Chapter 21 ― Technical Problems

Men were running everywhere, rushing to fix a problem with the sound system. We were at the sound-check and suddenly, everything collapsed and now we couldn’t hear the boys. I could see the panic in all their faces, trying to know what was wrong with the equipment. They had a concert in three hours and unless they cancelled the show, they had to fix the problem immediately.

“Help them,” Belle murmured bumping against my shoulder softly. I sighed as I nodded.

I didn’t want to pop up my face where I wasn’t invited, after all, it wasn’t my job, but I had a pretty good idea of what the problem was. Once I helped for a small gig of Marcus’ band and they had a very similar problem that I could fix. It was weird that this happened with such sophisticated equipment, but nothing was perfect.

“Excuse me,” I said as I made my way towards the back of the stage where three men were trying to solve the problem with the electronic panels. “I think I might know what the problem is,” I added.

They all looked at me sceptically, like I was just a kid pretending to be a big man. I wanted to punch them just for those looks. Soon, I felt a presence at my back as a pair of warm arms wrapped my waist. “Do you think you can help them?” an Irish accent asked and I nodded.

“Yeah, but they don’t believe I can do it. They believe that ‘cos I’m a woman I can’t handle this. Bitch, please!” I stated rolling my eyes and leaning more against Niall’s chest.

“You should give her a chance. She’s great and brilliant with all these stuff,” he suggested to the men who now were looking at me with their mouths open.

“You can try, but I hardly think you can fix it. If we couldn’t do it, why could you?” The one with black and short hair asked. The first I was going to push out of the bus, I told myself.

I rolled my eyes and snorted unattractively, at which Niall laughed and I just smiled at him, loving the way he seemed to find all my weird actions cute. I pushed the men aside and started to examine the panels filled with different buttons. Yeah, I knew this kind of technology; I could do it. I started working my magic and as I thought, the problem was the one I was expecting. They couldn’t find it because normally a fail like that didn’t break down a whole system, but there was also a little problem with the configuration of the principal software, so it made everything bigger. So I fixed first the problem with the software, changing some codes and stuff like that, then I worked on the panel itself.

It took me almost an hour to finish and I could see the men were babbling and laughing at me. Niall was still there with the other boys, giving me moral support. I was calm; I knew what I was doing.

“Boys, pick up your mics. We have a sound-check to do,” I told them smiling and I heard the men snorting at my back. I was about to behead them.

“Did you do it?” Niall asked running towards me and I just smiled.

“Let’s see,” I replied as they all ran to the stage again and I rebooted the system. In less than five minutes, the sound of I Wish could be heard all over the arena. I turned around to see the faces of the men that were laughing at me minutes before but that now looked impressed. “You were saying?” I asked with my best face of don’t-you-dare-say-something-to-me-again-bitch. They mumbled things and I just rolled my eyes. “I don’t know how you couldn’t find the fail. It was pretty obvious. If you had seen that the OS was failing because the configuration for the processor was wrong, we would’ve avoided all this. Ugh, men!” I snorted as I made my way towards my friends who were laughing.

“Good job!” Phebs complemented as we decided to enjoy the sound-check with the guys laughing and jumping. Half an hour later, five boys came running to us, smiling and talking at the same time.

“That was impressive!”

“How did you do that?”

“Can you teach me?”

“You shut them down! That’s my girl!”

“You’re way better than them!”

“Why aren’t you working for us?”

“I’m hungry!” I screamed louder than them just to shut them down. God, men that day were getting on my nerves. “I want to eat something before the show starts, so let’s go and then you can ask me whatever you want after picking a number.”

They laughed and soon Niall was hugging me. “That was impressive, Alex. You kicked their bloody arses!” He complimented me and gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek.

“It wasn’t that hard. They just didn’t know where to look for the failure.”

“We should talk to our manager and tell him that you’d be way better than them to be in charge of the sound system,” Liam said as we were walking towards the dressing room.

“Oh, that’s nice but I don’t have a degree yet, I’m just studying. Maybe when I finish Uni and I can’t find a job, I will call you begging for an opportunity.”

“When you finish Uni, you have to work with us!” Harry stated jumping next to us and stealing me from Niall’s arms. “Don’t be selfish, Nialler. We also want to hug the geek genius here, okay?”

I laughed at the silly boy who was sticking his tongue out at Niall. The blond pouted and I wanted to run to his arms and give him a massive hug, but Harry was still keeping me captive. Then Louis popped up next to me and wrapped his arms around me, too. “She’s my wife! Let her go, Styles!” he demanded and I laughed again.

“If you two are gonna fight over Alex, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to take her away,” Belle stated trying to set me free from the boys’ hugs. “Let her go, now! She can’t breathe!” And she wasn’t exaggerating, I was choking.

