It Only Happens Once

“This is the best garlic bread... EVER” Niall whispered the last word as if it was a secret that he only wanted us to know.

“Actually, they’re rolls, and yes they are” Adi stated matter of factly. Adi was a major foodie, just like Niall I guess. I could see them becoming really good friends. To be honest, I thought Adi and I could really get close to the guys. We talked and got to know each other while waiting for the rest of our food: Zayn, Adi and I on one side; Louis, Harry, and Niall across from us accordingly; and Liam at the end of the table. Finally our pizzas arrived, each one got their own pie and not surprisingly, finished it. I had a little trouble with finishing my own and decided to leave it up-for-grabs, which was the worst idea I could ever come up with. The five of them reached over each other, pushing faces, slapping hands, even elbowing each other in the side just to get the rest of my pizza. But eventually, Niall had gotten to it first by practically climbing onto the table, and scarfed it down before any of the others had a chance.

“This pizza is the best pizza I’ve ever tasted” Niall sighed, leaning back into his chair. He had finished the pizza so quickly that he never noticed the tomato sauce that was left on the corner of his mouth. I started giggling and pointed at his face. He looked at me confused, pointing at himself as if I were talking to someone behind him. I nodded and pointed at his face where the sauce was. He still didn’t see what I was getting at so I grabbed a napkin, reached over the table and wiped it off of his face. I pulled back and couldn’t help but notice how blue his eyes were. They were so bright and, well, blue. He smiled sweetly at me as I sat back down in my seat and my heart melted. I smiled back and my cheeks flushed bright red. Louis must have noticed something and reached over to smack Niall right in the face.

“Lou! What was that for?” Niall cupped his cheek.

“She had you under her trance, mate. I had to snap you out of it!” Louis smirked at me and raised an eyebrow. “You fancy my mate here, Janelle?”

“Huh? No! What are you even talking about?” My cheeks felt warmer as they became even more red.

“C’mon, Janelle. You can tell us.” Louis was wiggling his eyebrows at me.

“Boy am I full. It’s probably time to go, don’t you think so Adi? I think so. Let’s go” I stood up and grabbed Adi by the arm.

“I guess it’s time to go boys.” Adi left enough money to cover the bill before I could drag her out of the restaurant and to car. The guys were right behind us, each one of them smirking and poking Niall.

Gravel crunched under the tires of the car as we pulled up to the beach house. I had only been here a few times with Adi’s family, but once you’ve been here you never forget. It had flat screens in practically every room, a karaoke/home theater, a jacuzzi on the back patio, the coolest kitchen, and a game room. Before Adi could put the car in park the boys were bounding up the steps towards the door. They were so excited they forgot about the concept of locked doors and the need of keys. Adi and I hopped out and walked towards the door chuckling.

“Hurry up!! You’re taking too long I wanna see the house!” Louis was whining and jumping up and down on the porch. That just made Adi walk even slower. I pretended to die and sank to the concrete.

“Ah, the heat it’s too much, I can’t take it.” I put my hand over my forehead like a Disney princess.

“You know she’s not really dying right, mate?” I heard Harry say, most likely to Niall, while the guys chuckled. I was about to look over at them when Adi tripped over me.

“Oh shit.” Adi caught herself and started walking slowly towards the door again. I heard a squeal and saw Harry carry Adi over his shoulder.

“Harry put me down right now, she’s dying!” He set her down in front of the door. She looked up at him and glared jokingly. Adi gave in first, turning around. She put the key in the lock with the guys breathing down her neck.

“Geez guys, give a girl some space!” Adi yelled, they all took a step back. Adi never let guys stand that close to her. She opened the door and the boys stampeded into the house screaming like little girls. Mind you, I was still on the ground.

“Wow, my knights in shining armor” I muttered to myself as I rolled my eyes. Adi came over to help me up.

“Sweetie, you were competing with a beach house. What did you expect?” She held her hand out and pulled me up. “C’mon let’s get our beach on.”

As we walked inside we heard Liam come bounding towards us, “Can we watch Toy Story? I see that you have all of them.” His maturity level dropped to that of a five year old where Toy Story was concerned, like how Louis was usually.

“No way” Adi said. I just shook my head.

“Then what are we gonna watch?” Liam pouted, his bottom lip jutting out.

