Canon

On the plane, Niall grasps my hand noticing my nervousness taking over me. We were about to take off any minute and we would be back in Grand Rapids before we knew it. Niall silently stares at the back of the seat in front of us, he hadn’t said a single word since we’ve been on the plane. He quietly muttered in line, complaining about how long they were taking. Niall’s silence scared me, I was on eggshells thinking he was bound to implode at any second. I feel the plane slowly rise into the air and tighten my grip on Niall’s hand. My fingers messily slip through his due to sweat on my palm.

‘It’s going to be okay.’ He promises, leaving a barely there kiss on my temple. I smile to myself offering him a slow nod before resting my head on his arm.

Niall messes around with the tiny screen in front of him before finally picking some movie with Bruce Willis. I pull out the People magazine that I grabbed at the airport before getting in line. He glances over at my magazine with a scoff and a grin. Niall lectured me back in line about contributing to “nonsense”.

‘Anything new with Kanye West?’ He wonders, I could see that he was clearly teasing me.

‘I’ll let you know.’ I roll my eyes at him as I flip open to the first page. ‘So, I was thinking, when we land I would probably just go to Rose’s house until I figure things out with my dad.’

‘What?’ Niall pulls the white earphones from his ears, staring at me. ‘You’re going to Rose’s house?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ I inquire, taking my eyes from the story about Jennifer Aniston possibly being pregnant.

‘I just thought that you would be staying with me. Do you not want to?’

‘Of course I would want to. I mean, you never brought it up or offered so I just figured that you didn’t want another person in your place after finally getting Greg off your sofa.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Niall’s dark eyebrows knit together, ‘I just assumed. I didn’t think that I would even have to offer. You can stay with me whenever you want.’

‘Okay.’ I hold back the smile that was fighting its way across my face, Niall was actually, in his way, asking me to stay with him.

Before I could even get a decent slumber in, Niall was shaking me to say that we landed. I tiredly stumble into his arms while following down the narrow aisle.

‘You okay?’ He laughs wrapping an inked arm around my waist to support me. ‘There should be a car service for us out front.’

Sure enough, after getting our luggage there was a white shuttle-type van and a man with a sign that said HORAN. He rushes over to help Niall with the bags and stuffs our things into the trunk.

‘Good trip?’ He asks, looking into the rearview mirror.

‘Yeah, it was good.’ Niall answers, nodding his head but not taking his eyes off of me.

‘I can’t thank you enough for the ticket.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ He shrugs, playing with my hand. ‘I’m just worried now that we’re back.’

‘Why?’

‘So much shit goes wrong when we’re here. I just felt like things were sort of going good in Ireland.’

‘Do you think that Damon’s still on the hunt?’ I question, remembering back to Niall’s incident with Damon. Damon came back into his life after a couple years thinking that things would go back to normal. After Niall and I got into it outside of Damon’s infamous party, Niall took his aggression out on him. Then Greg got caught in the crossfire, being beaten up just to get a reaction out of Niall. He went to Ireland for the rest of winter break to let things cool down and now we’re back.

‘I guess we’ll see.’ He finally answers, sending chills down my spine. ‘Thanks for the ride.’ Niall slips the driver a couple of bills after getting all of our luggage into his apartment’s lobby.

‘Welcome back Mr. Horan, I hope you enjoyed your trip.’ The familiar, pencil-like man at the front desk smiles.

‘We did, thank you.’ Niall speaks grabbing nearly every suitcase in his grip and leading the way to the elevator. ‘So, any suggestions for dinner tonight?’

‘You decide.’ I answer wrapping my arms around his toned torso to bury my face into his shirt. From what I could tell, Niall didn’t work out – he was just naturally well-built.

‘You smell good.’ He muses as the doors glide open. He leaves my arms to retrieve the luggage, ‘Could you open the door?’

I grab the keys from his palm and quickly unlock the door before Niall spills all of our things in the hall. He insisted on not letting me help, repeatedly saying that he could handle it. I immediately soak in the familiarity of Niall’s apartment. It still smelled like him. I loved it.

‘Alright, what should I unpack first?’ I ask, already antsy to separate the dirty and clean clothes in the bags.

‘No, no, no.’ Niall wags a finger in my direction, ‘Before you even think about that – come here.’ I do as I’m told and happily walk into his grip. Without saying a word, Niall lifts me into the air over his shoulder and heads down the narrow hallway.

‘Niall!’ I whine through a laugh, ‘what on Earth are you doing?’

He doesn’t respond, he simply slips his large, cool hands under my shirt to rest against my skin. With one hand, he removes the hat from his head, revealing its messy state. His natural dark roots where slowly starting to expose themselves. I use one hand to play with his hair, messing it up even more. He lets out a pleased groan, his deep blue eyes staring at me attentively.

‘I like your hair like this.’ I speak making sure to touch the darker parts.

‘You do?’ He looks genuinely surprised by my compliment.

‘Yeah, have you ever thought about going full on brunette?’

‘Eh, not really. I guess part of me just started dying to not look so much like my dad. I hated even resembling him.’ I could tell Niall tensed up hovering over me in bed. He stares beyond me at the headboard, in his own little world. Probably remembering dragging his drunk dad off of the sofa at the age of twelve. ‘If you like it, I might have to try it out again.’ Niall finally speaks, kissing my lips as he lowers himself.

‘I love you.’ I speak kissing him again.

‘I. Love. You.’ Niall replies in between slow kisses.

I pull my phone out as Niall’s in the other room changing.

I’m back and I miss my Rose – Lizette.

Nearly as soon as it read delivered, Rose was calling.

‘Hello?’ I answer with an amused smile.

‘Don’t you hello me! I’m so mad at you. You tell me that you’re going to Ireland and then I don’t hear from you for weeks! Your dad called mine and said that you left without telling them, so of course I call you and text you a thousand fucking times. Do I get an answer? Hell no.’ Rose rants for a solid minute before finally exhaling.

‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t call while I was away. I was just super busy.’

‘Don’t pull the “I was super busy” line – you’re not off the hook that easily.’

‘I have so much to tell you.’ I singsong knowing that Rose would bite.

‘I’m listening.’ She says after awhile like I knew she would.

‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘I’m here with Zayn. We’re probably about to go eat, what are you doing? Do you guys wanna meet up?’

‘Let me talk to Niall and I’ll call you back in a second.’ I say before hanging up my phone.

‘Talk to Niall about what?’ Niall smirks hovering in the doorway.

‘Okay, I know that we just got back and that you wanted to have a night, but-…’

‘You have something else in mind?’ Niall concludes with knowing eyes.

‘Well Rose and Zayn were about to get something to eat , if you wanted to go.’

‘Eh, you know how I feel about goddamn Zayn.’

‘If you don’t want to, we can do something else.’

‘I do, we can go.’ Niall wraps his arms around my waist after pulling me from the bed, ‘so, where are we meeting them?’