I squint my eyes, the bright light coming from the double window on my right almost blinding me, after I move my phone from my face. I only blink a few times to adjust to the light, not even complaining about it – the sound of the door opening has just made me too happy to concentrate on anything else.
"Well fucking finally," I say flatly, and loudly as the familiar face walks in. She has a smile on her face and a bit of a guilty expression – good, it's good that she feels guilty. "I almost grew a beard waiting for you."
"I'm sorry," Freya chuckles, leaving the paper bag that she'd brought with her against an end table, and then walks over to my bed. She puts her knees on the mattress, sitting on her heels as she gives me a kiss on the cheek. "Natasha had to wait for Ashton to return their car so she could make it to work. I'm sorry."
I can feel my lips curling upwards, but I refuse to smile. She still had me waiting for her for like half an hour. "It's okay. I had company anyway."
"Yeah? Who was here?"
"Leanne."
"Le-" She starts, but then cuts herself off, a frown appearing on her face. "Leanne? As in the blonde you used to date?"
Well, technically, we never dated. We almost dated. People would think that's a weird relationship to be in, but we're actually making this friendship thing work. "Yeah," I nod at her, "She was here for an hour, then had to go to work. It was good though, I would have died of boredom if she weren't here."
Freya nods, placing her hands on her knees. I shake my head at her when she keeps staring at me for another minute, as if trying to get into my brain and read my thoughts. "Freya? Babe?"
"Hm?" She raises her brows, no humor in her voice or her face. Well shit, we all know what that means.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, yeah. Um..." She starts as she gets off the bed, and takes her jacket off, revealing the black sweater she loves wearing so much, and walks to the bag she brought with her. "I got you the things you asked for, uh... two bacon sandwiches, two Slurpees... clean sweatpants... hair gel-"
"Yes," I cheer quietly, immediately taking the object from her hand as she pulls it out of the bag, and grin when I realize she'd brought me my old one from my apartment. I didn't mind having no hair product in my hair the past week, but since I'm being released from the hospital tonight, there's no way I'm leaving with this weird-ass fringe. "God bless you."
I hear Freya breathe out through her nose, and the smallest of smiles on her lips when I look at her; though it turns a bit sheepish when she slowly pulls out another rectangular object, wrapped in blue decorative paper from the bag. "And..." She starts, handing it over to me as I leave the tube of hair gel on an end table, with a sigh. "Merry late Christmas."
I raise my eyebrows, and keep looking at her as she keeps looking at the box in her hands. When I finally take it from her, her eyes drop to her hands, avoiding mine; I'm giving her a piece of my mind, but as soon as I open this present. I'm a sucker for presents. Speaking of which, I can't believe she actually bought me something for Christmas.
"Where'd you get this?" I ask, tilting my head to the side as I rip the sticky tape off, somewhat careful with the paper. My mum always worries about damaging the decorative paper while opening something, I must have gotten that from her.
"Banana Republic," Freya replies slowly, just as I take off the blue paper off of a transparent plastic box, that holds a plaid shirt inside, blue and white. I scan what's visible of it, not knowing whether to feel happy or freaked out.
"Banana Republic?" I repeat, raising my brows at her again. She just shrugs, like it's no big deal. "Babe, this probably costs as much as fifteen of the shirts I already own."
She smiles at my comment, shrugging again as she keeps looking at her hands. God, I hate this awkwardness. "It's for Christmas, I didn't want to get you something at a thrift store."
A smile slowly spreads across my face, and I hate that she's not looking at me, and not seeing how happy this is actually making me. As much as I'd love to keep talking about the most expensive piece of clothing I own as of now – I didn't even ask about the price, I just know it is – I decide to leave it on the end table I placed my hair product on. "Come here."
Freya looks up, a hopeful slash hesitant look on her face, and I can tell that she's unsure of whether or not she should listen to me. That is a feeling I would never want to make her feel. "Come on, I can properly move now," I tell her as I sit up, and cheer internally when she sighs, and stands up to get in bed with me. To think, tonight I'm going to have her lying next to me in my own bed- but sometimes I hate how platonic our relationship is.
