Winter Air (Sequel to Night Air)

Chapter 23

*Niall's POV*

Natalie shyly poked her head into my office that Thursday morning a little bit too cheerful for my liking. Her brown curls fell towards the ground and her brown, boring eyes enlarged as her head poked through the gap in my office door at a 45 degree angle. I looked up at her without actually moving my head away from the prints on my desk. "Yes?" I asked.

Natalie's smile widened and she pushed my door open some more. "Just wanted to see how America was. I got you a little something while you were gone, too." Her voice spoke the most innocently I had ever heard it as she approached my desk. The small gift box in her hands grabbed my attention as I finally moved my head up from the prints.

"It was great. I was only gone for a week, you know?" I said with an amused chuckle as the small yet long gift was placed on my desk. "You didn't have to get me anything."

Natalie shrugged and nudged the gift closer to me. "Just open it." Her smile looked like her face was about ready to break. To be honest, it was freaking me out a little bit, but I hesitantly grabbed the box anyways. It fit the size of my hand almost perfectly. The navy blue sparkles against the black case shined brightly as it was then under my desk lamp.

I sighed when I caught sight of Natalie excitedly bouncing out of the corner of my eye. Whatever it was, I was just praying it wasn't a love letter to me or something. I was kind of surprised that she wasn't already clinging all over me and suggesting a welcome back celebration under my desk. At the same time, though, I wasn't complaining with how surprising calm she was- you know, for Natalie anyways.

I pulled the sparkly lid off of the box and pulled back the tissue paper which covered a purple stick no longer than a pencil. My heart stopped beating when the sight of two pink lines on the stick came into view and I realized what it was. "What the-"

"I'm pregnant!" She shouted while jumping up and down again. I stared at the stick for a few seconds longer and then finally looked up at her. Taken back by my dead pan face that did not at all match her excited one, her face quickly fell too. "Oh! It's not yours." All at once I began to breathe again as my weight collapsed on my desk, knocking over a framed picture of me and the guys in the process. "Yeah, my hot neighbor from, like, three flats down totally busted early. His pull-out game kind of sucks," she laughed like she wasn't now consequently pregnant because of that. "Besides, I've gotten my period since last time we messed around which really hasn't been since the last time you came back from America."

Once all of the lost oxygen was again restored to my lungs and my blood, I sat up and gave Natalie a small smile. "That's relieving to hear. Congrats, Nat. I'm happy for you."

Her smile fell to a more natural and relaxed looking one. "Thanks, Niall. I'm happy for you and that American girl." I furrowed my brow in confusion. I hadn't mentioned Alyssa to anyone here. My confusion resulted in a smile and a small giggle from Natalie. "Oh come on, Niall." She laughed some more. "You go to America and suddenly we go from messing around a few times a week to not at all? I knew you had a romantic side you were saving for someone- either that or you had some life-altering experience and you converted to a more holy lifestyle." I let out a smile of my own and even threw in a chuckle. While it always bugged me that Natalie was good at reading people (more specifically: me), I was finding comfort in the fact that I didn't have to verbally express all the mushy things I was feeling to talk to someone about it. "She's a lucky girl, Ni. And I'm sure your mum will be excited to hear all about her on line 2."

All again, my heart beat stopped and the oxygen quit flowing. I wasn't sure which I wanted more between Natalie scaring me with the pregnancy or the news of my mum trying to get ahold of me. How she even found out any contact information for me was beyond my level of thinking. I couldn't understand how she would accidentally stumble across a London photographer studio when she still lived in Ireland.