“Tangled.” Adi said with a nod at the same time I said, “Mulan.” We looked at each other sternly.

“Tangled.”
“Mulan.”

Liam walked over, the pout still on his face. We both looked at him and at that moment, all Hell broke lose. Adi, Liam and I started arguing with each other, saying each of our movies was better than the other. “Mulan”, “Tangled”, and “Toy Story” were thrown out as we got in each other’s faces.

“CARROTS!” The three of us looked at Louis, confusion set into our faces. “Now, if you three are finished, we came here to go to the beach. We can argue about what movie to watch later, but right now let’s just all relax. Clear?” Our eyes went wide at Louis’ sudden maturity. Even Harry and Niall stopped laughing and stood there surprised. Louis realized that we were all staring at him and started to feel uncomfortable. “What? I can’t be mature once in awhile?”

Liam chuckled and gave him a small smile, “It’s not that mate, it’s just that you never act this mature that when you do, it’s just a little… odd.” He gave Louis a little side hug and looked over at Adi and me. “Well, girls, lead the way.” He motioned for us to start walking towards the beach which was only a short walk away from Adi’s house.

~~~~~~~

“Hot sand! Hot sand! Hot sand!” Harry was doing high knees as he walked across the beach.

“What a little pussy!” Adi stage whispered to me, loud enough so Harry could hear.

“You know you want me, Ms. Adeline” Harry stopped walking long enough to stare her down.

“Never in your wildest dreams, Styles.” All I could do was shake my head at their banter. Liam and Zayn propped the EZ-up while I “supervised”.

“How does it look, Boss.” Zayn asked.

“Eh, you almost got it. Just move it a little to the left. Then one of you can fan me, while the other feeds me grapes. Then and only then will you have done a good job.” I looked both of straight in the eyes. Zayn just stood there in complete shock.

“She’s not - wait, you’re not serious are you?”

“No, of course I’m serious,” I laughed sarcastically.

“Zayn, you need to learn how to read sarcasm better,” Liam rolled his eyes and received a punch in the arm from Zayn. He just glared at him and nursed his sore arm. In the distance I heard Louis and Niall arguing in the background.

“NIALL, NO! You’re doing it wrong!” Louis was yelling at Niall with his hands on his hips.

“Nu uh. You’re doing it wrong.” Niall protested.

Liam, Zayn, and I whipped our heads around and saw the mess that was their sand castle. We looked at each other. “No, you’re both doing it wrong.” The two boys paused for a moment, looked at each other and started to rebuild their sand pile in silence. I laid out my towel along side Zayn’s and Liam’s and began to read until I heard a splash.

“HAROLD STYLES. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!” Adi was screaming at the top of her lungs. He had pushed her in. Oh Harry, you and I will get along just fine, I giggled and went back to reading. That was, until Zayn threw sand onto the pages.

“Really?” I asked looking at him.

“I’ve been saying your name for the past minute, but you never responded.” Zayn replied, shrugging his shoulders and throwing one last handful of sand onto my book.

“So… you’re just going to do it again? I thought we were all friends here.” I smiled at him and put my book down after I was sure that all the grains of sand were out of the bindings. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really, we just wanted to get to know you more. I mean if we are going to be "besties" we should know who we are dealing with here.” Zayn said. I knew he was joking, but I could tell that there was a hint of seriousness in his voice.

“Plus, all we know about you is what Niall has said about his ‘beautiful Siren’,” Liam was staring at me laughing silently as Niall glared at him.

“Yeah, what is this about me being a Siren?” I smirked at Niall. His face went from a smile to one of complete horror as he knew what was going to happen next. He whipped his sunglasses off and started charging for Liam.

