You suddenly wake up with a jump.  You hear a strange noise and wonder what it could be, but quickly find out that it’s only Zayn snoring in the bunk below you.  You try to move but you feel achey all over your body, due to the small sleeping space.  You can at least get up on your elbows, which you do.  You look around and see Harry asleep.  You hear the soft strumming of a guitar beyond the curtain that separated the bunk from the rest of the bus and smile.  You were busy relaxing as the guitar was played, but you suddenly jump when you hear a voice.

“So she’s leaving today, huh?” you hear Louis say.

“Yeah…” Niall says.  “Man, I wish she could stay with us.”

You are taken aback at Niall’s comment. 

“Yeah, me too … but you know she couldn’t possibly.  What would her parents say?” Louis says.

You don’t hear Niall answer, but strum his guitar more consciously.  Suddenly Zayn lets out a big snort.  You giggle quietly enough to not wake up the other three boys.  You yawn.  

“Good morning, beautiful,” Harry says all of a sudden.

You jump and glare at him, but you’re smiling.    

“Shut up, Harry,” Zayn says unexpectedly.

Harry ignores Zayn, smiles back at you and hops out of bed.  Your eyes grow wide when you realize he was only in his boxers.

“Good morning, Harry,” you hear Louis say.

Liam yawns and sits up swiftly, rubbing his face. 

“Good morning, everyone,” he says.

Liam’s eyes soon meet yours, he smiles, gets out of bed and walks to yours.

“Do you need any help getting down?” he asks.

“Sure,” you giggle.

Liam smiles and slowly grabs your waist.  He pulls you toward him and you feel yourself slip out of the bed.  You quickly grab his shoulders for support.  You find him smiling as your eyes meet when your feet touch the ground.  Liam smiles bigger as he turns around and pulls aside the curtain for you.  You walk out while looking back at Zayn looking at you with a blank expression.  You wonder what his problem is, but you forget all about that when you see Niall’s and Louis’ happy faces. 

“Wow!  Look at your hair!” Louis exclaims.

You glance in the mirror to your right and realize it looks terrible.  You place your hands over your hair in embarrassment.

“No, no!  It’s cute!” Louis says. 

You look at Niall and Harry and see them smiling.  

“Well,” Louis begins, “we’re almost to the next town.  We’ll give you some cab money.”

Instantly all of the boys took out their wallets.  Except for Harry, who had to find his pants first.  Zayn comes out behind you holding a twenty dollar bill.  You stare at him, thinking he’s kidding.  Then you look around and realize they’re all holding out twenty dollar bills.  Even Harry, with his pants in one hand and the bill in the other. 

“Guys…” you say.  “I can’t take this much money!  There’s like…a hundred dollars here!”

“It’s gonna be a lot to get to where you want to go,” Zayn explains.

“Yeah, we kinda brought you far out of your way,” Liam says.

“Besides, we want you to have it,” Harry adds.

You smile at them and eventually gather all of the money, but it still didn’t feel quite right, despite their smiling faces.  

Only minutes later, you began to see buildings go by.  You noticed all of the boys looking out of windows with sad faces.  Soon the bus begins to slow down, slower and slower, until it came to a stop.  The bus driver yelled back, saying it was time for you to get off.  You make your way to the door, making sure you have your phone.  Liam jumps up to open the door for you, and you smile at him.  He nods as you step out of the huge bus.  You walk a few steps out onto the sidewalk and then you turn around to look back at Liam, but is surprised to see all five boys standing at the door, pushing each other aside to get a better look.

“I guess this is good-bye,” Liam says.

“Yeah…” you sigh.

You glance at Niall and are shocked to see tears in his eyes!

“Good-bye!” Louis says happily, trying to heighten the mood.

“Bye!” Harry and Zayn call out together.

You look at Niall to see if he’ll say good-bye, too, but realizes he wouldn’t dare, or else they would find out he was crying.  He’s just smiling and waving.

The bus driver yells at them, telling them they have to get moving again.

“It’s time for you to go,” Liam says.

You nod and turn around.  You hear the door begin to close, so you quickly turn back around.

“Do I have to?” you ask.

Liam suddenly puts his arm across the door to keep it from closing.

“What did you say?” he asks, even though he heard you perfectly.

“Do you think I could … stay with you guys?” you ask timidly.

Everyone’s eyes grow wide as the exchange glances.

“Sure!” Louis says.

“Come on!” Harry says.

The bus driver tries his hardest to close the door from the inside, but Liam holds it back with all of his strength.  You smile excitedly and run as fast as you can back to the door.  Zayn grabs you and pulls you in, just in time for Liam’s arm to not be able to handle it anymore and the door to close behind you, almost catching your sweatshirt’s hood.  You feel Liam place a hand on you to make sure you’re okay, while Zayn is still grasping your arm tightly.  You see Niall frantically wiping away his tears, Louis smiling, trying not to laugh, and Harry looking happily into your eyes.  All of a sudden Zayn realizes he’s still holding your arm and slowly lets go, glancing at you.  You give him a slight smile to try and dim the awkward moment.

“Are you sure your parents will be okay with this?” Liam asks.

“Yeah,” you say, “I’ll text my mom and I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.”

All five boys let out little cheers to let you know they were happy to have you come along with them.  Eventually you all sit down again.  Louis, Harry, and Liam sits at the table while you sit on the couch with Niall and Zayn on either side of you.

“Just so you know you’ll probably be staying with us for a while,” Liam says.  “Unless you want to pay for a plane ticket later.”

