Tuesday at Strawberry Faire

November 9, 2013

Lizzie POV

I woke up to Nora pounding on my door, like usual. She had been on this health kick for way too long now and insisted that I go to yoga with her every morning at 8 am. My body doesn’t even function that early, but I still went for her sake. Hopping out of bed, I slipped on a pair of yoga pants, and a flowy black shirt that showed off my midriff. I grabbed my lilac yoga mat and bag to meet Nora in the kitchen.

"Well, well, well, has The Lord come back already?" She sarcastically remarked when I walked into the kitchen 15 minutes before we had to leave.

"You know I don’t take your shit before noon, Nora." I rolled my eyes while filling my water bottle at the sink.

"Drink a cup of coffee and stop acting like a bitch." She smiled at me while handing me a cup of coffee.

"For me?" I drawled out dramatically, pointing to myself. My phone beeped from across the room and I went to retrieve it, knowing exactly who it was.

Mikey: Why am i up this early? :(

Lizzie: Same. Here. what are you doing up?

M: radio stuff again.

L: where at?

M: BBC1

L: I’ll be sure to listen :)

M: noooo i’ll be nervous

L: too bad

"Lizzie?" Nora called, taking my attention from the phone screen. "Who are you talking to?"

"Well mother, if you must know, its Michael." I replied, matter-of-factly. She gave me a warning glance, I was already expecting what she was about to say.

"Liz, be careful with that. You don’t want the poor boy to think that you’re leading him on."

"I know, I know. We haven’t really been texting that much. Just a couple times here and there since Tuesday." I had been very cautious with making sure that I wasn’t being too flirty, or making him think that I felt a certain way. But he was a really cool guy, and I enjoyed talking to him.

"Just making sure. Now come on, we have to go if you want to catch the tube." She rushed me. I slipped my phone into my bag and followed her out the flat.

&&

"Oh my God that was painful. Can we get breakfast now?" I begged Nora as we walked out of the studio.

"You really want to eat after doing yoga for an hour and a half?" She questioned, oddly surprised.

"Um, yes. I’m fucking starving. I’m feeling McDonald’s, real bad." I said, my mouth staring to water.

"Ok, no. We are going somewhere healthier than that. How about we eat at Bluebird and then get some Starbucks afterwards?" She tried to compromise with me. I felt like I was talking to my mother sometimes. We were both the same age, but responsibility wise she was way older. I grunted in response and followed her down the street to the little hole in the wall cafe we both adored. I just wanted some hash browns, but Bluebird’s peach oatmeal and blueberry muffins were to die for. We walked into the tiny restaurant and were met with the delicious scent of their famous blueberry muffins. I always loved the interior of the cafe the most, though. The walls were a dark midnight blue and had little painted yellow stars all over them. It reminded me of the night sky in Virginia, and the first time I came here with Nora, I couldn’t help but keep staring at the walls.

The boy at the register, Leonard, recognized us and greeted warmly. Nora got a sugar free blueberry muffin, and I got the peach oatmeal and a (sugar loaded) blueberry muffin as well. After enjoying our breakfast, and visiting with Leo a bit, we said our goodbyes. The cup of coffee that I had had earlier was already starting to wear off and I needed Starbucks before I crashed. We stopped at the one that was farther from the tube station because it was seldom super busy. Surprisingly, the line to take orders was actually pretty long, and we waited for a good 10 minutes before I noticed the quiffed up blonde haired giant that was standing a couple people in front of us.

"Nora, is that Luke?" I quietly asked her.

"Huh? No, it can’t be." Her eyes grew wide when I pointed him out and she started messing with her pony tail. I spotted Michael next to him, and only thought it polite to say hello.

"Hey! Aussie boys!" I yelled, way too loud, at them. Luke turned around and smiled, while waving. "I knew it would work." I whispered to a mortified Nora. Luke snickered at something Michael said, and covered his face in embarrassment, before they walked to us. "Ok, are y’all stalking us or is this just pure coincidence?"

"I can assure you it’s not on purpose. We always go to this Starbucks because it’s less busy, but we obviously still get spotted." Luke pointed to a group of girls that I hadn’t noticed before, waiting outside excitedly.

