dissolve. nh

Chapter 26

It was the day before the fight, and I hadn’t seen Niall for the past two days. 

It was like he had completely disappeared and left me to figure out exactly where the fight was, what time it was, and actually pay the bogus price to get in. I only know it was bogus because Nicole called to tell me the price. So here I was, laying on my floor, debating calling him and cursing him out. I glared at my fan as if it were actually him, going over the scene in my head when I ripped him a new one. But when my phone started to blare the obscenely loud and obnoxious ring tone that made my heart flutter, all traces of anger left me. I rolled over faster than I ever have in my life, getting to my knees to swipe the phone off of the entertainment center. I answered the call, breathing out a ‘hello’. 

“Hey, Bleu. I’m calling about my fight tomorrow.” There was some loud music in the background, and an awful lot of chatter.

“Um, yeah. You wanted me to come, right?”

“Of course.” His voice dropped, and I tried to ignore it. “But I need to talk to you about that. Can you leave tonight?”

“What, why?” Now I was confused.

“Because it’s in a city about three hours away from here.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Um, excuse me?”

“Yeah. I’m going to be heading down around seven, so we’ll get there about ten, eleven o’clock.”

“Niall, it didn’t occur to you to maybe tell me this a little sooner?”

“Well, no not really. I didn’t think it’d be much of a problem.” He sounded a bit annoyed, like I had interrupted him from something, which irritated me because he was the one to call.

“Okay, whatever. Just, pick me up. Call before you do, you jackass.” I said, clicking the end button before I realized what I had done. 

I sighed, dropping my head into my hands. I was beginning to get frustrated with him, not understanding if I had done something wrong and just wanting to fix it in case I had. But when he pulled stunts like this, well, that just pissed me off. And so I rose to my feel, knowing that it was only two hours until seven o’clock and I was supposed to have everything ready to go before then. I grumbled to myself, jogging down the hall and toting an overnight bag out of the closet. I grabbed my tight skinny jeans and a sports t-shirt from the Irish football team-I loved football, really- and shoved them in my bag. I walked over to my drawers, and rifled through, a blush creeping onto my cheeks when I saw what I had stowed away in the back, buried underneath everything.

It was a set of two pairs of gaudy looking underwear that Nicole had bought me for my birthday when we went clubbing. I hadn’t even worn them, knowing I had no use for them then, but now…I didn’t want to think about that. I looked away, looking for other things, but the lace kept catching my eye, and in spite of myself, I grabbed both the white and red pairs, tucking the white ones away under my clothes for tomorrow. I left the red ones out and snatched a towel, blushing as I went into the bathroom to shower. 

At fifteen minutes to seven, I was dressed, the red underwear hidden safely underneath the button up, black shirt and tight jeans I wore. I pulled on my boots, my semi-damp hair hanging in front of my face. My bag sat my the door, and I double-checked to make sure that I had everything I needed. I was doing a walk through to lock all of the windows and doors when a very loud knock reverberated through my house. My heart fluttered at the thought of seeing him, and my feet quickly shuffled over to the foyer. When I pulled it open, he stood with his sunglasses on and one hand shoved in his jeans pocket. His mouth was set in a thin line, but the look on his face softened when he saw me standing there with a tentative half-smile touching my features.