× Horan

It's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding. That was something I was told about a hundred times as I tried to get into Elise's hotel room only to be stopped by her sister.

Back in the day, brides and grooms weren't supposed to see each other until the last minute, so the groom didn't have the chance to change his mind. But the thing is, I needed to see Elise. I needed to see her face, it would help me get through this and tell me what the goal of today was.

I had made up my mind to tell her about Lynn and I. I was going to explain that she was in my past and had nothing to do with my future. As far as I was concerned, that morning would have been the last I ever saw of her. And I was okay with that because in less than four hours, I was going to have a ring on my finger and a wife at my side. I only wish Elise saw it like that.

"Can I just..." I trailed off, trying to think of something that might convince Isabel, Elise's sister, for me to see her. "Can you tell her that I love her?"

Isabel looked so much like her younger sister. The same honey blonde hair that fell in straight strands down her back and deep brown eyes that can lock you in and never let go. The only difference between the two was that Isabel wore thick, black rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose. She looked at me with those brown eyes with slight pity, and I knew if I continued pushing, she would cave and let me in the room. But for now she was consistent and her sister wanted to keep the tradition alive, so Isabel was going to do as she was told.

"I'll tell her," she assured me with a sad smile. "You should go and finish getting ready."

I had changed from the clothes I was wearing last night and into the pants and dress shirt I was told to wear, my tie hanging loose around my neck and the blazer still hanging up in my hotel room. I had fixed my hair slightly, just enough that it wouldn't arise questions, and I attempted to take a nap just to remove the bags under my eyes, though it didn't work so well.

"I'll get ready if you let me see her," I negotiated.

Isabel only laughed. "Niall."

Right then, Matt and my brother rounded the corner. "Give it up, mate," Matt said with a shake of his head. "The reason you two didn't sleep in the same bed last night was because of this. She's not going to let you in."

I wished we had slept in the same bed because then I wouldn't have left the hotel room, ran into Lynn, and gotten into this mess. One person shouldn't be able to turn my life around like this, and yet, there I was.

Isabel excused herself and opened the door to the hotel room and stepped inside. I tried to peek through the crack of the door but it had closed shut before I could see anything.

"Jace is looking for you, Niall," Greg said.

"When isn't he looking for me?"

"Dad," someone said, walking up to us.

Theo stood next to Greg and it amazed me how fast the time had passed. He was eleven-years-old now, his blonde hair sticking up in every direction and his blue eyes bright and vibrant. I've always been told that he looked like me, but seeing him at that age brought me back to when I was eleven and the resemblance was uncanny.

"Mum wants the keys to the car," Theo said to his dad. "She left something in there and needs to get it."

"She's always forgetting something. I'll come with you," Greg sighed. "Niall, go find Jace. And don't be rude; he's doing this for you."

I watched as the two of them turned the corner and disappeared out of sight. I then looked over at Matt who had taken his phone out and was texting someone with a frown on his face.

"Anders?" I asked.

It was funny. Matt, my old teammate, and Anders, my ex-lover's brother, were dating. I wasn't sure how long it has been, but it was at least three years now. But it was hard for them because Matt was always traveling for football and now Anders was in Italy for who knows how long. I've hung out with the two of them before, and awkward was an understatement. They made sure to steer clear of any conversation of Lynn when I was in the room with them, and Anders always looked at me like I was broken China. I didn't understand why because I was perfectly put together.

At least I thought. Last night might have torn some of my seams, but time would easily put me back together again.

"Yeah," Matt said sadly. "I just... I just wish he was here."

I looked at the door I was standing in front of, just beyond the wood stood my future wife, prepping for her big day. There didn't seem to be any way through the door unless I personally kicked it down, so I just shook my head and started walking to the direction I assumed Jace was at.

"I'm sure he wishes he was here, too," I assured him as I stepped toward the elevator and pushed the button. "Jace just got engaged; maybe he can go to that one."

"I guess..."

The conversation ended as we made our way through the hotel. Once we got to the main floor, Matt took the lead toward the large room where the wedding reception would take place.

The color theme for the grand hall was white and green, a tradition in Elise's family that had started a hundred years ago. The tables in the hall were covered in soft green cloth with giant bows tied to the back of every chair. Right now it was dim and quiet, but tonight the room would be lit up in green hues blasting music from every genre.

The actual wedding took place on the patio outside. A giant white marble gazebo stood in the center that acted as our bower arch where Elise and I would stand and take each other as husband and wife. White chars sat around the gazebo and a long rug went from the door, up the steps, and to the bower. It was beyond too much for my taste, but it was something Elise wanted so I was happy to pay for everything she desired.

"Jace?" I asked when I walked into the hall.

Instead of finding a black haired, blue eyed boy, I saw an older man sitting at one of the tables, his hands folded and looking down at his lap.

"Dad?"

From the sound of my voice, he lifted his head. He looked like an aged version of myself. His face had the same structure as my own, the same light blue eyes and pale skin. He was still slender despite his years, toned and not at all stooped. Around his eyes were laughter lines in just the right amount. I supposed that he was often happy, but at that moment he was deadly serious.

The last time I saw him was four years ago. I had gone back home for a weekend to celebrate Theo's seventh birthday party. My dad was also invited. It had been years since I had last seen him then, and it had been years since I last seen him now.

