not in love || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER EIGHT

A/N: I finally finished this crazy chapter!!!!!

Some small points:

I don't know if I mentioned this earlier but the boys play their own instruments in this AU.

There's a POV change halfway through.

This chapter contains explicit content, but I put it at the very end. (Do NOT read past the elevator scene if you want to avoid this content).

PAST

HARRY

We had two months to prepare for the stadium tour. As lead guitarist, Louis took care of the musical arrangements, directing Liam on bass and Niall on drums. Zayn and I were both frontmen, so the more performative elements were up to us. A choreographer blocked the way we moved around each other during each song: Crisscrossing, strutting down the runway, me singing into Louis' mic and Zayn singing into Liam's, hanging back by the drum kit with Niall. This always ended up being a rough approximation of how the show would go because once we got out there and the music started playing anything could happen.

I sometimes lingered by Louis, for example. I straightened his collar when it was askew, swept his fringe out of his eyes, brought him his water bottle, pointed out the funniest signs in the crowd and pinched his bum, but in a manly way. Nothing obvious.

The crowd was one variable we could never plan around. They threw food, cans, bras, ice, even hotel keys up on stage. We became experts at dodging and diving. I didn't mind the food. The lads wouldn't touch it but damn, I got hungry up there!

Another thing I liked to do was pick up the most thoughtful item and sing to the person who threw it. Zayn hated this. For a singer in the world's biggest band, he was surprisingly introverted. He could sing to a stadium full of screaming fans, but to sing a song to one fan was too much for him. I on the other hand loved the intimacy of it. It reminded me that the fans were people, thoughtful, unique, not cogs in a screaming estrogen machine.

Our fifth stop on the stadium tour was MetLife in New Jersey. Phones lit up the darkened stadium like a blanket of fallen stars. I was dancing with a banana in my hand. I twirled over to Louis to see if he wanted a bite but he said he it was probably poisoned. "Suit yourself, more for me."

After Zayn finished the last verse of Little Things and Niall, Liam and Louis prepared for the next song, I held up a pair of Thomas the Tank Engine earmuffs. We had each been asked during a holiday press junket a few months earlier if there was a gift we wanted when we were kids that we never got and I mentioned the earmuffs. My parents couldn't find them thirteen years ago, so I didn't expect anyone else to. Somehow this girl did.

"Who threw these up on stage?" Just about every girl in the sold out stadium tried to take credit. Most fans watched earlier performances on YouTube, so they knew the drill. I was always able to find the culprit, because she was, without fail, the only person who didn't raise her hand. I just had to look for the cluster of pointing friends "It was her!"

The girl wasn't dressed up or wearing any merch. She looked like she'd come straight from school. Not the type to scour the Internet for discontinued earmuffs, I thought.

I pulled her up on stage with me.

"Thank you so much for these!" I held them up to show the guys. They looked as excited as you'd expect them to be about a pair of earmuffs.

"I am in shock. Truly. I wasn't even sure they existed. I thought I had dreamed them up."

She was shaking. I put my arm around her.