In Other Words (Niall Fanfic)

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Four 

Roxy’s POV

I was missing the crap out of my boyfriend. But at the same time, I was really taking advantage of not having to consider anyone else’s schedule.

During the work-week, I was on fire.  When my relationship with Niall first became public knowledge, I did my very best to avoid the topic all-together, in my professional life at least. Now, I’ve learned to work with my “title”, not against it.  I’m definitely not the type that would exploit my relationship, but if someone else brings it up, and it gets me a couple of high-profile handshakes, I don’t see anything wrong.  My hard work and a little luck o’ the Irish has made me the top fundraiser in my company. Niall seems to think I’ve hit the glass ceiling, and that I should be contemplating my next move, but that’s easy for him to say. At this point, I am just thankful to be employed doing something worthwhile, and that I’m keeping extra busy while he’s out of town.

The weekends, though. That was a different story.  I woke up late. I took long showers and changed into fresh pajamas afterward. I put on five pounds. At night, I hung around the local bars where I chatted up strangers. I was just an anonymous mildly-funny girl with a strange accent. I chilled with my brother and his friends. I had time to cook.

I still thought about him all the time, but only a small fraction of that time was spent moping around because he was gone.  I might have felt differently if he was totally unavailable, but after about a month, we had established a pretty good routine. We talked a couple times per day, always favoring a phone call or Skype chat over text messaging, and neither of us went to sleep without the other saying goodnight.

And we always sent pictures of our food.

Every so often, Ni would have me open a folder on the flash drive. I’d made my way through about half the files already. I wish my calendar was equally as marked off.  One day, as I was getting around to doing some laundry and tidying up my apartment, he called.

“Having a rough one, babe.” He said.

Niall’s POV

I was relieved when she answered the phone. I didn’t even bother with a hello. “Having a rough one babe.” I said. She turned down the music she had playing. I flopped onto the bed and tucked the overly-fluffy pillow under my head.

“Wanna talk about it?” she said. 

I didn’t really want to, but I knew that I should. Our schedule had gotten more and more demanding over the past couple of days. I hadn’t been getting very much sleep, and it felt like a large portion of my day was spent worrying about our safety and the safety of our fans. Being in a big city just left so much up to uncertainty, and it made me really, really anxious.  And tonight, I snapped.

Earlier we gathered in Zayn’s room, everyone agreeing on what the plan would be for the evening. We learned early on that it was best not to go out in one big group, but we were always certain to make sure everyone was accounted for.  A couple years back, there was a bit of a snafu when I was left behind at an arcade in China. 

For some reason, as we left the hotel, game plan in place, Liam decided he had changed his mind and was going to meet up with Lou and Harry instead of going to catch a movie with Zayn and I. Which would have been fine, except Louis and Harry’s car was long gone, and there were a few hundred people outside our hotel, the noise level increasing and the camera flashes blinding me as we stepped through the glass doors. 

“Liam.” I called as he took off down the steps.

“Where’s he off to?” Zayn said.

I called again, and he turned. I watched my footing as I went down the marble stairs, not wanting to land on my ass. “Ya can’t just take off, man.” I said loudly into his ear. I couldn’t even be sure if he heard me. It felt like the air was getting thinner, and I started to sweat. I needed to get into a car and away from this crowd. Liam turned to continue off to wherever it was he thought he was going, and I caught him by his elbow.