"Well that’s got to be annoying." I said.

"Nah. Not really, it’s actually kinda cute." Luke admitted, waving at them.

"Right, Nora take notes. Stalking equals cute." She let out a weak laugh and looked down at her shoes. Damn, this girl had such a huge crush on Luke she couldn’t even function around him. "Anyways, what are y’all doing today?"

"Absolutely nothing." Michael quickly answered before Luke could even open his mouth. "Do you guys wanna do something?"

"Um, Nora?" I looked over at her, not really getting an answer. "I’ll take that as a yes. You have my number so just-."

"How about you guys come over and watch a movie or something? We could even order some pizza!" Michael suggested while Luke looked at him like he was crazy.

"If it has anything to do with pizza, she’s in." Nora chuckled beside me.

"Thank you for your unwanted input, Eleanor." Nora punched my arm lightly. "But yes, that’s fine. Just text me when it’s cool to come over, ok?"

"Sure. Of course." Michael replied. We said our goodbyes and the boys left the shop, stopping once they got outside to take pictures and meet fans.

"Ok, we need to find out who these guys are. I’m thinking some recon when we get home." I whispered to Nora. She nodded back, obviously more into admiring Luke outside. I don’t blame her, the dude was fucking hot. But he also had this way of being adorable; really it just confused my body. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to pinch his cheeks or attack his face.

Once we got our iced coffees, we got on the tube to go back to the flat. When we got there, I opened the door and headed straight to my room to get my laptop. Nora was already sitting on the couch waiting for me.

"What was their name again? It had to do with seconds and one of the seasons." I voiced my thoughts to Nora.

"5 Seconds of Summer." She laughed back as I typed into youtube. The first thing that popped onto the screen was a music video for a song called "She Looks So Perfect". After 4 minutes of watching people of all shapes and sizes strip off their clothes, I knew these boys and I would be great friends.

"That was just freaking weird." Nora stared wide-eyed at the screen.

"No, Nora. That was pure comedy gold. These guys are fucking awesome. One, they’re all fine as hell. Two, they are ridiculously talented. And three, they have an amazing sense of humor." I said while ticking the reasons on my fingers.

"I thought you weren’t into musicians?" She joked at me.

"I’ve seen the light Eleanor! It’s a whole new world and I love it!" I dramatically fanned my face.

"Oh my God you’re so stupid." She rolled her eyes and got up from the sofa to go shower. I was left alone in the living room, which meant I finally had to come to terms with the fact that today was a hard for me.

It was my mom’s birthday, which made me miss home a whole lot. I hadn’t told Nora, because I didn’t want to put a damper on her day. Plus, I didn’t want to think about it. But now that I was alone, I let myself open up the folder on my laptop that had family pictures in it. I flipped through a couple of my parents and I when I was a baby before the tears started. By the time that I got to high school, and the year that everything happened, I was straight out bawling.

In this moment, I realized how little I had let myself mourn over my old life. Yeah, I was unhappy and my parents sucked, but it was still my life. The pain and anger that I had held in for the past 6 months came rushing back all at once. I told myself that I was only going to cry for five minutes, then I would stop and get over it so that I could enjoy tonight.

After closing the folder and shutting down my laptop, I forced the tears in my eyes to stop. Nora walked out of the bathroom to me with puffy eyes and a red nose.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She simply asked, sitting down next to me.

"Not really." I choked out. "Especially when you’re naked." She looked down at the towel that was wrapped around her wet body.

"Good point." She shrugged. "We need to leave in an hour and a half and I know you’re going to take forever so start getting ready." She stuck out her hand to me, dragging me off the couch.

I felt bad about the amount of things that I kept from her because she was such a good friend to me, but I just wasn’t ready to share everything with her. The good thing was that she totally understood, which scared me. What was she keeping from me? My mind wondered as I turned on the shower and got in.

November 9, 2013

Luke POV

“Mum, what was that already-made pizza crust stuff you used to get for us at home?” I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder while I frantically pushed the cart around the grocery store, Michael in tow.

“We use Pillsbury Classic. Why? Don’t you boys usually just order out?” Liz Hemmings asked with curiosity.

“Yeah mum, we just decided to do something different tonight. We’re having guests over.” I replied sheepishly.

