*** Just a disclaimer that I do not have any rights to the song used in this chapter but full credit goes to Ingrid Michealson for writing her beautiful song ‘Around You’
A/N: I really hope you like this chapter (it’s a bit long and I don’t really like it, I might go back and change it a bit later but for now here it is) but as always your feedback is very much appreciated so if you want to leave me a comment or rate I will love you forever! But anyway thank you and happy reading! :)
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“I love you too.” There was a smile in my face and tears in my eyes as our lips met and despite everything I had been through I couldn’t think of anywhere else I wanted to be then right there in his arms.
(LIAM’S POV)
I woke up the next morning with a huge grin on my face and I looked over to see her smiling in her sleep. I reached over to side table and sighed as I glanced at the clock, we would have to be at their apartment in half an hour for meetings with management. I decided to let her sleep for a while longer so I slipped out of bed and quickly got ready, still trying not to wake her. I had just walked out of the bathroom when I was surprised to see her sitting at the old piano in the corner of my apartment. Her hair was tied back in a messy bun and the boys’ old clothes fit loosely around her small figure. I leant against the doorframe and watched as her slender fingers pressed down on the keys, making the music ring out in the quiet room as her voice picked up the melody.
“I call you my friend
And that’s all that I knew
Why do I have to pretend to find ways to be around you?
You’ve been there all along
Holding my hand like you do
Why do I feel that it’s wrong to love to be around you?
And I think I’m losing my mind
Maybe I’ve been hopelessly blind to your beauty
And you have a sweet sinful smile
I’m in trouble cause you turn me upside down and around and around”
I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to her sing and the sun shone through her golden hair as she played from a memory we didn’t think she had.
“Do you feel what I feel? Well? Do you feel this way too?
That every wound seems to heal when I am around you
And I must be losing my mind
Maybe I have been hopelessly blind to your beauty
And you have a sweet sinful smile
I’m in trouble cause you turn me upside down and around and around and around
And I must be losing my mind
Maybe you have a sweet sinful smile I’m in trouble
Cause you turn me upside down and around and around
Turn me upside down and around and around
You turn me upside down and around and around…
My feet don’t touch the ground when I’m around you
When I’m around you, you, you, you, you…”
When she finished I had to choke back tears at her sheer beauty and innocence. Her voice lingered on the last note and as she lifted her finger off the last key there was a moment of peaceful silence before she noticed me watching. A sweet smile broke over he face as she closed the piano and I wandered over, taking a seat next to her on the cold leather bench. Her head flopped down on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her as we watched the city come to life through the open blinds.
“I didn’t know you could play the piano.” She smiled up at me before lazily planting a kiss on my lips. “Me neither.” She chuckled to herself and I kissed her again, wanting to make the most of my time alone with her this morning. “So how are you feeling?” I looked down at her fiddling and knew she had something on her mind. “Fine, better now I’m with you.” She smiled before laughing and I gave her a questioning glance, wondering what she could possibly find funny now. She always did have an odd sense of humor but I blame Louis for that. I raised an eyebrow questioningly, looking down at her glowing face as she laughed.
“Nothing, it’s nothing I’m just laughing at how cheesy it all sounds, but I do love you.” I kissed her cheekily on the nose and she scrunched her face up as she continued to laugh. “And I love you.” I wrapped my arms around her and rested my head on top of hers just enjoying being in her company again. I would have stayed like that with her forever but soon my phone buzzed with a text from Niall asking us where we were.
“Do we really have to go?” She looked up at me with such sadness in her eyes and my hand traced the shadow of the purple bruise across her cheek. “Yeah we do, I’m not going to let any guy get away with hurting you like that.” She smiled before pulling away from me and she stood up from the piano bench, still holding on to my hand as we walked over to the door.
I laughed to myself as I saw that she was still wearing her pajamas and hoped that we had left enough time for her to change. She just laughed it off though and said that it would be funny to see what the managers would think about her now. We waited patiently to get there and our fingers were intertwined as she pulled down on the hem of the old boxers and leant against me in the elevator up to their floor.
