Camera Shy (Louis Tomlinson) Book 5

Chapter 24

Lauren’s POV

“Hey Stan” I say as he walks down the stairs.  He’d stayed at Louis’ house since we’d gotten back so late last night.

“Hey” he replies with a smile, walking over and making himself a cup of tea. Stan seemed like a nice guy. From what I could tell, he was fairly care free and didn’t seem to give a shit what people thought of him. I could see why Louis and he got on so well. They had similar personalities.

“So what’s the plan for today?” I ask, stirring my spoon around the leftover milk from my cereal.

“Well I’m going back home,” he says with a shrug. “I dunno what you guys are doing.”

“What? Why?” I ask.

“I got work,” he says with a shrug.

“And so do we” Louis says, finally coming down the stairs.

“We?” I ask jokingly as he walks over and stands behind me, resting his hands on the counter, trapping me between him and it.

“Fine, me” he says with a grin. I return the smile and he pushes off and saunters over to the cabinet, grabbing his own bowl and box of cereal. I let my eyes trail over him while his back is turned, glancing over at Stan when he makes a coughing sound. He raises an eyebrow at me and I grin trying to play off my embarrassment at having been caught checking out Louis. It wasn’t even that I was embarrassed because Stan might suspect something. I had no problem admitting I’d grown fond of this Doncaster boy. I could trace it all back to that moment at the party when we’d danced. And I knew he liked me. I’d seen his reaction to last night’s performance. His eyes followed me like a lost puppy and he was always touching me, be it an arm around me or a hand on my back. I wasn’t that oblivious, I knew the signs. I’d always been fairly good with relationships. I found being straightforward was the best approach. Guys could be fairly thick so you have to tell them exactly what you’re thinking, but they’ll get it. I’d never had a problem with speaking my mind. The only relationship trouble I’d had was once Hunter became famous and I’d had to learn the hard way to make sure the guy liked me for me and not for what my brother could do for him.  But I knew nothing could become of Louis and I. We lived on separate continents. With our schedules, we’d only be able to see each other a couple weeks a year. What kind of relationship was that? Besides, I’m not even sure if him and his ex ever officially broke up.

“Lauren?” Louis asks, a curious expression on his face, and I realize I must have been spacing off.

“What? Sorry, didn’t catch that”

“I asked if you’re ready to go. We have to drop Stan off at the station and then I was hoping we could make a quick stop at Starbucks before heading to the studio. It’s a new one slightly further away.” He tells me and I give a small nod. The last day at the old studio, there had probably been a hundred or so fans. It wasn’t surprising they were switching locations. We drop off Stan and the two of them say goodbyes, Louis promising he’ll be home to visit soon, before he and I are off to another day at studio. I run into the Starbucks, having learned everyone’s orders because of the multiple coffee runs they’d had. When we finally get to the new building, I’m happy to see only a handful of people there. I knew later today the size will have more than doubled, but for now I was happy. The fact that there were so few people here has me so happy, I even raise my hand in a small wave at the people behind the gate as we walk in. Louis leads me down a new set of hallways until we finally get to the room.

“Hey y’all” I say with a smile seeing the whole group. Even Ed was there, working on a new song with Zayn and Harry.

“There’s our country rock star” Ed says with a grin, causing a blush to come to my face. Ed was great. He was quickly becoming one of my best friends, just by how comfortable he could make everyone. Louis’ expression turns sour and a wave of unease washes through me. Please tell me this wouldn’t be another grumpy day. I swear, he was PMS’ing or something.