Nothing Without Love

Louis’ POV

“So, why are we all taking one car?” Josie asks as she tosses one of my shirts at me. I look and her clothes are literally just shoved in her bag, no folding, no organization what so ever. I don’t even cringe but I know Erica would. She is what I would consider the organization queen. To a point that she makes me sick at times. Niall needs that in his life, I, on the other hand, would go nuts with someone like that. Just another piece that fits into mine.


“Just so Stan and Sam don’t have to drive far by themselves. They’re leaving their car here while we take the SUV provided and get a car delivered in LA to my house. We have plenty of room in the vehicle.” I try to fold my things to fit in the bag but give up quickly, folding is for the birds. No one really cares, dirty clothes just get washed anyway.


“Oh I don’t mind. Just curious.” She shrugs again and smiles slightly. “I think the weekend went really well.” She looks up at me to see if I was paying attention.


“Yeah, they bought it.” I wanted to say more but paused. What the hell, “So where do we go from here?” I ask, hopeful. I zip up my bag and place it on the floor, moving to sit in the spot where by bag took place. I’m nervous all the sudden. I’ve never been good at the relationship talk. And I don’t know if this the time for the relationship talk.


“What do you mean? Like we go back to LA?” I can tell right away it’s making her feel uncomfortable as she makes light jokes to try and divert conversation.


“Come on Jo. There is no need to not talk about it. We talked all night about everything but this topic, the dreaded, where do we stand.


“Come on what Louis. I spilled my guts to you last night and you still want more. Why can’t we just let things go for a little bit. Why must we have a title and a relationship already? I don’t need a relationship title like other women.” I watch as she hardly even looks at me, her hands trembling just a little bit as she speaks. Frustrated, she closes her bag and zips it, moves it off to the side.


“Jeez Josie. Relax.” I snap a little bit, turning my back to her so now were both facing away from each other. I roll my eyes at my own thoughts, I automatically jump to conclusions and act like all the sudden last night didn’t happen and she doesn’t want to be around me.


“I just want to take things slow Louis.” I can hear the blankets shift and I know she’s turning towards me, or at least facing me. “I’m not like you, I don’t dive head first into the pool. My toes are the first to get in the water, slowly. And sometimes I never go above my head.” She flops on the bed, waiting for me to respond in some way or another.


“I get it.” I respond, flopping on the bed next to her, both of us looking at the ceiling. “I don’t need a title, I’m fine with taking things slow but I just wanted to know if you’re good with this. With not playing around anymore. I don’t really like pretending to everyone, I just want to know that we’re not pretending anymore.” I’m confident but at the same time, I’m not. I haven’t been able to really dig in deep with Josie. Really know how her feelings as we’ve just talked about stuff, everything else but the important dreaded stuff.


“I’m not pretending.”


She leaves it at that and I realize I’ve been holding in all the breath I’ve had in my lungs since I laid down. Letting my body sink into the bed a little bit more than usual.


“So what should we do next?” I ask, the more I speak, the more relaxed and okay with everything I am. I don’t know why I’m like this when it comes to women. It’s just all this magical hold they have upon me. Josie seems to be the worst here lately.


“We drive back to LA with Stan and Sam and go from there. I have to be with Ryan practically all week. Niall is writing with Shawn Mendes. You know how he is when he writes, either it comes easy or it takes hours. I have to plan for both. And Erica is setting up for the Purchase of California summit. She’s the main speaker. Between that and her Ph.D. program she doesn’t really have time for anything else. My schedule will all over the place. Mornings, maybe nights, maybe days.” I know even if she’s not shrugging, she’s thinking about it.


“But you can come to Stan and Sam’s going away party on Friday?” I get courage and look at her, her messy hair sprawled out on the pillow, eyes looked up toward the ceiling fan, thoughts going a mile a minute. Yet she seems peaceful. Josie has a natural grace about her, one I’ve noticed but never really paid attention to as I’m busy with my own dumb thoughts more than half the time.


“Yeah, no reason why I wouldn’t be able to. I might just be one of the tired ones.” She giggles and I think I could listen to that sound over and over again. I’m turning into the man that I made fun of Stan for over and over again. I shake my head, thinking of all those times I would give Stan shit. For missing a planned guy’s night or texting Sam all night, or just relating everything back to Sam. But I’m starting to get it now. I understood a little bit with Eleanor but I let that get ruined. I didn’t stick up for her when I should have, I fed her to the hounds by not protecting her. We could have made it all the way but I never fought for her like I should have, like I could have. I still think about that and vow that that kind of situation would never happen again. That if I found someone worth fighting for that I would not allow that to happen again.


“Better have clothes on!” Is the only thing I can hear before Stan comes busting into our room. “Well that was disappointing.” He rolls his eyes as he peeks around at things. “We’re ready to go.” He looks at me like I should be reading his mind. “So, get off your ass Tomlinson.”


“We’re done; we’ve been waiting for your lazy ass for the last twenty minutes.” I toss back, weaker then I’m used to but at the moment it will due. “I’ll take your bag.” I gesture to Josie, something I would only do for my mum and sisters but this warm fuzzy feeling doesn’t go away when she blushes slightly and moves toward the door before Stan and I.


“Remember all those times when you gave me shit for talking to Sam?” I nod slightly, trying to carry two bags through the door. “It’s coming at you more then you ever thought.” He laughs at my expense and I know I deserve it. I roll my eyes at my past indiscretions and slightly slump my shoulders. Stupefied at how I’m constantly dragging on everyone else.

Notes

So it's been three months. No excuses just literally no motivation to write. I've thought about this story constantly and I just hate leaving everyone hanging. I have a few stories that I have read on this site and the author totally just dropped off the planet, and I really don't want that to happen to me and the stories I've spent forever thinking about. I'm hoping this gets better but I can't make any promises. Hopefully readers just keep coming back, I know its difficult to follow an author such as myself and I'm not going to lie I'm used to updating everyday and finishing a story in about two months. But I want to move on and I can't write another story without finishing this one. That being said, this will probably be my last story on this site so I want to make it a good one.

:)