Luckily we got there a few minutes before the others and Nora was quickly able to clean herself up a bit before we heard the usual knocking at the door and Niall jumped up from the couch to open it up for management to come in. Surprisingly though it wasn’t who I thought would be there and instead, standing on the other side of the door, was Tyler. You could practically feel the tension in the room after that and Niall spoke through gritted teeth, not opening the door fully and blocking Nora from his view. “What do you think you’re doing here?” I had never heard Niall sound madder and I stepped up to the door to see what was happening. Nora and Harry talked together in hushed tones while Louis tried to diffuse the situation.
“Look I just came to get my jacket, jeez, is the bitch even here cause I’ll come back later if she’s not.” Niall and I were about ready to pounce on him, how dare he come back here and speak about her like that. I swear one of us would’ve hit him right then and there but someone came up behind him and beat us to it. Zayn’s eyes were filled with fury and Tyler turned around only to be met with Zayn’s fist coming in contact with his nose. A satisfying crunch could be heard as he pulled back, smirking. “You wanna say that again?” Tyler clasped his hands to his face and I knew only too well how bad it would have felt. But the steady stream of blood shown confirmed my thoughts that Zayn would’ve thrown a harder punch than Harry this time round.
“What have you done now?” Nora’s shrill voice could be heard behind me as a steady stream of profanities came from Tyler but Zayn just stood there looking smug with his hands crossed over his chest. “Nora you know he deserved it!” Niall was fuming and his face was flushed red as he slammed the door shut and Harry came forward and reluctantly gave Tyler an ice pack and cloth to stop the bleeding. He was threatening to leave but we needed him here for management to get him to sign confidentiality agreements so we were practically blocking his way to the door, each of us standing shoulder to shoulder while Nora tried to reason with him.
We were lucky though because right when I had almost given up hope on getting him to stay there was a knock at the door and I quickly turned around, relieved to have management finally here. When I saw them all standing there though I was surprised at just how many of them had come today. Usually Modest Management would just send over one or two of our representatives to clean up after our press disasters but today four of our representatives stood out in the hall. “Liam!” Katie leapt forward hugging me before going on to the other boys and engulfing them in her contagious bubbly personality. After her came Richard and Will who shook my hand before stepping forward in a more formal manner and taking the time to asses the hectic situation inside. The last person left in the hallway was Kimmy and she gave me a warm, sympathetic smile before heading into the apartment and I closed the door behind her, ready to watch the drama unfold.
(NORA’S POV)
I had to stop myself from feeling sympathetic towards Tyler as he sat on the couch, his eyes already had dark circles under them and everyone was keeping their distance. At first I was surprised to see him but it turns out Harry had texted him, pretending to be me, and asked him to come by this morning only so we could keep him here for management to deal with him. A loud knock came from the door though and my heart jumped as Liam left to go let their Management in. “Liam!” A young girl with short brown hair and a smiling face burst through the door, hugging him tightly. When she did though a strange feeling erupted in me, I guess you could say it was jealousy but I was just being foolish, there was no need for me to be jealous now matter how beautiful she was. After her though came two older men who greeted the boys formally before turning, much like the other girl had, to look at Tyler and myself. Right before Liam closed the door another woman walked in and after that there was a moment of, in my opinion awkward, silence where I could practically feel all eyes in the room staring at me.
“Uh guys this is Nora.” Louis chirpy voice made me look up and soon I felt arms wrap around me as the first girl, who introduced herself as Katie Ray, was the first person to break the silence. “Hi Nora, we’ve all heard so much about you and you look wonderful! I mean look at her guys isn’t she glowing?” The other woman laughed before agreeing, causing me to blush as she came over and introduced herself as well. After all the introductions I had met Kimmy Davidson, and then the two men, Will Bloomfield and Richard Griffiths. The attention then shifted to Tyler who was still holding an icepack to his swollen nose and sat sulking on the couch in the living room.
