Secret Love Story (narry) (boyxboy)

Chapter 4

Niall's phone dinged twice, notifying him of an incoming message. He couldn't get to it though.

... Because his over bearing and hair obsessed cousin was busy 'vamping' his hair. She had two combs in sticking in her messy mousy brown hair and a brush grasped firmly by her teeth.

Niall couldn't help thinking how unattractive her hair was for a beautician.

A maniacal look was in her eyes as she stared at Niall's poor hair like it was her latest victim. In retrospect it was, she had already gotten her hands on the hair of everyone in his house and styled them with her weird new creations. Even the dog that he was watching for a neighbor was not spared.

Clare held a limp strand hair and doused it in hairspray.

"I'm telling you Ni, before long I will be working with the best of the best. I don't have my sights set on styling the stars, but it is always good to keep one's mind open." She muffled out her dreams, her raccoon eye makeup convincing Niall more and more that there was something mentally wrong with his cousin.

"Uh huh, have you ever thought of ... I don't know ... seeing a doctor?" Niall cautiously questioned.

"What for? I'm the image of perfect health." She grinned at him in the mirror, showing her full teeth. Her incisors had gone brown; she had accidentally sprayed herself in the mouth.

"Clare you do know that my hair is dyed blond right?"

"Yeah, so?"

Niall was saved from answering when a deep raspy voice he knew from anywhere interrupted them.

"Niall why does your dog look like it's contemplating suicide under that mullet?" Harry voice came before the man himself appeared. He had on his usual uniform of black skinny jeans and black shirt under a black jacket. Yet Niall was convinced he looked better than he did when he last saw him.

"Clare got to him. Who wouldn't contemplate suicide if Clare got her hands of destruction on your hair ... or fur?"

Clare slapped Niall lightly and he was sure it would have been painful if her eyes were trained on Harry in awe. Harry always received appreciative glances from women when he was in public but this time, it seemed that his mane of hair was what held Clare's admiration.

"God Harold, your hair is like the messiah to all beauticians out there. Please, Please I beg of you let me get my hands on those bountiful beautiful locks of yours." Clare said in reverence

"Um Clare if my hair is the messiah to all the beauticians then you are the anti Christ to all those with hair. I will have you nowhere near my hair." Harry drawled slowly with a lazy smile.

Clare pouted heavily, which looked a bit odd on someone who was dressed like a punk and heavily adorned in black makeup. Harry countered by making a cross with his ringed index fingers.

Clare flipped him the bird and went to causing havoc on the hair strands atop Niall's head. It was so funny watching how easily Niall's family had immediately ushered Harry into their circle and saw him as family. In fact they loved Harry more than their own kin, Niall.

"I was wondering why you didn't answer my message, but I see Clare the hair destroyer got her hands on you. Why would you let her style you?"

Niall sighed heavily and gestured with his eyes to the duck tap that was holding him prisoner in his chair. Harry belted out a laugh when he saw Niall's predicament. Niall's heart warmed at the sound.

Oh how much he had missed that sound. It was like music to his ears.

Niall tried to ignore what the dimpled grin was doing to him and focus on what was going on atop his head. Clare had put his short hair in three clips and doused them in hairspray that turned brown when it dried. She would part a little hair from each bound hair bundle and pleat it in the middle but leaving spaces at the side. She would then tie the tufts of hair sticking out on the side of his head in colorful child's hair ties.

He didn't know what Clare was trying to do, but he knew he was going to have no hair after she was done with him.

"Is Clare the only one here?" Harry asked. His lanky reflection was leaned against the doorway of the spare room there were in.

Niall's family always had an open door policy. And by open door they literally meant keeping the door open. There was no point in closing doors at Horan houses because there was always a constant flow of relatives and friends coming in and going out. The minute Niall moved in there were people already coming to see him. His house had been teeming with people to the brim. They turned the place up side down; the Horans had never been tidy people. And there was raucous laughter and screamed jokes within the house from the moment he signed the lease agreement. It had gotten so bad that a neighbor threatened to call the police, but Niall managed to get him to relent on his threat by promising to look after his precious dog when he went to work

When Harry announced that he was coming, Niall managed to bribe most of his relatives out of his house with food. It wasn't just him that suffered from a large appetite. It has been a Horan curse for past generations. It was rumored it started with an ancestor of theirs that stole pot pie from a leprechaun and forever cursed his offspring to have a deathly appetite for anything edible.

"I think Deo is at the back somewhere. I left him smoking pot." Niall answered with a shrug.

"Deo does pot?"

"Apparently. I suspect its peer pressure though. I don't particularly like the crowd he is hanging with but I have no say it so I told him he could not smoke it on my property so he wondered off somewhere."

"He is a big boy. I' m sure he know what he is doing."

"Well I hope you are right. He got a scholarship to go study in Australia. If he gets caught or distracted he could lose it."

Harry gave Niall a light laugh. He stepped forward and extending his hand to Niall exposed shoulder, he was wearing a vest, gave it a comforting squeeze and looked hard into Niall's worried gaze. "He will be fine. Besides some people need to learn about life by messing up first."

Niall was about to voice something but the burn of Harry's hand distracted him so much that all he could feel and process were five fingers clasping his bare pale shoulder. He felt blood rush to his face and was quite sure that the 2 in the room noticed it but he couldn't give a damn rat's ass at that moment because all he could feel was that warm hand on his shoulder.

Speak of the devil, Deo drifted into the room, a cloud of pot and recklessness surrounding him. Niall felt worried for his cousin but tried to get reassurance from what Harry said.

"Hazza, my man! You didn't tell me you were going to be here!" Deo shouted and leaped on Harry like a frog onto a bug. He wound his arms around Harry's torso and burrowed into his neck like a five year with a dopey grin plastered on his flushed face.

Harry patted Deo greasy hair soothingly, with a gentle smile and a greeting on his lips.

Clare finally let Niall go with a satisfied huff and a preservation of her 'latest masterpiece' in the form of a picture. She went and joined Harry and Deo on the doorway. The two were engrossed in discussing the latest music on the charts.

"Hey do you guys know that Bruno Mars is playing in the park opposite Dublin hotel t'nite? Clare butted in. Her mother would have cringed at her bad manners if she was there, but since she wasn't there, Niall cringed on her behalf.

"Oh cool! We can totally go and jam out t'nite since Niall kicked all of us out for the month." Deo sniffed with an air of hurt, but Niall doubted it was genuine considering the speculative glance he threw at Niall afterwards.

"Why did you kick them out?" Harry asked, amused by what was taking place before him.

"Besides the fact that there were noisy, messy, never let me get any sleep, made my place smell like a sty, got me stuck sitting a dog and got me on bad terms with my neighbors, I wanted to hang out with you without them trying to steal you. I swear if they could turn you into a Horan they would. Especially G'amma and me mum, they have it so bad for you." Niall tried finishing with a joke, trying to mask the hidden meaning behind wanting an empty house.

From the glint in Harry's eyes, Niall knew that Harry understood what he was trying to say.

They needed to talk. And it would be better if there was no one to witness it at all