Trouble. (niall horan au)

chapter 25 - warrior pose

"Make sure to hold that stretch," shouted the overly-perky lady on the TV screen, who was standing in a room surrounded by equally smiling women as they all did a complex yoga move in sync. "Feel it," she continued to cheer, "Feel it in your buttocks."

"Are you feeling it, Niall," I said, "Are you feeling it in your buttocks."

Niall paused. "My ass hurts."

My laughter rang through his empty living room, where we had pushed back the couch to make space for our yoga session. On an impulse I had bough a set of six yoga videos (we were on the fourth disk) from a commercial I saw, and kept forcing Niall to do them with me, despite his lack of balance and constant grumbling about how this punctured his pride. He had flat out refused to wear the matching yoga outfit I had bought him. Either way, we were both equally awful.

But I had been spending a lot of time at Niall's place lately. Mostly due to the increasing amount of time Bill, my moms creepy new boyfriend, spent lounging around our house and eating my snacks. Whenever this occurred, Niall would break into my room, practically kidnap me from my bed, and keep me hostage at his place. Not that I minded. Bill had recently been asking me a lot of, "Oh, do you have a boyfriend? How could a pretty girl like you not have a boyfriend? You can tell me," until I told him I was a contemplating lesbian and he backed off.

"Warriors pose!" she screamed, scrunchie encased ponytail flopping through the air as she bounced on her mat. Niall groaned and dropped onto the floor.

"That's not warrior pose!" I shouted with equal vigor.

"Fuck warrior pose," he said, "I'd rather watch you stretch out instead." He casually drew a bag of potato chips into his lap to watch me sweat while crunching on salt and grease.

"No potato chips while working out," I continued shouting, "I brought wheatgrass for our health day. Oh yes, so much delicious wheatgrass. Mm."

Niall frowned. "I thought that was a houseplant so I put it in the bathroom."

"You're suppossed to like, nibble on it."

Niall stared at me. "I refuse to nibble on grass." His eyes traced my body, dipping along with the path of curves. "Okay now, bend over and pick up that thing over there."

I balanced unsteadily on one foot, shaking my hands in the air and swiveling my hips, no doubt looking like I was having an epileptic fit. My elbow bumped a lamp behind me, creating a domino effect as it fell and knocked over a stack of magazines. They flew across the room with paper spread wings.

"Damn," Niall whistled, still sprawled across the floor and leaning back on his elbows to watch me, "Was that part right there warriors pose, sweetheart."

"I put my own fun twist on it. Now shut the hell up."

"Come down here and make me," he replied, hooking his legs around my knees and sending me falling down across his body. I tried to scramble up, but his elbow pushed down into the center of my back and leg slung over mine, keeping me held horizontally in his lap. He snapped the spandex waist band of my yoga shorts.

"These shorts are Gucci," I objected, trying to flip around so my butt wasn't so- well, prominently displayed.

Niall's warm fingers dipped below the waistband, flipping over the tag on the back. "These are from Target. The price sticker is still on." He tore it off. "Hey, good deal- they were on sale."

"Yeah, I bought that same pair," a voice said from the doorway.

We both glanced up, surprised to see Harry leaning casually in the doorway dressed in his usual token style: a ragged bandana pushing back messy curls, some old 80's rock band shirt, and jeans that look Saran-wrapped on. He was managing to drink out of the carton of Niall's orange juice and smoke at the same time. Niall and his friends had a tendency to break into places unannounced.