previously...
“So you’re giving up on music now?”
“No. I just may change my name. I mean… it’s the music industry, I could have any name I wanted.”
“I don’t want you to give up.” He tells me. “I was being serious when I said that I’d heard your music before, not only do you have an amazing voice but you’re song writing skills are incredible, so I really don’t want you to give up on that.”
“I promise you I won’t.” I reply, my heart swelling at the care that he’s showing me. “Okay, my turn for the honest answer.” I smirk at the question that comes to mind and Niall nods in anticipation for my question. “So… if you’ve heard my music before, does that mean you’ve watched my video too?”
- - - - -
iii
“When are you going to grow up and realise the consequences of your mistakes?” He screams at me, he’s too manly to give me tears, but his eyes show me the hurt that he feels, that I’ve caused him.
“So you’ve already packed all my bags up?” I ask him, looking on with tears in my eyes at the suitcases by the door. “You’ve already decided how this conversation will play out? Should I just leave now?”
“How did this even happen?” He asks, ignoring me, moving towards the kitchen table, an opened whiskey bottle resting on the table.
“We’d had an argument.” He scoffs, grabbing hold of his whiskey bottle and taking another swig.
“That’s right Marty, run away at the smallest bit of confrontation. Just because we have a little argument doesn’t mean you can go out and record a sex tape with the first guy that you meet on the street!”
“I didn’t!” I defend, “’Little arguments’ are about you using my toothbrush instead of your own, or arguing over whether to order a curry or fish and chips, it’s a pretty big argument when you kick me out of the flat so you can ‘have some time to think’!”
“Why would you do this to me? Was it for more fame?”
“No! I didn’t know he’d recorded anything, it was never supposed to get out like this.”
“By ‘like this’, you obviously mean I was never supposed to find out I assume.” He rolls his eyes, placing down the half-empty whiskey bottle, “Mar, I don’t know how we’re gonna get past all this.” He sighs, and for the first time that evening, Riley looks me in the eye. “The problem is… that I’m so in love with you that I don’t want to let you go.” He gets to his feet, taking tentative steps towards me and I find myself confused by his behaviour as he takes my hand. “Just tell me it was the one time. And that you regret it and that we can work this through.”
“I’d never intentionally hurt you.” I begin, scared of what I may say to him, knowing that this will hurt him more than me. “And I deeply regret it… but it happened for a reason Riley, we can’t just brush this under the carpet. I’m not sure if I want to work this out.”
“Well at least I packed your bags for you already. Get out of my life Marty.”
-
When I wake up, the first morning of my holiday, I find myself leaning not on a pillow, but on a body. Obviously Niall’s body, moving away from his embrace I untangle our limbs and move further across to my side of the bed. Somehow in the night, we’d met in the middle. I sit up in the bed and my attention is caught when Niall lets out a groan and moves his hand around the area where I had been a moment before,
“J?” He looks up too quickly for me to think about who J could be, and then his mouth drops open as he looks at me. Slowly, he shakes his head, like shaking a thought from his mind and then rises to sit up on the bed.
“So, now we’re here, what are we gonna do?” He asks me, and I get to my feet, moving towards the curtains, and opening them to bring in the light of the sun.
“Well it’s a nice day.” I say, whilst gesturing to the outside and Niall nods in agreement.
“Pool day?”
Ordering room service was an exciting activity with Niall, who picked as much as he wanted off the menu for the two us of us, saying that he’d be happy to pay for it, and then the food arrives on not one, but two trolleys as we let inside the waiters who bring the food to us. Niall immediately is sat on the balcony eating his first bacon sandwich whilst I get dressed with my bikini beneath my clothes. When I return from the bathroom, Niall has now started on another bacon sandwich, and as I sit beside us, he grabs the large plate of bacon and hands it to me.
“Bacon is good.” He comments.
“I see that.” I joke, one more bacon sandwich sits on his plate, ready to be eaten, taking a large bite of it I understand immediately why Niall has piled his plate with the heaven’s food. “There’s nothing like a heavenly bacon sandwich in the morning.” I muse and Niall makes a sound of agreement with his mouth too full to talk.
