Lightning in a Bottle

Everyone knew Niall was going to propose. Everyone but me. The little prick even asked my aunt and Blue for permission! WHY IS HE SO PERFECT?! When I called Eleanor, Kota and Perrie, they all pretended to be surprised, but I knew them well enough to know that they knew! I had no one to tell because my fiancé couldn’t keep anything a secret from his friends!

JOSH AND MY BROTHER EVEN KNEW!

I don’t know how none of these people didn’t ruin the surprise, especially Louis and Liam. They’re shit at keeping secrets. But I’m glad they did, because it would have ruined how epic that proposal was.

I am over exaggerating, there were friends that didn’t know, like Oli and all of my DropDead family. They were overjoyed for me when I told them. Especially Oli, who’s become like another older brother to me over the years.

Over the last month, I think it was safe to say that everyone on the planet knew Niall and I were engaged. As soon as everyone knew he popped the question, congratulation tweets went out.

I know I shouldn’t have been surprised when celebrities I didn’t even know where sending me their praises and congratulations, but I was. It’s still unreal to me how I somehow became friends with one of the biggest boy bands around. And I was engaged to one of them. And people knew who I was! I’d like to say it was because of my modeling or video’s I’ve been in, but who am I kidding? I got texts from The Wanted lads sending their best. My friendship with them (mainly Jay) was still somewhat of a sore subject around some of my friends, but they just chose to turn the other cheek instead of commenting on it anymore.

Nick Grimshaw even had me on his show, though that was set up before the engagement, but you know what we just ended up talking about.

Today though, like always when I wasn’t out with Blue or Niall or one of the others, I was running about with Harry. Kota was at one of her meetings and Niall was in physical therapy so Harry and I usually ended up together one way or another.

“The paps are coming out in droves today, yeah?” I said eyeing the crowd of people outside of the restaurant we were in. They were like hungry vultures.

He glanced at the crowd fleetingly before turning back to his meal, “It’s because you’re an engaged woman now. Plus the band’s been under the radar since we’re on a break. They’ll do anything to snap a picture of us.”

“Remind me to never come out in public with you then,” I sighed.

He scoffed, “It was your idea to come out!”

“I was hungry, I would have gone out with anyone. You just happened to be down the street and Kota was already gone.”

“Thanks babe, I can feel the love yeah?”

I plastered an obnoxious smile on my face, “I’m glad you do Haz!”

He scoffed, “Cheers yeah?”

I went on picking at my food. I was pretty much done, but I wasn’t ready to leave and Harry was still scraping at his plate, “You think Kota will be back when we get home? I have some ideas to run by her.”

“About the wedding?” he smirked.

“Uh, no. About having her do a shoot with me actually.”

“You want her to model?”

I shook my head, “Not really. It’s for Blue, she’s trying to revamp her website.”

He nodded as he sipped at his water, “She’s excited about your wedding you know.”

“So is everyone,” I sighed, “I- we don’t even know when we want to have it yet. You all need to calm down. I swear, if Eleanor tries to give me the number to her wedding planner one more time…” I tisked. El and Louis got married last year, it was outdoors on this estate in the country. It was amazingly beautiful and a lot of fun but I wasn’t ready to plan anything for mine. I was content just wearing a ring and being comfortable with that for a little while. But the world seemed intent on guessing when and what the Horan wedding was going to be like.

It was fucking annoying!

“She’s just trying to help.”

I nodded, “I know. It’s just overwhelming sometimes.”

“I can imagine.”

We finished up our meals and got ready to head outside to the madness that awaited, “I feel like there’s even more now.”

“Yeah, let’s just get to the car as soon as possible.” We headed for the door and before it, Harry latched onto my hand to make sure we wouldn’t be separated.

The photographers started yelling things out as soon as we stepped out. Asking where Dakota and Niall were, or if I could show off my ring (no, it was clasped in Harry’s hand), if we’d set a date yet. They were really intense, I hadn’t encountered this bad a crowd in a long time.

We made it to his Ranger Rover in a hurry, Harry answering a few questions as we went because he’s a little peach. He helped me in before running around to the driver’s side, “There must be a new rumor or something going about, there’s so many of them out,” he said as he started to drive. I noticed a bunch of cars pull out after us to follow.

“The hell,” I mumbled as I looked around at everyone, “Be careful, some aren’t driving safely.” One of them bulled up beside us to snap pictures, “Seriously, we’re not even doing anything!”

Harry glanced around nervously as he drove, I even shut off the radio just to help hi concentrate.

Then it happened.

It wasn’t in slow motion exactly like everyone always says, it was more like all my senses were on high alert and I saw everything more clearly. The car next to us had sped up to get in front of us, but didn’t see that another car was trying to pull out and they swerved right into us, hitting my side of the car.

My head smacked against the window pretty hard and I saw spots and I clamped my eyes shut. All I heard after that was a lot of tires screeching, and Harry shouting out as his truck swerved about before we lurched forward and were finally at a complete stop.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw that we’d hit the car that originally slammed into us that had caused this whole thing.

“Ayden! Are you alright?”

“What?” I turned to him to make sure he was okay, “Yeah I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding!” he said alarmed.

“What?” I reached up and sure enough when I pulled my hand back all I saw was red across my fingers. That’s when I started to feel the throbbing pain of where my head had hit. “Shit,” I moaned. “Are you alright?”

He grabbed my face to look at my head, “I’m fine, but you’re hurt pretty badly I think.”

