Let Me Adore You (N.H.)

23

I was close to another mental breakdown when someone knocked on my door two days later.

With a towel over my shoulder and a spatula in my right hand, I opened it, pushing wet strands of hair out of my forehead. 

Anna stood in front of me, a red scarf hiding half of her face, most of her waves covered by her favourite beanie. We had agreed to meet here before driving to Claire's flat, so I wasn't surprised to see her.

With a quick wave I let her inside, closing the door behind her and hurrying back into my little kitchen. To be honest, it was less of a kitchen and more of a fridge, stove, and one cabinet kitchen. Not that high quality but it was enough for me.

"Come in, come in!" I shouted over Christmas Songs that played over my phone, trying to press pause with a finger that wasn't covered in whipped cream, waiting for my friend to follow me.

If I had sticked to my plan, I would've been already sitting at the table, waiting for Anna in my best clothes, ready to go. In reality, I was still wearing a plain shirt, covered in powdered sugar and mascarpone, my hair wet from the shower and an unfinished biscuit roll I promised to make on the counter.

Being late was one of my specialties, I didn't feel very bad for making the others wait. They stopped complaining a long time ago and just accepted it.

"Wow, looks great." Anna dipped a finger into the bowl with residues of the filling that consisted of whipped cream, mascarpone and frozen blueberries.

"Thanks, but you look great too." I answered, furrowing my brows to carefully roll the biscuit without breaking it, shortly scanning my friend's outfit. She wore a plaid skirt and a black turtleneck, her cheeks glowing.

"From a cake to me. Nice transition."

"Oh you know me, I'm an expert at making interesting conversations."

Anna sat down on the small table behind me, watching me cut off the ends of the roll and putting it in a container.

"Not when you're talking to a male. Then you turn into a stuttering mess. Or you're completely bored and don't even look at that person."

"That's not true!" I protested, shaking my head. Niall hasn't said anything about that. Yet. And I was able to talk to Harry without stuttering. Or being bored.

I refrained from saying that even though I was dying to know if anything new has happened between him and Anna and if they were going to spend Christmas together. I was hesitant to talk about men in general.

Niall and I hadn't seen each other since Monday, nor texted. It was great, having a little distance and break from this confusing relationship, but also very boring. I always thought about him which drove me to insanity. Every mistletoe, every song, everything connected to Christmas made me soft for daydreams. I dreamt about sitting at a fire play, cuddling and kissing, eating cookies and drinking eggnog. Sometimes it got so bad I had to loudly curse at me to stop.

Christmas was the worst time of the year regarding my imagination and romantic side. I was extremely happy and nice to everyone, singing and baking endlessly, wrapping presents in the most creative ways, wearing Christmas sweater every chance I could get.

It was horrible.

To spare myself and my friends from any more cheesiness, I decided to keep my mouth shut about men. Today shouldn't be about my affair or what and what not I was going to tell them about it.

"I can't wait to have a drink. This whole day I kept myself from drinking wine or any alcoholic beverage at all but tonight I'm down for anything." The brunette announced, rubbing her temples.