After the radio interview, we met up with El and decided to go out for some lunch. We found this cute little restaurant to eat at that wasn’t very far from the radio station, and by the time we left it was about a quarter past 1, so we were getting hungry. Since I don’t have the currency that they have here, Harry ended up paying for our meals.

Once I somehow get the money to pay him back, I will. We all sat around each other in the dining room, chatting about the surprise and small events that had happened during our time apart. Harry of course was sitting to my right, his arms making its way around my waist, tugging me closer to him. I smiled to myself at how clingy he has become.

“How long are you going to be here for?” Zayn asked excitedly. I place my sandwich down and took a sip of my soda before answering.

“I think for a week. Or was it two weeks... What was it Lou?” I looked across from me and addressed him. He held up two fingers, as his mouth was full of food. “Yeah, two weeks.” I smile.

“Alright! Two weeks of fun and adventure!” Niall cheers.

“When did you get here?” Zayn asks again.

“Yesterday. Louis picked me up from the airport. We weren’t even spotted, which was great.” I smile at the memory of not seeing any paps and us skipping to the van with Paul carrying the luggage behind us. Of course I felt bad and helped carry them up to my room.

“How come I never get my thanks?” Louis whines, hitting his fists against the table. We laugh and shake our heads at him.

“Thank you Lou.” Harry happily says, resting his head against my shoulder. Louis nods with a smile. Harry was the first to finish his meal, so he is just watching us all eat. I couldn’t help but run my hand through his hair, the soft texture becoming more familiar to my senses. I hear him sigh as I continue to massage his head.

“How’s Chasity?” Niall suddenly asks me, smiling.

“She’s good. Oh, wait!” I remember that before I came she wanted me to do something, giving me a note. Harry removes himself from me only slightly, giving me enough room to reach into my back pocket. I pull out her letter and handed it to Niall, who was already grinning from ear to ear.

“Ooh, what does it say?” Louis questions giddly. Niall closes the note and glares at him.

“Back off, the note is mine, not yours!” He says in a heavier Irish accent. Louis’ hands went up in surrender and leaned away. “The note even smells like her.” He calmly says as he folds it up and places it in his pocket. “Thank you.” He thanks me. I smile and nod.

“Of course.”

“So, who has plans for today? Movie night? Game night?” Liam asked us indirectly.

“I have a better idea.” Eleanor cuts in, standing up and fishing her jacket for something. We all watch her as she gets up and out of her seat, Louis is immediately with the pouty face. She comes over to me and removes Harry from me and stands me up as well. “Girls Night.” She finally says with a smile. The guys begin to protest.

“That’s no fair!” Niall complains. “You just met her today, you can’t take her from us like this.”

“He’s got a point.” Liam agrees. Soon all the guys pout.

“Another reason why there should be a girls night out. We are out-numbered here.” She sticks out her tongue at Niall.

“But she’s here for me.” Harry whines, tugging me back down in my seat and wrapping his arms around my waist tightly, placing his head back where it was.

“It’s called sharing, Harry.” She shakes her head.

“I don’t want to share her. Besides, I don’t think she’s ready for your kind of Girls Night Out, El.” He whispers at the end. What’s that supposed to mean?

“You went a month without her, another day shouldn’t be a problem. She’s in good hands.” She counters as she pulls me up again and starts dragging me to the door. Honestly, I’m finding this hilarious and sweet, I haven’t been fought over in, well, ever…

“Bye guys! See you later!” I try calling out to them, but El stops me.

“Tomorrow, we are having a sleepover!” She shouts out, not caring that she was receiving looks from other patrons in the restaurant. The guys begin to shout out in protest again, but we were already out the door, laughing our heads off.

“They are going to be so pissed tomorrow, El.” I giggle as we call for a cab.

“Nah. They will get over it.” She shrugs it off. A cab pulls over and stops for us, letting us climb in. We both hop in the back. Once I closed the door behind me, I immediately saw Harry’s face and hands against the window, talking to the guys. Soon they were all doing the same thing, making me laugh. I point it out to El and she shakes her head.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. They will get over it.” She says again. Jessica? The driver looks back at us. His appearance making him an obvious smoker.

“Where to, ladies?” He asks with a husky voice. El gives him the directions and pays up front. We pull away from the sidewalk and watch the guys frown at us, soon sitting back down.

“Yeah. They will get over it. I used to do it all the time with Pear and Jess, but they didn’t mind as much.” My eyes widened at the name.

“Jess?” I repeated. She looks at me, obviously mentioning her name around me seemed to create a spark in people.

“Yeah, she was Harry’s ex…” She mumbled, looking away from me.

“I heard..” I mutter, getting a bit uncomfortable

“But!” She suddenly says, getting happy again. I swear, she can’t ever get sad or upset for a minute. “She was a very talkative, annoying person. You don’t have to worry about comparing yourself to her. Harry definitely made a huge upgrade. Trust me.” I roll my eyes with a small smile, shrugging off her compliment.

