Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Niall

There was something about Liam's flat that felt far more like home than any flat Niall and Chloe had lived in. He didn't really get it, didn't truly understand what it was that made Liam's home feel more welcoming than his own, but he was starting to feel like maybe he knew the answer. Though the answer currently felt like a massive fucking joke, given that: a) despite whatever bullshit he'd said to Liam, things had maybe never been less okay between them, and b) Liam was miles away. Hundreds, if not thousands of miles away.

Home might be where the heart was, or whatever the stupid proverb actually was, but when your heart belonged to a twat who was currently travelling all over, where the fuck was home supposed to be?

Niall knew, though. He did. Or at least, he thought he maybe did. To him, home felt like that ridiculously ostentatious apartment in Central London, the one that was full of Liam's belongings, full of Liam, with sheets that smelt like him and his t-shirts that Niall definitely didn't fall asleep with his face hidden in.

Home used to be a cramped flat in a rundown estate, a studio apartment on the outskirts of London before that, or house in Wolverhampton, but two out of three had never truly felt like home and Wolverhampton had only ever been his home because that's where Liam had been. Niall had thought this through before, countless times since Liam had given him that key, making it officially his home and Chloe's, and now Niall finally felt like taking him up on that offer. Home was wherever Liam was and it felt like Liam wasn't so far away when Niall was surrounded by his belongings, and, when Sam had asked where he was taking them, the words had fallen out of his mouth before he'd even realised. "Home...take us- Take us to Liam's."

He hadn't told Liam that they were there, hadn't wanted to have to explain why, hadn't wanted to open up that particular can of worms, though Liam had to have figured it out. Sam would have told Paddy or someone who'd've told Liam, and Chloe had Skyped him a couple of times and it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out where they were. He hadn't told Liam. Which was a first. Excluding the existence of Chloe — though there was a very good reason in recent history for that — there weren't many things he hadn't told Liam, and it felt weird to keep even something so simple from him. Though...there was one other thing he wasn't telling Liam. And that was mainly because it wasn't something you just blurted out over the phone, otherwise he'd have said something.

Well...probably. He'd probably have said something. If things weren't so rocky between them and he didn't want to make any of it worse, he'd have almost definitely said something. That might make him seem slightly hypocritical, given that things were rocky because Liam had essentially done what Niall was doing, but Niall had the high ground. He did. And he didn't know how to make it so that they were on equal ground once more. Especially given that the latest hurdle they were stuck on happened to be Chloe's birthday. Niall had known that Liam wouldn't have been able to be there, but he'd so wanted him to be and Chloe had too, but it had been impossible. No one was technically in the wrong there, but they were still stuck in a sort of limbo.

A limbo where they spoke to each other but didn't at the same time, where they were silent and awkward when all Niall wanted to do was tell Liam he loved him and stop keeping a secret from him. Sam knew, embarrassingly enough. The body guard that followed Niall around like a lost puppy knew before Liam did, and that truth made Niall want to scream. But telling Sam had been unavoidable. Sam had collected him from the shop, supposed to take him from there to Chloe's swim class, but he'd had to stop, had to at least know, and he'd had to tell Sam why they were making a late evening stop at the nearest Boots.

He'd wanted to do this without the extra shadow, but Sam had been there, awkwardly making eye contact and trailing Niall around as he picked up a box of pregnancy tests, heading to the checkouts and grabbing a book for Chloe at the last minute, a cheap paperback being sold for a quid, making the contents of the carrier bag seem less conspicuous. He'd had Sam take him home and then had sent him away, sent him to take Chloe swimming so that he could have privacy, but Sam still hadn't managed to master the art of pretending to see nothing.