Collide, Ignite

One Direction star Niall Horan has been in a state of exuberance since finding out he has a daughter. The proud papa has been spotted in numerous venues with the young lady since he's recently been back in touch with former flame Reilly Quinn, who remained close with his bandmates after the two suddenly and mysteriously split in early 2013. A waitress at a restaurant the trio dined at recently said of the little girl, "She looks just like her mom, but without doubt has Niall's eyes. They got on great. You could see how much he loves her just from the way he was looking at her when she spoke to him." A source close to the Irish singer told us, "He's never been happier in his life. It's contagious. He's too happy to even be upset with Reilly for keeping his daughter from him for so long." Horan has been unavailable to comment.
***

If Maisie had been in her own bed in Reilly's house on Saturday night after the party she would have had wake Reilly up on Sunday morning. Luckily, though, Maisie had stayed with the Paynes for the night, which allowed Reilly the ability to sleep in way past the time her body usually woke her up.

When she finally made her way into the kitchen at half past nine, Harry was standing at the stove. She could feel his eyes on her as she slid onto a chair at the table and put one foot up on the seat. There was a dull ache nagging at her temples, but she wasn't feeling hungover. With a little bit of water her head would be back to normal. Or, as normal as it ever was, anyway.

After a few minutes of silence, Harry slid a cup of tea he had just prepared across the table to her. "Send any questionable texts last night?" he asked once he'd returned to the stove and the pan he had previously been tending to. She gave a slight nod when he looked back her. "Reilly..." he began but she held up a finger to silence him as she took a sip of her tea.

"I just asked Niall if I could call him," she told him.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "And did you?" he inquired.

She shook her head again. "He said he didn't want to talk to me while I was drunk," she said as she wrapped both hands around her cup, staring into it. "Which is fair," she went on. "If I can't say something to him sober, I shouldn't say it intoxicated." Harry nodded at her and turned back to the stove. The kitchen fell silent but only for a moment. A question that had been burning in Reilly's head found its way to her tongue and past her lips before she could stop it. "Do you know who that girl was?" she asked.

Harry's shoulders fell as he let out a heavy sigh. "Is that why you wanted to call him? To ask who the girl he brought to the party was?" he questioned.

Reilly shook her head, but he hadn't turned to look at her again. "I didn't like seeing him with her," she confessed, still staring into her tea, as though it held the answers to everything she couldn't understand. "I wanted to tell him that." She paused and finally looked up. Harry was facing her again, his jaw slack at the words she'd just uttered. She shrugged at him and looked back down. "That's not fair, though."

"No, that's not fair," Harry agreed. She waited for him to say something else, but he didn't. Usually Harry had a few words of wisdom for her when she did something stupid. But this time she hadn't actually done anything, and she'd come to conclusion on her own.

He passed her a plate of food a few minutes later and sat across the table from her. They ate in silence. Reilly slouched slightly in her chair when she'd finished, feeling a bit at war with herself. She loved Owen. She was upset with him currently, but that didn't change her feelings toward him. She had logged three years with him. Niall, though, awakened something in her and every time he was near all her senses were heightened and everything else around her and inside of her seemed to quiet down a little.

"Close your eyes," Harry said finally. She jumped at the break in the silence and looked up at him questioningly. "Humor me, okay?" he said and without further resistance Reilly let her eyelids fall shut. "Think about the future. A year from now. Five years from now. Twenty five years from now. Any time in between or beyond. It doesn't matter when exactly it is. Just imagine it," he instructed and let the quiet settle between them again for a few moments. "Okay, open your eyes," he said. She obliged and met his gaze easily. "Don't tell me what you saw. Just think about it."

He rose from his seat, clearing their dishes from the table and depositing them into the sink. On he way out of the kitchen he stopped and slid an arm around Reilly's shoulder, leaning down and placing a kiss on the top of her head. "You feel the things you feel for a reason, Reilly," he said. "Don't be so quick to dismiss them because they're not what you've planned. Some of the best things that happen are unplanned."

She looked up and offered him an uncertain smile. He made a silly face back at her, successfully making her entire face break into a smile. It was an expression of true happiness, despite everything else going on inside of her. And it was an emotion Harry and all the other boys felt she didn't wear nearly enough.

