Collide, Ignite

"Are you planning to sit in here and pout forever, or are you going to make an appearance tonight?"

Reilly looked over to see Liam, dressed in black slacks and a dark red button down shirt, standing in the doorway of her room at the Paynes' house and rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not pouting," she said, her voice void of emotion.

Liam raised his eyebrows a tiny bit and leaned against the door frame. "Really? Because you've barely left this room except to eat, which you've also barely done, the last two days. Mum's worried about you and thinks you're not going to come down for the party," he told her.

Since they'd first met, Liam had been like an older brother to Reilly and that bond only grew over time. It hadn't taken long at all for him to insist that she meet the rest of his family, who took an instant liking to her. She grew very close to them to the point that they felt like the family she'd always deserved but never had. Of course, Lexie and her parents had always been there for her, but even that wasn't quite what she'd cultivated with the Paynes. This was the fifth Christmas she'd spent with them, and the second since she'd taken their last name.

A sigh escaped her as she stood from the bed and walked over to the bag she hadn't bothered to unpack. "I'm getting ready," she snapped at him as she pulled a pair of tights from the bag.

He watched her carefully as she walked over to the closet in a huff. "I don't understand what you're so upset about," Liam said, but she ignored him. "How did you think he would react?" he questioned.

The second his words hit her ears, Reilly spun her head around at shot a glare at him. He only raised an eyebrow in response. "Get out so I can change. Tell Mum I'll be down in ten minutes," she said and pulled a dress from the closet.

"I'm just-"

"Out, Liam," she shouted, cutting him off. She didn't want to hear whatever he was going to say. He raised his hands in surrender before reaching for the doorknob and pulling the door shut behind him.

The moment he was gone, she fell back onto the bed. If she was being honest, she hadn't even considered that Niall would have a reaction her engagement. They hadn't been a real part of each other's lives for five years. And if she was being honest again, she didn't know why she was reacting to his reaction the way she was.

There was a part of her that had never stopped regretting the night she told him to leave her life. From the moment he turned away and shrunk into the distance and her heart shattered into millions of pieces, she knew she'd made a mistake. But she didn't know how to balance him and school. The feelings she'd developed for him were too strong and it happened too fast. Making a clean break and moving on was the only way she could focus on what she'd come to London for.

And for five years he'd given her the space she'd demanded. Maybe it was easier for him that way, too. When they would see each other somewhere, they were polite, but something always tugged at Reilly's insides. They had been so close, and she could still feel that connection they shared deep down, but they acted like they had only ever been barely acquaintances. Like they had never meant anything to each other.

The light caught her engagement ring and she looked down at it with a soft sigh. Owen hadn't been part of her plan. She'd met him in passing at school, but as with most other people, she'd thought little of it. They met again when she was studying in Italy for a summer. Though their initial meeting had been brief, it was almost a relief to see a face she recognized. She immediately took note that what he did was her exact areas of study, and it didn't take long at all for her to invite him for coffee to pick his brain.

After that first coffee date, there was another. They quickly became a frequent event. Then coffee dates turned into lunch dates, and lunch turned into dinner. They talked for hours about the human brain and human behavior. Both spoke several languages and enjoyed learning about other cultures. And so the first time Owen kissed her, it seemed to make sense in a way it never had with Niall. She and Owen thought the same way, very logically and realistically, where Niall had always been optimistic with a great sense of wonder.

And she and Niall had been so young, him barely nineteen and her almost nineteen, and a startling mess of unfamiliar feelings. Owen had come into her life when she was twenty, and he was older, mature. They were on the same track.

But since she'd seen Niall a few nights ago, she hadn't been able to get him off her mind. He seemed different now, grown up, but still enough the same to revive the butterflies that had fluttered around her stomach the entire two and a half months they'd been close. Still enough the same to make her skin tingle where his fingertips touched it in the most innocent way. Still enough the same to make her heart race. Enough to take her back to being almost nineteen with feelings she didn't know what to do with.

