// C H A P T E R S I X //

"What. The. Fuck?" Lacey and Matty broke apart from their kiss to see both George and Ella standing in the doorway, looking at them. While Ella just stared incredulously at her best friend in an attempt to figure out how on earth she had gone from 'please don't ever leave me alone with him' to downright making out with him, George just laughed as he crossed over to them and patted Matty's back.

"Well done, mate." He smirked, then winked at Lacey, "Knew you couldn't stay away from that one for too long."

While Lacey immediately blushed at that, Matty just grinned as he lit another cigarette, "Whatever you say, George, whatever you say."

"Well I personally think..." Ella began as she also walked over to where their group was standing and grabbed onto her friend's arm, "that Lacey and I should probably go get some pizza or something for us all, so you guys have time to do your soundcheck and we have some time to talk."

Ignoring Lacey's protesting stares directed at him, Matty smirked and said, "Sounds good to me." While George nodded in agreement.

"Perfect, see you guys later." Ella smiled as she pulled her best friend with her, whispering so the others wouldn't notice, "now tell me everything."

~ * ~

After recounting exactly when, why and how the kiss between Matty and her had happened, the girls arrived back at the venue with several pizza boxes in their hands. The guys were still rehearsing one of their songs when they came in, so both of them silently agreed to watch them from the back door in order to not disturb them. Lacey took that time to observe Matty a bit better. She noticed how he seemed to be completely transformed on stage. Instead of his usual 'I don't care about shit'- attitude, she could see how much his music meant to him. He looked so passionate when he sang, even though, as far as he could tell, there was no one there to watch them. The song they were playing neither a fast nor a slow song. It was a song she kind of wanted to sway to, to get lost in. She concentrated on the lyrics, thinking she could maybe get inside of Matty's usually so messy thoughts.

"You're alive, at least as far as I can tell you are,

And so am I, you beat me down and then we're back to my car,

And it's so ironic, how it's only been a year,

And it's not my fault that I fucked everybody here."

Lacey shook her head, smiling a bit to herself. His lyrics were just as confusing as his words and actions could sometimes be. It sounded like he had been hurt by someone, but the tune of the song gave it a more happy feeling, so she couldn't be quite sure. The only thing she had truly registered was that he apparently had a ton of sex, which didn't really surprise her that much. The moment she had first laid eyes on him, she had thought of him as not exactly a 'bad boy', but someone who just did whatever he wanted to do, no matter what society would think of him afterwards.

After the song had ended with Matty jumping onto George's drum set and throwing his hair back and forth about a hundred times, Lacey repositioned the boxes in her arms and clapped lightly as she crossed over to the guys.

Panting a bit from his performance, Matty sat down at the edge of the stage and asked, "How long have you guys been here? I didn't even see you."

"We just heard a bit of the last song, didn't want to disturb you." She shrugged and placed her boxes onstage.

"Did you like it?" The guy on the guitar called over from where he was standing.

"Uh yeah, you guys were good." She smiled at him, "Matty's singing however..." She shrugged and laughed as his hand grabbed her waist and pulled her to the space between his legs.

"Mh..." He murmured as he leaned his forehead against hers, "A big fuck you to you too, my love."

Ella, who was in the midst of placing all the boxes on stage and opening them, shrugged, "I thought you sang beautifully, Matty. Your voice is so... distinct."

He grinned and jumped up to hug Ella tightly, "I think I'm starting to like your friend a bit better than I like you, Lace."

"Calm yourself." George laughed, stood up and took a piece of pizza out of one of the boxes, "Thanks for bringing these girls, I'm starving."

"What kind of pizza do you want?" Matty asked Lacey as he looked at all the choices he had.

Hoisting herself onto the stage, she walked over and picked up a slice with meat and jalopenos.

Scrunching his nose a bit, Matty stared at the slice in her hand, "That looks fucking disgusting."

"Have you ever tried it?" She questioned, then as he shook his head held the piece out to him, "Try it, I swear it's good."

He continued to shake his head, that same look of disgust still evident on his face, "That stuff shouldn't be on a pizza."

"You do know that people in Italy actually put fries on their pizzas right? I think some meat and jalopenos are still better choices than that." She laughed and took a bite from the pizza herself. After she had chewed and swallowed the piece, she smiled at him, "See? I'm still alive. Now stop being such a pussy and just take a bite."

"Me? A pussy?" Matty laughed and then finally took a bite from her pizza. Holding his hand over his mouth as he chewed, he muttered, "Mh.. not that bad."

Lacey raised her eyebrows, smirking, "What was that?"

"You fucking heard me." He laughed, then took the piece from her, "Thanks for the piece, darling."

Rolling her eyes, she bent down to pick up a new slice for herself, "You couldn't have just taken a new slice, could you?"