The boys let me go and I breathed deeply. “Sorry,” Louis and Harry said smiling sheepishly and I just chuckled.

Niall came back quickly to my side and glared daggers at his band mates. I knew it wasn’t serious, Harry and Louis were just messing with Niall, trying to make him jealous, they weren’t really fighting over me. I looked at Zayn, the only one who could try to ‘fight’ for me, but he was several feet ahead and wasn’t paying attention to what we were doing. Liam and Phebs were a few feet behind talking gleefully.

I didn’t like to see Zayn acting so distant, and not only with me, but with the boys. Before all this had happened, he and I were pretty close friends, but after he told me about that lie, everything changed between us. I missed my friend, the one whom I could talk about comic books, or about other geeky stuff that I showed him. I missed Zayn.

I had to talk to him. And I was going to do it, after the concert.

* * *

We were at Niall’s room after the party we all went to right after the concert, which was epic. The fans loved the new song. It had been a party at a club with all the crewmembers and a few guests. We had a few drinks, danced and laughed. We were back at the hotel by two am and I didn’t want to go to bed yet, so I went with Niall to his room were we cuddled in his bed whilst listening to music.

“Niall,” I started as I drew asymmetrical figures on his chest. “May I ask you something?”

He looked at me a bit confused, but smiled. “Sure, babe.”

“Why me?” he seemed puzzled and I sighed. “I mean, why did you pick me when you could have any girl?”

He stared into my eyes for a long time; seconds I felt lasted forever and there were only us holding each other because nothing else mattered.

“Why wouldn’t I pick you?” he asked back. “You’re funny, a bit crazy, witty, silly sometimes, loyal, fierce, strong, independent, brave, and please don’t forget about beautiful,” he replied with soft eyes whilst stroking my hair.

“But there are more beautiful, cleverer, stronger, funnier girls than me,” I insisted because I couldn’t be at ease with myself if I didn’t understand what he saw in me. The insecure part of me wasn’t going to let me sleep if I didn’t find that out.

“But they aren’t you, with your insecurities, with your smile, your eyes, with that heart of yours, with your story. You’re unique, Alex, and probably there’re better girls than you, but there’re also better lads than me. I could ask you the same thing: why did you pick me?” He inquired back and I snorted.

“Because you’re different. Because you make me feel special, unique, loved. Because you’re… because you are you,” I replied finally understanding. Or at least, that was what I thought.

“Exactly. Someone can be prettier than you, but none of them make me feel the way you do. It’s something that I can’t describe for you, Alex, but you must believe me,” he asked me entwining our fingers together.

“When I met you I never thought I could like someone like you. I saw you and the only thing I could see was that we were so different, but I was wrong. We just look different, right?” He smiled and I rested my head on his chest hearing his heartbeats. “Belle told me once that maybe you were what I needed because you were nothing like the arseholes I dated before.”

“Belle’s a wise woman,” he commented and I could feel the laughter in his voice.

“Are you conscious that this is gonna be very difficult?” I reminded him and I felt him nodding.

“I know, with my career nothing is easy anymore. Everything is so public and big,” he commented a bit down.

“I don’t want to lose my privacy and I don’t want to be famous because we’re dating,” I said looking up at him who was smiling slightly.

“I know, that’s why we’re going to keep it as a secret for as long as we can. To protect you,” he promised me kissing my forehead.

I leaned closer to him until our lips touched. It was a soft and kind kiss, but one that made all the butterflies in my stomach go wild. He parted his lips and so did I. Soon, our kiss turned heated and by when we broke the kiss, I was breathing heavily.

“We’re gonna be fine,” he stated smiling and giving me a little peck.

“What’s gonna happen when summer is over and I have to go back to Uni?” I knew I was asking all the important questions together and probably it was too much, but I had to have some things clear if I was going to be part of a relationship with a guy for whom I was falling quickly and deeply. “You will go on more tours away from London and we probably won’t see each other and you will meet loads of girls and–”

“Alex,” Niall interrupted me giving me a kiss. “We still have plenty of summer and we’ll figure out when the time comes. Don’t worry now, just enjoy what we have.”

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. He was right. We still had time and even if my insecurities tried to make me doubt what we were starting to build with Niall, I had him to remind me to breathe and live the moment.

Maybe it was going to be just a summer romance; maybe it was going to be something more serious. Who knew? I just had to take whatever I could because I knew that even if it lasted one week or one year, it was going to be a priceless memory.

We stayed there for a bit longer until Niall started yawning. I kissed him goodbye and went to my room, but in the way I knocked at Zayn’s door. Maybe he was awake and we could finally talk.

After two minutes the door opened and a sleepy Zayn popped up his head looking at me confused.

“I thought we could talk,” I said smiling and he blinked a couple of times before letting me in.