she would when Louis invited me to the charity event. I liked to look cute like most girls my age and I didn’t feel ashamed of it, either. But any time I went out after putting a second thought into what I was wearing, I always felt a hollow pull at my chest, as though there was an anchor hooked onto my heart that sunk to the pit of my stomach.

I distinctly remember the cold, exposed feeling that crept over my skin when I stepped foot into the gym at a college dance. I had let myself get goaded by my mates into wearing a simple, strapless cocktail dress that barely clung onto my shapeless breasts. A set of painful four-inch pumps that I’d borrowed from my uncle’s wife made me stand out from almost all the girls in my class, and even some of the boys, as I’d been standing at a whopping 5’6” since the summer before grade nine. I couldn’t shake the handful of stares that were trained on me for nearly the entire night, and that feeling never left me, even to the day. I hated attention and I hated standing out, especially as of late. Attention never helped the noted, as far as I’d learned.

But unlike sixth form, I didn’t stand out at the BBC Performing Arts Fund benefit (at least not when it came to my height). The dress I’d borrowed from Fran did a good job at making it seem like I was always one for the champagne and lifeless conversation – another strapless cocktail dress that was tight enough on my chest that I didn’t have to worry about flashing complete strangers with every twist of my torso. The cascade of moles across my shoulders and neck were offset by my copper hair, which Fran had forced to me to straighten. I couldn’t have blended in better if I had worn Val’s old camouflage fatigues from Afghanistan and stuck a few twigs into my hair.

But the only thing that separated me from the throngs of celebrities and the privileged scattered about the event hall was the fact that I wished I was invisible the second I walked in.

As promised, Dadrian had picked me up from my flat to drive me to the benefit. I could hear a cacophony of voices and camera shutters around the corner of the building the five seconds between being ushered from the blacked-out SUV and into the gated back entrance of the event hall, a three-story mass of rooms and kitchens that I was pretty sure I’d catered at once before. I followed close behind Dadrian as he led me through a maze of doorways, his quick pace almost leaving me breathless.

“There’s gonna be magazines everywhere,” Dadrian told me as we walked down an empty, tiled corridor. He clipped a headset to his ear and clicked on the radio he had slipped onto his belt, and I could hear it garble the second he turned up the volume. “Don’t speak unless spoken to. Don’t say anything about your relationship with Louis. Let him or whoever you’re with answer for you. Don’t speak to strangers unless you’re with one of the boys. And for god’s sake, don’t get smashed either. It’s difficult enough keeping the paps away when you’re not even dating Lou. And above all—” He stopped suddenly, rounding in front of me, his face grim and his lips set in what looked like a straight line under his mass of bushy ginger beard. “Keep away from Vic. That’s the last thing Giles needs.”

“You’d think if this Giles chap is so set on me following his rules, he’d actually, I don’t know, meet me in person and tell me himself. Like, shite…” I laughed a little, picking at a loose thread from the belt that was sewn into my dress. “I hope he doesn’t get off at pretending to be the boys’ Wizard of Oz or something.”

Dadrian didn’t look the least bit amused, but I didn’t blame him. I had a penchant for making horrible jokes when I was feeling stressed. They only got worse if I was the only one that was feeling nervous. And at that moment, I was just about as stressed the day after my mum left my dad when the realization finally hit me and she wasn’t there in the kitchen making breakfast when I woke up in the morning.

Dadrian turned back around and started forward again, mumbling into his headset, just low enough that I could only make out my name and Louis’s.

“You’re pretty much no-nonsense, yeah?” I asked him, trying hard to keep up with his staggering steps without tripping over my heels – a busted-up cream number that also belonged to my charitable best mate. They squeaked with each step and were an ungodly sight, but they at least didn’t feel like they’d leave me with blisters at the end of the night.

“You gotta be when you’re looking after five of the most childish men in the entire United Kingdom,” he told me gruffly, tangling his fingers through his beard.

“I think they just give you a hard time because you act like you’ve got Giles’s hand stuck up your arse 24-7,” I posed, shrugging once.

He laughed a little, low and easy, and the sound nearly made me trip over my own feet in surprise. I never have so much as seen Dadrian smile, let alone laugh. “I can see why Louis likes you.”

