Something About You

Twenty Three. August, 2016.

Niall has a plan.

It clocks in at just about the scariest thing he's ever done, and it could backfire and leave him so utterly heartbroken that he can't imagine he'd ever get over it, but it's a plan nonetheless, and he's committed to it, even if it kills him.

He knows there are a handful of normal options—asking Isla out on a date, writing her a letter to express his feelings, inviting her over for dinner and a movie and kissing her—but none of those feel right, somehow, for the magnitude of this, for the scale of what Niall feels for her. He's always had a hard time being honest, and he finds himself thinking that those options are too easy to weasel out of—that they give him space to second guess, to get cold feet, to overthink, to lie. This way, at least, there's no turning back once he starts. He has no other option.

So he invites Isla over on a Sunday in late August, London clinging to the last dregs of summer, Niall clinging to his last few moments of safety before jumping over the edge. It feels dramatic, opening the door to reveal her on the other side, carrying a bottle of white wine and smiling at him like everything is back to normal, and he can't stop talking once he's let her in, nattering away about the weather, the traffic, the afternoon he's had.

'Niall,' she says eventually, elbows resting on his kitchen counter, watching as he fumbles around for wine glasses and a corkscrew. 'You're anxious rambling.'

He exhales, turning back toward Isla. 'I can't find any glasses. I think they might all be dirty, Willie had some mates over last night.'

Isla shrugs, 'we can drink out of the bottle. It's not like we haven't swapped spit before.'

'No,' Niall's mouth feels dry, his heart kicking. 'You're right.'

'But I don't think that's why you're anxious rambling,' Isla says, eyes trailing over Niall's forearms as he twists the corkscrew into the bottle. It's covered in condensation, cold and slippery against his hands.

Mercifully, the corkscrew pops out in one piece and Niall brings the bottle to his lips almost immediately, desperate for something to distract himself, for the sting of the alcohol to calm him down, give him a little shock of courage. He closes his eyes as the icy wine makes its way down his throat and then passes the bottle to Isla, who takes it by the neck, her fingers brushing his.

Last time they did this, it ended up with her riding him while his brother got married. The thought kicks in Niall's belly, settling with the alcohol.

'I, erm,' Niall finds it easier to speak while Isla's drinking. She can't stare him down, this way. 'I have something I wanted to show you.'

'Okay,' Isla says on a swallow, putting the bottle down on the counter. It clinks against the marble, echoes in the quiet kitchen. 'Show me.'

--

In the living room, Isla finds herself a spot on Niall's couch, bare feet tucked under her, bottle of wine cradled in her lap. He wants this so fucking badly, he thinks, all the time: Isla, at home, with him. He can't think of anything he's ever wanted more.

'So,' Niall sits down across from her, his body twisted toward hers on the couch. 'When I was away on my trip, I saw on Instagram that you went back to Mullingar with Mully and Mia and everyone.'

'Yeah,' Isla tilts her head. 'It was reading week, we always go home for reading week.'

'Right, right, it was just, like, so weird for me to see? Because there I was, like, halfway across the world in bed with a stranger and I opened up Instagram while she was sleeping next to me and all of a sudden all I could do was think about you? And home? And how everything is the same, like, even though it's been a million years and we've been so far apart from each other and we've seen other people and done different things it's like... like, it's still the same. It's still you. It's always you, Isla. And I've always known that, I think, even though I didn't always want to believe it I always knew that nothing else would come close to how it was with you. It's like... it's like you're my home, as stupid as that sounds. It doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing. It's about you.'

'Anyway so while I was on my trip I hadn't written music in ages. I was so tired and I couldn't find inspiration anywhere and everything I tried to write turned out like shit and then it just... after I saw your post it just kind of clicked? And I wrote something. And I don't know if you'll like it or if you'll even be okay with it, or if you feel the same way anymore, but I want you to hear it, first, from me, before anyone else has. Because it's for you. If you're okay with it I think I want to release this but this is yours. It belongs to you, and you should hear it first.'

'So,' hands shaking, Niall fishes his phone out of his jeans pocket and places it on the couch cushions between himself and Isla. He's got everything all loaded up, the phone connected to the surround sound speakers in his flat, his heart in his fucking throat. He's gone too far to turn back now. 'Are you okay with this? Do you want to hear it? You can say no, it's totally fine if you—'

'Niall,' Isla's voice sounds thick already, wavering. 'If you keep stalling I'm going to kill you with my own two hands.'

He exhales, a shaky laugh, and nods. He can do this. He's done way scarier things before—he can't think of them right now, but he's sure he has.

He presses play.

This Town starts, and he closes his eyes.

It's different, listening to your own song like this. Niall'd kind of thought he'd heard This Town too many times for it to affect him anymore, that he'd been able to separate his feelings from the song, his life from the lyrics. But this is a level of vulnerability Niall never even knew existed, like he's standing naked in the middle of Trafalgar Square, like he's like he's reading his diary out loud for the whole world to hear. Which, he supposes, is kind of what this is—Isla is the whole world to him, after all.

In his head it's a supercut of them: laughing together as kids in the playground, kissing on his twin sized bed in his da's house, his fingers between her legs in the backseat of Greg's car, parked on the shores of Lough Ennell. He sees them on a long, autumnal walk with Puca through the woods, and that time they went to Dublin together to buy their mams' Christmas gifts. He sees her bent over her textbooks, cramming for exams, while he sat on the other side of the room strumming his guitar. He sees the look on her face when he kissed her goodbye at Dublin airport, before he left Mullingar for the very first time. He sees himself, too: alone in London, alone in Dubai, alone in Bangkok, alone at Croke Park, alone, alone, alone, and always looking for her.

By the final chorus he can't take it anymore. His eyes are stinging with tears and when he opens them up he finds that Isla's crying too: full, fat tears streaming down her cheeks, her hands covering her mouth, her body trembling. He wants to wrap her up in him but he doesn't know, can't tell, if it's good or bad. If she wants this too.

When the song ends she drops her hands, still shaking, into her lap. Niall tries to ask if she's okay but he can't—he just keeps imagining his heart falling out of his open mouth. Eyes wide, he waits for her instead. No matter how long, he knows, he'll wait for her.

'Fuck's sake,' she says eventually, around a sob. 'Jesus Christ, for fuck's sake, Niall.'

And then she's on him, leaning over the empty space between them to press her lips to his, for the first time in a million years.