-
“Good day for it.” Niall says awkwardly, walking down to the pool. We found two sunbeds next to each other easily enough, laying down towels and exchanging awkward smiles. It was one of the first times that I’d found myself lost for conversation with him, and I could tell he felt the same way as we lay side by side, laying silently under the heat of the sun.
‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’
Shakespeare had summed it up perfectly. Of course, his muses were on death, whilst mine seemed to be on life. Why should I fear all that’s beneath the sun like I am now? There may be hundreds who send me hate on the internet, paparazzi that follow my every mood, and no man may ever respect me in an honest and committed relationship ever again… but at least I was here, experiencing it all.
“What are you thinking about? Looks serious.” He asks, and I turn to look at him, shading my hands from the sun to look at him.
“Shakespeare.” I truthfully answer, and the way his eyebrows lift in surprise shows me that he wasn’t expecting that answer.
“Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet.” He quotes by heart.
“Niall Horan you surprise me.” I joke, “Here I thought you were all pretty eyes and blonde hair, but you also quote Shakespeare.”
“I’m full of surprises. Sometimes I can even solve a few mathematical equations here and there.” I gasp in fake surprise as he lets out a loud laugh, causing some to look over at us. “I studied Romeo and Juliet for English.” He confesses, “It’s basically the only quote I can remember from the entire play.”
“It’s a good quote to know.” I commend him, “I used to love English, but I could never keep up with all the writing to be honest.”
“I hated reading. Preferred music and singing.” He responds, and I understood him completely. School was always a forced education that I had no choice in, but when I sang it was completely of my own free will. That’s why I knew that University was no place for me, it was out in the big world that I belonged, trying to make my music heard by the masses.
“Same here.”
“You know, when we finally leave here-“
“We’ve only just got here!” I exclaim, cutting him off with a laugh. “Are you already sick of me?”
“No!” He responds. “I was just going to say, if you feel the same way about I do with singing, and that you don’t feel like you could ever do anything with your life except sing, then I think when we get back, you should go back to your old label and see if they’ll take you back.”
“Why would they take me back?”
“Because now you have a story.” He pauses, as if that’s all the explanation I need, but I’m still lost at what he’s trying to say. “When you disappear off the face of the planet, everyone’s going to assume that you’ve given up on music and have decided to take to the silence of the unfamous and live out your days away from the spotlight. But can you imagine if you came back, with an album ready to release, they’d admire your courage to return to the spotlight and when you blow them away with your music, they’ll forget all about this tape scandal.”
“I suppose you’re right.” I sigh, but he doesn’t know how my label reacted, telling me that my dream was dead as they told me they’d terminated my contract with them. Their last words were that I’d never sell a song again, and at the time, I believed them. But for some reason I didn’t want to tell Niall that, just because my hopes in myself had long been destroyed, I still wanted Niall to hold onto that hope for me, because for the first time in a while, I felt like all wasn’t over for me.
-
“How much do we really know about each other though?” Niall asks as we make ourselves comfortable at the bar area after having an incredible meal.
“I don’t know.” I shrug, and Niall’s eyes glint cheekily as he tells me he’s going to get us drinks and then stalks off towards the bar. As I wait, I pull out my phone and begin to scroll through my texts, stopping at the text messages that I’d received off my best friend, Abigail.
From: Abigail
(1)
I’ve just got off the phone from your sister + she said that you’d gone on holiday all on your own! You should’ve told me your plan + I would’ve come with- A
(2)
M- please call me back soon, I’m worried about you, you can’t leave me here in England all by myself worrying about you, Isaac says it’ll be your fault if all my hair falls out due to stress- A (and also a concerned I)
(3)
M- I understand that you don’t want to talk to me because you’re embarrassed or maybe you’re depressed, but just remember I’m here if you want to talk- A
“What’s wrong?” Niall asks immediately after he sits down silently, so that I jump when I hear his voice.