By the time I thought we’d passed the same painting of a bowl of fruit for the third time, Dadrian pulled me into another corridor through a set of wide double-doors. I could hear music coming through another set of doors, some mellow trip-hop song overlapped with buzzing conversation, just before Dadrian nudged me inside.

I slipped into the event hall, a wide space about half the size of a football pitch, and was faced with a set of ten-foot long posters draped over a couple of steel poles. Dadrian walked in beside me and set a hand on my back, directing me along the edge of the wall and behind a table filled with two bound signature books, the pages already lined with hefty, messy autographs and a couple of doodles.

“Blake!”

My head shot up just moments before I was gathered into a tight hug by Niall. Zayn trailed close behind and shot me an apologetic smile. My arms flailed behind Niall’s back as I struggled to breathe, but then he let me go before I could start to properly panic.

“Hiya, mate,” I mumbled, patting Niall’s cheek. He grinned brightly and stuck his hands into his slacks. “Alreet, Zayn?”

Zayn stepped forward and pecked my cheeks, actually smiling this time. “All right.”

“Where’s Lou?” I asked, watching Dadrian as he ducked past the two boys and headed for the bar at the other side of the room.

“Avoiding Vic,” Zayn answered, running his fingers over his quiff. “I’d be, too. She looks dressed to torture and then kill.”

“And so do you,” Niall complimented, eyeing my dress as he bit his lip. I snorted and shook my head, just noticing the bottle of Harp in his hand.

“You’re pissed, mate.” I nodded to his beer as he took a sip, his cheeks adorably ruddy. “I don’t blame you, though. I’m itching to get drunk. Care to accompany me to the bar?” I pointed in the direction that Dadrian had sauntered off to, my fingers ready to grip the neck of a nice, cold beer. As difficult as it was for my body to soak in alcohol, I still liked a pint every now and then.

His lips smacked against the mouth of the bottle, then slid into a cheeky, unruly grin. “You’ll have to make your rounds first.”

“Rounds?” I balked.

“With Louis. Giles’s idea,” Zayn quietly explained, going back to his familiar sympathetic smile without difficulty.

“But I’ll have a cold Newkie Brown waiting for you the second you finish up, I promise,” Niall assured me, saluting me with his beer.

In between Niall’s buzzed recap of the evening so far and Zayn’s short but witty remarks, Louis finally found us huddled in the corner, a sweating glass of what I assumed was vodka Red Bull in one hand. His white dress shirt was buttoned up all the way to a narrow band collar and his black dinner jacket fit him snugly. He had finally shaved his patchy stubble, and his hair was piled atop his head in a familiar upwards swoop.

“Hey, babe!”

He wrapped an arm over my shoulders and kissed both my cheeks, his breath fruity and sour. Then he held me at arms length, his drink sloshing dangerously near the rim in his other hand, and looked me up and down, letting out a low whistle as he quirked an eyebrow.

“Not too bad, yeah?”

He broke out into a smile and leaned forward, whispering in my ear, “You’re making it very hard for me to breathe.”

The next half hour was a complete flurry of faces, half of which I recognized from the telly or the magazines Valenti kept around. Some of the people we met were from the BBC itself, including a few higher-ups along the corporate food chain. Then, finally, were the handful of reporters.

A couple of them had camera crews (in those instances, I stood off to the side and let Louis answer questions while he tried not to act like a lush); others had portable recorders and notepads. But all of them shot out the same invasive questions, and every single one made me feel like I’d downed a six pack of Newkie all by myself in one sitting. With the way my head was spinning and my stomach churned, I even considered skipping my trip to the bar with Niall. But I still kept my mouth shut like I’d been told, though with the way I cowered behind Louis when he didn’t have his arm securely wrapped around my waist was proof enough that I didn’t have to be asked to keep quiet in the first place.

I was lucky enough to not have crossed paths with Vic during my tour with Louis, as the adage of seeing someone I’d unabashedly ripped a new one would have made me double over with anxiety. It was one thing when I thought she was just some random one night stand who I’d never have to see again, but on the Tube on the way back from Louis’s house a few days ago, I lost my shit. I was having a major freak out on the inside, but Fran had noticed, and I’d spent the rest of the afternoon burrowed into the couch with a fresh mug of tea on hand as I relayed to her everything that had happened in the corridor.

