Settle Down with Me: Chapter 26

LIAM'S POV:

       "You've got ten minutes" I flinched at how sad those words made me, she was mad at me- it was real now. I'm not angry with Niall for kidnapping me; she and I had to talk eventually- might as well do the hard part now.

"Well I don't really know where to start" I said scratching my neck.

"I know where" She said as she finally looked me in the eye.

"First of all, if you had an issue with me going to that wedding you should have told me because I asked multiple times if you were okay with it. Secondly, Harry is my best friend and I haven't done anything with him or said anything that would lead to him thinking there was something going on between us. If you are upset about something then say it to me, don't just hide it away until you get drunk and scream at me in your backyard" She snapped, taking a deep breath.

"I didn't want to seem possessive and crazy, like I couldn't trust you around my friends" I said in a quiet voice.

"Well obviously you can't" She replied.

"Yes I can, that's the weird part. I trust you around Harry- but everyone else seems to think you two are so good together and seeing those text messages set me off" I explained, trying to grab her hands but she pulled away from me again.

"Who cares what some random person reading a magazine thinks Liam?" She sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

"I shouldn't but I did. I know that you don't have anything going on with Harry, and I know that you would never cheat on me or keep secrets. I am so sorry that I yelled at you- I never thought I ever would and I can't tell you how bad I feel about it" I said with a tight throat.

"Why did you do it then?" She asked quietly, scooting closer to me on the bed.

"Because I was scared of losing you" I gave her a half smile.

"You're not going to lose me, especially not to one of your friends" She said staring down at the bed.

"Well I didn't know that yesterday, and I know I did it wrong but sometimes I'm just not good at getting things off my chest" I admitted, she nodded with pursed lips and remained quiet.

"I didn't sleep at all last night" I said, breaking the silence.

"Me either" She sighed.

"Bed felt empty without you in it"

"Yeah, work was rough too"

"I'm so sorry Emily, you have no idea how much I want to lean over and kiss you right now to make you feel better and make everything perfect again. I would take back everything I said a million times if I could" I said seriously, causing her to look up at me.

"I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have yelled at you when you were intoxicated" She whispered.

"Don't apologize- for anything. I am in the wrong here, and I openly admit it. I am an asshole"

"Kinda" She said with a tiny laugh, I laughed too and stared at her brown eyes, they still looked sad.

"Can I at least have a hug?" I asked shyly, preying she wouldn't turn me down. She scooted onto my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck, I gripped her waist as tight as I could and remembered what it felt like to have her close to me again. It was the nicest feeling in the world.

"I'm not going to stop being his friend" She said into my shoulder.

"I don't want you to stop" I told her honestly.

"And I'm still going to go around with Louis every Wednesday" She said seriously.

"Good" I agreed.

"But I did miss you a lot" She said, her voice breaking slightly.

"I'm so sorry" I whispered. She pulled away to look at me and gave me a small smile.

"No more" She said before attaching her lips to mine. I kissed her back and sighed happily as her tiny lips moved with mine. I opened my eyes when she pulled away from me again and I wrapped her in another tight hug, my hand resting in her hair.

       Harry and I hadn't spoken in two days; we barely acknowledged each other unless we were at work. I had a sick feeling in my stomach every time he breezed past me with a sad half smile. I knew that I had to fix things, he was one of my best friends but I was still sensitive to the texts he had sent. Emily and I were official, we had been for a while and he was out of line.

       I tried to compose my thoughts as I made my way up to Harry and Louis' flat; I climbed the familiar stairs and let myself inside. I found Louis on the couch and waved happily, pointing towards Harry's room, he gave me a simple nod and returned to watching his television show. I knocked on his bedroom door and stuck my head inside the room.

"Hey mate" I said quietly, he looked up from his phone and waved me inside, placing the device on his bed.

"If you're here to hit me again could you wait till after our photo shoot?" He asked with a smug smile.

"I'm not going to hit you" I said seriously as I sat on the bed across from him. He nodded and stared at me with pursed lips.

"Did you talk to her yet?" He asked, avoiding my eyes.

"Yeah, we're alright" I said with a small smile.

"Good, that's good" He said before clearing his throat.

"Look Liam I'm sorry, I really mean it man. I was a complete twat for texting her like that- I wasn't thinking, honestly I didn't even remember what I said when you were yelling at me" He said quickly.

"I know you wouldn't have done it on purpose"

"I really wouldn't, there is no secret that she and I are close and I care for her but not in the way she needs. I think you are the best thing for her, truly I do. I mean I think she's smoking hot, and so does everyone else but I would never try and take her away from you" He said, his eyes going extremely wide.

"Thank you" I said seriously with a small smile.

"I just don't want you to hate me mate, couldn't stand it" He joked, punching me in the arm.

