Charly

“Shit, they’re still showing”, Lou said as she watched Niall on the big screen at the concert later that evening. She was referring to the lumps on his forehead that made him look like a little devil. She had done the best she could do to cover them up, but you could still see them, especially when he sang directly into the camera. She also tried to cover Charly’s “horn”, but that was almost impossible.
“They said it would rain today, but it actually looks quite okay”, Lisa said while looking up to the sky. The three stood on the sidestage behind the two big side-screens. “I don’t know about that”, Charly said and also looked up into the sky. “The clouds back there look quite dark”, she continued and swallowed. She didn’t like thunderstorms at all. “Anyway, I got some spare clothes already laid out in the dressing room if needed”, Lisa said and continued to watch the show.
About 5 songs in, it started raining heavily during Don’t forget where you belong and by the end of Live while we’re young they were completely soaked. “Okay, I will get the clothes”, Lisa sighed and turned around to walk backstage. “I’ll help you, I will need some styling products as well. They’re getting completely washed out right now”, Lou said and joined her on her way. Charly was left there on her own. Paul was running around backstage as he always did.
Her eyes focused on Liam dancing on the runway. They way he moved his hips reminded her very much of last night and sent shivers down her spine. She automatically bit her lip and crossed her arms in front of her chest. As he ran the runway back up towards the band, he found Charly watching him and winked at her. The surprised look on her face told him that she didn’t realize that he would notice her stare. He chuckled to himself and ran back out to the crowd.
“Charly!”, she heard Lou scream as they came back. It was very loud because of the fans and the music and she could barely understand her. Lou handed her the make-up bag full of products and helped Lisa to pull the fully packed clothes rack.
The wind became stronger and they had to move a few steps back to not get wet themselves. When the first lightning appeared in the sky, Charly almost jumped. “Are you scared?”, Lisa asked her. “No, it just surprised me”, Charly lied. She was actually frightened to death. She hated thunderstorms, but she didn’t want to admit it.
Paul came up to the ladies. “Good, you got the clothes. I’ll tell the guys they have to come change in like 3 to 5 songs, so prepare”, he said and was gone already. “I will need your help then. They have to change quickly”, Lisa screamed towards Charly and she nodded in agreement. Lisa went up to the clothes rack to a bag that was hanging there and took out a few slips of paper and sharpies. She handed it out to Lou and Charly. “What should we do with that?”, Charly asked and took the sharpie Lisa handed to her.
“When do we girls get the change to be the judges of a wet t-shirt contest?”, she asked and smiled brightly. Lou and Charly laughed out loud and started writing numbers on it. Charly was happy for the distraction. So whenever the cameras showed one of the guys on the big screens behind the band, they would hold up the number they thought they deserved. Louis looked a bit like a picture of misery with his skinny arms and legs and the hair washed down by the rain.
Niall, Liam and especially Zayn looked pretty good in the rain and got scores like 8, 9 or 10. With the scarf-headband in Harry’s hair, you couldn’t almost tell that they were wet. Lisa wanted to make a selfie of the three girls while the guys had gathered for Little Things and all of them were shown on the big screen. She posted it with the words “Thank god we’re still dry”.
“Let me do one too”, Lou said and held her phone up to make another selfie. That’s when Niall and Louis came backstage and Niall photobombed the girls and pressed his wet self against them. “Ew, get off”, Lisa screamed out and jumped forward. Charly just arched her back away from his wet shirt. “Come on, guys. Get changed”, Lisa said, but the boys shook their heads. “We just came to get those rain jackets”, Louis said and pulled 2 off the box. The crew of the stadium had put them there for like Paul and Charly and everyone that was around. “Hey, what are you doing with those signs?”, Niall asked as he pointed at the slips of paper. “We were just judging your wet t-shirt appearances”, Lisa explained and laughed. “What’s my score?”, Louis asked. “You don’t wanna know”, Charly waved off and bit her lip to hold back the laughter. “And what’s mine?”, Niall asked. “Better”, Lou said. And the next second they were gone and back on stage already.
“Hey, the guys backstage are judging our ‘wet’ appearance, guys”, Louis said in his microphone. “Let’s put on a show then. Let’s do the catwalk”, Liam said and Niall and Louis walked to the front and back, doing their “best” model impressions and poses. “How did we do, girls?”, Niall asked to the back. Lou, Charly and Lisa ran out on the stage with their signs and held them up so the camera could zoom in on them and show it on the big screens. All were holding up a 10, and then quickly ran backstage to not get completely drenched. “YES! We did it!”, Louis screamed out. “Do you guys agree?”, Liam asked the crowd and they screamed at the top of their lungs.
As an even bigger lightning appeared in the sky, Charly couldn’t take it anymore and walked backwards, as far away from the stage and the open space as she could. Thanks to the loud music, she couldn’t hear the sounds of the thunder, but no one could turn off the lightning. Lisa didn’t notice it because she was focused on the action going on on stage and Lou was texting again.
When they had the longer break between the main concert and the encore, they came backstage to finally change. Lisa and Charly helped them get off their shirts because they were basically sticking to their body’s. Charly helped Liam and felt a bit weird taking off his shirt in front of the others. She felt like the guys could notice something. “Feels familiar, doesn’t it?”, Liam said in a lower tone so only she could hear it. “Stop it”, she said and resisted the urge to punch him, but even more the urge to kiss him. His wet hair and glistening chest made him look irresistible. “Here, take this”, she almost threw the towel into his face. He smiled devilishly and started to rub his hair dry.
“Give this to Niall”, Lisa said and gave Charly a plain white t-shirt with irish-green arms and shoulder parts. She went over to Niall, who was rubbing his hair dry with a towel. “Here put this on”, she said, handed him the clothes and took the wet towel out of his hands. He put the dry clothes on and went over to Lou to get new styling gel in his hair.
“Everybody finished?”, Paul asked. “Then let’s get back out. Great show so far. Let’s keep it that way!”, he said and patted everyone’s backs as they walked out on stage again. The band performed an encore of 4 songs including You & I, Story of My Life, Little White Lies and Best Song Ever as the big finale. But Charly didn’t stay around to watch it because she was already on her way to the dressing room to avoid any more lightning and thunder.

