Chapter 25
“Daddy, Daddy can we play football?” begged Draco, pulling on Niall’s jeans as he put our bags into the guest room of the small house Mum and Audrey had rented for the 2 weeks. It was small, quaint, like something out of a romance novel and the air around me felt suddenly so much calmer.
“Course we can buddy!” smiled Niall, throwing the little boy up in his arms and blowing raspberries on his stomach, causing him to giggle and squirm “I’ll get my jersey and Mummy and I will take you down”
“Yay!” screamed Draco as Niall placed his feet back on the floor “I’ll go tell Nana!”
The little boy ran out of the room, a skip in his step as Niall turned to me with a small smile “You don’t mind?” he asked
“Not at all” I smiled, pulling out his jersey and throwing it over his shoulder “Get changed, Draco won’t wait long”
Niall smiled and swapped his shirts quickly “You know I can only stay overnight right?”
“You’re going to…” I paused, trying to remember their next destination
“America” he laughed kissing my frowning forehead “VMA’s remember”
“Oh yeah” I smiled “You’re up for 3 awards?”
“Yup”
“You fly out tomorrow afternoon don’t you?”
“Yeah, you can come if you want”
“I-“ I stopped “I don’t know if I should”
Niall sighed “You’re worried about what they’re going to say aren’t you”
“No, it’s just-“ I sighed “They don’t like me Niall, even after all the love your fans gave me at the airport that once, I doubt it’ll happen again after all these paper head-lines, I don’t think it’s a good idea”
“What if I said I wanted you to come?” he pouted, grabbing my hand and pulling me into him gently “What if I said I really, really want you to come with me?”
I shook my head “Niall-“
“Eleanor and Danielle are going, there sitting behind us, you’d be with me the whole night, you wouldn’t have to leave the hotel except for then if you don’t want to” he pleaded “No one would let anyone hurt you, not the girls, not the boys, not Paul or the team, no one would be able to touch you and we’d get to every newspaper, you have no idea what our fans can do if they try”
I laughed and looked up at him “You really want me to come?”
“I really, really want you to come” he nodded
“Okay” I shrugged, half in defeat, half in understanding “I’ll come”
“Good” he grinned “Because I already paid for the plane ticket and those things are kind of hard to exchange.” I laughed and whacked his shoulder as he scratched the back of his head innocently “What can I say; I really wanted you to come”
I rolled my eyes “Come on Mr., we have a kid to take out”
Niall grabbed the soccer ball and spun it around in his hands “All ready”
The park was strangely quiet for a sunny afternoon, not that I was complaining because this was it was just us 3 around.
“Harry texted me before” said Niall as Draco took the ball and ran off towards the next at the end of the field where we were heading “Asked how you were going”
“Tell him I’m fine, tell everyone I’m fine because I’m fine, seriously” I sighed “People don’t need to worry about me”
“Okay” nodded Niall, shoving his hands in his pockets and biting his lip “So you’re perfectly fine with everything that happened over the space of the week”
“Yes, I am” I agreed “I heard you guys talking this morning anyway, before I came downstairs”
Niall stopped short “You did?”
I nodded “The girls were sweet but Liam was right, no one deserves the hate they get”
“The hate you get, the hate all of you get”
“I don’t deserve special treatment because I’m a Teenage Mother” I said and Niall’s eyes widened in shock “Yeah, there crossing a line commenting on my mothering skills but it’s certainly not the first time someone’s abused me because of Draco, I’ve gotten the abuse for the last 2 years, I can handle it”
“You shouldn’t have to” he frowned “People shouldn’t abuse you”
“Niall” I laughed “If you saw a 17 year old girl carrying around a baby what would be the first thing you’d assume?”
“That she made a life mista-“he stopped, eyes wide “I didn’t mean that, I mean, it’s not a mistake, Draco isn’t a- You and Pat weren’t-“
“Its okay” I smiled, reaching out to take his hand “I’ve heard it all before, she made a mistake, she was too stupid to care, too stupid to notice, obviously didn’t pay attention in sex ed, She’s a slut, she doesn’t know who the father is, Pat probably isn’t even the father, she slept with the football team, the swim team, the lacrosse team, the slept with this person, that person, she doesn’t even care that she’s ruined her own life, she’s going to end up on drugs or alcohol, that poor child what a shitty life he’s going to have” I took a deep breath and gave Niall a sad smile “I’ve heard It all before”
“You aren’t any of those thing, you didn’t deserve any of those comment, you’re a better person than all of those people, they-“
“Had opinions” I said “Everyone does, there’s were negative, the most important thing is that I know there not true and when Draco is old enough he knows that there not true either, that he wasn’t a mistake, physically yes, but I would have never thought of anything else but having him, he’s my life now, just like you are”
Niall leaned down and kissed me gently “I love you”
I smiled “I love you too”
“I’m never going to let anyone talk to you like that again, you’re my girl and he’s my boy, he wasn’t a mistake in my eyes” he paused “neither were you, neither was this, I want all of this, that magazine was complete rubbish”
“I know” I kissed him again “I know”
“Ew Mama!” screamed Draco causing Niall to break away and chuckle
“Sorry” I giggled
“Don’t be” Niall turned around and ran over the little boy, scooping him up in his arms and showering him in kisses “Is it gross now!”
