hoodie || nh au

Twenty-two

"You should tell that Niall. He cooks most of the time", she explains.

"That's very nice of him", I say.

Niall chuckles beside me. After his parents are done with eating, the questions about me start.

"So, Alex, what do your parents do?", Mr Horan asks.

"My mom is a doctor at the hospital downtown and my father is a mail man", I explain, feeling kind of ashamed.

"Interesting. What about your siblings? Do they go to college?", Mrs Horan now asks.

"My brother is actually my twin, so we both still go to high school but he wants to become an architect some day."

She nods smiling friendly. They're probably thinking of how poor we are. Even though my mother is a doctor, she doesn't get much money and my father doesn't get enough anyway.

"We're thinking about building a new office building for our company. I will look after your brother when it's time to build it. Of course he still has to study but we can wait for him to finish. We don't have the money at the moment anyway", Mr Horan says.

I nod. He looks at Niall. I take a quick look at Mrs Horan. They are really nice people. I like them.

"Do you like reading?", Mrs Horan asks.

"Yes, I love reading. It's wonderful to forget all the bad things and escape into another world", I tell her.

"Yes, that's very true. Did you read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? That's an amazing book. I could lend you the book", she smiles.

"I didn't read it yet. It would be nice of you to lend it to me."

She nods and motions me to follow her. I walk behind her. She's so tall and beautiful. Her black and white dress makes her skinny. The black heels make her legs longer. The brown locks frame her face perfectly. She's really beautiful. We enter a huge room with shelves full of books. They work in a publishing company, so they need to have a lot of books. There are three huge shelves with names on each one.

Niall

Rachel

Christian

She guides me to the shelve with her name on it. I see a lot of romance books. The classics stand there. She pulls out the book she wanted to give to me.

"It's very nice of you to lend me the book", I tell her.

"It's a pleasure to me. We all love to read and give people book tips."

She hands me the book. Her eyes focus on me. I don't have the money for these many books or expensive clothes.

"Niall really likes you. He talks about you a lot. I couldn't wait to meet you, Alex", she smiles.

"Oh, really? That's sweet of you."

She walks over to Niall's shelve. He has a lot of science fiction and fantasy books. Just as we want to leave the room, I see a few romance books sit in Niall's shelve. The tattooed boy has a fable for love stories. Cute.

*****

The week went by pretty fast. Niall's parents are really friendly. I already read the book Mrs Horan gave me. It's a great book. I'll give it to Niall later. No one asked me to go to Homecoming with them, so I didn't even get a dress. My mom is sad about it and my dad doesn't really care. They said I should at least go to Luke's football game. I will go but only because the others invited me to come. This afternoon we'll have our pep rally. I don't care about it much but Miranda is in the dance and cheerleading team, so we have to watch her. She literally forced and threatened with breaking our legs, if we don't come. I am pretty aware of what she can do, so I won't stay home. Josh can't be at the pep rally because he has a appointment at the doctors. It's just a routine. I put on some socks and go down the stairs. Everyone alreadys sits at the dining table eating pancakes and bacon.

"Good morning", I announce.

"Morning, honey", my mom smiles.

Luke just grunts and stuffs his face with food. Attractive. But he only has to be together with my best friend.

"Hello, sweetie. Did you sleep well?", my dad asks quite concentrated on his newspaper.

"Yeah, it was okay. I just had a really weird dream about living sausages and hotdog buns. They were following my through town and then Luke came and ate them", I laugh a little.

Everyone at the table laughs along. I smile and take some bacon and eggs from the pan. My mom makes really good breakfast. She ususally puts a glass of orange juice at my place but she forgot, so I have to get it myself. I stand up and get my orange juice from the fridge.

"Honey, could you give me the milk? My coffee isn't that good this morning", my mother asks.

"Sure."

I take the carton and give it to her. Luke is still stuffing his face with food. I sit down next to him like always. The food tastes amazing. My mom can really cook. I have to leave in three hours. I should steal a jersey from Luke. I usually do it anyway. We all sit in silence and sometimes even joke around a little. It's like the good old days. I really missed this.