“Well he said that you-” but before Liam could finish, Niall came flying past him shouting “No!” at the top of his lungs. It was almost like slow-motion the way he soared over Liam and landed, on his stomach, in front of the three of us. He lifted his head, which happened to be in front of mine. There was sand covering parts of his cheek and on his nose, but he still smiled as if nothing happened. I smiled back at him.

“Why, hello there.”

“Hi. You didn’t see all that did you?” He grinned wide and I couldn’t help but giggle.

“See what?” I asked, playing along.

“Oh nothing. So what were you three talking about?” I looked over at Liam and he just smirked.

“Well, Liam here was just about to tell me about a Siren. Would you by chance happen to know one?”

“A siren? Why, I think Liam has seen that show in vegas one too many times, right lad?” Niall sneered through his teeth.

“Oh right, that’s what I must be talking about.” Liam nodded his head, then he turned to me and winked.

“I saw that, Liam. Well I might as well just tell you now since Liam just gave me away.” Niall looked at me red blotches appearing on his pale skin. Before he got a word out, Harry and Adi ran straight towards Louis and Niall’s sand castle. Adi gracefully leaped over the pile of sand while Niall and Louis watch the train wreck that is Harry Styles tumbling after her. Niall jumped up and ran in front of his creation but Harry was running too fast and couldn’t stop his momentum as he ran straight into Niall, both of them landing on it. Louis dropped his pail and fell to his knees beside them.

“What have you done!” He threw his fists into the air and looked up at the sky. Niall fully realizing what he’d done scrambled to his feet and stared. If you looked hard enough you might have seen tears in his eyes. Adi had stopped running and put a hand to her mouth. She tried to look sad but I knew that she was doing everything she could to not laugh. To be honest, all the guys seemed to be staring at the demolished construction site with a look of sadness on their faces. Adi and I took the scene in, taking pity on our new found friends. Adi spoke up first.

“Hey guys it’s okay, why don’t I start up a bonfire? It’s getting dark anyway” They all looked at her and stared. She averted her eyes to me, they were pleading for assistance. I took that as my cue.

“Yeah, Louis, you and Niall can start again tomorrow, and Adi always has this special chocolate that she uses for s’mores.” I heard Adi gasp in the distance.

“Wait, what?! I didn’t sign up for that! NO ONE IS TOUCHING MY CHOCOLATE!” Adi looked pissed. I turned my stare onto her and nodded my head to the side so that she knew that I wanted to talk to her privately.

“No one is eating that chocolate Jay.” Adi whispered.

“C’mon, the guys are really upset. Can’t you let other people have it just once?”

“Uh uh, no way. Not Gonna Happen.”

“Adi, please?” I knew she wasn’t going to give in, especially after hearing the boys snickering in the back. She turned towards them and noticed that Niall was just about ready to sprint towards the house. Adi’s eyes widened as she took her stance too.

“Niall, don’t you dare-” and with that, he took off for the house, the other boys and Adi following behind. They were all so caught up in getting to the house first, they forgot, once again, that locked doors needed keys. I bent down and grabbed the keys sitting next to my towel. All I could do was shake my head.

“Hey, you guys!” They all stopped mid-stride and looked at me. I lifted my hand up that held the keys, “You know you need these to get into the house before you can even get to the chocolate.” They all looked at each other again before running back towards me. Being the horrible runner that I was, I panicked and froze, watching all six bodies coming towards me. Niall was just about to get to me when I saw that Adi was completely unguarded. I threw her the keys immediately.

“Ha. Ha!” she exclaimed as she caught them. She started running back to the house, Harry right on her tail. For a second, I thought that Harry would actually get to her, but Adi was too quick for him. She had opened the door and, before Harry could follow her inside, she closed the it and locked it, leaving me with five hungry boys waiting in her backyard while she grabbed the things we needed for the bonfire.

