Trouble. (niall horan au)

chapter 16 - two chases

"Are you buckled up?" Niall asked hurriedly, slamming the door behind him and fumbling to jam the keys into the ignition. 

The number of suppossed car chases I've been in adds up to a rough estimate of 0, so it's understandable that my hands are shaking as I struggle to find my seatbelt in the dark. We had raced out of the party, and there it was. The adreneline. The inevitable trouble Niall was always seeming to land us in. 

"Yeah, go." I said, the car already shooting out of the spot before I can finish my sentence. His hands tighten around the wheel, biceps muscles prominent as he makes a wide turn and veers onto the road. In the rearview mirror I watched as Radley begins backing up his car too. 

An orchestra of angry honks follows in our wake as Niall barrells though an interception, refusing to lift his foot from the gas. "Niall," I exclaimed, "You're going rather over the speedlimit."

"Sweetheart, when somebody else is following you in a car, you do not go the speedlimit."

"Or stop for red lights?" I asked, pressing my nose against the window and watching as one fades behind us. Radley is pulling up fast, and although I can't make out his face, I bet it has the same mean, ugly look as the first time I met him. The world is a blur of night sky and speed and tires burning up asphault. 

"Shit, shit, shit." Niall sang, weaving inbetween traffic. He makes a sudden right turn into a pathway turning off into a forested area, hitting the brakes hard. Automatically his arm flies out across my chest to stop me from hitting the dashboard. I flop back in my seat as he hits the lights and pulls the key, the car immediatly darkening. 

"What are you-" I begin, but Niall clamps his hand over my mouth, silencing me immediatly. There's a long moment of silence before Radley comes racing past, ignorant to our current hiding spot. 

I peel his hand off of my mouth. "First off, he wouldn't of been able to hear me, secondly, why did he just chase us with such a balant disregard for road laws."

Niall swipes his thumb along my bottom lip, before starting up the car again once he's sure we're in the clear. "Well, you did punch him in the face that one time. He also has a couple of things to settle with me." He pulled out into the now empty road. "Okay, so where the hell are we?"

"Do you have a map?" I asked, slipping out of my seatbelt to search the floor, ignoring Niall's protests for me to buckle back up. 

"A map wont tell us where we are." Niall argued, "That'll just show us a bunch of lines."

I pulled open the glove compartment and raised an eyebrow at the clutter that threatened to spill out. It contained a couple of CDS, some battered cartons of cigarettes, a scattered array of papers, and a box of condoms.

"Ah, I forgot those were in there." Niall said hastily, casting me a sideways glance.

Extracting it from the mess, I turned the box over in my hands and examined the top. The seal was still intact. I didn't even realize what I was going until Niall spoke. 

"You just checked to see if I had opened them." Niall observed.

"No." I stammered, thrusting them back into the glove compartment. "I was just- checking the packaging. I think it's cardboard."

Niall smiled, not buying it for a moment. I could feel my cheeks burn as he looked at me in amusement. "You know, sweetheart, I'm sort of totally obsessed with you. So you don't need to worry about me and other girls."

"Well why do you have them?" I asked, unable to stop myself.

"You want the truth? I bought them when I first met you- first off, remember I was a major dick during this time, let that be noted -and I was pretty much just waiting to get you." He stops the car at a red light and turns to me, making my hair into a ponytail with his hand. "I remember thinking you had such long hair, and how I could hold you with it."