“Alright.”

“Perrie does want to meet you by the way.” She suddenly mentions.

“Really?” I asked. She knows about me? Well. I would guess.

“Yeah. We can actually skype her tonight if I recall from previous messages. For now, we are doing some shopping because I feel like we need to do some more bonding.” She says, getting very excited as we pull up to a mall. A large mall.

“You are holding my hand. I feel like I will get lost in there, if you don’t.” I say in pure seriousness as we got out and thanked the driver. The fact that there were a lot of people here as well didn’t help the situation either. El just laughs at me and drag us inside.

---

Many hours of shopping and bonding… Chasity and I don’t even do this much shopping... I have never carried so many bags in my life, this is ridiculous.

“Ellll…” I whined, slowing down behind her. She stops and turns.

“What’s wrong, hun?” She asks, perfectly strutting back to me once I made a complete stop with all of her bags on her arms.

“Can we take a break? For a day? Or two? I’m getting tired and it’s already 6 pm.” I whine, looking down at my watch for confirmation.

“Alright, we can head back to the guys. I see what Harry means now.” She laughs softly. “Just need to make one last stop at Forever 21. Promise, it will be quick.” She bargains. I nod, knowing that I can go rest soon.

We step into Forever 21, and immediately I don’t feel well. I don’t shop at these kinds of stores. I feel so out of place whenever I step in here. Chasity does try to drag me into one of these before, but we ended up not buying anything because I ‘excessive whines to leave the store’. I find some place to sit and rest my feet. I set all of my bags beside me and pull out my phone from my purse. The moment I turn it on it gets bombarded with messages from the last couple hours. Scrolling through them I couldn’t help but smile bigger after every one of them.

From: Curls:
I miss you. xx

From: Curls:
Tell El that this isn’t fair. xx

From: Curls:
Love, when are you coming back? xx

From: Curls:Are you two alright? xx

From: Curls:
If anything happens, paps, fans, just text me. Or call me. xx

From: Curls:
Okay? xx

From: Curls:
Your lack of response is worrying me. I know you have your phone. xx

From: Curls:
The guys and I want you back here. xx

From: Curls:
How much time do you two need to bond?! Where’s my bonding time?! xx

I roll my eyes with a smile and continue scrolling down the messages, until I see the most recent ones which were from an hour ago.

From: Curls:
Just text me when you guys are done. I will come pick you guys up. No cab! xx

From: Curls:
Tommo here, I’m confiscating Harry’s phone until your return. You can come by cab unless you REALLY need us to pick you up. We will probably go around some places even. El knows the drill, so you shouldn’t worry about anything happening. See you whenever xP

I started to laugh loudly, obviously receiving many confused glares from the other customers. Covering my mouth with one hand, I begin to type my response.

To: Curls:
Lol, okay. Should be done in a bit, anyway. See you soon!

I press send, just as Eleanor returns to me.

“Hey, which color do you like better?” She asks, holding up two different colored bras, one that was a navy blue, and the other was pure black. I look between them, baffled myself.

“When in doubt, go with black.” I shrug. She looks at me for a moment before agreeing and walking back to the racks to put the navy one back. Eventually, she finishes her shopping and pays for it, finally letting us leave. The moment we leave the store and out of the mall was when the fans and paps were really showing up, but thankfully keeping their distance.

“Don’t worry. Just ignore them. Hopefully they will leave us alone.”

She puts on her sunglasses that we bought and walked to the sidewalk to hail a cab. I reach in one of the bags on my arms and pull out one of the ones that I got as well, that she paid for since I still don’t have the currency, and put them on. There were no cabs in sight, so we decided to take a short walk until we find one. We create some small talk to pass the time, how are lives are back in our different lives. I was in the middle of explaining Chasity when we accidentally bumped into someone.

“Move it.” He growled, shoving our bags to the floor and running away.

“Would it kill you to say please…” I mumble, bending down to pick up the discarded bags. Eleanor agrees as she bends down with me. Thankfully nothing spilled out. A couple seconds later we heard multiple pairs of feet running towards us, soon pushing us down to the ground. We both shrieked as we collided with the ground.

“Hey! What’s the big deal?!” Eleanor shouts at the men running away. One of them stopped at turned to us. His appearance made me want to run and hide. Many tattoos were covering his bare, muscled arms, about 6’3, 22 years old or so, and was very intimidating.

“El,” I start, but she doesn’t listen to me as she stands up, dusting herself off.

“What was that for? I demand that you apologize to us right now.” She continues as he comes closer, two of his guys right came back and stood behind him.

“El... It’s okay.” I try to reason with her.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you two?” He says in a surprisingly calm and soft voice, slowly towering El and I as he steps closer.

“Yes, you did. What you did was quite rude, might I add.” She says, crossing her arms in front of her. He looks down at her, then at me. The icy blue eyes sends chills down my spine, forcing me to stand.