“Hmmmm, alright. Don’t get your guests pregnant is all I ask!” She laughed through the phone.

“Mum!” I sighed loudly before stating, “I’ll call you soon. Love you,” and hanging up the phone.

Nora and Liz were supposed to be at our house in a little over two hours and we still had a lot of cleaning up to do. Michael insisted on just ordering a pizza because it would be easier on us, but I wanted to do something I thought the girls would enjoy.

I really wanted to make a good impression on Nora. I know I barely knew the girl, but I wanted to get to know her and I wanted her to want to get to know me. I thought their first time over to the house should be memorable, not a horrendous nightmare.

I found the right pizza crust, before heading down to where the shredded cheeses and pepperonis were located.

“Michael, what kind of cheese should we get?” I studied all of the types of shredded cheese. There were so many different kinds and I didn’t know what Nora liked. Or Liz.

“Mate, it doesn’t matter! Just get the one with the mixture!” Michael fussed back at me. He was obviously more laidback about these kinds of things.

After studying the cheeses for a few minutes, with Michael impatiently sighing beside me, I put two bags of the mixed cheese, one bag of parmesan, and one bag of sharp cheddar in the cart. When we reached the pepperonis, Michael quickly grabbed four packages and threw them into the cart. I decided not to question on which kind he got because we were running kind of short on time and we still had to go find the rest of the toppings.

Eventually, we had picked out mushrooms, spinach leaves, black olives, and pineapple chunks. I probably was missing a few more critical toppings but I was so nervous that they slipped my mind and Michael was no help at all. You’d think he would want to try and impress Liz a little bit. I figured he had other methods he would use rather than create-your-own-pizza toppings.

&&

When we arrived back to the house, with an hour and a half until the girls were supposed to show up, it was still a complete mess. Calum had spent most of the day playing FIFA in the living room and Ashton had been nowhere to be seen all day.

While Mikey put the groceries away, I took the remote off the table and turned the tv off, much to Calum’s dismay.

“Luke, what the hell was that for?” Calum asked, dropping the game controller in his lap in frustration.

“You remember the two girls from the yoghurt shop the other night? Nora and Liz?”

“Oh, that’s what her name is. Liz.” Calum said to himself, not too quietly.

Luke scowled at him before continuing. “Yeah, well they’re going to be here in a little over an hour. Mikey and I ran into them earlier at Starbucks and he invited them over.”

“Shouldn’t you be more excited about this? Don’t you think Nora is fit?” Calum inquired.

“Yes I do, which is exactly why I need your help. The house is a mess and we need to make it look better. Where’s Ash? He can help too.”

“Probably upstairs. I’ll go get him.” Calum lazily got up from the couch and shuffled up the stairs.

Of course, he’s going to take his time. Probably going to try and get out of much cleaning as he can. I couldn’t worry about that, though. I started folding all of the blankets in the living room. I looked throughout the kitchen for a trash bag, which I took to the living room and filled up with soda cans, beer bottles, and leftover Chinese takeout from the night before. I ran to take it out to the curb, then came back to look at the kitchen.

It looked even worse than the living room. We had dishes piled high in both sinks. Good thing we had a dishwasher. At this point, Ashton and Calum had made their way downstairs. I put them in charge of washing and drying the dishes that didn’t make it into the dishwasher. Mikey started vacuuming and I went to inspect our bathroom.

I didn’t clean out the shower tub because neither of the girls would use it, so I just made sure the curtain was closed. I got out cleaning wipes from under the sink and wiped out the facial hair shavings from the sink bowl and off the counter. I took one glance at our toilet and knew it needed a deep clean. It took at least three of the wipes to get it clean, and I still had to clean out the toilet bowl.

Once I had flushed the cleaning solution down the toilet, I rushed back to check on the progress of the other boys. Everything looked like it was ready to go. The house hadn’t been this clean since we moved in.

I started straightening up a few more things in the living room.

“Luke, quit cleaning so much!” Ashton giggled. “The girls won’t even notice! The place looks fine!”

“Yeah man, c’mon let’s play some FIFA.” Calum suggested, turning the television back on. “It’ll calm your nerves. You and Mikey both.”

