Two Floors Apart (Louis Tomlinson AU)

VI » Birthday Surprise

VI.   S I X   //   B I R T H D A Y   S U R P R I S E

s e p t e m b e r   1 6 ,   2 0 1 3

Pyper wasn't just humming along to the songs on the radio this morning—no, she was also dancing. Her and dancing never went into the same sentence unless the word 'alcohol' was somewhere in there, too.

            The reason she was so excited was that Brendan had told her earlier that he had a surprise for her that night. She already knew it wasn't sex—they already did that fairly often—so she didn't see why having it on a specific day would make it any more special. She was hoping that he had something a little more personal planned, like a simple dinner-and-movie date. Well, she had mentioned liking that simple date idea for a while, so she was hoping that Brendan picked up on that.

            After she had finished her morning (early afternoon, really) coffee, her cell phone began ringing. She picked it up automatically. "Hey, Brendan."

            "I didn't think I had the same name as him, but that works too."

            "Louis?" Pyper's eyes widened. "I thought you were away this weekend! You told me you were going to go see your family."

            "I did, but I'm almost home," he said. "I'm on the train now. Did you really think I'd miss your twenty-second birthday?"

            Pyper smiled. She and Louis were planning on spending the entire weekend together, dressed up with video games, horrible karaoke, and a lot of pizza, but he got a phone call of his mother saying that she hadn't seen him in a while. Around the same time, she'd gotten a text from Brendan saying that he had a surprise for her anyways. "To be honest, yes I did. They're your family, Lou!"

            "Believe me when I say I've been in enough family birthdays that I'm at the point where I act like the drunken uncle everyone laughs about."

            "That's a poor mindset for someone so young, don't you think?"

            They continued to talk for another half an hour before his train reached the station and he had to grab his bags. After they got off it was time for Pyper to decide what to wear, but she didn't know because her boyfriend's dinner plans were a surprise. How was she supposed to dress for that?

            In the end, she inevitably decided against going too casual and settled for dark wash skinny jeans and her favourite dark green cami with a leather jacket. She didn't think that was too overdressed.

            It was around seven thirty when she decided to take the public bus to the address Brendan had given her. She had heard of the street but, despite how small of a town Doncaster was, she had never been down it before.

            She was turning onto the street when she heard whooping coming from outside. Pyper pulled her jacket closer to her body; it was only when she got closer that she realized that tightly wrapping it around her was only accenting the petite curves she had on her body. Two of the five men outside called out to her but she ignored them as best as she could. She took out her phone and double checked the address.

15 Adelaide Lane

            Looking at the number of the building on her side of the street, it read 'fourteen' in iron cursive. She looked back across the street to where the men were and strained her eyes to see the number.

            Of course it was 15.

            She looked both ways before crossing the street, squeezing in between two parked on the road, and walked up the stairs. She didn't bother to check the name of the place.