She sighed again and stood from the bed, pulling her shirt over her head and replacing it with the black dress with gold polka dots she'd taken from the closet. She shed her jeans and pulled on her tights, and then quickly ran a comb through her long, dark hair. Her phone was on the night table next to the bed, and for a brief moment she considered calling Owen. It had been a few days since she'd last spoken to him, and she wondered if a quick chat with him would get her mind back to the right place. Instead, as she strapped her feet into a pair of black heels, she decided a pick-me-up was more what she needed at that moment and dialed Louis' number. He answered almost immediately.

"Ello, my love," he answered cheerfully. "How is the holiday with the family going? You alright?"

A smile stretched across her face. It didn't matter who else was in her life, Louis was her absolute favorite human being. "I'm good," she told him.

"Really? Because Liam's told me that you've been quite pouty lately," he commented.

She rolled her eyes. "I forget that you guys tell each other literally everything," she said. "I've just had some things on my mind. I always get that way this time of year. But I promise, I'm fine," she told him.

Louis hummed into the phone. "Then why've you phoned me, Love?" he inquired.

"Well, okay," she began, "I was starting to get a little down and I wanted some cheering up before I went down to the Payne family Christmas Eve party. I figured who better to do just that than you."

He let out a breathy laugh. "Yeah? How am I doing?" he asked.

"Better than I ever imagined. I started feeling a million times happier the second I heard your voice," she told him truthfully.

"Glad I could help then, Love. You go have fun with the family. Call me if you need more cheering up," he said.

After promising she would, Reilly ended the call and set the phone back on the night table. She glanced in the mirror quickly and then headed downstairs. Liam's wife Aimee rushed over to her immediately and hooked her arm through Reilly's.

She pulled her into the kitchen, away from the aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins and reached for a bottle of wine and a glass. "Thank God you've come down. They've all gone mad," she said, taking a large gulp of the wine she'd just poured. "Every single one of them is interrogating me at every turn. When is Liam going to stop touring? When are we going to get a house in Wolverhampton? When are Liam and I going to have children? We've been married for seven and a half months. Give us some time to enjoy it, you blooming nutters." When she finished her rant, she took another drink of wine and held the glass out.

Reilly shook her head and opened the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. "You marry the family, not the man," she said, popping the top off the bottle.

Aimee's eyes widened in exasperation as she poured more wine into her glass. "Well, I'm going to sic them on you so they can interrogate you about your impending nuptials that you have absolutely no plans for. I'm not even sorry," she said.

Reilly laughed and fingered her engagement ring. The girls had become good friends over the years, and were close enough that Reilly had been one of Aimee's bridesmaids. "That's fine. I'll take one for the team," she said.

"Good, because I'm going batty and it's only been fifteen minutes," Aimee said, obviously frazzled.

Reilly laughed again. "You stay here for a minute while I go find Liam and send him in here to get you. Enjoy your first Christmas as a married couple. I'll handle the crazy relatives," she said.

Relief washed over Aimee's face and she pulled Reilly into a tight hug. "You are a godsend, Love. Couldn't have asked for a better sister in law," she said.

"I won't tell the others if you won't," Reilly joked on her way out the kitchen. She heard Aimee laugh and smiled to herself. Few things made her feel better than when she could make someone else smile.

Throughout the evening, Reilly fielded questions about her engagement and plans for the wedding. She also handled questions like 'Where is Owen?' and 'Why does he never come with you to visit?' along with 'Are you thinking about having children yet?' Clearly the entire family had baby fever, but Reilly made sure she was never without a beer and managed a smile through every question.

It was nearly ten o'clock when the last of the extended family finally made their way to their cars. Reilly and Amiee collapsed onto the sofa and kicked their shoes off, exhausted both from consuming alcohol all evening and answering so many prying questions. They knew the family meant well, but it didn't make the inquiries feel any less invasive.

They sat staring at the ceiling in silence for ten minutes before Liam came into the room. "I've just spoke to Mum," he said. The girls both sat up a little straighter and turned their attention to him. "And we're going to start a new tradition where we each open one gift on Christmas Eve before we all retire to our rooms for the night. She and I have chosen for everyone already." The girls stared at him blankly. "Would you like to join us, or..." he trailed off.

