Chapter 8 ― Louis

Why did that hurt so much?

I knew I was doing what was best for her and for me, because it wasn’t okay for me to care so much about her, but the nightmare kept haunting me, tormenting me with so many what if’s. I didn’t want her to suffer because of me, I didn’t want her to get hate from our fans and most certainly I didn’t want her to hate me. I shouldn’t care so much for someone I barely knew, but I did and I couldn’t bear it if she hated me.

As I took her hand and looked into her eyes, all I could wish was for her to refuse. I wanted her to tell me that she wasn’t okay with just being co-workers because I was too cowardly to tell her I didn’t want to be just that. I wanted, at least, to be friends with her. But if I wanted to protect her, that was all I could get, all I could be.

“Then everything’s fine,” she said and maybe it was me and my stupid wish of her disagreeing with the statement, but it seemed to me she wasn’t okay, that her smile wasn’t real. Maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there, but my heart wanted her with a broken smile because she didn’t like this just like I didn’t. It sounded weird and kind of mean for me to say that, but it was the truth. “We should go back, the lads are waiting for you,” she added but she didn’t let go of my hand. Not that I wasn’t trying to do that either. I just liked the way her small and oh-so-feminine hand felt in mine, I liked the softness of her skin and that tingling sensation on mine.

“Yeah, we should go already,” I agreed with her but I didn’t make a move nor did I let go of her hand, on the contrary, I started stroking the back of her hand with my thumb, my eyes gazed into hers.

What was so appealing about her? Why did she drag me into her like this? I couldn’t look away; I was simply trapped by the warmth of her soft eyes. Even if I knew I should put distance between us, I couldn’t just ignore her. Even if I tried to do it the whole morning, I was all the time conscious about her and where she was. If she was looking at me, if she laughed, if she smiled, I noticed it even if I avoided her eyes all the time, even if I tried not to pay attention. I just couldn’t. I found her fascinating.

Maybe time extended whilst we were there, me holding her hand and both looking into each other’s eyes; or maybe it didn’t, but it felt like it.

My gaze went down for a couple of seconds focusing on her lips and I felt this urge in the pit of my stomach to lean in and just kiss her, taste those full and so beautifully shaped lips, but, what kind of co-worker would do that? I couldn’t give in to an impulse that would make everything more complicated.

I forced myself to look her in the eyes again and I pushed back the urge to kiss her. It wasn’t okay, it would never be okay. I promised myself that I would never expose a normal girl to what Eleanor had to go through. Never. Havi was a normal girl, what she had was precious and I wasn’t going to jeopardise that with any impulsive behaviour.

With that in mind, I stepped back and let go of her hand. I immediately felt the absence of her touch and I wanted, desperately, to grab her hand again, but I just put my hands in my pockets and looked away. “Let’s go,” I said still avoiding her eyes because I was still feeling all conflicted. A part of me wanted to forget about the promise and jump into this feeling towards Havi, all the things she made me experience; but there was that other part of me, that part that had to grow up when Eleanor and I broke up, that responsible part that kept telling me I had to back off. For her sake.

I heard the door open and soon her footsteps followed that noise. I breathed deep before walking after her in the recording room direction. I looked at her walking in front of me, her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and her head low. What was she thinking? Did she notice what I was about to do in that small room we were before? Maybe she did and now everything was going to be more awkward between us.

Great, just great, Louis. You just fucked things up. Way to do it, mate, I yelled at myself mentally. As I admired her figure heading to the recording room where all the others were waiting for us, I kept cursing in my head for the things I did.

She got into the room first and when I did, all eyes were on me and I saw how Joy had approached Havi immediately and the blonde was asking something to her friend. Did she look weird when she walked into the room? Harry was looking at me with a slight frown and I started to get worried. I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. Maybe I should apologise.

“Mate, you okay?” Harry asked in a whisper coming next to me. My eyes were still locked on Havi and Joy talking. The brunette was smiling and nodding, but for some reason I couldn’t believe she was as okay as she seemed to be.

“Yeah, perfectly,” I told absently, still looking at the two girls.

“You haven’t been acting normal since that dream,” he commented and I understood him. How could I act normal when I saw in my mind all the time the hatred in her lovely eyes?

“I was worried, but we cleared things up. Everything will be fine now,” I told my best friend finally ripping my gaze away from Havi so I could see Harry’s expression.

“You sure? She didn’t look better when she came in,” he commented and I felt this knot in my stomach tensing. I knew it.

“Yeah. It was a bit awkward at the beginning, but everything is fine now.” Or that was what I hoped. I certainly didn’t feel like everything was fine, but I trusted that things were going to be fine.

“Okay, do we need to do something else?” Liam asked calling our attention and we all looked at them. That seemed to bring Joy and Havi back.

