He wants to eat alone! My heart starts racing. It would be nice to get some alone time with him before we leave. We are going to hang out just me and him, alone. No friends to bug us. I hope the girls will understand that and that I'm not ditching them for a guy I just met, but come on! Its Niall freaking Horan! I've waited for this moment for 4 years!

"I really want to." My hands are meshed together and butterflies are growing in my stomach. "I just got to let the girls know and see if they're ok with it."

"Okay." He nods then I get up and walk over to the table motioning Chelsea to follow me.

She follows suit and asks, "What's up?" as she leans on the table with a frown on her face.

"Niall wants to go out to eat alone, with me..." I whisper. "Alone... Are you guys okay if I go with him?"

"Are you kidding?!" Chelsea gasps, "Of course you can!"

"Really?" I say smiling.

She puts a hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eye, "Yes, we will understand. Go on a date with Niall Horan." And she wiggles her body side to side.

I stop grinning when she says 'date.' Oh shit.. is it a date?

I take a step back from her grasp, my heart ponding in my chest now, "Is it a date?" I ask sounding horrified.

Chelsea sees the panic on my face and gives me a tired look. "Dude calm down, forget I said anything." She looks towards where everyone is seated then back at me and smiles, "You'll be fine."

She's right, why am I overreacting? It's not like I'm going to see him again after tonight. I nod, "Yes, you're right. I can do this!" I tell her with building confidence.

"Yes you can!" She encourages me. We fist bump then walk over to the couches.

Niall is sitting on the arm of the couch next to Liam talking with the rest of the group, when we get close he looks up at me and stands up.
I walk to him smiling with my hands behind me.

"So is it alright?" He asks, I think more towards Chelsea.

"Yes it's okay with them." I nod and look where my friends are and they give me a thumbs up.

"Great," Niall smiles, "Shall we head out then?"

Niall tells his friends that we are going for a walk not for food and of course he gets teased but I don't mind it. We won't have to hear their B.S. once we are alone!

We are meandering side by side down a street trying to find a restaurant Niall wanted to try out and we are kind of quiet. Was this a good idea? Maybe the mood will lighten up once we find the place. What should I talk about with him? I hope we have things in common. We continue walking down a busy street and my stomach starts to rumble, he seemed so sure of where it was but I'm starting to doubt him.

"Are you positive it's down this way?" I ask starting to get impatient.

"Yes, it should be around here somewhere..." He trails off looking around then back on his phone. I roll my eyes at the fact that Niall might get us lost. Well I don't mind, it's nice just being alone with him.

"There it is!" He exclaims, startling me, then grabs my hand and pulls me to the front door of the restaurant. He goes up first and holds the door open for me. I thank him and he gives me the cutest grin ever. Awe!

I look up to read the name of the restaurant before we head in, 'Osteria Dei Mosaici.' It's nice inside, there's dark wood panels lining the lower half of the walls and the tables are nicely spaced with cream tablecloths. And the chairs are a red wine matching with the walls. It seems a little fancy though. I make a mental note of how much I can spend in here as we step in.

Niall is still gripping my hand tightly as we walk up to the hosts podium. I kind of forgot that we were holding hands, I like this. He's got strong hands that fight nicely with mine...

"Benvenuto!" The host greets us.
"Ciao! Table for two please." Niall tells him.

"Right this way." The host leads us to a table next to the windows. Niall pulls my chair out for me and I sit down, what a gentleman!

"Grazie," I say going red and I see a corner of his lip rise up before he replies, "No problem." Then he sits down across from me locking eyes with me. This definitely feels like a date!

The host clears his throat interrupting our stare down, Niall is first to look away, "Your waiter will be Richard tonight," he hands us both a menu, "He will be with you in a moment. I hope you two have a wonderful evening." I look up at him with a small smile and say, "Grazie mille." He gives me a big grin, bows his head and then turns away.

I look back at Niall but he's looking out the window and seems a bit distracted. Hmm. "So!" I perk up which makes him jump in his seat then turn to me and raises his eyebrows, "Hmm?" He mumbles. I open my menu flat on the table, "What are you going to have?" I ask him leaning forward on the table with a smirk.

His face softens, "Oh right," he opens his menu as well and runs a finger down the page.
He's got nice hands, and smile, and eyes, and hair... The tips of his hair is blond with his natural brown color peeking out at the roots, I wonder what he looks like with all of his hair brown.

"Are you going to let your natural color grow in?" I ask him curiously.

He looks up at me with his brow creased, "I don't know. I would like to just to see how it looks, it's been a while since I've had my brunette hair." He shrugs.