I wait for her to properly lie down, stretching out my arm to wrap it around her when she places her head right under my collarbone. I hesitantly put my hand on her head, brushing her hair out of her face for a few seconds, while she inspects the fabric of my quilt. I bring my lips to her hair, but she continues to be quiet – I really screwed something up.
"How was work this morning?" I ask, quietly, but the awkwardness in my voice can be heard in the hallway, no matter how much I'm trying to sound casual.
"It was good, I'm not used to working in first shift though," She replies half-heartedly – and I remember that she switched shifts with Natasha because of me, because I'm leaving the hospital tonight and she wanted to be with me, and not at work instead. She insisted to do that, why do I feel guilty about it? "How was having Leanne here?"
I narrow my eyes at the top of her head, wondering if it actually bothers her that Leanne was here before her. "It was fine. She's fun to be with."
"Yeah, ex girlfriend are always fun to be with."
With a bright smile I decide, that definitely answers my previous question. "She's not my ex girlfriend, Freya," I tell her, instead of asking whether or not she's jealous. Something's telling me that wouldn't have taken me far.
"Are you still with her?"
"I was never with her."
"Mhm, she doesn't know what she's missing out on, then."
"Do you want to tell her what she's missing out on?"
"I'm not your girlfriend though."
"Do you want to be my girlfriend?"
"No, I'm mad at you."
The words leave my mouth before I've even realized what I'm saying; but the way she lifts her head and the look she gives me after answering, is enough to make me rethink my life choices.
And fuck, did I just ask her to be my girlfriend? And fuck, did she just answer with no?
"Okay, fair enough," I shrug as she sets her head on my chest again, and I take that as a chance to gulp; she really doesn't think that I'm serious – and neither did I until I asked the question. The only comfort I have right now is that she thought I was kidding. "Why are you mad at me though?"
Freya shifts slightly, pulling her body further onto mine, and eventually shrugging at my question. "I'm a girl. It's in my nature."
I chuckle, kissing the top of her head again before falling into a silence. It's not as awkward as the first one, but I just don't feel like being a part of any kind of silence with her. Not after I asked her to be my girlfriend and she said no because she thought I was joking with her.
I know it only happened a minute ago, but I should let it go. "Anything else interesting happened?" I ask, playing with a loose strand of her hair. I wonder what it's like when she straightens it.
"Um, well, you know that Harry's supposed to come, right?"
"Yeah?"
"He's gonna bring his girlfriend, I hope you don't mind."
I raise my brows, but don't say anything; the thought of Harry having a girlfriend had never even been close to crossing my mind. Probably because I'd never seen him with a girl other than his sister, and he never talked about any other. It's probably not even that serious.
"Okay," I mumble, looking up at the white ceiling and wondering how long we'd just be lying like this. As if reading my thoughts, though, a second later Freya sits up and turns her head to me, her face a few inches from mine as she's supporting herself on her elbows.
"Hi," She whispers, a small smile playing on her lips and just like that, I know that the awkwardness is going to go away soon.
"Hi." I smile back, "I take it you're not mad at me anymore?"
"I am," She says flatly, the smile on her face widening as she lowers her head to my neck, while I laugh at her response. "I've been mad at you since I met you."
"The hell did I do to you?" I chuckle, hitching her sweater up her back to reach the belt loops on her jeans, and pull her completely on top of me. "All I've been was cute and a fucking idiot."
She detaches her lips from my neck and hides her face there instead, muffling the light laughs that are leaving her lips. My position allows me to see past her shoulder and down her body – would she punch me if I moved my hands a couple of inches to the south? It's not like that'd be a big problem, I'm still in a hospital anyway. And my hands are starting to sweat. And it's right there, right there.
"Ever thought that's the reason I'm mad at you?" Freya lifts her head to look at me, and – there's an answer to my thoughts. "I've only ever trained to learn how to get creeps away from me, not cute fucking idiots."
"Is that a way of saying you can't resist me?"
"Don't push it, Niall."
I laugh against her lips as she brings her face right above mine, and kick the mattress when she connects them, in the same moment as the door opens. This needs to stop, people need to stop walking in when I least need them to. I got a new nurse because of what the old one saw, when she walked in without knocking two days ago.
"Wow." But the voice I hear from the other end of the room makes me smile, despite my slight frustration. "If you weren't my sister I'd ask you to continue."
