"Hey, baby," a voice purred into Liam's ear, and he suddenly found himself with a lap full of Louise Tomlinson, blocking his Calculus textbook. "So. We've got plans this weekend, we're going to Cher's party, and we're going to get pissed, and  then we're going to have sex all weekend. Sound good?"

Louise was one of the fittest girls Liam had ever met, hair always perfectly coiffed, makeup immaculately done, with big blue eyes and bubblegum pink lips. She was also one of the most confusing people he'd ever met.

"Sure," he said faintly, trying to figure out what angle she was playing this time. His thoughts were interrupted by his best friend, Niall.

"Niall!" Louise squealed, darting up to give Niall a hug and plant a kiss on both of her cheeks. "You're looking fit this week, honey. New shirt?"

Niall rolled her eyes. "Louise, you're creeping out your boyfriend again. Stop it."

Louise huffed. "You steal all my fun," she pouted, but returned to her spot on Liam's lap and distracting Liam from his calc homework.

--

Harry caught Liam's elbow. "Liam, mate. You alright?"

Liam paused, his shirt half up his arms and not quite over his head. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"You've got these horrible scratches and bruises on your back, are you alright?"

The taller man immediately flushed. "Yeah. Um. Louise likes to leave a mark?" He phrased it like a question, but Harry caught the underlying meaning.

"I thought she was trying not to scare you off?" Harry looked puzzled. He and Louise had been friends forever, so he would likely know.

"I guess?" Liam pulled his shirt over his head and turned to pack up his gym bag. "I mean, she's sort of my girlfriend, and she likes it and it doesn't actually hurt all that much, so."

"Liam, promise me you'll be careful, yeah?" Harry looked uncharacteristically worried. "She's my best friend but...she can go a bit over the top. She's known for ripping people to shreds for a reason."

"I'll keep safety scissors on me at all times."

Harry didn't look amused. "Liam, I'm serious."

"So am I. Louise is harmless. Mostly. Her nails are killer." Liam shouldered his bag and clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Trust me. If it got abusive, I'd get out. I'm not studying to be a psychologist for no reason, you know."

--

It had been an extraordinarily long week, and Louise had somehow managed to talk Niall into a sleepover. It turned out to be a lot less terrifying than Niall had expected and involved a lot more Disney movies and nail polish than Niall had been expecting.

Louise tossed a bit of popcorn into the air and caught it in her mouth. "I think I like you, Niall."

Niall grinned at Louise, waving the nail polish brush in the air. "It's nice being girly. I mean, God forbid I did my nails with Zayn or Liam in case girliness rubbed off on them."

"Harry never minds," Louise shared, eating another handful of popcorn. "But that might because I threatened to castrate him with nail scissors."

The blonde threw her head back and laughed. "You better not carry through on that! I like him exactly the way he is." She drew out the last sentence, making the words drip with innuendo.

"I definitely like you, Ni." Louise leaned over and kissed Niall soundly on the cheek. "Now come on, hurry up so we can get dressed and go out."

Niall looked down at her tank top and soffee shorts. "I don't exactly have clothes for going out, Lou."

"You're wearing some of my clothes," Louise said decisively. "I've got a dress that's going to look absolutely gorgeous on you."

Louise turned out to have four or five dresses, but eventually she threw a slip of black fabric and a pair of spiky heels at Niall and shooed her into the bathroom to change.

"I don't know how I feel about this," Niall said, looking at her reflection in the mirror. The dress was tight and black with a silver sequined flower arching over her left hip; the shoes were silver and strappy, and a hell of a lot higher than Niall was used to wearing.

"You look hot, don't worry about it." Louise grinned. "I am good at making people look hot."

"No, I meant going out dancing."

"Well, we're not doing anything wrong, like cheating. I don't plan on kissing any boys tonight, do you?" Louise reached over and adjusted Niall's skirt a little. "It's not cheating if we go out partying with our girlfriends, yeah? We're just going out dancing. And if our boyfriends get jealous, so much the better. I love jealous boys, don't you?"

Niall shook her head in disbelief. "You are an insult to feminists everywhere."

"Where in feminist coda does it say I can't do what I want with my body?" Louise pouted, stepping into the strappy silver heels that she wore when she wanted to look taller. "I had this talk with Liam too, did his sister infect your brain? I'm a feminist, since I'm after political, economic and social rights for women. I just happen to be a feminist who likes shiny clothes and dancing."

"I guess you have a point," Niall admitted. "Get over here and fix my hair."

"Why do you have a pixie cut anyways?"

"Because it's easy to deal with," Niall shot back. "And I don't have to brush my hair in the morning, I can roll out of bed and it looks stylish."

"Yeah, yeah," Louise rolled her eyes and snagged a wide black headband off her nightstand, along with a flat hairbrush. "Alright, hold still." It took five minutes, but Louise managed to wrestle Niall's hair into a cute style that to Niall looked exactly like it had before Louise started, with only the addition of the headband.

Louis sat on Niall's lap, carefully applying eyeliner and shimmery eyeshadow that made Niall's vibrant blue eyes pop. When she was done, she pulled her phone out of her bra and flicked the camera setting on.

"Smile!" Louise took a photo of them curled together in their shimmery party clothes and grinned. "Which boy should we send this to? Liam will have a heart attack over how short this skirt is on me, but Harry's reaction will be precious." Louise looked up at Niall. "Who do you think?"

"Zayn," Niall announced, smirking. "He'll flip out and undoubtedly show the photo to both Liam and Harry. Jackpot."

"Done and done," Louise said, and pressed send.

