I turned around and leaned over the sink. Niall had always been one of my best friends; did he start to feel something more? Before long, footsteps came into the room again and I washed all sour emotion from my face. Zayn and I had just been through this. If I could handle things with him, then I could do the same with Niall.

Looking to see who was leaning against the island behind me, my heart rose when I met emerald eyes. At the same time, my stomach dropped, knowing that he could see straight through me. Closing the distance between us, I threw my arms around his neck and my face in the niche where his neck met his shoulder.

Harry nearly stumbled backwards with the force that I exerted on him. “Whoa! Hello to you too!” I smiled, leaving soft kisses on his neck. Part of me wanted to show affection, but the other part wanted to replace the feeling of Ni’s lips with something else. Either way, Harry made no attempt at suppressing his subtle moan at my touch. “I wanted to see if you needed any help.”

“That train just left the station,” I mumbled against his neck. I felt the low chuckle rumble in his chest as he pulled me in tighter.

“Then I have a surprise for you.” I pulled my head away from his neck while my body remained in his arms. “Go get dressed and dress warm,” he demanded.

“Are we going somewhere?”

He leaned in close, whispering easily in my ear. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you.” A shiver ran down my spine, but I spent no time hiding it. Harry’s frame shook with laughter as he released me from his grip, playfully smacking my bum as I went to leave the kitchen. I held my cheek and stuck my tongue out as I walked through the kitchen doorway.

~

Not knowing exactly what Harry was planning, I began piecing together an outfit out of the presents that I had gotten in the past few days. I pulled my black turtle neck over my ungodly hair. I ran a brush through it and fish-tailed it off to the side. I pulled on my skinny jeans and my pink Toms. To accent the shoes, I wrapped a pink belt just around my bust line and grabbed my pink mittens that attached to my pink ear flap hat. I walked out to greet everyone else, already waiting to leave. I quickly reached over for my camera before Harry got a hold of my hand, excitedly dragging me out the door and towards the elevator.

Each guy held his girl in the elevator, except for Harry, who instead kept a protective arm around my waist and I stood between him and Niall. Of course I would get stuck next to Ni. His arm brushed mine and, even though we had clothing between the contact, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the small space, not wanting to be trapped next to a boy that I had no mutual feelings for. Harry squeezed my side and I panicked slightly, knowing that he sensed my discomfort. What if he asked? What was I supposed to tell him?

When we got down to the parking lot, I made sure that I let Niall out of the elevator first. As we loaded into the range rovers, I made certain that Harry and I got into the one opposite of Niall. I felt bad for distancing myself like that, but what else was I supposed to do? This was the solution until I could come up with a more thought out plan. I sat beside Harry while Zayn drove with Haley in the passenger’s seat. Their hands rested on the glove box, Zayn having a tight grip on Haley. My eyebrows furrowed slightly as I became entranced on their hands. It almost looked as if Haley’s was… shaking? It wasn’t full on shaking, but just little spasms every now and then, kind of like she was flinching. That couldn’t be right. I left it to that my mind had to be playing tricks on me and focused more on the boy that had moved to the middle seat of the car and was playing with the end of my braid.

I knew that we hadn’t been driving for long, but I also couldn’t pick up on where we were going. Pretty soon, we pulled into a park and it was packed full of people. A look of shock came onto my face as I turned to Harry. “Damn it. I told Niall to wait until we were on our way to Tweet.” Still a little uneasy at the sound of Ni’s name, I looked at him curiously. In the blink of an eye, he had disappeared from my side and gotten to the other side and opened my door, holding his hand out for me to take.

As we walked through the crowd, the screams became louder. My ears rang as I saw signs that worshiped the boys. When the boys had pushed us all through the crowd, Harry pushed me up onto a platform. Looking around, I realized that it was circular and there were fans watching from every angle. Now I knew exactly why the boys loved what they did. It was astonishing up here. No one could put in to words the accelerating feeling that it charged through your body. I stood there with an amazed look on my face and jumped slightly when I felt fingers touch my waist.

“Hannah Noel Glowik, I know for a fact that you don’t get stage fright,” Harry whispered huskily in my ear. I turned around and my eyes widened.