“I’m not nervous!” Michael answered defensively before grabbing a controller and sitting beside Calum.

“How much time do we have before they get here, mate?” Ashton asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. Just before I was about to answer him, the doorbell rang.

November 9, 2013

Nora POV

It was nearing 6:00 and Liz and I were on our way to the boys’ house. Earlier in the afternoon, we looked up ways that the tube could take us there. We would’ve taken a taxi, but we had just paid this month’s rent and were dirt broke.

As we sat on the tube, Liz could not quit gabbing about how excited she was and wondered what we would end up doing. She wondered aloud what the house looked like, if the boys had taken time to clean it (she figured no), and imagined possible scenarios of how the night would go. I gave her the occasional “mmhmmm” and a nod of my head, but I was silent for most of the ride over there. If Liz was extremely excited, I was downright scared out of my mind.

It terrified me that I found Luke to be even remotely attractive. I haven’t had feelings of any kind for anyone since Darren. We started dating 9th grade year and were together until the middle of senior year. He was the great love of my life. But life also has a way of breaking and tearing apart beautiful things like that. Losing Darren was like losing a piece of my soul. It hadn’t even been a year since he left me. So much has happened since then. I have had to say more goodbyes in the past 11 months than I would have ever dreamed possible for an 18 year old.

Letting Liz in to my life was a hard decision for me to make because I didn’t want to let someone in again only to have them leave and take a piece of me with them. Even though she is my best friend, Liz doesn’t know the real me; she doesn’t have a whole piece of me. She can’t fully hurt me and I’d like it to stay that way for as long as possible. If I can barely even let a friend all the way in anymore, I can’t even imagine letting Luke in all the way. We were just going to have to be friends and nothing more, no matter how cute I thought his little nose was or how much I thought about running my hands through his quiffed hair.

Damn it, Nora. Stop that. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

“Nora, oh my God, I think this is our stop! Okay quick, look; how is my hair?” Liz asked, stopping for a dramatic pause before asking about her appearance.

“Liz, you look great. Don’t worry. Besides, who are you there to impress?” I teased her.

“Shut up Nora. They are four hot boys who are expecting us to look good as well. Which by the way, Luke is going to eat you up tonight.”

“Liz, stop.” I said to her with slight smile, too embarrassed to even look her in the eye.

“You’re such a sexy bitch,” Liz replied as she tousled my hair in her hands before getting off the tube. I flattened my hair back down to my head and followed her.

“Okay, I think we just have to turn a corner and…” Liz thought aloud as she looked at her Google Maps on her phone to find the rest of the way to the house. We turned the corner and walked down a couple houses before stopping in front of a smallish, two-story brick house with stairs leading up to the front door. “Voila!” Liz cried out, throwing her hands into the air.

“We’re here.” I said, apprehensively.

“We are, we are! C’mon!” Liz grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs after her.

“Do you want to knock or should I?” She asked me excitedly, right before she shoved me in front of her.

“I guess I will,” I said with a small laugh.

I rapped on the door a few times. A few moments later, Michael opened the door.

“Hey guys! You’re both looking adorable this evening.” Michael greeted us cheerily.

“Oh Michael, you’re just saying that.” Liz said, playfully hitting his shoulder, while he let us in the house.

It was surprisingly very, very clean. Too clean to not say anything about it. I was highly impressed.

“The house looks great. Looks like you boys were hard at work this afternoon,” I said with a smile. As I finished, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Luke was smiling to himself, looking down at his clunky, black shoes. His cheeks even turned a little pink. I knew without anyone saying anything that he was the ringleader for all of the cleaning that afternoon. It was extremely adorable how proud he was; or was he blushing because I had noticed?

All of a sudden, Calum, without even taking his eyes off the video game he was playing, said, “So I thought I was the only one who brought girls home without a proper date first.”

My mouth dropped and Liz’ eyes went wide; she let out a suppressed laugh.

“Wow, Calum! You’re such a prick!” Ashton said as he laughed, bopping Calum over the head.

To change the subject, or to ease the slight tension in the room, Luke commented, “We, uh, we bought stuff to make create-your-own-pizzas earlier, if you girls would, uh, want to make them.”