About 10 minutes later everybody came into the dressing room. “Let me help you”, Charly said and grabbed the other end of the clothes rack and pulled it into the room and to the wall. “Thank you”, Lisa said. Lou came in right after and put down the bag with styling products and the pile of wet towels. You could hear the lads a while before they came through the door. “Wow, what a great show”, Harry said. “Despite the weather”, Louis added. “It’s amazing how the crowd coped with the rain. It was really a lot”, Liam said and pulled up his eyebrows. “Come on guys, get out of those wet clothes or you all gonna be sick”, Lisa said and clapped her hands to get the guys moving. All of the boys stripped down to their underwear and Charly helped Lisa pick up the clothes and laying them out to dry. She couldn’t help but to risk a look at Liam again in just his boxers and again couldn’t help but biting her lip. “Go get a hot shower”, Lisa admonished the boys and showed them to the showers of the dressing room. “I rather need a cold one”, Charly mumbled to herself.
To distract herself, she helped Lisa and Lou to pack up their stuff. Charly felt tired and sat down on the couch. The panic attack earlier today took more energy than she had expected. She took her phone out and scrolled through her twitter. She had totally forgotten about the Instagram picture Harry had posted this morning back in Rome, but the fans definitely haven’t. The picture had over 500k likes and thousands of comments. A lot found it funny, but many were not very fond of Charly lying in bed with Liam and Harry. Oh, if they only knew!, she thought to herself. She liked the picture herself and commented, “Waking them up in the morning is quite a challenge. It was not as fun as it looks”. As she wanted to log out of instagram, she saw a new comment on the picture, right below her own.
“Looks like you coped quite well”, she read silently in her head. “Asshole”, she spat out. “Me?”, Niall asked behind her, rubbing his hair dry with a towel. He had his pants back on, but was bare-chested. “Oh no, sorry”, Charly shook her head and was really mad. How could he bring it into the public place of social media? Wasn’t it hard enough that had updated his Facebook relationship status?
“Just a dumb and inappropriate comment from Ethan”, she explained shortly. “Are you okay?”, he asked and looked honestly sorry. “I’m still deciding”, she said jokingly and shrugged her shoulders. Niall put on his shirt and sat down next to her. Charly continued to check her notifications on Twitter. Most of the comments of the fans were really funny and nice and some asked her to follow her.
“Niall, let’s go”, Zayn said and was almost out of the door for another party. “No thanks, I think I’m gonna stay here tonight”, Niall waved off. “Why, are you sick?”, Zayn stopped in his movement looking shocked. Niall never said “No” to a party. “No, don’t be silly. I just thought I stick around and keep Charly’s company”, he said. Charly, who wasn’t following the conversation before, looked up from her phone because she had heard her name. “What? Oh no, you don’t have to stay back because of me. I’m a big girl, I can keep it together”, Charly said. “No problem, I’m always out. One night in would do me good, probably”, Niall defended his decision. “I’m meeting up with Liam later and we’ll probably bend our ears the whole night how awful our exes are”, Charly said and had to hold back a smile. Amongst other things, she thought to herself. “It will be boring for you, really. Go out, have fun and do some things you might regret in the morning”, she said and got up. “But don’t get anyone pregnant. I’m not in the mood to fight off the press AND your mother”, she said and messed up his still moist hair before she walked out.

Notes

Hi guys, hope you liked this chapter as much as me writing it =)

I'm almost at the end of my previous written chapters so it might take longer in a bit for me to update, but that doesn't mean that the story comes to and end soon. I still have so many ideas, but so little time to write. Why do I always have to be so tired after work -.-

Please let me know what you think about the story, the relationship developments, but also what you would like to read in the story because there's enough time to work that in ;-)

As always please comment and rate!

Love you all!