Chapter Nine

Mel POV

I awoke the next morning with a mop of curly hair in front of my face, and a heavy arm over my waist. Wait, what? I could see Elise snuggled up to a pillow (aww), and slowly turned my head to see a sleeping Tom Fletcher with his arms around me, holding me close to his chest. Well, fuck.

I had two options: try to move without waking Tom, or pretend to be asleep and wait for him to wake up and awkwardly remove himself from the situation. I decided to go with the second option, just hoping no one else (read: Dougie) would wake up before him and do something stupid. I settled to pretend to sleep and regulated my breathing so it would seem realistic. I was about to actually fall asleep when I heard it.

A camera shutter.

I shot up, growling at the face behind the phone, tackling Dougie to the ground and threatening him with grievous bodily harm if the image was not deleted. He only laughed, loudly and openly, making me angrier as I hit his arm trying to free the phone from his grasp. I grabbed it from him only to find that he had already sent it to the fucking cloud.

'You are ridiculous and I hate you.' I said in a monotone, walking towards the kitchen to make myself a coffee.

'Can you…' I heard him say as I walked away. Really?

'No.' I said maintaining the same monotone as previously, before leaving him behind in the lounge.

I reached for the coffee dispenser to make myself a cup, only to find a hand blocking my way.

'Sorry.' I hear, looking up to see Tom looking straight at me. I blushed. No matter how much I tried to deny my feelings for Tom, they always found a way to resurface.

'Its fine, Tom. Dougie was just a dick about it.' I said, smiling at him softly, placing my hand over his on the countertop. He tensed up as I did it, making me feel like I should pull away, but I didn't. 'Anyway, I feel like if either of us didn't want that, it wouldn't have happened.' I whispered, looking towards the ground. I didn't do this kind of stuff, I didn't do relationships. I was visibly nervous. His hand relaxed below mine, and I looked up at him, hopeful.

'Well, I know I definitely wanted it to happen, Mel. I think you know that.' He said, never letting his eyes divert themselves from mine. I grinned, tightening my grip on his hand. He returned both gestures. We both just kind of stood there for a minute, cherishing this moment between us. I think I could get used to this.

After our little moment in the kitchen, Tom and I had re-entered the lounge with a coffee each and were met with questioning looks from everyone but Elise. I smirked at her, sending the message she wanted to hear loud and clear, as Tom shrugged at the boys. We hadn't exactly come to a conclusion of what this was, just that we both wanted it to be something, so a shrug was pretty much the perfect way for him to explain it. We sat on the floor, in front of the TV.

'So, how about another horror movie, guys?' I said with another smirk, knowing the answer already. All but Dougie shook their heads no, not wanting to relive last night's experience. I, of course, ignored them, placing another of my favourites into the player. To be quite honest, it was more a 'mess with your head' type thriller than a horror, but they would react the same. The Fourth Kind was a movie that fucked everyone up.

There we all were, laying on the floor of our blanket fort watching scary movies, Elise and Danny sitting next to each other leaning against the back of the couch, covering each other's eyes, Doug and Harry chilling to the side of them, and Tom and I, sitting casually apart from the others, my hand in his as he squeezed every time he got a bit scared of the movie. I smiled, this was really the perfect moment.

After the movie finished, we had all decided on going out for lunch at Cellar Door. We all ordered our usual, coffee and a burger of some sort, with Elise instead ordering a chocolate milkshake with her burger. I grinned, being reminded of her coming into my old work and always, without fail, ordering a large chocolate milkshake. We talked shit and ate our food, finally getting the boys off the topic of the new record.

After a few hours the place was closing up, and we all went our separate ways. Danny calling a cab as I called the Chinese takeaway near our house to order a takeaway to pick up on the way home. As soon as we were both off our phones and in our cab, Danny just stared at me.

'Yes?' I asked, even though I knew what he wanted.

'I thought you didn't want anything with him?' He asked seriously.

'I… I don't know what I want if I'm honest. But I, I know I want something. If that makes any sense.' I said, trying to explain what I didn't even know myself. He nodded, obviously mulling it over in his head before replying.

'Well, I know I should be saying this to him, and I probably will next time I see him, but he is a bit fragile right now and you know that. Be careful, for both of your sakes.' I nodded, a shy smile appearing on my face.