“Oh my God, Luke you’re a lifesaver! I am PMSing so hard right now, I am craaaaving pepperoni! Please tell me you got pepperoni.” Liz exclaimed. I shouldn’t have been shocked by her blunt honesty, but sometimes she still caught me off guard. I nudged her shoulder as we walked into the kitchen. She replied to me under her breath, “What? I am.” All I could do was laugh in return.

Luke had put so much thought into this night. I knew the create-your-own-pizzas were his idea, too. I could just tell by the way he took charge. This was not helping my problem at all. He was making it so hard for me not to like him.

“Calum, quit playing FIFA, we’re all making pizzas!” Ashton yelled from the kitchen.

“Hold on, let me finish this game!” Calum yelled back.

“You can finish the game later!” Michael replied, stuffing a few pepperonis in his mouth.

“Oh no, no you don’t! You have to share!” scolded Liz, trying to grab the pepperonis away from Michael so she could eat some herself.

Ashton came in between them, grabbed the pepperoni bag out of Michael’s hand, and held the bag out of arm’s reach. “Pepperoni is for the pizza, not for you.”

“Well technically, the pizza is for me, so the pepperonis are for me as well.” Liz laughed back, sticking out her tongue. She jumped up in an attempt to retrieve the pepperonis out of Ashton’s hand. I noticed that as she was jumping she had her on his chest for balance. I also noticed the annoyed look on Michael’s face as the two interacted so playfully.

“Okay, let’s just start making the pizzas.” Michael scoffed. Ashton giggled and set the bag down, Liz immediately grabbing a few and stuffing them into her mouth. Calum finally sauntered over and stood beside Luke.

The pizza sauce was at Calum’s end, so we just decided to take a spoon, put the amount of sauce we wanted on, and pass it down the row. The toppings were scattered everywhere, so the tricky part would be getting the toppings to everyone efficiently.

“What do you want on your pizza, Nora?” Luke asked me, looking shyly down at me.

I looked up at him to answer, but I got taken aback when I looked in his eyes. They were such a beautiful blue. They reminded me of the ocean, when you’re just floating out in the middle of it. Then all of a sudden a big wave comes and you’re swimming as fast as you can to get away from it but it overtakes you anyway. You’re underneath the waves and it’s overwhelming and scary. When you finally reach the surface again after flailing around, you catch your breath, your heart beating a million miles an hour. You start smiling because you know what just happened was dangerous and you survived it anyway. That’s how I felt looking into Luke’s eyes.

When I snapped out of my trance, I looked down at my hands and smiled shyly before answering, “Um, I like cheese, mushroom, and spinach leaves.”

“Wow, well I bought all three of those. Lucky guessing!” He chuckled, trying to look into my eyes again. I wasn’t looking back, but could see out of my peripherals that he really was trying to engage me in conversation. I figured the only polite thing to do would be to engage back. I didn’t want him to think I hated him, after all. How could anybody hate him…?

“Yeah, wow, that was lucky! You know me so well already!” I laughed back, deciding to be brave and face him directly. He quietly laughed in reply, and I noticed his cheeks started turning pink again. I looked away and smiled over my opposite shoulder, not able to contain how adorable he was around me. Liz and I caught each other’s eye, and she winked at me before turning back to continue her conversation with Ashton.

After Luke and I both had our pizza sauce on the crust, we both reached for the bag of mozzarella cheese. As we did this, our hand brushed against each other. I jerked my hand back a little, embarrassed.

“Oh, sorry. You go ahead. Ladies first.” Luke gestured toward the bag of cheese with a cheesy grin on his face, no pun intended.

“Why thank you. Such a gentleman.” I said as I smiled back at him. I reached for the bag again, sprinkled some of the cheese, and gave the bag to him.

All of a sudden, I heard Calum say, “When you two are done flirting, can you pass me the bag of cheddar cheese?”

Next thing, I knew Calum was bent over, clutching his groin area. I looked up wide-eyed at Luke, my mouth agape, about to question what just happened, but decided I better not. I laughed it off instead, while Luke gathered the mushrooms, spinach leaves, and another bag of pepperonis.

Once everyone had all of their toppings on their pizza, Michael preheated the oven. While we were waiting, Liz said to the group, “So Nora and I did some creeping today on you guys.”