“Ahhhh Daddy!” screamed Draco “Stop it, EW!”
I laughed as Niall pulled Draco onto the ground, sitting him in his lap and wrapping his arms tight around the little boy as he squirmed and continued to kiss his face and ears. I pulled out my phone and took a quick photo, sending it to Harry.
Father & Son, god my boys are weird
My phone beeped and I noticed a new Tweet from Harry.
Harry_Styles
Message from @RileyKendall “Father & Son, god my boys are weird”
The photo was attached underneath.
“Riley!” screamed Niall. I looked up from my phone in time to see Niall and Draco staring at me with very giddy faces “On 3 buddy” laughed Niall “1… 2… 3!”
Niall and Draco ran straight for me, Draco hugging my legs together and Niall wrapping his large arms around my middle, holding my arms down to my side so I couldn’t move. I screamed with laughter.
“Push!” screamed Niall and I was suddenly being pulled backwards into Niall’s arms as he dropped me to the ground gently with little help from Draco.
“Good job!” screamed Draco crawling up into my lap “We knocked Mama over!”
Niall high-fived Draco and grinned at him, pulling out his phone and switching on the camera “Family photo!” Draco sat forward on my lap, grinning big and facing the camera, and Niall lent his head on my shoulder, pulling his arm around my waist. The camera went off and Niall set the photo as his wallpaper.
I took another photo of Niall and Draco after they had been playing soccer for about an hour and we had returned home, Draco being washed and dressed for dinner before Niall was even out of his jersey. Niall bent down and smiled of Draco’s shoulder, after a little bit of mucking around with it, I set the photo, black and white, as my wallpaper.
No one bothered us when we went out for dinner, it was at a quiet little restaurant Mum said they ate at all the time recently, just Mum, Audrey, Niall, Draco and I. It was nice not to have a camera pressed to the side of the house or a reported shoving microphones to your mouth, question’s blaring at you as they went. It was quiet. It was a good place for Draco. Dinner went smoothly, Draco fell asleep on Niall’s lap at around 8 and we left the restaurant around 11to put him to bed. I waited until about 1:30 but the nightmares didn’t come.
“He seems to be better” said Niall as I snuggled into bed next to him after checking on Draco for the 5th time “Do you reckon its working?”
“Mum said the Doctor reckons so, but he’ll have to continue for the scheduled amount of time just in case, she can’t be certain with these things and that’s what gets me” I sighed, resting my head on Niall chest “We really have to leave him tomorrow?”
“Yeah” sighed Niall “You can stay you know, I know I pressured you to come to LA but I realized how much you miss him, you can stay if you want to”
“No” I groaned “I need to stop being so looming over him, eventually he’s going to go to kindy, then school, then high school and Uni and he’ll be having his own girlfriends and his own kids, god I’m getting ahead of myself, I guess I just need to start backing off a bit, he’s getting big, he’s almost 3 and he’ll start doing his little toddler explorer thing and he won’t need his mum as much, I can’t expect him to be a little kid forever”
“You’re a good mother” he kissed my forehead “All boys need their mothers, even when they’re older and moved away from home”
“Talking from experience?” I mocked
“Maybe” he laughed “Point is, it’s good you realize the space he needs, just remember he’s always going to be a Mama’s boy, being an only child for however many years and maybe and only child in general, he’s always going to need you”
“Thanks Niall” I kissed his cheek and snuggled back up into bed “Goodnight”
“Goodnight sweetheart”
We left early the next morning, Niall woke Draco up to say goodbye and the little boy sniffled back tears when he hugged us and curled into Mum’s arms at the door as we left. When we got in the van, Niall wrapped his arms around me and I let out a few stray tears. I packed a bag at the house with Niall, the boy throwing my dresses and swimmers and casual clothes that he said would be good for LA seeing it was my first time going and he knew from experience I trusted him. Liam, Louis, Harry, Zayn and Niall all piled into an early van, leaving Dani, El and I to catch a later flight which gave us time for shopping and gossip.
The airport however was chaotic compared to the quiet street we had just been in, the fans had caught word that we were on our way in for a flight to LA and were still squished together behind barriers at the terminal gate. They screamed for Danielle and Eleanor, some nice, some rude and the girls just waved it off, walking quickly ahead, but I lagged back as a girl called out my name.
“Riley!” she screamed, short brown hair waving in the rush of girls around her “Riley!”
I smiled at her and she smiled back, waving frantically.
“Riley you’re amazing!” she screamed “Those magazines are bullshit!”
I bit my lip to stop it from quivering, I was ready to cry with the feelings overwhelming me, this girl was so kind, other girls would scream our names or the boy’s names but she was complementing me from behind the Iron Gate.
“Thank you” I screamed back as security pushed me along slowly “Thank you!”
I boarded the plane, next to Dani and El with a small smile.
“Get some compliments out there did you?” joked El
“Just one” I shrugged pulling my sunglasses off my head and smiling back at them “Just one”
Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Question: If you were the girl at the airport what would YOU have screamed to Riley???
Tell me what you think! xx