zero • njh

• thirteen •

  Nialls house is just a few minutes walk away from the gas station we stopped at. Seeing it makes me feel like I'm ten again and I must admit that I'm kinda excited. I stand awkwardly next to him while he unlocks the door and look at all the flower pots that Mrs Horan arranged beautifully on the front porch. They still look pretty much the same.
Quietly we make our way up the stairs to his bedroom in the dark and it's hard for me to try and not trip over my own feet.
   "One sec." Niall says. For a few moments I am just staring into the darkness. It's weirdly comforting. He turns on a floor lamp that is standing next to his bed, flooding the room with warm light. I enter the room and close the door behind me. He walks over to his closet and opens it. I peep over his shoulder, looking inside and gasping. It's one of those roomy closets and it's filled to the brim with clothes of all the colors you could imagine.
   "Are you okay with boxers and a shirt?" he asks and looks back at me over his shoulder.
   "Uh, yeah sure." he nods and turns around again, grabbing a black shirt and red checkered boxers, which he then trades me for my skirt and grey shirt. "You can shower if you want, there are towels in the bathroom. And you can hang up your underwear on the heater to let it dry." A smug grin appears on his face when he mentions my still soaking underwear and I blush. He still manages to make me feel uncomfortable when I just started to feel confident enough to stand in front of him only wearing a sweatshirt. 
   I just nod without saying anything and turn around to hurry inside his bathroom. Sighing I lock the door and put down the clothes next to the sink. I look at myself in the mirror and nearly faint at the sight. While my mascara at least stayed where it belongs, my hair looks like a wet birds nest and my cheeks are tinted bright red, making me look like I dug my face into a pool of blush.
   "You gotta be shitting me..." I mumble to myself and take off the sweatshirt and my underwear. It feels really freeing to take off the wet material and I instantly feel ten pounds lighter. 
   Then I step under the shower and let the warm water heat me up again. If I was home right now, I'd probably waste much more water by standing in the shower for an hour, but sadly Niall is waiting outside for me to get ready so he can shower too. Quickly I get out again after a few minutes and dry myself off before putting on Nialls clothes. They feel weirdly comfortable and I like how they look on me, even though they don't flatter my figure at all.
   First I think about just putting on my underwear again, because I don't feel good with the thought of leaving it in here, but I decide against it. Just thinking about how disgusting it felt wearing it a few minutes ago, I neatly place my bra and panties onto the heater. He saw me wearing them already, so there's nothing for me to loose. Also he probably already saw lots of underwear.  

  When I step outside the bathroom, Niall looks up to me surprised. "Wow, you're fast." He gets up from the bed.
   "Yeah, I'm not really into wasting water." 
Chuckling he walks over to his armchair, where he put his clothes and then comes over to me.
   "You're the first to come out here in under ten minutes." 
A sharp sting shoots through my chest, but I just try to hide it behind a smile. It's not a secret that he's had sexual intercourse with multiple girls in here and still, I'm hurt hearing that they actually stayed here and showered in his bathroom. I hate that I know a specific girl that must've stayed here many nights. Reality really does suck sometimes.  
   "I'm gonna take a quick shower too." he says and I just nod, trying not to burst out into tears. Then he disappears into his bathroom, leaving me alone in his room to snoop around. When I hear the shower start running, I'm finally able to move and take a deep breath, letting my gaze run around his room. Everything looks so much different than I would've expected.
His new bed is now situated in the back left corner of the room. The wall of the indent to the right is painted black and a white armchair is standing next to a red and a brown guitar and a big, black box. I have absolutely no idea about guitars, but I'm guessing it's an amplifier for a bass guitar.
   To the left there are shelves with a large mirror hanging above. They're filled with all kinds of CDs, DVDs and vinyls, but mainly vinyls. I feel like I'm in a store looking through everything he has in stock. I see a lot from Bon Jovi, Guns n Roses, The Beatles, Iron Maiden and lots of pop-rock artists. He even has an actual record player that is situated on top of the shelf.
   My mom used to listen to vinyls constantly when I was young. We would draw and dance together in our basement of our old house. I believe we still have all her vinyls somewhere lying around.
   To say I'm surprised by all this would be an understatement. I never would've guessed that he is so into music. Well, yeah, he would always joke dance and sing in front of us, acting as if we were his crowd on a concert, but I thought he was just being funny. 
   I grab a copy of Bon Jovi's Bad Medicine and carefully lay it down onto the record player. The heavy bass and drums echo through the room, bringing me right back in time, while I bop my head to the song.