***
Irish cutie Niall Horan of One Direction fame has been once again spending a lot of time with student Reilly Quinn, whom he was previously linked to. A sources tells us, "They spent Christmas together in his hometown of Mullingar. His family was thrilled to see her again, and [Horan] is happier than ever." Not only that, he's been seen all over the city with a little girl who bears a striking resemblance to Quinn. Also hard to miss is the huge diamond the lovely lady is wearing on a very important finger. Could it be that the last single member of One Direction is officially off the market?
***

By the early afternoon Maisie had returned home and was knelt on the floor in the living room, arms propped up on the coffee table as she colored a picture she'd been working on for the better part of an hour. Reilly tried to look over her shoulder a few times but the little girl kept her upper body hunched over the paper so her sister couldn't see. Another fifteen minutes passed before she finally dropped the crayon in her hand and straightened up, declaring that she had finished. Reilly leaned over and looked at her sister's latest masterpiece.

"It's me and you when I get older and live with you," Maisie told her of the two people who were the main focus of the picture.

But that wasn't all she'd drawn. They were inside a room that looked much like the one they were currently sitting in, though Reilly hadn't noticed her looking around while she'd been drawing. On the wall was a picture with four people in it. Two were unmistakably the girls she'd drawn, along with a dark haired boy and a baby that Reilly could only guess by the blue clothes was also a boy.

"Who are those people?" Reilly asked, pointing to the picture.

"That's Niall and the baby you had," Maisie answered.

Reilly let out a heavy sigh and picked up the picture. She stared at it for a long moment. It was now or never. "Mais," she began, "you understand what it means that I'm going to marry Owen, don't you?" she asked. When Maisie first arrived, Reilly had explained it to her and being an incredibly intelligent child, she had seemed to get it. But with the amount of pictures she'd drawn of the two of them with Niall, Reilly had started to wonder if maybe something had gotten confused her head.

The little girl nodded at her. "It means you love him and he loves you and you're going to live together and be a family. Like Mommy and Daddy," she said. A confident smile had crossed her face while she spoke.

Reilly nodded at her. "That's right. That's exactly right. So, why do you keep drawing pictures with you and me and Niall?" she asked.

Maisie lifted her shoulders high and let them drop. "Because Niall loves me and you more than Owen does, I think," she said.

Reilly's heart nearly stopped at the words that came from her sister's mouth. She opened her own mouth to respond but didn't know how to, so she closed it again and stared down at the picture in her hand. "Why do you always live with me in the pictures?" she asked.

"Because Daddy doesn't love me anymore," she said.

Where her heart had nearly stopped just moments before, it completely shattered into pieces now. Such words should never come from the mouth of a four year old. A child so young shouldn't even know what it meant to not be loved. "I'm sure that's not true, Mais," she said, though she wasn't totally sure she believed the words she was saying.

Maisie shook her head. "Mommy doesn't either," she said.

Reilly's eyebrows pulled together and set the picture down on the coffee table. "What do you mean, Little One?" she asked. "Why do you think your mom and dad don't love you?"

"I heard them say stuff. Mean stuff," the little girl offered.

"What kind of mean stuff?" Reilly inquired.

But Maisie never got the chance to answer. The front door had opened and then shut loudly. Moments later Owen was storming into the living room. He looked angry, but Reilly couldn't understand why. If either of them should be mad, it was her. And she was.

He didn't leave her to wonder long. "What exactly was the nature of your relationship with Niall before?" he asked, his tone surprisingly calm given his demeanor.

Reilly reached over and ruffled her sister's hair. "Mais, can you go upstairs for a minute so I can talk to Owen?" she asked. But the little girl shook her head as she pushed herself up off her knees and climbed into Reilly's lap. Her arms immediately went around her older sister's neck and she clung tightly to her. "Maisie, baby, it's okay," Reilly assured the little girl. "It's just going to be a minute. I'll come get you as soon as we're done."

Maisie shook her head again and tightened her arms around her sister, pressing her face against Reilly's. "He's going to yell at you," she said.

Reilly sighed and reached up to peel her sister's arms off her. "He's not going to yell at me. We're just going to talk. Okay? Run upstairs. I'll be there in a just a minute."

Maisie's little face fell into an unconvinced pout. "Can we go to Uncle Zayn's house when you're done talking?" she asked.

The question seemed to come right out of left field and caught Reilly slightly off guard. "I don't know, Little One. I'll have to call and see if he's home. Okay?" she said. Maisie nodded, but her face still hadn't perked up even a little. "Go on. I'll be right up, okay?" Reilly kissed her sister's nose, and Maisie finally climbed down off her lap and ran past Owen without looking at him on her way out of the room.

