She | h.s

three

"Niall!" I whine.

"Absolutely not, Daisy! I'm not—" he pauses, rubbing his eyes closed with his fingers. "I'm not going to text a guy for you because you're scared!"

"Please! I don't know what to do! Or what to say! I don't talk to guys, Niall. I've only ever spoken to you and Lou, so please—"

I get cut off by the sound of Louis's voice. "What's this about?" he asks, slipping his green jumper over his head.

"Dais's being a pussy right now because she followed some friend of Zayn's and he texted her. And now she wants ME to message him because she's shy," Niall huffs.

"Jus' fuckin do it mate!" Louis laughs, taking my side. "Just this once, you know how socially awkward Daisy is, especially when it's someone she isn't familiar with. Just tell her what to write back and make sure she doesn't end up with word vomit-y responses."

I ignore Louis's blatant call out to my awkwardness as Niall huffs, nodding his head slightly and muttering out hushed curses and the word fine. I smile at his defeat, hugging him close and thanking him with a squeal.

"We should ask Sarah first on what to do, she's got the most brain out of all of us," Niall says and I nod, "After we celebrate their set though, she's been looking forward to this gig for months. She was practically bouncing off the walls when she found out they got to play here," Louis says and we all nod.

"Alright, after we celebrate, she's gonna be flawless anyway. Probably going to be riding off of the adrenaline on a high from drumming it out all day," I say. "We can structure a game plan over drinks." I grin.

"Alright, everybody!" Someone emerges from the shadows, the stage suddenly lighting up and the crowd quiets down, "Give it up for our next performers!"

The lights suddenly shine onto Sarah and her band, Adam standing with his guitar in hand, Clare waving up at us as she sits with her keyboard and Sarah smiles brightly with her drums. At the corner of my eye, I see Louis smile before nodding his head at her, and she nods back. Something they used to do when they were together. But what really catches my eyes is the person standing next to Adam, standing opposite of Sarah's direction with an unreadable expression, his hair was grown out and he had another guitar with him, propping it up slightly to adjust it.

I shrug it off, telling myself to ask Sarah questions later on after their set as they start with their opening act, a rush of excitement and pride going through me as one of my best friends starts to sing.

#########

All throughout their band's set, I'd notice Sarah sneak glances both to us and to him, the unknown boy who played guitar rather beautifully. He'd occasionally move to push the stray hairs away from his face, but other than that he didn't look up once, completely focused on the killer guitar solo he had in one of the songs I knew for a fact that Sarah had written.

Catching her once again, I see Sarah sneak a glance up at him, but this time he looked back. His eyes flickered to hers for a fleeting moment before Sarah turned away, focusing her attention back on her performance, and I decide to make a mental note to ask her about him later-- and whatever the hell was going on between them.

"Sarah!" I squeal, hugging her tightly as she gets back to us from their gig, "I'm so proud of you! You did so well!"

"Thank you, darling!" she hugs back, reciprocating my energy and panting slightly.

"Are you alright? Let's go sit down, yeah? You need to catch your breath you rockstar!" I beam at her as she nods, guiding her to the booth we got for ourselves before she bids her goodbye to the rest of her band members, even the one who was unfamiliar to me.

"Heyy!" Niall hollers at us as we approach the booth, throwing his arms up and cheering at Sarah as Louis smiles next to him, "Our little rockstar! You were incredible, Miss Jones."

"Thank you, boys!" she grins at us, sliding into the booth. "What're we drinking tonight?" she asks.

"Well, for now we get mocktails. Real beers are at Daisy's house." Louis says and I nod smugly.

"Ya'know, since were all eighteen here," Louis says and Sarah giggles, "Technically Niall's still seventeen and Daisy's sixteen, so that's much worse if we get caught drinking out. Which is fuckin' ridiculous, you know in the UK the legal age is eighteen, don't know why the US has to make it all complicated and shit," He grumbles.

"Well if you love the UK's laws so much, why'd you migrate here then?" I tease, knowing damn well that he couldn't do anything about it as a transfer student, as all of them were transfer students

"You just loooove to hear that story, huh?" he jokes. "Ni and I are gonna go get some drinks, fill Sarah in on your "situation," "-- he says in air quotes, "Or whatever else girl talk is like," he says before getting up from his seat.

"Your... situation?" she turns to me for a response.

"It's nothing much, just followed some guy Zayn's friends with on Twitter, and he's all the way in the UK! Anyway, he's messaged me and I've got no idea what to do, s'been liking my tweets all week too!" I say in disbelief and she smiles.

"Oh, so you've gotten yourself a long distanced secret admirer, huh?" she teases. "That's what gotten your knickers up in a knot?"

"Sarah," I whine. "It's just weird! He said hey to me in my inbox after I followed him, and I have no idea how to respond, since I barely know the guy! And I'm never going to get used to you saying the word knickers, y'sound so proper, so British." I say, making her laugh

"Niall was just saying I should ask you what to say first since I was planning on giving Niall the lead on this one and texting him back for me since I'm basically a social reject." I deadpan. "But enough about me, what about you!"

I point accusingly to her, making her eyes grow wide as she tries to compose herself, her cheeks heating up as I knew she had been caught.

"What about me?" she plays dumb, cheeks turning pink.

"What's going on with you and that mystery guy playing guitar in your band, who is he? Is he permanent? What happened to your other bandma--"

"Alright!" She cuts me off. "His name's Mitch, and he's kind of our go too whenever Cam cant make it, but word is that Cam's planning on dropping out on us and starting solo so he might be permanent."

"And as for you two making googly eyes toward each other?" I press on her for further details.

"Googly eyes is way too intense to describe it, I just looked at him sometimes that's all,"

"Oh please! You could see it so clearly, especially where I was seated. I must say you're definitely impressive with your taste in men, he's cute." she blushes at my words.

"Do you think Lou noticed I was staring at him? Seems a little cruel to have him see me make 'googly eyes' at him, no?" her shoulders deflate a bit. "And he is a proper cutie, but you stay away. You have your London boy," she jokes.

"I'm sure Lou's okay with you staring at him, you've been broken up for weeks now," I reassure. "You're allowed to be interested in other people, and so is he."  and as if it were on cue, the two guys approach our table once more, holding up a bunch of drinks on a tray as they sit back down.

"Finally! Was starting to think you two got lost, or found another way home." I wink, obviously joking with my implication.

"Piss off, yeah. It's just much harder to get drinks at the bar when you're a guy, the bartender's always just oggling all the pretty girls and giving them free drinks."

"Well, hand em over! We've got loads to discuss."