Gotta Be Him (Niam fanfic)

Chapter Nine

Niall's POV

I yawned as I walked out of my room, and bumped into Liam because I wasn’t looking where I was going. It wasn’t exactly a good idea to go falling into his arms with the feelings I had.

“Look where you’re going, Nialler!” Liam said, stepping back slightly.

“Sorry.” I muttered shyly.

Liam looked at me for a few seconds and bit his lip nervously as he scanned me up and down. I had to tell myself not to react to what he was doing, because he was obviously just looking at me like a perfectly normal person would look at people. He didn’t mean it the way I thought, and I doubted he ever would. I really needed to get over my stupid attraction to him, because it really was pointless. There were better things to do like eating and singing and generally not being in love with Liam. It’s not like those things brang me any pain or embarrassment, but at the same time, they weren’t nearly as good as Liam.

“We need to talk.” Liam finally said harshly.

He smiled weakly then turned around and started to walk down the stairs as I followed him.

“About what?” I asked shakily.

Of course it wasn’t going to be what I’d been hoping for - for what felt like an eternity - of course it would be about something stupid and meaningless and completely ridiculous. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up for anything. He probably wanted to know if it was me that broke his toothbrush (because oh, those flashes were too precious) or if I knew who the culprit of a mess somewhere was.

Liam ignored my question until we were in the kitchen. He stopped quickly and faced me.

“D- do you remember,” he hesitated, looking into my eyes. “Last night?”

Clearly I didn’t remember because I had absolutely no idea what he was on about, I mean what could possibly have been the significance of ‘last night’? It didn’t make any sense.

“No, I don’t think I remember it.” I said slowly.

“Oh,” Liam sighed, looking down at the floor. He almost looked disappointed, but I’m sure it was my imagination.

“What happened?” I asked curiously. I wanted to know now.

Liam thought about it for a second, and I almost thought he wasn’t going to tell me anything about it at all, but then he spoke.

“You were drunk...” he stated, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

At that moment I started to really panic, because I didn’t have a single clue as to what I might of said or done  in front of Liam Payne, the person I was madly (okay, maybe not madly, at least not yet, and I was determined to never fall that far) in love with last night. Part of me was too scared to even think about it, and I wanted not to think about it, to keep it hidden like it had never happened at all, but the other part of me was desperate to know what had happened so I could put it right. What if I’d confessed to Liam that I liked him and he’d been disgusted with me? That would explain the reason why he was being so harsh and awkward around me right now. He didn’t even want to look at me, so perhaps he was too offended and horrified to even face the situation. It didn’t seem like a very Liam thing to do, but it didn’t matter, because I was scared.

Maybe I’d just destroyed what little we even had together, our entire friendship. I didn’t want to take that risk, even if I hadn’t done anything, even if I had told him and he was just confused, I couldn’t take the chance.

“Look, Liam, whatever I said or did, I didn’t mean any of it. I wasn’t being serious; I didn’t know what I was doing, sorry.” I said, hating myself with every word.