#dutifully doin his squats

[finding--cat]

That’s it, that’s all, folks. Story is halfway over. Now it’s onto NaNoWriMo to try to finish this - although, quite frankly, my spare time is hovering around level 0 these days. In the meantime, read Part II in its entirety. 

To visit the story page, click here. 

Thanks for reading pals. I’m touched that you would take time out of your day to spend on my work. If I could ask you to spare just a small amount more of your time - 1 minute max - to share your thoughts with me -- you have no idea the service you would be providing to a writer who truly wants to grow (and is curious if anyone is enjoying this and would be interested in reading more).

Part II: The Songbird 2.4 

A few days later, Ari joins Niall at Gram and Gramps’ place. Kalene gives her the day off, though it doesn’t really matter because Niall has a delayed start to the day taking Olive to the doctor to get her ears checked. Z is convinced it’s an ear infection after swimming in that possibly non-chlorinated pool at horse camp, and even though Niall assures him it’s highly unlikely, it turns out that’s exactly what it is. Her right ear is inflamed and built-up with fluid, so Dr. Gibbs gives her a prescription for banana-flavoured medicine. Niall picks it up at the pharmacy and coaxes Olive into gulping down a serving before holding her hand and walking her into school an hour and a half late.

Then he’s on the phone with Z for another fifteen minutes to receive a comprehensive list of all the reasons Z’s not going to listen to him anymore when it comes to his child and how they should’ve taken her to the doctor’s two weeks ago, but actually, no, they never should’ve let her go swimming in that disgusting pool in the first place, even though all the other kids did and Olive would’ve had to sit by herself on the sidelines and watch.

By the time Niall swings by Ari’s place, it’s close to noon, and she’s had the time to make four vegetarian wraps for their lunches, including for Gram and Gramps.

It turns out Gram isn’t home – on Tuesdays she plays Euchre with a group of ladies in the Knights of Columbus rec hall – but Gramps peers with genuine interest at the wraps until one is placed in his lap out in the garden, and then he eats quite happily, not even asking for a hit of indica until he’s done.

“Feelin’ slow, Niall,” he says, head tilted back so his eyes meet the sun.

He’s answered a question Niall never asked, but Niall replies anyway. “The slow of a good high, you mean?”

“The slow of the Tin Man when all his joints began to rust. Can’t move the way I used to.”

“Soon you’ll start to perk up again. That’s what the doc said. Haven’t been able to work your muscles in a while, that’s all,” Niall assures him. He pauses to lick a strip along the rolling paper and then expertly folds the herb into a neatly-tucked cylinder in his lap. “But for now, you’re in luck,” he adds, raising his head to flash Gramps his grin, “because summer’s turning to fall. Everything slows down in winter.”

“Well,” Gramps begins, drawling the word with that sticky molasses tone that sounds more like Waaaale… “I fear it’s the winter o’ my life.”

Though his chin is lowered to his chest, Niall raises his eyes as everything, for a moment, comes to a halt. “Please don’t say that,” he murmurs.

“Backyard’s fallin’ to pieces,” Gramps remarks, ignoring Niall and surveying the land around him with a sigh. “Linda ‘n I used to be out here all summer sprucin’ it up. Now look at it. Shithole.”

Niall snorts, his thumb smarting on the lighter before he ignites the joint and hands it dutifully to Gramps.

“Don’t tell that to Ari,” he says, gesturing with a nod toward the girl crouching over a wilted flowerbed across the lawn. “She’s doin’ her best to clean it up.”

“So she is.”

Gramps’ hand trembles as he brings the joint to his lips, almost to the point of Niall reaching over to hold it for him. He puffs on it like a cigar, because no matter how many times Niall tells him that’s not how to get the best high, Gramps can’t let go of that sophisticated, my-wife-just-gave-birth-to-my-son feel of the 1950’s. When Niall used to get on his case for being old-fashioned, Gram always corrected him to say he simply never grew up in the first place and still lives in the 50’s in his head.

“She have fun with that? Weedin’ and prunin’ and what have you?” Gramps asks.

Niall shrugs, steadying a hand on Gramps’ shoulder as he takes another series of drags. “She likes plants. Mostly, though, I think she just likes to help. She likes to feel part of something.”

His stare strays to Ari where she hunches dozens of yards away, picking one weed at a time and hoping that at some point, it makes the garden less cluttered, more workable.

She’s stayed over at his a few times now, joining Niall at Sherman’s or waiting up for him afterward, always with the same brilliant smile on her face, the same eagerness for adventure. Or recklessness. Or some kind of intimacy. Whatever it is that she gets from him, Niall’s just glad he’s the one who can provide it. Because after that first time, he knew from that inexplicable rock in his throat and the weight of her in his arms, giving him something to hold through the night, that he wanted it again and he wanted it with her. After that first time he was already fantasizing about her again. After that first time, he knew from the way his feet angled toward her and she drew him in by his chest that he was All In, whether his brain told him otherwise or not.

“Could do with more like her,” says Gramps. He folds his arms across his chest and flicks the ash off his joint, content to watch Ari work for a few moments.

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs in agreement, hand still on Gramps’ shoulder but mind elsewhere. When he comes to, Gramps is watching him.

“You good to her?”

Niall holds his gaze like a man, because it feels like this is a question meant for Man Niall and not Boy Niall.

“I try,” he answers, frustrated with himself for faltering under Gramps’ stare.

“Hmm.” Gramps thinks about this. “Might be biased, but she may be lucky to have ended up knockin’ boots with the likes of you.”

Niall rolls his eyes and uses his hand on Gramps’ shoulder to give him a light slap across the cheek. “Knock it off, old man,” he laughs, “you’re stoned.”

Unaffected, Gramps continues, “Then again, you were the one livin’ life as normal until she walked in. That’s a lucky circumstance right there.”

“That’s how I see it.” Niall swipes the joint from Gramps to take a drag, not because he needs it but because his fingers were itching for something to do.

Ari finally gives up on her squat and falls back on her bum, a bouquet of weeds and brush tumbling to the grass. She glances over her shoulder with a bout of laughter. Niall smiles despite himself.

Gramps was watching. “You don’t look at each other like that if you don’t both feel a little lucky,” he muses, “and in that case, you’re stupider than a box o’ lint if you don’t do something about it.”

Niall wraps his arms behind his back, around the iron bars of the chair, until his fingers find one another and latch on. Amused, he looks to Gramps and doesn’t say a word.

Gramps is waiting for a response. After a minute, he asks bluntly, “S’pose you should get to asking yourself if this is what you want.”

“That so, huh?”

Annoyed, Gramps empties the ash from the joint near Niall’s chair and purses his lips. “You either ask yourself now, on your own terms, or the question creeps up on you  when it’s too late.”

“You used to say it’s never too late.”

“You’re a man now, and you should know that sometimes it is.”

“Very comforting.” Niall sighs. Ari tosses weeds over her shoulder one-by-one in painstaking fashion. But he notices with a slight arch of his brows, now that she’s been at work, he can start to see the flowers and the fresh soil. Of course, it’s only two square feet of the entire yard, but if she kept working on it, conceivably, it could come alive again. “Let me ask you something,” he says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, gaze trained to Ari, “and be honest with me, because like you said, I’m ready to hear the answer as a man: when does it start being less about what I want, and more about what’s possible to have?”

Gramps needs no more than a second to construct a reply. “When you give into it,” he says. “But what’s worth being yours if you didn’t go after it – if you didn’t truly, desperately give it a good honest shot?”

.

A week into September, Z and Niall put Olive to bed to the rousing lyrics of Billy Joel’s Vienna while Ari watches from the doorway, one ankle slung over the other and arms folded across her chest. Her fond observations are now familiar even to Z, who sings to his daughter without reserve. Ari may pretend he’s singing to her, too, as so many do when they listen to Z sing (including Niall), but every time Niall glances at her, her eyes seem to be stuck on him. At first he thought it was a fluke. He still does, but because her gaze is a honey-like rain showering over him, he lets it be.

They say their goodnights to Olive, who pouts as Niall and Ari leave the room because she likes an audience and still banks on hearing what she calls The Mighty Jungle, and they end up in the living room, where Niall works on the arrangement of Ed Sheeran’s newest material to add to his set list and Ari jots down ideas for her Maid of Honour speech.

Z joins them after he has a few minutes alone with Olive. Having changed out of his work attire, he falls onto the couch in sweat pants and a loose t-shirt and clicks through television channels until he settles on Mad Men reruns. Nose buried in her notebook, Ari slowly looks up.