Reilly held up a finger while she listened for feet on the stairs. When she was satisfied that Maisie was out of earshot she lowered her hand. "I've already told you," she answered vaguely.

Owen's face reddened and he clenched his fists. "I know what you've already told me, Reilly. Were you sleeping with him? Is Maisie-"

"Stop. Stop right there. Don't you dare finish that question," she interrupted, frustration growing quickly into anger at the mere implication he was making. "Are you really that threatened by my friendship with him?" she asked.

"Were you sleeping with him?" he repeated through gritted teeth.

The anger had spread through her like wildfire. "Yes," she blurted out before she could stop herself. "Yes, alright? I was sleeping with Niall back when I was eighteen. But if you're really that concerned about who I've slept with before, you might want to take a seat so I can explain a few things to you." She'd never had any intention of telling Owen about the part of her past only Lexie and Niall knew about, but she was so angry at his nearly spoken accusation that she couldn't control the words that came flying from her mouth.

Owen shook his head in disbelief. "You're unbelievable," he seethed.

"No, you're unbelievable, Owen," she shot back. "You just burst into my house after completely blowing me off last night and started demanding explanations about sensitive subjects in front of my sister."

"For good reason," he snarled. Reilly flinched, both at the tone of his voice and at the jerky movement he made as he threw a magazine down on the coffee table, right on top of Maisie's drawings. She reached down and picked it up, scanning the article on the page it was opened to. Lie upon lie filled the glossy paper of the tabloid in her hand. Slowly, she shook her head back and forth but before she could speak, he started again. "Every magazine on the shelf says the same thing." His tone was venomous. In the three years they'd been together, she had never seen him like this. He had never directed his anger at her.

Reilly was about to open her mouth to speak but suddenly Harry was in between her and her fiance, shielding her with his large body. "I think you should leave, Mate," he said calmly.

"This is not your business, Harry," Owen countered.

"I disagree," he said, and then held out his hands, "respectfully," he added. "Those magazines are rubbish. She's quite upset, and you're drunk. Can smell the booze on you, and I don't think now is the right time for the two of you to discuss whatever you've got on your mind," he went on. "C'mon, Mate. I'll call you a car."

Relief washed over Reilly as Owen allowed Harry to lead him to the door without any further argument. The second she heard the click of the latch catching, she practically flew out of the room and to the stairs. Lexie's bedroom door at the top of the stairs was wide open. Maisie was sitting on the bed with the older girl. They were facing each other and Lexie appeared to be doing whatever she could to hold Maisie's attention. To keep her focused on anything other than what had just been going on downstairs.

Slowly, Reilly crossed the room and sat just on the edge of the bed. Maisie immediately moved toward her, wrapping her small arms around Reilly's waist. Inside her chest, Reilly's heart shattered into hundreds of pieces. She leaned down and kissed the little girl's head. "It's okay, Baby," she cooed. "I told you we'd just be a minute. It's okay." Reilly gave her a little squeeze before letting go and reaching for her phone. "You still want to see if Uncle Zayn is home?" she asked. The little girl's eyes lit up and she nodded. Reilly unlocked the phone and quickly found Zayn's name in her contacts, hit dial, and handed the phone to her sister.

He must have answered right away because the little girl started chattering excitedly only seconds after she put the phone to her ear. Lexie was looking at her curiously with a tiny hint of worry mixed into her expression. She could only shrug at her friend.

"That was new," Reilly told her quietly. "He read some things in those stupid magazines. I," she paused and let out a long sigh. "I guess I should have expected this to come up at some point."

"Hey, don't do that," Lexie gently protested. Reilly gave her a questioning look and she went on. "Don't blame yourself for the way he's acting. You told him that you and Niall had a thing, but it's not his business who you slept with before him." Reilly opened her mouth to say something but Lexie cut her off before she could. "You didn't do anything wrong, Rei. Don't make this your fault. It's not."

Reilly shrugged again. "It sure feels like it," she mumbled. "Feels like I'm doing everything wrong."

Lexie sighed softly. "Then that's something you need to think about. Figure out what you can do to make it so you don't feel that way." She let the volume of her voice go even lower. "Maybe you should talk to someone," she suggested.

"I'm talking to you," Reilly said, confusion playing at her face.

"No, I know," Lexie said. "And I'm always happy to talk about whatever you need to talk about. You know that. But I meant maybe a professional? Because this goes a lot deeper than Owen and Niall."