"Wouldn't have been able to enjoy this wonderful view then." He smirked, as he squeezed her butt gently.

Immediately turning red, she straightened herself up and stared at him, "What do you think you're doing?!"

He just laughed nonchalantly and put his free arm around her to pull her closer, "You're such a mystery to me, Lace. One moment you act like this carefree woman who will call me a pussy without even thinking twice about it and then as soon as I say or do something sexual to you, you turn into some shy little teenage girl."

Not wanting to show him how much his remark hurt since she was an inexperienced shy girl, Lacey tried to disentangle herself from his grip, muttering, "Well, sorry."

Seeing her obvious discomfort, Matty released her for a bit only to grab her chin and force her to look up at him. Taking a new bite from his pizza, he simply shook his head as he stared at her before he said, "That wasn't meant to be rude. You just puzzle me."

Not really knowing what to say to that, she simply shrugged and took another bite of her own pizza herself.

Realizing that she wasn't going to reply to that, he simply shrugged and let his hand drop to his side, "Guess I'll have to figure you out myself then, if you don't want to help me." He smiled, then faced George and the other guys, "How much time do we have until doors open?"

The same guy who had asked Lacey how she had liked their music before, pulled out his phone and looked at the time, "Shit, only fifteen minutes. We should take this backstage."

"Let's do it then." Matty nodded and snatched the pizza box with the jalopeno pizza in it, "I'd say this one's mine." He winked at Lacey.

"No way." She laughed and took another piece out of the box as she whispered to Matty, "What's that guy's name again? I know you mentioned their names earlier, but I forgot."

Stopping with a confused look on his face for a moment, he seemed to understand and shouted over to the other two guys, "Hey Ross, Adam. Come introduce yourselves properly to this young lady."

The one with the dark short hair reached her first and shook her hand, "Sorry, I had already heard so much about you that I had forgotten we hadn't actually met." He laughed, "I'm Ross."

"And I'm Adam." The other guy smiled as he also shook her hand.

"Nice to officially meet you both." She smiled, "I'm Lacey."

"But you can call her Lace." Matty chimed in.

She rolled her eyes, "No, you can't."

"Are you saying that you don't like Ross and Adam enough to let them call you by your nickname?" He challenged.

"No that's not what I'm saying, I mean -" She started, but Matty interrupted her, "Well then it's settled. You can call her Lace and you now know their names now, too. Perfect, now let's go."

Simply rolling her eyes in response, she let it slide and followed the guys to their backstage area. Since their concert was in a pub, it wasn't very upscale or big. They all had to share a room with sofas lining the walls as well as a unisex bathroom.

"Question..." Lacey started as she plopped down onto the most comfortable looking sofa, "If you guys are so famous, why are you performing here and not at the O2 arena or something?"

"This is a sort of throwback kind of thing. We've been together for 10 years and one of our first gigs was here, so we thought we'd do a small show here tonight to kind of reminisce." George explained.

"Yeah..." Matty chimed in, still chewing on his pizza, "Plus only hardcore fans will know about this, since we kept it quite secret. So that should be fun."

"Oh so the fuck me girls are only the hardcore fans? You don't have a whole army of them?"

Ella looked confused, "Fuck me girls?"

"Yeah, Matty took me outside and the girls literally asked him whether they could have sex with him." Lacey shook her head, laughing, "How crazy is that?!"

Matty smirked at her, "I love how worked up you get about that."

"I'm not getting worked up about it." She protested, "I just don't think that fifteen year olds should say stuff like that, it's too odd."

He put his arm around her casually, saying, "Well I, my dear, think that you are jealous of those very fifteen year olds."

Lacey just laughed sarcastically, "Oh because I oh-so-badly want to tell you to fuck me?"

"Yes, you do." He smirked, "You're just too shy to say stuff like that."

"Guys, there are other people in this room." George chimed in, before they could get into the topic any further.

"Whatever..." Matty smiled as he pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, "By the way, Lace... Do you have your list with you?"

It took her a few seconds to realize that he was talking about her bucket list and she immediately blushed at the mentioning of it in front of everybody else, "U-uh no, I don't have my handbag with me." She stuttered.

Not seeming to understand where her nervousness suddenly came from, he simply continued to ask, "There was something about getting a tattoo on there wasn't there?"

"Uhm yeah." She replied as she nervously looked down at her hands.

"So I was thinking..." He continued, then pointed over at Ross, "That after tonight's show, we could go to Ross' place and get us some tattoos."

Ross, who had started to pay attention at the mentioning of his name, simply smiled and said, "Oh sure."

"Wait," Lacey exclaimed, uncomfortable with how fast this discussion was going, and turned to Ross, "Do you actually know how to, uh, do tattoos?"

He laughed, "Yeah, I learned it from my friend who's a tattoo artist. I've got all the things at home, I've done quite a few tattoos in my life and they all turned out quite alright, so no need to worry."