Freya sighs as she gets off of me – I've a feeling she's used to hearing stuff like that from her brother – and slumps down onto the chair. "Good afternoon Harold."
"Greetings, Freya Marjorie," He grins at her, his smile only widening when she rolls her eyes at the mention of her middle name. I breathe out a laugh at her expression and open my mouth to invite Harry in, since he's still standing at the door, but then he moves out of the way- to let someone else in.
I raise my brows when this really pretty black girl walks in, about as tall as Harry, with brown eyes and jet-black hair braided over her shoulder. She's wearing a grey coat, a backpack and the most innocent smile I've seen on a girl's face.
"Uh, well," Harry starts, clapping his hands together as he walks to the right side of my bed, and initially gets my attention. "Niall, this is Kirsten. My girlfriend." He sits on the only other wooden chair in the room, to let his girlfriend approach me, and points at me. "And this is Niall of Ireland."
"Hi," She says as we shake hands, showing off her white teeth for a few seconds- God, she's beautiful. Good job Harry.
"Hi," I smile back, and turn to Harry once she lets go of my hand. "How come she doesn't get a royal name?"
He looks up at me, a puzzled look on his face. "Well, I introduced her as my girlfriend," He shrugs as he takes her hand, pulling her onto his lap. "That's as royal as it gets."
I chuckle at his words – that sounds like a very Harry thing to say. "How are you, your majesty?" Harry asks through a small sigh, placing his forearms over Kirsten's legs to lean on her, and she places her elbow on his shoulder to lean onto him- it's like they practiced doing this.
"I'm good," I nod, my eyes darting from one face to the other. "Great, actually. Got my hair gel. How are you guys?"
"We're good too," Harry answers first, kind of harshly as he gives his girlfriend a look. "I just spent an hour and a half at a bus stop because someone fell asleep on a bus bench and missed their ride here."
"I said I'm sorry," Kirsten mumbles, with a frown as she brings her hand to Harry's hair; he immediately bows his head down, almost like a kitten, as she runs her fingers through his curls with a satisfied smile- I want to be them. I really want to be them.
"Oh?" I speak up, interrupting my thoughts and getting her attention. "Where are you from?"
"Rockford," She tells me, and I instantly recall that's the city Harry and Freya lived in. "I usually come here on weekends, but since it's winter break my parents let me stay over the week."
"Your parents?" I raise my eyebrows, and Kirsten nods, like she doesn't know why I've repeated her words. I look at Harry – who still has his head down and eyes closed, so he's useless – and then at Freya, who's looking at me like she knows what's going through my head.
"Seventeen," She tells me, pulling her her sleeves over her knuckles. "She's seventeen."
"Sev-" I widen my eyes at her slightly, but cur myself off mid-word and look at Kirsten again, not wanting to talk about the girl like she's not here. "You're seventeen?"
"Yeah," She laughs lightly, her fingers still in Harry's hair. He's basically fallen asleep at her touch. "Eighteen the day before this one turns nineteen."
"You're a day apart?" I grin – that's actually really cute. They only get to spend a day being the same age.
"A year minus a day, but yeah."
I nod, scanning the two of them on the chair. Neither of them look particularly heavy but they are both so tall, how is the chair surviving that? "And you're staying with Harry?"
"Um, yeah, I was supposed to go straight to his apartment but he insisted that I meet his friend." She kisses the top of his head, causing him to finally look up. On the other side my heart warms up at her words – Harry called me his friend. Aw. "And I'm the reason he first got that place."
"Really?" I ask as I sit up, earning a nod from her. "How come?"
"Well he wanted a dorm in college, but my parents told him there's no way they'd let me visit him in a dorm," She pauses to smile as Harry shrugs, a bit sheepishly, "So he rented an apartment. That was a condition, if we wanted to keep seeing each other."
"So you've been together for a while?" I ask again, but frown when she snorts at my question – Harry looks at the ground, snickering, and even Freya's shaking her head with a smile. What the hell just happened?
"What?" I frown, looking at all three of them helplessly. "What'd I miss?"
"Um," Kirsten starts, rather humorously as she looks at Harry, with an amused frown. "How long have we been together, again?"
