Daytona Baby [N.H]

22

Niall Horan

"Hi."

That one word from Liv's soft lips while she stood at my door in her bare feet and over-sized tee shirt just proved even more that I don't deserve her.

As much as I've been trying to convince myself otherwise, she's more than just a distraction.

She's more than just a good fuck.

It kills me to know she heard that. To know how bad it hurt her. Liv has such a tough exterior but I know on the inside she's more delicate than she ever lets people see.

I think that's what makes this so difficult for me. The fact that I hurt her and she still showed up at my door, willing to move on...I deserved much worse for what I said. For what I did. For who I am.

But I'm selfish. I want to completely indulge in all she has to offer—which is more than I could ever ask for. Maybe I'm playing a dangerous game, letting her so close to the disaster called my life. If she got caught up in this I'd never forgive myself.

That's why, despite my desires, I need to keep her at a safe distance. We can fuck around, have fun, spend time together, but there's a line I just can't afford to cross.

Her words from this morning still rang through my head.

"Forgive me for fucking caring about you."

I never thought I'd hear those words from her lips. Or anyone's for that matter. I told her that she shouldn't. Because it's true, she shouldn't give a fuck about a guy like me.

But I really just wanted to say that I care about her too.

And that's why we would never work. People like me don't get to care for people like her. She has a life to go back to outside of this, I don't have a life at all. My life hasn't been my own since I was sixteen.

But I finally have something else keeping me up at night other than my own mistakes—someone with intoxicating brown eyes and an infectious smile.

I somehow convinced Liv to have a few more drinks with me, telling her she can't be hungover in the morning if she's still drunk. She asked me if that's how I've made it this far in life, and honestly, yes.

And I'm not sure how this came to be, but now we're sitting on opposite ends of my hotel floor, tossing grapes into each other's mouths off a fruit platter I got brought up.

"That's it—you're missing on purpose," I started to tease her after she hit my forehead for the third time in a row. I grabbed it off the floor in front of me and popped it in my mouth anyways.

Liv's laugh filled the room, "Well you keep moving!" She tried to defend her awful aim.

"You just don't want to admit that I'm better than you," I provoked her even further causing her to whip one really hard at me, hitting my neck like a bullet. "Hey!"

"Shut up! Let me try again," Liv whined, crawling forward to grab another grape off the platter and returning to her cross-legged position on the floor.

"Alright, last try." I said. I opened my mouth, tilting my head back slightly and watched as Liv bit her bottom lip while she aimed. I did my best to keep my head as still as I could so she wouldn't have any argument when she missed, and sure enough, the grape hit my forehead again and landed somewhere beside me.

My laughter finally erupted, seeing her face drop in disappointment, which quickly turned to frustration. Within a second she was crawling onto my lap and angrily shoving grapes into my mouth while I tried to control my laughter.