"I could never hate you Haz, you know that" I shook my head.

"So we're alright then?" He asked nervously, his eyes flashing all over the room.

"For sure- but do me favour" I started; he nodded yes quickly and waited for me to continue.

"Next time you get drunk, text Lou" I joked, he laughed and nodded yes again.  I held my hand out for him to shake but he pulled me into a tight hug. I hugged him back and clapped his back before pulling away and walking off the bed.

"She hates me, doesn't she?" He asked with sad eyes.

"Don't think so, you should probably talk to her though" I said sympathetically before slipping out of his room and walking back down to my part of the complex. Everything in my life felt well now, everything was right again.
     
                                                        ***

       "That looks nasty mate" Louis grimaced as we all stood around Harry. He had red spots all over his face and whole body; he was constantly scratching himself and complaining of the irritation.

"You can't go out looking like that" Niall said uneasily.

"Really Niall? That's a bloody shame; I was hoping to go do a photo-op with the pap of the week!" Harry sneered, causing Zayn to laugh quietly.

"What did the doctor say exactly?" I asked.

"Chicken pox" Harry said with a sigh.

"Don't you get those as a kid?" Zayn asked the group, we all nodded- everyone in the band had had them, except Harry apparently.

"Well lucky old Haz gets them at eighteen" He huffed before scratching his arms.

"Do you want us to get you anything while we're gone?" I asked.

"New skin please! And just tell people I'm doing family stuff or something" He suggested.

"Feel better mate, won't be the same without ya" Zayn said as he slapped Harry's leg causing him to wince and howl.

"Twat" He growled before waving goodbye to the rest of us as we filed out of his room and down to the driveway. I pulled my phone out of my pocket before climbing into the car beside Zayn. I dialed the number and waited for someone to pick up.

"Hello?" The voice said happily.

"Fancy doing me a favour?" I asked nicely, high fiving Niall quickly.

EMILY'S POV:

       I huffed and puffed as I made my way to the store. I walked through the aisles and started to grab almost everything in the pharmacy aisle. I wasn't happy with my new plans for tonight, but it was necessary. I inspected the different lotions quickly and placed a few different types in my basket before buying a big bag of oatmeal, some chocolate and a pair of finger gloves before checking out at the till. The worker gave me a strange look which I returned with a tight smile.

"Don't ask" I said nicely as she handed me my receipt and sending me on my way.

       Pulling my spare key out of my coat pocket was not very easy with arms full of supplies; once I finally managed to get inside I climbed the set of stairs and stopped in front of the familiar door- knocking twice. I tapped my feet impatiently as I heard someone rustling around inside the room before Harry's curly hair and bare chest opened the door for me. His eyes tripled in size, we hadn't spoken in over a week now.

"You gonna let me in?" I asked, slightly annoyed as he simply stood there staring at me. He nodded yes and moved out of the way so I could slip inside the room, shutting the door behind me.

"What are you doing here?" He asked nervously, staring at my eyes.

"Liam called, said you were sick" I answered him as I placed the grocery bags on the kitchen table.

"You didn't have to come" He whispered.

"Yeah I did, my best friend needs me" I said giving him a small smile. He returned the smile and took a few steps to wrap me in a bone crushing hug.

"I'm so so so sorry, it will never happen again. It was a mistake and I love you" He said quickly, his voice being covered by my shoulder. I hugged him back and dug my face into his chest.

"I know you're sorry Harry, and it's alright- I forgive you" I said sadly as I felt him to start to shake against me.

"Aw Haz are you crying?" I joked as he looked down at me with glossy eyes.

"I thought you hated me, almost as much as you hate broccoli" I laughed at his comparison and wiped one of the tears off his dimpled cheek.

"No, Harry, no" I cooed as I hugged him again.

       Harry and I moved to the couch and we started to talk about things. He explained that he was wasted off his mind when he sent me the texts and continued to apologize until I shoved a pillow into his face to get him to stop talking.

"You know that I love you right? Like you are one of the most important people in my life" He said seriously, fiddling with my fingers.

"Yeah Harry I know that" I said as I rested my head on my hand.

"I'm sorry for making you and Liam fight"

"I told you to stop apologizing" I laughed.

"Not gonna happen" He said giving me a wink.

       After I finally was able to change the subject Harry started to explain his skin condition. I grimaced at the bumps and urged him to stop scratching while we settled in to watch a movie. Harry squirmed against the couch with squinting eyes.

"You're going to scar" I scolded him.

"Don't care" He moaned back. I continued to pull at him to stop his scratching before walking across to my bags and putting them beside us on the couch. Harry, being the snoop that he is immediately dug into them to see what I had brought. He pulled out the chocolate first and kissed my cheek quickly. I pulled out the lotion and read off the instructions.

