Five minutes to four, Louis’ alarm went off. He’d programmed it exactly like that, knowing full well that Harry’s alarm would go off five minutes later. It took him a moment to become awake, but he somehow managed. He only threw on his red pants, buttoned them up and tiptoed to Harry’s bedroom. As he’d hoped, his friend was still sound asleep, on his back, arms stretched out to either side.
Louis took Harry’s phone and turned the volume up before he placed it right next to Harry’s ear. Now he waited, but he left the room for that. It was not safe to be in the same room when Harry woke up like this.
“LOUIS!” Harry screamed as soon as he woke up from the sound of his alarm. He usually had the volume of his phone not even halfway up for the alarm and far enough away from his ear. Louis was lying on the floor laughing. He could hear Harry jump up from his bed, but he wasn’t prepared for the impact from the door.
He’d just stayed behind the door instead of moving a bit further away. It hit him square in the face, causing his nose to start bleeding. Harry was more than ready to chase him around the whole apartment, his hair sticking up at the back of his head. When he saw Louis, though, dizzy from the impact and bleeding from his nose, all thoughts of revenge went away.
“What did you do that for?” he asked instead, carefully helping Louis up from the floor. “Couldn’t you at least try to hide? No, instead you lie right where the door will go when I push it open. You idiot.”
Harry was more upset about the blood than about the way Louis had woken him up. After all, he had gotten way more than he deserved for this prank.
“Louis, just don’t throw up, okay?” Harry was obviously worried about his friend, who looked a little pale. He helped him to the bathroom and cleaned up the blood. They had to wait a little bit until it stopped bleeding, but it didn’t look like his nose was broken.
“That was fun,” Louis said, a faint smile on his lips.
“Was it, now?” Harry crossed his arms over his bare chest. “You should get ready. Lilly will be here soon and we don’t want to keep her waiting.”
“Yeah, I know.” Louis carefully touched his fingers to his nose, flinching at the pain. He’d probably have to take something to take the headache away. It would help him sleep on the plane as well.
Once harry was gone, Louis hopped into the shower real quick, so that Harry could shower as well. He quickly dressed, put the rest of his stuff in his suitcase and ate a bagel Harry had prepared for him.
Right after “breakfast” Louis took something against the pain. They were both ready when Lilly pulled up in front of the building. After putting their suitcases in the trunk, Louis got in the passenger seat, just like the night before.
“What happened to your nose?” Lilly asked immediately, alarmed by the light swelling and traces of blood just above his lips.
“What?” Louis asked confused, not wanting to admit what had happened earlier. He looked in the mirror and cleaned up the blood. “Oh, nothing really.”
“A run-in with my bedroom door,” Harry chimed in, not letting this opportunity slip. He wouldn’t tell her the whole story, and he didn’t even get a chance to say anything more.
“I know, let’s play a game.” Louis clapped his hands together, grinning like a maniac when he turned towards Lilly who had just started the engine to get on their way to the airport. “Me and Harry will sing our parts from a couple of songs and you’ll have to guess which song it is. You’ve done your research, haven’t you?”
Lilly wasn’t in the mood to take any shit this morning, so listening to them sing was a good alternative to what could come her way. She was still stuck in the world of the book she’d read last night. Some One Direction songs would set the right mood for what was ahead of her.
“Go ahead. I hope I won’t disappoint you.”
“Can we fall one more time? Stop the tape and rewind,” Harry started off and Lilly cut him off with guessing the song right.
Louis looked back at Harry before starting with: “You can’t go to bed without a cup of tea, and maybe that’s the reason that you talk in your sleep. And all those conversations are the secrets that I keep, though it makes no sense to me.”
Harry joined him: “I know you’ve never loved the sound of your voice on tape. You never want to know how much you weigh. You still have to squeeze into your jeans, but you’re perfect to me.”
“Little Things,” Lilly simply said, holding back the tears. Okay, she’d never cared much for their music, but as soon as she’d listened to the song, she’d been captivated, and yes, she’d cried. The lyrics touched her, and having the boys sing those lyrics acapella in the car, sent shivers down her spine. Especially Niall’s part always made her take a deep breath.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked, his brow furrowed. He could see her eyes clearly in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, fine. Next song, please?” They had to keep this going or she would really start crying any minute now.
Louis looked back at Harry before he started again: And when I see you on the street, in his arms, I get weak. My body fails, I’m on my knees, pray-“
“More Than This. Okay, can we stop with the sad lovesongs and stuff? That doesn’t help my driving.” She blinked back the tears.
“How about this then,” Harry said and started, “I want I want I want.”
“But that’s crazy,” Louis sang his part.
“I want I want I want…”
“But that’s not me.”
Lilly found herself chiming in and smiling while doing so. Seeing her first real smile that day put the two guys at ease. Maybe it was better to sing these kinds of songs than the love songs that early in the morning. It put all of them in a better mood.
“White lips, pale face, breathing in the snowflakes,” Louis started, but he was stopped by Lilly immediately.
“That’s not even your song. That’s Ed Sheeran.”
