At First Sight.

It was hot out, so we all decided that we would spend the day on the beach. I got dressed while Sansa got dressed. Arielle met us downstairs and we all walked out of the house. We lived right on the beach in Venice.

"Alright kid, lemme hook you up with your floaties," I said.

"But mooom," she whined.

"No but's, Sansa. I know you can swim but this is the ocean, this is different than a pool. And you don't go into the water by yourself okay? And not too far out."

"Alright momma," she nodded.

"Thank you."

I blew up her arm floaties while they were on her arms. Arielle laid out our towels and our beach blanket. I put sun screen all over Sansa and then she sat on the blanket underneath our umbrella.

There was plenty of people on the beach, but because it was a weekday there wasn't nearly as many people as there would be on a weekend. There was a group of people playing beach volleyball and laying down about 200 yards away from us, and some of them were in the water. I pulled my hair up in a bun on top of my head while I examined the waters. The swells were big today.

"I want you to be careful in the water okay?" I said as I looked at Sansa.

"I will be," she smiled and nodded.

I took off my sun glasses and my cover up and kicked off my flip flops.

"Wait," Arielle said as we heard a scream come from the water where the group of people were down the beach.

"Zayn!!!" I heard a female scream.

I stood up immediately.

"He went under!" is all I heard next.

"Stay with Arielle," I yelled to Sansa as I immediately ran towards the water in their direction.

I ran into the water and dove underneath. I opened my eyes and looked around for the person as a wave came down and sloshed me around. I spotted him, trapped close to the ocean floor by the continuous waves. I swam down towards him. I got pushed over by a wave and my calf hit some coral. I ignored it and grabbed onto his arm, immediately pushing against the ground and swimming up with him. He was unconscious as I got him just out of the water.

"Mom!" I heard Sansa yell as she and Arielle ran towards us.

"Come on," I said, doing some gentle CPR on the unconscious boy that I had yet to realize was a member of One Direction.

I pressed down on his chest once more and he coughed, water coming out of his lungs immediately as his eyes opened as well.

"Oh thank God," a female said as she knelt beside us, "Thank you so much."

I nodded, "Of course."

"Mom," Sansa said.

I looked up at her and she was just staring at the people around us.

"What?" I asked as I looked at her.

"You just saved Zayn Malik's life," she said.

I looked back at the guy who had now propped himself up on his arms.

"Oh, well would you look at that," I said, standing up.

"Thank you," he said, out of breath.

"Don't mention it," I nodded, holding my hand out to him.

The girl that I realized was his fiancee Perrie and I helped him up. And it was then that I looked at the others that had come over to us.

"You should get warm," I said to Zayn.

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna sit out of the water for the rest of the day," he nodded.

"Don't you not know how to swim?" Arielle asked.

"I've been learning, I thought I could handle it."

"The ocean is a lot different than a pool, isn't that right momma?" Sansa said.

"That's right kid," I said, "But, it's alright. Everyone is safe."

"Sam you're bleeding," Arielle said, "Your leg."

I looked back at my left calf and sure enough, there was a lot of blood and a major gash on my calf.

"Shit," I said.

"You're going to need stitches in that," a large man that wore sunglasses said.

I sighed, "Yeah that coral got me pretty well, didn't it?"

"Come on, I'll drive," Arielle said.

"You have to let me repay you somehow," Zayn said.

"Yes," one of the other 1D boys, Liam said, "I don't know what we would've done if you hadn't been there to save him so quickly. We all panicked first."

"Let us take you out to dinner or something," Niall said.

"Out to dinner with the worst biggest boy band, Perrie from Little Mix and One Direction's girlfriends. Hmmm, seems like a scandal to me," I said.

"Then let us make you dinner, your place or mine," Harry said.

I looked at him for a moment, and I couldn't help but stare at him while my heart began to race.

"Uh, ours then," I said.

"Let us get your numbers then, and you can have ours and you can text us when you're done with getting your leg all fixed up," Louis said.

I nodded. I took a step and winced.

"Oh okay it hurts now," I said as the big body guard guy immediately picked me up bridal style and carried me back towards our things.

"I can carry you to your car," he said.

"Yes," Arielle said immediately, "She'll say no but I'm not going to carry her so."

He chuckled and nodded. Arielle did the number exchanging while Sansa packed up our things, with help from Louis' girlfriend, Eleanor and Liam's girlfriend Sophia.

"So, where's the car?" the man holding me asked.

"Well our house is right here actually," Arielle said, pointing to the back entrance to our back yard, "So it's right through here."

"You live right on the beach? That can't be cheap," Sophia said.

"Well I'm a hooker," I said, making them all just look at me funny, "I'm kidding guys. By the way, I'm Samantha, Samantha Gates. Call me Sam. This is my daughter Sansa, and this is Arielle."

"Hi I'm not related to a rich person biologically," Arielle said as she did a little wave.

"Wait, Gates, famous. Like Bill Gates?" Liam asked.

"He's my uncle."

"Oh you're his niece, I've heard of you," Zayn said.

"Yeah, it was a pretty big deal with Bill Gates' niece who he was raising got pregnant at 15 after a 3 year battle with drugs and alcohol," Sansa said.

"You know too much kid," I said to her, "And you speak too much."

"Well I got it from you."

"Isn't that unfortunate."

We were walked to our car and Perrie wrapped my leg up with a clean towel before they got me into the car.

"Thank you for carrying me," I said with a smile to the guard.

"You're welcome. I'm Preston."

"It's nice to meet you Preston," I smiled, making him smile.

"It's nice to meet you too."

"We'll see you at dinner as well?"

"Of course," he nodded.