“I love this show,” she says quietly, using her notebook almost as a shield in case the reaction is harsh.

From Niall’s other side, Z looks over, pulled from a trancelike state. He glances at Niall for reassurance, unsure of what to do. When Niall offers nothing, Z replies just as softly, just as timidly as Ari, “Me too.”

Silence envelopes them, thick as smog. Niall stops plucking his guitar strings and wonders if the other two are wondering, same as him, what the hell just happened and why it seemed so damn momentous. Does he dare point out that everyone and their fucking brother loves Mad Men?

“I like Peggy,” Z pipes up again. He opens his mouth to say more, but then decides to leave it at that.

Ari blinks, a small smile crossing her face. “She’s my favourite.”

That’s it. They have no more to say to one another, content to simply sit and watch the show, but Niall notices Z glance at Ari out of the corner of his eye, curious and bewildered, and though her eyes remain focused on the words in her notebook, he sees Ari’s smile grow.

.

Niall can’t troubleshoot while sewing, but he knows enough about it from that time Trisha spent an afternoon teaching him and Z how to maintain Olive’s wardrobe without constantly having to go out and buy new things. He can thread a needle and weave it through torn fabric well enough, which is the most he’s ever asked to do when Olive comes home from school with a rip in her knee or a tear in the seam of her blouse.

Tonight, he sits on the couch under a light with the intention of repairing a tattered shirt pocket. It’s meant more for decoration on Olive’s frilly purple t-shirt, but she likes to use it to hold a few coins in case she needs to use the pay phone at school to call Z at work or Niall at wherever he is on any given day. This morning, when she dug her hand in to ensure the coins were still there, the pocket fell apart.

Z tried to fix it himself, but his patience wore thin after about five minutes because he complained his fingers were too large and the needle was too small and the thread was probably, most likely, too flimsy to be productive.

So Niall took over, and now he sits wetting the tip of the thread to insert it through the eye of the needle, with Ari rubbing his back in affection as he works and Z looking on with quiet gratitude. On the TV in the background, they watch another rerun of Mad Men, because Z thinks Ari likes it and, in his own sullen way, he wants her to feel at home.

What would take Trisha ten minutes takes Niall the better part of an hour, but once he tests that the pocket has returned to the shirt and is securely fastened, he triumphantly sprawls the article of clothing across the coffee table and flops back onto the couch, massaging a crick in his neck and stretching his legs.

By then, Z has gotten up to put the kettle on. He returns a couple of minutes later with mugs of tea for Ari, Niall, and himself. He lifts the shirt to inspect it and nods, impressed. He flings it over his shoulder and murmurs his thanks to Niall.

“No problem,” Niall says in reply, even though his neck is too sore to move.

Z brings two fingers below Niall’s chin, encouraging him to raise his head. When he does, Z uses the backs of his fingers to gently trail across Niall’s cheek, sending an arrow shooting down his spine and hitting whatever target it was aiming for.

“You okay?”

“Mm hmm,” Niall assures him.

“’M gonna take this to bed,” says Z, raising his mug an inch or two in the air.

Niall nods, returning his smile. While applying pressure to the back of his neck, he watches Z cross the landing and ascend the stairs, not looking away until he’s out of sight.

He doesn’t realize he’s heaved a satisfied sigh until he spies Ari out of the corner of his eye and looks over. She cups her mug of tea with both hands and takes a sip, instantly recoiling at the heat. All the while, she watches him.

She hisses and licks her lips before blowing away the wisps of steam rising from the mug. Quietly and almost casually, she asks, “Do you love him?”

Niall blinks.

He blinks again.

She waits for him to speak.

He has half a mind to pretend to misunderstand her question, to say of course I love him, we’ve been friends since we were kids, but he can’t disavow the question in his response out of respect to her. Out of respect to Z. Out of respect to himself.

So he sighs again, murmuring a surrendered, “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Ari replies without malice or spite, neither a smug I knew it nor an I had no idea. Like everyone else, she probably knew or suspected as much, but is too polite to admit it.

Niall squeezes his eyes shut, hating, for a moment, that everything in his life always comes back to this.

When he opens them again, words start coming to him. “I did,” he corrects himself, “back in high school, we—and then in college, I—” Frustrated with himself, he shakes his head. “I did back then. When I thought that maybe… I don’t know what I thought. But, um, he didn’t want me,” Niall finishes with a frown, “so it… it’s in the past. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing.”

Ari continues to watch him, lips parted but unspeaking, cradling her mug close for  comfort.

“What?” Niall asks after several seconds have passed. His pulse quickens in his neck.

“Nothing,” Ari says with a shake of her head. She tucks one socked foot underneath her on the couch. “It’s just… I think every time you love someone, it matters. Even if they don’t love you back. Because it’s a feeling, you know? Love. From what I know of it, it’s a pretty strong feeling, maybe the strongest. And any time you can feel something, any time something moves you… that matters.” Niall aches to look away, to bury his head in his own frustrations, but he holds Ari’s gaze and nods.

.

On a Friday, Niall has work to do for both jobs and should be at home researching a piece he has to draft for submission early next week, but he takes advantage of Ari’s free time and meets with her as soon as she texts him that she’s done a morning yoga session, showered, watered her plants, and checked off whatever other items on her list are necessary to her mental health.

As they walk up the road side-by-side, Niall’s hands stuffed in the pockets of his black jeans and Ari struggling to fix her ponytail, Niall thinks it’s nice. Whatever they are and whatever this is, it’s nice. Nice isn’t fantastic and nice isn’t the stuff dreams are made of, but nice is something he hasn’t really had in a long time. To enjoy someone else’s company and to feel sparks crackling in his veins when she’s near and to feel warmth radiating from her smile and to get to kiss her and hold her and fuck her is fucking nice.

Niall has her laughing today as he recounts last night’s epic struggle to get Olive to sleep. He and Z had to pull out the big guns and not only perform The Lion Sleeps Tonight (or, as Olive consistently refers to it, The Mighty Jungle), but also enthusiastic and foot-stompin’ versions of All Star and I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). Afterwards, Z confessed to him that he could literally feel the exact moment his soul escaped his body.

The air outside is fresh and cool, too warm to be truly autumn but too crisp to be mistaken for midsummer heat. Even with a clear sky and plenty of sun, Tillson City seems sleepier than usual, with very few cars and trucks whizzing past as Niall and Ari walk alongside the road. They don’t really have a destination – Niall knows that Ari is content just to walk – and somehow they end up at the high school. For some reason, it surprises Niall. He should have paid less attention to the fallen red leaves crunching under the soles of his shoes, but as usual, he’s fascinated by the new season and ready for change.

Tillson City High is a two-storey brick building initially erected in the 1940’s after a surge in the coal mining industry. There was a fire in the west end in the late 60’s and a rebuild of the gymnasium and several classrooms in the mid-90’s to remove asbestos from the walls and ceilings, but otherwise, it’s the same crummy school it’s always been: a haven for white, Christian footballers and cheerleaders and whatever circle of hell they decide to create for the rest.

Niall tells Ari this, but leaves out the last part.

“So this is where it all began?” Ari asks, inhaling deep in her chest and staring out at the faded brick and rusted metal. “You, Z, and Harry, three punks who loved music and who just didn’t fit in with the cool kids?”

Niall grins, purposely keeping his eyes on Ari and not the school. “You forgot Tafi, a loner of her own making who popped in and out occasionally to tell us what to do and how to live our lives.”

“Ah yes. Without Tafi, you might still be a virgin.”

“Oh yeah?” He chuckles to himself and brings his fist to his mouth, pretending to cough into it. “You weren’t, uh, questioning my virginity two nights ago when you had to plant your face into my pillow so you wouldn’t wake up the house with your screams.”

Ari pokes him in the side, where she knows he’s ticklish. Niall squirms away with a yelp. “Tafi teach you any of those tricks between the sheets?”

“On the contrary,” Niall jokes, looping an arm around Ari’s neck and pulling her close, urging her to walk with him around the side of the building, “I taught her everything she knows. That one night she spent with me when we were seventeen years old set her up for life.”

“Mm. Yes. Totally believable.” She melts into his side and wraps an arm around his waist. Her hand fights his for entrance to his jean pocket and wins the battle. “So where did it happen, Casanova? Science lab? Between two dusty shelves in the library? Or did it happen out back, where you guys used to go to get high?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Niall whispers under his breath, because he can’t believe they’re still talking about this. “It did not happen here, at school. That would have been in poor taste.”

