Wrong Direction

Chapter 5: Family Ties *cough* Lies

“I know what you’re thinking, but you have to understand why I never told you,” he spoke with an overly calm voice – maybe he could see the steam firing from my ears. “I did it to protect you and Lillian.”

“Protect us?” I scoffed.

“If I hadn’t have lied, can you imagine what would've happened if people made the link between you and One Direction?” He put his hands on his hips and looked down for a moment before continuing. “Claudia and John’s life will never be the same. We’re stalked by the media every minute of every day. We’re actually lucky that they haven’t figured out that my sister is your mum.”

I uncrossed my arms in realisation. Paul had always been a loving and caring Uncle. I’d get to see my cousins Claudia and John almost every year, which was great considering that they lived in Ireland. Maybe Paul was only trying to protect us. It made me wonder what his family’s life was really like back in Ireland.

“So, you don’t work at your security firm in Ireland?” I asked, actually curious now.

“Yes, I still have the firm,” he reassured me. Oh, so his life wasn’t a complete lie then. “But my job now is to manage One Direction, and I’m their head of security. Clodagh looks after the children and manages the firm while I’m away travelling.”

I thought of my aunty Clodagh and how this meant that she would be home alone quite often. Raising two children and now pregnant with a third, I had no idea that she was doing it all alone.

“Does Mum know?”

“No, no one knows besides Clodagh. Obviously, we’ll tell the kids when they’re older.” He sighed, obviously glad to have finally gotten this off his chest for once. I raised my eyebrows at him. “I know how it looks, but I hope that you understand how important it is for me to keep it away from my personal life.”

I nodded slowly – it did make sense.

“How have you managed to keep it quiet though?”

“It hasn’t been easy, that’s for sure.” He sighed again, looking exhausted. “Apart from keeping these boys under control, I monitor the press constantly. Clodagh helps me out a lot with that though, working from the firm back in Ireland. But I couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else, these boys mean the world to me – they’re like sons.”

I gave a small smile. Paul was such a Dad. Everyone that knew him absolutely loved him. When I was younger, I used to hide from him in the forest at the back of our house as he was a ‘big bear’ in my eyes. He would pretend to not be able to find me and then sneak up behind and pull me into one of his huge bear hugs – I smiled at the memory.

“How come you never told us you were in Sydney?”

“I was actually going to call your mum today, but Harry the bugger went missing so I was a little distracted.” He said it so casually that I got the feeling that this happened often. Paul continued as if reading my mind. “Harry gets sick of the fame and tries to sneak out and be ‘normal’.” He emphasized with this fingers. “But the boys have to understand, they will never have normal lives. At least not in this decade.”

I couldn’t even imagine the amount of torture a life like that would hold. You may as well go and live in a prison cell. I was surprised to hear that Harry was the one who didn’t want the fame. Well, I highly doubt that he was complaining to be honest. Maybe he just didn’t want the next girl he screwed to be headline news.

“I still don’t understand how you ended up here.” Paul leaned against the door, his arms folded. Now I was in the shit.

“Tia and I were… just walking, and then suddenly, there’s Harry!” I was such a bad liar. I just wished that because I hadn’t seen Paul for a few months that he’d forgotten what my terrible lying face looked like.