I can't say a lot of things catch me off guard.
But this, this was something that definitely caught me off guard.
In front of me was a sight I never would've expected to see. One Direction was standing leisurely in my kitchen with holiday themed mugs in their hands.
I think it's my staring that puts them off a bit because I'm sure I have a peculiar expression on my face. I'm not too sure what expression I should even have on my face.
They're exchanging looks as I stand there, not saying a thing.
I blink and look at my mom out of the corner of my eye. She's biting the inside of her lip to keep what I'm sure is a smug smile off of her face. She's enjoying this entirely too much.
"Uh, hi," I say unsurely. I don't know what to do. This is the biggest boyband in the world and while I'm not that big of a fan, it's hard not to feel intimidated or starstruck. (But only a smidgen concerning the starstruck feeling)
I've dealt with fame far too much to feel intimidated for long though.
I brush off the feelings of inadequacy and force myself to become more approachable. "I'm Maya," I say with the same smile I had a few seconds ago. I stick my hand out for them to shake, carefully gauging each of their faces and their appearances. The way people look straight after a long flight reflects who they are as a person. Usually.
I let them run through their names out of courtesy because who doesn't know these boys?
"It's nice to meet you guys," I say as I let go of Liam's hand. He sends me a soft smile, his eyes slightly droopy due to his drowsiness. They must've been flying for hours to look this tired.
My mom claps her hand, obviously feeling how awkward the room is. "Maya here will show you guys your rooms. I hope you don't mind that two of you guys will have to share," she says apologetically, dipping her chin down.
I have to say, I'm fairly impressed by how my mom's acting. Sometimes, I forget how easy it is for her to play me like I play her.
I keep the smile plastered on my face as if this is exactly what I was hoping to do at 12:15 in the morning. She's just torturing for me for the hell of it.
Niall loops arm around Zayn's neck and grins cheerfully at her, his cheeks pink. "Zayn and I won't mind sharing. Thanks for letting us stay here Mrs. Loving," he says his Irish accent thick. He's so happy for having only gotten off a flight an hour ago.
He was dangerous. This wasn't normal.
"Call me Hazel," she laughs offhandedly.
Behind her back, I make a disgusted face. Please call her Mrs. Loving. For my sake at least.
Louis sniggers when he catches sight of my face and points a finger at the back of his throat, mimicking my expression.
My mom turns to face me, causing me to quickly drop my stink face. "Hey, remember to turn on the alarm before you go to bed okay? I love you." She kisses my cheek, bids the boys a quiet goodbye and makes her way up the stairs. Leaving me with our newest guests.
I run my hand through my hair, snagging it on a couple tangles. "Do you want me to show you guys your rooms after you're done with your drinks or?" I let the rest of my question hang in the air, raising my eyebrow at them.
"We're done," Harry says giving me a small smile. And I'm sad to say it doesn't make my tummy do flip flops.
It was a shame honestly. Developing celebrity crushes was so hard nowadays for me that not even one of the hottest boys on Earth could make my breath stutter or my heart pound.
I stifle back a yawn, suddenly hit with how tired I was. I really need to regulate my sleeping schedule. "We can bring your stuff upstairs tomorrow morning if you want," I say my words mixing together a bit. "Come on."
They stay still, exchanging looks again.
I look at them before realizing why they weren't moving. Zayn twists the cup in his hand sheepishly. "Just put the cups down wherever, I'll put 'em later," I chuckle, motioning for them to follow me.
Checking back to make sure they were following me, I walk up the steps, taking two at a time. This was not how I wanted to spend my Wednesday night. I wanted to be in bed already.
I wipe my watery eyes and point to the room the farthest down the hall. "Niall and Zayn, you guys get that room because it's the biggest and it has two beds already."
I look over at the other 3 boys. They're taking in this floor of the house, most likely surprised that 2 women lived in a house this large. It was incredibly large for only 2 people to live in, but it's where we had to live as long as my mom had this job. It wouldn't do to have small house to house these guests.
"Uh," I say bringing them out of their observations, "you guys can pick out any room you want I guess. The one to the right of my room is off limits, but the others are okay."
"Which one's yours?" Harry asks smirking a bit. He unties the bandana holding back his mop curls and wraps it around his fist.
I hold back a snort. He's in desperate need of a hair cut, holy shit.
"The one in the middle," I say walking towards it. They could figure out the room arrangements without me. I wasn't in the mood to stick around and see who would end up in what room. "I'll see you guys in the morning then?"
"G'night Maya," they all call out to me as I stumble into my room.
One of them grabs my wrist gently. "Thanks," Liam smiles again and I'd be lying if I said it didn't cause my lips to tug up a bit.
As mean as it sounds, I'm impressed these boys have manners at least. You could never tell someone's true colors by their public appearance. It was something you had to learn the harsh way.
***
Fuck, I forgot to set the alarm.
Groaning, because now I have to get off my ass, walk all the way downstairs and go turn on the stupid goddamn alarm, I throw off the covers.
And immediately regret it because goosebumps are already appearing on my skin.
I mean, this is my own fault seeing as I tend to leave my fan on and drop the temperature low enough for it to be chilly. And I only sleep in a big flannel too, but it's warm enough so who cares.
I should probably put some pants on to beat the cold, but I was going to crawl back into my bed in 5 minutes tops so whatever.
Grabbing my phone off the night stand, I put on the flashlight, feeling a tiny bit embarrassed by my fear of the dark. (My house is huge, so I wouldn't say my fear is that irrational)
"Fuck, fuck, fuck why didn't I do this earlier?" I complain to myself as I step onto the freezing ass wooden floors. Why didn't we have carpet? I was past the stage where I dropped everything sticky and wet onto the floor.
