Capture My Heart (BK3: Niall Horan)

-Ch 29: Working Late + Encountering Old Mates.

READ BEFORE READING: this chapter includes the character of Tom, I'm pretty sure so far in this book he's only featured in the very first chapter, so if any of you have forgotten who he is: He's a very good friend of Luke (Ash's ex-boyfriend) him and Ashley get along well, but are not extremely close or anything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Working late + Encountering Old Mates.

It wasn’t that I hated winter, because I didn’t. And it wasn’t that I was completely crazy for summer or spring either. And I don’t really think it was the fact that I had a slight patch of favouritism for one season at all. Although even if I did, it probably wouldn’t be the most valid considering England’s climate didn’t really know how to adjust accordingly anyway. But the bitter coldness of winter arriving wasn’t really making itself my cup of tea at the moment. The brightness of the sunshine that was barely peeking through the clouds when I had chosen my clothes this morning was proving to be misleading. Continually misleading, actually, since the sun was still bright and summery as it spilled it’s rays over the city, but was paired with a plummeting temperature. It was the pretty winter sunshine, which was all very well, if you were prepared for it.

Although I was almost there, the comforting warmth of the coffee I had purchased pressed against my palm. My withering hope that the Primark tights I had brought on the cheap a while ago would provide some insulation, and I didn’t really want to think about my hair and it’s relationship with the fierce gusts of wind.

For my first day back I was feeling ridiculously unorganised. I wasn’t sure if it was purely the surprise in the weather that had caused this, triggering my discomfort and burning desire to get to the building that held so much work for me, rather than being out in the cold. Or the fact that falling asleep over a film I had watched so many times and then waking up to immediately begin getting ready for work without any preparation beforehand. But whichever it was – if any – there was nothing I could do about it now. Alibi the fact that I was quite the bit late, I already couldn’t wait to get home and half relax again.

I hated that wasted weekend feeling though. Although it wasn’t really the weekend, it was time off work, which was basically all the same thing. Niall’s constant mystery and suspicious behaviour had made it hard to really make the most of having free time to spend together. There were so many things we had previously promised each other to do in that time, and we hadn’t. I hated non-accomplishment, if an opportunity was given to me; I liked to have something to show for it in the end. But all I really did have to show for it this time was some lazily enjoyable but not really productive days and nights, some disagreements, lies, and the avoiding of confrontation purely for the fear of making that list even longer.

The calls and texts that Niall received that he didn’t talk about and I didn’t ask about had been frequent as per usual. Sometimes they came longer and sometimes they were short as anything. But he would always walk away to take the call, out of my ear-shot and behind a closed door. I was too respectful to snoop again. My reading of one of the texts got me nowhere, it’s funny how some things can be so good at giving everything away to the right person, and nothing away to the wrong person at all. It was like a secret, but it was more than a simile, because I was pretty sure it was a secret.  But lately I had been telling myself more and more that I needed to stop putting people in situations that I would hate to be in myself. If I had a secret, something I didn’t want to tell anyone, not even Niall, I wouldn’t want to be confronted about it. I suppose I hated watching someone else be put on the spot as much as I hated it myself. Although sometimes doing the generous thing turns out to do more harm than good, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it. Consequences always seemed blurred, a lapse of judgement so far away it didn’t seem worth worrying about.