"Well," He begins, stretching the word out, initially making her laugh. "It's the 7th of the month, right?"
She nods, the back of her hand over her mouth as she tries to keep her laughter in- I don't remember ever being so confused. "Then I'd say..." Harry trails off, shaking his head from side to side as he turns to face me, "About four and a half years."
"What?" I blurt out the first thing that crosses my mind, making both of them laugh. "No. What? No."
"Oh, yeah," Harry nods, with a proud smile. I'm still not buying all of this. "Five in August. We already picked names for our puppies."
I blink at them several times, not quite believing them until Kirsten puts her hands on top of Harry's, and he looks at her like she named a star after him. I've only once seen that look in a man's eyes, and of course it was when my dad would look at my mum. You can't look at someone like that unless you're sure you want to spend the rest of your life looking at them that way.
I glance at my hands, before looking to my left – Freya's just sitting there, picking at the material of her sweater aimlessly. I'm not sure why she's not participating in the conversation, but in a way, it's a good thing. I can only imagine how she'd feel if she knew what's going through my head right now. In all seriousness though, would she be happy? Freaked out? I wouldn't blame her if she were freaked out. The fact that I think of her as someone I could look at the way my dad looked at my mother, and the way Harry's looking at Kirsten right about now, is freaking me out too.
"Okay," I hear mumbling on the other side, and nonchalantly turn my head to the other two – Kirsten is whispering something in Harry's ear, and he's nodding to everything she's saying. "Alright, make yourself at home."
She smiles at his words, and gets off his lap- oh, she's leaving. So soon. "Oh, and make something for lunch while you're at it, okay?"
Kirsten spins around, to face Harry, and continues walking toward the door backwards, "Quesadillas?"
Then I look at him, just in time to see a slow smile spreading across his face. "I love you," He mouths to her, having her grin at him as she reaches the door.
"Bye guys," She waves at Freya and I, and we wave back at her. I tilt my head to the side and watch her walk down the hallway, then shake my head and look at Harry once she leaves my sight.
"She is..." I trail off, still shaking my head as Harry looks at me, a knowing smile on his face. "Really pretty."
"Yeah," He sighs, rather dreamily. "And when she's naked? It's like her body is made of chocolate, and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
I blink at him in horror, but burst into laughter once he furrows his eyebrows at what he'd just said. I should have expected this, I should have expected an extremely male comment from him because, well, it's Harry that I'm talking to. "Was that racist?" He frowns harder and looks at Freya, making me laugh harder too.
"No, but it made me feel uncomfortable," She replies, and just now I'm seeing the disturbed look on her face, as she watches her brother like she's worried about his mental health. I'd be too, if I were the opposite gender.
"Well, either way," Harry continues, shrugging and shifting in his seat, "I'm just speaking the truth. My most common thought whenever I'm with her is 'God bless America'."
I smile at his words, but then start laughing when Freya groans; she's really not liking any of his less-than-innocent comments about his own girlfriend. "I wonder what she thinks when she sees you naked," She mutters, shaking her head in a frustrated manner – Harry hasn't said anything yet, but I've a feeling she's going to end up regretting what she'd just said real soon.
"You wanna know?" And I was right.
"No, please, for the love of God-"
"She pats herself on the shoulder and says 'good job, Kirsten' in a British accent," Harry grins across the bed at his sister, who only groans louder than before and buries her head in her hands – I can't help thinking she asked for it while I laugh at Harry's words.
"If you say something else, I swear to fucking-"
"She doesn't-" I speak up, but pause to lick my lips; I've only started speaking because I was afraid to hear the rest of that sentence. "She doesn't look like that, though. Like she seems really innocent."
"Seems," Harry points out my word, and I can tell that Freya is balling her hand up into fists, even though I'm not looking at her. "She looks innocent but when we're alone, she becomes the kinkiest little shit I've ever met and Jesus, I love her so much."
He looks straight ahead of himself, as if he's just realizing how much he actually loves his girlfriend. It's quite a fascinating sight, in all honesty. "Okay, you know what?" Freya begins, standing up, and pointing a finger at Harry. "I'm gonna be at the coffee maker, and you call me back in here when you're done talking about your girlfriend like she's a blow-up doll."
