stranded with one direction. ➳ horan.

Chapter Nine.

Niall's POV

I understood quite well that Peyton was teasing me into the water, and, unfortunately, it worked. I quickly ripped my shirt off, along with my pants, the boys copied my actions.  When I looked up, her mouth was slightly open, staring at our bodies, her eyes stayed on mine the longest, and that gave me a boost of confidence.

"We’re hot, it’s okay.  You can admit it.” Harry joked, and all of us couldn't help but chuckle at his comment.

When I focused back on Peyton, she was looking down at the water, but you could see her cheeks were flushed.  We waded into the water and just started floating around.  No one really knew what to do or say, until Louis decided to give a suggestion. “Game of Marco Polo anyone?”

I looked at Peyton and she had a smile on her face, nodding her head yes.  All the others seemed to agree with it, so I just went along. Liam instructed that he would be Marco, an attempt to keep things under control. I didn't know how he was going do that with his eyes closed, but whatever worked for him.

Well after a few shouts of Polo, I noticed the sweet voice I had grown so accustomed to was nowhere to be heard.  I started searching around, twirling in place, but looking everywhere.

Zayn noticed my actions and asked, "Mate, what's wrong with you?" Now all eyes were on me.

"Pey's missing. Where could she have gone? We have just been in the pond for a few minutes.  No one saw her get out, right?" I said this all really fast, almost in one breath too.

"Calm down Ni, we'll find her.  She can only go so far, we're on an island." Liam said, swimming over to me to try to calm me down.

We all turned around when we heard a slight gasp for air.  Peyton was there, wiping the water away from her eyes and taking in the air she had been lacking.

Peyton's POV

After I had been caught gawking at the boys, we started a game of Marco Polo, at Louis' request. So we started, but I decided to be a little sneaky and went under water.  I saw that Liam had started to swim towards me, so I decided to push myself backwards.  I heard a muffled "Marco" from above the surface, but I stayed below.  I pushed myself away even more, even though Liam started to swim the other way.  After a few more seconds of staying below, I was running low on oxygen and decided to come up for air.

When I came up, I was looking at a tiny cave.  It was set behind a vine wall, out of sight.  It was kind of cute, with its light tanned rock walls that glistened from the water emitting from the pond.  I heard faint talking, nothing sounding like Marco Polo. I quickly ducked my head under the water and swam forward. Once I knew I was clear of the vine wall, I came to the surface.  I gasped slightly as I was lacking oxygen.  Once the water had been removed from my eyes, all I saw was five curious and concerned eyes.

"Where were you?" Niall asked, concern was clearly prominent in his voice as he swam to me.  All the other boys just looked at me.

"Oh, well I went under water to escape Liam and -"

“You can't do that.  That's cheating!" Liam protested, sounding like a little child.  I gave him the are-you-serious look and he mumbled a sorry.

"Anyways, like I said.  I was escaping Liam, and when I re-surfaced, I was behind that vine wall, there." I said, turning my body slightly to point to the vine wall.

"There's an opening behind it?" Harry asked, amused for some odd reason.

"Uh, yeah.  There's a little cave back there-" I started to say, but a pair of arms decided to capture my body.