"Huh, you would probably look much different..." I mumble in thought.

Niall just chuckles softly then looks down at his menu again.

I'm staring at him again not even caring about what I want on the menu, how can a guy look so good just wearing a white T-shirt and jeans? Niall must be really hungry because he is totally focused on the menu. My stomach rumbles, the walk from the stadium has gotten me hungry again. I look down at my menu before the waiter returns not knowing what I want.

Moments later our waiter, Richard, comes up to our table. "Buonasera! My name is Richard and I'm your waiter tonight, may I start you off with some drinks?"

"I'll have some tap water please." I say simply.

"I'll just have a glass of beer, any kind is fine. Thank you." Says Niall.

"Ok. Is the lovely couple ready to order as well or should I give you a few more minutes?" Couple?! No no no!

I feel my face heat up instantly as our eyes dart from the waiter to each other then back to Richard.
"Oh no-" we both try to tell him then stop and laugh but Niall gestures for me to go first.

"Ah I'll just have the," I skim through the menu again and close it, "The Arancini please." I hand my menu to the waiter then look to Niall.
"I'll try that as well thanks." He passes the menu to the waiter with his eyes lingering on me and smiles shyly. Ah! I can't take it! I look down to hide my face.

"Fantastico! Your drinks will be here shortly as well as your food." Richard bows his head like the host did and leaves the table.

"No wine this time?" Niall asks leaning forward in his chair.

I laugh, "No. I'm not much of a drinker but ever since we landed in Greece my friends and I have had a glass almost every night and I had way too much last night so I got to cut back a bit."

"Ah I see," Niall chuckles. "So tell me about your 'Euro-trip'," he puts his hands up for the quotations, "where are you guys going to go after this?"

"Um, well." I sigh, sitting up straight, "We stay in each country for about 5-17 days depending on how much we want to see, so we started in Greece," I roll my eyes up to think, "about 3 weeks ago. We spent two weeks in Greece then one already in Italy. But we made our way up the islands over those two weeks and ported in Rome."

I pause for a moment to see if he's still listening and he nods along so I continue. "Actually we just landed in Milan yesterday so we are going to be here for a couple more days at least then we are off to Switzerland. After that we'll go to Austria, which I'm most excited to see by the way, then Germany and on to the Netherlands and down to Belgium. From there we go to France then take a ferry to the UK and spend our last month there going around to see Scotland and Ireland." Niall's face lights up when I say Ireland. "Then we'll circle back to London and fly home to Canada." I finish with a slight frown. That's too far to think about going home now, we just got here!

"Wow, that's awesome!" Niall says intrigued. "I've always wanted to backpack around Europe and parts of Asia. I mean I've traveled the world but I haven't really explored like you guys have."

"Yes it's been amazing so far, it's definitely a thing to do before you die." He smiles and nods at me in understanding.

Richard comes up silently bringing us our drinks making me jump when he appears beside me. We both take a sip of our drinks. My mouth is so dry! I feel like I'm doing the most talking.

"So how long have you been planning this whole trip? It must be costing you quite a bit going for this long."

"Mm," I set my glass down, "it kinda started with Theresa back in high school, she wanted to do the backpack thing so she began probably planning that around when we were in grade 10. We were all working since we were 16 and at about a year after graduating we realized that we were all going to different colleges or moving to other towns and might not see each other as much. So we decided to spend our last summer together on this trip."

Our food finally comes and my mouth starts watering immediately. Niall is pleased to see his food as well. We stop chatting to grab our utensils and dig in. Mm! It's so tasty! I peek up to see that Niall is devouring his food with the same expression as I do.

We gobble up our food within 10 minutes without uttering much words between us, I guess we were both hungry. I take my last bite and lean back in my chair to see that I finished before Niall. He puts his fork down and looks at me with raised brows, "Wow! I don't think a girl has ever finished a meal before me!" He says surprised.

I laugh a little embarrassed, "I told you I was hungry."

"Well it's a good thing I took you out then." He replies with a wink. Whoa!

I sheepishly smile while rolling my eyes subtly and look to my right out the window so he doesn't see me blush. Hmm, I notice a couple of girls standing on the sidewalk looking into the restaurant. "Uh Oh." Niall whispers. I shift my gaze to him, he's looking out the window too. He looks very serious for some reason.

"What?" I frown tilting my head.

"I think those are some fans..." He says sullenly.

I'm so happy I'm writing this!! And thank you so much for reading! Stay beautiful!! xoxo