“Just my best friend, she’s been calling me all day because she’s worried about me.” I tell him. “I just don’t feel like talking to her right now.”
“Is she famous?” He asks me, obviously wondering whether he’d ever heard of her.
“Semi-famous I guess. She’s dating Isaac Reagan?” A look of realisation crosses his face at the mention of his name, well, Isaac was a member of the band Particpation. They had recently become extremely popular over the last 6 months, and as the only band member to have a girlfriend, it meant that Abigail had been receiving hate on Twitter, and it got as bad as disabling it for a short amount of time before I talked her out of it.
The first time I’d read hate on Twitter caused by the tape, my immediate reaction had been to text Abigail, but after typing and re-typing I could never find the right words to say to her. She’d received hate for being in love, whilst I’d received it because of my stupid mistakes, it was never going to be the same for the two of us, hers was caused mainly by jealousy, whilst mine was personal.
“How long have you two been best friends?” I open my mouth to answer before he shouts out, “Wait!” He gestures to the table, placing a cup in front of me and pouring- what I assumed was- an alcoholic drink and then pours a large glass for himself too. “I’m going to guess how long you two have been best friends, if I’m wrong, I drink, if I’m right, you drink. That way we have fun drinking and we can try and guess things about each other.” I nod and he looks me over for a moment. “Ten years.”
“Close.” I laugh, “Eight years.” He takes a large gulp of his drink, and I try to think of something to guess. “Your favourite member of your band is Zayn.”
He laughs and tells me to drink.
“I have no favourite because they’re all my best friend.”
“That’s no fair! You should drink too!” He doesn’t argue with me, taking a drink and then he thinks hard for a moment.
“You have a younger brother.” I shake my head and he slaps his hand on his thigh before taking a drink. “And older brother?” He tries again and takes another drink after I tell him no.
“I have an older sister, that’s all.” He cries out in annoyance as I laugh at him even more.
We learn things about each other, his favourite type of curry is a prawn curry, whilst I confess to having my first kiss at aged 6.
Finally, when I’m feeling more confident after the buzz of the alcohol, I finally try and guess about his reason for being here with me.
“You broke up with your girlfriend, which is why you’re here with me.”
Niall freezes, and I immediately know that was the wrong thing to guess, he only takes a small sip.
“You’re half-right.” He explains away the small sip. “Actually, I’m feeling really tired now, maybe it’s time to stop this stupid game.”
I sigh, agreeing with him and I pretend that I don’t notice the change in his emotions as I clearly made a wrong decision of asking him about his ex-girlfriend.
When I get into bed, I want to apologise, I want to tell him that I’ll never ask him something as personal as that again, unless he mentions it first. I feel like I’d tried to selfishly learn about a private part of his life without asking his permission, and I know that if I’d had something that I wanted to keep secret and a basically a drunken stranger asked me about it, I’d be less than pleased too.
“I’m sorry.” I speak, at the same time that he speaks out too, turning over so that we were now facing instead of me staring into his back.
We both laugh in sync, in the darkness of the room, I can make out his face and his eyes and his teeth, and as he smiles at me, the smile speaks to me, telling me that it’s okay, and tomorrow is a new day for us both to explore in freedom.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun.
And at that moment of hope, I didn't.
* * *
hiii! i'm sorry, it took longer than expected to get this chapter out ((but i did make it longer than it was supposed to be!))
i hope you all enjoyed the chapter, what do you think of the relationship between N + M so far? i'm so excited to write all the little moments that are going to happen between them to push them together :')
also, abigail is going to be a very important character in the entire series, especially in this book and another book of the series, so i hope you're all going to like her when she gets involved in the chapters!
i can't stop ((haha)) listening to miley cyrus at the moment- or all the time, whatever- so i've decided to put on a song of hers on the side, and also niall, so be sure to enjoy THAT as well ;)
it's only 8 days until i see one direction in manchester, is anyone else going to see them on the 1st june? if not, tell me when you're seeing them ((if you are))
((twitter: @IzHoran))
byee!