"Is that going to help?" He asked uneasily.

"It should dull the itchiness" I replied as I read the label.

"You are an angel" He said as he poured some in his hand and started to rub the pink lotion on his arms and legs. I watched in amusement as almost every part of Harry became pink except for his back and face. I squirted the lotion into my hands and started to rub it on his cheeks, nose and forehead. He remained still and smiled at me as he held back his curls. I smiled back as I leaned forward to kiss the only part of his cheek that wasn't covered.

"Turn around" I instructed, he did as he was told and sighed happily as I started to rub the lotion onto his back. I worked quietly as my hands ran over his shoulders and down to where his shorts started. I tried not to make things uncomfortable but he didn't seem to notice.

"Know what this reminds me of?" I asked him with a small smile.

"What?" He asked, turning around to look at me.

"When you go to the beach and your mom rubs sun tan lotion all over you even after you do it for yourself" I said with a giggle.

"You're right" He agreed, laughing along with me.

       One of the things that I love about Harry is that when he and I are together we always have fun, no matter what we are doing. I gripped the Wii remote in my hand and copied the dancing figure on the screen in front of me. I tried to hold in my laughter as Harry started to do the 'air guitar' beside me, following along with the music.

"Pelvic thrusts!" Harry boomed as he started to move his hips forwards. I burst into laughter and did the twirl my character made.

"Clap Harry!" I yelled to him as we started to clap our hands beside each other's faces.

"Spin, spin!" He said through his laughter as he twirled me around, the screen flashed with a GREAT and then continued with the other moves. I could feel my breathing getting heavy as Harry and I continued to dance to the fast song, doing the most ridiculous moves I have ever seen, and it was absolutely amazing.

"I love this game!" He said with a huge smile, causing me to laugh again.

"I'm going to beat you" I said sneakily.

"That's only because you are short enough to be in line with the censor bar!" Harry yelled as he did a fast arm movement.

"Don't make excuses Harry" I winked.

"I'm not making up anything!" he protested as he did a quick turn and a clap. I followed his actions and squealed to myself as I had to start wiggling my hips around. Harry watched me out of the corner of his eye before I swatted his arm to get him to stop creeping me out.

"We. Are. Going. To. Play. This. Every. Day!" He said through his chest pops.

"Okay!" I agreed doing my final extravagant pose before the song ended. We both cheered and exchanged high fives before taking a breathing break. I pulled out my phone and turned on the camera option; Harry came to stand beside me and wrapped his arm around my waist so I fit into the side of his body.

"I want to forever remember your pink skin" I said looking up at him. He laughed and made a silly face, we both held up one thumb and I clicked on the little button, taking the picture. I gave up on the game and decided to film Harry's solo performance to 'Hot Stuff'- I have never laughed that hard in my life. He turned around to give me a smile and a cheeky wave before his routine was over and eventually burst into laughter over himself. He ended his performance with a very professionally looking bow in nothing but his sweat pants.

"You are going to tweet that aren't you?" He asked with a smirk.

"That's the best idea you have ever had" I said giving him my biggest grin before posting the link to the video on my page.

We go hard on Sunday nights, harry_Styles (: X

       I watched Harry make himself a sandwich, perched on the kitchen counter while he worked. He smiled at me occasionally and talked about the most random things. I listened to his nonsense and ignored his annoying chewing sounds before my phone started to ring. I checked my texts and found one from my manager Margaret; I read it quickly and sighed softly.

"What?" he asked with a full mouth.

"I have to do a phone interview in two minutes" I grumbled as I held my phone in my hands, waiting for it to ring.

"That's rubbish" Harry whined as I shushed him, answering the call I had been waiting for. I greeted the man on the line and started to answer questions about the award show and my new movie. Harry watched me quietly, tracing patterns on the counter beside me.

"So what did we interrupt Emily, anything exciting?" The man asked.

"I'm at my friend's house, we were playing video games" I said with a smile as Harry's head perked up; hearing me mention him.

"What friend?"

"My friend Harry" I said pinching Harry's nose.

"As in Harry Styles?"

"The one and only" I added as Harry smiled confidently. Harry gestured for the phone and I handed it to him quickly.

"Hello! How are you?" Harry said into the phone in his chipper voice, I thanked him quietly as he made small talk with the man.

"No I beat her don't worry" He added, winking at me.

"I completely agree with you, it takes a lot of patience and restraint" He said in fake seriousness.

"What is he saying?" I hissed.

"That you're hot" He said as if it was the most casual thing in the world. I took back the phone and talked for a few more minutes, successfully finishing the interview. Once I hung up and smacked Harry's head, he flinched and tried to swat me back.