It took a moment for Reilly to fully absorb the words Lexie was saying. "I just- I mean- it's," she searched, but couldn't find the words to complete the beginning of anything she started.

Lexie offered a soft smile. "It's just a thought, Rei. I'm not trying to force you into anything you wouldn't be comfortable with. But I worry about you, you know? Sometimes I wonder if you know that you deserve to happy," she said.

Her thoughts were so jumbled that all she could do was shrug. "I don't know," she admitted, and left it at that. Because it was the most honest thing she could say. She'd been avoiding the subject of her happiness for so long that she didn't know how to respond to it anymore. Maybe she wasn't happy. Maybe she'd found a way to be content, but it wasn't the same thing. And maybe the biggest problem was that she didn't know what it meant to be happy.

But she couldn't think about it any longer because Maisie was shoving the phone in her face. "Uncle Zayn said he wants to talk to you," she said.

Reilly took the phone and spoke briefly to Zayn before hanging up. She looked at Maisie's smiling face and suddenly she felt less weighted down. "He said he's home, and that he would love to see you. Go get your shoes," she said.

Maisie squealed excitedly and bolted out of the room. A smile pulled across Reilly's face and she stood up to go get herself ready, but Lexie gently grabbed onto her wrist to get her attention before she could go anywhere.

"Do you want me and Harry to take her for the night so you can talk to Owen?" she asked.

Reilly shrugged, taking a moment before she responded. "To be honest with you, I don't really want to even look at Owen, let alone talk to him," she said, her shoulders dropping lower than what was normal. Thinking about it was making her tired.

"I know," Lexie replied. "You can't avoid it forever, though."

Reilly nodded. "I know."

***
Niall Horan has been seen out and about once again with his ex and the young lady rumored to be their daughter. The trio enjoyed breakfast at a local restaurant where sources say Niall and the pretty brunette, UCL student Reilly Quinn, looked quite cozy and in awe of the child who spent most of the morning coloring on napkins. No one knows why the pair split in the first place but those circumstances seem to have been left in the past.
***

Between the butterflies that began to stir in her stomach before she even turned onto Zayn's street and the familiar Range Rover outside Zayn's house, it was easy to figure out that Niall was there. Maisie noticed to, recognizing his car immediately upon seeing it. She squealed excitedly at the idea of her best friend and her favorite uncle being in the same place, and ran as fast as her little legs would carry her from the car to the front door.

The little girl let herself into the house without knocking, yelling for Niall and Zayn as she tore through the house trying to find them. Reilly could hear her little feet pounding through the hallway as she closed the front door behind herself and made her way through the house. She found the three of them in the back room, a game of FIFA paused on the large TV with the game controllers on the floor. Maisie had her arms hooked tightly around both boys' necks and was clinging to the two of them like she never wanted to let go. The sight tugged at Reilly's heartstrings, as did the realization that she only had just barely over a week left before the little girl went home.

It seemed like an eternity passed before Maisie finally let go of the boys and wrapped herself around only Zayn. He hugged her tightly and whispered something to her that made her face light up and the room fill with the sound of her giggles. She let her arms fall from his neck and grabbed onto his hand, proclaiming that she wanted to go paint on the wall. Zayn didn't hesitate for even a second and allowed the little girl to pull him off the sofa.

He stopped to greet Reilly when they reached her, gently pulling the little girl backward when he stopped. His free arm wrapped around Reilly and he placed a kiss on her cheek. "Finish the game for me. And don't let Niall win, alright?" he said. Reilly gave him a smile and ruffled Maisie's hair just as she began to pull on Zayn's hand again.

Once they were gone, she moved toward the couch, taking seat next to Niall, but leaving some space between them. They reached down for the controllers at the same time. She'd never been one to play video games much, but the boys had managed to get her hooked on FIFA over the last few years.

They didn't talk much while they played other than the occasional comment here and there, but by the time they finished the space between them had somehow lessened. Neither had consciously moved toward the other, but had gotten close enough that their arms were practically grazed whenever they moved. A gentle buzz had spread throughout Reilly's entire body, not nearly as severe as when they fully touched. Still, she found herself reveling in the feeling it gave her.

They'd just finished when Maisie came tearing back into the room. She had paint on her hands and was being careful not to touch any walls or furniture or people as she stopped directly in front of Niall. He made a face at her and she giggled before making one back at him.

"What's up, Little One?" he asked with a laugh.

She drew in a breath to cease her giggles. "Um. Reilly has a graduation soon. Are you gonna come?" she asked him.

