Long Way Home

The two twenty three year old's sat in silence on the drive home, both lost in their own worlds with the quiet hum of Blink-182 being the only sound filling the car.

"So," Finley starts, shooting a quick glance over at her best friend before turning her eyes back to the road.

"So... what?" Niomi asks, turning to the other girl with an eyebrow raised.

"What did you and Alex talk about?" She smirks, almost singing out the playful question in a mocking tone.

"Just stuff." The elder shrugs, turning back to look out the window.

It was near half past midnight by this point and there was a slight breeze blowing through the cars' open windows. It was times like these when Niomi was glad she lived in the suburbs and not in the middle of the city. It meant she could see the stars clearly and, since it was always warm in Florida, she could sit on her balcony and watch the stars all year round. This was something that her friends constantly teased her about, especially Finley. More than once, the younger had come home in the middle of the night to find Niomi sat on one of the chairs on the balcony just looking at the stars, or reading. Nobody really knew why she found such peace in the night sky, not even Niomi, but it had been that way since she was a little girl.

"Oh come on," the red head rolls her eyes, "you were talking for, like, half an hour. You had fourteen year olds glaring at you and everything!"

"Seriously?" Niomi asks in disbelief, chuckling when Finley nods. Fangirls never failed to amuse her, they reminded her too much of her teenage years. "But really. He just asked what it was like at Disneyland and I asked him a bit about what it was like to, y'know, tour the world and stuff."

There was a hint of jealousy in the blonde' s voice as she said the last bit. All her life, all she ever really wanted was to travel the world, and it was the initial reason as to why she wanted to move to America in the first place. So she could 'broaden her horizons', so to speak. Ever since she could remember, Niomi had wanted to take photos all over the world. Photography was her passion, had been since she was 13, along with music. Being a music photographer, touring and taking photos with her favourite bands, had been a dream of hers for years. Working at Disneyland a close second.

"Hey, well maybe you can travel with your new rockstar boyfriend," Finley mocks as she parks the car outside the girls' apartment block.

"Shut up, idiot." Retorts Niomi, getting out of the car and walking to the entrance.

The two girls walk through the lobby area of the apartment block, waving to the man on reception as they pass. Luckily their apartment was only on the second floor so they didn't have to walk up loads of stairs to get to it, since both girls absolutely hated elevators.

"You got his number though, right?" The youngest of the two questions, coming to a stop outside their door and watching her best friend unlock it.

"Nope." Niomi shrugs, pushing open the door and walking inside.

Finley stops in her tracks, "Are you fucking kidding me?!" She exclaims.

Niomi spins round quickly, eyes wide at the sudden outburst. "Keep your voice down!" She hisses, because they're not exactly saints, okay. Sometimes they throw little get togethers that involve way too much alcohol and way more people than they'd expected, which leads to noise complaints. And it's nearly 1am and the pair have gotten enough noise complaints already, so, she'd really like to not get asked to vacate the apartment because of how they're sometimes too loud for their own good, thank you.

"You're kidding me right?" The red head questions, her voice lowered but still holding slight annoyance.

"What?" Niomi tilts her head, confused at what her best friend could possibly be angry about.

Finley shakes her head in disbelief. "You have this guy, who is not only in an awesome band and totally hot, but who is also totally into you and you don't even get him number? You could date a rockstar!"

Niomi rolls her eyes at her best friend's behaviour, "I don't date."

"Don't or won't?" Finley shoots back.

"That's unfair Finley." Naomi narrows her eyes at the younger girl. It wasn't any of Finley's business if Niomi wants to date or not.

"Look, Ni," Finley starts, her face softening, she knew this was a touchy subject for her best friend. "I know you're wary about the whole dating thing but you can't keep those walls up forever, one day you're going to have to knock them down."

The subject of Niomi' s love life, or lack of, is something that isn't touched upon often, since the blonde could get in a sour mood very easy when it was brought up. See, Niomi doesn't do relationships and she most definitely does not do love.

Growing up, Niomi watched her friends fall in and out of love and get their hearts broken far too many times to be healthy. Whilst her friends fell in love with people, she fell in love with music.

