× Mercury

"Do you have a certain diet or training during the soccer season?"

Any other day, any other time, I would have loved to take the time to answer all the questions Lily Burnett was spitting out of her mouth. But she had to find me on my way to work, which started in four minutes, and I had absolutely no patience or the time.

But Lily didn't seem to get the hint as I continued to speed walk across campus to The Courtyard Bar because her short, little legs were keeping in pace with mine, pen in one hand and a notepad in the other.

"Listen, Lily," I said as I stopped in my tracks and faced her. "You seem like a sweet girl, but I can't do this right now. I'm running late for work, and if I'm late I don't get my tips for the night."

Lily nodded her head up and down enthusiastically, her brown bob bouncing in the process. "I understand, Ms. Mercury, but this is my last chance to talk to you. The issue of the Lion's Den goes out on Thursday and I was chosen to interview you and Niall. I've never been chosen to do my own article and I don't want to let anyone down. I have to submit it tonight by midnight."

She was pleading with me, and from her doe-like eyes, she was winning. Lily just wanted to prove herself that she can do this article; it wasn't her fault that I had a busy schedule. I looked across campus and saw the bar about a hundred yards away and sighed deeply.

"Alright, I'll answer your questions," I told her and the smile that appeared on her face could have lit up a million light bulbs. "But you have to walk and talk and only until we get to the bar. Also, please call me Lynn."

"Thank you so much!" Lily nearly squealed with delight as I started walking away from her, but her short legs quickly caught up with me. "Do you get along with your teammates? What is it like spending so much time with only boys?"

I cracked a smile at that question. "Honestly? Spending practice, training, and playing games with them is just an overpowering of boy-ness," I told her as she started scribbling away on her notepad. "Sometimes I forget that I don't have a penis."

And the questions continued on from there. How did you become interested in soccer? What do you do on your off time? Do you have a special routine or superstition before you play a big game? I probably answered twenty questions in the span it took to walk to work and Lily seemed overjoyed by the outcome.

"Okay, one more question," Lily insisted even though I was already opening the door to the bar. "And I'm only asking this because it's a high demand."

"Just one more."

Lily grinned and glanced down at her notepad for the question. "Before you came around, Niall Horan was the star of the team. What's it like to steal the spotlight and how do you feel about Horan?"

"That's two questions," I glared. Lily just looked at me pleadingly. "I- I can't answer that, Lily. It doesn't feel right."

"Really? Niall answered when I asked him."

"What did he say?"

She shrugged. "You'll just have to wait for the issue," Lily deadpanned, and it only hit me then that she may be tiny, but she was full of aggression to strive on success. She reminded me a lot of Jamie.

I clenched my jaw. "I didn't steal the spotlight. To my knowledge, Niall is still the star. I came here to win, however people want to label the ladder is all on them. And as far as how I feel about Horan, he's got a thick skull and an ego too big for his own good, but we play well together and that's good enough for me."

"What about the chemistry between you two?" Lily pressed. "There has to be more-"

"Lynn!" someone shouted and I saw my boss glaring at me from a few feet away. The little amount of customers looked up to see who he was yelling at and I felt my cheeks grow warm with embarrassment. "You're late!"

"Gotta go!" I said to Lily, thankful for the interruption.

I wasn't sure where her next question was going, but there was no way I was going to answer anymore that involved Niall.

"Thank you so much, Lynn," Lily said. I could see that she was sad that she couldn't dig deeper, but she was still smiling nevertheless. "You saved my arse on this one. Maybe next time we could have a proper chat, yeah?"

"Maybe," I smiled before entering the bar and leaving Lily outside.

Dragging my feet across the wooden flooring of the bar, I slowly made my way over to the front and to the backroom to hang up my coat and put my messenger bag in a locker. I grabbed my name tag that I always stuck on the cork board that had the weekly schedule and other news and pinned it on my black V-neck shirt with the bar's logo on the small breast pocket. I then grabbed one of the many white aprons that were hanging up on the wall and started tying it around my waist.

"Do you have an excuse for being late?" my boss, Finn, asked as I exited the backroom. "This is the third time this month that you came in after your shift started."

"Ay," Jillian said as she walked by us to grab an order on the shelf. "Lay off her a little, Finny. She has to juggle football and training and all the school work. She's bustin' her arse off."

Finn looked at Jillian like if she said another word, she would get canned. But the curvy girl just stared him down right back, daring for a challenge. Finn might swear like Macey, have a face piercing like Emily, and a fiery attitude like Jamie, but right then nothing could make Jillian stand down.

"Alright, fine," he finally gave in, putting his hands up in the air. "It would just be nice if you could call saying you're going to be a little late next time. You can take the front of the bar tonight."

I nodded. "Yes, of course. Thank you."