"A graduation?" he asked, shifting his gaze over to Reilly. Her cheeks tinted pink. In everything that had been going on recently, she had failed to invite Niall, or even mention it to him. In fact, she'd nearly forgotten about it completely. He looked back Maisie. "Do you know what that is?" he asked.

Maisie nodded. "It means she finished school and she's really smart and she's going to stand up in front of a lot of people and say the stuff she's learned," she said confidently.

Niall raised his eyebrows at her. "You are exactly right, Little One," he said. "I have to find out more about it from you sister, okay?" Maisie nodded and scampered back out of the room. He looked over at Reilly. "You're speaking at your graduation?" he asked.

She nodded slowly, her cheeks burning. "I meant to tell you." She cleared her throat. "And invite you. Just, there's been a lot going on. I didn't even know if you'd want to come. I feel like I'm never really sure where we stand at any given point so," she said, letting her thought hang.

"When is it?" he asked.

"Next weekend. But you really don't have to come if you don't want to," she said. "I can tell Maisie, I mean, I would like you to be there, of course, but you just, if you don't want to," she rambled and he chuckled at how flustered she had become.

"Should be able to make it. Just get me all the details. Or I can get it from one of the boys. Assume they're all goin'," he said and she nodded. "And Owen," he added. Reilly nodded again, though after every that had happened the last few days she wasn't entirely convinced he was going to show. Silence fell between them at the same time she started to feel the tension. But Niall didn't let it settle. "Guess you didn't still want to talk about whatever you were tryin' to say last night," he commented. His tone was so casual it struck Reilly as odd.

She drew in a slow breath. "No, I did- do, actually. I was really confused about things. But I realized what I wanted to say last night isn't fair to you, given current circumstances. I'm trying to be more mindful of your feelings." She looked down at her hands and clicked her fingernails together. "I think maybe I've never been very good about that. But I want to do better by you," she confessed.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth but it vanished quickly. "Actually, I figured you just didn't remember," he admitted to her. His words stung a little bit, but he wasn't out of line with them. She raised her eyes to meet his gaze for a brief moment and then dropped them again. "She's just a friend, Darlin'," he told her.

She shook her head, still staring down at her hands. "Niall, you don't-"

"I know. But I want to, alright?" he said, and waited for her to give a slight nod before he went on. "She's barely even a friend, really. Our families have known each other forever. She comes 'round whenever she's in town and it just happened to be yesterday. I still wanted to go to your birthday, so I brought her along. She's always been a very touchy-feely person. Just the way she is. But that's it. I'm not datin' her. I don't see her or even speak to her often."

Reilly drew in another breath and released it as a sigh. "You shouldn't have to do that," she said, bringing her eyes to meet his again. "I wanted to you move on five years ago after everything that happened, date other girls, you know," she told him.

He nodded at her. "And what about now? You still want that?" he asked. He shouldn't have. He knew he shouldn't because her answer could do a lot of damage, but he couldn't stop the words passing his lips. Some part of him needed to hear what she would say.

She shrugged. "I- I don't know. I think I'm supposed to," she said, fingering the engagement ring that felt heavy with all the reasons she shouldn't be having this conversation. She lifted her shoulders again and held the shrug this time. "I don't know. I'm confused," she paused. "About a lot of things, I guess."

He nodded again, taking in the look in her eyes and noticing the way she had angled her body toward him. She didn't look very confused. But she couldn't stop playing with her ring. "You got that look again," he told her. He wanted so badly to swipe her hand away from the ring and remove it from her finger.

"I- yeah," she said quietly, breaking eye contact with him. It took everything in her to convince herself to stand up, to remove herself from temptation. She could feel his eyes follow her as she did so. "I should go check on Maisie," she said.

***
With all the recent speculation that pop sensation Niall Horan has rekindled his romance with long lost love Reilly Quinn, we were as surprised as anyone to hear that he showed up to the joint birthday celebration of his former flame and their mutual pal, One Direction bandmate Zayn Malik, with a different girl on his arm. Sources say he spent the evening splitting his time between the mystery girl, the child he's been spotted around town with, and his beautiful ex. One guest in attendance let us know that his attention was focused mainly on the young lady reported to be his daughter for as long as they were both there. Another party goer said his date couldn't seem to keep her hands to herself. "She wasn't being overly touchy-feely," they said. "But she leaned in close when they spoke, and almost always had her hand on his arm. He had his arm draped over her shoulder for most of the evening." Wow, seems like Niall has more options than he knows what to do with!