In a rush of anxiety that night, I’d considered skipping the event altogether, but when Fran reminded me that Louis probably had dropped an obscene amount of money for my ticket – as it was a charity event, and for the BCC, nonetheless – I’d swallowed back my nerves and put down my mobile. If there was one thing I was not, it was flakey, especially when it came to mates. I’d just have to suck it up and keep my mouth shut, however difficult it might be.

So it was quite the surprise when I didn’t spot Vic in the half hour that I pranced around with Louis’s arm fit snugly around my waist. I’d assumed she just left early after making a quick appearance, as she couldn’t be arsed to spend the entire night rubbing elbows with people who adored her ex and his band.

But then I felt his arm tighten around me.

At first, I made nothing of it. Maybe Louis was just finally starting to feel the effects of his second vodka Red Bull and needed something to hold onto.

But then my heart jumped up and lodged somewhere near the base of my throat when he reached down and intertwined his fingers with mine, only to lead me away from the infamous radio personality Grimmy and his handsome date. I was about to shake him off, chide him for dragging me away in the middle of our conversation, or maybe even find him a barstool or fetch one of his band mates, but of course my words tripped over my tongue and everything else I wanted to say got scrambled on its way from my brain when I finally spotted her.

She was leaning against the bar and sipping a martini, one elbow cocked against the counter. Her hair was impossibly curly and fell in waves over her shoulders. The sleeveless lace dress she had on made her look like an angel, even though as far as I was concerned she was damn near closer to the antichrist than anyone I’d ever had the gall to meet. The clamshell fabric brought out her dark red lips and her long, silky legs finally stopped at a pair of bold nude stilettos whose red soles caught my eye. She was almost as tall as the bloke who was sipping on a scotch just a few feet behind her, and he had to be somewhere around Harry’s height, if not taller.

I didn’t budge when Louis pulled on my hand. I just couldn’t tear my eyes from Vic. When I finally thought I was off the hook for the rest of the night, when I thought I could finally let go and get a drink and have some fun with my newfound mates, she just had to show up. Right when I was getting used to the fact that everywhere I looked, I saw a celebrity or even worse, a reporter.

Louis pulled on my hand again, but I couldn’t move, let alone look at him.

“Hey,” he murmured, his lips brushing against my ear. He pressed his thumb into my knuckles.

I finally gathered the pluck to yank my hand from his. I curled my fingers into fists and started counting up by even numbers, but I couldn’t even get past ten, I was so stressed and angry and caught off guard.

But before I could even start to plan my escape to the toilets or under one of the many round tables scattered about, Vic shot straight for the two of us, her head held high as she pranced like she was on a catwalk with a bomb strapped to her ankle.

“Hello, darling.”

Louis stiffened next to me, his shoulders going so rigid that the wrinkles in the back of his suit disappeared. Vic’s silted eyes drifted over me, bright and curious and just barely stinging with loathing, though she certainly did a good job at hiding it.

“Blake, is it then?”

I matched her glare, and this time I didn’t brush off Louis when he nudged himself into my side, the wool of his jacket just grazing against my bare shoulder. “Aye.”

“I hope you’ll forgive me. For what I said the other day,” she added belatedly, noting the shocked expression that had mangled my features into a sneer. “I’ve heard so many things that the truth’s just been pulled out from under me.”

“Truth?” Louis tried, his voice cracking. “What are you on about, Vic?”

“Well,” she started, looking so innocent that her portrait could’ve been hung up next to O.J. Simpson’s, “Harry told me one thing, you told me another, and,” she laughed a little, “Giles told me something completely different. I didn’t know who exactly to believe. So I thought I’d ask the source of all of this…” She paused and eyed me pointedly, and I could feel Louis’s fidgeting hand brush against my wrist. “Confusion.”

“If by ‘ask,’ you mean accost…” I nodded my head side-to-side as though I was weighing the situation. “Then yeah, sure. That’s exactly what you did.”

“Like I said, I was confused.” She hummed, then took another, longer sip of her martini, the olive bumping against her lips. “I love your dress, by the way. But the pumps, I don’t…” She crossed her arm over her chest and hooked her hand onto her elbow. “I’m not so sure I recognize them. Who are you wearing?”

