Chapter 21         Charlotte POV                            Day 26 of Tour: Topeka      

“Honey; I’m HOME!” Harry hollered into the suite.

The door closed with a slam as five sets of huge feet stomped into view. Each boy had a tired smile on his pretty face. In Zayn’s left hand was a greasy bag of takeout food the size of a small child. Liam had a box with a pretty red bow and shiny white paper.

Niall ran up and kissed me on the lips.

“Umm, who is this?” Louis pointed to the mp3 player and pretended to be hurt.

“The Wanted,” I laughed. “You aren’t the only British band out there you know.”

“We know… but it doesn’t mean that it’s okay.” Louis joked sarcastically.

“Besides Little Mix!” Zayn pointed to me. “They are totally allowed.”

I stood up and reached across the big modern dining table to change the song. “Better?” I asked as the song faded into something by Katy Perry.

“Much.” Zayn sat the food on the table. “I’ll go get some forks… BRB.”

The guys all pulled out a seat. I pushed my loose papers and pencils into my book bag and set it on the floor by a tall black piece of abstract art. “How was day five of Topeka, boys?”

“It was good,” Liam smiled, looking more like a happy puppy than he usually did. “But more importantly: how was your last day of SCHOOL!?!?”

I smirked at the ground. “It was fine…”

“Fine!?!?” Louis bellowed. “You’re done with school! Forever! That is the opposite of fine, more like fan-fucking-tastic!”

I rolled my eyes.

“Did you call your mum and tell her?” Niall asked sweetly.

“I would… if we were on speaking terms.” I thought to myself. Ever since I had talked to Matthew that one day I hadn’t attempted to contact her… and she didn’t either. A part of me just wanted her to be the bigger person and call me up. The other part of me was sort of relieved she was upset with me, so she could suffer through missing me just like I was suffering through missing her.

“Yeah,” I lied. I bit my tongue to stop the rambling that threatened to follow any sort of fib.

“That’s good,” Niall replied. I breathed a sigh of relief he hadn’t looked up from the table to see my face; he would have read me like an open book.

“How’s that guy of hers doing?” Louis asked goodheartedly. “OUCH!” He bent down to rub his ankle, “You didn’t have to go and kick me Liam.”

Zayn wandered in carrying a bag of plastic utensils. “We got a present for you, in honor of the occasion.” Niall nodded to the box in Liam’s arms.

“You did?” I sat up a little taller in my tall backed seat. “You guys didn’t have to do that!”

“We did though. That’s just the kind of loving, wonderful, well rounded, supportive-”

Harry groaned. “Shut up Lou, you’re ruining the moment.”

Liam handed me the box with a huge grin. “Go on, open it!” he urged as my face grew hesitant.

I bit back on my lip and took it from him. Slowly and anxiously I pulled on the string of the bright red bow. The paper fell open just like it did in the movies. From underneath the white satiny wrapping paper there was a red and black box.

My mouth hung open as I did a double take. I quickly opened the box and pulled out the gorgeous headphones. They were the most expensive kind ever sold, the ones I had only ever seen on TV. I ran my finger across the red ombre print that faded into a soft pink. The muffs were white, and the B imprinted on the sides was the trademark red.

“Oh my god…” I stared at them.

“They’re custom!” Louis told me.

“Ruining the moment, man.” Harry scolded.

“They’re amazing.” I twirled the cord in between my fingers. I looked up at the five guys and gave them the biggest smile. “Thank you guys. I love them… and I love all you.”

“We love you too!” Zayn came up behind me and hugged my neck.

One by one every single member of One Direction worked his way over to our newly formed group hug. They all gathered around, me at the very center. It was pretty cute for a few seconds. Then of course…

“Who’s touching my butt? Someone is touching MY BUTT!”

“Ooooohhhh I touched the butt.”

“Your breath stinks.”

“I love you guys… but I hate this hug.”

Liam broke away first. “Now that that’s over… whose ready to eat?!”

“ME!”

The guys scattered to their seats, leaving me all alone in mine. Boxes of takeout Chinese were passed around the glossy black dining table. I’m Yours played on my mp3. Clatters sounded as Harry dumped the entire bag of plastic silverware onto the table top. Plastic was scattered everywhere. Someone slid a small white box over to my seat at the end of the table. I opened the flaps and was satisfied to find that I ended up with a whole box of chicken.

“Does someone have my noodles?” Louis said around a big mouth full of food.

Liam nodded. “I do. But where’s my beef?” Louis pointed to his mouth then to his tummy in reply. “You ate my beef, Lou?”

“Sure did. You can keep the noodles, this is much better.”