'Well it definitely won't be rushed so there's less risk in that way I suppose. I don't know what I'm doing, if I'm honest. I don't usually do the whole relationship thing.' I said, staring at Danny as I said it. He nodded again,

'Well, yeah. There's that, and Tom just got out of a very serious, long term relationship. As I said, careful. Please. I can't deal with a heart broken sister and a heart broken best friend.' He said with a smile and I grinned. This was the first time Danny had been a real overprotective brother and although I thought I would hate it, I kind of like it.

'I can only try.' I sighed, and we sat in silence for the rest of the trip home.

Tom POV

I don't know how long I'd been sitting here, my finger hovering over Giovannas contact in my phone. The last time we had spoken had been the couch incident, and I didn't know how I felt about that. Should we have ended things on a better note? It's hard to end on a good note when you propose and she reacts by breaking up with you, but we could have definitely ended on a better note than that. We could have at least said 'goodbye'.

I shouldn't even be thinking about her. It's over, and I thought I had moved on. The situation I was in with Mel had made me think about Gi again, though. I know Mel generally isn't the type for serious commitment, and fair enough, she was still young. But I had been in a serious relationship since my teens, I don't know how to be any other way. That was made obvious by my failed attempt at 'slutting it up'. I couldn't help but question whether this would work out, or whether Mel would get bored and leave me, just like Gi did. I was taking a risk with my heart, and in the state it was in right now, I don't know if I can afford to.

I sighed audibly as I looked one last time and the contact name in my phone and made my decision. With a quick tap, the contact was deleted.

I was seated at my kitchen table with a coffee in one hand and my phone in the other, scrolling through twitter, when my phone rang.

'Hello?' I said after swallowing my coffee.

'Hey, Tom. Uh, did you wanna go get a coffee or something?' Mel asked, and she sounded… strangely serious.

'Yeah, ok. Same place as always?' I asked, trying not to be worried by her serious tone. We decided on our regular place in around twenty minutes, and ended the call. I sighed. Well, here it was. It was over before it began.

I quickly changed into some decent clothes, deciding on a pair of black jeans and a simple button up top, and left for the café. It would take me around ten minutes to get there, but I knew Mel would have already been ready and as always, would be early. I picked at my nail beds nervously as I sat in a booth towards the back corner, waiting for Mel to show up.

She walked in soon after, and fuck, did she look amazing. She was wearing a simple black shift style dress, along with black tights and a black scarf, and heeled boots. Of course she had to look great when she was obviously about to end it.

She waved at me, stopping at the counter on the way past to order our coffees. I need to give her money for those.

'Hey, Tom.' She greeted me with a smile as she sat down and placed our number on the table. 'Long Black, correct?' she added with a grin and I nodded, with a weak smile. Her face fell, a look of worry replacing her smile.

'Is everything okay, Tom? You look upset.' She said, grabbing my hand from across the table and lacing our fingers together. I shook my head, smiling at the gesture.

'I'm fine. What did you want to talk about?' I asked, nodding at the waitress as she placed our coffees on the table. Mel grinned, trying to hold in her laughter at the sight before us: the waitress from the club was glaring at our hands so hard that she could probably burn a hole in them. I grinned, shadowing Mels attempts to hold in my laughter and promptly failing. That was all the encouragement Mel needed to do the same, and soon we were laughing so hard we were crying as the waitress got tired of glaring at us and huffed before walking away. As we calmed down, I tightened my grip on Mels hand, smiling at her as I asked my previous question again.

'Um, nothing in particular. I just wanted to grab a coffee with my kind-of-boyfriend.' She replied with a massive grin and I unconsciously let out a sigh of relief. She giggled, taking a sip of her latte and lightly rubbing my thumb with hers. 'Why, were you worried I was gonna dump you or something?' she said, obviously joking, I forced a smile and shook my head.

'No, was just curious why my kind-of-girlfriend sounded so serious on the phone.' I replied with a smirk, and she giggled yet again. She smiled weakly and looked into her coffee, clearly pondering something important. I looked at her inquisitively, and after a few minutes she seemed to get the picture.

'Uh, Dannys mu- my mum, I guess, is coming round tonight and I was just really nervous and thought seeing you would make me feel a bit better.' She said quickly, barely looking up from her coffee. I smiled, placing my hand over hers and squeezing.

'Your mum is lovely, and she will love you. Is Vicki coming aswell?' She nodded, and I grinned. 'Vicki will be so fucking excited to have a sister. Be prepared to be treated like your life is a slumber party.' I said, only half joking, and Mel laughed. She finally looked up from her coffee and grinned at me.

'Thankyou.' She said with yet another smile.