She never saw the point in relationships and if she were being honest with herself, they terrified her. It was the thought of someone delving so deep into her life and inevitably, having the power to break her that scared her the most. Why would you willingly allow that? The only person Niomi had ever let close enough was Finley, and even then, it took years. Her walls were built so thick it would take a wrecking ball to destroy them.

And okay, maybe she was very pessimistic about relationships and yeah, she might have a whole rant about about why you should most definitely not get married, but that didn't mean she's never had a relationship. She'd had a few, nothing serious though, definitely not. Her longest relationship was her last, with a guy named James whom she met at the beach and dated for almost a year. He was the closest thing to love, in a romantic sense, Niomi had ever experienced. He also happened to be an abusive asshole, but Niomi didn't even tell Finley that fact. It wasn't until the red haired girl had walking in on her changing that she she saw the marks he had left on her skin. Obviously, she made Niomi break up with him straight away.

"I'm perfectly fine, Finn." Niomi did her best to smile, but she knows her best friend could see through it.

"Alex could be good for you. He seems like a good guy, who actually care about other people."

"Except for the fact the he doesn't live in Florida, and is on tour all the time. Not to mention, he could have anyone he wants." Niomi states, getting annoyed at the lecture she's getting. She turns away from the exasperated girl and starts towards her bedroom.

"What if he wants you?" Finley quietly asks. She knows her best friend wasn't happy, and she knows this is a touchy subject. She also knows that it would be good for Niomi to have someone in her life to lean on, other than herself.

"Goodnight Finley." The sound of her bedroom door slamming fills the apartment.

#-#-#-#

Boredom.

That's all the twenty three year old was feeling as she sat on the counter at the front of the music shop, watching her best friend arrange CD's.

It isn't often that Niomi gets time off, and usually she spends that time with Finley, but since the latter has to work Niomi thought it'd be fun to join her.

She was wrong.

Three hours she's been at the music store and she's already going crazy. The conversation wasn't flowing like it normally would be since one of the pair is too busy trying to arrange CD's into alphabetical order. She was currently of the M's.

The most that had been said all day was when Finley first started arranging the CD's and was sorting through the A's and started throwing jokes at Niomi when she got to the All Time Low section. Which obviously caused Niomi to roll her eyes and ignore her.

"You know... you could help me." Niomi was brought out of her thoughts by Finley's voice just as the bell chimed above the door, signalling someone entering the shop.

"I could," she agrees slowly, with a single nod. "But will I get paid?" The blonde haired girl asks, raising her eyebrows.

"No," Finley practically snorts, shaking her head.

"Then fuck off," Niomi smiles sarcastically as she gets off the counter, receiving an eye roll from Finley.

She begins to walk over to the section of the shop where all the vinyls were, along with the vintage record player the store owned. Vinyls were something Niomi had been collecting since she moved to the states, there was something so pure about listening to music on a vinyl rather than a CD.

As she skims through the vinyls looking for ones she didn't yet own, she hear voices from the part of the shop that has that instruments and stuff. She rolls her eyes at how loud the group of men were being whilst sifting through the records.

"Hey Finn!" She yells to the other side of the shop, taking note that the male voices seem to quiet down.

"What?" Comes the annoyed reply of her best friend.

"Can I have this?" Niomi asks, holding up a Guns N Roses record so her friend can see.

"Yeah, if you pay for it!" Finley yells back, rolling her eyes at her best friend.

"C'mon, don't I get like friends and family discount or something?" She asks, walking over to where Finley was, still clutching the record. She also notices how the males voices have completely silence, she knows they're still there though.

Finley sighs, "Niomi, even I don't get a discount."

"That sucks. You should probably talk to your manager about that."

"Shut up, Ni. Why don't you go ask those customers if they need anything?" Finley lets out an annoyed breathe, something it felt like she was dealing with a child.

"Fine." Niomi huffs, setting the vinyl down on the counter and setting off towards the group of men who were now whispering to each other. She hums to the song playing through the speakers as she walks.

She actually likes going to work with Finley because it gives her something to do on her days off and she gets to listen to cool music all day. It just sucks when Finley makes her do stuff.

Approaching the group of men, she can't help but feel as if she knew them from somewhere. They were probably regulars or something.