The prongs of someone’s fork fought against mine as I reached for a perfect piece of white meat. I raised a brow. Following the arm I found the handsome face of Niall Horan.

While I was distracted Niall stole the chicken. “You didn’t want this… did you?” He teased.

“Not really.” I sneaked a steady hand underneath his arm. With skill and speed I successfully stole his box of rice out from under his nose. “Not if you don’t want this.”

“You dare think you can steal from me, child?”

“I do. I really do think.” I took a menacingly big bite of his brown rice, chewing very slowly.

Niall laughed. “You think WRONG!” His arm jutted out and snatched the open rice box away from me. He tilted it a little too far using a little too much power, because the entire thing of rice ended up flinging onto him and Harry.

I let out a loud giggle.

Harry’s bottle green eyes wandered from the rice scattered in his lap to Niall’s face. “You wanna play a game, Horan?”

Before a reply was even muttered Niall had been slapped in the face with a soggy eggroll.

A dead silence followed.

Niall closed his eyes, wiping his cheek dramatically. Without even looking he gripped a wad of noodles. As he opened his baby blues his hand went smashing down onto Harry’s perfectly styled curls, smashing doughy noodles into the stiff hair wax.

There was a moment of hush.

“FOOD FIIIIIIGHT!”

Louis dipped his fingers into the sweet and sour sauce. He smeared it like finger paint across Zayn’s stunned face. Zayn laughed, crumbling fortune cookies and chucking them at everyone.

Bits of food flew into my hair and down my shirt. I giggled and squinted my eyes. I saw a tub of untouched dessert on the table. It called my name.

“Niall honey,” I tapped his shoulder. He turned to me. “Want some pudding?” I smeared the custard down his chin to the hem of his black t shirt.

After his momentary shock passed he got his revenge. He wiped himself clean and then proceeded to crimp the vanilla pudding into my hair like styling gel. I giggled and wrangled around, trying to break free.

I stumbled back into Liam who immediately tossed a handful of beef. I reached to the table, picked up a packet of soy sauce, and squirted it at him blindly.

Something heavy wacked against the back of my head. I whizzed around to see that Louis was throwing empty cartons at people. He had his back facing me. This gave me the perfect chance.

I ran to him, unnoticed in all of the messy Chinese food chaos. With wads of mushy chicken in my fist I quickly snuck up behind him…

And shoved it down his boxers.

Then I ran. I ran hard and I ran fast.

“CHARLIE!” Louis hollered my name.

I shrieked and ducked behind the leather couch in the living room.

He knew right where I was. He thrust the couch aside and lunged at me. I squealed and struggled as Louis splashed me with a glass of milk. It splatted up into my eyes; dotting my vision. Blindly I went to stand up, gripping what I though was the couch. Louis laughed hard as he took me up in his arms and jostled me around like a weightless rag doll.

“LOO-EEE!” I screeched, my voice bouncing. “PUUT ME-EE DOWN!”

“If you insist!”

 I was thrown onto the huge couch. My eyes were pointed up to the grey ceiling. I tried to catch my breath.

From the other room I heard laughter. I started to prop myself up to take a quick look…

I was shoved back down.

“LOUIS!” I yelped. He continued to smother me with the huge pillow. His laughter was muffled by the thudding sound of goose feathers to my face.

As the pillow went down to strike again I finally managed to roll out. I stumbled off of the bed onto the white carpet where I was immediately attacked: AGAIN.

Liam had me over his legs like a father would do to spank his child. Except Liam furiously tickled my sides, making me kick and scream giddily. My loose hair covered my face, hiding everything in sight with a dark thick blanket.

“Boys?”

We all came to an immediate halt.

“Oh… hey there Paul!” Niall laughed nervously.

Four members of One Direction management looked at the six of us in a mess of greasy food. Paul’s eyes wandered over to me bent over Liam’s legs, my hair wet with milk and pudding. I gave him a small wave.

He frowned.

Shit.

**************************************************************************************

“Well that was fun while it lasted,” Harry sighed. He plopped himself down onto his twin sized bed.

“At least we got it all cleaned up in less than two hours,” Liam shrugged.

“Almost all of it.” I looked at my dirty reflection in the full body mirror. My hair was a greasy tangled mess dotted with flecks of brown and white rice. My cheeks were smeared with soy sauce, and the noodles that hung from my pant legs were so chic.

Something itched from inside of my shirt. I pulled at the wires of my bra uncomfortably. “I even have cookie down my shirt.”

Zayn laughed. “Niall would be happy to get it out for ya.”

I rolled my eyes.

Niall wandered into the bedroom all six of us shared. “What would I be happy to do?”

