"Niall, I can explain..." I said as I went into the bathroom where he was drying off our son,
"I would love to hear you explain, but our son just told me that he is tired so I will dry him off and then put him to bed, are you okay with that?" he looked at me with a stern look and I nodded,
"Sure...I'll be in the livingroom." I said and left the upstairs bathroom and went to my own bedroom and got undressed, then dressed in a loose sundress.
I went down to the livingroom and grabbed the towel I had put there and started drying my hair when I eventually heard Niall's steps in the stairs.
I was sitting on the sofa and he came and sat down next to me. He didn't say a word, he was waiting for me to say something.
"Well, explain then?" He said and I looked at him,
"To be honest, there isn't anything to really explain..."
"There isn't anything to... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I just found you in a pool, soaking wet in a see through shirt with a man I've never seen in my life before. Which part would you want to discuss first?"
"Eli is just a friend, his daughter and Benji are also really good friends and they slept here last night."
"He slept...here?" he looked at the sofa and stood up, "No Niall, he didn't sleep on the sofa!"
"Oh so he slept in the bed?" he asked and I rolled my eyes,
"No, we didn't sleep. We were awake all night, talking, outside in the garden. Look, I'm not going to fight with you when our son is falling asleep upstairs, and especially since I haven't done anything wrong."
He sat back down but I could feel that he was annoyed, his energy was perfectly clear so even though he wasn't yelling at me, I felt like he was.
"I met him about a while ago at Benjamin's preschool. He is new in town,and his daughter became friends with Benjamin really fast. They are almost inseparable."
"Like you and he was in the pool, you mean?"
"I realize that that must have looked awful, but it meant nothing. We were just playing with the kids." He put his head in his hands and sighed,
"Fuck, Stella... that is not something one wants to see when walking through the door to your own home, don't you realize that?"
"Yes, yes I do but how was I to know you were coming home? You didn't text or call... I didn't know you were coming."
"So that makes it perfectly fine for you to fool around with some other guy? Do you know how many women that has thrown themselves at me each night these last couple of weeks? Dozens! But I haven't ended up in a pool soaking wet with any of them, because I'm fucking engaged... which, just so you know, you are too!"
I rolled my eyes,
"Yeah, I know... I've been engaged for the last 5 years but this is it, this is where it ends."
He looked at me, "What do you mean, ends?"I rolled the ring on my finger and looked at my fiancee, "I mean, I want to be married within the year." Niall looked at the ring on my finger then back at me, "Fine, so we'll get married."
"No I don't want some thrown together wedding, I want a real one. Like the one your mother showed me in one of Clarisse's books." To this day, when I mentioned Clarisse, Niall twinched a bit. I knew he missed her, he probably always would and it was mean of me to bring her name up when I knew what it did to him, but he had just told me that he is basically showered with women each night, and that without blinking so yeah, I was going to use Clarisse.
"You want it all? The planning, the reception, the church, guests, drinks, games...everything?" I looked at him with a stern look and nodded,
"And if it's not done within the year?" He asked and I shrugged my shoulders,
"Then I don't see a future for us. I need you to want me like I want you, to trust me in the way I trust you, with everything I am. If you can't give me your love and your trust, then what is the point of us keeping this up?"
Niall looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. In one way, he looked like a little kid who was confused as to why he didn't get any candy, and in one way he looked as the most grown up man I had ever seen.
"I do trust you, Stel. I do love you, I'm sorry if I'm no good at letting you know that..." he said and I felt utterly surprised by his reaction. Sure, we had gone and talked to a therapist about his anger issues but I didn't think it actually helped!
He took my hand which was on my leg and I looked at him with tears in my eyes,
"But if you don't see a future for us, then I can't change your mind and I don't want you to stay with me just because we had kids...a kid together."
He let go of my hand again, stood up and walked out of the front door. I didn't have any clue as to what had just happened, but I was hoping he would walk back inside any minute.
