Crooked

When I woke up, the only thing I remembered from the night before was the feeling of Niall’s lips on mine. My lips still tingled from his touch, and while I didn’t want to feel it, I knew that my attraction for him was growing a little bit more, day by day.

I didn’t want this to happen, of course. The last thing I expected was to like someone who seemed so unattainable because he was in a band. No less a band that was mega successful meaning that he could have any girl he wanted. But for some reason, he seemed even just that little bit interested in me, and well, I wasn’t going to complain.

I made a movement to rub my eyes but realised where one of my hands were: clasped with Niall’s tightly as though I didn’t want to let go. Part of me didn’t want to let go because it felt so right with his hand in mine, but I knew I had to let it go because a: it wasn’t appropriate and b: I wasn’t supposed to have feelings for him, even just a little bit. Usually when I tried to convince myself that I didn’t like someone or wasn’t supposed to, I’d make a list of reasons of why I shouldn’t go for like that person. So in my head, I began to conduct a list of reasons why Niall and I could never work.

Number one: his overall look. There was something about a baby face I didn’t like. Actually, I knew why I didn’t like it – I was jealous of people who had baby faces’. They had the ability to get out precarious situations and could use their cuteness to their advantage. If I wanted to use anything to my advantage, it was my evil smile and smart mind. Or my boobs. Men loved the boobs.

Number two: his upbeat personality and infectious laugh that made me want to slaughter him with a knife. Probably a butter knife, so he wouldn’t get too hurt but still, a knife. How could someone be as happy as he was? And that cute Irish laugh he had? Jesus, it did things to me I didn’t know could even be done. It was quite clear that his adorableness irritated me to the fullest, but it didn’t stop me from loving liking it all the while.

Number three: he had crooked teeth. It would probably seem like a stupid, superficial thing but the bitch had crooked teeth and man, did she piss me off. If my parents hadn’t held me back the first time I ever laid a hand on her, who knew how she would have turned up.
And lastly, number four: did I mention his teeth? Jesus, I just wanted to pull them out myself so he could get a whole new set of straight ones. Was it really that hard to get braces? He was famous, it wouldn’t be that hard.

There, I thought proudly to myself. Four very good – although two could be counted as one – reasons to why I should just forget about Niall.

“Cass?” Niall’s beautiful Irish accent was like music to my ears. I glanced at him, instantly melting at the way his ocean blue eyes looked at me with such softness in them it was hard to look away.

Damn it, I cursed silently to myself. The Irish charm was too hard to resist.

“Yeah?” I whispered, my voice sounding gravelly from having just woken up.

“Get a coffee with me?”

Oh Jesus, the things this boy did to me …it made it impossible to say no to him.

So much for my list.

---

As I quickly figured out, coffee was translation for Nandos. And a huge serving of it too, to soak up the alcohol we consumed last night. I wasn’t hungover, per say, but there was a small headache lingering in my head and I knew it wasn’t going to go away until I had at least some sort of salty, fattening goodness.

“What do you want?” Niall asked me as he pulled up in the drive through of Nando’s. We’d taken Angie’s car, who didn’t know that we had stolen it but eh, YOLO.

“I’ll pay,” I assured him. “I plan on eating a lot, so.”

Niall rolled his eyes at me and I couldn’t help but smile at his immature behaviour. “I’m the man, so I’ll pay. Get anything you want, you know I don’t eat small meals.”

That was true. Every time we had gone out for a bite to eat, it seemed that Niall had the appetite of an obese man. The only difference between the two was that Niall had a ridiculously fast metabolism, as opposed to people like me who had to work a little to lose weight.

“Hello and welcome to Nandos, may I please take your order?” The female voice greeted us through the speaker. I grinned evilly and began my order:

“I’d like four grilled tenderloins, in a mild sauce, a supreme chicken burger with a wholemeal crusty Portuguese roll, large peri-peri chips and a Diet Coke, please.”

Niall stared at me in wonder, and I questioned to myself whether he seemed disgusted by the amount of food I was planning to eat. I didn’t have to question myself any longer, as he stated, “I’ll have the same, but with extra-large peri-peri chips and two bottles of water, thank-you.”

There was silence in the speaker from the other line before the girl began to stutter and ask for our order again. We laughed.

---

“God, this is good,” I mumbled through a mouthful of the greasy tenderloins. I knew I had sauce all over my face but I made no attempt to remove it any time soon as I began to devour the Nandos food even more.

“Cass,” Louis spoke, bringing me to his attention. “You have sauce all over your face.”

I grinned, no doubt revealing a set of pearly whites that were now covered in disgusting grease and God knows what else. “I know, thanks for the reminder.”

“Let me get that off for you,” Niall offered, picking up a napkin. I set my food down and paused, closing my eyes gently as I allowed Niall to wipe the sauce off my face, in a tender sort of way. I could feel my cheeks heat up from his gentle touch and then smacked myself internally for letting myself think this way.

After receiving our Nandos orders, where the workers had given us a free burger and chip deal as they recognised Niall, one of their biggest supporters of the franchise, he’d driven back to the hotel and had taken two trips to get the food out of the van. Luckily, no one had noticed our food until now, as Harry, Louis and Angie had woken up from their deep slumbers. It was no surprise that Zayn was still asleep, or that Liam was since he had stayed up very late talking to Danielle.

“Food!” Angie and Harry chorused as they made their way towards us and I quickly opened my eyes again, pulling away from Niall hastily as I began to protect the food.

“Nuh-uh,” I told them. “This is all mine. You guys can share the free burger and chip deal Niall snagged, though.”

“Snagged?” Harry asked, confused.

“Aussie slang,” Angie informed him and rolled her eyes at me in the process. “You pig, can I at least have some of the chicken burger? Like half? You know that the tenderloins always make you full.”

I glared at her, knowing it was true. “Fine.”

Harry took a seat next to Angie and they began sharing the food, which should have surprised me since Angie didn’t like sharing her food but I didn’t care, more focused on Niall and Louis walking into the kitchen to talk. Curious to what they had to say, I told Angie and Harry to not eat my food otherwise I would “karate chop their asses from here to NYC” and hid behind the counter, making sure neither Niall or Louis heard me.

“I met someone,” Louis told Niall, “Haz introduced me to her. Her name’s Eleanor and she’s a model and she’s quite fit.”

There was a pause. I didn’t know what this meant until Niall spoke up. “What are you trying to tell me then?”

“Cass is all yours, I want to see where things go with Eleanor,” Louis told him bluntly. “No hard feelings about this whole thing, yeah?”

“No hard feelings,” Niall affirmed in response and I could hear the clapping of men’s back being heard before I took this opportunity to crawl into the living room, grabbing my chips and stuffing them in my mouth as Niall and Louis entered the room.

“What did they say?” Angie whispered in my ear, low enough so Harry or the boys couldn’t hear.

“Tell you later,” I mumbled, peeved that Niall and Louis was under the suspicion that Niall could own me. Nobody owned me, and if Niall thought he could somehow whisk me under his Irish spell, he was wrong.

He was so wrong.