One of my eyebrows shot up, and I tried my best not to laugh in her face out of utter incredulity. “I’m sorry?”

She laughed fully and batted her hand at me as if I were trying to tickle her under her arms. “Oh, my god. Stop it! Your heels, Blake.”

I stole a quick glance at my feet, which were unceremoniously shoved into a pair of squeaky, shiny pumps that Fran had grabbed from the pile of shoes she kept in her closet. She only found one of them at first, though, then spent the next half hour on a crazed search to find its missing match. She ended up littering the rest of her bedroom floor with a rainbow of heels and strappy sandals and a few ratty trainers, but she eventually found it abandoned inside an empty shoe box. Though they fit well, they scuffed at the heel every time they rubbed together, and I had my own soundtrack of squeaks that followed me every time I took a rather heavy step. Not to mention, the smell was nearly strong enough to knock me off my feet faster than if I were sporting the murderous stilettos Vic had casually thrown on for the night.

“Who are you wearing?” she tried again, all sweet and buttery like a proper Danish, giving me another pointed look over the rim of her glass. She glanced at a younger couple that passed close by, the woman giving Louis a small, friendly wave.

“Vic,” Louis warned, his voice coming out strained, almost a growl. He waved back at the couple, but only belatedly. “Stop it.”

I couldn’t exactly smack Louis upside the head in hopes of getting it through his thick skull that I could take care of Vic myself (though, honestly, I mostly just wanted to smack Vic), and I couldn’t run away from the entire situation without making a scene either, what with the hoards of people passing us and the reporters creeping about the exits, so I did what I knew would get me in the least amount of trouble and snatched Louis’s hand from his side and pulled him back behind me, subtly shaking my head.

Vic sucked at her lower lip, then took one final sip of her martini before eyeing me with the force of a thousand daggers. “Nice tenner heels, love.”

Louis cleared his throat behind me and pointed a finger in the air, his ears burning hotter and faster than a match dropped onto a petrol-soaked pyre. “That, erm, that would actually be my doing.”

“Oh?” she challenged, undaunted.

I turned around to face him. “Oh?” I repeated, though quiet enough so only he could hear.

He cleared his throat again and ignored my gaze, instead stepping next to me as he stammered, “I might have spilled some champagne on her shoes on the way over here. They were a such a nice suede pair and I totally ruined them.” He finally looked at me, though only fleetingly, as guilt was nibbling at his face. He took a sip of his drink then, his eyes downcast, and set his free hand at the small of my back, his fingers tracing the edge of my belt. “We ended up stopping by a secondhand shop. Got her a cheap pair last minute. God,” he gasped, pulling his chin to his neck, “I’m a proper spazz.”

A strange combination of humiliation and anger cascaded over me, bringing the words I’d been waiting to spit at Louis when we were finally alone to a halt. The last thing I ever thought Louis would feel for me was embarrassment. Anything else seemed plausible, if nearly impossible, besides embarrassment. But clearly, if he was standing here, right in front of his ex-girlfriend and word-vomiting lies about my footwear of all things, he obviously found me as some sort of dirty secret, something that he had to hide away in a safe disguised as a book on a shelf. Only now, Vic had grabbed me by the spine and shaken me loose.

I knew from the start that it was unusual how we’d become mates so quickly – and because of a run-in at the dentist’s, no less. I knew we were unusual as well, if not for the reason that Louis showed no interest in using me as a sexual rebound, but as an emotional one instead. That realization hurt at first, that he just needed someone to listen to him, and I knew that he’d get tired of me someday, if not soon, but I never thought he’d be ashamed of me. I never thought he’d go out of his way to cover his tracks back to me. Not only was I embarrassed, but I felt inexplicably disappointed in him as well.

I felt exposed. Again. Throughout the night, I’d shaken the feeling that so often accompanied me when I dressed up, like a proverbial accessory. But with Vic looking at me so fiercely, like she knew Louis was lying (though it wasn’t too hard to tell – he was a horrible liar, despite his talent for acting, and he tended to pull his chin to his neck when he became flustered), combined with the sorry look on his face, like he’d literally shot me in the foot, I wanted to hide under the nearest table or maybe just toss back a straight pint of the nearest, cheapest, darkest liquor.