As expected, the night didn't seem to pass by very fast. People came and went and I was getting bored. If there was any other job on campus, I would have applied for it. I was hostess during my high school days at a local Denny's and I thought that was boring. Waiting on people was so much worse. It was the same things every day, the same bad attitudes and lousy tips. I wished that Lily would come back and ask me some more questions for her article just to pass the time.

"My boyfriend's coming to see me this weekend," Jillian said enthusiastically once I was behind the counter and putting an empty glass on the counter. "I'm so excited. I haven't seen him since I got here."

"Really? How come?"

"We go to different schools." Jillian leaned against the counter and grabbed the empty glass and started cleaning it with a wet rag. "He goes to the university in Wolverhampton, which is, like, two hours away. He's planning to stay until Halloween so you'll get to meet him."

The smile on her face told me everything I needed to know about their relationship, and I was only slightly envious.

"I'm sure he's a great guy."

Jillian nodded. "The best."

"Lynn!" I heard someone shout and saw that one of my coworkers, Annie, was walking over to me. "Booth two is asking for you."

I grabbed my notepad and glanced over at Jillian who had a smug look on her face. "Here we go," I said monotonously and made my way to the booth.

As soon as I saw who was sitting, I stopped in my tracks and stared.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

Harry looked up at me with a shy smile, the dimples on full display. "To apologize," he said. "On behalf of Eli for what he did a few weeks ago."

I put the pad of paper in my apron pocket and crossed my arms. "That's thoughtful of you, but it would be a lot more effective if it was coming out of his mouth."

He shrugged, running a hand through his short, brown hair. "I know, but you seem nice and I feel like utter shit about the whole thing. I should have told you from the beginning that he had a girlfriend, but he does that kind of stuff all the time."

"So you really came all the way over here just to say that you're sorry for something that you didn't even do?" I asked him. I took the seat across from him and leaned forward, generally interested in what he had to say.

"Aren't you going to get in trouble for sitting down on the job?" he asked with a look of concern in his green eyes.

"Nah, we're slow tonight," I said, a little upset that he didn't explain himself for coming to a rundown bar with overly priced food and watered down beer on a Monday night... just to apologize. "I should say sorry, too, for kissing you without your consent. I just... it was in the moment and I wanted to make sure Eli knew I wasn't fazed by his disgusting behavior."

"You do not need to apologize for that," Harry said, the shy smile quickly turning into a crafty grin. "Eli's a huge tosser, for sure. The only reason we keep him in the band is because we don't know a guitarist as good as him."

"Well, when I find one I'll make sure to send him your way."

That was how it started. We spent a good half hour talking, and it was rather refreshing to talk to someone new, someone who wasn't associated to my job or sport. I haven't talked to someone so easily before and I just found myself telling him things I wouldn't dare say to anyone on the soccer team or even to Chloe, for that matter. I laughed a lot, too, which was something I missed since moving to London.

Friends, too. That was the one thing I really longed about California. People to just talk to about anything and not worry what they might think about me or who they might tell the second I leave. Jace was nice to chat with at times, but he was my teammate and there was a limit to what I could say that wouldn't be brought back up at practice. There was also Jillian, but like I said before, she was a huge gossip. And with Chloe, we may be roommates but I hardly know anything about her, and vice versa. I didn't quite trust her one hundred percent and since she was friends with Abby, it was just safer to keep things to a Hey, how was your day? and Can I borrow that shirt?

Harry was just... Harry. Slightly intimidating at first with all the tattoos and his closed in stance, but he wasn't anyone to be scared of. And I liked that.

"Lynn," Finn said as he passed by and saw me sitting in the booth. "Get back to work. You already lost your tips for the night; don't make me add in floor mopping, too."

"I'm sorry, sir," Harry piped up on my behalf. "It's my fault. I asked her to sit down and I wouldn't take no for an answer."

"It doesn't matter. Just get working," he said before walking away.

I groaned and scooted out of the booth. "Well, it was nice talking to you, Harry. Maybe we can chat again sometime?"

"Are you asking me out on a date?" he asked, brows raised knowingly.

"I wasn't, but since you mentioned it. What are you doing tomorrow at around... four?" I asked him, thinking in my head what I had going on tomorrow on my mental calendar. "I have some time before practice at five thirty. Maybe we can get some coffee?"

Harry stood up and dug his wallet out from his black skinny jeans.

"There's this little shop at the corner of Alton Road we could go to," he said, placing some cash on the table before stuffing his wallet back in his jeans. "How's that sound?"

"I'll see you tomorrow," I agreed as Harry started to back away and out the door.

I grabbed the cash on the table that he left and noticed that it was a poor tip. I couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't like I was getting any of it, anyways, which was probably why he did it.

