salt and sand || narry ||

Chapter 8: Arms of a Stranger

A/N: Sorry this chapter is a bit longer than my other chapters, I hope it's worth it! Let me know what you think in the comments :)

*Niall's POV*

My head is killing me. I think I'm dying, to be honest. I brave opening one of my eyes just a crack only to shut it quickly as the bright sunlight streamed in the window of the light green room. Wait. Light green? That's not the color of my bedroom in my rental home. I open my eyes, groaning quietly as I adjusted to the harsh glare of the morning light. Morning? Afternoon? I don't even fucking know... I look down to see I'm currently covered by a frilly floral down comforter in a twin bed in a bedroom that definitely belongs to a girl. Please don't be naked, pleaseeee don't be naked... I begged myself as I took a peek under the covers. I saw that I still had my shorts and underwear on. I let a sigh of relief as the door opened and a petite brunette stuck her head in and smiled at me. "Oh good, you're awake. Here you might need this..." she handed me a Gatorade, bottle of water, and some aspirin. "You're a lifesaver," I told her, her name finally coming back to me. "Charlotte...why am I here? And did we...?" I ask her sheepishly.

She snorted before she launched into a full on laugh and my cheeks flushed red. "Please just tell me!" I begged her and she stifled her laughter by taking a few deep breaths. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, no we didn't do anything. You certainly wanted to. You kept going on about blowjobs and how you would be soooo good," she teased me. I buried my face in my hands, "Charlotte, I am so, so sorry, I was not in my right mind." She smirked at me, "Clearly. You should have seen your face when I told you that I wasn't interested in getting involved with a tourist and I have a boyfriend. You started mumbling about how other locals didn't seem to mind and well, you sounded bitter. So, are you going to spill? Which one of these local girls caused you to get so shattered?" she asked, sitting down in the papasan chair on the other side of the room.

I ran hand through my now flat blond hair, "Well first, thank you for not just leaving me to drunkenly roam the island and try to find my vacation home. I probably would have woken up on a bench or in a ditch or face down on the other side of the beach," I chuckled. "Getting around this town sober, I've got that down. Drunk? Not a chance." I laugh before I cough and steer us back to her question. I paused for a moment, trying to decide whether I should be honest with her, but considering this girl had just met me last night and went so far as to take care of me, I figured I owe her the truth. "It's actually, er, a guy..." I admitted sheepishly and my fight with Harry came flooding back into my mind.

You don't want head from me?

No, Niall that's not what I said, I just don't want you to have to be drunk to do so...I will not take advantage of you!

Harry stop acting like you know how I feel and know exactly how to handle all of this...

Niall! Stop, you don't need any more of that!

I winced as the scenes replayed in my head, the hurt in his green eyes struck my heart. "Harry Styles, huh?" Charlotte's soft voice interrupted my mental torture. "What? How did you know?" I asked her, gulping back the aspirin with some water. She smiled at me, "Niall, this is a very small town. Our graduating class was 100 kids, give or take. We all know each other. We all have since we were little. While Harry's not openly gay, there's maybe two guys that are and they're dating each other. Harry's the only other guy who has kind of made it know that he doesn't give a shit about labels. So...what happened then?" she asks, twirling a lock of her brown hair around her finger. Her eyes were gentle, sad even, as I recounted our story. The attraction, the confusion, the kiss, then our little movie night. "I'm just really confused, Charlotte, and I made an ass out of myself last night."