But just as I moved to walk away – where, exactly, I hadn’t a clue – Louis’s hand ghosted against my back as he reached up to tuck some of my hair behind my ear, then fell back around my waist. Vic’s eyes widened just the slightest, and I finally found something to shock me back to life.

I looked at Louis, who was taking gulps of his vodka Red Bull like it was laxative for the right words. I narrowed my eyes like my father always did in an act of quiet disappointment in hopes of guilting the truth out of me, but this time, I only hoped that instead of making Louis explain himself, the guilt would simply eat him whole.

“Excuse me,” I murmured, twisting away from him. His hand fell from my waist as his brow pinched together in a curious mix of shock, confusion, and the barest bit of sympathy. “I’ve… I’ve promised Niall a drink and if I don’t leave soon, he’ll pass out before I can even find him. Last time I saw, he was on the piss.”

I was actually relieved that Louis hadn’t grappled for my hand the second I stepped away amidst Vic’s surly yet satisfied grin, but when I heard a pair of footsteps echo with mine in the corridor after I’d shoved past the hidden set of double doors through which I’d arrived, I felt something overpower the anger that was driving my legs like coal in a steamboat. It trickled under my skin and prickled the fine hairs along my arms and nearly drove me mad with an unfamiliar and itching need. I was so angry that I nearly missed it.

I was scared of Louis.

This wasn’t the kind of scared like when he nearly made me shit my pants with the Mike Myers mask at the Forbidden Planet. This was a different kind of scared that I’d only felt a few times in my life, the kind that made me want to cower away while also exposing myself, undauntedly so, to same exact thing that was frightening me in the first place in hopes that I wouldn’t give myself away as the frail, weak little thing that I was.

“It doesn’t matter to me what I have on my feet or what the hell people think, but my god, Louis, if it matters so much to you, why did you even bring me here in the first place?”

I whipped around suddenly, already halfway down the corridor, and watched as Louis carefully crept towards me, his hands outstretched like he was approaching a venomous snake.

“I’m sorry, okay? Fuck.” He winced and shook his head, then reached up to grate his fingers through his hair, but paused when he remembered that he probably had about ten cans of hairspray holding up the swoop atop his head. He instead settled with brushing a palm over the hair at the nape of his neck where it was shortest, and he was close enough that I could hear the scraping sound. “I was trying to help.”

“Help? Help how?” I scoffed and tossed up my hands, daring a few steps closer. “Like hell you helped! You made it sound like, like… Like I don’t belong! Like I’m the date equivalent of a wad of gum on your shoe. Ugh! You… You sound like you’re ashamed of me,” I finally forced out, my voice breaking.

“Ashamed?” he breathlessly repeated, setting his hands on his hips. He swiped a hand across his upper lip and heaved a sigh. “I’ve never been ashamed of you for a single second in the time I’ve known you, Blake.”

I laughed bitterly. “I didn’t even want to come here in the first place, you know? The paparazzi, the reporters, all those people out there…” I threw up a hand and let it smack back against my thigh. “They make me feel so trapped. All the time.”

“I know they do,” he offered, shortening the space between us again. He glanced over his shoulder when the doors opened, but it was only a security guard in a tux making a sweep over the hallways. He barely took a second glance at us before ducking back into the benefit.

But it was enough to startle Louis. He cupped my elbow and pulled me into a cutaway in the corridor next to a set of porcelain water fountains. It wouldn’t have done much to cover our voices unless we were practically whispering, but at least I knew no one would be able to spot us from the doorway.

“Really. You know? Mister Attention Whore? How could you possibly know?” I scoffed. “Now that think of it, what’s with all of the extra touching?” I shoved his hand away and rubbed my elbow, looking straight at him as I sneered. “I feel like I’m in a room full of balloons with static-y hair, mate. And you’re the balloon in this metaphor, if not just for the sole reason that I want to pop you with a needle.”

“Jesus, Blake, is it really that big of a deal if I touch you?” he challenged, making his fingers dance like spiders between us as he pulled a face. “Would you like me to stop or something?”