“Really?” Ari lifts her head from his shoulder to give him a frown. “You never got up to any illicit sexual hijinks at school? Not after hours in English class or in the dirty gym locker room?”

Niall’s smile fades. Uninvited, a memory sweeps through his mind: puddles on the floor, a pair of cleats with knotted laces at his knees, a locker door slamming shut.

“Uh…” he trails, clearing his throat for real this time, “nah. Virgin misfit, remember?”

She shrugs and eyes him with a coy smile. “Virgins can still have fun.”

“Not this virgin.” Niall pauses, adding, “I mean, it wasn’t really all that fun.”

She hesitates, her lips flattening into a thin line as she squints at him.

“Not that I… it’s just that…” He shakes himself out of it, forcing a laugh. “My first time was with Taf in the back of Harry’s shitty old van. That’s it, that’s what I got up to in high school. Let’s talk about you now?”

Ari giggles and squeezes his waist before releasing him. As she pulls away, she grabs for his hand. Niall doesn’t resist as she intertwines their fingers and swings their arms back and forth.

“Okay,” she agrees. “I was eighteen, it was November in my first year of college, and I got just drunk enough at a dorm party to tell a guy in my bio lab that I wished he was my lab partner because he was funny and smart. We had sex in what I assumed was his bed and what he assumed was mine. We didn’t figure it out until the guy who actually lived in that dorm room came back from across the street where he’d run out to order a pizza.”

“Oh, shit!” Niall guffaws with laughter. “He walked in on you?”

“Nope.”

“How long was he out of the room?”

“Less than five minutes.”

Niall snorts. “Nice.”

“Yeah, it was real romantic. We went on one date the next weekend for Mediterranean and then we never spoke again.”

“Bio lab just got awkward.”

She chuckles. They round the building, suddenly overlooking Tillson City High School’s pride and joy: the football field. Before them are dozens of bleachers circling the field, enough room for almost every resident of the town, every seat filled under the Friday night lights at least a few times per season.

Niall’s never been, personally. While everyone in town crowds their asses onto those stone cold pieces of metal, Niall packs the bed of his truck with blankets, pillows, and his guitar and drives in the opposite direction with Z and Olive. That’s just how it is. They’re not birds travelling in a flock, him and Z. They’re more like mice scurrying away from the noise.

Ari lets go of his hand and walks ahead of him, curious to view the field up-close, with its gigantic growling bobcat painted in the center of pristine turf. The only 50,000 square feet in the entire city that everyone will chip in out of their own pockets to maintain.

“They’re in class now,” Niall remarks as Ari stands between two gigantic rows of bleachers, one hand on the pillar as she looks out, “but when that bell rings, they’ll be out here, decked out in their home uniforms and doing their drills half-assed to impress the girls who stick around to watch ‘em.”

“Who’s they? The football players?”

Niall nods. He hangs back from the field, only following Ari when she ventures underneath the bleachers and looks over her shoulder in excitement, like she’s entering a large tent. He knocks on a metal support rod and says, “These’ll be full tonight. They’ll bring in a couple foods trucks for hot dogs and ice cream, parents will paint their faces in blue and gold, and they’ll squeeze into these seats to watch a few kids run around with a ball.”

“You don’t ever go?”

She asks the question, but the way she asks it proves that she already knows the answer.

“Nah.” He steps lightly, eventually leaning against a support beam with hands in his pockets while Ari seems interested in the nooks and crannies. “Under the bleachers used to have a lot of allure, though. Their parents would be at the game, but benched players would sneak under here to make out with cheerleaders while all the fuss was happening out there. Heard it was pretty risky back in the day.”

Ari spins on her heels, a patient smile on her face. “You never tried it.”

He shakes his head. “Me, Z, and Harry were far away, in Harry’s van or in Mickey’s garage, listening to music or playing music or… smoking with music on.”

She approaches him slowly. Her head tilts toward her shoulder, a thoughtful expression written across her face. “You ever wonder if you missed out?”

Niall crosses one ankle over the other. “Yeah,” he says honestly. Doesn’t everyone? No matter what he was doing in high school, he always wondered if it would be better if he was doing it with someone else, or doing what that someone else was doing. That was his entire teenage experience.

His pulse quickens when she stops in front of him and smoothes her hands over his bomber jacket while gripping it on either side of the collar to pull him forward. His nose crushes against the side of her face as she brings their lips together, instantly licking out to catch his tongue. Niall’s in such a rush to free his hands that he turns his pockets inside out, but then he’s got the reign to cup her elbows, run his hands up her arms and slide his fingers into her hair. Her ponytail comes apart in his fingers. Ari grunts, but her irritation only makes her press him harder into the beam, claiming his mouth with her tongue and his thoughts with her insistent hands.

To be honest, if this was factored into his high school experience, he would probably think back on the whole thing more fondly.

.

An hour later, Olive’s strapped into her carseat and Niall drives along the winding road on the way home with Ari at his side. Out of nowhere Ari gasps so dramatically that Niall, stunned, nearly veers off the road.

“What the heck?!” he cries. Behind him, Olive giggles.

Ari’s palm presses against the glass window as she stares at a sign until it’s behind them. Then, so excited her eyes are blown wide, she whips around to face Niall.

“What’s a Harvest Festival?” she demands.

“Huh?”

“There’s a Harvest Festival all weekend in Somerset, starting today.”

Niall hesitates, anticipating more. Ari says nothing, but her gaze is so pressing that he breathes, “And…?”

She blinks. “Can we go?”

“What? Like, right now?”

“Yeah.”

He peels his eyes from the road to assess her level of commitment. “Seriously?”

“Yes!” She reaches out to give his shoulder a nudge. “It sounds fun. The sign said there are fresh vegetables, a pumpkin patch, hayrides, and a petting zoo.”

“I wanna go!” Olive chirps, kicking the back of Niall’s seat.

“What? We don’t even know what it is,” Niall argues.

“I just told you,” Ari says. “It’s a town Harvest Festival. There’s lots to do.”

And there are lots of people, and any quiet day in Tillson City means its residents are either in church, packed onto the football field, or taking advantage of some other town’s event. That’s what Z says, anyway. He purposely took Olive to Charleston to stay with his parents two years ago when Tillson City celebrated its bicentennial. He was terrified that if they stayed in town, Olive would beg to go, and then he’d run into someone he’d banked on never seeing again.

“It’s something to do,” Ari says gently, chiding him with a hand covering his thigh. “How often is there something to do around here?”

“Fair enough,” Niall’s quick to reply. Ari’s in and Olive’s in and that’s pretty much all it was ever going to take for Niall to be in, too. “To Somerset we go.”

.

Whatever a Harvest Festival is, Somerset throws a good one. And why shouldn’t they? Niall vaguely remembers learning in ninth grade geography that Somerset has the lowest population density and the highest ratio of pigs to people in the entire state. In other words, these folks are all about farming and fatback bacon.

Niall thinks it smells delicious, but out of respect for Ari, he avoids the communal cookout that smokes animal flesh. Turns out there are lots of other things to do. Olive begs to ride the mini ferris wheel with Ari. Ari gets motion sickness and won’t go on the Merry-Go-Round, so Niall bites the bullet and, from atop a plastic unicorn, waves to Ari with a shit-eating grin each time they spin around. She links arms with him as she browses the season’s fruit and veggies, selecting a bushel of apples and several stalks of corn to come back for later. Olive uses Ari’s phone to take photos of the autumn floral arrangements on display because Ari has the idea to bring them back to Kalene and Rosen for discussion. Niall makes the ghastly decision to allow Olive her first-ever caramel apple after she nearly loses her mind in excitement over riding a pony at the petting zoo, and then she’s a livewire, racing this way and that, jumping up and down, on an adrenaline rush and a sugar high that may very well result in an overdose.

Niall realizes just how problematic this day is going to be from Z’s perspective when he finds out, but it’s too late now.

He stands dutifully behind Ari as she digs through her wallet to pay for harvest pies – one apple cinnamon for Rosen and Jackson, one peach for Niall and Z, and one banana cream especially for Olive. Ari’s got her back turned and Olive’s tugging on his hand, begging for one last pony ride before they leave—“Pleeeeeeease, Niall? I want to ride Bubbles with the black spots! I’ll do anything!”—when Niall sees them out of the corner of his eye and feels an age-old brick of dread low in his gut.

