It wasn't the first time Val had called me up crying. Usually it was after he'd had a few too many bloody marys and the cause was invariably a Portuguese-born aspiring model called Ruben who came second only to Zayn in Val's affections but who could never seem to decide whether he was gay or outrageously heterosexual. Unfortunately for Val, when Ruben chose the latter option it would usually involve multiple blondes trawled from clubs around the seedier parts of the West End. Poor Val always got caught in the crossfire of Ruben's battles with his own sexuality, but he never seemed to learn. So when Val called this time and I heard the familiar strung-out vowels and gulped breaths, I was fully expecting another blow-by-blow account of a night spent gazing at the floor of an overcrowded dance bar while his olive-skinned boo told jokes to hair-flicking Scarjo-wannabes.
I certainly didn't expect him to say "(Gulp) Riss – I – I (more gulps, sniffs) have seen them.... I saw them...Zarry – Zarry -.....fucking kissing.... and fucking... fucking... fucking! "
No.
I didn't expect him to say that.
But he did.
There I was, all ready to launch into my usual pep-talk about Ruben, and I just stalled. I opened my mouth, moved my jaw, but it was no good. All I could do was make a strangled kind of "urnghwhaaah..." sort of sound.
Val ignored me, recovered a little from his gulping and then said: "And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life..."
Then there came a wailing down the phone – fully five-year-old-child-post-tumble-at-the-foot-of-the-climbing-frame wailing.
It was then that I started to laugh.
*
"Seriously?" I said. "Come on Val, you aren't that good an actor. I know when I've been had. Where's that toerag friend of yours – Ben, isn't it? He loves this kind of wind-up. I'll bet he's standing right next to you, isn't he? I'll bet he's having a right laugh. Did he put you up to this??"
There was a silence broken only by sniffs. I slowly realised that Val was actually – seriously - crying.
"I'll send you the tape," he said, with the gravity of someone at a funeral.
*
YOU ARE READING
Deep (Zarry AU)
FanfictionWhat if the real reason Zayn left the band was that he couldn't handle his feelings for Harry? WARNING: I WROTE THIS STORY IN 2015 . IT WAS AND IS TOTALLY FICTIONAL... I HAD NO IDEA THAT IT MIGHT SEEM MORE REAL AS TIME WENT ON AND ZARRY BOTH PUB...