He didn't. After 30 minutes, I started cleaning the house from last night and it only took about 45 minutes. Then I went upstairs to wakeup Benji, and found him sitting in his bed, looking in a book. He looked up at me when I opened the door, and his eyes looked tired.
"Where's daddy?" He asked with hope in his voice and I felt sick to my stomach.
"He's out on some business... what are you reading?"I asked and walked over to my son. I sat down in his bed and he gave me the book,
"I'm only looking at the pictures mum, because I can't read just yet." I smiled and took my hand through his hair, "Oh it's Narnia. Do you want me to read a bit for you?" My son nodded and I began,
"The magicians nephew. Chapter 1 – the wrong door.
This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child-"
"STELLA!" I suddenly heard Niall yelling from downstairs. Both Benji and myself jumped out of the bed and went down to the livingroom. There, we found Niall standing with two other people. One woman with incredible long legs and a red dress, black hair and a very nice lipstick. She was holding a notepad in her arm and had a pen tucked behind her ear. Next to her stood a tall handsome man with silver hair and a nice suit. I looked at Niall,
"Are we selling the house...?" I asked him and he smiled,
"No, this is Corinne and Lewis. Corinne is a wedding planner and Lewis is a ring maker. I figured that if we are to be married within 6 months, we would need some help. Harry recommended these two, and he knows what he's talking about since he got into the whole party planning business."
"Niall I...-"
"Let's just hear them out, and then decide if Harry is right or not."
I looked at my fiancee, walked over to him and took his hand.
"This is just... I don't know how-" The front door opened and a familiar face walked inside, my old friend Mr Harry himself. Benji saw his uncle and ran over and jumped up on him.
"Holy crap, who is this big kid here? I'm looking for a smaller child, a boy called Benjamin, have you seen him?" Benjamin laughed, "It's me uncle Harry, I am Benjamin!"
"What! No way, you're way to old to be Benjamin!"
Harry walked over to me and hugged me, whilst keeping Benji on the side of his body.
"So if it wasn't clear already, myself and the missus is borrowing Ben for the night so you guys can... you know." He gestured between Corinne and Lewis, "And then you can... you know." He winked at Niall and myself and smirked, put Benji down and went down on his knees, "Hey kid, how do you feel about staying up all night, eating ice cream til our stomachs hurts and then dancing on the table to Katy Perry's new album? Because I am going to do all of that tonight and Livy said she needed someone to watch me. Do not know why, I have only ever broken one table."
"One table is enough, seeing as it wasn't even our own table." Livy said as she came walking in through the door, her stomach as big as humanly possible. "Thanks for waiting for me outside, Harold." He shrugged "I was excited to see the kid!"
I went over to Livy and hugged her, having not seen her since she was 4 months pregnant.
"Oh my god Livy, how long do you have left?" She sighed, "Only a few weeks, but I feel like I am going to burst open right here and now. I swear to god, if I had known it was this hard to carry a child, I would never had gone off my pills."
"Trust me, it's worth it." I told her and hugged her again, "You're sure there's not two babies in there?" I said a bit jokingly and the whole room got cold, as if someone had opened a window in the middle of december. I looked over at Niall whom looked down to the floor with an unreadable look on his face. I knew why.
The silence was unbearable and thankfully Livy took a deep breath and put her hands on her stomach, "I'm quite sure there's only one rugrat in there, although two of them would have been a blessing." I smiled and turned to Lewis, "So, you make rings?" He nodded with a proud look on his face and I looked over to Niall, "Let's get to it then?"
"Yes, yes you do that! Benji, come on, let's go pack a bag!" Harry ran upstairs with Benjamin and all one could hear was Ben's laugh; I didn't blame him, I would probably laugh at Harry too.
