PERIPHERY | NH |

FIFTEEN

Hunter

"So what's going on with you and Niall?"

Zeke's voice pulls me from the book my nose has been buried in for the last twenty minutes as he comes in the door of the studio, making me put the picture of Cooper and I into the pages before placing it on the table.

"I don't really know." A long sigh falls from my lips as I glance at him. "We were fine and then all of a sudden he doesn't really talk to me anymore. I thought we were friends, good friends."

Which was true.

Although I knew whatever ran between us went deeper than that. It was clear after I stayed at his place, when he held me in his kitchen and my lips left gentle kisses along his skin, that there was more to whatever Niall and I were that either of us would let on.

"Have you tried to talk to him about it?" Pulling out his computer, he glances at me sideways as he powers it on and sits it on the table.

"If you count unanswered texts, then yeah." Rolling my eyes I try not to think about the way Niall had stopped responding to the nightly pictures of my books and wine. "I hate it because I feel like we got along really well and I don't know what's going on with him."

I tried to keep everything as normal as possible when I left his place, giving myself just the smallest time to freak out about what I would have let him do if I had let my guard down just the slightest bit.

Anything.

Niall could have done anything to me that night and I would have thanked him for it.

After my date with Milo was when it seemed like Niall started pulling away from me, something that has left me confused for almost three weeks at this point. I'd never gotten the chance to tell him about the date I went on — the only one I've been on.

Thinking about going on another date made my stomach churn knowing that after that night I knew that the only person I wanted to spend time like that with was, in fact, Niall.

Trying to keep the way I had grown to feel about him at bay was useless, truly and utterly useless.

Typing away on his computer, Zeke stops to look up at me. "He hasn't really talked to me very much either, always seems to be in a bad mood."

"He didn't seem to be in a bad mood when he was on that date with the blonde girl.." My voice comes out low, but it's still loud enough to hear which makes Zeke's head snap up.

"You heard about that?"

"It was all over twitter and wherever else.." Standing up to grab my coffee, I turned away from him hoping he wouldn't be able to read the expression on my face. "So yeah.. I saw it."

Why did it feel like someone had gutted me when I did see it?

Pictures of Niall and the gorgeous blonde laughing were all over my timeline, each time I saw another picture it was like a reminder of what I wanted but would never have.

Closing my eyes, I let myself think back to the night at his house..

How his fingertips, scarred  from years of playing guitar, felt against my skin. The way I could feel his pulse under my lips as he tried to pull me even closer than we already were.

Niall was the man who could be your friend first and your lover after, someone who could turn any bad day into a good one no matter the circumstances.

He deserves to be happy even if he realizes that I'm not the person he could be happy with.