“Oh really? What did you do?!” Ashton giggled, his arms crossing his chest.

“We just watched your music video. She Looks So Perfect, I think? It was…interesting to say the least.” I laughed. “But we thought the song was really, really awesome.”

“I thought the concept behind the video was fucking sweet!” Liz quipped back. “You don’t see that many people stripping down like that in music videos anymore. Kudos for the nudity, boys!”

They all laughed, thanking her and me for liking the video and the song. Just then, the oven beeped, saying it was ready for the pizzas to go in. Once everyone placed their pizzas on the rack, Luke set the timer on the stove top for 25 minutes.

“What do you say we all go pick out a movie to watch while we wait on the pizzas?” Michael suggested.

“Yeah, Calum, no more pizza,” Luke joked. Calum flipped him off, smiling, before walking back into the living room.

Liz and I immediately scoured through their movie collection. After several minutes, we came across Tangled. We squealed, turned around, holding up the movie together, and exclaimed, “THIS ONE!” We started laughing because of how silly we were. Luke chuckled, Ashton giggled, Michael smiled brightly, and Calum kept a stone face, just moving his body up and down a little showing that he had laughed on the inside.

“Alright, Tangled it is!” Michael announced. “Should we wait until our pizzas are done since it’s almost time?”

“I’ll go check on them now,” Luke stated.

“I”ll go with you.” I said, shocking myself at how bold I was being.

“Alright,” Luke answered, smiling and biting his lip ring. I could’ve died right then and there on the spot. That was just so damn cute.

He put on an oven mitt and opened the oven door. We bent down, our heads together, inspecting the pizzas on both rows. After deciding that they all looked done, I put on another oven mitt and helped Luke take everyone’s pizzas out.

“Pizza’s ready!” I shouted from the kitchen. Luke had already gotten plates and a couple pizza cutters out. Once everyone’s plates had been prepared we all made our way back to the living room.

Liz sat on the big couch, with Michael on one side of her and Ashton on the other. I was starting to wonder if Ashton might be interested in Lizzie too. That really started to worry me. She might be leading another of the boys on without even knowing it. This girl gave me a headache sometimes. I would have to talk to her later.

Calum sat on the big black beanbag in the middle of the floor, which left the loveseat for me and Luke. My palms started getting sweaty at the prospect of sitting so close to him for at least an hour and a half. When we both had sat down and gotten comfortable, I realized our knees were touching. But I didn’t want to move away. I looked up at him over my left shoulder, so tall and broad. He was devouring his pizza, but he somehow still managed to look so handsome.

“Don’t burn your tongue, the pizza is still hot!” I said to him quietly, giggling.

He smiled down at me through his mouth full of food and said, “Why? Are you worried?” He had a teasing look in his eye. I just shook my head and picked up a piece of my pizza and blew softly over the top of it to cool it down. When I looked back up, I noticed Luke was still staring at me smiling. I was about to put the pizza in my mouth, when I questioned, “What are you staring at?” I laughed nervously, looking away.

“What’s your middle name?” He said, suddenly serious.

I put the piece of pizza back down, looking down at my lap before answering, “Dean,” with a soft smile playing at my lips when I looked back up at him.

“Nora Dean. I like that.” Luke replied, an endearing smirk starting to form around his mouth.

“Thank you.” I responded smiling, picking up my piece of pizza again and taking a bite.

“Everyone, be quiet! I’m starting the movie now!” Michael shouted.

Luke was done with his pizza at this point, and set his plate down on the ground. When he leaned back into the couch, I felt his arm go over the top of the couch. They weren’t around my shoulders, and I didn’t think he was trying to get them there. But even though his arm was still several inches away from mine, I felt myself thinking that I maybe wouldn’t mind settling myself into him, resting my head on his broad shoulder. What was I going to do? I couldn’t keep this up. I had to make up my mind sooner or later how I was going to handle this.

I shook myself out of my thoughts and started to focus on the movie. Everyone sang and hummed to all of the songs as they came on, laughed at all the funny parts, and swooned at all of the cute parts—at least Liz and I did.

By the time the movie was over, I was yawning, ready to go to bed.

