As predicted it went even worse than Niall had expected and defiantly not how Louis had planned for things to turn out. He had certainly not expected his laptop to end on the floor, the screen cracked. He had not expected for Niall to cry and yell that he hated them.
Liam kind of had. Of course it had been a bad idea to list down all the negative sides of Zayn – which he might say is a lot – and what probably tipped Niall over the edge was when Louis showed him all the girls he had slept with; Liam liked to point out it had been more than 20 slides.
Now here he was standing stiffly and guilty staring at Niall who was yelling at them to leave. Louis was standing next to him, cradling his destroyed laptop to his chest; his eyes wide with horror.
“You’re supposed to support me!” Niall cried through the tears and Liam wanted to comfort him but was nailed to the ground. “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore! Get the fuck out!”
His yelling reached all the way down the kitchen where his mother was, because seconds later she barged through the door. She took one look between them, before her eyes hardened. Louis and Liam gulped; Niall was an only child so his mother was very overprotective of him. She walked over, and Niall allowed her to draw him close.
“I think it’s best you leave,” She said and forced a stiff smile. Louis and Liam nodded, before scurrying out of the room. Their stomach twisted as they heard Niall tell his mother he hated them; well, it can be safely said they failed epically.
….
The next morning, Niall kissed Zayn and held him tight, telling himself that this was right; this was what he wanted. If his friends didn’t accept his choice, then maybe they had never been friends to begin with. “You can eat lunch with me,” Zayn had breathed against his lips and Niall had taken him up for on the offer.
He had ignored Harry’s deeply hurt look when he’d pointedly ignored him in the hall, and he hadn’t taken his usual seat between Liam and Hannah in the classes. It was obvious things were serious. Louis had tried to talk to him, but he’d ignored any approach by the older boy. He would never forgive him for showing him all those girls Zayn had slept with, because it had hurt him deeper than he would admit.
Once it reached lunch, Zayn was waiting for him in front of the entrance to the cafeteria. Some other girl was hanging all over him and Niall’s jaw clenched tightly as he remembered all the girls Louis had ranted off. Zayn caught sight of him and pointedly ignoring the girl, he smirked at him. The girl followed his gaze and glared at Niall; the blonde was a little intimidated by her and tried to avoid her eyes. When he reached Zayn he realized it was the first time they were seen together.
“Come on,” Zayn said and waved him along. Niall stiffly ignored all the eyes on him and he knew they were probably wondering what he was doing with Zayn; he really hoped they didn’t find out. Niall’s chest tightened as his eyes automatically travelled to his usual table. All his friends were sitting there looking at him. Harry was staring at him with a deeply hurt look, and he hurried to look away.
They neared Zayn’s usual table, and the nervousness in Niall only increased; Zayn’s friends looked a little intimidating and weird. The only girl at the table had fiery red hair with side-swept bangs, a lip ring and violet contacts; she looked a little scary. Then there was a guy with a small white puppy in his lap; he was feeding him his lunch and Niall wondered how he’d sneaked it into school. He had shaggy brown hair, chestnut brown eyes and looked a little feral. The last guy sitting at the table had ash-toned brown hair with long bangs falling over his unsettling grey eyes.
Niall was anything but comfortable when Zayn pushed him next to the grey-eyed boy, and he wished he could be invisible at will when they all turned their curious eyes on him.
“Who’s that, Zayn?” The shaggy-haired brunette inquired with a grin and even the puppy was staring at Niall. “Your new boytoy?” Niall winced.
“He’s cute,” The boy next to him hummed, and Niall glanced nervously at him; he wished he hadn’t. The guy was looking him up and down while biting down his lip and his leery grey eyes made Niall feel naked. He had a lollipop between his long fingers and Niall looked away when he brought it to his mouth, sending a suggestive wink towards him.
“Yeah, he’s adorable,” The girl gushed and smiled sickly-sweetly at Niall before popping the gum she’d been chewing on. “What is he doing with the likes of you?”
Zayn didn’t say anything and just sent them a glare that quickly silenced them. “Hi kiddo, my name is Chad,” The brunette said and offered his hand to Niall. Niall glanced nervously at Zayn, before taking his hand. “Uh… I’m Niall,” He said feeling a little more than awkward.
“Aw, he’s Irish,” The girl’s interest seemed to have perked as she introduced herself; “My name is Cassandra. You can call me Cass; call me Sandra and I’ll skin you alive.” Niall nodded mutely, his eyes a little wide. He jumped a little startled when the puppy suddenly jumped into his lap and was licking all over his face.
“He likes you,” Chad smiled widely. “He’s name is Cotton.” Niall managed to somehow fend off the dog and smiled weakly. “Uh… okay.” The puppy was actually cute and it gave him one last lick before jumping back into Chad’s lap.
“I’m Jerry, “As the guy next to him said that, he had brought his mouth close to Niall’s ear and the blonde shuddered. This guy was sending off bad vibes and making him incredibly uncomfortable. He scooted away, almost pressing into Zayn’s side.
“Niall will be eating lunch with us,” Zayn announced and the way he said it didn’t leave room for objections. The other’s didn’t seem to mind and shrugged as they resumed to eating their lunch., but Niall wasn’t so sure he really wanted to eat lunch with them anymore. Chad seemed nice – ignoring his comment about him being Zayn’s ‘boytoy’ – although a little weird and Cassandra was a little scary, but wasn’t all girls that? It was Jerry that was rubbing Niall the wrong way.
Speaking about rubbing him the wrong way, what was his hand doing on his thigh? Niall stiffened when he felt the weight on his thigh and his eyes snapped down to see a large hand. His gaze rose as he stared into Jerry’s smirking face. Niall didn’t know if Zayn’s friends just didn’t have any boundaries, but this was just too creepy. It didn’t get any better when his hand continued upwards. “Zayn,” Niall whispered urgently in fear, but when Zayn turned to look questioningly at him, Jerry had removed his hand.
Zayn was staring questioningly at him and Niall just shook his head. He couldn’t help himself when he interlaced his fingers with Zayn’s under the table and held on tightly. Zayn just gave him an amused smile, before continuing his lunch. He glanced at Jerry and the guy just sent him a small smirk.
Niall sent a longing look towards his friends’ table, and he felt a little irrelevant when he saw them carrying on without him.
His heart stung; had he really lost them forever?
Niall’s phone was exploding with text message and voice-mails. He admitted he was more than relieved that his friends hadn’t just moved on without him. Most of them was from Liam and Louis, but there were some from the girls as well and then a couple from Harry. Niall went straight to listen to the ones from Harry.
“Hey Niall… I just wanted to say… that erm… I am sorry? …. I never lied… when I said I didn’t hated you and… I didn’t mean to yell at you… at lunch… uhm… I am just… worried about you… I feel kind of awkward right now… I’d much rather talk to you… in person… call me back… maybe?”