--

Liam, on the other hand, finally caved and agreed to attend one of Harry's Friday evening video game sessions. For whatever reason, Zayn and Harry got along really well, once they got over the whole Harry-is-dating-the-girl-who's-practically-Zayn's-little-sister thing.

"I knew you’d be around eventually. How’s the bitch?” Zayn asked.

"Zayn," Harry scowled. "Louise is nice. Most of the time. She's just a little over the top." He backed this up with a glare at Zayn--Harry was still Louise's best friend, even if she had gotten closer with Niall and was dating Liam.

Liam groaned and fell onto the couch, covering his face with his hands.

At that exact moment, Zayn's phone buzzed and he flicked open the text message. He spit his soda all over the floor and dropped the phone like it was on fire.

"What happened?" Harry asked, picking up the phone and looking at the message. "Damnit. Louise is going dancing with Niall, I guess."

Liam wished the couch would swallow him whole.

--

Niall wasn't entirely surprised when Louise turned out to know the bouncer, who let them in with no hassle at all.

She was a bit more surprised when the bartenders greeted Louise by name.

"Come here often, do you?"

"Often enough. I used to come here all the time with Harry. You go grab a table, I'll get us some beer."

Niall had no sooner found an empty table when she was surrounded by a trio of boys, led by a blond wearing the self-satisfied smirk that usually signified extreme arrogance.

Her suspicion was confirmed by the truly horrible pickup line he used on her.

"Thank you, no," she said in horror. "Absolutely not."

The trio didn't seem to get the hint and continued egging the blond on, leaving Niall to wait for Louis and try to ward him off."

Usually she wasn't one to let boys run over her, but she was wearing a frankly short dress and she was a little worried about what would happen if she stood up. She was strong, but she was also wearing three inch heels and only weighed about 120 pounds. This goon, stupid as he was, could probably pick her up.

Finally, she sighed. Time to play the boyfriend card. "No, I've got--"

"These boys bothering you, love?" Louise purred, perching on Niall's lap and wrapping her arms around Niall's neck. She placed two cool beer bottles on her lap, nudging one towards Niall with her knee. "Don't they realize you've got a very special date?"

"Date? Who?" the blond snorted, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops and looking skeptical.

"Me!" Louise giggled, pulling Niall into a possessive kiss. Finally, the group of boys took a hint and left. "Your boyfriend so owes me," Louise groused, wiping Niall's lipgloss off her mouth once the boys had gone off . "Also, bacon? I didn't even know they made bacon lipgloss. Oh my god, is Harry into that?"

Niall mumbled something about it being a gag gift and all she'd had in her purse.

"Well, you can borrow mine now, we've kissed, sharing lip gloss isn't going to do anything worse."

"What did you mean by my boyfriend owes you?"

Louise shrugged. "He'll find it hot. My boyfriend, on the other hand, is going to lecture me about kissing other people again."

"Again?"

"He was a very attractive uni boy and I don't believe in wasting opportunities," Louise said primly, her tone completely at odds with the way she was batting her eyelashes and using her phone to pop the caps off the beer bottles. "Come on, drink up. I want to dance!"

Louise turned out to be something of a horrible, if enthusiastic dancer. She couldn't manage much more than the generic white girl dance, but Niall found her enthusiasm catching and soon they were taking over the dancefloor, much to the approval of their fellow clubbers.

Niall allowed herself to get lost in the music, holding onto Louise's hands to keep herself from drifting too far.

--

When Louise finally got home, she was still drunk. Of course, she didn't make it to her house--she made it to Harry's.

"Wake up, Liam, babe!" she sang, somehow managing not to trip in her ridiculous six inch heels. She also somehow knew that Liam was crashed out in Harry's guestroom. "I've got some treats, we're going to have fun!"

Liam groggily sat up, reaching for the light switch. The yellow light of Harry's guest room bedside lamp pooled in the room, revealing Louise with a plastic shopping bag.

She was still dressed in her clubbing outfit, a shimmery green dress that showed more than it covered and left nothing to the imagination. Her hair was coming loose from its fancy updo, and he could see where her makeup had run a little from sweat.

He barely had time to process before she'd crawled on top of him, dropping the bag beside them.

"No, Louise," he finally choked out and flipped her over. "We're not doing this in Harry's house."

She pouted prettily up at him. "But why not?"

"Because it's Harry's house, Lou."

"He doesn't care." Louise pouted prettily, employing her version of puppy eyes. "He encourages it."

"His parents are home," Liam countered. "So, no."

"You're mine, Payne. And I'm going to make sure everyone knows it. Even Harry's parents."

"But--"

"Shut up, Liam," Louise huffed, kissing him.

Liam pushed her away with great effort on his part. "No. We're talking. Why do you always do this?"

"Do what?"

"Exactly this. Make a scene and generally act stupid."

Louise seemed to collapse in on herself. "I knew it."

"Knew what?" Liam asked, entirely confused at this point. He was tired and frustrated and he just wanted to cuddle with his girlfriend.

"Knew you'd figure it out eventually, that you're too good for me."

"I'm too good for you?" Liam asked incredulously. "Where are you getting that idea?"

"You're popular, and you're nice, and you're smart, and it's obviously just a matter of time before you figure out I'm stupid and sort of a slut and no one likes me anyways."

"Look, I'm dating you, aren't I? I like you. I love you, in fact. But I don't like you acting insane when I know you're not like that almost at the time. I like you being flirty, I like you being fun, I love you being you--I don't like it when you act like you're purposely trying to get me to break up with you. Because I'm not going to do that." Liam finished his speech and Louise was staring at him with wide eyes.

"You mean it?"

"I mean it."

Suddenly, Louise was kissing him again, but it was slower, softer.

"If we're not having sex, can we at least cuddle?"

"Cuddling is good. Cuddle away."