"Talking about your girlfriend like she's a blow-up doll," Harry mimics her voice, shaking his head lightly as she starts walking out of the room. "You know what looks like that coffee you're about to drink? Kirsten's-"
"No!" Freya shouts, cutting him off, and slamming the door behind her loudly when she walks out of the room. And before she walks out of my sight, I can see her crossing her arms over her chest and making that same disturbed face from a few minutes ago.
"That's okay, I didn't know what I was gonna say anyway," Harry shrugs, getting my attention as he takes off his jacket, and I notice that he's wearing a black sweater that's identical to Freya's. She's probably stolen it from him.
"Have you really been with her for four years?" I ask quietly, and I'm still surprised to have him nod at my question. As if reading my thoughts, Harry narrows his eyes at me. Oh boy.
"Why do I feel like you find that hard to believe?" He asks, amused, and before I can open my mouth to give him any kind of an answer, he continues. "Is it because you thought I could never have a woman love me?"
"No!" I tell him immediately, frowning at his wild assumption. I honestly never thought that. I haven't. I really haven't. "I just... never took you for someone who's in... that long of a relationship."
"Yeah, well," He sighs, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. "I read something in a girls' magazine in my dentist's waiting room, when I was 15. 'Treat your girlfriend like she's your wife, and treat your wife like she's your girlfriend'."
I slowly smile at him, as he frowns at the words leaving his mouth. "And it didn't really make that much sense back then, but then I gave it a thought while I was getting my molar filled and, yeah, that's what I've been doing."
"Treating your girlfriend like you're married to her?"
"Yeah," He chuckles, nodding firmly at me. "And it makes sense. I buy her flowers whenever we visit each other, I kiss her cheek whenever I can, we cook together, we feed each other popcorn while watching movies, we link arms when we take walks, I mean, that's what girls want their husbands to do, right?"
I've raised my eyebrows without noticing, and nodded at his rhetorical question. "But," He starts again, emphasizing the word, "They're still gonna want to go on dates and be reckless in public, like when they were teenagers, even when they get married. And I'm gonna make that happen too."
I can't help but laugh at everything he's just told me – I think he just became my hero. "You've really gotten that thought out, haven't you?"
Harry just shrugs, "It's good to have some things planned."
He really is my hero. If my thing with his sister works out, it's going to be because of him and all of the information I just soaked up. And he's going to continue being my hero. "Any other advice?" I ask casually, but in reality I'm dead serious about the question.
"Well, there's one other thing," He shrugs, nodding right after, "Never let a person know how much they actually mean to you."
Everything else he's told me made sense, even if it didn't really. But now he's just confusing me. "What? The hell does that mean?"
"It means," He starts, slowly, "As soon as you let someone know you can't live without them, it's like they want to put you on trial. See if you'd really die without them."
He shakes his head, and – as I'd assumed – it's starting to make sense. "The most affectionate thing Kirsten and I have said to each other is 'I love you', and that's just enough. It's okay if you tell, I dunno, your parents how you really feel, or if you write it down in an essay. And it'd also be okay if your special person found out from someone else, but it can never come from your mouth, ever. That's where it starts going downhill, when they find out your true feelings from you and they feel like there's nothing else you can give them."
He blinks a few times, and gulps awkwardly – I think he's only just realized all the things that he's said. And that they're not as manly as he'd probably like them to be. "Right," Harry says, coughing, "My point is, wedding vows are there for a reason. Now if you'll excuse me," He starts again, his chair creaking as he stands up, "I'm going to go call my sister because we've obviously stopped talking about my girlfriend like she's a blow-up doll."
I grin, and laugh lightly as he starts walking out of the room, looking slightly embarrassed – and he shouldn't be, at all. He doesn't even know it, but he's just done a huge favor to his sister and myself.
*******
so this chapter was mostly about harry because i love harry in this story and i love his personality and i feel like everyone sees him just as the guy whose fault it is that niall was in a coma :] but there's going to be lots and lots of freya/niall scenes in the future chapters! :D
and ofc harry on the side because he looks so coNFIDENT AND BEAUTIFUL AND 70% HAIR AND I HAT EHIM SO MUC H GOD BLESS HIS SOUL and please vote and comment guys? i love you :D x