Leila's P.O.V.

The night goes by fine and I wake up the next morning dreading going to the studio. The sun is trying to poke out from behind beautiful white, fluffy clouds, the opposite of how I’m feeling. At least the rain has stopped so I can walk to the studio again. I actually don’t mind walking. I can clear my head and watch the world around me come alive. I feel better after talking walks, and I arrive at the studio with a half-smile on my face.

My cast is still staring at me as I pass by, but I try to not let it disappoint me. If they believe those rumors, then they’re not my real friends for not coming up to me and asking me about it. I have my true friends: Alexa, Max, Niall, Madison, and my friends back home. Oh, my God, I just realized I haven’t talked to Cameron in weeks. He hasn’t even texted me or called me either. Awesome…

I enter in the dressing room and begin to get ready. Alexa’s already there, but since I’m in a little better mood, she doesn’t even remember anything about yesterday, or at least she doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, Leila. How was your night?” Alexa asks. Oops, I lied.

“Pretty good, nothing much happened,” I answer.

“You sure? You seemed a bit down yesterday.”

“I-I’m fine,” I respond, turning around quickly and pulling something out of my bag.

Spencer enters the room and instantly sees me, making a comment.

“Hey, Leila, everyone’s excited to meet your new boyfriend today,” Spencer scoffs. “Oh, wait, is he still your boyfriend? I heard some news yesterday about you.”

“Spencer, stop it,” Alexa voices. Spencer whips around to face her.

“Excuse me?” Spencer snaps.

“You heard me,” Alexa affirms.

“Whatever,” Spencer utters, dropping it and getting ready.

We get ready in silence, knowing that Spencer is in the room with us. As soon as I’m finished, I make my way to the set and try to focus. No one comes up to me, thankfully, so I run through in my mind where I’m supposed to be, what props I need, and, oh yeah, my lines.

The morning goes by smoothly as we film what we’ve been rehearsing. Halfway through, Niall has appeared and smiles at me when he sees me. A few people notice he’s here and makes some snotty comments at me, and I try to push them out and focus on the positivity. Once we’re released for lunch, the negativity takes over and I become quiet again. As I shove my stuff in my bag, I look over at Niall and he’s talking to a group of my cast. He doesn’t look too happy, but thanks them for explaining the situation to him and sees me watching him.

“Hey, everything okay?” I ask, gathering the rest of my stuff together.

“Yeah, there’s just something we need to talk about. Not alone, I’d like Max and Alexa with us,” Niall replies, helping me up.

“Okay…” I respond. We walk over to Max and Alexa and head out for something to eat. Just like last time, we decide to eat in the park, so we quickly get food and head to the park.

We lay out on the grass and chow on our food before Niall has the confidence to begin the conversation.

“I think all of you have heard the rumor going on,” he starts. We nod, and my stomach instantly sinks as I realize this is what he must have been talking about with that group.

“Before I go in depth about it, I just want to say, I don’t believe it, but I want to know for sure…” Niall continues, looking straight at me. I begin to get offended.

“Of course it’s not true! How could you even think that for a second?!” I shriek.

“Calm down, calm down! I just said I don’t believe it. I just wanted to confirm it so that we all know we can trust each other,” Niall answers. I inhale deeply as he goes on.

“Do any of you know who started it?”

Max and Alexa shake their heads “no”.

“Spencer,” I blurt out. My eyes grow wide as I realize I said it out loud. “Sorry, I think it was Spencer.”

Niall gives me a look to know that he definitely knows I’m right and it was Spencer.

“That bitch,” he utters.

“So what are we going to do?” Max questions.

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to her when we get back but I don’t think it’ll do anything,” Niall says.

We eat the rest of our lunch and head back to the studio, trying to make me feel better about the situation. As we enter in, everything seems normal and Niall searches for Spencer immediately. Max and Alexa go into the dressing rooms, but I’m curious for their conversation, so I stay hidden. I see Niall and Spencer talking, neither of them looking happy. Spencer drags her arm across his shoulder and her face turns into a puppy dog. I roll my eyes and focus on Niall who is desperately trying to get her arm off. Spencer’s expression turns into anger and she starts arguing with him. He walks away from her and the only thing I hear is:

“You’re making a big mistake, Niall!”

I’m hiding behind a fake tree and Niall walks right past me and down the hallway. Spencer watches him leave and struts past me to the dressing room. I wait about 20 seconds before emerging and entering into the dressing room, too.

“Where were you?” Spencer demands, whirling around.

“In the bathroom,” I lie, knowing that someone was going to ask me.

“There’s a bathroom right over there,” Spencer points out, looking at me confused.

