Just Another Prank (A One Direction/Larry Stylinson Fan Fic)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Piper

            “Where are we going, by the way?” I turned to look at Niall, the wind whipping my hair into my face and obscuring my eyes. It was freezing out, but we were walking, so I was hoping we weren’t going far.

            “We,” he said, “are taking a trip down memory lane.” He opened the door that lead to the part of the complex that had his apartment and ushered me inside. “After you.”

            “You do realize we could have gotten here without ever going outside,” I grumbled, brushing snow out of my hair. The elevator, at least, was warm. Had he lost his mind? It was way too cold to be tramping through the snow to get to an apartment we could have reached by never going outside. Ain’t nobody got time for that. 

            “Yeah, but snow is romantic. And it just felt right, somehow.” He stopped in front of his door and paused with his hand on the knob. “Do you remember the first time we ever hung out here alone?”

            I wracked my brains. I wasn’t going to lie and pretend like I was one of those girlfriends that remembered everything about our relationship—it was a stretch. “I think so. I was cleaning up my room after Zayn’s bitch fit, and I started chasing you around with tape. Then there were some Rolo’s and a scary movie, I believe. The Sixth Sense?”

            He nodded. “Right. That was the first time I realized I had feelings for you.”

            I smiled. “Me too.”

            We stepped into the apartment together, him switching on the light and me hanging up my coat simultaneously. We had a good little routine going. “I thought and thought about where to take you for your birthday. I considered fancy restaurants, a date in the park, a ride on the ferry. But I realized yesterday that the best place I could take you was home. We haven’t been here in so long, and I felt like we needed one good memory recollection before you could really settle down here.” He opened the door to the guest room. “Neither of us has really been in here much since the incident, so I thought it’d be a good place to remember. Close your eyes.” I did. He came up behind me and put his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my head. He was just barely tall enough to do this, so I wondered if he was on his tiptoes. “Can you see us running around with the tape stuck to our fingers? We look young, I think, even though it wasn’t that long ago.”

            It was odd, but I could picture it clear as day. I watched like it was a movie screen and I was a character in my own production. A knocking noise came from my door, successfully scaring the life out of me in the process. I turned to see Niall slowly opening the door and peeking his head inside.

            “Oh, you finished.” He looked slightly disappointed. “I was going to offer to help you.”

            I cracked a smile, but only briefly. “Damn. If only you’d gotten here a little earlier. You could have saved my jeans from their unfortunate tape situation.”

            He glanced down at my pants and started laughing. “Hey! I had nowhere else to put it!” I defended, but ultimately ended up laughing along with him.

            “As much as I love this look on you, you might want to clean that up,” he said very sarcastically.

            “I know. I look like I got raped with a tape dispenser.” I began picking the tape off of my pants. Niall erupted in laughter again and fell to the ground, clutching his stomach and gasping for breath.. I looked at my hands, now covered in tape, and looked back at Niall. A devilish grin spread across my face as I ran to the door and stuck as many pieces of tape on him as I could. He stood and looked down at his shirt, and I bit my lip to stifle my laughter.