the royal family of the music industry

26. Cruel Summer

Niall Horan, 2021

"Taylor." James finishes and then the video is over.

Niall stares at his phone.

Did he really just say that?

He probably panicked because he almost let the word Louis slip his mouth and then he would have been in big trouble but saying Taylor?

Outing Larry is one thing but outing Haylor?

First of all, Niall can't imagine that there are actually people who ship them and second of all, now the internet is panicking.

So Niall panics as well.

He needs to protect the Larries from heartbreak as quickly as possible. He needs to jump into rescue. Be their hero. He's seen people call him "Captain Niall" on Tiktok and he's proudly fulfilling his jobs at sailing the ship, he thinks to himself.

So he really panics because he just posts his location.

Modern problems require modern solutions and Niall can do that.

After he's done, he just walks back over to the rest and now he has to wait.

"I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you." All six of them sing loudly together.

"And I snuck in through the garden gate every night that summer just to seal my fate. And I screamed for whatever it's worth" Taylor sings alone and then,

"I LOVE YOU AIN'T THAT THE WORST THING YOU EVER HEARD."
Harry and Louis stood up and scream the lyric at each other on top of their lungs, making Niall smile while he sits back down next to Olivia.

"He looks up grinning like a devil-"

And oh. oh.

Harry just dropped to his knees to sing that lyric.

That's not what Niall had in mind tweeting their location.

He had in mind that there will be fans just far enough away to get some blurry pictures since there are of course bodyguard surrounding them but still leaving room for privacy and letting the seven of them pretend they're not even there. What he didn't have in mind is Louis pulling Harry up with him and dragging him away, into the woods.

"Are you actually gonna fuck out here in the cold now? You're going to die of hypothermia." Liam asks.

"Not fuck. Just, you know, make out a little and dance, watch the stars."

Taylor makes gagging noises and Louis just smiles cutely putting his middle finger up and proceeding to pull Harry away.

Shit.

So this plan didn't work out.

Niall bites his lip in defeat and suddenly feels Taylor's head on his shoulder.

"Is it about Brandon?" She asks quietly, so quietly that the others can't hear her. Olivia and Conan are busy listening to Liam tell stories about One Direction anyway.

"Kind of." Niall mumbles back and it truly isn't a lie.

He doesn't even know what he felt for him since he really thought he was straight until a few days ago but he felt something.
Maybe it was just the complete feeling of happiness inside him that day because the contract had ended and with it a lot of misery and unfairness (hopefully). Maybe he had just felt free and unstoppable and let himself get carried away in that feeling. Not able to differentiate childish liberty from butterflies.

When Brandon had kissed him, he doesn't remember to have felt butterflies. More like shock and something so new and so many thoughts. It hadn't been the feeling of his brain being empty, all of his thoughts swept away and body on fire, which is the feeling he gets when he kisses someone he really likes for the first time.