I groaned and crossed my arms, staring Louis straight down. Only then did I notice that I stood a couple inches taller than him. How he had stomached to stand by me all night with such a glaring height difference in such judgmental company nearly overheated my brain, but then it clicked and I wanted to smack myself for being so utterly daft as of late.

“If it’s because you just wanted to make Vic jealous and nothing else, then yeah,” I quipped, “I’d really like you to stop.”

He looked shocked for a moment, his face falling, but then he regained himself and pulled out a frown to replace his slack jaw.

“Fine.” He crossed his arms and set his lips into a grim line, nodding once as he fought off a defeated look. “I’ll stop. In fact, you can spend the rest of the night with Niall if you’re so cross with me. I’m sure he’ll be better company, though he does tend to get a little handsy when he’s pissed.”

I let out a shaky laugh, narrowing my eyes. “Listen, you little shit, it’s not that. I just want you to stop pissing me off!”

I tossed up my arms for what was probably the thousandth time that night, itching to shove Louis into the wall behind him so he knew just exactly how furious I was. But with the way the blush staining his ears had spread all the way to the tip of his nose, I was sure he’d noticed already. Guilt was crumbling his face, visibly picking him apart like cheap string cheese.

“Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re really, really challenging my patience tonight, mate. Now, I can let some things slide because I already know just how stupid you can get with a couple vodka Red Bulls under your belt, but shite. Just… Shite!” I exclaimed, tossing up my hands again for effect. “If you want to piss someone off, your ex-girlfriend is lurking around everywhere, alreet? At least… At least give her something real to think about if you’re trying to give her a taste of how it feels to be replaced. She totally dicked you over, so you can stop being such a pussy about it.”

I didn’t have to reach very far until my fingertips brushed against the single button he’d fastened on his suit. I pulled him towards me by the front of his jacket, and he stumbled a little as he stepped forward, his hands clenching at his sides as his eyes widened just the slightest.

I knew that since it took a lot to wind up Louis, there was only one thing I could really do.

I pinched the lapel of his charcoal jacket and ran my fingers up the gaudy gray stitching, carefully undoing the button with my other hand and slipping my fingers around his belt. I could’ve sworn he held his breath when I stepped closer, my heels doing me a solid for the first time that night and not making a single squeak. He kept his eyes focused over my shoulder, not for a second chancing a look at me. I smiled a little to myself as I brushed the tip of my nose against his and traced the narrow collar of his shirt with my nail, my fingers ghosting against the goosebumps on his neck.

“This isn’t Little League, you know,” I murmured, my lips brushing against his ear. “You’ve got to step up your game.”

But when I leaned back to drink in his reaction in hopes of finding something sickeningly satisfying – maybe Louis scrambling to pick up his jaw from the floor or eyes as wide as a fifty pence coin – I struggled to fight off a similar expression to the one I’d hoped to see. The bastard was smirking, the corner of his mouth picking up, though only just so, and his eyes were hot and cloudy.

I thought I’d been winding him up, but he was seeing right through me!

I should’ve remembered that Louis was never one for losing, even something as simple as my petty attempts at making him blush. Everything I knew about him should’ve proved just as much. I’d seen him turn the stupidest, tiniest things into a competition – shooting crumpled paper balls into the bin, how many biscuits he could fit into his mouth. And he was too proud to let anything go, either. I never really minded, mostly because I was kind of the same way: proud, aggressive, stubborn.

So there was no way I was going to let him win.

“Tell me…” He pulled his arm from his side, where it had been hanging limp for the better part of a minute, and brought it up between us, tracing the belt of my dress as he lifted up his other hand. He carefully touched each of the moles that cascaded up from under my collarbones to the base of my throat, taking his time and letting his fingertips sink into my skin like ice in a glass of water under the sun. “Is this hard ball enough for you?”

I cocked my head and gave him a cheeky half-smile as traced my collarbone with his thumb. I was definitely not backing down, not yet. I wanted too much to embarrass him to let him beat me at my own game. I had my sudden surge of pride on the line, and even though he knew what I was up to, I didn’t care. I wanted to toy with him like he had with me all night.

I brushed my thumb along the edge of his jaw and against his lips, and I could feel him clench his teeth together. “I don’t think it’s a very wise idea to be talking about balls and hard things right about now, mate.”

