A New Love

Fifteen

I unlocked the front door and let Niall inside. He had been bugging me about coming over to use the basketball court and we had finally made plans.

He adjusted his basketball shorts. "What's up?" he chucks the basketball in his hands at me. "Catch."

I ducked and it bounced past me. "Dude!"

He shrugged as he closed the door. "I told you to catch."

I rolled my eyes and went to grab the ball. "After you chucked it at my face."

"So how have you been?"

"I've been okay," I told him.

He lifted a brow. "How's Alex?"

"He's doing well, I suppose. What is this an inquisition?" I made a face.

"Just curious." He sat on the couch.

"Harry talked to you, didn't he?"

"No... should he have?" he replied a little to nonchalantly.

I gave him a dirty look. Harry definitely told Niall what happened.

He sighed. "Okay, he might have mentioned something to me."

Of course he did. They were friends, too. "Please keep your mouth shut," I pointed a finger at him. "I don't need anyone else to fuck this up further then it already is."

He threw his hands up. "Nothing is coming out of me." He paused and bit his lip, like he was struggling to keep his big fat mouth shut.

"Spit it out, Niall."

"No offense," he said quickly, holding his hands up, "but I kind of saw this coming."

I placed my hands on my hips. "Excuse me."

"Look, I remember when we started college and you said you didn't want to be in a relationship because you wanted to be able to have a lot of new experiences without being tied down with any potential boyfriend drama," he droned. "That is why I was surprised when you agreed to go on multiple dates with Alex."

"Joy convinced me to," I replied. "At first I was just having fun. I didn't think it was going anywhere. I think I just stayed with him by default because I had invested so much time into him"

"And you were right," he pointed out. "Almost five months later and it hasn't gone anywhere. You're stuck between wanting to love him and loving the idea of being in love with him."

"When did guys become such good advice givers," I joked.

"We aren't always headasses."

"Doesn't seem like it," I grumbled.

"Ah, who am I kidding. We are ninety percent headasses," he relented.

I walked into the kitchen and grabbed my reusable water bottle from the fridge. "Do you need any?"

"Nah, I'm good. Enough talking. Let's go play."

I tried to block Niall from making a shot but failed miserably, my fingers only grazing his gray muscle tee. I didn't even bother looking back to see if he made it. I bent over with my hands on my knees as I struggled to catch my breath. I wasn't the most athletic person in the world and it had been a while since I had played. "I'm out," I wheezed. "No more."