“I didn’t know I was performing.” He gestured back out towards the roaring crowd.

“Surprise,” he gave me a sweet smile and pressed a kiss to my cheek. I could hear half the crowd ‘awe’ and half ‘boo’. Harry just hugged me tighter and I watched as all the others went the center of the stage and one faced each direction. They all put their arms up and the fans went wild before growing deathly silent. Liam started in on singing Jingle Bells and now I knew what was going on. This was their glorified version of Christmas caroling. Harry eventually left me to go and harmonize with the rest of the boys and I instantly started snapping shots with my camera. This one was so much faster than my old one. I watched as El and Dani stood off to the side and clapped their hands together, singing along with the boys. Haley was by my side as I had staggered off of the stage. She was clapping, but didn’t let a word escape her lips.

Fairly soon, the boys started to sing The First Noel and I saw Harry spot me in the crowd. I couldn’t get far enough away from the steps and he grabbed my hand, tugging me towards the stage. Zayn was doing the same with Haley, but she wouldn’t budge.

“Zayn, I’m not going up there.” She put emphasis on ‘not’ and gave Zayn a glare that let him know that she was no where near joking around. He hesitantly released her hand, looking a bit hurt. I could tell that she was looking for an excuse of why she couldn’t go and came up with a solution. Looking back at her, I handed her my camera. She mouthed, ‘thank you’ as I was pulled the rest of the way on stage.

“Don’t break it!” I yelled back. She laughed and I let myself be hauled onto the stage.

The boys went back to the middle of the stage and the screaming girls became silent. “Okay everyone!” Harry spoke up, “some of you may know Hannah.” He gestured towards me and I could tell that you could cut the tension with a knife. “She’s gonna sing a solo for you guys.” My mouth hit the floor as I stared at Harry. The crowd got louder but no where near the impossible volume as when the boys were singing.

I leaned over to Harry, keeping my most convincing smile spread across my face. “Harry, I’m not singing.”

“You’ve never been afraid of performing,” he whispered back.

“Yeah, but I’ve never had my singing be put in comparison to yours.” He shrugged and backed away slowly with the rest of the boys. I thought of what to sing, trying to think of what sounded best in my octave. Then it came to me:

Teenage girl, much too young,
Unprepared for what’s to come.
A baby changes everything.

Not a ring,
On her hand,
All her dreams and all her plans,
A baby changes everything.
A baby changes everything.

The man she loves, she’s never touched.
How will she keep his trust?
A baby changes everything.
A baby changes everything.

And she cries, oh she cries.

She has to leave, go far away.
Heaven knows she can’t stay.
A baby changes everything.

She can feel it’s coming soon.
There’s no place, there’s no room.
A baby changes everything.
A baby changes everything.

And she cries and she cries. Oh she cries.

Shepherds own they got their,
Star shines down.

Choir of Angels say,
‘Glory to the newborn king!’
A baby changes everything.
A baby changes everything,
Everything, everything, every day.

Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah,
Hallelujah!

My whole life is turned around.
I was lost and now I’m found.
A baby changes everything.
A baby changes everything.

I didn’t expect anyone to now the song, so I didn’t expect anyone to show any interest. As my vocals came to an end, the crowd erupted. The cheers were so huge that I didn’t know what to do, and I was positive that my face was turning red. Standing there awkwardly, I looked around to see four boys standing with their jaws on the ground. All of them except for Harry looked super surprised. I glanced from one to the next sheepishly and the audience started to die down. Harry finally stepped forward and gestured towards me again, making them explode in applause once again.

“And that was the beautiful Hannah Glowik!” Then Harry did something that I was totally not expecting. Right there, in the middle of God and everybody, Harry leaned down and pressed his hand to my lower back, keeping my body pressed tightly to his. His head ducked down and his lips crashed shortly and sweetly to mine. I couldn’t hear myself think after that; the audience was so loud. They weren’t upset though; they were cheering.

They boys kept me on stage with them until the end of the performance. A couple of times, I caught Haley flashing photos and smiling as she looked between Zayn and the screen on the camera. When we were finished, the boys closed the show and everyone went wild. Without me knowing what they were doing, all five of the boys gestured towards me and the crowd got impossibly louder. All I could do was smile out at the audience that had grown through the square. It had started snowing about half way through and I was absolutely freezing, but the number of people cheering for the boys and I had a strange, warm effect on my heart.