“Is it past your bedtime, Nora Dean?” Luke teased me. I took notice of how he called me by my first and middle name, wondering if I should correct him. I decided against it; I kind of liked it. It was sweet.

“It’s getting there! It definitely will be by the time we get back home.” I replied.

“Well we better get you girls home then.” Ashton said, standing up from the couch. We thanked them for being such great hosts to us. Luke gave me his number and told me that it was our turn to host them next. We would definitely be taking up that request. I couldn’t decide if I liked having his number and he not having mine. I was too scared to do anything with it. Liz would have to pep talk me into texting him, I’m sure.

All the boys walked us to the tube station, making sure we got on safe. We waved at them standing on the platform through the windows in the tube. We were silent on the way back, mainly because of how tired we were and I also think we both had a lot on our minds. I definitely had a lot of heart-checking to do within the next few days. Even though I was a little overwhelmed by it all, I still found myself smiling, my mind wandering back to Luke’s ocean eyes, letting myself drown in them for the rest of the night.

November 9, 2014

Ashton POV

The door downstairs slammed so hard that I could hear it through the music blaring through my headphones. Next thing I knew, Calum came into my room with an annoyed look in his face.

"Luke wants you." He muttered.

"What’s going on?" I took the headphones all the way out and sat up on my bed.

"Mikey and him invited those two super fit girls over tonight, and he wants us to clean. Probably because he wants to fuck the brunette." He shrugged uninterested.

"Shit. You mean Liz and Nora?" My heart started to race at the thought of seeing Liz. That girl and I had only spoken maybe twice but that was all I needed to know that she intrigued me. No wonder Mikey had had such a hard time forgetting about her. I knew he wouldn’t be happy to know that I found her captivating in the slightest, so I knew I would need to force down my feelings for her. Who knows, maybe she’s not even into Michael?

"Yeah, sure. Now c’mon before he gets pissed. You know how he gets when it comes to girls." He turned around and went down the stairs, me right on his tail. Luke put all three of us to work and in no time the entire house spotless. Calum sat on the sofa and started up the Playstation to play a quick game of FIFA and Michael joined him. I saw Luke rush in front of me into the living room, picking up random objects and setting them back down, and straightening the cushions on the sofa around Cal and Mikey.

“Luke, quit cleaning so much! The girls won’t even notice! The place looks fine!” I grabbed his shoulders and tried to calm him down. It was pretty obvious that the poor lad was really into Nora. I knew he was pretty nervous about her coming round, but I was also pretty certain that she was into him too. Calum and Michael tried to convince him to play FIFA with them to calm his nerves, but he rejected. I looked at the clock on my phone, it was around half past 6 and I wondered when the girls would get here. Right as I asked, 3 short knocks came from the front door. Michael shot up out of his seat and looked around the room.

"I’ll get it!" he yelled, jumping over Calum’s legs that were propped on the coffee table.

"Hey! You can’t abandon your team like that!" Calum whined after him, frustrated.

The door opened and the adorable blonde haired Liz waltzed right into the house like she owned the place, followed by an equally as beautiful Nora. They talked to Michael for a bit, and I heard Nora mention how nice the house looked. I saw Luke smile to himself in pride, and a flush start on his cheeks. How adorable. I would have to tease him for that later.

“So I thought I was the only one who brought girls home without a proper date first.” Calum bluntly stated, his attention still on FIFA. Both of the girls’ eyes widened in surprise, but Liz soon let out a chuckle. At least she had a good sense of humor. If we could ever get some quality time together, I knew we would get along swimmingly. However, I knew I needed to defend Nora’s sense of humor too; she didn’t appreciate the comment like Liz did.

“Wow, Calum! You’re such a prick!” I was just a couple steps away from Calum and walked the distance to hit him across the head. He paused the game and turned around to flip me off. Luke changed the subject to the pizzas and told the girls what he had planned. Liz made a comment about her PMSing and Nora looked horrified. Those two girls were complete opposites, but somehow that worked for them. We finally walked to the kitchen to make the pizza and I spied Liz and Mikey fighting over the pepperonis. I thought it would be fun to go break them up, plus I would get more opportunity to chat with Liz.