Reilly and Aimee looked at each other and then back at Liam. "Can everyone come in here?" Reilly asked. "Because I don't think either of us are moving for at least another fifteen minutes."

"Thirty," Aimee corrected.

"Thirty," Reilly echoed with a shrug.

Liam rolled his eyes and turned to walk out of the room, shaking his head. "Massively over dramatic the two of you. Spend entirely too much time with Louis, for sure," he mumbled to himself on the way out.

"I'll be sure to tell him you said that," Reilly called after him, earning a halfhearted giggle from her couch companion.

Mere minutes later the family was filing into the room with gifts in hand. Liam sat down between the girls on the sofa while everyone else got comfortable. He handed a small, flat box to Aimee, informing her that it was from Reilly, and then turned and gave a gift to Reilly. Instead of tearing into the paper to see what she got, Reilly leaned forward to watch Aimee open the box. Inside was certificate of purchase and a photo of a painting she'd been eyeing for months.

"It's being delivered next week," Reilly told her. "I thought the actual painting might be a bit awkward to wrap."

"If I wasn't so knackered right now, I would be jumping up and down. This is brilliant. Thank you, Love," Aimee said.

Reilly got so caught up in watching everyone open their gifts that she forgot about her own sitting in her lap. It wasn't until everyone except her, Liam, and Aimee had gone to bed that he commented. "Aren't you going to open yours?" he asked.

She stared at him, confused for a moment, until she realized what he was talking about. "Who's it from?" she asked, picking up the small package from her lap.

"Me," he said.

Reilly looked quizzically at the gift in her hand before turning it over and carefully slipping her finger under the wrapping paper and revealed a long envelope. Confused, she opened the envelope and slid the contents out. Her confusion only grew as she looked down at the plane ticket to Dublin, Ireland for early the next morning.

"I don't understand," she said to Liam as she stared hard at the ticket.

"It's a plane ticket," he told her.

She finally tore her eyes away from the gift and looked dumbly at Liam. "I know what it is, idiot. I don't understand why you've given me a plane ticket to go to Ireland tomorrow morning," she said.

"Really? I thought it would be quite obvious. It's so you can see Niall," he said.

Reilly stared at him for a full minute before glancing over to Aimee, who only shrugged, and then shifted her gaze back to Liam. "Why would I go see Niall?" she asked.

Liam let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. "Okay, seriously? I have to spell this out for you? Jesus, Reilly, you're the genius of the family, with your multiple certificates from university. You've been moping around here for two and a half days because of him. It's obvious you want to talk to him, and if it's that important to you then you should do it. I'm just giving you the means and opportunity," he said with a huff.

"But I can't just jet off to Ireland on Christmas morning to go see someone I've barely had any contact with for five years."

"By your own doing," Liam said pointedly, interrupting her.

She shot him a look but otherwise ignored his comment and continued. "Specifically not if that person is Niall Horan. I have a fiance now," she said. "And besides," she added. "I'm pretty sure he hates me and doesn't want to see me."

He shook his head. "Niall doesn't hate you. I don't think he could ever hate you. He's just hurt," Liam said. Reilly gave him a look that was a mix of questioning and disbelief. "He is. Whatever he felt for you those years ago never went away. I'm not saying that he was sitting there pining away for you, because he wasn't. But he never got any real closure from whatever you two had, and those feelings are still there. I think maybe it's time you finally talked to him, told him everything. You owe him that, don't you think?" he said.

Hot tears formed behind Reilly's eyes. Liam was right. She did owe him an explanation, not just for the day she ended their friendship, but for her actions and in-actions throughout the course of their short friendship. But just because she owed it to him didn't mean she was ready for it.

She had come a long way over the past few years, but she wasn't sure she would ever be ready to have that conversation with Niall, especially given the feelings just being around him had stirred up in her a few nights before. But ready or not, it was time. "Okay," she said quietly.

She only hoped he would be willing to hear her out.