Paper Houses **N.H**

Chapter 23

Evelyn's POV-

Because we were leaving the next day, my dad instructed us to make sure we went to bed early. I guess he wanted us to get home before too late, which I guess made sense. He hated driving at night. However, it might have just been my anxiety from him seeing Niall and I making out and him touching me, but I felt like since then my dad had been acting a little off. I felt like in his mind, lines were crossed that shouldn't have been. If only he had heard some of the conversations Niall and I had shared together, he would have definitely been mad. But we're in our twenties, could he blame us for making out?

We were just two kids looking for the same thing in life, something that seemed impossible-love. And now that we had found it, if it was even love, it wasn't like we could just let go of it.

Mr. Horan and my dad had made sure that Niall and I were in our own individual tents before they turned in. I didn't think they knew we had been sleeping together, but maybe they had? I don't know, everything just felt off tonight.

After awhile of laying in my own sleeping bag, I heard the zipper on my tent slowly open.

"Hey" Niall whispered. "Come on"

"Huh?" I raised up. "Where?"

"Shh, and we're going to the waterfall"

Quietly, I got up and climbed out of my tent, carefully walking behind him in a way the leaves wouldn't crunch under my feet.

"Niall" I hissed. "It's dark out, we're not actually going to the waterfall, are we?"

He grabbed my hand, guiding me as we continued to walk. "You don't want to go?"

"I, mean, I do, but, like...now?"

"When else do you want go?" he asked.

"I don't know..." my voice trailed off.

"Exactly" he laughed, now a little louder since we had gotten pretty far from the tents. "It's not like we can go tomorrow, we're leaving at an ungodly hour"

I tried to keep up as he ran down the side of the lake through the woods. I felt a briar tear into my leg a little, but it wasn't that bad through my sweatpants. 

Only a couple minutes later, I could hear the water from the falls crashing down into the lake. It wasn't super big, but by far the largest one I had ever seen in person. We only had tiny ones around the creeks where we lived, that I wasn't even sure would be considered an actual waterfall. It was hard to imagine just two days ago we had hiked to the top of it, having a completely different view.

Once at the boulders by the edge of the lake, he stopped and kicked off his shoes, setting them on top of the rock. I watched as he pulled off his shirt, tossing it on top of his shoes.

"What?" he turned, catching my staring eyes.

"Nothing" my face flushed. 

He smirked and rolled his eyes, flipping his cap forward, which had been sitting backwards on his head.

I stood in my sweatpants and T-Shirt, trying not to watch him pulled down his shorts to his ankles. I knew he was wearing boxers, but it felt like I wasn't supposed to look either way.

After stretching, he ran into the water, splashing it up and falling in once it got past his knees. Laughing, he looked up at me.

"You coming?" he called.

"Uhm"

There was no way I was going in in my sweatpants...

"Here" he turned around. "I won't look"