Just a Photographer (Niall Horan)

Chapter 23

I let out a sigh, snuggling deeper into the warm, soft, hairy object under my head. Until, suddenly my brain caught up and I jumped up, realising that it wasn't a pillow under my head, but a person! I jumped so far that I fell off the bed and onto the floor causing a groan to leave my mouth and a cry of "Ava" leave the mouth of the person on the bed.

As I laid on the hard floor, I thought back to the night before, the images of Niall's naked body flashing through my mind, making me blush. I slowly sat up and saw Niall's smug face, obviously he was trying to hold back his laughter at my reaction to waking up to him.

"Fuck off! You caused this! Now I'm going to have bruises everywhere!"

"Maybe I should kiss all of your bruises better" Niall remarked, his eyebrows wiggling,

"Fuck off Niall" I jokingly shouted at him before I walked across the room towards the bathroom, not sure where my sudden confidence had come from considering I was butt naked right now. As I reached the door to the bathroom I turned around to look at Niall and chuckled quietly when I saw his eyes focused on my boobs instead of my face.

"Niall James Horan! My eyes are up here!" I shouted making him jump and then a sheepish expression crossed his face.

After an hour, and two showers later we were finally ready to leave Niall's hotel room to find the rest of the crew. We were laughing when we entered the room where we would have one last rehearsal before the show tonight, however as soon as we entered the room, it went deathly silent, making our laughter stop as well as our steps.

The crew stayed silent for a minute before some of the lighting riggers began to get back to their jobs, making everyone else follow. I headed over to my equipment to set up before heading over to the band, ready to take some pictures of their rehearsal for Niall's social media accounts.

Everything ran as normal, the band were perfect as usual, Niall was perfect as usual and me and Christian were perfect as usual. It was only when there was a break between songs that Jake called out: "sleeping with the boss, Ava. I like your style!". I froze instantly before whipping my head around to see Jake and the rest of the band laughing at the joke. The worst thing was that deep down that I knew that it was just a joke but I couldn't stop the bright red blush that spread across my face or my legs carrying me away from the room as fast as they could.

I made it into a random hallway and collapsed down against the wall and buried my face in my hands. I had not only fucked up my chances of becoming a photographer, I had fucked up my chances of any sort of relationship with Niall. I knew what he said and that he had promised not to fire me but there's no way he can keep me on now. I was pulled out of my thoughts of what the hell I was going to tell my grandparents when I heard my name being called out.

"Ava! Are you ok? Everyone's worried about you." It was Tara.

"I'm fine thanks" I managed to choke out, hoping that Tara wouldn't realise how close to tears I sounded.

"Do you mind if I call Niall? He's worried sick and has been running around this hotel for half an hour now." I parted my lips at this, I hadn't realised I had been gone for that long and I definitely hadn't realised that Niall had been looking for me. I nodded my head slowly.

It wasn't long before I heard footsteps echoing down the corridor with an Irish accent following them before suddenly I was being grasped by strong, familiar arms. He tugged me tightly against him, repeatedly pressing kisses wherever his lips could reach without letting me out of his arms.

The tenderness and loving nature of his hug only caused more tears to run down my face, but out of happiness rather than embarrassment this time. We stood there for a while, just hugging before he finally spoke.

"I'm really sorry that they joked about that, Ava. They didn't realise that it would upset you. They don't know anything about our relationship, just that we keep arriving at the same time." Niall said into my ear without loosening his grip on me. "I'm sorry."

"No, Ni, I'm sorry. It was just a joke, I shouldn't have got upset."

This time, Niall pulled away to look into my eyes, "Ava, you can't control your emotions so you shouldn't be sorry for the way that you react."

He smiled at me once again, before pulling me into his arms again.

I took the rest of the afternoon off and spent it in my hotel room, watching random rom coms on Netflix and eating as much unhealthy food as I wanted. I jumped when there was a knock at my door, causing me to drop sticky pop corn onto my bed, making me groan. I began to clean this up when another knock on my door sounded, reminding me of the fact that there was someone there. I opened it, but when I saw the familiar blue eyes and fluffy brown hair, I turned around again, leaving the door open.

"How was rehearsal?"

"Good. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Look, Niall I'm really sorry about the way that I reacted-" Niall interrupted me by pressing his lips to mine.

"Aves, I told you earlier. You don't need to be sorry. Now, what are we watching" Niall said before he launched himself onto my bed and immediately started helping himself to the array of unhealthy food that was laid out on my bed.