Claustrophobia {Niall Horan}

The Stars are Wiser

MADISON'S POV

  Things ended up being quite weird after we finally got out of the elevator. Niall had that lame excuse that he had a "meeting" and just ran off without another word. Maybe he's just weirder than I had realised, or maybe he does really have a meeting, after all, who am I to say? I've only known the guy for a few hours.

  I decided to go explore a little since I didn't have anything specific planned for the day and headed out of the hotel. After walking around for a bit I found a cute, small restaurant and decided to have lunch there. I walked in and it was very cosy, there weren't that many people there so that it was crowded, but there was also some movement and workers walking around, carrying plates of deliciously looking food.

  I found a table and sat down, I took in my surroundings for a few minutes until a waiter came over and offered me a menu.

"Hello, my name is Connor, I will be your waiter today. Here's a menu, call me if you need anything."

"Thank you" I said and started reading through the options, they were all a bit confusing and seemed like very heavy meals, and everything was boiled for some reason. I decided to play it safe and go for the smoked salmon.

  It was a really nice lunch and Connor was very polite and a great waiter, so I decided to give him a good tip and headed out after paying.

- - - - - - - - - - 

  I'm sooooo going to be late. I thought to myself as I got ready to head out to the pub. Considering pubs aren't really my thing, I had absolutely no idea what to wear, especially for a date, I decided to try my best not to be either under dressed, or over dressed, so I went with jeans, a satin blouse, to make it a little more fancy, and some boots. 

  Just as I suspected, I was late, sure, it wasn't very far from the hotel, but I was still late and that wasn't exactly the first impression I wanted to cause but, oh well, to late now.

  I left in a hurry but still took the stairs seeing that I had lost all confidence in elevators, for obvious reasons.

  After walking for about 10 minutes, I got to the pub, I placed one hand on the door handle, took a deep breath in and out, and opened the door carefully, the music that could already be heard from the outside of the building became only louder after the barrier between the outside and the inside was broken. There were a good amount of people there, all spoke very loudly and laughed even louder, it smelled good, like someone was trying to mask out the scent of beer with pretty candles, and it worked, well, kind-of. 

  I looked around and saw no signal of Niall, so I decided to sit at a bar stool and wait for him there while maybe getting a head start on the beer count. The bartender looked at me as if she knew I wasn't from here, and continued to attend to the several people that arrived prior to me. Suddenly, something triggered a certain part of my brain and all my attention was directed to the music playing in the background. It was the same song my dad had turned up the volume to in the car, it does have a really catchy melody, it's a shame I don't know the name or I'd look it up later.

  I was so deep into my own thoughts that I didn't even realize I had been humming the melody all along, something Jules, -the bartender whose name I had been able to read from the embroidery on her uniform,- quickly noticed as she approached me: "Nice song innit'?" she said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, it really seems so." I managed to blurt out shyly, almost stumbling across my own words.

"Not just seem, that baby is our proud and joy, you'll be hearing a lot of that around here. I make sure to always put it on the bar playlist, among others of the same sort, you'll probably notice it shortly." Jules sounded very invested in what she was saying, it was adorable to watch her eyes twinkle talking about this subject.