plaid shirt days & nights (when you made me your own) // niall horan au

part v

It's raining but Zoe's been driving around for hours.

She may be a woman on a mission, but she's also absolutely terrified. So terrified that she drove to Niall's place twice only to park outside for ten minutes, work herself up into a panic, and drive away moments later. She's on her third cup of coffee for the day and by the fourth time she's gone into Starbucks, the barista just smiles at her before writing her name on a cup and asks if her order will be the same as the last. Zoe frowns when she gets back to her car with her new drink. She wonders if the place must be a slow Starbucks if the barista remembered her and her pitiful caffeine cravings.

The sun is barely peeking through the dark clouds when she pulls up to Niall's place once again, and as she downs the remainder of her americano, she tells herself that she's not going to run away anymore. She came all this way to tell Niall her side of the story, and she's not going to leave until she does it.

The rain hasn't let up since she's gotten here and she doesn't have an umbrella but she doesn't let that put a dent in the determination that's currently swirling through her. (It might've just been the caffeine but Zoe doesn't let that deter her). There isn't a lot of parking on Niall's block so she has quite a walk in the rain, but she distracts her mind with other things like what she's going to say when he opens the door or how she's going to react if he ends up getting angry.

Before she knows it, she's at his front door, her clothes drenched from the rain and sticking to her skin uncomfortably. As she lifts her hand to ring the doorbell for the second floor before she loses the nerve, she's distantly glad she decided not to wear mascara today. Niall lives in the second story of a duplex with a roommate, according to Maura. Zoe spent most of yesterday on the phone with her as she sneakily slipped bits and pieces of information about Niall throughout their conversation. Zoe doesn't know if it was Maura believing in her or the fact that she was tired of moping around, but coming up to find Niall on a whim is definitely one of the more reckless things she's done in a while.

She hears someone coming down the stairs behind the door and she starts to panic, nonsense thoughts such as does my hair look okay or shit, how do I even know if I've got the right address running through her mind in the moments that it takes for someone to open the door. Zoe hears the click of the lock and her eyes immediately flit down to watch the door knob turn, and if she starts to feel a little dizzy it's because she finds herself holding her breath throughout the whole thing.

The person behind the door isn't Niall, and Zoe immediately starts to panic because it seems, for a moment, that one of her nonsense thoughts actually comes true. "Hi," the woman says slowly. She's got long, dark hair and a pretty smile. "Um, can I help you?"

"Uhh," Zoe gets out unceremoniously, only to be cut off when the woman looks behind her at the sound of someone else bounding down the stairs.

"Jaya, I think I'm gonna go to the store to get that—" Zoe thinks her heart stops at the sound of his voice, and maybe it's why she feels like she might pass out when he looks at her with widened blue eyes that nearly make her wonder if this was all just a big mistake. "Zoe?"

She almost wishes that she looked at herself in a mirror before ringing his doorbell but all she can do at this point is hope that she doesn't look as much like a deer in headlights as she feels. "Uh, hi," she gets out, or at least that's what she thinks she says. She can't exactly hear herself with all of the blood rushing in her ears.

A gust of wind hits her and she shivers, realizing just how soaked she is. Her bones feel like they've frozen over and she can't help the way her teeth are clattering. Niall snaps out of it at the sound of it and Zoe watches him close his mouth to swallow thickly. "Zo," he says again, shaking his head a little, "what are you doing here? Come inside, it's freezing." He steps down the remaining few stairs to reach out for her wrist, leading her inside with a hand on the small of her back so he can close the front door behind her.