Perfect || Niall Horan

|3|

I took a deep breath as Niall continued to stare at me. I didn’t even get to know what Parker was calling about in the first place.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked. I forced a smile and nodded.

“I’m fine, why?”

“No you’re not,” he called me out, still sporting that inscrutable look on his face. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing,” I told him. “Really, I’m fine.”

He didn’t seem to believe me, but he let it go.

“So,” he said, walking around my room and looking at things while I remained seated. “Who is this boyfriend of yours exactly?”

I rolled my eyes. “Niall, you don’t need to go all big brother on me here.”

“I’m not, I’m not, but I do expect to meet him,” he reasoned. I bit my lower lip. A million little red flags went up in my head as his words hung in the air. That was probably the worst idea I had ever heard in my entire life.

Every single person I knew thought it was a mistake to date Parker. Niall was undoubtedly the most protective of me out of all of them, and I was sure he'd have the same opinion as everyone else. Nobody understood. Then again, if I could expect anyone to comprehend my emotions it would be Niall. He had the ability read me like an open book. He always could.

“We’ll see,” I told him, afraid of his reaction to a definite no. If I’m lucky, he would forget about it and wouldn’t remember until after he’d left for his next tour or wherever he was headed. Still, I knew how unlikely that would be. I knew he wouldn't let this go until he approved who I was dating.

That had never actually happened before. I’d had my fair share of boyfriends throughout the years. Niall met all of them with the exception of Parker, and he hadn’t accepted a single one of them. None of them had been quite like Parker in the way that they treat me, which only made me absolutely positive that he wouldn’t be receiving Niall’s stamp of approval anytime soon. Niall’s opinion never stopped me from dating anyone, but he always had a way of strongly influencing my mentality, no matter what the subject.

Hopefully he wouldn’t try and do that to me with Parker.

“Tell me about him,” Niall insisted. “You’ve never mentioned him before.”

“Well,” I sighed, not really sure how to start. “His name is Parker. He….he helps me be a better person.”

Niall gave me a strange look as if I just told him I eat dog food for breakfast.

“What?”

“Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. Can we talk about something else?” I asked.

Usually I would be dying to tell Niall all about my current relationship. This time was different. My relationship with Parker was just different. Not that anyone else understood that.