It’s the first of January and my head’s fookin’ pounding, like someone’s got a drum kit set up behind my eyes. The Modest boardroom smells like expensive cologne and bad decisions. I’m slouched in a chair that costs more than my first car, knee bouncing, cigarette cravings making my fingers twitch.

You’re next to me, close enough that our shoulders brush, your warmth grounding me a bit. Been like that since the beginning. Since the X-Factor house, since bunk beds and cheap takeaways and figuring out who the hell we were together. We never put a label on us. Never needed one. Best mates first, always. The rest just happened. Late nights, shared hoodies, falling asleep tangled up when the world got too loud. Sometimes we fuck, sometimes we don’t. It’s easy. It’s us.

Across the table, one of the suits is still talking. Hasn’t taken a breath in about half an hour. Simon’s not even here, just his echo in these people. Zayn’s jaw is tight, Liam’s staring at the carpet, Harry’s doing that thing where he looks calm but I know he’s bracing. Paul’s at the wall, arms crossed, watching like a bouncer at a funeral.

“Your behaviour last night was reckless,” the bloke says, tapping his pen. “A kiss at midnight, captured on camera, is not a good look. Fans are confused. The brand—”

I scoff. Loud. “It’s a kiss. At New Year’s. Christ.”

He ignores me and turns to you, voice dropping into something patronising that makes my stomach flip. “You, especially, should know better. You’re meant to be the sensible one. This kind of indulgence can undo years of carefully managed image.”

I feel it before I think it. Heat up my spine, fists clenching. You don’t shrink, not really, but I know that look on your face. You take things on, even when they’re not yours to carry. Been doing it since you were sixteen and terrified of letting anyone down.

My chair screeches back as I stand. “Oi. Don’t fookin’ talk to her like that.” Silence slams into the room. The pen stops tapping.

“You don’t get to lecture her like she's a naughty kid,” I go on, voice shaking now, anger and last night’s tequila tangling. “We’re grown. We were drunk, yeah, and we kissed. Big fookin’ deal.”

“That kiss is everywhere,” he snaps. “Three hundred thousand likes. Seventy thousand retweets. Your names are trending.”

“Good for them,” I say. “Must be bored, those people.”

I glance at you, still beside me, steady. I think about Barnet, about my house and your shoes by the door, about how you’d laughed last night when the clock hit midnight, how safe we felt with no phones and no cameras allowed. How wrong we were.

“And since we’re being honest,” I add, because I’m a provocative little bastard and I’m done being polite, “we didn’t just kiss. Went home and fucked all night. Five different positions, if you really need the detail. So you can stop pretending this is about one blurry video.”

Niall swears under his breath. Liam shifts. Harry’s eyes go wide, then soft, like he’s proud and terrified at the same time.

“No one here,” I say, pointing around the table, “gets to decide who I kiss or who I sleep with. Not you, not Syco, not Modest, not Simon. And you sure as hell don’t get to talk down to someone I love.”