The Runaway Bride (a Niall Horan fanfic)

Early Bird, Morning Worm

Chapter 8 - Early Bird, Morning Worm

**Niall’s point of view**

I was sitting in the living room of the cottage I shared with the boys’ in the early morning, a little past six. I had been having a restless sleep and I’d just given up trying altogether and went out, making myself some tea and flip through the channels on the telly, keeping the volume low so I wouldn’t wake up the rest of the boys. Well wake up Liam actually, the rest were dead as fuck when they slept.

I had reached my half cup when I heard the door open and a few seconds later, Ree peaked in. Her hair cascaded down her shoulders, still a bit messy from the sleep, cheeks rosy from the morning cold. She had on a big grey New York hoodie and red plaid boxers, white chucks on her feet and a camera around her neck.

She grins at me. “Heya, morning worm.”

“Morning worm?” I question and chuckle, shaking my head. It’s like everything she says was funny and amusing to me.

“Yeah, I think I’ve had less sleep than you had so I’m the early bird and you’re the morning worm,” she explains in a light tone, sitting beside me on the couch, close enough that I could catch her scent, something like lavander mixed with the morning dew kind of smell of the morning. She smelled nice. As weird as that sounded.

“Oh yeah? Wanna bet?” I challenge, smirking at her. The mood of the conversation immediatley taking my mind off all the running thoughts in my mind.

“Fell asleep around one in the morning-if you could even call it sleep. I was tossing and turning, so damn restless. Then I saw the morning light come through after staring at the window for forever and decided to go out and take a few pictures. Golden hour and all that,” she says. “And you?”

“No pictures, unfortunately, just tea” I say.

“Damn. I thought we could share our work.”

“We could share tea.”

“Sure.” 

She takes the cup out of my hands and takes a sip then hands it back to me, our fingers brushing.

“I couldn’t sleep well - tossin’ and turnin’ as well,” I tell her. 

“If I’d known I could’ve invited you out, it’s beautiful. But bloody cold,” she says and for good measure, shivers a little. I chuckle and set down the cup on the coffee table. I wrap my hands around her cold fingers and breathe in to them and rub my hands around hers.