Zayn laughed again as I stumbled out a mumble of “Never mind.”

My boyfriend shrugged, sending chunks of Chinese off of his shoulders.

Louis peeked his head in from the patio door. “There’s a pool out here; who wants to wash off with me and Liam?”

“Not me,” I told him. “I’m going to go and take a long hot shower.”

“Yeah… I think I’ll pass on the ice cold pool as well.” Niall agreed.

“I’m in!” Crazy Zayn agreed, flying off of his twin sized bed that sat next to Harry’s. Harry got up and followed him outside. “We’ll be back in a minute you two, don’t get too comfortable.” Zayn winked and left us alone.

I tugged at a stubborn piece of noodle that had dried up in my hair. “I’m going to go take my shower now…” I collected my change of clothes and headed to the attached bathroom. Before I could close the stiff door behind me Niall was there. He puckered his lips, squeezed his eyes shut, and waited with open arms. I teased him by only pecking his cheek.

I leaned into the shower to turn on the tap. It came flowing out of the head in a jet that spit steam. I tossed my change of clothes on the floor and dressed down into nothing.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped into the boiling water. I let it run down every inch of me. Water streams cleared paths of chunky brown pudding and dried dumplings. The chain around my bare neck twinkled.

Out of habit I ran my fingers into the roots of my hair. They stuck into the mess of rats. I tugged away, pulling out a few strands. I patted my locks, feeling a hard sticky clump at the very back of my head.

Blindly I reached for the conditioner. I squeezed most all of its contents onto my head and started to pull at the strings of hair.

Nothing seemed to be helping.

In fact, it made it worse.  

“Her hair is like a braid of dead straw. I own goats prettier than her!”

I groaned rather loudly and stomped my foot.

“Charlotte?” Niall’s blurry voice called from the other side of the door. “Is everything okay?” I could hear the amused smile in his tone.

“No,” I tried not to smile myself. “I can’t get this junk out of my hair.” He laughed. “It’s not funny!” But I started to giggle myself.

After about a minute of us laughing in the two separate rooms he asked, “Do you need some help, love?”

Help?

Sure, I needed help. Right about then would have been the time to call out for my mom… but she obviously wasn’t there. Should I ask for his help? Would that be weird?

I finally asked myself: “do you want his help?”

“Yeah,” I said shyly. “Some help would be nice.” I shut the water off and climbed over the bathtub ledge onto the cold hard ground. Just as my feet hit the floor I reached for a towel. I had finished wrapping myself up in it when I let him in.

“Woah.” Niall stared at my crazy ass hair. “That’s pretty bad.”

“Thanks,” I muttered sarcastically, trying to forget the fact that I was standing there in a towel. “Can you come in before someone wanders by?”

“Oh! Yeah,” He jumped and hurried inside. I forgot to lock the door behind him. “Go ahead and sit down on the edge of the tub there,” Niall pointed to it.

I said nothing and did what he told me. I faced myself into the shower so that the back of my head was to him.

I heard him rustling around to try and find something. “I know Hazza keeps a detangler somewhere…” Niall’s voice faded. “Oh! Here it is!” His steps neared me.

Without any warning there was a yank.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry, lovely. I had to get that noodle out.”

I smirked a bit at the weirdness of the situation. Sitting there practically naked while my boyfriend fixed my Chinese food filled hair… a bit unusual if you asked me.

Combing around he started to pull apart knots.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

He bent his face down above mine. “A little bit. I do know some things about hair, but not a ton.”

I blushed and looked away from his stunning cobalt eyes. I felt embarrassed and shy as the hot blush worked its way up to my pale cheeks.

Niall went back to working on my hair. I kept my eyes trained on the shampoo bottles dotted with water ahead of me as he did his thing. As we went on I realized the whole thing wasn’t such a big deal. I mean, sure I was wearing a lonely ole towel. But he was my boyfriend.

The rest of the guys started to pile inside the bedroom next to us. We could hear water dripping onto the hardwood. They were quite loud, poking fun at one another and cursing about how cold they were.

A knock sounded at the door. “Charlotte?” It was Harry.

“Yeah?”

“You know where Nialler went?”

“Umm… yeah.”

A moment of silence passed in the bedroom next door. The only thing I could hear was the quiet yanking of my hair.

“Is he… in there with you?”

I closed my eyes and blushed as Niall did the talking. “Yep.”

“Holy shit,” Louis mumbled, probably thinking we couldn’t hear him.

You could hear a pin drop after that.

Slowly (at a lame attempt to go unnoticed) the door started to creak open to a crack. Three sets of eyes peered in at us. I hid my face in my hands.

