The Bucket List (A Niall Horan Fanfic)

Chapter 39: Lending, Sending, Ending

Instead of his normal grim frown that he usually threw at me, he showed a sort of smirk.

"Simon?" I asked.

"Can I come in?"

"Umm..." I paused, looking over my shoulder. "Can you wait about twenty minutes? I'm in the middle of a piano lesson." Simon proceeded to give me a very unimpressed look. "I'm sorry, but I have a commitment to a mother to teach her little boy how to play scales that I must honor." I watched as Simon, without saying a word, gave me a sly impression that I couldn't quite read, turned around, walked to his car and drove away. As I watched the car leave, I couldn't help but feeling regret, like I had thrown away my whole future... again.

After Kenneth had left, I was sitting at the kitchen table with some package made hot chocolate.        I slid my hads around the dark dreen mug, letting the warmth seep into my hands. I flinched a little when the door bell rang again and to my utter shock, there Simon stood ...again.

"Is your lesson over?" he asked as I nodded in disbelief and Simon stepped through the door. I led him to the kitchen and he sat down where I had sat only a minute ago. "Did you know that after you played at Madison Square Garden you were trending on twitter?" Simon asked as I turned to him shocked, shaking my head.

"I sort of stopped checking after I started touring. There's a lot of really nasty stuff on there about me," I admitted, looking at my folded hands that were placed on the counter.

"You did something that was wrong, misleading and sneaky," Simon stated bleakly.

"I know and I'm so sorry. I-"

"And you would've gotten away with it if the magazine you were working for wasn't so stupid," Simon said, breaking a grin. I looked up at him, surprised. "It's very obvious that you honor commitments and whatever you're doing, you put everything you've got into it." I nodded, looking back down. "Are you still writing?" Simon abruptly asked.

"No," I said sighing. "I quit as soon as the tour ended and came home."

"You became very well known in such a short amount of time," Simon said as his grin turned to a genuine smile, "And you are very talented." I stayed silent, waiting for the point of his visit. "We thought long and hard about this decision, but Synco wants to sign you." I looked up at him with wide eyes and a gaping jaw. "We want to move you to LA and start recording right away. We want you to do shows. I think you have immense potential and we were doing you a disservice by sticking you behind that piano when we should've been sticking you in front of a microphone."

***

I smiled out at the theatre full of people that had all paid to see me. It was early March. They were all cheering for me. It was the weirdest feeling in the world. "Thank you guys," I said into my microphone. "This last song, it means a lot to me. A really good friend of mine wrote it with me a while back and I was supposed to perform it at Madison Square Garden, but I was cheeky and performed something else," I said between a giggle as the rest of the crowd laughed along with me. "It's on my album that's just come out that you can get at the merch table." I pocked my tongue in my cheek before I leaned back into the mic and said, "Shameless plug. I hope you like it." before I could let my fingers rest on the keys, the whole arena burst into hysterical screaming. I looked up, and turned around to see a familiar looking blonde boy walking toward me. It only took seconds for me to jump off of my piano stool and run into his strong body as I flung my arms around his neck. Even over the excessive screaming, I could hear his loud laugh in my ear as I squeezed him tight and he twirled me around like he used to. I had forgotten how much I had missed him always teasing me, spinning me around, and then kissing my nose to make up for it.