Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Ninety-One

Niall

"Chloe? Would you come and get your breakfast?"

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"Chlo?"

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"Chloe. Breakfast."

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"One minute more and it's going in the bin."

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"Right. Fine."

Standing up from his spot at the table, Niall grabbed the plate of toast that had been sat on the table for half an hour and, true to his word, emptied the toast into the bin, dropping the plate into the sink with a satisfying thud. At any other point, he might have felt ridiculous for being so over-dramatic, but, given that this was how things with Chloe had been ever since he'd told her about the baby, he refused to feel guilty about anything other than chipping edge of a plate.

After three days of her being awkward, sulky and generally off with him, Niall had called it quits and had decided to stop tiptoeing around her. He was also point blank refusing to apologise for disturbing her life the way the news of the baby had, since this...the baby was something he and Liam wanted, and things were never going to go back to the way they had been before, and so he and Chloe were at a standoff.

It turned out that Niall actually did have a course of action as to how to respond to Chloe's less than positive reaction, all of his worrying aside, and that was to not put up with any of her bullshit. Not anymore, at least. The first day or so, he'd tried to understand that it was sort of a shock for her and that she might not have expected it, but three days of tolerating an admittedly impressive display of churlishness had pretty much exhausted his supply of understanding and patience.

Three days of a tantrum that had quickly lost any novelty had also cured Niall of any anxiety or panic as to what the hell he and Liam would do, and meant that he'd stopped feeling as his world was going to crumble in around him and was beginning to feel merely bored with his daughter's reaction. At least, that was what he was telling himself. He was also telling that to Liam, if only because he thought hearing it might make Liam feel slightly better. The first morning after he'd told Chloe, he'd woken to a phone call from Liam where Liam had suggested that he fly home, to hell with the rest of the tour, and whilst one part of Niall had been shamefully delighted to hear such an idea, the slightly more clear-headed part of him had won him over and pointed out how shortsighted and rash such an action might be.

Meaning that Liam was still half a world away and Niall was stuck at home, with an eight-year-old who was blithely ignoring him to the point where he'd thrown her admittedly cold breakfast away and was yelling at her, and shouting at Chloe was a rare enough occurrence that it unnerved him slightly. Not that it stopped him, because Chloe only emerged from her room when it got to the point where he was shouting and using her full name, and Niall didn't have it in him to ask nicely anymore.

As it was, Chloe finally emerged from her room an hour after he'd originally called for her and answered him only with a shrug, being more difficult than he could ever remember her being before, leading to Niall's decision to indulge her just a little.

Chloe seemed determined to act like this change was a bad thing, that their life before was better, whether it was only the most recent change — the baby, tiger engagement he hadn't actually told her about, told anyone about yet — that she objected to, or all changes since September nearly a year ago, and so Niall figured he'd let her pretend that things hadn't changed, and hat they were still living as they had been in Brixton. He'd given up their flat when they'd moved in with Liam for good so he couldn't take her all the way back to how things had used to be, but Jessica would probably oblige him and give Chloe a reminder of how things had used to be, letting the eight-year-old decided if the changes were really so bad.