Soon, the boys led me off stage and began to drag me back through the crowd of screaming people. As we tried to navigate back to the range rovers, girls were snapping pictures and I smiled as I caught Harry staring at me after running past a group of girls and giving them a group hug. They squealed but kept as much of their cool as they could. Surprise came to my face. I watched as magazines and other random papers were thrown into my hands with pens and pencils. Wait. They wanted me to sign stuff? Why? Sloppily signing my name on a few papers, we broke through the other side of the crowd and the boys pushed me into one of the cars.

This time I was in the passenger’s seat and I looked over to see Harry climbing in the driver’s seat. Still having a head rush from all of the screaming, I smiled over at him and he took my hand as we pulled out of the car park. My other hand went to turn the radio on and, being a little bit tired of the Christmas music, I found a station that was playing pop. Harry began singing and I looked over and smiled at him. I wanted to try something a little bit different. Making up my own descant part, I began harmonizing to Harry’s raspy tones. After about five minutes, I switched back to the melody and sang my heart out, not worrying about anyone who might see me jamming out in the front seat.

I lost touch with everything. I hardly remembered where I was, I just remembered that I was having fun exorcising my singers’ lungs and that Harry’s hand was clinging onto mine. When the song ended, I snapped back to reality and noticed that I was the only one that had been singing. Blushing, I came to realize that I didn’t even know who else was in the car. Turning my head, I saw Haley smiling as she leaned into Zayn. She lifted my camera off of her lap and snapped a shot of me. The smile then tugged at the corners of Zayn’s mouth as well as they both admired the shot. She was lying on his chest so much that his arm was wrapped around her chest, pinning her upper arms to her sides. Haley was obviously white, but her skin was so tanned that it nearly matched Zayn’s.

“Why am I the only one singing?” I finally came to say. I looked at Harry who was beaming, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Turing around again, I saw Haley look up at Zayn right as he looked down at her. He sweetly pecked her on the lips and she relaxed back into his torso. I looked back through the windshield, deciding that I had made a complete fool of myself.

“We stopped because Harry never told us that you could sing like that.” Gasping quietly, I realized that there was one more in the head count, and he had notified me with his Irish accent. Looking into the rear view mirror, Ni’s gaze had fallen upon me and was full of admiration and adoration. Putting my feet on the dash board, I sunk a little lower in my seat so that my knees were half way to my chin. I let on that it was out of embarrassment, but I knew that it was so that I wouldn’t have to feel Niall staring holes in the back of my head.

*Haley’s POV*

We rode the rest of the way to the flats in silence. Zayn’s grip on me was tight and I wiggled slightly while still nestling in closer to him. His tension relaxed a little and I sighed in relief. There wasn’t any need for him to have that tight a hold on me; I wasn’t going anywhere.

Hannah stayed sunken down in her seat and I was kind of getting the vibe that she was a bit uncomfortable with Niall’s previous comment. It was either that, or the fact that he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since before he commented. Hoping that a love triangle wasn’t sprouting, my eyes slowly drifted closed and I nodded off to the beating of Zayn’s chest.

Feeling Zayn shift under me, I wasn’t fully awake when I was lifted from the car. Slightly startled, my eyes shot open before relaxing back into Zayn’s firm chest. I could feel him carry me bridal style through the dark. I liked the dark, but I hated the cold; I got enough of that at my apartment. My skin was happy when we went into the warm, but with the warm came the light, but light was better than cold any day of the week.

Once I heard the ding of the elevator, I started to wiggle, trying to get Zayn to put me back on my feet, even though my head was still resting on his shoulder. He brought his mouth close to my ear. “Relax Babe, I’ve got you.” His breath made me shiver and I rested my hand on his chest, tracing his collar bone with the tips of my fingers.

Notes

Haley and Zayn getting a little more comfortable with each other, but what's up with Haley's issue of being held too tight? Any predictions? Subscribe, comment, rate :) Let me know what you think about EVERYTHING! I love hearing from you guys! Second update today :) Enjoy!
xoxo Hannah <3