Deciding to put on some socks since there was no way in hell I was putting on pants at 3 in the morning, I make my way towards the stairs, praying I wouldn't slip or wake up One Direction.
That's such a weird thought to think. Girls would sell their souls for a chance to have One Direction stay at their houses for 6 months, but all I can feel is annoyance at the fact that they were living with me temporarily. Why couldn't they stay at someone else's place and ruin their social lives instead?
I pause, noticing a light coming from the kitchen. I frown. I could've sworn I turned off the light when I went upstairs.
Maybe there was a reason we set that stupid alarm every night.
Turning off the flashlight, I creep down the stairs. What was I supposed to do? Any weapon I would consider using was in the (surprise surprise) kitchen where this possibly murderous stranger was currently in.
I shove my phone into my pocket and do one of the dumbest things I've done in a while. I walk into the kitchen with no means of protecting myself.
I didn't even have any shoes to throw at them if needed.
I push the door open, my shoulders braced. (I'm such a fucking idiot how have I survived for this long?)
And I'm met with a shirtless Harry Styles trying to put back together a broken glass with a panicked expression.
It was a nicer sight than I was expecting.
"You alright there Harry?" I say cautiously.
He jumps, his panicked eyes sliding over to my slightly amused ones. "I...I didn't mean to," he blushes putting down the shattered glass, "I accidentally knocked it over and it just." He makes a hand motion which I'm assuming is a reenactment of what went down.
I laugh. This guy was pretty adorable. "It's fine, we have too many cups anyways," I shrug still half laughing. I pick it up and toss it into the trash under the sink, furrowing my brow. "How did I not hear that?"
He laughs with me, sounding more relieved than anything. "Sorry, I'm pretty clumsy," he admits. "And it didn't make that much noise, it just kinda cracked and fell apart," he adds, frowning.
"If you want to get another one, they're in the cabinet next to you," I nod over to his right as I sweep up any smaller fragments that were left behind. Wouldn't want to accidentally maim one of the boys on their first day here.
"I was just heading to bed," he coughs.
I observe his face. He doesn't look the least bit tired. "You sure you're tired enough to fall asleep?" I ask tilting my head.
He shrugs. "Not really. Jet lag you know."
I glance over at the clock. 3:45 am.
He notices my dubious expression and chuckles. "It's no big deal. I'll probably sleep sometime tomorrow."
I make a split second decision and do a favor for him. "Hey, which room did you end up picking out?"
"The one next to you?" he says bashfully.
I choose not to read into his sudden shyness. Instead I grin. "Good. Because that's the only room we bothered to put a projector in for guests. Come on, I'll show you how to work it. You can use my Netflix account."
"Projector?"
I look at him funnily. "You know the thing that projects—"
"I know what it is," he interrupts exasperatedly, "But why do you guys have one?"
"In case one of our guests wants to watch something? Or they're suffering from jet lag? Or maybe because we wanted to?"
He holds his hands up in surrender. "I was just asking. People usually don't have those just lying around. No need to get so defensive."
I roll my eyes and turn off the light. In an instant, all I'm able to see are his green eyes. "Let's go, I wanna go to bed."
I stop and set the alarm, so I won't have to come back down or get an earful from my mom about my lack of concern for our safety. Blah, blah, blah, nothing I haven't heard before.
When we reach the stairs I stop and look at him expectantly. He looks at the stairs and then at me and then back.
"What?"
"You go first," I instruct making a shooing gesture. He was not accidentally getting flashed by me. No way in hell.
Especially since I wasn't wearing exactly the most innocent underwear either.
"What does it matter?"
"It just does. Go."
"Pushy."
I grumble before placing my hands on his back and shoving him forward. (oh my God his back muscles were incredibly on point) He stumbles and then rights himself by grabbing the railing.
He was making this harder than it should've been.
Harry laughs as he grips the railing in case I shove him again. "Alright, alright I'm going."
We make it to his room with minimal annoying comments from Harry and irritated deep breaths from me. Holy shit I can't wait till this is done, so I can go back to bed and pretend that this is not what my life has come to.
"Okay, so there's a black switch at the top that you switch, obviously, and it turns on the projector which should already be hooked up to Netflix. I'm pretty sure my account is still up," I trail off, trying to remember the last time I was in here, "Anyways, the sound buttons are the green ones and really all the other buttons don't really matter."
I take the remote off of the chest, my eyes widening when I notice what else is lying on the chest.
I quickly grab the picture, severely regretting not burning it all those months ago, and hand Harry the remote.
"Uh yeah, have fun. I'll see you in the morning. Night," I say putting the picture in the waistband of my underwear. It's my imagination, but I swear I feel the picture digging into my skin, as if to remind me I can't escape that horrible mistake I call my ex-boyfriend.
Harry quits playing around with the projector and smiles at me. "Goodnight Maya," he says, "I'll try not to be too loud."
I nod, wanting to get out of here already. "Bye."
"Nice socks by the way."
I know I'm not imagining the smirk on his face.
So what if I had food themed socks. They were cute.
Cuter than Harry anyways.
"Nice moth," I shoot back and escape to my room. I rip the socks off my feet and crawl into my bed, shivering at the cold sheets.
These 6 months wouldn't come fast enough it seemed.
***
i'm so ://// about this chapter and how my writing is rn. getting back into writing is sososo hard why. i'll improve i promise give me some time. if i ever get to editing and revising this it'll be a ton better ok. double update bc i still feel guilty for deleting this out of the blue all those months ago oops. ily guys a ton ok more than you'll ever know and you're all super rad for reading all my stuff and dealing with my bullshit. stay safe and do stuff that makes you happy