Take Me as I Am

Rolling over, I stretched out and turned to curl into the warm body next to me. Except the space was empty and the bed cold. Frowning I blinked open my eyes to see a dent where Niall was but no Niall around.

Exhaling slowly I sat up and looked around the floor, all his clothes from last night where gone from the ground. He’d obviously left while I slept.

Reaching for my phone I checked for messages, only from Jade, Sarah and one from my Mother. God I was stupid to think we could be anything else.

Ignoring the headache the crept through to the front of my brain, pounding behind my left eye, I pulled on my pajamas that were lying on the ground and stumbled out of my room. I needed to take something for a headache, desperately.

I tripped over something in the hall and fell heavily against the wall. Cursing I pushed the shoes out of the way and rubbed my, now sore, elbow.

“Woah, you okay?” I jumped and shrieked at the sound of Niall’s voice. Spinning around, Niall stood in the doorway to my kitchen, jeans on but completely shirtless showing a large amount of pale skin. I had to blink a couple of time to get my bearings back before narrowing my eyes at him.

“What are you doing?” I asked him utterly confused.

“Making you breakfast?” He posed it like a question, raising his eyebrow and gesturing to the spatula in his hand.

“Right.” I mumbled turning to glare back at my shoe that had betrayed me before following Niall back into the kitchen. His shirt was hanging across one of my chairs, almost like he was planning on getting fully dressed but changed his mind.

I watched Niall cautiously and took a seat as he went back to flipping pancakes in a pan. There was already a large stack on the table with butter, syrup and fruit already ready.

“Uh thank you?” I asked hesitantly not sure what had given Niall the urge to what to cook this much breakfast. I also wandered how much he planned to eat since I certainly didn’t eat that many pancakes by myself.

Niall turned to grin at me widely, before flopping more pancakes onto the stack and brought the whole plate towards the table. I watched as he headed straight to another cupboard and grabbed a hold of two cups. I narrowed my eyes at how easily he moved around my kitchen, confident in where everything was. He grabbed the milk out of the fridge to pour into both cups before also grabbing two juice boxes, smiling at me indulgently when he did. I glared at him in response, daring him to say anything about them.

He placed both drinks down in front of us both and sat down directly across from me. His feet easily tangled with mine underneath the table while he began piling his plate with food.

He acted and moved around my place and me with effortless confidence. Like he knew me so easily. It hurt to see him act like we were close when truthfully he was only ever here to sleep with me and that was all. This mornings breakfast can be attributed to the fact that he was probably just having a craving for pancakes or maybe felt like it was a nice thing to do for a friend, a sort of friend.

“Are you going to eat? I swear they are actually good.” Niall gestured to the stack of pancakes he was already devouring. Shooting him a disgusted look which only made him laugh, I grabbed some pancakes and drowned them in syrup.

“No butter?” He asked curiously, watching me.

“So no necessary when you have syrup.” I protested and took a large bite of the pancake, some syrup dripped down my chin and onto my plate. Niall just grinned wider and the messy look I must make and continued to eat his food. I wiped my chin with the back of my hand before realizing how good this pancake actually was.

“Holy shit. Since when do you know how to cook?” I questioned him, stopping the moan that wanted to leak from my mouth. I stuffed more pancake into my mouth before Niall answered.

“I don’t. I just know how to make certain things. Mostly my favourite food. Didn’t have patience to learn the other stuff.” He waved his hand in the air dismissively while I eyed my pancakes trying to figure out a way that I could just drown myself in them. I grabbed some more from the stack to dump on the pancakes I already had on my plate and covered them in more syrup. I ignored Niall’s snort in favour of eating.

It didn’t take long to finish off the stack of pancakes that Niall had made and I almost wished there was more if I was already stuff full with goodness.

“You’re talents are wasted on singing.” I commented to him. “Seriously you should just make pancakes for the rest of your life.”

“Wouldn’t make much money on it though.” He began stacking up the dishes that we had used.

“Yeah but you would make me happy for the rest of my life.” I told him truthfully, stretching my hands above my head before smiling genuinely at Niall. He seemed to regard me for a moment before offering a small smile in return.