After Livy and Harry had left with our son, Niall and myself sat down by the kitchen table with Corinne and Lewis. I listened to what they had to say, and we talked about venues, rings, dates, flowers, invitations and everything involved in a wedding. Earlier when I had been angry with Niall for thinking I had been cheating or something on him, all of these things sounded like heaven; right now they didn't. All I could think about was Benjamin, his preschool, my writing and Niall's band. We couldn't just pack all of that up because I was selfish and wanted a wedding within the coming six months.
We ended up not making any huge decisions tonight, instead we booked another meeting in two days and then said goodbye to Lewis and Corinne.
After I closed the front door behind them, I walked back into the kitchen where Niall was cleaning up some glasses.
"So what do you think?" I asked him and I head him sigh and saw him shrug his shoulders,
"I think you want to get married, but you can't decide anything yet because there's something holding you back." He said,
"Holding me back?"
"Yes.." he finished cleaning the glasses and dried his hands on a towel as he looked at me, "I don't know if it's Benjamins new friends father, or if it's something different but there is something making it impossible for you to make a decision at the moment, Stella you couldn't even pick a venue.."
"I told you, there's nothing going on between myself andEli. It's just been nice to have someone there who is kind of in the same situation as myself." Niall put the towel down and looked at me,
"And what situation is that?" he asked as I walked out of the kitchen, Niall following closely behind,
"His wife travels for work so he is often alone with Sophie, as am I with Benjamin."
"Right." He answered,
I was walking upstairs to our bathroom because it had gotten late and I was getting tired, so I wanted to brush my teeth and jump into bed. As I went into the bathroom, Niall turned the other way and went into our bedroom.
I took my time in the bathroom, hoping he had fallen asleep by the time I got into the bedroom but he was sitting on the edge of the end of the bed. I looked at him and took a deep breath, walked over and sat down next to him.
"Can I be honest with you?" I asked and he nodded, just looking down at his hands,
"The last couple of weeks have been hard without you, at times it felt like I would go insane because I have never done this before, I have never been a mother before and I wanted you there. I realize that you need to follow your dream and do the whole music thing, and I applaude you for doing it because you are really good at it, but I need less of my cool boyfriend from the band, and more of my soon to be husband and father of my children."
He looked up at me and saw the tears starting to build up in my eyes, so he took my hand and kissed it,
"I'm sorry I haven't been more of a father to Benjamin, I was actually just thinking about how I've never had to tell him no, or given him a scolding because you're always the one doing those things because I'm not around. I freaking adore you, Stel, and I see where you're coming from."
I looked at him and smiled,
"Thank you." he nodded and let go of my hand, I stood up and went to myside of the bed and laid down as he did the same on his side. I was lying there for a while, wide awake with millions of thoughts in myhead when I suddenly remembered something from years ago.
"Ni?"
"Mhm?"
"Do you remember when I twisted my ankle because you distracted me?"
He turned around in bed and I did the same so we were looking at each other, inches away from the others face.
"You haven't twisted your ankle in ages, do you mean-"
"Back in the flat, yeah."
"I remember, you were freaking stubborn about not getting it checked out and only did it because Louis told you so."
"Yes and then I went on my date with Louis a couple of days later but before I did-"
"I kissed the hell out of you in that lift. Why are you bringing this up?"
"When I think back, I realize that that moment when you stopped the lift, before you even kissed me, that's when I knew."
"Knew what?" He asked,
"Knew that there would never be anyone I'd rather kiss than you. I know I've made my fair amount of mistakes, but you will never be one of them. I just realized that I never thanked you for kissing me that night, you sort of saved me there."
He looked at me with an unreadable look, and before I knew it his hand was behind my head and his lips were on mine. Oh god, how I had missed that. My whole body was tingling but as my hand found his chest, it felt like we had never been apart. His other hand soon found my chest to, and he stopped kissing me for a second to pull open my shirt, which had buttons on the front until he broke them all. I wasn't wearing a bra and his hand immediately found my breast and as his finger played softly with my nipple, I moaned. I hadn't felt this good in a long time...