~~~~~~~~~~~

After waiting about twenty minutes, Adi came out of the house with the firewood, a couple guitars, and the ingredients we needed for the s’mores. Liam immediately came to Adi’s aid and grabbed the firewood. She kept the ingredients close to her and walked over to Niall and me, confusion marred One Direction’s face seeing two guitars instead of just one. She handed one to Niall first, she walked around the building fire a few times to create suspense. Finally, she walked over to me and handed me the second guitar and plopped onto the blanket beside me. All the guys looked at me for a few seconds letting the fact that I played guitar settle into their minds. Niall was the only one who was staring at me, a smile was slowly creeping onto his face. Adeline spoke first.

“So, Ms. Noble, what will you be singing for us tonight?” Her smile was full of pride while she tried to imitate the X Factor judges. I blushed, Adeline and I had been friends for so long she was like my sister now. It felt so good to finally see someone who was a part of my family actually be proud of me that I almost teared up. Almost.

“Well, Ms. Valdes, tonight I thought I would sing a song everyone knows.” I smiled at her. I loved having a “sister”. We knew everything about each other, we shared clothes, we cried together, so basically no matter what she was there.

“Yay!” And that’s how Adi responded: prodigy fashion student with a five-year old maturity. I shook my head and started to play. The guys looked at me again shocked, like they didn’t believe I could actually play.

Let’s gather around the campfire and sing our campfire song.
Our c-a-m-p-f-i-r-e-s-o-n-g song
And if you don’t think we can sing it faster than you’re wrong.
But it’ll help if you just sing along.

They all looked scared, except for Louis who sat up excitedly, but Harry was the one that spoke up, “What?”

Louis and Adi joined in at this point, “BUM, BUM, BUM.”

c-a-m-p-f-i-r-e-s-o-n-g song
c-a-m-p-f-i-r-e-s-o-n-g song

Louis was falling behind on the words, but Adi kept right up with me. She and I jumped to our feet as the song started to pick up. I had gotten to the part where I called out names. Louis got somewhat of a handle on himself here.

“SONG! SONG! C-A-A-M-P-I-” Louis sang. Adi and I laughed and lost track of the song but I kept playing. Finally, Louis sang at the top of his lungs, “C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E-S-O-N-G SONG… YES”

“Your turn!” I pointed to the rest of them. All they did was stare and tilt their heads to the side like a lost dog. I just shook my head and continued to sing the rest of the song with Adi and Louis.

It’ll help, It’ll help
If you just sing along

Adi and I finished the song with so much energy. We raised our fists up in the air and struck a pose. Louis came in late, but finished with an oh yeah and posed along with us. We were all breathing heavily waiting for applause, but instead got nothing. The boys still had absolutely no idea what we had sung. Louis, Adi, and I looked at each other and just fell to the ground laughing.

“I guess they have never seen Spongebob Squarepants before.” Adi sat down next to Louis and laid her head on his lap. Louis thought nothing of it but Harry was thrown off. Adi always had this thing where she automatically got comfortable around people, even those she had just met. I just let everything play out and sat back down next to Niall.

“Oh! That was from Spongebob!” Niall clapped his hands after realizing where that song had come from. The other boys just shook their heads and rolled their eyes at him. Liam sat forward and put his hands in his lap.

“Anyway, Janelle, why don’t you sing a real song for us.” I looked over at him, then at everyone else. They all nodded, silently telling me that I should. I looked at Niall and he looked away, the other boys smirking. Harry elbowed him in the side and he turned back towards me, coughing a little.

“Yeah, Janelle. Please, sing for us.” He smiled genuinely and I couldn’t say no to that. I started strumming the guitar and sang one of my favorite songs at the moment while Adeline passed out s’more fixings. She stopped in between Niall and Harry so not to interrupt me while I sang.

I heard, that you’ve settled down
That you’ve found a girl
And you’re married now

I finished singing the song and they applauded. It felt good to know that people of their talent enjoyed hearing me sing. I smiled at them and took my s’more from Adi. The rest of the night continued with more singing, a round of 20 (or more like 50) questions with Adi and I in the hot seat, and more s’mores. For a group of world renown pop stars, they acted as if no one knew who they were. Once the interrogation was over it was already late and getting cold. Adi shivered at the sudden breeze that blew through. I was about to offer Adi my blanket since I had been wearing my jacket, but Harry beat me to it and draped his jacket over her shoulders. Adi muttered an innocent “thanks” as the rest of the boys poked fun at Harry. From the corner of my eye I swear I saw Adi blush bright red as she snuggled herself into Harry’s jacket. She got up and led everyone inside to her living room laying out pillows and blankets for us to sleep on. We played a few games on her Wii (mostly Harry and her), and of course a sleepover wouldn’t have been complete without a prank. We all agreed to draw on the first person to fall asleep. All of us fought against our drooping eyelids and finally, Niall fell asleep on the living room couch. Adi handed Louis a pen and started drawing on his face. They each took turns drawing God knows what until it came to me. I wanted to do something different and out of the ordinary for myself so that he knew that it was me. While no one was looking, I grabbed lipstick from Adi’s purse, applied it on my lips, and kissed his cheek long enough for the color to stay. I quickly returned the lipstick and wiped my lips before making myself comfortable on the other end of the couch. Before I nodded off to sleep I heard voices coming from the kitchen. I wanted to get up to see who it was but my eyes no longer had the strength to stay open as they fluttered shut.