Stuck in The Moment with You [Niall Horan]

Chapter One

“Please fasten your seat belts. We will be landing in Toronto in ten minutes.” Even over my iPod I could hear the flight attendant. I pulled my headphones out and stuffed my iPod into my bag. I didn’t bother pulling my sunglasses off. The old man sitting beside me creeped me out so I sat as close to the window as I could get and pretended I was asleep for the whole plane ride. 

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in the waiting area waiting for my transportation to arrive. Five minutes after getting off the plane I had gotten a text from the manager of the school program telling me that something had gotten mixed up and my ride went to another airport. “Miss Cassie?” I heard a voice from behind me. I fought the urge to role my eyes as I turned to face the man. “Cass-say,” I said picking up my bags. “My apologies,” he said as he pulled the trolly along behind him and I followed him outside. As I got into the back seat of the Yukon, while the man loaded my bags, my phone started playing Boyfriend while vibrating in my back pocket. I heard the man chuckle at the sound of Justin Bieber’s music but I ignored it as I answered my phone. “Hello?” I said as I adjusted my bag in the seat beside me. “Michaela! I was wondering when you were going to answer the phone!” My Mom’s voice sounded shrill, but I knew she was only concerned so I didn’t fuss. “I just got off about 20 minutes ago. I’m sorry. I just forgot,” I said as the man got in the front seat. I suddenly had an urge to jump out in fear that he was kidnapping me. I had a habit of thinking the worst in situations. “Your name is Jacob Myers. Right?” I asked pulling the phone away from my ear as I leaned forward in my seat. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he smiled at me.

Now that I was closer to him, I could see he wasn’t so much older. Maybe mid-twenties. “Oh.. Nice to meet you. I’m Michaela Casse,” I said as I leaned back in my seat and he cranked the vehicle. 

“Me and Richard are gonna come visit you in June, when you’re in Georgia!” My Mom said suddenly. “IF I go to the Georgia,” I said. All five of the girls, including me, that got into this program know that only 3 of us are going to still be in the program in June. It could be any of us. I hadn’t yet found out what the girls names were, only that four of us will be bunking together in hotels. I was only praying I was the one who got the separate room. After a few minutes me and Jacob pulled up the hotel. It was quiet large. “Lucky duck. You get the single hotel room,” Jacob said as he handed me a key and went to get my bags out of the trunk. “Thanks..” I mumbled as I grabbed my bag out of the seat and went in the front door. Now, if I could just find Niall. I was actually hoping I wouldn’t run into him yet. I didn’t think they were even staying at the same hotel. No one had told me if they were or not. But I’m such an awkward person, my awkwardness would be magnified around Niall. That was the last thing I needed.

I followed Jacob to my room and he told me to be out on the pool deck in thirty minutes to meet the other students.

Thirty minutes later, after changing into some jean shorts and taking my hair out of my annoying ponytail, I stepped barefoot onto the carpeted hallway as I went downstairs. I pushed the elevator button and waited. I could hear laughing and talking as I opened the door to the pool deck. “Girls! Stop splashing!” I heard a girl yell. When I rounded the corner I saw five girls and a older looking one. “Hallie. You’re so grouchy!” One tall, blonde haired girl said as she climbed out of the pool and wrapped a towel around herself. “No. I’m not. But I said you guys could swim, not drain the pool!” The older girl, Hallie, said sipping a bottle of water. “Hey, Cassie!” Jacob said walking up behind me. I hadn’t even noticed I had stopped walking. “It’s Cass-say,” I said and he laughed. “I know. I’m just joking with you. Come meet the other girls,” he said leading more over to the chairs where Hallie and the other girl were now sitting. “Girls, this is Michaela! Michaela, this is Hallie, my fellow student from New York, and her sister Emma, and the other students you’ll be ‘competing’ with, Sarah, Anna, Laura, and Emma!” I raised my eyebrows at the repeat of the name Emma. “You can call me Em, so you don’t get us mixed up. So it’s Em and Emma.” Hallie’s sister said smiling at me. I nodded, returning the friendly smile. Sarah had strawberry blonde hair and greyish blue eyes she looked like she smiled most of the time, since she was at the very second. Anna was tall with blonde hair and brown eyes, she was giggling about something as I saw Laura whisper something to her. Laura was also tall but with brown hair and brown eyes, she, too, was laughing along with Anna. And Emma was a bit shorter than the others with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Her nails were painted a hot pink with yellow tips and she was propped up against the pool wall, her eyes closed. 

I was kind of confused about the whole set up with the two student mentors, cause we also have a manager from the NYC school to help with things. I was guessing that Jacob and Hallie were gonna keep an eye out for us while the manager of the program worked on our photography and kept us on track while traveling. “Do you know where Marie went?” Jacob asked sitting down in a chair beside Hallie. She shook her head as she put on her sunglasses and leaned her head back onto the chair. “Michaela, are you gonna swim?” Laura asked from the pool. “Uhh… No, I’m fine.. Thanks..” I said sitting down in a chair on the other side of the pool.

After a half hour, I returned to my single room to order room service. I hadn’t even talked to the other girls, except for when Laura asked me if I was gonna swim, so I just preferred to stay in my room.

Lights out was at 10pm, but I couldn’t sleep, as usual, so at midnight, I figured everyone was asleep by then, and I slipped out of my room to see if I could find a vendi machine. I figured I’d stock up on candy and chips for the nights to come. I usually don’t sleep to 4am so I spend my time reading, eating, watching movies, writing, drawing, or taking pictures of random things, but now that I have a bedtime of 10pm I didn’t think it was good to be roaming hotels in the middle of the night looking for vendi machines. I settled on $10 worth of snacks and returned to my room to stuff it in my suitcase. Around 1am I was hyped on the M&M’s I had eaten and I was bored of reading one of the books I had brought along. I dug my camera out of my suitcase, figuring I had to soon enough, and started talking pictures of things around my hotel room. There wasn’t much in the room, even though it was pretty huge, it was just normal stuff. Back at home I would walk around the house and since my mom owned a vintage store I always had something new to photograph, or I would walk around outside and look for the night animals. But now all I had was a bed, a sofa, a dresser, and a bathroom. Not very exciting. I tried scattering my belongings around the room to make it look more interesting but it didn’t work. I finally left my room and walked around the hotel. 

After taking pictures of stuff in the lobby, even the weird guy at the front desk, I started toward the elevator, when I saw the ‘Pool’ sign. It was already after 2am, but I figured I wouldn’t sleep for a couple more hours, might as well. With nightfall came cool weather, but it was still warm enough to wear shorts, and maybe even swim, but I wasn’t going to swim, one reason being there was a sign on the gate the pool saying ‘No swimming after 10pm.’. It took me a second the realize the gate was wide open, and another few seconds for me to hear the water splashing in the pool. In a few quick strides I was around the corner, expecting to find a little kid drowning in the deep end of the giant pool, but I calmed down once I saw that someone was only doing laps in the pool. I looked at the small sign beside me, it was another one saying not to swim after 10pm. Guessing this person didn’t get the memo.

But I was also guessing that the hotel would make exceptions for Niall Horan.