He chuckled once, just a short breath from his nose that flared his nostrils, then pressed his hands against my hips, backing me into the adjacent wall. I laughed lowly, trying my best to hide the surprise that made my voice quiver, and hooked my fingers into his belt loops, pulling him against me. His hands slipped past my hips and pressed into the small of my back, his simmering fingers making ashes of the fabric that clung to my skin.

“You oughta be taking notes, babe.”

I hummed, amused, then slowly, achingly dragged my hands up his chest and clasped them together behind his neck, lapping up satisfaction with the way his Adam’s apple bobbed uneasily and his eyes widened suggestively. “Notes about what, exactly? How to lose?”

“Not quite.”

My fingers stilled at the nape of his neck, where I had been playing with the surprisingly soft ends of his hair.

I watched Louis cautiously as he sucked in his lips and brushed his tongue over them with one quick sweep. His eyes glinted, suddenly a shade darker than their usual cerulean, their natural color hiding somewhere between a prude green and a shade that looked like what it felt like to fall asleep in front of a dying campfire. I studied him as he brought a hand to the wall behind me and planted his palm just next to my head, a puckish grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. He tried so hard to hide it that his lips twitched as he stared me down. It would’ve been an amusing sight were I not trapped between a wall of freezing tile and the maddening heat of his body, nearly every inch of which he had pressed against my own.

Shit.

It didn’t matter that I was nearly two inches taller than him in Fran’s pumps. It didn’t matter that his breath reeked of alcohol and the sour sting of Red Bull. It didn’t even matter that I was Blake – perpetually snarling, word-vomiting, always-angry-enough-to-be-on-the-verge-of-cardiac-arrest Blake. Because Louis was watching me so fiercely, so severely, so goddamn carefully that I found myself struggling to properly breathe.

As he leaned forward and brushed his thumb over my cheek, his lips just ghosted against my own, chapped and warm. I shut my eyes at the last second, my jaw set tight. I didn’t think it would go this far. I thought I’d rile him up, make him blush, have a laugh, and teach him a lesson, and then leave him stranded in the corridor as I let him wallow in guilt. Maybe ditch him in a bit of a haze filled with anger and just the shallowest frenzy of unfamiliar want.

Two. Four. Six. Eight. Ten.

And still nothing.

My eyes flicked open, and all I could see was Louis’s face. He just stood there, looking up at me, his face as smooth as a skipping stone. I had to concentrate just to find something, anything, to read off of his nearly blank expression, but then… There! There it was, the wrinkle just next to his mouth, the one that always jumped out when he was about to smile or laugh or trying so hard to hide either one.

“You’re a little shit.”

He broke into a grin then, wide enough that it looked like it hurt, and stole his hand from the wall to tuck some of my hair behind my ear.

“Like I could ever kiss you,” he murmured, the tips of his ears turning pink. “I’d need a few more drinks to even consider it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and cowered, shooting Louis a soft look. “You shouldn’t let Vic get to you. You’re better than that. You’re better than her.”

His gaze instantly left mine, flicking over anything but my eyes. “She called,” he suddenly admitted, catching my wrists as I stole my hands from behind his neck.

My fingers stilled at his lapels, and I pulled them away, suddenly aware of his very close proximity. Now that I wasn’t trying to get a rise out of Louis, aggravate him to the point of complete humiliation, the way his hips were pressed against mine seemed fruitless and embarrassing, so I set my hands on his shoulders and pushed him away.

I ducked my head as I sidestepped him and busied myself with pulling my fingers through my hair. Louis took my empty spot against the wall and tucked his hands into his slacks, chewing on his bottom lip like it was a piece of gum.

“When?”

“The night before you and Fran stopped by.”

I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He pinched his bottom lip between his fingers as he shrugged. “I wanted her to come by another time, but she insisted. Pretty much had my balls in vice grip over the bloody telephone.” He sighed dejectedly, his brow curling. “I should’ve told you. God. And I should’ve answered the door myself. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she was going to bitch at you.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed one of my arms over my chest, grasping onto my elbow. “I bitched back just enough that she was one step away from planting a red, hand-shaped mark on my face, so I think we’re pretty much tied for first on Vic’s shit list.”

He sighed again and slumped further against the wall, his legs outstretched.

“That’s why you’ve been having trouble sleeping, innit?”