“Oh.” Harry seemed disappointed. He flung the door open the rest of the way, not caring if the world saw. “I thought you were finally getting some action, my friend. Guess not.”

With my face still hidden I let out an exhausted moan. “Can you guys be any more embarrassing?”

“I’m sure we could if we tried REAL hard.” Zayn sounded proud.

I looked up at the three of them; Louis, Harry and Zayn, standing there casually. “Can you go away now?”

“Why? We don’t mind.”

I sat there with my mouth open; utterly flabbergasted at them. “I’m sort of kind of naked.”

Harry shook his head. “Not really. Besides, even if you were we wouldn't care,” He said as if that would make me feel any better. “We’re open about these things around here. This is a step closer to becoming a total Direction. You’re one of us now, Hemming. I miss those days where I could just wander around without any britches… maybe soon…”

I shook my head with finality. “No. Not soon. Please not soon.”

Harry started to slip the border of his yellow swim trunks.

I covered my eyes and turned away quickly.

They all three laughed at my bright red face.

“Just go away,” Niall sighed irritably. When their laughter only grew louder he walked over to shut them out himself, locking the door shut behind him. “Ignore those idiots.” He pulled my hair from the side of my head to peck my neck gently. I tried to ignore the weird lust feeling his slightly drawn-out kiss gave me.

“Dirty conniving slut…”

“Charlotte Hemming got Niall Horan? Does he know she has herpes?”

“We’re almost done,” he resumed to brush my hair. “Then we can go to bed.”

I nodded silently.

“Skank.”

“Niall,” I said aloud.

“What’s up Princess?”

The question burned away at my gut. It sat at the tip of my tongue just wanting to roll out to him. “Never mind.” I finally mumbled with a frustrated exhale of hot air.

“What’s going on?” Niall seemed to catch the drift that this wasn’t just something light and silly.

Did I really want to have The Talk?

“It’s just…”

Don’t ask him. It’ll make things weird.

“You know how Harry said…”

I’m not going to like the answer.

“I haven’t really been thinking about it or anything…”

Niall stopped brushing. “Charlotte Rose Hemming; what is this about?”

With only a single rush of hot breath I let it all out in one painful statement. “Haveyoueversleptwithanyonebefore.”

I felt his arms drop to his sides.

SHIT.

SHIT.

Rewind! Go back! Delete previous statement!

“Oh.” Niall finally said. The brush started to work through my tangles again. “That’s all.”

‘That’s all’? What was that supposed to mean?

I held my breath and waited for him to continue. I knew he was trying to figure out how to word his response right.

“Well…”

That’s it. He’s sick and tired of my shit. It’s done. We’re over-

“No. No I haven’t.”

“You haven’t?” The words spilled out. I covered my mouth and bit my lip. That wasn’t supposed to actually be said. But come on: THE Niall Horan? There were thousands and thousands of girls across the globe that were head over heels in love with him and his angelic voice.

Niall momentarily paused before he continued. “It’s not because I’m not ready… because I am. I just couldn’t find anyone that was worth it.” He took a deep breath. “Until now.”

Woah.

Woah.

I had to tell myself to breath before I had a heart attack or something.

I shut my eyes. I knew it was my turn to say something.

“Woah.”

Smooth huh?

Niall must have though the same, because he threw his attractive head back and full on laughed at me. This, I must say, lightened the both our moods in the long run.

“That came out wrong,” I giggled as the blush made a quick reappearance. “I think that’s very sweet Niall.”

“So you feel the same then?”

I dropped my shoulders and stared at him blankly. “I never needed to think about it before. The situation never arrived… ever.” I turned back to the shower. That’s when I started to ramble. “The only boy who ever showed any slight interest in me was Eli Wyatt in the fourth grade. That was before I came to school with two ugly black eyes. He’s the QB for varsity and still only knows me by Black Eyed Susan.”

I mentally slapped myself for oversharing.

“That’s awful.”

I shrugged it away like it was no big deal.

Because it wasn’t a big deal.

“You had two black eyes?”

I smiled sadly. “I told the kids at school I was playing with a baseball.”

It took him a moment to register what I was saying. “Your dad?” Niall was disgusted.

I didn’t say anything.

The brush ran through my hair for a final time. It was smooth and clean. Niall set down the brush and just started to trace his fingers along my scalp and neck. His hands made their way down my neck and to my shoulder blades. He outstretched his fingers. Slowly he spread his hands down the front of my arms where the towel I was wearing came to an end.

Niall set his perfect lips next to my ear. “I love you Charlotte.”

“I sure hope so.”

We both giggled at my stupid response.