When I ask him what he remembers most about Payne, he strings moments together like a supercut: the time they went to the beach and a pair of Payne’s underwear went missing off a balcony, racing around their stadium tour venues on a Segway, “random nights playing FIFA on the bus and just messing backstage.” He especially holds dear the couple of days they shared a room during the bootcamp phase of X Factor, right before they were flung into fame.
“I just got to know him a little bit and then we ended up doing what we did together,” Horan says. “Memories that only he and I can share ’cause you have a team and you have people around all the time, but we always said that only us have that experience, no one else has that.”
Niall on Liam Payne for GQ