“Well, well, well,” says a low voice, accompanied by a nasty laugh, “so this is where you are when you’re not taking it up the ass at Sherman’s.”  

It’s easy enough for Niall to ignore him at first. After all, he’s got a bit of a situation on his hands, what with Olive beginning to work herself toward the dangerous ledge of a tantrum.

“Will we see you at the tailgate tonight, Horan?” asks the other. Niall doesn’t have to look at him to see his sneer. “Millcreek versus Tillson. You could play us a few songs to lighten the mood, huh? You know the one by Katy Perry, don’t you? I kissed a boy and I liked it…”

His obnoxious singing captures Ari’s attention. With three boxed pies and a receipt in her hand, she twirls around with a grin that quickly fades as she stares at the two men beyond Niall.

“Luke?” she asks.

Niall follows her eyes. Luke looks just as surprised to see Ari, but his smile only falters for a moment even as his eyes cloud with envy and disdain. Alongside Luke and his crony are two girls Niall recognizes as well as the guys, one with a caramel apple identical to Olive’s.

“Ari,” he begins, “you should come to the game with us tonight. Get the full Tillson experience. Horan won’t take you – too much of a coward to show his face again.”

Next to Luke, Janowitz chuckles, a pitiful sidekick ‘til the end.

“What are you talking about?” Ari asks. Her face hardens. Olive stops pulling on Niall’s arm, finally aware of the tension.

“It’s nothing,” Niall says hastily. He puts a hand on her shoulder, urging her forward. “Let’s go.”

He begins to herd her toward the parking lot with Olive’s hand clutched tight in his grasp. The little girl trots along beside him but continues to protest.

“Sure you won’t come, Horan?” Luke calls after him. “I heard some of the Millcreek players need their dicks sucked. You’re the man for the job.”

In a flash, Niall lets go of Olive’s hand and spins around, nostrils flaring as he approaches the two men without fear. Fuming, he spits, “Watch your damn mouth, all right?” He gestures to Olive. “You don’t have respect for me, but at least have some for her. She’s five, man.”

Behind him, Olive starts to cry.

“That your lovechild with Malik?” asks Luke. He looks over Niall’s shoulder and directs a question to Ari. “Has he told you about that yet? About how in high school, him and Malik—”

“Shut up.” Ari’s voice cuts Luke off like a knife. She’s nearly trembling with fury, her lips pressed in a thin line and her eyes dark. “Leave us alone, Luke.”

She has her hands on Olive’s shoulders, ready to take her away. Niall’s ready, too. He doesn’t spare either of them a second glance before turning his back to them.

“Hey, Horan,” calls Janowitz as he walks away, “settle a bet for us: when it’s you and Malik, who’s top and who’s bottom?”

He doesn’t catch up with Ari and Olive before he’s spinning around again, charging towards Janowitz’s sick, smiling face with a flame of hatred. Janowitz doesn’t process Niall’s intentions until Niall gives him a hearty shove, and then, after he regains his footing and the accompanying girls shriek, he barrels forward and crashes into Niall.

Olive wails. He thinks Ari calls his name, but Niall’s tossed over a hay bale, pinned down by a man eighty pounds heavier than him, and he can barely hear a thing other than breathless grunts and Janowitz hawking his spit. Niall manages to free his arm and sends the heel of his hand flying into Janowitz’s cheek, meaning to send his saliva elsewhere, but it lands him with an elbow to the face, which hurts like fucking hell. The pain is so intense it makes his eyes water.

Even after Luke and a festival worker drag Janowitz off of him, Niall still lies there for a moment, winded and breathless. There’s some shouting, a small crowd has gathered, and Niall just hopes, fruitlessly, that he’ll never see any of these people again. When he stands, slowly and carefully rising to his feet knowing full well he’ll be sore tomorrow, he sweeps his blurry vision over the hay bale in case he left his nose behind – it may very well have become disconnected from his body when he took that blow to the face.

The owner of the pie booth comes out to yell at them. Niall can only focus for a second before he shifts his attention to the girls. Ari’s picked Olive up and holds her against her hip, while Olive clings tightly to Ari’s shirt and blubbers. Ari’s breath hitches when she takes her first glimpse of Niall’s face.

Did Janowitz really spit on him? Jesus. He goes to wipe the wetness from his lip with the back of his hand. Pulling it away, his hand is streaked with blood. Even fucking better.

Festival security, otherwise known as one single man probably two years Niall’s junior wearing a pullover labeled SECURITY across the back, joins them at the scene of the disturbance and, without asking questions, immediately begins to usher Janowitz away, trailed by Luke and the girls. With his free hand, he motions to Niall, pointing towards the exit across the way.

“Out, fellas,” he orders.

While Niall nods because duh, of course they’re being kicked out, Janowitz complains like a child, protesting, “Come on, man, he started it!”

“This isn’t a bar, this is a community event! There’s no place for your violence. Don’t come back!”

This. This is why Z hates public events.

The guard sees both parties off at the gate, leaving them to their own devices. Niall, carrying Ari’s bag of pies for her, finds a napkin inside and uses it to blot at his nose. While Luke and Janowitz get into it with the guard over the grounds of their dismissal, Niall takes his punishment soundly and trails Ari and Olive to the pickup.

Standing outside the driver’s side, Ari sets Olive on the ground and looks at Niall. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out, and even if it did, it would be choked on the blood-spotted napkin he holds to his face. But Ari’s not looking for an explanation – after a few moments, she reaches forward and pats down Niall’s pockets herself, hearing the jingle of his keys in the left pocket of his bomber. She grabs for them to unlock the truck.

It’s Niall who’s trembling now, not out of fear or anxiety but rage. And it’s not rage directed at his own assault, but rage that they’d target him at a public event, in front of other people, in front of his family. Olive is his, not his flesh and blood but his heart and soul, and for them to go after him in her presence is despicable. For Ari to have to see it, too… it’s too much.

Niall leans against the van next to his pickup and hisses at the feel of his tongue running over the scrape on his upper lip. It stings – it might swell, like the time Olive fell off her trike on the sidewalk a couple years ago and had to go into daycare with a fat lip. Z was shattered and barely let her climb the stairs unsupervised for a month afterwards. Something tells Niall Z won’t be quite as overprotective of him when he hears of what happened.

Ari takes care of Olive now, fishing a tissue from her bag to help Olive blow her nose, speaking softly and reassuringly in her ear, and then lifting her up into her seat in the truck. She buckles Olive in with a promise that they’ll be home soon and she’ll make her a cup of hot cocoa, because she saw some powder in the cabinet the last time she was over.

Even though she’s being so wonderful to Olive, Ari probably wants to scream at him. Niall doesn’t blame her. She probably wants an explanation, because in her world, it makes no sense that high school rivals would come back to haunt her well into her twenties. All of that stuff shouldn’t matter anymore, but in Tillson City, it does. It matters that they caught Niall on his knees in the locker room at seventeen with Matt Gray’s dick in his mouth. It matters that Gray, the starring quarterback of the Tillson City High Bobcats, was so distraught from his teammates walking in on his secret that his parents transferred him to a school in Charleston. It matters that Tillson City, 7 and 0 up until that point, didn’t make the playoffs because of a freshman quarterback entering midseason.

People don’t forget their own spin on these events, not around here, not ever. Niall will be Mickey’s age, wrinkled and dying from cancer, and he’ll still be known as the gay who sucked a straight guy’s cock so good the town lost the entire football season and every single season since.

With Olive safely in her carseat, Ari gives her what remains of her caramel apple and then faces Niall. He braces himself as she approaches, pushing himself off of the van and balling up the blood-soaked napkin in his fist. With her brows pulled together in a frown, she takes his cheeks in her hands and assesses the damage to his face. Niall cringes, embarrassed.

“It’s a split lip,” she says quietly. “The bleeding has stopped.”

He nods. As soon as she lets go of his face, he drops his chin to his chest and shakes his head. After a deep sigh, he lifts his head to meet her eyes. She stares at him with concern. But surely, she must be angry.

“I’m sorry, Ari,” he murmurs.

It’s her turn to shake her head as she wraps her arms around his neck. The last thing he sees is her pained expression before she presses a lingering kiss to his cheek. Confused, Niall freezes. Surely, she’s angry. Is this the calm before the storm? He glances to Olive, who sits calm in her carseat and looks on.