"I-I don't know..." She muttered.

Matty raised his eyebrows questioningly, "Why? It's on your list right?"

"Well yeah..." She started, then shrugged, "It's just so fast, like I wouldn't even know what to get."

"In that case consider yourself lucky to be friends with Matty Healy..." Matty smiled while her heart sank at the mentioning of the word friends, "I've already thought it all through. What was the first thing you thought when you saw me?"

Thrown off by this seemingly unrelated question, she asked, "What?"

He repeated his question, "What did you think of me the very first time you saw me?"

"Honestly?" She asked, then continued when he simply nodded, "I remember seeing you staring at me and I thought that was pretty damn rude."

"Well that's not poetic..." He laughed, "Think more about when we actually talked to each other, not the whole odd getting to get you to talk to me phase."

"I thought you were careless." She shrugged.

"Continue."

Sighing, she elaborated, "I thought you looked cold, no that's not the right word..." She shook her head thinking, "When I saw you walking up to me you seemed like you didn't care about anything, but once we talked more outside I noticed that you actually care about a few things, but mainly people a lot. I noticed the same thing when you talked." He raised his eyebrows questioningly at that, urging her to go on, "Well don't get me wrong - if you want something, you say so very clearly, but as soon as you talk about things that are personal to you, your thoughts become a bit messy and it's hard to figure you out."

"So you're saying that I don't make sense when I talk?" He questioned.

"No," She shook her head, "You do make sense. It's just that you don't make it easy for people to understand your stories, because you talk in such an eloquent way about it - kind of like the lyrics in your songs."

He nodded in understanding, "Messy but eloquent, that's it." He suddenly said then.

"That's what?" She asked.

"That will be my tattoo. Wanna know yours?" He smirked.

"Wait, you'll decide what my tattoo will be?" Lacey asked a bit shocked.

"Well of course, just like you chose mine." He smiled, then repeated, "Do you want to know yours now or do you want it to be a surprise?"

Shaking her head, she demanded, "No, tell me."

"Indecisive eyes." He said simply, looking straight at her.

Looking back at him, she asked softly, "Indecisive eyes?"

"Yeah," He smiled, "First of all it's clearly about your eye color. Every time I look at them, I don't know whether they are green or blue or even both. I don't even know what it depends on, if it's your mood or simply the lighting, but it always catches my attention." He ran his hand through his hair and continued, "But mostly it's because you always can't seem to decide who you really are. You can really see that in your eyes. Like that night at the bar, your whole body seemed to scream that you didn't want to be there, but your eyes sparkled as if you were glad to be there. Same with every time you shy back from me. Your whole body retracts, but your eyes always look back into mine without any shyness."

After a moment of stunned silence, a smile formed on Lacey's lips, "Okay."

"Okay?" Matty questioned, smiling back at her.

She laughed lightly, "Okay I'll get a tattoo with you."

"Never had any doubt that you wouldn't." He smiled and quickly kissed her forehead, before he asked the others, "What time is it guys?"

"We'll be on in five minutes, which you would have already known if you two weren't so engaged in your conversation about eyes and eloquence and whatnot." Adam rolled his eyes.

Matty simply smirked, "Ever heard that it was rude to listen to other people's conversations, Adam?"

He shrugged, "Well, there's not much to do here with Ross taking a piss and George and his lady constantly kissing each other."

"Shut up." George muttered from the other couch where Ella and him where indeed sitting a bit too close to each other.

"Well anyways, we should probably get ready and go out there." Matty said as he got up and helped Lacey up, "Will you watch from the side of the stage?"

"Yeah, I don't want to be in the crowd of fuck me girls who probably want to kill me after they saw you put an arm around me before." She laughed.

"Then stay right here." He smiled as he positioned her at the side of the stage, then pulled her close one last time, "I can't wait to see you later." He murmured into her hair.

"Mhh..." She mumbled in agreement, as she put his arms around his waist and looked up at him.

He smirked, "You're going to do something aren't you?"

Surprised at being caught, Lacey pulled away slightly, "How do you know?"

"I told you, your eyes." He smiled.

"Oh god..." She laughed, then purposely looked straight at him as she tilted her head towards his, "Now just shut up..." She smiled.

"Gladly." Matty mumbled as he accepted the second kiss they shared that day.

A/N: Hey guys, sorry that I couldn't update yesterday, but I wasn't feeling to well and blah. Anyways, this one is a bit longer so I guess that makes up for it? :) Also, I can't believe this story already has over 100 reads - that's crazy. Thanks to anyone who's reading this. Now back to this chapter, did you like it? Is there anything you want to see more of or is there anything you want to see less of? I'm always happy to receive some criticism. Please vote if you enjoy this story and want to read some more :) Thank you, m