I pulled my head out of his hands, “No, I’m fine.” I could hear sirens coming and it registered to me again that we’d just been in an accident. I looked out the window to the car with the paps in it. The guy was stuck in his car because the front of Harry’s truck was crunched into his, yet he was still taking pictures. “Is this guy for real?” I tried to duck, but the movement made me dizzy.

“He’s clearly looking for a lawsuit. Just say in the car until the authorities get here.”

*****

Against all my protests and assurances that I was fine, I was forced to be taken to the hospital while Harry stayed at the scene to give his statement to the police and hopefully have that guy arrested.

Turns out though that I had to get 5 stitches in the side of my head (I was so bitter when they had to shave a small patch of hair!) and I had a pretty severe concussion.

I was singing the insurance forms after they bandaged up my head when Niall rushed into the room, “Ayden! Are you alright?”

I noticed, as he hobbled in, that he wasn’t wearing his knee brace, “Niall, what are you doing! You’re supposed to wear your knee brace at all times!”

He scoffed, “Yeah but when Harry calls and tells me you were in an accident and was rushed to the hospital, I kind of had other things on my mind!” he said frantically. I could see how stressed he was when I looked up into his face.

“Hey, calm down, I’m alright.”

“No you’re not! You have a concussion and stitches!” He grabbed my chin(I could sense a trend here) to take a better look at my face and head to assure himself that I had no other scratches on my body.

I sighed, “Relax, it could be worse.”

“I know! That guy could have killed you!” he shrieked.

“Niall!” I said grabbing his face so he could look into my eyes, “I’m fine.”

He sighed and his shoulder sagged, “I thought I lost you. Harry was talking really fast on the phone and I could hardly hear him with all the noise in the background. What even happened? The paparazzi drove into you?”

“Basically,” I said as I told him what happened.

“Thank god you’re alright,” he said pulling me into him and buried his face in my neck.

“I’m alright,” I reassured. “Now will you sit down and get off your knee? I’ll go find some crutches for you. I can’t believe you’re not wearing your brace,” I growled.

*****

So because I had a concussion I was told that I had to be woken up every hour. Totally annoying, but I set my alarm to go off every hour before Niall and I went to bed. The first few times I woke up, Niall was wide awake next to me, watching the tellie. He said he was too anxious to sleep so instead he was watching infomercials.

Around 4am when my alarm went off again, it was dark in the room and Niall was asleep. I was exhausted from the day and being ripped from sleep every hour. I was content on spending the next day in bed. I tapped my phone screen to shut to alarm up before getting up to get some water and use the bathroom. I noticed as I got us that Niall was moving around a lot more than usual.

When I got back I slipped under the covers ready to get back to dreamland. Though it was hard with Niall twitching and rolling every too seconds. “Ayden,” he mumbled. I opened my eyes because I thought he was awake, but his eyes were still shut and his breathing was deep. I waited about a full minute before relaxing back onto my pillow, but as soon as I did he started mumbling incoherently and thrashing about. He kept saying my name and he when I sat up I noticed sheen of sweat on his brow. “No, Ayden!” he said again.

“Niall,” I said shaking his shoulder a little bit. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to wake people up from dreams like this. Or was that just sleep walking?

“Ayden!” he called out again rolling into me before rolling back onto his back.

I shook him harder, “Niall wake up! I think you’re having a bad dream.”

He swatted at my hands as I tried to shake him, “Where’s Ayden? Ayden!”

He was tossing his head from side to side and moving about. I didn’t know what else to do and I rolled onto him and straddled his waist to try and keep him stationary and cradled his neck and jaw between my hands, “Niall, come on babe, wake up.” I tapped his face gently as I tried to shake him again, “Come on Nialler,” I said over his mumbling of my name.

I shook him harder and then he shot up into me gasping for breath, “Ayden!”

“Baby, calm down I’m right here.”

He was looking all around frantically but met my eyes when I spoke, “Jesus,” he breathed before he sat up and wrapped his arms around my waits. He buried his face into my chest as he tried to catch his breath.

“Are you okay? You were thrashing around pretty bad. It was freaking me out.” I ran my fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp as he took deep breaths. After a moment he moved his face and kissed me. He kissed me hard like his life depended on it, and since I didn’t know what to do in this situation either, I kissed him back. It lasted for only maybe a minute before he pulled back to catch his breath again. I rested my forehead against his, “Are you okay?” I asked again.

“Yeah, I just,” he leaned back and rubbed at his face, “I had a dream you were in the car accident but died.”

My heard stopped for a second before it picked back up seed, “I’m sorry babe. But I’m fine yeah? I’m right here.” He nodded as he pulled me against him again. He laid down and pulled me down with him, so all my weight was on him.

“My nerves are shot,” he said against my hair.

I kissed his shoulder, “I’m sorry. But it was just a dream.”

His arms wrapped tighter around my waist, “I know. I love you.”

“I love you too popstar.”

We laid there, me on top of him as he clung to me, catching his breath and trying to calm down, “I don’t think I can fall back asleep after that.”

“It’s okay.” I tried to move off him but he refused to let go, so I just rolled so we were side by side on the bed, “We can stay up and talk if you want.”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“So… what do you want to talk about?”

“Anything,” he sighed, “I just want to hear your voice.”

I kissed his lips lovingly, “Okay.” I pecked them again before I settled back on the pillow, “Did I ever tell you about the time when Blue and I were 15 and she almost got kicked out of school for saran wrapping a teacher’s car?”

He chuckled lightly, “No, I don’t think I’ve heard this one.”