Black And White //N.H

23.

AN// Make sure you've read chapter 22, as this is a double update!

The doorbell rings, and my mother gets up to open the front door. We follow her out to the hallway, and greet my grandparents. "Emily, we haven't seen you in about a year, how have you been?" Grandmother asks after they've been introduced to Niall and we're back in the sitting room. "I've been great, working as a radio host now," I tell her. "Oh, I've listened to it. You and Roman got such good chemistry," she says and I raise my eyebrows at her. "Yeah, I guess. I've known him for some years now." I look over at Niall, who's talking with my grandfather. He's holding his hand on my back, and I smile. "Although not better chemistry than you and this one I would say. How long have you known each other? What happened with the other guy, the mean one," she continues on, asking a lot of questions. She never held back her feelings about Chris, which has been negative since the day they first met. She always told me he was bad news and would break my heart, and she wasn't wrong. "Well, Chris and I broke up before the summer. As for Niall we met in august," I tell her and Niall looks over when I say his name. "Did you say something?" he asks me, and I shake my head. "Just telling her about when we met," I tell him, and he smiles, before he looks down for a second. I can see that he's thinking about something, but I decide that I should wait asking him about it until later. "Ok, so how long have you been dating, Niall?" she asks, which makes everyone turn to us. "Oh, for about a month or so," he lies, looking down at me with a smile. "And do you love her?" grandmother continues, and I look over at her. "Mother, stop harassing them," my mother tells her, but Niall just smiles at me, looking me straight in the eyes. "Yes, I do love her. Very much." He kisses my forehead, and I stare at him in shock. When I don't say anything the rest of my family starts up their conversations again. Niall put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. "I just wanted you to know. I understand that you're not there yet, and that's ok," he whispers and I smile. "Thank you for being so understanding," I tell him, and he smiles.

We eat dinner and get to the last Christmas tradition for the evening, decorating the tree. "Wait, so you wait so long to decorate the tree? My family usually did it on the first of december. That was before I started traveling of course. After that we did it almost as soon as I got back home for the holiday," Niall tells us. He's fitting into the family just as well as I thought he would, and I see that my mother likes him more and more every time he says something. "Really? That's lovely Niall, you get to keep the decoration much longer that way. Maybe we should consider it next year, Vivian" Connor says. "Yes, we should. But what are we going to do the day before christmas eve then? What do you do Niall, tell us everything about your christmas traditions," my mother says. I look over at Niall and he's smiling. "Well, the 22nd I usually go and see my friends, and grab a few pints. 23rd me and my family have a family dinner, with both my mother and father. Then on christmas eve we go to church in the morning. When we get back we watch a christmas movie and then we just sit around talking with each other and eating dinner. We have a double christmas, like you guys, so we open the presents that's for the people present, and on christmas morning me and my brother and his wife and family head over to the other parent, and we repeat it, well except the church part," Niall says. Both times he mentions church my mother looks over at me. We're not a very religious family, sure, both me and Evan are baptised, but nothing more and nothing less. One of the last things we want to do on christmas is to get up early to listen to a priest, and I sense that my mother is nervous about that. "Well, do you want to go to church tomorrow? In that case we would love to join you," mother says and I roll my eyes. She would be the most negative to that out of us all. "It's not something I have to do, if you don't usually go," Niall says, brushing it off but I can see that he wants to go there. He walks over to me while handing me a decoration piece and I take it. After I hang the little snowflake made of glass up on a branch I pull him into a hug. "I'll go with you. It will be fun," I tell him, talking about going to church. He smiles down at me and places a quick kiss on my lips. "We don't have to. I sense that it isn't a tradition for your family, and I don't want to keep you away from them on christmas." I look him into the eyes, and he's being sincere. Here he is, with my family, without any of his Christmas traditions and he's worrying that I will miss a couple of mine. "I would love to go to church with you, Niall. To be honest I wouldn't mind getting out of the yearly christmas walk around the neighborhood to greet everyone and say merry christmas. When does it start?" I ask him. "Usually at eleven, but I don't know how it's here. I can look it up," he says pulling his phone out of his pockets. He searches it up and he's right.

We eat dinner, before Niall and I head up to our room, saying that we're going to bed. I change into one of his hoodies, and go to do my night routine. When I walk back in he's laying under the covers scrolling through his phone. He looks up and a smile spreads across his face, making me smile as well. He lifts the covers up, motioning for me to get under them. I do as he wants and cuddle into his chest. "Wanna watch a movie?" He nods and I get out my Macbook. We find a movie both of us want to watch. "Are you excited for tomorrow?" I ask him. "Yeh, I love christmas," he says and I nod in agreement. "Do you think I have time to Facetime my family tomorrow, or should I do it now?" he asks me, his accent much thicker than usual, signaling that he's tired. "You have time tomorrow, of course. But it's really up to you." He let out a yawn and looked at me. "Tomorrow it is," he says, making me laugh. He puts his head up on my chest and I play with his hair. Soon enough I hear his soft snores, and decide that I should go to sleep as well, so I put away my Mac as quietly as possible to not wake Niall up, before I put my head on my pillow. I try to fall asleep but it's no use, so I end up laying there admiring Niall. I stroke his cheek lightly and place a kiss on his forehead. I would never think that he would be the one I would end up falling in love with four months ago, but here I am. Even though I didn't say it back earlier I know that I am truly, madly, deeply in love with him.

AN// Small 1D reference at the end. Tell me what you think<3