Voir Dire (N.H.)

thirty

Kelsey quickly discovered that law school was nothing to be taken lightly. With mounds of readings, navigating her way around a new city and the threat of cold calls looming over her every day, she barely had time to think about Niall. She dived into graduate student life, spending her afternoons in coffee shops and class discussions. If you didn't know any better, Kelsey might have seemed like a normal student- not a girl who had signed a non-disclosure agreement to avoid being blacklisted from every law school in America.

Mallory Redding was the first person Kelsey met when she slid into the hard wooden seats of the lecture hall on her first day of law school. The pair quickly bonded over their love of true crime podcasts and their disdain for a certain classmate who seemed to think his opinion needed to be inserted into every conversation or discussion. So when Mallory asked Kelsey if she wanted to make a weekend trip to Las Vegas for the iHeartRadio festival, she could hardly refuse. After all, surviving the first six weeks of law school was a feat all of its on; and it deserved to be celebrated.

Kelsey would be lying if she said she hadn't checked the list of performers on several occasions to ensure a certain Irishman's name wasn't there. It wasn't. Not the first time she checked, and not the tenth time as she waited to board the plane to Las Vegas.

One flight, a slightly creepy Uber driver and two tequila shots later, Kelsey and Mallory found themselves three people deep from the catwalk at the iHeart Radio Music Festival. Kelsey could practically feel the Las Vegas atmosphere seeping into her, liquor, sweat and a little sense of mischief entering her blood. Her body began to sway with the music, her voice growing hoarse as she screamed along to "Sucker" with the Jonas Brothers. Any part of her that had questioned whether a weekend trip to Las Vegas was a bad idea vanished from her mind, because for the first time in months, Kelsey felt completely at ease.

"This is amazing," Kelsey yelled into Mallory's ears as the Jonas Brothers finish their set. Mallory nods in agreement, any words leaving her mouth muted by the roaring sound of the crowd cheering.

"And now we have a special treat..." the announcer called over the intercom. The crowd began to roar eager in anticipation of who was arriving at the festival unannounced.

"Here to perform a song from his newest album..." the announcer exclaimed pausing for dramatic effect. "It's Niall Horan!" While the crowd around her goes wild, Kelsey felt her body grow utterly still. Because there he was, grey chinos with a tucked in vintage Fleetwood Mac shirt, a cheeky grin plastered on his face on the big screens in front of her. Seeing him somehow brought on the ache in her chest that she had been trying to bury for so long.

Kelsey wanted out. She couldn't be here, she couldn't see him and she certainly couldn't let him see her. Her life was finally beginning to go right, she couldn't let buried feelings get in the way of it. Not to mention the fact that according to the latest tabloid, Niall and Krystal were very much still a thing.

But as she looked around at the hundreds of swaying bodies surrounding her, the sea of people with beers in hand and way too many crop tops, she realized that she was purely and utterly stuck. There was no escaping- she would be spending the next however many minutes of Niall's set trying to keep herself from falling in love with him all over again.

"Did you know he was going to be here?" Kelsey yelled into Mallory's ear, her voice barely audible over the noise of the crowd and the opening guitar strums of 'Nice to Meet Ya'.

"No, he was unannounced. Why? Big fan?" Mallory asked with a grin.

"Oh, no. Just my friend is, she'd be crazy jealous." Kelsey replied quickly, thankful that the noise of the crowd covered the wavering of her voice.