“Ten points for you for recognizing that,” Harry praised her. “Let’s go for a different one… No use in sitting and in thinking on what you did, when you can lay back and enjoy it through your kids. Sometimes it seems like lately, I just don’t know, better sit back and go with the flow.”
“These Are the Days of Our Lives by Queen. One of my favorite songs.”
“Someone who knows Queen, praise the lord,” Harry said enthusiastically, making Lilly giggle. “Especially apart from We Will Rock You and stuff like that.”
“Okay, I got one more.” Louis was ready to start singing, when Lilly pulled into a parking spot at the airport. “But maybe we’ll do that some other time.”
“I’m sure this won’t be our last car ride,” Lilly said with a smile before she got out of the car. As the gentleman he was, Harry took her suitcase as well despite her protesting. A couple of times she tried to take the suitcase from him, but he wouldn’t let her. Louis helped him be pulling her away on the elbow.
“You two are really stubborn.” She shook her elbow free and crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“So are you,” Louis remarked. She tried to shoot him a stern look, but couldn’t keep the smile from breaking through. Yeah, she was quite stubborn, he had that right.
“There you are,” Paul greeted them as soon as he saw them. He ushered them to check their luggage in so that they could move directly to the airplane. There weren’t that many people on their flight, so they were able to start ahead of schedule.
Lilly hadn’t been on planes that often, but it was the first time ever that she flew first class. She wasn’t very fond of flying, so she needed distraction. During takeoff, there was nothing for her to do, though. She could only turn her phone back on and listen to music once they were up in the air. For now she had to close her eyes, count till ten and take deep breaths. When this didn’t help her, she took a magazine from her purse and started reading random articles without even realizing what she was reading. None of it registered in her brain.
“Are you alright?” Liam asked from across the aisle, looking at her with worry written all over his face.
“Peachy,” she mumbled, took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “I’m just not a big fan of flying.”
“We’ll be high enough soon so you can turn on your music and try to get some sleep. Just five more minutes or so and you’ll be fine.”
Liam’s words soothed her a little. And he was right. The seatbelt signs turned off six minutes and fifteen seconds later. Lilly turned on her phone straight away, plugged in her earphones and started her playlist. Immediately calmed by Ed Sheeran’s voice, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
She didn’t know how long she’d slept when she woke up, and felt like somebody was watching her. The Script’s “Breakeven” was playing in her ear, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Louis squatting next to her seat, her phone in hand. When he saw that she was awake, he grinned from one ear to the other.
“You like The Script, huh?” He put her phone down again, rested his arm on her armrest and didn’t move an inch, when she scowled at him and took the earphones out. “That’s the third song in a row.”
“Have you been spying on me?” She turned off the music and sat up straight since she’d moved more to a lying position while she’d been asleep.
“I wouldn’t call it spying.” His cheeks turned slightly pink as he scratched his head. “I was just curious to know what music you liked after the ride in the car earlier.”
“You know, you could have just asked me.” Lilly pushed her hair back.
“I didn’t want to wake you up. You were sleeping so peacefully, drooling on your shoulder, that I wanted you to keep dreaming.”
“What?” Alarmed, Lilly put a hand to her mouth and then her shoulder, but didn’t find any drool. One look at Louis’ face told her that he was just messing with her. “Oh, you’re gonna get that back, believe me.”
“Really now?”He slowly got up, not breaking the eye-contact. “I can’t wait for that revenge. And by the way, I love The Script. Great music.” With that he turned around and returned to his seat.
She wasn’t sure if revenge was a good idea, or if it was even validated. After all, he’d simply looked at her phone while she was listening to music. She would have told him the songs she’d been listening to anyway, if he’d asked, so what was her problem Maybe that he’d watched her sleep or that she didn’t know for how long he’d been squatting there. She only knew for sure that he’d seen the last three songs she’d listened to.
From that moment on, Lilly couldn’t fall asleep again. The good thing was, that it didn’t take that much longer until they landed at JFK. Lilly kept quiet for the rest of the time they were together. She was too busy watching the city pass by when they had their luggage and were on their way to the hotel. New York City was completely new to her. Back when she’d been to America, she’d been to Florida.
Paul told her to be down at around five so that they could go to dinner together. Until then she had the rest of the afternoon to herself. The boys did as well, but they were confined to the hotel. They could go to the lobby or the roof, the restaurant, but nowhere outside the hotel. It wasn’t safe enough without Paul around, and he needed a few more hours of sleep. After taking the boys home, he’d gone back to the afterparty to keep an eye on security for a few more hours.
Lilly went up to her room and stared in amazement. Her room was huge, had a giant, comfortable-looking bed, a desk, TV and her own, big bathroom. The view was amazing, and she could spend hours simply looking out her window. She had a few hours to kill, so she fell down on her bed, turned on the TV and decided to just watch something for an hour or two before becoming productive.

Notes

Thank you!

I hope you like this new part, because I had a lot of fun writing this