His head shot up, his eyebrows nearly reaching his hairline. “Well, yes,” he finally admitted, drooping forward again. “And no.”

“No?”

“I mean, yeah, it is Vic,” he explained shortly, waving his hand like he was swatting away a fly. “But she…” He sighed again, his features screwing up like Fran’s did last week when she tried doing her physics homework after the screen of her graphing calculator cracked in half. “She came onto me at the auction.”

“Fuck no!” My eyes became slits and my hands collapsed into hot bricks at my sides, and it took quite a bit of concentration on my own part not to punch the wall. I stole another glance at Louis, but he was taking a sip of water from one of the porcelain fountains, his face hidden from view. I couldn’t even read him if I wanted to, not that I could actually tell what he was thinking with just a glance in the first place. Almost two months later, and I sometimes still had a difficult time reading him. “Why… Why didn’t you tell me?”

As self-centered as that sounded to my own ears, it was a relevant question. I was close enough with Louis that I just knew there was barely a secret kept between the two of us. It wasn’t that I wanted to know everything in his life, right down to how long it had been since his last shag, but there were just some things I would’ve expected him to tell me. And asking him that very question didn’t churn my stomach quite like it would have a couple months ago.

“I didn’t want you to know. At first,” he quickly added when he saw my forehead nearly split open with how far my eyebrows had shot up. “I didn’t want to worry you. I was also, y’know, kind of embarrassed.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?” I thought out loud.

But then it clicked.

“You didn’t… You didn’t actually…?”

He shook his head vehemently when he got what I was trying to force out. I couldn’t even swallow the thought, let alone say it out loud.

“Why, then?”

“I don’t want to drag you into my shit,” he grumbled. He started to carefully pop each of his knuckles, a nervous habit I’d only had the distaste of observing a few times before. “I always feel guilty about it. I have since I first dragged you to coffee that morning,” he divulged.

“Wasn’t that the whole reason we became friends?” I pointed out heatedly. “You deciding I was the next best thing to a free therapist?”

Louis opened his mouth, eager to protest, but I cut him off with an easy smirk.

“Oi, I’m just taking the piss.” I nodded my head, trying out my words before I spoke, suddenly thoughtful enough to take my time before I opened my mouth. “But I care, you know. I do, I honestly do. I care about you, mate.”

He chuckled softly, then pushed himself off the wall. He took the few steps towards me, then without warning, reached down and plucked my fists from my sides and kneaded open my tight, white fingers. He lifted them up in front of his face, his eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head as he glanced upwards. The tip of his tongue stuck out in concentration, and he splayed my fingers through his thick hair, biting back an outright grin.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Dragging you into my shit.” He glanced at me again, still guiding my hands through his stiff hair. “Why? Do you mind?”

I laughed. “No.”

I went along with it, not minding that my hands started feeling sticky about ten seconds in and that Louis’s hair was thicker to get through than a bed of weeds. After a long minute, I stood back and admired my work, down to the dark blush that was staining his cheeks as he placed my hands back at my sides. He reached down to button his jacket, but I whacked at his hands and untucked his shirt a little. He groaned and started to pout, and I tried my hardest not to get stuck staring at his dimpled chin and how the face he was pulling made me want to double over in laughter any other day.

But then I remembered why I was even standing in the corridor in the first place, mucking about and just killing a little extra time while I waited for my nerves to die down before I followed Louis back outside to the event with our fingers intertwined, and my stomach plummeted.

I was in desperate need of a drink, or maybe just a good nap. I had been so nervous the night before that I couldn’t sleep for more than two hours at a time. But my buzz was finally dying down, and I could feel it leech out of my body like pool water evaporating from my skin in the summer as I remembered that Vic was just outside, along with every other last thing I hated about Louis’s public life.

I was still struggling to swallow the urge to vomit every time I saw a camera crew. And it wasn’t like I could duck into a shadowy corner and text a friend for the rest of the night, as everyone I knew was either at this very charity event or catering one at the moment. I didn’t want to face Vic, either, and just the thought of seeing her again, a condescending sneer warping her face, made me want to either throw a punch or an insult, whichever landed quicker.

But at least I had one reason to be grateful for Vic, and he was standing right in front of me.