Lucy's POV:

We arrived at the studio to find Erick fuming.
“What the hell Reagan?” he shouted, throwing his hands in the air when we walked in. Reagan shrank back and folded into herself.
“Erick, she doesn’t even know the guy,” said Piper protectively, stepping in front of Reagan. She held up a hand to calm him down. “She gave him her number, but that was it.”
“Oh really?” sneered Erick. “Then why is he telling everybody he slept with her?”
I gave Erick a look.
“Do you ever lie?” I asked, emphasizing the “you” in the statement.
“Only when necessary,” grumbled Erick, taken aback by my remark. “I don’t see why this bimbo would lie about sleeping with her.”
“Um, hello? Standing right here?” said Reagan angrily. “I don’t lie, and I will tell you that I didn’t sleep with him. I don’t even know his name.”
“Carter,” said Erick wearily, putting his head in one hand. “Carter Hastings. He’s a student at NYU.”
“Well, Carter is lying, Erick, and I would like for you to believe me,” said Reagan.
“I do believe you,” said Erick sadly. “But unfortunately, the media believes Carter, and until then, I want you guys to lay low. Don’t go out as much, or – better yet – take a vacation. Get away from New York for a bit.”
“What about the tour and the show?” asked Skylar. I shot her a look. I had been hoping no one brought it up so that maybe we could get out of it.
“It’s two weeks before the beginning of the tour. Take a week-long vacation or something, it’ll give you girls some time to prepare and relax before the hectic schedule,” said Erick. Despite all his faults, Erick was really caring towards us, and I appreciated his generosity.
“Where would we go anyways?” asked Scarlett.
“Well…I suggest somewhere secluded and away from the paps,” said Erick thoughtfully. “So obviously no big cities.”
“We could go to the cottage,” I said suddenly. The cottage was the big mansion-like house that we had in Michigan. We had bought it just a month after the X-Factor, and we’d only used it twice – once as a getaway trip, once for my birthday. We hadn’t used it since.
“That’s perfect,” said Erick. “How many bedrooms does it have?”
“Eight, but it can sleep ten,” I said proudly. We had bought it so that our families could stay the night if they wanted.
“Good, that’s the perfect number,” said Erick, getting out his cell phone.
“Wait,” said Scarlett, raising a hand. “What do you mean?”
Erick didn’t look up as he typed a message to someone.
“You and the boys will go up there, get to know each other,” mumbled Erick. “It’ll be good for you all.”
“What?” exclaimed Skylar. “We didn’t agree to that!”
“It’s already settled,” said Erick, clicking off his phone. “You’ll leave tomorrow.”
I had a feeling Erick had planned it this way. He was sort of devious, but he did want what was best for us. I realized that he was like our parent, and we were like his kids. He tried to control us, and we – as teenagers – were rebelling against him.




The next day, we took off in One Direction’s private jet.
The girls and I sat on one end of the plane, while the guys sat on their side. I didn’t know why we were suddenly so hostile towards each other, though hostile isn’t really the word. Cold would fit it better. I asked Piper once during the flight why we weren’t talking to them.
She had shrugged.
“It’s not us being rude, it’s them,” she said a little snottily, shooting Louis a glance. He wasn’t looking at her, instead talking to Harry animatedly. Their laughs drifted to our side of the plane, and for a second I wondered if they were really laughing or just pretending to make us jealous.
The way Piper was acting though made me wonder whether or not Louis had talked to her since their hookup. I doubted that he hadn’t by the way he avoided her glances and glares and the way she sighed whenever he laughed. That wasn’t a good sign.
When we arrived at the airport, two limos were waiting for us. I didn’t take that as a good sign either. We had sat in the same limo just a few days ago, now we were sitting in separate ones. I felt as if our plan was slowly cracking.
The house was situated on Crystal Lake, which in my opinion is the most beautiful lake in Michigan. The house was painted grey, and had huge windows overlooking the lake. It was surrounded by a forest, and set deep in it so that we couldn’t even see the road. The beach was sandy and the water lapped at the shore in a peaceful way. I loved it here.
We pulled into the driveway and the driver got out and opened the door for us. We grabbed our bags and suitcases from the trunk and we all followed Pipe to the front door. She took out the key and unlocked the door and let us all in.
Walking into the modern living room made me feel at home again. Growing up not too far from here made me feel like I was fifteen again, coming up here to stay in a rented cottage on the lake with my family. It made me feel normal, not strange like I usually did nowadays.
Piper waited for the boys to come inside before she explained the sleeping situation.
“I’m going to have the red bedroom,” said Piper, reading off her list. She looked up for a second.
“By the way, I didn’t make this plan. Erick did,” she clarified.
“Scarlett and Skylar will have the baby blue bedroom, Niall and Zayn will have the beige bedroom, Lucy will have the mint bedroom, Louis will have the blue bedroom, Harry will have the orange bedroom, and Reagan will have the pink bedroom.”
She handed around the map of the house so that we wouldn’t get confused – we wouldn’t obviously, but the boys might.
I grabbed my suitcase and headed upstairs to my usual bedroom. It was called the mint bedroom because it had mint-green walls and was very sunny and cheery. It overlooked the lake, and it had its own balcony. I set my stuff down on the bed and then opened the sliding glass door to step out onto the balcony.
The breeze made the air a little chilly, and I shivered despite my sweatshirt, but I felt pleasantly happy. Despite everything that had happened so far, I felt content. I hadn’t had any problems with guys yet, and I didn’t plan to. Everyone else seemed to be struggling.
Yesterday, Scarlett had talked to me about how she was kind of attracted to Zayn, but she felt like she couldn’t make a move because he was “engaged” to Perrie – despite the rumors that they had “broken up.”
Lucy had come to me not long after she announced to us that Niall had kissed her – on the cheek, but still – and how he hadn’t texted her or called her since. She was worried whether or not he was truly serious about her.
Reagan had told me that she and Liam had kissed, and that he said he would love her no matter what. She said she was so grateful and amazed that he would say that, but at the same time she was wary because she’d had such bad relationships…plus she still had her “secret” relationship with Ethan still going on at the same time.
Piper hadn’t said anything to me about Louis, but it was clear to me that she was obviously hurting. Louis seemed to have taken advantage of her, and she must have thought there was something more to it. Poor Piper, so inexperienced and so easily deceived. I wish she hadn’t fallen so hard for Louis.
I remembered how Piper had instructed me to make a move on Harry, but I wasn’t in any mood to do so. I didn’t think it was necessary for me to do anything, because at the time, it seemed like everyone else had everything covered. Now, I wasn’t so sure. At the same time though, I didn’t want to come on to Harry, because not only was that not my thing, but I’m not very skilled at that to begin with.
There was a knock on the door, and it made me jump. I ran inside and shut the glass door and opened the door.
It was Harry.
“Hey,” he said, surprised. “I thought this was my room.”
“No,” I said, remembering the map. “It’s next door, to the left. My left, not your left.”
He smiled.
“Thanks,” he said, and he headed that way. I watched him go, admiring his bouncy curly hair before realizing I was staring and shut the door hastily.
Oh God.
I was beginning to feel the emotions that Reagan had always talked about when she liked a guy.
The tingly feeling.
The bouncy, up-in-the-air feeling.
The feeling of total happiness.
The feeling that I totally did not trust.
Reagan called it love.