"Oh," I said, "We haven't managed to go grocery shopping yet, shit."

"Don't worry about it, we'll take care of the dinner stuff," Eleanor said.

"Well, I'm going to assume that because you're all worldly known and whatnot, that I can trust you," I said, handing them my house keys, "We do have a large amount of beverages in there."

Preston took the keys.

"The code to the alarm system which is right on the inside of the front door is today's date. Month then day, with the zero," Arielle said.

"Why today?" Harry asked as I closed the car door but had the window rolled down.

"Today is my birthday," I said.

"Happy birthday!" they all yelled as Arielle turned over the car.

I blew them all a kiss before we drove out of the driveway.

"Don't drink my beer if you aren't 21 yet! I'm watching you kids!" I yelled out the window at them.

We spent only about 4 hours at the hospital getting my stitches in my leg. I needed 30 stitches in the gash. I was told there would be a scar, but I wasn't too worried about it. It was like a battle scar.

We texted the guys and told them that we were on our way back home and they said that they were already starting on dinner.

"So," Arielle said as we drove, "How about Harry Styles?"

"What about him?" I asked.

"I saw how you looked at him."

"I didn't look at him any particular way."

"Suuuure," Sansa said from the back seat.

"Hey now," I said.

"Is he going to be my new dad?"

"Sansa."

"I'm kidding."

I rolled my eyes at her as we pulled into the driveway. They had given me crutches, but they had also given me pain medication. So I used the crutches just to satisfy Arielle.

We went inside.

"I'm going to go change, this bathing suit is giving me a wedgie," Sansa said as we were met with everyone in the kitchen.

"Yeah, take a quick shower please to get all the sand off of you," I said.

"Yes ma'am," she said as she ran upstairs.

"She's surprisingly well behaved for a 6 year old," Louis said.

"I see you've been looking at the photos on the walls and figuring out dates and whatnot," I said.

"Well of course."

"This is a lovely house," Zayn said, "And thank you again for saving my life."

"Of course, it's no biggie. I'm getting dinner out of it, and I got 30 stitches and a battle scar to commemorate the event," I said.

"30?!" Harry said, "My God that's a lot."

"Yeah, it's not that bad though."

"She's all hopped up on Vicodin anyways now," Arielle said.

"Speaking of drugs, I'm going to go change," I said.

"What does that have to do with drugs?" Niall asked.

"What does beer have to do with the Irish when really German beer is the best?" I asked, "Who knows."

"You're high go change," Eleanor nodded.

I smiled and giggled before going towards the stairs. I propped up my crutches against the wall and got up the stairs. I went into my room and got dressed and went back downstairs. I heard Arielle arguing with someone at the front door. I looked over at the people in the kitchen and Sansa was sitting down beside Harry.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Uh," Sansa said, "I think it's my..."

I held my hand up and walked to the front door. Arielle didn't have it open very much. I pulled it open more and sure enough, there he stood.

"What do you want Joshua?" I asked.

"I want to see her."

"You gave up that option 6 years ago, voluntarily."

"Well what if I want that option back? What if I want all of this back?"

"All of what back Joshua?"

"I want my family back."

"We were never your family," I said as I shook my head, "You gave up your parental rights and took off as fast as you could so you didn't have to have any responsibilities. The state says you're not legally her father, regardless of biology. And so do I."

"Samantha, come on."

"No, Joshua. I'm not going to give you another chance. You put me through hell and I won't let you do that to her. I won't let you come in and out of her life like a transient, because we have no space for those people in our lives. I won't let you confuse her. She's better off knowing of you, but not knowing you."

"I know I put you through hell, and I know that you've turned out perfectly fine without me. But-"

"No, Joshua. For the last time, no. Now... Get off my property before I have to call the cops. I don't know how you found us but don't show up here again."

"Word travels fast when you save a boy band member's life."

"Yeah well they're actually making us dinner so, goodbye Joshua."

He just looked at me for a long moment.

"You love one of them don't you?"

"Love one of them? I just met them today."

"That doesn't matter for you. You know if you love something as soon as you look into their eyes."

"Yeah well, even if I did love one of them I wouldn't be telling you now would I? So please, leave or I will call the cops."

"Well, I hope whichever one of them it is, he treats you right," he said.

"Yeah I'll be sure to relay the message to my vibrator. Bye."

I closed the door and Arielle just looked at me.

"I tried to get him to leave before you came back downstairs, but he wanted to talk to you."

"It's okay," I said, kissing her forehead, "Go change."

She nodded and went upstairs. I walked back into the kitchen and looked at Sansa.

"You made the right choice mom," she said, "I don't want to know him."

I nodded, "I know you don't."

"Come on," Preston said to her, "Let's go play a game or something alright?"

She smiled and nodded, hopping down from her seat beside Harry.

"Thank you," I said to Preston and he smiled and nodded.

I took Sansa's seat and sighed.

"So that was her dad?" Perrie asked.

"Yeah," I nodded, "He and I were together for 3 years. But, it was all about drugs and self-destruction. He enabled me and then when I got pregnant, he got angry, but didn't leave. He would keep my hopes up just enough for me not to leave him, but be destructive enough to make me hate my existence. Then, when I went to the hospital to have her, he never showed up. He showed up 3 months later, with the papers signed to give up his parental rights. He gave them to my uncle and left, never saw her. He moved down here and I never spoke to him again, until now."

"Wow, that's awful. What kind of guy would do that?" Niall said.

"What kind of guy would do that, then come back after 6 years and expect to be accepted back in, more like," Sophia said.

"Well, there's lots of shitty guys out there," I said.

"Well, we won't be shitty to you," Liam said, making me smile.