When nine o'clock came around, I finally took my break. I had one of the cooks in the back make me some French fries and I got myself something to drink and took a seat at a booth in the back of the room where no one was around. I tapped on my phone to see what social media was talking about, sent a Snapchat to Jamie who responded with a silly face of her own, checked out Twitter all while stuffing my face with overly salted fries and a large Coke.

I was in the middle of liking a photo on Instagram - a picture Emily posted of her and I at a sushi place before I moved to London - when someone joined me on the opposite side of the booth.

"What's up, Ireland?" I asked, setting my phone down on the table.

"I came to see how you're doing," Niall said sincerely. "Has that Bradley lad shown up again?"

Two and a half weeks have gone by without a sign of Bradley, so I thought it was safe to say that he had gone back to California. But I didn't have any solid proof of that, so it felt like I was always looking over my shoulder, wondering when his next attack would be.

In those weeks, the bruising around Niall's nose had nearly gone away completely, but it was still there and it was still a constant reminder of my guilt. If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have had that injury.

"No," I told him honestly. "And I know you didn't come here to see me just to ask how I was doing. You could have done that at practice."

"You're right, I came here to apologize."

My brows rose. Why was everyone coming to say sorry to me today? I didn't even know what Niall did for him to seek me out and apologize so I was relatively surprised, that and because this was Niall Horan we were talking about. We might have been on good terms the last few weeks, but that didn't change who he was: a narcissistic who liked to keep his state of mind in check.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I've come to the conclusion that I've been a right arse to you in the beginning," he said, looking at me regretfully.

"You're now just coming to that realization?" I questioned him.

Niall ran a hand down his face and left out a long sigh. "Just... let me talk. Please. I've been a huge dick and I never apologized for it. I wasn't very gentlemen-like and I definitely wasn't showing any sportsmanship when you first joined the team. I'm sorry you had to put up with it."

I swirled a fry in my ketchup and shrugged. "I wasn't exactly nice to you, either. However, that was because you made it hard to be nice to."

"But I never said sorry for stealing your essay," Niall added, his eyes never wavering from mine. "It wasn't mine to take and I feel horrible about it."

Grudges are a nasty thing to have. We don't want to have a grudge on someone, yet we still do even though we have the power to forgive. So as I looked at Niall, I came to the conclusion that I had been utterly stupid. I couldn't mark this one act on Niall forever because when it came down to it, he was the one there in my room trying to calm me down. He was the one who defended me when Bradley showed up. Even if it wasn't necessary, he even punched a guy who was talking inappropriate things about me... for me.

It was stupid to hold a grudge on him when everything else seemed to overshadow that one mistake. But there was only one thing I had to ask to make everything right.

"Why did you take my essay?" I asked. "No bullshit, give me a straight answer."

And then he shrugged, and then I knew he couldn't be forgiven.

"You don't get it, do you?" I asked, my voice was soft enough for only our ears to hear, but it was aggressive to let him know I was pissed. "My secret wasn't some mystery girl of my past that left me; it was my goddamn parent's death. They raised me and cared for me and now I can never see them again."

Niall opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.

"No, shut up. Let me say this," I retorted. "I didn't want people to know because they would bring it up all the time, accidentally or not. They would pity me and treat me like a broken doll. That secret meant so much, and now that I know you know... it's like the innocence of it was touched and ruined. Because your curiosity got the better of you."

Niall scuffed, like he couldn't believe what I just said. "Are you implying that Alina doesn't compare to your parent's tragedies?" Niall accused me. He leaned into the table so I could hear every word that left his mouth. "You don't know shit about my life, Princess. You don't know the life I had grown up with and the things I had done. Alina means just as much to me as your parents do to you, and you didn't respect that either. You didn't give a shit what you would find when you went into my room, you just went in there with blind determination to hurt me like I hurt you. You're no better in this situation than I am."

Copying his move, I leaned into the table so my face was right in front of his. "At least I didn't try to seduce you into making you forget about the whole thing," I snapped back.

"Seduce you? Oh, please. You were practically bagging for my touch."

"Yes, because that's what I do, go around asking to be felt up," I said sarcastically.

"That's what you did with Bradley."

Our very own Pandora boxes opened then, sending each word to shatter our souls into a million pieces. It was worse than getting a slap to the face. It was like Niall took gasoline and dumped it all over me and lit a match. I should have known he would bring up Bradley at some point and use him against me. It was only a matter of time.

I just sat there with a blank expression, even though there was a fire raging inside me. I didn't want to give Niall the satisfaction that he hurt me again, but I did want him to know that he went too far this time.

We were never that strong to begin with, and now we'll never be as strong as we once were.

"Fuck you," I spat.

Slamming my hand down on the table, I stood up and walked away.