Like Before (Niall Horan)

Chapter Twelve: Can I Tell You A Secret

"Thats cheating!" Tia whined at Jaesin as he bumped her piece back to start. We were all sitting around playing Sorry waiting for the boys of One Direction to get here. Tia still didn't know so the surprise would work. They were staying for a week this time and the day they left marked exactly two weeks to my birthday.

"Its not cheating, your piece just happened to be where my piece wants to be." Jaesin reasoned with Tia. They kept going back and forth about it until we heard a knock on the door. I looked through the peephole and saw a familiar mess of curly hair. They would put him at the front.

"Tia, its for you." I called to her before I opened the door.

"Who is it?" She asked walking towards me.

"Open the door and find out." She shrugged at me and turned the doorknob and then the only thing I could hear was a piercing scream and Tia call out to Harry. We all were grinning as we saw how happy Tia was.

"I knew you'd come back." Tia told Harry as he was holding her in his arms.

"Of course. I couldn't leave my favorite little girl alone for long." Harry grinned at Tia and she wrapped her arms around him again before making her way through all five boys. Then she came to me and hugged me.

"Thank you Alix." She told me and I smiled at her.

"Anything for you." I told her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. I watched as Harry went over and gave Steph a hug that lasted a little bit longer than any other friend hug I've ever seen and kissed her cheek. Even when he stopped hugging her, his arm was still around her shoulders. I could see a faint blush on her cheeks and was about to say something when I felt arms wrap around me and I was being spun in a circle. 

When the culprit put me down I turned and hit whoever it was in the chest before I looked at their face. Blue eyes met mine and I heard him chuckling at me. I took in his blonde hair with the darker roots and his grinning face. "Hello Alix." He finally spoke and that set off something in my stomach. I'd call them my butterflies but it felt more like a bunch of dragons flying around down there. 

Fire. 

Everyone knows where thats going.

"Hey." I said through gritted teeth. "Was that really necessary?" I asked.

"Well," Niall started and he grinned down at me. "Yeah, it really was." I looked back over to Steph and Harry and saw her grinning with almost tomato red cheeks.

"Harry Styles, what are you doing to my best friend?" I asked and he looked over at me. 

"What do you mean?" He asked and crinkled his eyebrows together. He really is clueless. Wow. 

"I mean, have you seen her face lately? You couldn't even tell the difference between her and a tomato if you tried right now." Steph glared at me and I held back my laughter. Harry looked at her and smiled.

"I quite fancy her blush." Harry grinned and Steph's cheeks went a darker shade of red. "Its adorable really."

"Well then she must be very, very adorable right now." I couldn't hide my laughter any longer. Steph was still glaring at me and I knew she was going to murder me the second we were out of their vision.

"I'm starving. What have you got to eat around here?" Niall asked from beside me.

"Maybe you and Alix could go into the kitchen and cook something again. Since we all know how that turned out." Steph said.

"Whatever. Lets go." I told Niall and we both walked into the kitchen. "What do you guys feel like?"

"Lasagna!" Tia screeched as she ran into the kitchen. "I wanna help too!"