Defenceless l.s

Twenty

Louis POV

I was sitting by my desk when I heard a chery voice, breaking me out of my trance. "Hey mate, how're ya doing?" I looked up to see Niall walking over from the elevators with a huge grin on his face. I looked around to see who he was talking to, but there was nobody else there. Was he talking to me? 

"Um, I'm alright thanks," I told him. "How are you?" He smiled even bigger as he sat down on the edge of my desk. "I'm great. How do ya like it here so far?" 

"Um, good. It's good yeah" I smiled.

"Good, good," he said and nodded. 

"Hey! I was just about to grab some lunch with my friend, but she abandoned me for some emergency meeting or whatever," he said and rolled his eyes. "You wanna come, keep me company. I need new friends since mine obviously can't set their priorities straight." 

I looked at him oddly for a moment before looking at the time, it was 12.06 so I could go, but I wanted to finish my work first. And I wasn't that hungry anyway, Liam probably wouldn't want me to go but he was smiling so big and looked so expectant I couldn't say no.

"Yeah sure, let me just finish this," I told him and gestured to my computer. "It shouldn't take long." 

"How's Liam?" He asked.

"Liam?" I said surprised. "You know him?"

"Yeah, we went to college together."

"Oh, he's good, we've been planning to move to a bigger place soon, hopefully a little closer to the office," I told him and took a bite of my food. 

"Have you found a place yet?" 

"No, we are still looking, I want something more open and homey, you know?"

"Yeah, I'll keep my ears open incase I hear anything"

"Thanks"

"No problem," he said. "So, how's working under Harry? I know he can be a real pain sometimes" he chuckled a bit.

"No, it's good. He's nice, yeah," I told him and nodded my head.

"That's good, I hope he isn't giving you too much work," he laughed. "He works way too much and just expects everyone to do the same sometimes." 

"No, no, he's not. It's fine, really" I rushed out.  

"Are you sure? Because if not, I can talk to him if you want."

"It's fine. I'm fine, you don't need to talk to him-"

"Because he tends to overwork his assistants when he's stressed, and he's been pretty stresses lately-"

"Niall, it's fine, don't say anything to Mr.Styles! Please?"

He was a bit taken aback by my sudden outburst, but then he just nodded, "yeah, alright, I won't," he said and put his hands up in surrender. 

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped like that," I immediately apologized, totally mortified.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," he shrugged off and a silence fell over us. I cursed myself for making this awkward, it was going so well. I thought we could be friends, atleast at work. I still felt guilty about what happened with Chloe, I mean I didn't even get to explain why I stopped talking to her. She probably felt awful, I sighed internally and took another bite of my food. 

Maybe I could ask Niall about her, I think they know each other, I had seen then talking a couple of times. 

"Do you know Chloe?" I asked.

"Chloe Wilson?"

"Yeah, she works on my floor, I'm not exactly sure what she does though."

"Yeah I know her, it was actually her I was supposed to meet today, why?" He asked.

"No reason, I was just wondering." He nodded.

"Are you guys friends?" He asked.

"No," I frowned. "We were kind of friends, but not anymore," I told him.

"Why, what happened?"

"Liam and I got into a fight and he made me block her number, she hasn't talked to me since."

"Liam? Why did he make you block her?" He asked with raised eyebrows.

"Um, it was nothing, really, he just gets jealous easily," I told him and hoped he would stop asking so many questions.

"So he made you block her?" He asked, shocked.

"Well, yeah" I said and looked around to see if anybody was listening.

"Why would he make you block her?" He asked, looking really confused.

"Because he doesn't want me talking to her," I said, and had to keep from rolling my eyes, I just said that.

"But he can't decide who you talk to, it's not like you were flirting with her," he said. "Or were you?"

"No! Of Course not!" I told him. Why would he think that? Would he tell Liam? Did it come across as flirting and that's why Liam got mad?
I should've known! I'm so stupid!

"Then he can't tell you what to do Louis," he said, finality in his voice. "You know what, even then he shouldn't have told you to just block her, he should've talked to you about it first."

"You sound just like my friend."

"Well you've got a relly fucking smart friend, you should listen to him" he said, and he seemed kinda mad.

"Did you tell Chloe this?" He then asked.

"No, of course not. I told you, Liam doesn't want me talking to her."

He sighed, "but you gotta explain why you just stopped talking to her all of a sudden."

"Yeah, I know, I want to but I don't want to upset Liam," I explained. "Maybe you can talk to her?" 

"Me? And what do you want me to say exactly? Hey! I can't be your friend cause my boyfriend is jealous!" He said bitterly. I started to get quite annoyed, he was acting just like Zayn.

"Just tell her I'm sorry and that she didn't do anything wrong." It was quiet for a moment, "you should tell her yourself," he said.

"Please?" I begged him.

He let out a long sigh, "alright, I'll talk to her."

"Thank you! I just don't want her to be mad at me."

"Don't worry about it," he said. "But you shouldn't let Liam tell you what to do."