Just a Photographer (Niall Horan)

Chapter 15

Niall left to go back to Mullingar a couple of days ago, it was his mum's birthday and we had some time off tour, so he was going away for two weeks. It had only been three days yet I was already missing him so much, in the time I have known him I've got used to having someone who's always willing to cuddle me and is just so happy all the time. Little things like hearing him singing in the shower, making me cups of tea, eating dinner together and watching tv together were the things I missed the most. I had resisted calling him so far because I didn't want him to think I was crazy, but every night as I attempted to get some sleep, his face haunted me, tempting me to call him just to hear his soothing voice.

It was 3am and I was still awake, if Niall was here right now I would go and sneak into his room and climb into his bed without waking him up and cuddle into his warm body but that wasn't an option as Niall wasn't here and there was no warm body to cuddle into. After I had been lying awake for another 30 minutes, I decided to walk around the flat. Before I knew it I was standing outside Niall's bedroom with my hand resting on the door handle, I carefully opened the door and looked around. It was quite empty as Niall had taken a lot of his stuff with him but I noticed he didn't change his bedsheets before he left. Without thinking I picked up the pillows and carried them through to my bedroom, I arranged them on my bed so they surrounded me. It was past 4am by the time I got back into bed but as soon as I lay down I sighed happily as Niall's comforting scent surrounded me and I was able to bury my face in his pillow and pretend it was his chest, I closed my eyes and almost immediately fell asleep.

I ended up doing this every night and I was wearing Niall's shirts during the day, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't his girlfriend and when he came back I would have to stop or I would end up creeping him out and he would kick me out of his flat. Niall's scent ended up being the only thing that helped me fall asleep and calm myself down, I sighed knowing that it was going to be hard to get used to sleeping without it again. I had just woken up and moved all of Niall's stuff back into his room as he was coming home today. I was driving myself crazy thinking about how good it was going to be to have him home again that I didn't even think about Niall finding out about what I had been doing while he was gone.

"Ava! I'm home!" Niall called out and dropped his bags in the hallway and moved to take his coat off when I came running at him and luckily he caught me as I jumped into his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. He immediately buried his nose into my neck and started mumbling things I couldn't understand with his thick Irish accent into my skin.

"I missed you so much Ni, so, so much" I whispered,

"I know Aves, I missed you too, God I really did. Anyone would think we hadn't seen each other in 2 years not 2 weeks" he chuckled. He started slowly walking to the kitchen with me still in his arms and gently put me down on the counter so he could take off his coat and shoes.

"How have you been then? Anything good happen while I was gone?" He asked, his lips curling up as he looked at me,

"Nothing much, I saw my friends and went to the forest to do some photography but nothing else"

"Did the photos turn out well?"

"Yeah but they're nothing special. What about you? How was your mum's birthday?"

"It was good, got to see some of my extended family who I haven't seen in a few years and spent some proper time with my parents, Greg and Theo which was nice"

"Oooh how old does Theo look now? Do you have a picture?"

"Of course I do"

Niall showed me a photo of him in the middle holding Theo in his arms, Greg on one side and Bobby on the other, Theo looked so much older than he had when I saw him at the concert in Dublin.

"What is in the Horan genes? You all look exactly the same" I laughed looking up at Niall,

"We're all handsome as fuck" Niall winked at me,

"They are, not sure about the one in the middle though" I joked pointing at Niall,

"you do know I'm a model now don't you?"

Niall headed into his bedroom after picking up his bags and carrying them into his closet to unpack later. He collapsed onto his bed face first and lay there for a minute while I stood in the doorway and laughed. Suddenly, he lifted his head up and looked at me,

"why does my bed smell like you?" he asked with a smirk which suggested that he knew the reason but wanted me to admit it to him,

"not sure" I mumbled but my bright red cheeks probably gave me away. Niall's smirk moved into a fond smile and he lifted his arms up motioned to me. I walked towards him and gasped when he pulled me onto the bed on top of him, I relaxed into his body and wrapped my arms around him, keeping him close.

"Did you miss me?" he asked into my ear,

"just a bit"

"did you sleep in here?"
"no but I slept with your pillow in my room"
"are you wearing my hoodie as well?"
"maybe"

He sighed and pulled me closer to him and gently stroked my back with one hand and ran his fingers through my hair with the other,

"I missed you too, Ava. I'm glad I'm home."

a/n: I hope everyone's enjoying the book so far! Leave a vote if you enjoyed this chapter, it's one of my favourites :) Thank you so much for over 2k reads as well, it's so overwhelming for me as when I started this book I thought only about 5 people would read it. Thank you!