“Oh, just one little thing more,” the blonde girl said. “A few pictures to post on our website and you’re free. We’ll see you next week to pick the winners.”

“Let’s go then, boys,” George told us eager to go. It was near lunchtime, I could guess why he wanted to finish with this as soon as possible.

We followed Havi and Joy and I noticed that she didn’t look at me at all, in fact it seemed like only Joy was there with her. I didn’t know if it was because she was already in all this ‘only co-workers’ thing, or it was because she felt too awkward to even look at me. I hoped it was the first, though that didn’t make me particularly happy either.

We went to the room where the show was hosted, the same place where we were interviewed by Joy last week and where we met them. We sat around and Joy called someone. Soon, a bloke came into the room with a professional camera and started to take pictures of us. Joy and Havi told us how and where to sit and I tried to meet Havi’s eyes, just to make sure everything was okay between us, but she always went to Zayn, Niall and sometimes Liam, the ones that were farther away from me.

Well, that had to be fair. I avoided her at the beginning; it was her turn to avoid me. Now I understood how she felt.

“Louis, could you smile like you mean it?” Joy asked and I realised I wasn’t paying attention, that my eyes were on Havi and how she was typing something in a macbook.

“Oh, sorry,” I mumbled and forced myself to look at the bloke who was snapping the pictures of us for the website. Yeah, I had to smile like I meant it but I didn’t, my mind was pure chaos in that moment. I breathed deep and put my mind in blank. I could do this, it wouldn’t be the first time I had to push all my personal issues aside for work and most definitely it wasn’t going to be the last.

“That’s all. Thank you, guys. Really. Now we’re gonna take care of everything else, you just have to be here after the show next Wednesday. You can go now,” Joy said, and my eyes immediately looked for Havi and for the first time since we left that little room, I met her gaze.

She smiled at me.

It wasn’t the honest and ever so friendly smile that she used to give me, but it was a smile, a smile that gave me hope that things would be better, that the awkwardness we were feeling in that moment wasn’t going to last forever. We were co-workers, after all, we could get along.

I smiled back and really hoped that everything would be better, I wanted things to be like when we met, so easy. But I knew that things had changed and it wasn’t going to be the same. At least, if I wanted to protect her, things wouldn’t be the same, things would remain like this, like two people who only happened to work together for a couple of weeks and then they would never see each other.

“Okay, then on Wednesday Paul will bring the boys as I have to be in a meeting, plus I don’t think you need me here for picking the winners of the week,” George said and we all nodded.

We started to walk out of the room when I heard: “Havi, you stay here with Nick. I trust you two with the pictures and the whole design for the contest.”

I immediately looked back and saw Havi nodding and giving a warm smile –one like the kind she used to give me– to Joy before the blond started to walk with us.

“Havi,” I whispered without noticing it, and she heard me because her eyes met mine and she raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t realised I was standing at the doorframe, looking at her and the photographer, Nick. “You’re staying here.” She nodded. “Then I guess we had to say goodbye here.”

“Oh right. Sorry, I didn’t say goodbye to the other lads,” she commented straightening herself. “Thanks for everything today, Louis. Tell the lads I said thanks, okay?” It was my turn to nod. “Great. Um… goodbye. See you soon, I guess,” she said and I stood there, longing for doing something else like walking towards her and giving her a hug, but probably that wasn’t very co-worker-like.

“Yeah, I’ll se ya soon,” I replied looking into her eyes. I wanted to say more, I just didn’t know what.

I just gave up and turned around but I had this feeling inside of me telling me to go back, that there was something pending between us and I needed to fix that, soon.

I met with the lads at the parking lot where the van was waiting for us. Joy was there talking to George and all my friends were already inside the car, probably talking. I got in and sat next to Harry who immediately looked at me worriedly.

“Everything okay?” He asked in a low voice and I nodded even when inside I felt like nothing was right, like everything was even more complicated that when we got to the station. But I didn’t know how to explain that to Harry because I couldn’t understand it myself.

“I was just saying goodbye. Havi says thank you,” I informed but I still could feel Harry’s gaze on me.

“Boo-bear, you know you can talk to me about everything, right?” He told me and I nodded again. I knew it, I just needed to clear things up in my mind first.

“I’ll do it when I know what’s going on,” I mumbled not sure if he heard me because he didn’t say anything else.

Next thing: Joy popped her head in the van and smiled at us. “Thank you, guys. We really appreciate all that you’re doing and don’t worry, we’ll give you loads of chocolate when you come again next week.”

“Yay, food!” Niall cheered and that made me smile.

“See ya all soon,” she said waving before stepping back.

Yeah, we were going to see each other next week, but I didn’t feel like it was soon enough.

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Shout out and dedication for @afb828 because she left a very special comment and wanted this very much. Thanks for being an incredible reader.

Bel, xx!