Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Forty-Eight

Liam

"It's Christmas!"

Liam couldn't help but grin as he opened the door and Chloe flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he caught her, spinning her around in the hallway before he set her down her. "It sure is, Chlo."

"It's our Christmas anyway, Chlo. It's not properly Christmas until Friday." Giving Chloe a fond smile, Niall followed her inside, shaking his head as she rolled her eyes at him before he looked up at Liam, giving him a smile and reaching up and kissing his cheek before he said, "Happy Christmas."

"And the same to you." Liam was about to lean in and kiss Niall when Chloe interrupted them, shouting triumphantly, "So it is Christmas! You both just said."

Niall sighed in response to Chloe, shaking his head and smiling at her enthusiasm, picking her coat up off of the floor from where she'd dropped it and hanging it up before doing the same with his own. Giving Chloe the bag of last-minute Christmassy things they'd brought with them, he waited until she'd headed into the living room with the bag, in search of Loki, before he turned back to Liam and reached up and kissed him, giving him a grin before asking, "Ready for Christmas? Then let the madness commence."

"Let's do this." Laughing, Liam glanced down the hallway to where Loki could be heard barking, sharing a look with Niall before he went after Chloe, hesitating in the doorway for a second until Niall caught up, both of them watching Chloe for a second as she wrapped a stray string of tinsel left out from Liam's earlier foray into boxes of Christmas decorations his parents had donated to him years ago around Loki's collar, pulling out his phone and handing it to Niall for him to take a picture as he ventured further into the room, bending down so he was Chloe's height and ruffling Loki's fur as he said, "I don't think he likes being Santa's little helper, Chlo."

"He looks cute, though." Sitting back on her heels, Chloe shrugged, tucking the tinsel around Loki's collar one last time before she pulled out another string of tinsel and turned on Liam, giggling as he back away from her. "It's either you or the tree. What do you think, Dad?"

"Oh, I think Liam would look very pretty in tinsel, Chlo. But maybe, just maybe, we should leave the tinsel for the tree." Giving Liam a hand up, Niall ignored the nervous look that flashed briefly across Liam's face when he handed him his phone back, making a mental note to ask him about it later, instead pulling over one of the boxes and setting it in front of Liam, giving him a grin as he said, "Best we get started, right?"

It took them a while, but they got the tree set up and most of the tinsel wrapped around it. Chloe had wrapped a few strings of glittery golden material around herself and had looped a few strings around Niall and Liam to match her and Loki, wanting to do the same with the fairy lights until Niall had had to put his foot down. The fairy lights ended up both strung around the tree and looped over the curtain rail in front of the balcony windows, casting a soft glow around the room. Liam had set his iPod on the dock and had Christmas songs playing in the background, prompting what he chose to call award-winning renditions of holiday classics that had Chloe giggling and Niall rolling his eyes, a fond smile on his face nonetheless.

The baubles and other decorations took them even longer to hang on the tree, being hung on and taken off at least twice whilst Chloe deliberated over the best way to arrange them, the seven-year-old finally settling on an order based on colour and size, taking her time and revelling in the fact that, for the first time ever, she was allowed to decorate the Christmas tree as she chose, not according to how Theo wanted or the scheme Denise and Greg had already picked out, her decision-making process giving Niall and Liam time to make hot chocolate and find a packet of gingerbread biscuits, both of which Liam had bought specially, reappearing just as Chloe had made her final decision.