He tentatively hugs back when she keeps him in her arms, one hand on the back of his head as she whispers in his ear, “Are you okay?”

“Mm,” he agrees, momentarily allowing himself to shut his eyes and breathe. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

When she pulls back, she wears a resolved smile. It’s not altogether bright and it’s not altogether cheery, but dammit, it’s a smile of strength.

Gulping down his emotions, Niall approaches Olive in her carseat. She looks at him with a frown.

“’M sorry, squidge,” he says in a near-whisper, placing a hand on the other side of the seat. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Why was that man hurting you?” she asks, lower lip extending into a pout.

“We see things differently, that’s all,” Niall assures her. He wipes a stray tear from her cheek. “But it’s wrong to fight with your fists. You know that, right?”

She nods seriously, returning, “Do you know that?”

He cracks a smile. “I do know that. I just made a mistake.”

Olive takes the last bite of caramel apple in her mouth and says matter-of-factly, “When we get home, Baba’s gonna put you in a time out.”

.

Olive is right. Z puts him in a mental time out after Niall explains (with frequent interjections from Olive) what took place at the Harvest Festival. He stays mostly silent through dinner, nearly whispers a thank-you as Ari doles out the peach pie, goes outside to watch Olive while she plays with the kids down the street as Niall and Ari do the dishes, and then keeps his stare only on Olive as they sing her a bedtime song (Sweet Child o’ Mine is tonight’s pick, followed by the chorus – and just the chorus – of The Mighty Jungle).

Niall is no stranger to Z’s silence. When he forgot to pack Olive a lunch before sending her off to school, Z didn’t speak to him for two days unless absolutely necessary to exchange crucial information concerning Olive’s wellbeing. Back in college, when Niall thought Mel was taking Z out for his birthday, he went out with Liam and got absolutely shittered, missing all of Z’s calls and texts that he would meet Niall wherever he was – Z avoided contact with him for a week after that one, with band practice being especially salty. And then there was high school, when the football team caught him sucking off Matt Gray in the locker room. Z didn’t speak to Niall for nine days after that. Niall remembers clearly: nine whole days. Gray hated him, the football team hated him, the school hated him, and the town would soon hate him, but what sucked the most was that his best friend hated him, and Niall didn’t even know why.

And now he can feel it coming like a cloud casting a shadow: another frosty silence, another thick tension. When Z gets too upset with Niall, he can’t talk to him. He can’t even look at him. He needs to stew in his own thoughts for an extended period of time – hours, days, weeks – before he comes back to Niall on his own, ready to move on.

So, when Z doesn’t come back downstairs after his final goodnight to Olive, Niall doesn’t go looking for him even though his legs are itching to race up those stairs. Instead, he traps himself in his room, pacing back and forth from his nightstand to his dresser and occasionally bringing a hand up to brush his lip, to check the cut is still there, now swollen and hot. A melting ice pack sits abandoned on his nightstand, but Niall doesn’t care to use it. He feels ill and unsettled, his stomach a boiling swamp, bubbling and sloshing from side to side.

Ari slips into his room after a ten-minute nighttime yoga session and soundlessly shuts the door behind her. She’s so quiet that Niall doesn’t look back, doesn’t even sense her presence until he spins on his heel to walk back to his dresser and nearly smacks into her. Startled, he sucks in a breath and grinds to a halt.

“I can hear you walking in circles from outside the door,” she says. Though she snorts in amusement, her eyes portray genuine concern. “Take a breather. Sit down.”

Niall mutters an incoherent decline, but somehow, he ends up seated on the edge of his bed anyway.

Ari doesn’t crowd him. While he leans over his knees and lets his head fall to his chin, staring at the traitorous creaking hardwood that divulged his actions to Ari, she backs up to the empty wall and leans against it, hands behind her back.

After a long period of silence, she says, “You’re upset.”

“No, I’m not,” Niall lies, “I’m just—Z’s upset.” He sighs and hisses at the sting when his tongue touches the open wound on his lip. “He’s pissed at me. I just feel shitty.”

“It’s not your fault they went after you,” says Ari, confident yet gentle. “You reacted – you didn’t provoke.”

“I should’ve walked away.”

“You did,” she reminds him, “and you would’ve kept going, if Olive wasn’t with you. You didn’t want her to hear what they were saying… and they wouldn’t stop.”

Niall nods, slowly straightening his back until it’s at a ninety-degree angle to the bed and he’s able to look at her again. Why is she here? Not here in his room, but here in his life. He’s got nothing going on, no prospects, no plans – everything’s the same, day in and day out. Here’s this girl who’s looking for an awakening, an experience or a place or a person to shake her alive, to rattle the bones beneath her skin and charge her veins with electricity, and yet she chooses to sit with Niall in his bare, dingy bedroom in this boring, one-horse town while he obsesses over the past.

He’s a fucking idiot. He can’t offer her what she’s looking for, but he can offer more than this.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, cheeks pinking when his voice cracks.

“Stop saying that.” She chuckles. “I’m not upset with you about what happened. I’m only upset because you’re upset. You’re upset because Zayn’s upset. Zayn’s upset because Olive was upset. And Olive? She’s over it; she had a nice evening with her baba and she’s forgotten what happened. Situations like this… you just have to let go.”

There’s a reluctance in her expression that doesn’t match the certainty in her tone. Niall can guess what she’s holding back: it’s what’s been sitting heavy in the air between them ever since their run-in with Luke and Janowitz at the Harvest Festival. It’s what probably has her wondering the same thing as Niall, albeit for different reasons: what she’s doing here, in this house, with this man, when she could be anywhere else.

Hands on his knees, he stretches out and begins to stand. “What they were saying about me today,” he begins with resignation, “I don’t, I mean, I’m—”

“Shh.” Ari holds up a hand to silence him. “You don’t have to say anything. It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, it does matter,” he counters, frustrated, “especially if they made you think—”

“They didn’t make me think anything,” she hastily interrupts, “except that I’m really glad you started talking to me that night at the bar, because if I’d had to make real conversation with Luke… I mean, he’s such an ass.” She releases a breathy laugh.

Niall pauses to read her face. She doesn’t shirk from his gaze or flush; rather, she widens her eyes, just as intent on searching his expression to ensure he understands her.

He takes a step forward, the floorboard creaking under his feet. “You don’t believe them?”

She shakes her head definitively. “I believe what you tell me,” she assures him, “not what anyone else tries to tell me about you. I don’t even care if it’s true.” Her shoulders slump, her back sinking against the wall. “If it’s relevant right now,” she says, gesturing to the space between them, “to this, whatever this is, then I’ll believe you if you tell me. Otherwise, I don’t care.” She gulps. Her eyes stray to the open window only for a second. Niall only has time to blink before her gaze is locked on his eyes, their eyes holding each other like an electromagnetic force. “They don’t influence my thoughts.”

“It’s not relevant,” Niall mumbles, though truthfully, he’s not sure. Tillson City society is fragile like domino infrastructure. With all the pieces so close together, even the slightest breeze affecting one single domino can cause the design to crumble until nothing’s left standing. But he lets that worry go, pushing it toward the edges of his mind as Ari’s image crowds the center. Niall takes another dubious step forward, and another, until he’s right in front of her, his eyeline only an inch above, her breath hitting his neck. Once in fists at his side, his fingers unfurl as his hands find her hips. “You should know, then,” he begins weakly, “that I’m really… fuckin’…” –he swallows— “into you.”

Her lips press into a shy smile, her fingers circle his wrists.

Niall uses his hold on her hips to pull her just a little bit closer. His movements are sure, his leg slotting between her thighs with confidence, but he trips over his own breath when he opens his mouth to speak again. “I, um… you’re funny, and smart, and real, and, um, really hot?” Ari’s once-coy smile spreads across her face until it stretches from ear to ear. She giggles. “And I just like being with you, and having you naked in my bed, and, um…”

He loses his train of thought and comes to a standstill, certain his cheeks are flamingo-pink as Ari’s giggles fill the silence. He drops his head, exhaling in surrender.

“Jesus,” he breathes, managing a chuckle, “I know this sounds insincere and contrived, but it’s not – not at all – I’m just, I’m not good at, like… verbal… stuff.”

“Of course not,” Ari laughs, “why would you be? It’s not like you write songs and articles for magazines.” Her hands loosen on his wrists and she trails them up his arms, finally hooking her arms over his shoulders so he can’t back away.

“That’s writing, though. With speaking, I’m garbage.”