"Hey, can I help you with anything?" She asks as politely as possible, finding it slightly weird to be talking as herself and not in some fake Disney character voice.

The guy in the middle whips around as the others stare at him confused. It isn't until she actually looks at the guys face that she understands where she knows him from –

"Alex?"

"Niomi?"

They end up practically gasping at the same time. Shock's evident in both of their tones, though it's more prominent in Niomi's. Alex's tone, however, is coloured in disbelief – like he could literally not believe that he was looking at Niomi (and that Niomi had remembered him or summat).

The blonde's got her eyes locked onto Alex's, but she does notice the one with the skunk hair break out into a giant grin as his eyes positively light up, for some reason.

"Wait. You're Niomi?" He asks, sounding way too excited, leaving Niomi as confused as the rest of them are. And really, he probably doesn't mean to sound, like, rude, but he does, a little. So she's a little offended.

"Last time I checked, yeah." Niomi nods slowly, brows knotting together lightly in the middle of her forehead. She looks at Alex, who is looking at her in amazement, thick eyebrows still raised high on his forehead, and then back to this guy who is towering over her with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"I'm Jack," he finally introduces himself, grin getting impossibly wider and just a tad bit creepier, if she's honest.

"Jack, you're creeping her out." The guy behind Alex says. Niomi looks at him, sending him a small smile. "I'm Rian, this is Zack." He points towards a buff looking guy and holds his hand out towards the girl.

"Niomi." She shakes his hand. Honestly, she's still a little weirded out by this situation, this weird coincidence. But, like. Alex is there, and Alex is... Alex. And his mates seem nice enough so she won't freak out. (Yet.)

"A.k.a. Wendy Darling," Jack whispers, his tone none-too-subtle, and Alex's eyes widen as the other guys start snickering under their breaths as they finally piece together why Alex is reacting like he's just been told he's allowed to go into space.

He does though. Alex. Looks like he's just been told he's allowed to go into space, for the sake of. Lord knows he's obsessed with black holes and conspiracy theories and space. But, this is just him seeing the girl that he thought he would never see again (for the third time, since they did meet the second time round though they're both dumb fucks who didn't think to get each other's numbers). And he looks like he's just struck gold. Kind of endearing, honestly, but none of the other three (and neither will Niomi, to speak the truth) will ever admit to thinking that.

"So..." Rian smirks, clicking his tongue softly. "– you're the girl that Alex won't shut up about." Rian laughs, smirking even wider as he nudges the now blushing singer. And yeah, okay, maybe Niomi blushes too. Maybe.

"I -" Niomi starts, only to be cut off by the sound of her best friend shouting her name. "What?!" She yells back, rolling her eyes as she hears Finley's footsteps approaching.

"Are you going to help me or not?" Finley asks, completely ignoring the four men.

"Are you going to pay me?" Niomi repeats her earlier question.

"No!" The red haired girl exclaims, throwing her hands in the air.

"Then there's your answer," Niomi smirks, she loves teasing her best friend.

"I swear, Niomi, sometimes you're like a little kid!" Finley begins and Niomi knows she's about to get a lecture about how immature she is, she's used to it. "I'm younger than you and I'm the mature one! You need-" The angered female stops mid rant as her eyes land on the four snickering men standing behind the blonde.

Niomi's eyes widen as recognition crosses her best friends face and she starts smirking. Finley waves at the four boys.

"I'm Finley." She says, excitedly. Almost immediately she begins talking to them like they're old friends.

"Hey." Niomi looks over to see Alex stood next to her, looking down at her.

"What's up?" She smiles up at him, their conversation separate from the others.

"Do you maybe want to sneak off and go to a cafè or something?" Alex asks nervously, bringing his hand up to scratch the back of his neck awkwardly.

Niomi takes a second to look him over. She's only human, yeah? He's wearing a pair of skinny jeans that look even tighter than her own, along with shirt from Glamour Kills that she's pretty sure she also owns. His hair is hidden under a snapback but from what she can see, it's a sort of caramel colour.

She looks back towards his face, where a smile rests on his lips as he looks down at her, awaiting her answer.

"Yeah, I'd love to."