Capture My Heart (BK3: Niall Horan)

-Ch 21: Togetherness, Old times & Awkwardness.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: Togetherness, old times & awkwardness.

-Ashley Dawson-

“Did you bring,” Niall breathed as he dropped the remains of my sister’s bags in the foyer. “Your whole fucking life?”

She smirked, as we accumulated in a line and ran our eyes over the mass of bags that my sister had brought with her. “Half of it is at Grans.” She shrugged; twirling a piece of her hair around her finger and then letting it fall back to her shoulder with the rest. One of the first things she had done when she was discharged from the hospital was get her hair done, figures, predictable figures.

“I am not doing that again,” Zayn said, motioning to the open front door and then to the bags. “That was like my exercise for the week all in one hour.”

“You could have helped though, helped with your bags.” Harry rolled his eyes, throwing an arm around Ellie’s shoulder.

She pressed her lips together, giving him a look. “Guys, I’ve just been discharged, spare me this manual labour shit, I’m delicate and I want ice-cream.” That was the thing with my sister; she didn’t take things very seriously. She’d already made numerous humorous remarks about the accident and all her time asleep. I didn’t know if it was because she wasn’t exactly there to know what it was really like and I was, but it was almost impossible to laugh.

“Wow, you’re more of a princess than you used to be,” Liam chimed in.

“I dreamt of my castle, and you were all my peasants.” She joked, but squirmed out of Harry’s arm anyway, already walking away as she fumbled with her hair mumbling the whereabouts of the kitchen.

“You won’t find any nice food,” Niall called after her, “Ashley’s being healthy!”

Ellie turned around, “We’ll see.” She smiled, saying this over her shoulder as she disappeared around the corner. I didn’t really know exactly how she was making her right way to the kitchen, but she was.

“Fine, fine,” Liam said, holding up his hands. “I’ll just be the one to go and make sure she doesn’t end up eating something she shouldn’t.” He said this seriously, and then to follow he sent me a smirk before following her route to the kitchen.

I didn’t even know why I hadn’t shown her to the kitchen, I didn’t know why they were all here and I wasn’t on my own with the sister I hadn’t seen for so long. She somehow didn’t seem the same person though. There was something different. She was so grown up, and somehow such a child.

“On the other hand, I’m hungry too.” Harry said, and then gave Zayn a look in which ordered him to follow, they both left too. Leaving three.

“This was so not a good idea.” Niall sing-songed into my ear as he passed, sending a brief glance Louis’ way who was stood awkwardly grappling his phone in between his fingers.

“What was I supposed to do? They can’t avoid each other forever.” I yell whispered back, biting my lip.

“Mmm, I thought you would have wanted them to.” His words carried in his breath were sharp against my neck as he said them, and then gave me a look which meant he knew I had nothing to say back. I closed my eyes, placing my fingers on my temples as I listened to the sound of Niall walking away, and more chatter floated in the air from the kitchen. I knew my sister would be telling a story and making everyone laugh, because something ‘amazing’ had probably already happened in the days she’d been free.

“The bathroom hasn’t moved, right?” Louis asked, and his voice caused me to snap my eyes open. I looked at his face for a few seconds as he stood there gingerly with his hands shoved in his pockets, rubbing his lips together. The lucent haze of the late afternoon sunlight made his eyes stand out and made his hair look shiny, his skin more tanned and I wondered how they could both stand there and look so innocent when they were anything but.