"Pepperoni is for the pizza, not for you.” I lifted up the package above my head, knowing that Liz couldn’t reach it.

“Well technically, the pizza is for me, so the pepperonis are for me as well.” Liz replied sticking out her tongue at me and standing on her tippy toes to try to get the package. Her left hand was resting on my chest, and I looked down into her bright blue eyes. They were so full of life and adventure; I wanted to find out everything about her, where she wanted to travel and all of the dreams that she had, so I could take her with me and make all of her dreams come true.

"Ok, let’s just start the pizzas." Michael grumbled, and I set down the pepperonis on the counter, knowing I was pushing his buttons a little. Liz snuck a few more into her mouth and snuck me a mischievous look out of the corner of her eye. She sure didn’t seem to mind that I had.

&&

The pizzas were finally finished, and we were all sitting down watching Tangled while eating. Earlier, the girls told us that they listened to She Looks So Perfect, and Liz mentioned that she loved the video we did for it. I couldn’t hold back the huge smile that spread across my face, because this girl was just as weird as I was. The entire time we were making the pizzas we were making flirty comments to one another. Although she, quite frankly, flirted with everyone, something was different with how she talked to me. Michael had already “claimed” her, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve never been cool with the idea of calling dibs on girls. It’s so degrading. Plus, I don’t think she’s that into Michael, especially after how she acted around us thus far.

Liz sat in the middle of the couch, which I took as an invitation for me to sit beside her. I was not shocked when Michael seemed to receive the same “invitation.” Throughout the whole movie, Liz and Nora sang along to all the songs, and basically melted when Flynn Rider and Rapunzel sang that duet together. I barely paid attention to the movie; I couldn’t take my eyes off of Liz. She had this adorable look of concentration on her face. Her eyebrows would knit together, and her head cocked to the left a little. It was one of the only moments when I was sure she looked completely serious.

I was almost sad when the movie ended and the girls had to leave. Being the gentleman that my mom taught me to be, and also wanting to talk to Liz a little bit more, I offered for us to walk them to the tube station. Before we left the house, I saw Luke give Nora his number. As awkward as that boy could be around girls, I was a damn proud band member in that moment. When we got outside, Luke and Nora walked ahead of everyone, of course. Michael and Calum were deep in conversation about soccer, so Liz and I were behind everyone.

"Um, so where are you from in America?" I questioned Liz. Her head shot up and a weird expression flickered across her face.

"Virginia! Born and raised." She answered. Something was off with her, though. I had kind of noticed the entire time that something was going on but I didn’t think I knew her well enough to ask.

"We actually didn’t go there when we were with 1D but I did like the southern food heaps." I laughed, remembering the amount of greasy food we ate while we were there. She laughed back in return and nodded.

"Yeah, it’s pretty much the best. I miss sweet tea more than anything, though." She confessed.

"Is that like iced tea?" I questioned, unsure of what she was walking about.

"Kind of! But like loaded with an obscene amount of sugar. It’s so good. I’ll have to make y’all a pitcher so you can try it." She excitedly replied. Whatever was bothering her was gone now.

"That would be a different experience!" I giggled. "It is your turn to host us next so maybe then?"

"Definitely then!" She agreed.

We had a few more exchanges, but none quite like the flirty comments from earlier. The walk home was quiet, besides the occasional ding from Calum’s phone. I was expecting a girl to come round late at night, like usual.

Once we got to the house, I went straight to my room and stripped down to my boxers so I could go to sleep. I laid down on my bed, facing the ceiling, my mind wandering. After the amazing night we had, I knew for certain that Liz was not going to be getting out of my head anytime soon. I knew there would be consequences of some sort to face from Michael, but right now, I honestly couldn’t care. It’s not like they were ever dating, so he couldn’t really get too mad at me.

There was a fire in her eyes that I wanted to burn brighter. Something was trying to squelch it, trying to defeat her. The tears that seemed to form in her eyes when I brought up home almost threatened to put out the flames entirely. I didn’t want that to ever happen. I wanted her to ignite inside like she never had before. The only way I could light that spark is to get inside her head, know all her quirks, her likes and dislikes. I need to fall in love with this wild, beautiful, crazy girl. I want to fall in love with her.