“And you must be the problem huh?” I loved their no-nonsense approach to things and Tyler’s harsh ‘bad-boy’ persona was no competition for management’s formal and professional manner. “Look I’ll, I’ll apologize or take it back but really I, I won’t be a problem I swear.” He stuttered as they began to pull out paperwork and Will sat down across from him, a stern look on his face as he pulled out a pen and gave Tyler a menacing stare. “Sign this and we’ll let you go as soon as possible.” Tyler’s hand was shaking, as he signed the papers, not even bothering to look at what they said. “There done, can I go now?” He moved to stand up but Richard stepped forward then, blocking his way as he cast a large shadow over Tyler’s belittled form. “What? What now?” Richard just smirked as he flipped through the papers and Tyler look to me, as if for help, but I just leant back against the table as Liam’s hand wrapped protectively around my waist.
“Well don’t you want to know what you just agreed to?”
“Oh um yeah and then can I go?” I quickly remembered the only reason he had come back and I ducked into my room where Harry had left the jacket and grabbed it quickly, coming back in time to hear Kimmy explaining the ‘contract’ to Tyler. “So because of this you are sworn to secrecy in everything relating to Nora and the boys. That means that if you so much as whisper any of that information to anyone else then you will be subject to a lawsuit, and in your current financial position that is the last thing you’ll want to happen. So basically keep your mouth shut, don’t try to contact Nora again, and we’ll leave you alone, alright?” I saw him gulp and nod his head, going paler by the second but management stood out of his way and he leapt up, nearly sprinting to the door.
“Tyler wait!” I called out to him, stopping the door from closing with my foot as he turned away, already halfway down the hall. I just held out his jacket and he hesitated a moment before walking back, his head downcast as he snatched it away from me. “You’re welcome!” I called out sarcastically as he stalked off down towards the elevators. When I went back into the apartment the atmosphere was much more light hearted and I couldn’t help but smile as I saw Niall pull a tattered photo out of his wallet and show the four adults now sitting comfortably on the couch. “What you got there, Nialler?” He blushed and tried to hide it but I quickly grabbed it, shocked though at what the photo was of. The old, tattered black and white photo had begun to fray at the ends but my focus went straight to the middle where the blurry image made my heart skip a beat. Niall had been carrying around the only picture we had of the baby. The ultrasound picture had been in his wallet since the day I’d given it to him and he sheepishly looked down at his feet as I flipped it over in my scarred hands. “You really kept it?” He chuckled then and reached out, taking it back and carefully slipping in into his faded wallet. “Well the others did too, it’s not just me.” I chuckled as the others agreed but I couldn’t help but feel happy to know that they all cared this much.
“Well as adorable as this has all been I think we should really get back to work so we can try and get this all smoothed over as soon as possible.” Kimmy seemed to be in charge of everything so we all took a seat around the dining room table then as she laid a copy of the contract over the table along with some magazine covers that I soon noticed had photos of the boys and I on them. “Okay so this is the headlines you’ve all managed to make in the past few months, and these,” Said Will gesturing to a pile over to the left, “Are the ones that we weren’t too pleased with.” I glanced over to them and saw photos of Harry, clearly drunk, out with the other boys. Which would’ve been fine if they weren’t dated back to when he was still underage and I saw him blushing as Richard raised an eyebrow before clearing his throat and taking over.
“Well despite those we have been very proud of you boys recently but uh, Liam we were very sorry about how the whole uh-“ I glanced over to see Liam standing next to me but he just shook his head and smiled. “Don’t worry about it Richard, the Danielle wasn’t easy on any of us.” I squeezed his hand sympathetically, it was obvious he was still upset over the way the fans had reacted but the boys had done their best to look out for him and diffuse the situation. “Sorry, but we think we have an idea to make all that drama go away,” I looked up to see the other boys sharing other confused glances but when I glanced back at their managers I saw that Katie had a huge grin on her face and they were all staring at me. “What? Why me?” I sighed and leant back into Liam’s strong tall frame as his hands wrapped around my waist, covering my own that were resting over my small baby bump.
“We, well actually Harry told us about you and uh Liam, so we were thinking that you two might be a nice distraction from all the poor media attention lately.” I think my jaw might have actually dropped, did they really think that Liam and I coming out as I couple would do anyone any good?