“Honestly, its alright,”

“No, it isn’t. What he did was rude and he needs to apologize.” She cuts me off. He looks between us and smirks.

“Alright. How about I treat you to something, does that sounds like a plan?” He bargains.

“Define your treat.” She air quotes him. I tug on her arm back slightly.

“El, we need to go. It’s okay, honest.” I whisper in her ear, but she brushes me off.

“Some food, a drink maybe?” He says, pointing to the bar not that far away. Oh no.

“Hmm. Sure.” She agrees. I look at her in shock.

“El!” I hiss, pulling her back completely. “We can’t!” She smiles.

“Don’t worry.” She smiles. No way. “Trust me.” She’s crazy. “Okay, but you have to carry our stuff. Your friends can help too.” She says, pointing to the couple guys that were slowly trailing away.

“Deal.” He smiles, snapping his fingers. I watch in amazement at how quickly the guys behind him pick up our stuff.

“El…” I whisper to her as we are now forced to follow the men to the bar.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t feel too comfortable about this…” I admit. She just smiles at me and coos.

“Don’t worry.” She says for the ump-teenth time. “I know these guys, anyway.” I look at her confused.

“So you’ve done this before?” I question. She nods. “And does Louis know?” She nods again.

“They first offered when they recognized Louis.” She explains and I just nod. “Of course, Louis wanted to be the bigger man and deny his offer, but I begged him and, well…” She trails off, giving me the hint. My eyes widened.

“Oh… Okay.” I say, and she blushes with embarrassment. We walk in and the bar was full of people.

“I’m Charles.” The guy suddenly introduces himself, extending his hand to me.

“Amber.” I smile softly, shaking his hand. He nods and walks up to the bartender. I follow El to an empty booth, sliding in to one side and seeing the guys drop our stuff just barely underneath the table and walking away.

“I should probably tell Harry that I’m not actually getting back yet.” I say as I pull out my phone. Putting in the pass code, I decide to call him. I call his number and listen to the phone ring. No answer. Hmm. I redial and still no answer. Oh, right. Louis confiscated it. I scroll down to Louis’ contact and call him. No answer either. “Hey El, can you call the guys and let them know, at least?” I tugged on her sleeve.

“Sure. Oh, I have an idea.” She pulls out her phone and dials her lover.

“Are they coming?” I ask and she silently nods as her phone rings.

“Hey sweetie. … Yeah we are okay. … Yeah, everything went perfectly.” She smiles at me. “No, that’s actually why I’m calling. Amber and I are with Charles, eating. … Yeah. … Yeah, and I wanted to see if you guys wanted to come and join us. … Alright. Sounds good. Yeah. … The same place. … Okay, see you soon! Love you babe. … Bye.” She hangs up the phone and places it back in her pocket. “The guys are going to be here in about 10-15 minutes. We chat for a moment more until a feeling was building up inside.

“Alright. Hey, where’s the bathroom?” I ask, standing up from my seat as my desire to use the ladies room suddenly rose.

“Right over there.” She points me in the general direction of the bathroom. I thank her and walk quickly but somewhat gracefully, hoping that I can go and get out before Harry and the others get here.

I find the ladies room and step inside, finding an empty stall and doing my business. After finishing up I flush and walk to the sink to wash my hands. Taking the bubbly soap in my palm of my hand, I begin washing my hands. Something moved from the corner of my eye, making me look up, looking straight into my reflection, unprepared to see the man standing behind me. I jumped and gasped loudly, quickly turning around to make sure that it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. He was real.

“Hello, beautiful. You seem new here. First time?” He asks me in a low voice. I gulp and silently nod.

“You do understand that this is the ladies room, yes?” I ask him, not liking the situation. He nods.

“I’m willing to break the rules for a beauty like yourself.” He says, looking at me up and down. As I stared at him more and more confused, I recognize him as one of the people that were in that group that pushed us down earlier, before we met Charles.

“Sure.” I look away, walking to the air dryer and drying off my hands.

The loud noise of the blower prevented me from hearing his footsteps coming close to me, making me unaware of his close proximity. I felt his hands caress my waist, quickly moving to my bottom, instantly making me scream. I don’t like this. He grabs me by my wrists and pin me down to the wall, the dryer turning itself off automatically.

“Amber?! Is that you in there?” I hear my favorite voice say through the door, worried.

“So, Amber huh?” He whispers in my ear, sending chills down my spine. “What a wonderful name.” He presses himself against me, leaving no air in my lungs.

“Babe? You okay?” He calls out.

“Oh, babe. You are already taken, I see." He releases my wrists and wraps his arms around my waist. "You wouldn’t tell anyone that I was here, right? Maybe we can meet up again some time if you aren't happy with him.” The man tells me. I found the strength to push him back and kick him in the shin before bursting through the door, immediately seeing the look on Harry’s face as he sees my condition and the man walking away from the bathroom.

Notes