“Uh, someone was in there before and I really had to go,” I stutter. I hadn’t thought that out.

“Hm, alright then,” Spencer gives up. She sits down in the makeup chair for Bella to get started.

We finish getting ready and go out there to start filming. Niall’s still there and we get the scenes that we need done for today. We’re released from set a little earlier than usual and as I pack up my stuff, Niall approaches me.

“Hey, you wouldn’t mind if I came over to your apartment tonight?” he asks.

“Um, sure,” I reply.

“You’ve just seemed really down and I want you to be happy,” he explains. Aww :)

“Sure, I don’t mind,” I respond, smiling.

We exit the studio and walk to my apartment. He makes jokes the entire time there and my stomach hurts from laughing too much. We enter in my apartment and he collapses on the couch right away.

“Are you tired?” I ask.

“A little,” Niall replies.

“And yet, I’m the one who’s actually been working today,” I remark, finding something to eat.

“Oh really now?” Niall responds.

“We are not going back to this,” I say, looking at him over the table.

“I didn’t say we were going to,” Niall replies.

I roll my eyes and take out the leftover spaghetti. I don’t really feel like making anything right now, so I warm it up, separate it into 2 bowls, and take it into the living room for us to eat. We finish it in about .2 seconds and I take our dirty bowls back to the sink. Because Niall’s here, I forget about loading them in the dishwasher. They can wait.

“So, what did you want to do?” I ask him, heading back in the living room and sitting on the couch.

“I don’t know, do you have any video games?” he questions.

“Yeah, I brought the Wii from home and I think I have Just Dance, if you don’t mind dancing,” I tell him.

“Challenge accepted,” Niall nods, smiling.

“Alrighty then!” I hook up the Wii and slide in Just Dance. I hand him a remote and turn on the TV, flipping it to the channel it has to be on to work. The game loads and soon we’re attempting to dance like the dudes on the game.

I win the first round, shoving it in Niall’s face, and he wins the second round.

“Ok, last round,” I say.

“Bring it on,” Niall challenges.

The third round ends with a close tie, but I beat him out just by a little bit.

“Yes!” I shout once the results show up.

“Lucky,” Niall says, sitting on the couch and smiling at me.

“I’m just that good,” I retort, exiting out of the round.

“I’ve gotta give you props,” Niall replies.

“Why thank you,” I act out, curtsying in his direction. I turn back around but my feet twist themselves weirdly and I fall back on the couch, awkwardly sprawled across Niall, my head resting on his lap.

“Hey…” I say.

“Hey,” he responds, smiling a little. He’s looking deep into my eyes, something he’s never really done before. My eyes begin to search his, too, and before I know it, he’s lowering his head. My heart pounds so hard I swear he can hear it, but as we close our eyes together, our lips softly touch. I can’t help it, he’s just too amazing. I can feel my face burning up as the kiss lingers on.

The door bursts open and we break out of the kiss, Niall helping me sit up as I realize Madison’s back.

“Hey, Madison,” I greet.

“Hey,” she replies, not even realizing Niall’s there.

“Hello, Madison,” Niall repeats in a sort of tone.

“Oh, my gosh, hi Niall, sorry!” she apologizes. “I’ve had a long day.”

“It’s okay, I’ve had a long week,” I answer.

“Come sit down, you look exhausted,” Niall says.

“Thanks,” Madison returns, sitting on the sofa. She relaxes into it and closes her eyes. “If I fall asleep on here, make sure you wake me up before you go to bed because I don’t want to sleep on this and wake up with my back hurting.”

Niall and I chuckle and smile at each other.

“I will,” I reply.

“Well, I better get going,” Niall says, standing up. He goes into the kitchen and grabs his sweatshirt.

“Wait!” I respond, jumping up and coming into the kitchen, too.

“What?” he speaks.

“The, uh, you know…” I begin.

“Only if you want to, I won’t pressure you into going out with me if you don’t want to,” he replies.

“I do want to,” I say. “You’re just….perfect.”

“Me, perfect?” Niall asks, pointing at himself. I nod.

“I’m far from perfect,” he responds.

“To me, you’re not,” I whisper. He looks at me and breaks into a huge smile.

“Thank you for everything,” I add, giving him a hug. He squeezes me into an even bigger hug, not ready to let go yet. After a few seconds, he finally does release me.

“Then it’s official,” he reveals. My insides are screaming with happiness. Finally something good is happening.

He leans down to kiss me one more time and this time I don’t hesitate. We pull away and I look into his eyes one more time before he turns and leaves. After all of this shit I’ve been put through, I’m glad there’s someone there that understands.

Notes

Sorry for the late update! I've had so many things going on this weekend, I have not had any time to post it!

Rachel :)