Ari pecks him on the cheek. She winds her arms around his neck and trails her lips to his jaw, where, after a nibble, she murmurs, “It felt very unrehearsed, unlike your other performances.”

“Maybe. My mouth is better at doing other things.” With a short laugh, he tilts his head until he finds her lips. Their kiss is brief, lasting only until Niall’s swollen lip begins to sting. As he pulls away, he adds, “What I said, though… I didn’t pull it from nowhere. I do think all that stuff about you. And you should know that.”

Translating into words the flutters made by someone glued inside his chest has never been Niall’s forte, but perhaps it’s not Ari’s forte to receive feelings in words, either.

She nods. Her eyes flicker to his lips and back again. It’s difficult for her to swallow all of a sudden, and Niall fears he may have upset her until she says very quietly, almost in a whisper, “I believe you.”

Niall’s heart has always pointed him to people, and his feet have always done the travelling to close the distance between them. With Ari, for the first time, he feels a pull from her direction – like she’s thrown out a line that’s hooked him and she’s reeling him in as fast as he’s swimming towards her. And it’s strange to meet someone’s mouth earlier than he expected and to turn around to look for someone only to find them already at his side – strange, but so easy to fall into.

That night, as Ari rides him in the tangled sheets on his bed, the open window barely easing the stifling temperature in the room or their bodies, slick with sweat, Niall has to throw the back of his wrist to his mouth and bite down to keep from crying out. Ari tries to pull him up, to get him to straighten his back and seat her in his lap so he can use her shoulder to silence himself, but he’s too boneless, too breathless from the way he feels inside her, the way she opens up for him and fits him better than his best pair of jeans, so he collapses on his pillow and pulls her down with him, not even aware of the sting in his lip as she kisses him quiet when he makes his final thrust up into her.

Afterward, with the setting sun a perfect glowing semicircle through the window above the bed, Niall throws on a pair of boxers, sits cross-legged atop the crumpled bedsheets, and reaches for his guitar. Ari curls up on her side, tucks her hands between the mattress and her cheek and watches him with the kind of adoring eyes that never stare back at him, not in any crowd he’s ever played for. It reminds him of Olive’s eyes, though he can’t be sure – she’s only ever directed that kind of stare at Z.

He only plucks at strings, and he only hums the melodies. It’s enough to have Ari drifting back to sleep, her eyes struggling to widen further than slits. When he sets down the guitar and moves off the bed to get his jeans, she sighs.

“I’m getting up,” she promises, low and groggy. “Thirty more seconds.”

Niall grins at her absolute lack of commitment to being awake as he pulls his jeans up to his hips and buttons them. In fact, her eyes are sealed shut, confirmed by Niall when he waves his hand several times in front of her face and she fails to react at all.

Once he pulls a fresh t-shirt over his head, accompanied by a button-down plaid, he crouches by the bed and pokes her lightly in the nose.

“I’m getting up,” she repeats. This time, she doesn’t even open her eyes.

He laughs below his breath. “Keep sleeping,” he murmurs. “It’s okay.”

“You’re going to work.”

“Yeah. I’ll be back at midnight or so.”

It’s only a little over three hours. They’ve never done this before – he’s never left her or returned to her sleeping soundly in his bed, but he likes the idea of it. He hasn’t suggested it for fear of scaring her, because he’s not really sure what the boundaries are and doesn’t know where to begin to test the waters between them, but right now, with Ari as good as asleep and Niall with no other choice but to hop into his pickup, it seems like a good time to try.

To his dismay, her eyes open slightly, forming half-moon slits crinkling into a frown. “I can stay?”

He nods, his chin resting on the mattress near her face. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay.” Her eyes drift shut again. Her facial muscles relax into something more peaceful almost instantly.

Well. That was easier than he thought.

“Wake me up when you’re home,” she adds.

“I will,” he agrees. He’s lying.

Niall hesitates in his squat for a few moments, wondering if it’s okay to kiss her or tuck a piece of hair behind her ear or whisper that she looks very, very beautiful right now, but instead he gulps and stands up, because he doesn’t want to risk ruining any part of this.  

He shuffles quietly around the room, cringing when the floorboards creak beneath him, gathering his wallet and keys and gently placing his guitar in its case and closing the latches. With his hands full, Niall pauses at his door to glance at Ari one last time: her hair is fanned across his pillow, her arms curled to her chest as she sleeps. He frames that image of her in his mind before he slips through the door and closes it carefully behind him.

He turns to find Z in the living room, the TV on low. Z’s eyes are fixed to Niall and on the door behind him. He must know, whether he heard them or not, that Ari is beyond that door.

Niall neither confirms nor denies this. Instead, with his swollen lip and the fleeting thought that hopefully Luke and his gang will have somewhere else to go after the game tonight, he mutters a goodnight to Z and lets himself out.

If Z says anything in return, Niall doesn’t hear him.

.

On weekends, Niall hardly ever wakes with the sun. He shuts his blinds and buries his head under his pillow to cloak himself in darkness until his body can’t possibly sleep anymore.

The morning after Ari spends the night, Niall’s eyes open to the faint rays of morning light shining over the horizon, creeping around the side of the house and into his bedroom. In truth, it’s not the sun that rouses him – it’s his bladder. It’s a water balloon ready to burst. With a wince of discomfort, Niall’s quick but mindful of Ari sleeping next to him as he removes himself from the bed and darts out of the door.

He exits the bathroom feeling weightless with relief, and even though there’s a prominent ache in his fat lip and the light of the morning sun is too harsh in his eyes, he feels good. The house is quiet, the sky is clear, and Ari is in his bed exactly where he left her.

At least, she was. Niall comes to a halt in the doorframe to find the door wide open and the bed empty.

What?

A shuffling across the hall has him looking over his shoulder. Ari’s up and awake, moving from the living room to the front door to look through the screen and check the drive. Niall stands and watches her. Confused, her shoulders slump, and she turns slowly with her thumbnail between her teeth.

As soon as she spots him, her face brightens. With loose strands of hair falling from her side braid and Niall’s t-shirt falling off her shoulder, she bares all her teeth in a grin and makes her way toward him.

He’s the one she was looking for. She got out of bed to see where he’d gone, thinking he may have left. Niall’s feet lead him where his heart wants to go, but he can’t remember the last time another pair of feet led someone else after him.

When Ari’s close enough, Niall hooks an arm around her neck, helping her to right the t-shirt on her shoulders before coaxing her back into his bed.

.

Niall finds a suspicious flyer on the counter mid-month. With Ari at work and then having dinner with Rosen and Jackson, there’s nothing stopping Niall from confronting Z as soon as he can get him alone without Olive in the room.

“So, uh… what’s this?” Niall asks, tea towel slung over his shoulder and hands sudsy with soap from dinner’s dirty dishes. He points vaguely to the flyer for before- and after-school daycare.

“What?” asks Z, eyes following Niall’s finger to the ad. While he cleans up the place settings on the table, he shrugs. “Oh, that. My mom said they stuck the flyer on her windshield while she was shopping in town the other day.”

“So she gave it to you?”

“Yeah.”

Niall nods, turning back to the sink and grinding his teeth. “What did you tell her?”

“I just said thanks, is all.”

“Huh.” Niall might begin to scrub the pasta pot a little bit too hard, but that’s not his primary concern.

“What?” Z stops cleaning to straighten his back. Niall feels his glare on the back of his neck even if he can’t see it.

“Why’ve you kept it so long? You thinkin’ about it?”

“I dunno.” Z sighs. “Look at the address. The daycare center is two blocks from my office. I could drop her off and pick her up on my way every day, and if something happens, I couldn’t be closer.”

Niall glances again at the flyer to confirm that yes, the center is close to Z during the day. “But, uh… what about me?”

“What about you?” Z must have known the conversation was heading in this direction, but to his credit, he keeps his cool. “You’ve got other things to do, two jobs to work. You don’t need to be Olive’s babysitter, too.”

“I’m not her babysitter, I’m—” Niall forces himself to shut up in the middle of speaking when he realizes he’s nearly growling. Instead, he abandons the soapy pot in the sink and rinses his hands, turning to face Z while he dries them on the tea towel across his shoulder. “You know that’s why I’m here. I made my schedule the way it is to account for Olive, always. Why would you send her to daycare if I’m here to watch her?”

Z shrugs again, his expression neutral. “Maybe it’s time for a change. They say kids should be social, spend time with other kids, and Olive doesn’t have siblings, so… this makes sense. It could be good for her.”

