Meet Cute

Does He Know?

The moment Niall's blue eyes landed on her, he knew she was something he'd like to study. Just observe her quirks for hours on end. He didn't need to talk to her to get to know her, she did that enough for the two of them, but he knew he still wanted to. With his hat pulled low over his blonde locks, and the dark sunglasses perched on his nose, he'd been trying to avoid causing a scene while out for a stroll in the streets of London, but because of this he'd almost missed out on the catastrophe that was Sidney O'Byrne.

With her dirty blonde hair blowing out from underneath her maroon bowler hat perched on the top of her head, and her mouth running a mile a minute, Sidney O'Byrne was a sight to see. She'd stomped her foot at the man she was talking with, and pouted like a child, but what had caught Niall's attention was her flailing arms. One of those flailing arms had actually come up and swiftly knocked his own hat straight off of his head. He'd stood motionless for a moment, not sure what had just happened, as he had not been paying attention to his surroundings.

"I'm so sorry, man," she'd said offhandedly, as she picked up his hat from the sidewalk, smushing it back onto his messy hair, and then turning back to the man she'd been talking to without even chancing a second glance at Niall.

Still taken aback by the abruptness of her movements, Niall stood watching the scene in front of him. The two didn't even notice his presence, and continued arguing with one another, and after having listened for a few seconds, Niall concluded in his head that this strange girl who'd hit him on the head was arguing with a homeless man.

"Dude, what aren't you understanding about this? I don't have anything for you," she tried, waving her hands in the air again. Niall was careful to steer clear of them.

"I'm just tryin' to live here, miss," the angry man argued, "spare me a few pence."

The girl shook her head in disbelief, "All I have on me is my identification and my credit card. Sorry, man but that – just no."

"Have you no heart?" The man suddenly took on a different persona, no longer angry at her, but rather feigning a doleful expression on his wrinkled face.

"Don't pull that with me, mister," she quipped immediately. Niall had to smirk at her reaction. This was definitely not the way he'd planned to spend his afternoon, but it was turning out better and better with each moment passed. "I'm a nice lady! You're trying to heckle me, and I don't...I can't..."

She was at a loss for words, not knowing what else to say to the homeless man. She let her eyes fall from the man, and brought them to survey her surroundings. Once connecting her eyes with Niall's his smirk dropped, and he straightened up wearing an embarrassed smile instead, shameful that he'd been caught eavesdropping. She simply widened her eyes at him incredulously, and tilted her head towards the man in front of her as if to say, 'Can you believe this guy?'.

Niall's smirk returned, feeling at ease now knowing that this girl wasn't worried in the slightest that Niall had eavesdropped on her argument. He gave her a simple shrug of his shoulders, and she pulled her lips into a pout at the side of her mouth, not satisfied with his answer to her unasked question.

She turned back to face the man, then, and started waving her arms again. Niall chuckled under his breath, not believing how ridiculous the scene in front of him was becoming. Stepping closer to the frantic girl, he reached out to touch the closest thing he could to grab her attention again without getting smacked by her swinging arms, which turned out to be the strap of her leather purse.

"What do you want from – HEY!"

She tugged her purse back aggressively from Niall's reach, and he widened his eyes in shock by her sudden mood change. He raised his hands up in apology, shaking his head at her accusing glare.