not in love || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A/N: I'm getting close to the end of this fic, which is exciting and a little sad... It will probably end up being just under 30 chapters. I might write an epilogue. I haven't decided yet.

It's the wedding day! The next couple chapters all take place over the course of one day.

This is the interview between Louis and Darby.

LOUIS

Bottles, glass, broken glass, blood. It was 6am. I might have slept. I hope I did. I wanted everything that happened the night before to be some horrible nightmare.

I rolled around on the ground and tried to prop myself up but my hands were cut. From what I could deduce from my surroundings, I must have dropped a bottle of brandy, slipped, and fell on the glass with open palms. The pain was a welcome distraction from the events of the previous night, which were all coming back to me in horrible flashes. Zayn or somebody had been calling for over an hour but I put the ice bucket over my phone and didn't answer it. Then the hotel phone rang. It took me a good minute to realize that it was a phone and not just my own ears ringing.

"Someone is here to see you, Sir."

"No!" I yelled. "No visitors."

There was rumbling on the other end. "Sir, this woman says she has an appointment."

"An appointment. I am on fucking holiday. I'm not taking any fucking appointments."

Exasperated, the concierge consulted with the visitor. "It's a Ms. Darby Rose and she says she isn't taking no for an answer."

After the blowout with Harry, which decimated me, I had completely forgotten that I promised Darby an exclusive. Now this bloody woman was going to grill me the day of her own fucking wedding to the love of my life. I had descended to new depths of hell.

I heard her knock. Just a few hours earlier it was Harry at my door. We should have been on a plane to London right now and instead, by some cruel twist of fate, not only did he leave me and crush my heart but his bloodthirsty fiancée was here to finish me off.

Most journalists who interviewed us either phoned it in, asking us the same rudimentary questions over and over, or they just stated their outlandishly personal questions right off the bat. Being interviewed by Darby was like death by a thousand cuts. She had so many small, seemingly inconsequential, questions, and wouldn't stop probing until she cornered you or you snapped.

She bounded into the room, her blonde ponytail swishing behind her like a Golden Retriever's tail. She looked remarkably composed for a person about to get married. It was like this was any other day on the job for her. She had no off button. She was in constant pursuit of a story, hopelessly American in her ambition and careerism.

"Jesus Christ," she gasped.

"Hello to you too."

"Louis, are you okay?"

I could handle her loathing but not her pity. "I'm fine. You wanted to interview me, so let's get it over with, interview me."

She stood with her mouth agape. I guess my eyes still hadn't adjusted to daylight because I only noticed what rough shape the room was in when she pointed it out to me. The brandy bottle wasn't the only bottle that broke, half the liquor cabinet lay smashed on the floor. And from the amount of blood that dotted the white carpet, you'd think I cut an artery.

"I had a little too much to drink last night."

"We need to call somebody."

"Don't."