“I’ll consider it.” He said seriously, making me laugh while he took the dirty plates to my sink. I grabbed our cups to join them. I frowned when I saw Niall rummage through my dishwasher pulling out things that were clean to place the dirty dishes inside it.

“Hey you don’t have to do that you know.” I reached out to rest a hand on his arm. “I’m sure you have other more important things to do that reload my dishwasher.”

“I don’t.” He shrugged and turned back to the sink to rinse the plates off before sticking them. I watched Niall confused as he placed everything perfectly before sorting out my clean dishes to put them away. I joined him after a moment not wanting to seem rude and stand by while he did everything.

I was really curious as to how well he knew my own kitchen. He seemed to practically know where everything was without hesitation. He had been to my flat a lot and seen me cook but I never thought he would be paying enough attention to know my kitchen to this great detail.

“You mind if I use your shower?” Niall questioned once we were finished. I shook my head in allowance. He grinned and pressed a kiss to my temple before disappearing down the hall, grabbing his shirt from last night off the chair along the way.

Disbelieving, I sat down and tried to interpret his behavior. Neither Niall nor I had brought up what I wanted to talk to him about the other day. Instead he had texted me yesterday wanting to know if I was free to go out soon. I had went with him of course and like all the times we went out now we had ended back up here. I had never really noticed until now that we always came back here, to my flat. We never went to his and he certainly never offered.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I realised that maybe Niall was ashamed of me. There would definitely be more people hanging around his flat at all times of the day that it would be so much harder to sneak in there then it was here. I had never thought that Niall would be embarrassed of me but what other explanation was there for him not wanting me at his place?

I glanced up angrily when Niall’s feel could be heard coming down the hallway. He leant against the frame of the doorway into the kitchen and smiled at me. This only made me angrier. How dare he come here and act like we were more than sex, that I meant more to him than easy sex. He made me breakfast like he actually cared, like he wanted to.

“I was thinking we could watch a movie? There’s a few movies that you have that I definitely want to watch.” I rolled my eyes at him and stood up.
“You can just take them home with you if you want to watch them. You don’t have to watch them here.” I told him tonelessly, going to the fridge to get a drink of water. My throat had gone unbelievably dry.

“Well, I uh thought we could watch them together?” Niall shifted in the doorway and took a step closer. I grabbed a cup from the cupboard and placed it on the bench between us.

“Why? I’ve already seen them all.” I shot back to Niall who frowned, crossing his arms over his chest in a protective stance.

“I’m sorry did something happen?” I look at Niall confused. “One minute we’re having a perfectly normal breakfast and the next you’re being a total bitch.” I bristled under Niall’s glare and threw my head back, matching his glare.

“Maybe I don’t feel like playing house with you.” I spat back at him, my glass of water long forgotten as moved to step around the bench. “We’ve fucked Niall, this is generally the part where you fuck off.” He flinched like I had visibly slapped him. I didn’t know why my cuss words would hurt him when he swore worse than anyone else I knew. His eyes darkened and he stopped trying to walk to me. I saw his hand grab onto the bench top, knuckles going white.

“I thought I would be nice and cook you breakfast but apparently that was the wrong thing to do. Just like every time I’m with you I seem to fuck up somehow.” He hissed back. I gaped at him for a moment confused. Why would he care about fucking up in front of me, I still foolishly welcomed him into my bed.

“I don’t need you being nice to me that morning after Niall.” I glared at him. “I’m a big girl, you can work at that day and I won’t freaking care.” The lie slid so easily threw my teeth that I would have believed it if my heart didn’t painfully thud against my chest. But Niall couldn’t hear or see that and he seemed to believe my words.

“You know what Aria. Fuck. You.” Niall hissed, stepping closer before shaking his head and turning to leave the kitchen. He paused in the doorway and my heart began thudding quickly again while he faced the other. Crap, I had fucked up and I needed to say something before walked out.

“Niall, I…” My voice cracked and I didn’t know what to say. Niall’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly and he turned to look at me. I felt like I had been slapped his features were cold and blank, not a caring light left in them.

He shook his head after a moment of silence before turning again and storming out of my flat. I squeaked unnecessarily when he slammed my front door.