MASTERMIND - H.S

Chapter 7

*• February 2013 •*
- London, UK -
~< Everything's Better In London >~

THERE WAS NO WARMER PLACE THAN HARRY'S ARMS, which is where Addie found herself once again.

She had a hug that lasted exactly three seconds- she'd counted- and then the squeeze of her arm before he was moving away, for Louis to take his turn hugging her.

Addie knew that if they were in private, away from the prying eyes of people with cameras, they would've held each other more than three bare seconds.

But that wasn't their reality. They were on a red carpet, wearing overpriced clothes, in front of a camera and a woman asking questions.

They didn't get the luxury of normalcy.

"You look gorgeous," Louis told her, giving her that soft little smile he always did when he was being honest.

Addie found comfort in his smile the same way you find comfort in a mother's hug, in the smell of a perfume you wore in middle school, the same way you find comfort in being home after a long day.

After exchanging hugs with the rest of the boys, Addie found herself standing in between Louis and Harry. The two had finally managed to get mostly comfortable around each other after the breakup.

Louis didn't talk much about his feelings, no matter how hard Addie tried to get him to open up and to talk to her about how he felt. She knew their breakup had hit him hard, but he refused to talk about it.

(It had resulted in another fight in which they didn't talk for almost two weeks, before Louis broke first and apologized.)

Louis gave her a side-hug, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, and she placed her arm around his waist.

Let them say what they want, but Addie wanted to hug her best friend. She wanted that comfort after feeling so lonely for too long.

"Now, both the boys and you will be performing. Are you excited?" The interviewer asked, her voice falsely bubbly and high-pitched.

Addie smiled, squeezing her hand around Louis' waist. "Yeah, excited, nervous, I'm feeling everything today."

"Are you feeling romance?" She asked, glancing at Louis' and Addie's closeness.

Addie kept smiling, ignoring the shouting from photographers held back by the barricade. She didn't need to listen to know they would be saying horrible things about her.

"Nope, just feeling the friendship."

"Friends?" Louis questioned, glancing down at Addie. "No, we're family."

Addie's heart swelled, her grin growing impossibly bigger, and Louis squeezed her shoulder.

"I love you two and your friendship. How did you become so close? Was it instant or did it take time?"

"I think we just have personalities that compliment each other, and since the first time we met, we started talking, and kind of realized that," Addie explained, while Louis fiddled with her golden belt. "We work with the same record label, we're doing a lot of the same thing and it was just kind of an inevitable thing, I guess."