"Don't hit!" He whined as he started to tickle my sides.

       The boys came home at around eleven o' clock to find me and Harry asleep on the floor, arms and legs sprawled all over the place. I woke up to Louis straddling my stomach with a huge smile on his face. I groaned as he started to blow on my face trying to wake me up.

"Go away" I moaned as I covered my eyes with my hands.

"Did you have a nice evening babe?" he asked me in his innocent voice.

"Yeah boo" I said with a devilish smile, he glared back at me. I looked up to smile at the other boys and found that Harry was still asleep beside me, snoring like a bear.

"I didn't know he snored!" I said.

"Oh yeah, it's terrible" Zayn chimed in as he grabbed himself something to eat.

"How did I not notice that?" I whispered to myself.

"Because you were too busy sleeping with Liam" Louis whispered back.

"Watch it Tommo" Liam said from across the room. Louis held up his hands defensively and pulled out his phone to take a picture from above me.

"Could you not?" I protested as I tried to grab it from his hands. I had finally wrestled it away from him and Zayn managed to pin him to the ground for me. I giggled as I clicked on the Twitter app and started to type quickly.

@Ms.EmilyCarlisle is my favorite person in the world; she's just such a beaut! X

I admit that harry_Styles and I are madly, deeply in love- please respect this

       Louis screamed in protest as Zayn muffled his noises with a pillow, urging me to continue as I read out my new tweets.

My feet smell. (:

Liam took the phone from me and started to type as well; I sunk into his lap and smiled as he continued his message to all of Louis' fans.

Why am I so jealous of real_Liam_Payne .. maybe it's his hair ..  

I gave Liam a high five before throwing Louis back his phone, he grumbled an insanely long list of curse words at me and I simply just smiled back innocently. Louis tried to stare me down but I gave him my best bambi eyes.

"Dammit Emily, would you knock that off please? How am I supposed to be cross when you make that face" He growled as he started to type a recovery message.

"Love you boo bear" I cooed as Liam tightened his grip on my waist and pulled me closer to his chest.

"Would someone wake Haz up, his snoring is really gettin' on me nerves" Niall said as he sank down onto the couch beside Liam and I.

"Sure!" Louis said happily as he opened his mouth up really loud. Liam must have known what was coming next because he covered both of my ears with his hands just before Louis let out an earth shattering scream causing Harry to jump straight up and look around at us nervously.

"Morning babe" Louis said before getting multiple whacks on the head.

       Liam and I left together about an hour later; we walked down the stairs to his flat. I squeezed his hand, fingers laced with mine as he led me towards his door. He stopped before letting us inside, I looked up at him with confused eyes as he shifted awkwardly.

"What?" I asked, feeling kind of sad.

"Well- I didn't want to assume that you would be staying with me tonight, I know that I really made you upset with me the other night and you haven't stayed since" He said quietly, his cheeks turning pink.

"I didn't stay because I had early call times" I said as nicely as I could, stroking his pink cheek with my thumb. His eyes lit up and he leaned down to kiss me quickly before opening his door and pulling me inside the room that we now basically shared. I smiled at my shoes sitting beside the door and some of my clothes scattered around the room.

"So that's where my shorts went" I commented as we walked past the couch.

"How did they get there?" He asked, looking down at my face. I shook my head silently and skipped into his bedroom, falling down onto the mattress. He lay beside me and wrapped his hand around mine silently. I let out a happy sigh and turned my head to look at him, a goofy smile spreading across my face as he did the same and stared at me.

"How did I get you?" I asked happily, staring at his beautiful brown eyes.

"Technically, the first night I fell for you I went to your room to find you" He responded.

"The yogurt?" I asked, raising one eyebrow.

"The yogurt" he confirmed, leaning in to kiss my nose.

"You liked me for that long?" I asked, staring up at the ceiling, biting down on my bottom lip.

"I liked you after you walked in late to that meeting and said you had gotten lost" He said quietly.

"Why?" I groaned, laughing at the embarrassing memory.

"Because you were real, you didn't make up some story about doing something important or brush off being late- you were honest with a room full of people you didn't know"

"You didn't even talk to me at that meeting" I teased, resting my head beside his shoulder.

"I was afraid I would make an arse of myself"

"Not possible"

"Uh yeah, I probably would have ended up proposing or something embarrassing like that" He laughed, his body shaking beside me.

"You wanna marry me?" I teased, popping my chip up to give him a smug smile.

"Maybe" He teased back, pressing his forehead against mine.

"Meanie" I said with a pout.

"Hey, you gotta get through mum first" He said kissing my pouting mouth.

"Oh I am so ready for that challenge, bring on Mama Payne" I joked obnoxiously; Liam laughed and nuzzled his nose into my hair.