“Why me? Why do you need me… can’t you just use them I mean they’re the famous one’s and why would anyone care about me anyway? I’m nothing-special I-” I however didn’t get to finish telling them how ordinary I was because Katie came and sat down on the bench in front of me, she twirled her finger as a sign for me to turn around so I spun on the spot waiting to see what she was trying to do. “See, exactly what I was talking about. Nora you’re perfect! You’re exactly what they’re not expecting; they wont expect someone as strong, opinionated, and beautiful as you. They will think that you’re some stereotypical girl but you are the opposite. You’re better than anything they’ll be expecting. This is why we need you, because you’ll take the spotlight and, well after everything that people have been saying, it’s what they need you to do.”
I exchanged a smirk with Liam when she said I was perfect but other than that my mind was wandering to some of the things Eleanor and I had spoken about. I was scared that the fans wouldn’t like me, that they’d judge me or send me hate like they had done to her. But whatever the boys needed me to do I would so we spent the rest of the afternoon planning an interview with a leading magazine and it would be the first interview I would be doing alongside the five boys. Management spent longer than I expected with us that morning but it had started early so we all decided to stay there for lunch after they had left instead of us all going our separate ways.
Harry and I were feeling creative with cooking so, from scratch, we made lasagna for the boys and the smell of the tomatoes in the oven filled the apartment while we sat down the watch a movie while we waited. I was sat comfortably next to Liam and he held me close, our newly kindled relationship not going unnoticed by the other boys. When Zayn had gone into the kitchen earlier with Liam their tense exchange could be heard by all of us but I felt that Zayn was just looking out for me when he said, “I care about you but I care about her a whole lot too so if either of you hurt one another again you’re both screwed alright?” Louis snickered into his pillow at that but I smacked him on the arm as the two of them walked back in and we all went on as if we hadn’t heard a thing.
Harry had laid his head down in my lap and I played with the ends of his curly hair picking away at his split ends while he complained that it was too long. “Haz it’s not that hard to make a hair appointment you know, even I could call for you.” Lou had gotten sick of Harry’s complaining but Harry was very specific with who he let touch his hair so soon I decided to speak up. “I could cut it for you.” I saw all their heads spin to face me and I hadn’t even realized what I had been saying until it came out. “Really? You can cut my hair? Really love, really?” Harry looked surprised and I didn’t even know if I could, it had just been impulsive like this morning with the piano but he said that if I showed him I could do it on a wig or something he’d let me. So we decided that tomorrow I would practice and after that we just went back to lazily spending the afternoon together in one another’s company.
After half an hour the timer went off on the oven and I made a move to get up when a feeling rose in my stomach that I had almost forgotten. A small bubbly feeling erupted in the pit of my stomach but this time it was different. This time there was a slight nudge, a kick almost, that I could feel just to the right of my bellybutton. I let out a slight gasp and my hands immediately flew down to the spot where I felt the baby. “Nora? Nora what is it? Is something wrong?” Liam had jumped up, immediately followed by the rest of them and I looked down to see his face at level with the baby, staring right back up at me with his deep brown eyes filled with concern. “The, the baby. I felt it kick!” I smiled wide and they all jeered! Liam picked me up, spinning me around and kissing me before the others pushed him out of the way and hugged my tight. “Can we feel it?” Louis was standing in front of me and we all waited for a minute while I paused to see if I could feel it again. Soon though I felt the baby’s foot nudge me and I pulled Lou’s hand down to the spot, his face lighting up as he felt it too.
After that lunch was soon forgotten and the baby seemed to suddenly be very energetic, kicking every once as a while and the boys all took turns pressing their large hands over my stomach and squealing like little girls every time they felt it kick. I was smiling the whole time and despite everything that had happened with Tyler, today had been one of the most memorable for me so far. This morning I had remembered something I didn’t even know I could do. Playing the piano had been like my drawing, freeing but at the same time it gave me a feeling of accomplishment when I was finished, a feeling I rarely had the pleasure of knowing. I was finally back with Liam and it seemed like my baby was sharing in with the excitement, making my day all the more important. My first milestone in feeling the baby move had been shared only with Liam and while that moment was amazing I was glad now that all five of them could share this with me as a family. And looking back on everything so far I felt so lucky to be able to glance across and see those five happy faces smiling back at me.