“No, that’s okay,” you say.  “I want to spend some more time with you guys.”

They all smile and look at each other. 

For the next hour you all calmly talk, Niall plays his guitar a bit, and you all laugh at Louis’ jokes.

Niall looks at his watch.

“Oh, guys, it’s almost time to go,” he says.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Liam says.  “We have a little interview today, but it won’t take long, so don’t worry.  It’s just outside on a little carpet.”

“Yeah, we have to greet the fans before our concert tomorrow night,” Zayn says.

“Oh,” you say.

A few minutes later the bus stops near a long red carpet.  You look out the window and see thousands of fans being held back by metal rails, bodyguards, and even policemen.  The boys are already dressed, but Zayn is still fixing his hair in the bathroom, using almost a whole can of hairspray. 

“We’ll be right back,” Niall says.

“But whatever you do,” Louis says, “do not make yourself seen.”

“Yeah, I think the fans would get pretty jealous if they saw a pretty girl in our bus,” Harry chuckles.

Zayn hits him lightly over the head with his comb before slipping it into his leather jacket pocket.  A second later the boys were piling out of the bus, followed by thousands of deafening screams.  The door was quickly shut behind them and surprisingly, the sound was almost shut out completely.  

You begin to wander around the bus, having nothing else to do.  You slowly make your way past the curtain and into the bedroom.  You chuckle when you see Liam’s perfectly made bed.  You could tell it was smoothed over and over to make sure there were no wrinkles.  Louis’ bed was made too, only not as nice.  Niall’s blanket was in a ball at the end of his bed, and Zayn’s blanket was pushed aside against the wall.  You cringe when you see Harry’s bed.  It’s the messiest of all of the boys’ beds.  It doesn’t look like the sheets have been washed for months, and his pillow case is stained from his greasy hair.  You even see some of his boxers peeking out from under the blanket.  But for some reason, you’re not completely grossed out.  You remember he’s a boy, and some of them are just like that.  You happen to glance at Zayn’s bed again and catch a glimpse of a piece of paper sticking out from under his pillow.  You know you shouldn’t, but you reach down and pull it out.  It’s a doodle.  Of him. And you.  Holding hands.  It looks like a five year old could have drawn it, since it was basically only stick figures, except for Zayn’s elaborate handwriting of your names written above each of your heads.  You smile and carefully put it back exactly the way you found it. 

Suddenly you hear the door open and close.  You gasp when you realize how long you’ve been in the bedroom snooping.  You run out of the bedroom to see who it is and see Harry standing there, smiling.

“Hi Harry,” you say. “That was quick.”

Harry begins to slowly walk toward you.

“How was it?” you ask.

He says nothing, but keeps walking toward you.

“Harry?” you say, beginning to back up as he gets nearer.  “Harry, what are you doing?”

Harry refuses to answer but gives you a devious smile.  Now you’re starting to get scared.  He keeps getting closer and closer, not taking his gaze off you.  You glance behind yourself to make sure you’re not going to run into anything.  The moment you look back at Harry, he jumps at you and pins you to the nearby wall.  Now you’re terrified.  You try to get free, but his grip is too strong.  Harry gets closer to you until his body slowly presses against yours.  His face gets really close to yours and puts his lips to your ear.

“I love you…” he whispers.

You’re utterly shocked and somewhat disgusted.  You try harder to get away from him, but he just holds you against the wall even harder.  He begins to touch your face and then your sides.  He touches his forehead to yours and you can sense his lips almost meeting yours.  You try to avoid it by turning your head and bringing it back as far as the wall will allow, but Harry has you and you can’t move.  Suddenly the door burst open, but that didn’t stop him.  He acted like it didn’t happen and was intent on kissing me. 

“Harry!” you hear Liam yell. 

The door quickly shuts and Liam rushes over.  He grabs Harry and pries him off of you, just before your lips touched.  Instantly Harry tries to jump at you again, but Liam holds him back.  Then he brings him around and holds him onto another wall.  Harry doesn’t look like he’s going to be giving up anytime soon.  Liam, without thinking, makes a fist and punches Harry as hard as he can.  Instantly Harry stopped resisting.  You watched his eyes roll back as he closed them and then slide down the wall.  Liam just stood there in horror.

“Harry!  Are you okay, Harry?” Liam says.

Liam brings his eyes away from Harry and onto you, then hurries over.

“Are you okay?  Did he hurt you?” he asks.

“No, I’m fine,” you say, still a little scared.

“Yeah, Harry can go a little … overboard.  Oh, I’m just so happy you’re not hurt!”

“Will … Harry be okay?” you ask a little hesitantly.

“He should be fine.  I guess I just forget my own strength,” Liam explains.

All of a sudden the door opens again and the rest of the boys come in, chatting and laughing.  Niall gasps when he sees Harry.  The others stand in shock while Niall rushes to his side.

“What happened?” he asks, looking as if about to cry.

Liam told them the whole story.  He finished it just in time before Harry began to wake up.  He opened his eyes and looked around at all of the boys.  Then he looks at you.  You freeze, feeling like he’s looking straight into your soul.  He smiles at you as he gets up.  Liam prepares for another fight, but Harry just sits on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says.

“You should be,” Liam says, sitting down at the table.

“When I saw your face I just couldn’t help myself,” he says with a grin.

“It’s okay,” you say.

You sit on the same couch as Harry, making sure there’s a bit of distance between you.