“She goes to school, though. She plays with kids on the block.”

“Yeah, well, now she’ll meet new kids. Have even more friends.”

“How you gonna afford it?”

“I just will.”

Niall screws up his face, holding his hands at his sides until he lets them fall. “You just will?”

It’s Niall’s cynicism that sets Z off, causing him to drop the placemats on the table and approach the counter. “Yeah, I just will,” he retorts. “She’s my daughter; I need to make sure she’s taken care of. I don’t care what it costs, I’ll make it work. I just will.”

“What the hell, Z?” Niall cries, flaring up in anger instead of simmering. “You were gonna do this without even telling me? One day I’d wake up and you’d be loading her into the car to drop her off at daycare?”

“I’m just thinking about it, Jesus.” Z huffs. “It’s a thought, that’s all.”

“Why is it a thought now when it’s never been a thought before?”

“Because things change! I have to do what’s best for my daughter.”

Niall shakes his head in exasperation. He takes a moment to calm himself with a breath before saying to Z in a voice that’s soft and near a plea, “Don’t take her away from me. You know she’s mine, too.”

Z, normally affected by the mood of others around him, doesn’t settle at Niall’s tone. Instead, he bites back, “She’s not yours.”

Niall physically recoils, stung. Still quiet, he adds, “I love her.”

“Who?”

That does it. Niall hopes Olive has her door closed while she plays quietly upstairs, because he slams his hand down at the counter, blue eyes blazing. “Olive,” he spits. “I fucking adore her, Z, you know I’d do anything to protect her, to make her life better. You’re just being spiteful.”

“Get over yourself. You think this has anything to do with you?”

“How could it not?” Niall cries. “All along, we said we’d try to get by without daycare, now after Trisha hands you one fuckin’ flyer you’re sold?”

“It wasn’t one fuckin’ flyer!” Z barks. “We’ve been talking, okay? Talking about where to go from here, how to make sure Olive gets everything she needs.”

“What does she need that she doesn’t have? Tell me!” Niall demands.

“Stability! Routine. She doesn’t need to be around doped-up Mickey one day and then going pony riding at an out-of-town festival the next. She needs to be with kids her own age, doing age-appropriate things, for fuck’s sake.”

Niall’s nostrils flare. Fuming, he says, “So it is about me.”

“It’s about her. It’s always about her. Every fucking thing I’ve done in the past five years has been about her.”

“So now you’re the martyr.”

“No, I’m the father. Fuck, Niall! Grow up. Recognize that I don’t have time to pick up girls at bars and show them around town. Recognize that I put in my time at work every day to provide for my family and then I come home and put in time with my daughter. That’s my life – it’s not yours.” He snorts. “It’s very clearly not yours.”

“Oh, come on. Just because you think being celibate is the only way to go, doesn’t mean it is. Don’t you get lonely? Don’t you ever want someone? I’m not a villain just because I’m hanging out with someone new.”

“Fucking someone new,” Z corrects him.

Niall throws his head back, caught between a laugh and a snarl. “I don’t need your approval to date, or to sleep with anyone, or to do anything involving my own love life. You made it clear you don’t want a part in it.”

“Actually, you do need my approval,” Z counters, to Niall’s incredulity, “when you’re bringing your fuckmate around my house to interact with my daughter. Jesus, Niall! You didn’t even think before you brought Ari ‘round to meet Olive, and then all of a sudden, she was just here. All the fucking time. Do you not understand how fucked up that is, how damaging it can be to a five year-old?”

“Olive loves Ari, and vice versa.”

“Yeah, and what if she leaves? Let alone if you two have a falling out, but what if she actually leaves? She’s from Long Island; you know she’s not here forever. And then what? Olive feels forgotten, like she doesn’t even matter to this woman she started to love. Did you even think about that, Niall? No, of course you didn’t, because you’re not her father. You were thinking about getting laid.”

Niall bites his lip, still swollen from the Harvest Festival, no longer able to look at Z. He looks at his fingers instead, tapping angrily on the countertop. Voice calm and even, he says, “You jealous? Is that what this is?”

“Fuck off,” Z spits, “this has nothing to do with that.”

“Oh, really? Timing seems pretty convenient.”

“Timing seems pretty damn late if you ask me. You wanna do this forever?” Z asks, throwing up his arms and gesturing to the world around him. “Live here with me and my daughter, never having your own life? You want this?”

“This is your dad talking,” Niall accuses him.

“Yeah, well maybe he’s right!” Z shouts. With a growl of frustration, Z sinks into a kitchen chair. He runs a hand through his hair, eyes falling to the table in surrender. “You don’t need this, Niall,” he croaks. “This is my life. This is what I have to do because of the choices I made, not you.”

He looks up, begging Niall to meet his eyes, but Niall won’t. He can’t, because Z’s last thought is going to ruin him, he knows it.

Niall’s heart sinks into his ribcage as Z speaks again, asking him the one question he once thought he had an answer to: “So what the hell are you still doing here?”

.

The television wakes him in the middle of the night. Niall’s eyes flutter open slowly, adjusting to the faintest hint of light streaking in through the crack between his door and the frame. The kitchen lighting is harsh, and the way the single ray of grating light falls upon Ari’s sleeping form in the darkness does no justice to how peaceful she looks when she sleeps. Niall prefers the moonlight for that – for when he gets home after performing at Sherman’s or for when he wakes, due to a sudden noise or his own body alarm, in darkness and watches her sleep, chest rising and falling, soft breaths escaping, one hand usually tucked underneath the pillow to keep it warm.

Ari doesn’t know that she’s a comfort to him when she sleeps. Just having her near, calm and still next to him, lulls him back into slumber. It gives him the sense that things are Okay, and maybe they’re not Okay in the sense that Ari talks about when she talks about being Okay, but they’re Niall’s type of Okay – and it’s an Okay he didn’t quite recognize he was missing until Ari crawled under his blankets and cuddled up to him in the night.

Tonight, it’s the sound of gunshots that wake him. He comes to slowly. His arm drags over Ari’s waist, covered only by a thin sheet, to rub his eyes. A film shrouds his vision, a haze of sleep. He cranes his neck over his shoulder to check the time: half past two in the morning. Carefully, he extracts himself from Ari, gently pulling his arm out from underneath her neck and sliding his shin out from where it rests between hers. With a deep yawn that conquers his chest, he rolls to his back and considers staying there, in bed, where it’s hot and comfortable and the person next to him wants him there.

Outside his door, shouts come from the television, followed by more turmoil – machine guns or cannons and many very loud engines. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Z was trying to wake the whole house. Niall does know better, but a part of him remains curious if Z doesn’t want to be alone. If, perhaps, he’d welcome company, if that company were Niall.

Niall peels the sheet from his body like a bandage, torturously slow in anticipation of the sting of cool air. Lifting himself from the mattress is another story: he cringes as he stands on his feet and the mattress lifts. He knows from having her in his bed for many nights now that Ari’s neither a particularly heavy nor a particularly light sleeper, but he doesn’t want to take a chance waking her and won’t dare ask himself why.

Tiptoeing across the carpet, he grabs a t-shirt flung over the chair and throws it over his head before slowly turning the doorknob, opening the door only as far as it takes for him to slip outside. It closes soundly behind him.

The kitchen lighting, white and unfriendly, makes him squint, and he unfolds his glasses and pushes them up his nose in the hopes they’ll help. They don’t, so he makes his way over to Z – sitting on the couch in the living room with only a single lamp illuminated, yolky light warm and enticing – while rubbing his eyes underneath the lenses and blinking fiercely.

They don’t greet one another. Z’s eyes shift from the screen to watch him approach, wearing just a pair of pajama pants while Niall’s scrawny chicken legs are exposed in boxers and a t-shirt, but he neither invites him closer nor turns him away.

Niall doesn’t bother pretending he’s conflicted over where to sit. He ignores the armchair and walks straight to the charcoal couch, picking up a cushion next to Z because it’s in the way of where he wants to sit. As soon as he sinks down, toes curling into the fuzz of the rug and hip knocking against Z’s, he hugs the cushion to his chest. He likes his hands to be busy, and the cushion is something to hold.

Z’s got some black-and-white documentary on TV, something about Franklin Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. Niall barely registers the fighter jets zipping about in the sky dropping bombs on an entire island. His eyes see the images but his mind sees nothing.

