Around the World [A Liam Payne Romance]

Chapter Twenty One

                “Are you ready?” Harry asked as we both looked at the hotel door in front of us.

                I took a deep breath: if worst came to worst, I’d just lock myself in my room until they left. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

                He smiled at me. “Good.”

                And then he opened the door, both of us walking in carefully, almost bracing ourselves for the power couple to be around. But after Harry walked into his room, I saw Liam at the end of the hall with his hands in his pockets and a small smile on his lips. I took a sharp intake of breath as I walked towards him slowly, my bags in my hands.

                “Hey,” He said, then looked at my hands. “Do you need help?”

                I shook my head, and turned into my room. “I’m fine.”

                Liam followed me. “Did you have fun?”

                “Yeah…” When I turned around, I scrunched my brow. “Where’s Danielle?”

                “She went home.”

                My eyes widened, and I actually gave him my full attention this time. He smiled slightly at my expression, and there were so many thoughts running through my mind in that moment that they were hard to concentrate on. I couldn’t muster up a sentence, so I just stared at him blankly, wondering what he meant and if he’d explain.

                In fact, Liam sat down on my bed and sighed. “Danielle… I felt bad for her at first. She came to me crying, telling me that she missed me so much, and that she promised she’d start acting like she would when I first met her. I just…”

                He stopped and sighed again.

                He looked down.

                “I’m not asking for you to forgive me, or even for you to like me again.” Liam said, staring at the ground. “I’m just telling you what happened. I felt bad, and I believed her until I saw her messages with her friends, saying how she’d ‘gotten me back’ just because she was jealous of you. I never should’ve left you, but I just thought that she really wanted a second chance, and–”

                I kissed him.

                It was just a long, lingering kiss where our lips moved together but we didn’t turn it into anything more. But I didn’t want him to keep beating himself up about something when in reality, he was just trying to be a good guy. Everyone ever knows Liam was a sweetheart, and saw only good in people.

                So I pulled away and smiled at him. “I can’t blame you for being a good guy and trying to give her a second chance.”

                He grinned so brightly that I thought his mouth was broken. “You know that I love you? Every second I spent with her, I wished I was with you. Mikayla, you’re the one that makes me happy, not her. I really mean it… I love you.”

                And I knew that I loved him, too.

~*~

                “I wanna be first, yeah, the first one to take it all the way like this,” Liam sang in my ear, singing a song off of his new album.

                I giggled, kissing him gently. “And if you only knew, I wanna be your last, your last first kiss!”

                And then Liam started joking around and clapping loudly, saying: “Well, Mikayla! Why aren’t you in the band as a singer? That was fantastic!”