Crash Love (A Niall Horan Fanfic)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Two weeks later

New Hampshire, USA

"This is slightly out of your budget range," the real estate lad named Gordon, who's a young-ish, slightly overweight guy with jet black hair and eyes too close together. He seems nice enough though. Very friendly and warm. He seems to know loads of stuff about real estate and isn't shy to open his mouth.

As the cab pulls up outside the beautiful cream building with bright blue shutters, hope builds in my chest. We've been looking for the past 4 days and completely exhausted every option in my budget range in a 10 kilometre radius of Dartmouth's campus. Almost every house I've looked at is either somewhat decent but needs a lot of repair work that would be way too expensive for me to handle or downright unhabitable.

"It's a pretty decent neighborhood, if you don't mind a lot of retirees. Quite boring, if you shall. It's quiet. This is generally a area for better well-off so you won't have as many disturbances you have at the student centred areas we've looked at before," Gordon says with a grin as I pay the cab driver. "I happen to know this building has only one student going to a different university so I don't think you'll encounter much uni all-nighters."

"That's great," I say enthusiastically. It was a rather small building with only 6 stories and ivy climbing up the walls reminding me of the buildings in Paris. The upkeep was impeccable with a green lawn and beautiful flowers blooming and plenty of trees. It was very picturesque.

Please be nice, please be nice, I beg as we walk into the empty lobby through the giant French doors.

"No receptionist and no security guard but there are CCTVs at the entrance and all the hallways," Gordon reports. As he presses the button for the lift, he consults a piece of paper. "It used to be a bakery back in the late nineties. The apartments are quite large for a one-person stay and maybe you could have a guest on the sofa bed but I think you're going to like this one."

I nod as we walk into the lift. 

"It's quite modern here, much of the wiring has been replaced and renewed but they kept the original lift, thus the slightly creaky vintage model you have here," he says. "The neighbors are very friendly and most are retired and about eighty. No worries about rowdy overnighters. The apartment is at the top floor and has a rather big balcony, which faces out to the park behind the building. People who stay here have been here for years, real experts. You could milk their knowledge on the neighborhood if you like."

I smile. As the doors open on the sixth floor, it's extremely promising. The hallways are not claustrophobic, at least with a thin carpet and fresh mint paint on the walls with vintage wall lighting.  Gordon goes to the very end of the hallway to the door marked 6D and opens it with a vintage brass key.

He opens the door and lets me in and I grin. It's amazing. It's quite perfect for one. It's completely empty, of course but I can already imagine exactly where I would put all my stuff. It opens up into a big room that is both kitchen and living. The living room's painted a pale eggshell with high ceilings and a mish-mash of brick walls with dark wooden beams. There's a window seat by the giant windows that let in the beautiful evening sun.

It's got two rooms, one slightly bigger than the other with an en-suite bathroom. It's huge as bathrooms go, with a vintage bath and toilet and sink with beautiful mosaic tiles and like the entire apartment, it's airy and open.

There's big windows everywhere letting in beautiful sunshine and they look out into a gorgeous green park with kids running around a small pond. 

"I love it," I breathe as I walk out through the sliding doors to the giant balcony. I slide my fingers over the top of the rustic brick wall and breathe the beautiful scent of autumn with the sweetness of some sort of fruit and crackly leaves.