Winter Air (Sequel to Night Air)

Chapter 21

*Niall's POV*

"So I said, 'If you think I'm insensitive, you should talk to my cat!'" The whole table lost it as Louis finished up his joke to Bruno Mars who laughed just as hard as the rest of us. We all knew Louis was a rather big fan of his so we were all happy that he agreed to sit and chat with us while Louis told his ice-breaking cat joke. The rest of the conversation continued and while I was in awe because I was sitting at the same table as Bruno fucking Mars, I was also zoned out as I looked around the large party room for Alyssa and Eleanor who were both gone.

"Mate," Zayn spoke up to me from my right. I turned my head and looked at him. "Where's your girl? I thought she would catch up with us?"

I shrugged and went back to looking around for her. "I don't know. Hopefully she didn't manage to get lost. Maybe we should have told her where we were at."

"That's what Eleanor was supposed to do," Harry said from my left. "Chill out, Ni. You're gonna break your neck from turning it so damn much. They're probably just talking with people."

"Or you're just fucking blind and they're right there," Zayn said sarcastically. I looked at him and saw he was pointing behind Harry. I followed the direction of his arm and saw the two brunettes walking back towards the table with linked arms. They weren't talking or laughing about anything like I expected them to be, but Alyssa smiled small when she saw me looking at her.

"Oh, and who is this?" Bruno Mars asked from the other end of the table as the two ladies walked up. They both smiled and I watched Alyssa's eyes grow. I felt a small amount of envy heat up in my chest as her reaction to him was much bigger than her reaction towards me, but remembering our conversation from earlier, I quickly forced myself to let it go. Not like I could really blame her anyways. This was a celebrity and I was just me.

"This," Louis said as he took El's hand and pulled her away from Alyssa, "is my lovely girlfriend, Eleanor." Bruno Mars shook her hand and greeted her.

I watched as Louis then reached for Alyssa to introduce her, but I quickly shot out of my seat to stop him. I took giant and fast steps around the round table until I was at Alyssa's side. "And this," I followed Louis' lead and grabbed Alyssa by the hand, "is my, uh," my mind once more went blank on what to introduce Alyssa as. I very clearly saw Alyssa staring at me with wide eyes out of the corner of my eye. I knew she wasn't happy about being called my "good friend", so I quickly tried to think of every other title possible that would work. "This is my date, Alyssa." I smiled feeling much more satisfied with that response than the last one and I could tell Alyssa liked that title much better as well.

"Pleased to meet you," Bruno Mars greeted while taking her hand from mine and shaking it gently. She gave him a similar greeting and I then took her hand back and led her over to where I was sitting. I grabbed an extra chair from a nearby vacant table and forced Harry to scoot over a little bit. He groaned and rolled his eyes, but nonetheless did it anyways. We sat and talked around the table for hours ordering drinks and laughing hysterically. Alyssa seemed more quiet than normal as did Eleanor, but Eleanor was a lot better at hiding it. It was still bluntly obvious (to me at least) that something was up, but at least Eleanor made an attempt to play along.

Many times Alyssa grabbed my drink from me and took a gulp before silently putting it back in front of me. I knew I probably looked like a man who had a high intolerance because I was ordering drinks twice as often than anyone else. Eventually, I turned to Alyssa after one of the times where she grabbed my drink. "Do you want me to just order something separate for you? I can't imagine you're actually enjoying Guinness."

She took a gulp and then put it back. "Oh, I'm not. Taste like shit." I laughed and held the bottle in my hands. "I just like drinking it."

"Look, babe," I said with a sigh.