salt and sand || narry ||

Chapter 14: Is the Magic Over?

*Author's POV*

A few weeks had flown by and it was the last week of vacation for Niall's family, meaning the end of summer vacation for all was drawing near. The boys were all hanging out at Harry's house playing video games and lounging around with one another, enjoying each other's company while they still could. Zayn was off to Bournemouth in two weeks, Niall and Harry would be attending Nottingham Trent together, Liam was off to Oxford (what a brainiac), and Louis was attending school with Eleanor at East London.

*Harry's POV*

My mum came walking into the living room, tears welling in her eyes, "Oh this is one of the last times I'll see all of you boys together for months!" she sobbed and I stood up to hug her, "Mum, it'll be alright, the boys will be back over the holiday breaks and who knows? Maybe Niall can come stay for a little while?" I said, looking back at the blond lad with a smile. She sniffed while the others boy shifted uncomfortably in their seats. She nodded, "I know, I know, you're just growing up so fast! Off to college, a new boyfriend, what's next?" she said, shaking her hands as she let them be. I turned around to boys and sucked in some air, "Well, that was embarrassing, I love her, but that was cringey," I said with a shake of my head as I plopped back down next to Niall. I wrapped one of my arms loosely around his shoulders as I propped my feet up. I smiled to myself when I felt him lean into me, despite being focused on the FIFA game on the screen.

"What are you doing?! I was just about to score a goal!" Louis shrieked as Liam paused the game. "I'll turn it back on it a minute, but you know, Anne made a good point. It's almost over. I think I had a pretty good summer, what about you guys?" he asked them. They all murmured in agreement, but I leaned over and kissed the top of Niall's head, "Yeah, definitely a great summer..." I said, smiling down as Niall looked at me with a loving smile. Liam smiled at the two us while Louis and Zayn made gagging noises. "Wait, remember the bucket list I made on the first day of summer vacation? I saved it in my phone since I knew we would lose the paper version." I watched as Liam grabbed his phone and scrolled throw his notes, "Alright, so let's see if we can check everything off the list...number one, bonfire party on the beach. Well, we can check that off since we had Harry's party down there," he murmured, "Number two, hook up with some cuties..." Liam looked over at Niall and I snuggled up together and smirked, "That definitely happened," he laughed. I gave him the finger as Niall pressed a kiss to my cheek.

"Number three, fishing out on the pier, you two did that right?" Liam asked, looking over at me. "That's when Niall got all soft and apologized to Harry and they started to fall for one another," Louis piped in, smirking at me. "Ah yeah, that's true we did go fishing and all that," I said, not wanting Niall to be upset by remembering our fight. "Okay...number four, bike from one end of the island to the other all in one day, Niall and Harry again..." he noted, "Number five and six, go for a smoke in Lessi Woods and a camping trip. Well, we wrapped those together so, check and check..." Liam said, continuing down the list, "Number seven, steal Mr. Kronick's ugly flamingo lawn ornaments, now I know we haven't done that," Liam said with a laugh. Zayn grinned at the rest of us, "Guess that means we know what we're doing tonight then," he said, wagging his tongue. "We have to wait until nighttime because I swear all that man does is sit on his porch waiting to yell at a person or dog getting too close to his property," I said, scowling as I thought about my cranky, old neighbor. Liam laughed, "Alright, alright, well it looks like if we do that tonight, we'll have completed our list since we did sneak Harry into the club one last time and we made a new friend in Niall." Louis giggled, "Or a new lover if you're Harry...oi!" he huffed as I threw a throw pillow at him. "We're all on board with you two, no need to get defensive!" Louis said, tossing it back at me. "Then stop bringing it up every five seconds and treat us like your normal friends!" I fired back. "Okay, okay, everyone settle down, we need to focus on what's important here..." Zayn started to say, "And that's that we need a game plan to take down those flamingoes..." We all gathered around the coffee table and started discussing ideas before we finally settled on a plan. We just had to wait until nighttime.

For fun, we decided to change it all black outfits before reconvening at my house. I waited for the porch light to go out on Mr. Kronick's house. "Okay, if we wait 30 minutes, he's guaranteed to be asleep, but he's a light sleeper so we have to be super quiet trying to get those things out of the ground. We're only keeping one as trophy, but the rest we are rearranging, do we understand?" I asked everyone. All the boys nodded as they waited for the time to pass. Soon they were all creeping around Mr. Kronick's front lawn, moving the flamingoes into various positions, some funny, some inappropriate, at some that would just be a pain to get back. "Alright, now were taking this one and hiding it in my garage, okay?" Harry whispered as the boys all made their way back to the front of the lawn. I pulled the flamingo out of the soil but froze when I heard a clang. It was Louis, he had bumped into the trashcans trying to crawl back to front of the yard. I saw a bedroom light flick on in Mr. Kronick's house, "Who's out there!" he yelled out his bedroom window.

"Run! Scatter!" I whispered and we all ran in different directions, hiding behind telephone poles and mailboxes at a safe distance. Finally, Mr. Kronick's bedroom light went off again and we all made a beeline for my garage. As soon as the door was shut, we all burst out laughing, "Louis you almost got us caught!" I yelled at him, "I'm sorry, I thought was being careful, you weren't kidding about the light sleeping!" he said, flushing red as he hid his face in embarrassment. "You guys want to sleep over? Round out the summer all together?" I asked them. They all agreed and we headed upstairs, making up sleeping spaces for them on my bedroom floor. "If I hear anything like I heard on the camping trip...I'm suffocating you in your sleep, Styles," Liam says as he slips into his makeshift bed on the floor. Niall blushed as he crawled into my bed next to me, "Don't worry we'll behave!" he quipped, but Liam laughed, "I'm not worried about you, Niall, that's why I called out Harry." I feigned an innocent look, "Who? Me? Goodnight, you wankers," I said as I flipped the light off, one of my last summer days with the boys officially over. I laid in bed with Niall's head on my chest and I smiled down at the smaller lad, I was sad to say goodbye to him, even if it was only going to be two weeks until we could be seeing each other around campus. I just wasn't ready for the magic of summer to be over...