“Is Ari here?” Z murmurs. He releases the remote in his hand in favour of slinging his arm across the back of the couch behind Niall’s head.

Niall nods, eyes affixed to the screen. A bomb spirals through the sky and torpedoes into a ship. He hugs the pillow tighter.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Z adds. His gums make a squishy, wet sound when he parts his lips and runs his tongue below his teeth. “Olive crawled into my bed after a bad dream, so once she fell back asleep I came down here.”

Niall hears every word, though his eyes barely flicker in acknowledgement.

Z brings the sole of his foot to the couch, his knee tucked to his chest. Fingers graze the back of Niall’s neck, tickling the hairs there. “You okay?”

Finally, Niall gives in and looks at him. It’s been a few days since he’s shaved and black stubble lines his jaw. The facial hair gives Z a refined, mature look, with none of the patchiness and fuzz that defines Niall’s struggle. Niall hadn’t noticed it before tonight because, he realizes, it’s been a while since he’s seen Z up-close. They’ve crept around one another for days now, ever since their blowout over the daycare flyer, both too proud to offer concessions to one another over the quarrel yet both ashamed for the way it dissolved into stiff silence.

Z’s brows are furrowed in concern and his gaze roams Niall’s entire face, from his chin to his nose to the still-visible lump on his lower lip. Stuck on a certain spot on Niall’s head, Z focuses on the blond tips of hair fading to brown, curling an arm around Niall’s shoulders and using his hand to fix the bedhead. Niall struggles not to shut his eyes and give into the feeling of his head being scratched but, like a dog, he’s powerless to fingers in his hair.

Z knows that.

“Thirsty?” Z mumbles, trying again to elicit a response. Niall shakes his head, just once, while Z massages the back of his head. “Could make you some tea,” he offers. “Get you a glass of water, if you want.”

Niall declines nonverbally. He keeps his eyes closed and fades into a dreamlike state. Z’s voice is musical, even when he’s not singing, and the one place Niall’s always felt at home is in music. For a moment, he allows himself the fantasy that he’s a priority to Z, that Z will take care of him, that Z loves him like he loves Olive or like he once loved Mel. The dream spikes a pleasure center somewhere in him so that he feels like he’s almost floating, cocooned in heat from within. He sinks into Z, into the warmth of his bare chest and the soft scruff of his jaw, and even though he tilts his head to one side in a silent plea for Z’s fingers to run through the hair near his ear, he won’t let himself fall asleep.

This is so easy, this routine. So comforting to sit with Z and not have to speak a word. So reassuring to feel the heat of his body and his pulse steady beneath his skin. So beautiful for the few moments he allows himself to pretend they’re each other’s, in the hazy glow of late night TV while the crickets chirp through the open window screen.

But in the morning, it’s always the same. In the morning, they’re friends, co-parents, cohabitants of a residence. That’s all they are. It’s a lot, but it’s not enough.

Niall’s waited for him for so long, hanging onto any shred of hope Z gives him in the night, and it’s led him nowhere. Same old town, same old job, same old empty bed. Z could meet someone he clicks with or he could move Olive to Charleston when he transfers to his dad’s office. Gramps and Gram still live with the sadness of a runaway daughter, but they’ll leave Niall before he leaves them. And then that’s it. Niall’s on his own.

Everyone he loves, everyone for whom he’d take a bullet and bleed dry, can’t be trusted to stay in his life. And when they go – by finding another love or by succumbing to death – he has no backup. No reason to stay, no reason to keep the life he leads.

Niall allows himself a moment of self-pity in which he dumbly decides he loves everyone more than they love him. But, as Z attentively strokes his hair, Niall knows it’s unfair to think that way. He’s felt love all through his life and has never had to look far for advice, comfort, support. Maybe it’s just that he loves people differently. He hinges every part of himself onto the ones he loves. His feet listen to his heart, and his heart is Z and Olive. Gram and Gramps. He goes where they go, no questions asked. To go elsewhere would be to separate his heart from his own body.

But where does that leave him? Twenty-five years old with half of a college degree in music, back in the same town he and Z promised they’d escape from when they were teens. It wasn’t as long ago as Niall would like to pretend it was.

His stomach flips uneasily. Niall takes that as a sign to dislodge himself from Z’s side, to stand up and peel off his glasses. The war documentary is nothing but a grey blur now, but Niall hears the pelt of bullets as he runs a hand through his hair, roughly moving it back and forth to mess it up and forget Z’s fingers were ever there. Z doesn’t say a word as Niall leaves the room and flicks off the harsh kitchen light. As Niall slips back into his bedroom, he can only make out Z’s figure sitting in the same position on the couch, Niall’s cushion now pulled close to his body. But Niall can feel his stare. He doesn’t have to see it clearly to know it’s fixed on him as he disappears from view.

He climbs back into bed just as carefully as he’d climbed out of it. As he covers his body with the bedsheet, he pulls it up over Ari’s shoulders to keep her warm. Then he turns his back to her and curls up on his side, the red glow of his bedside digital clock burning into his pupils. His hands are restless and empty, yearning for something to hold.

Ari’s sharp intake of breath alerts him that he’s woken her by mistake. She shifts on the mattress, her arm skating behind her back to feel for him. Her palm lands on his thigh.

“Did you leave?” she murmurs, voice groggy with sleep.

Niall doesn’t cover her hand with his under the blankets. Toying with the fabric on his pillowcase, he quietly returns, “Where would I go?”

Because that’s the question, isn’t it?

She rolls over. He feels the dip of the mattress as she sidles up behind him. He feels her lips press a kiss to his shoulder. He feels her hitch her thigh over his waist, her hand sliding over his chest and settling around his middle, her heartbeat thumping, only for a few seconds, against his shoulderblade. She holds him.

He lets her.

.

Ari’s meant to stay the night one Thursday evening, but Rosen phones her with what she insists is a “wedding emergency” and comes to pick her up shortly after eight o’clock. She instructs Ari to be ready and waiting on the front stoop, so Niall goes out, barefoot in the late summer mugginess, to sit with her on the steps until her ride arrives. They giggle and murmur and kiss as the sun goes down, fingers interlaced and hearts thrumming. When the Honda Civic approaches on the road, Niall stands, pulls Ari to her feet, and holds her cheeks in his hands as he kisses her long and slow and deep, sealing their mouths together for several seconds until he has to let her go.

As Ari moves to get in the car, Niall waves politely at Rosen behind the wheel. She offers a bewildered stare in return.

Then they’re gone, and Niall stands with his hands in his black denim pockets to watch the little car zip down the street and turn the corner, lost in the dark. He swivels on his heel and heads inside, shutting the door quietly behind him and turning the lock. The silence on the main floor incites a crease in his forehead. With Z’s soft, melodic voice floating down the stairs, Niall’s frown deepens.

Did Z start Olive’s nighttime song without him?

He takes the stairs two at a time, hurried but light, and by the time he reaches the landing, he recognizes the tune. Z’s voice glides easily across the range, singing in tune with the small keyboard he uses to occasionally supplement Niall’s guitar.

There’s a part of Niall that wants to storm into Olive’s room, exclaim that he’ll go grab his guitar and they can start over. But there’s another part of him that exists, and no matter how deeply it’s buried, it’s stronger: it wants to listen, to observe, like Ari does at night when she watches them play. Niall wants to be a fly on the wall, and he’s not sure why.

“And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score… but I love you, I love you, I love you like never before.”

He doesn’t know what he’s looking for until he peers around the corner and it hits him like a slap in the face, a cannon ball to the gut, a hand reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart until all the blood drains and he’s left with nothing but a shell of an organ.

Keyboard in his lap, Z plays chords to the song he knows off by heart, with Olive tucked up against his side and staring up at him like he hung the moon. Her big, brown eyes are wide and inspired, in awe of her father because he’s the man who can do anything, the one she loves most. Z’s face is warmed with a smile, and he stares right back at her because in his world, she is all that exists, she is the sun that his Earth must travel around in order to remain in the light.

This is their moment, not his. And maybe every night before this one has been their moment and Niall’s been just an accessory, a third wheel, a temporary addition to the real duo.

His heart wants him to watch, because it’s captivating and sweet and just how it should be, but this time his mind wins and he physically tears himself away, using his palm to push himself off of the doorframe and blinking his eyes, hard, to erase the image burned on the back of his eyelids.

Z and Olive are fine as long as they have each other.

But, Niall thinks forlornly, he needs them, too.