"What are you...?" I asked, breaking off mid-sentence.

Everything was the same between us. When I saw him at the birthday party, I barely said two words to him. After what he did to me, it was hard to even look him in the eye. So seeing him here, on my wedding day, was a little bit too much for me.

"Your, uh," he started, clearly nervous to see me just as much as I was. "Your best man invited me."

Of course he did. Jace was never looking for me; he had set this whole thing up to meet my dad down here instead. Wherever he was, I was mentally sending him daggers for putting me in such an excruciating situation.

"It pains me to find out that my own son is getting married by one of his friends," he said. "Not a phone call or even an invitation in the mail. You were just going to be okay with me not showing up to your wedding? Did you invite your mother?"

"Yes."

My father laughed cruelly, but there was an undertone of dejection, like he knew he deserved this but had a little hope that I would be the bigger person and forgive him. It was about time he realized it wasn't going to be that easy.

"You don't know this, but I watched every game of yours," he said with a shake of his head. "From your first game in college to the games you're playing now, professionally. I made sure I was home every day you played a game so I could watch it live. I went online and read all the newspapers that talked about you. You have no idea how proud I am at who you've become. I'm proud that you got over all the bumps in your life and made something with yourself."

I leaned forward on my elbows and looked at him dead in the eyes. "I know I didn't make much effort to contact you, but it's not like you tried very hard either."

"I was ashamed. Even after all these years, I'm ashamed. What I did was wrong and I'm paying the consequence every day I don't talk to you." My dad fiddled with his thumbs in his lap, but he was looking directly at me. "I know- I know I treated you poorly-"

"You used me," I interrupted.

"Yes," he said, his head hanging low. "And I know you can't forgive me, which is why I'll leave and not attend the wedding if you don't want me to. I just wanted to see you first."

Clenching my jaw, I pulled out one of the chairs and took a seat across from him. He could blame me for everything I have done, but nothing was ever going to amount to the beating he gave me for his own financial gain. He could have just told me instead of going behind my back. Or better yet, tell me that he was having money problems and I would have been happy to steal some of Mum's for him.

He might have screwed me over, but when it did come down to it, he was my father. There were two reasons why I didn't invite him. One was because I was still pissed, obviously. And the second was because of Mum. She was going to be at the wedding and I had no idea how they would react if they were in the same room, and my wedding wasn't the time to collect data.

"Why did you and Mum divorce?"

Dad clamped his hands together and leaned forward. "We wanted different things in the end."

"What do you mean?"

"Believe it or not, but your mother wasn't always so... cold," he explained. "In law school, she was still study devoted, but she knew how to let loose. It wasn't until after graduation and she got her first internship did she change."

I thought back to stories he would tell when I was younger, about how they met when they were in college, Mother going to law school and Dad going to a college across the road for accounting. They were young when they got married, and only three months later had my brother. Dad would tell me that the more time had passed, Mum would get home later and later from work, especially when she upgraded from intern to employee and climbing the ladder record fast.

"Things were going downhill by the time you were born," Dad continued. "I was a simple man, just wanted to spend some time with her, but she was too focused on the money."

"That sounds a lot like her," I agreed.

Dad nodded. "It wasn't until she didn't come home for three days straight did I finally put my foot down. She could have been cheating on me for all I knew, but it made no difference. She had changed and I couldn't live like that anymore."

"I remember the argument," I said, recalling the night I was in bed and had woken up from all the shouting. "I was six and terrified. I was so used to you two not talking at all, and then all of a sudden it just blew up. Greg had come into my room and found me crying. He stayed the night in my bed, and when we went downstairs to have breakfast before school, you weren't anywhere around. You would always eat with us before you went to work, but you never showed up."

"I didn't want to leave, but there was no way I could stay in that house another night."

Living with divorced parents should have made me fear marriage, but it did the opposite to me. It made me want to prove them wrong, that I could get married, have kids, and live a long, fulfilling life. In fact, I was more determined to do that now more than ever.

"Did you ask because you're getting married?" Dad asked questionable.

"I..." I paused. I asked why they divorced because I didn't know the whole story. But now that I think about it, there was most definitely a trace of that. "Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce."

Dad laughed, and it was a full, amused laugh that I remembered hearing in my ears when I was younger. I heard it when we would go out to the football field and when he would take me skiing in the winter. It was a sound I had surprisingly missed.

"You've always been stuck in your head, Niall," he said, the smile not leaving his face. "Always checking facts and collecting data. But being in your head for that long can be dangerous. You can't narrow everything in your life down to a science."

I gave him a small smiled. "You sound like Jace."

"Your best man? You know, he told me something very interesting. I think it might have to do with your earlier question."

"What?"

"He told me what happened last night."

Jace really needed to learn how to shut his fucking mouth. This wasn't a conversation I was going to have with my father. I hadn't spoken to him in years, and Jace knew that, and told him anyways. I didn't know what he thought I would get out of my dad knowing that information, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

"I have to go," I said and stood up. "It was nice seeing you, Dad. You're welcome to stay for the wedding, but I'm not having this conversation with you."

"Niall, wait," he said and stood up as well. "I know I'm the last person you want to talk to about this, but-"

"I know what I'm doing," I snapped. "I made a mistake, but it's over."

"Is it?"

Stopping, I turned to look at him. Seeing my father standing gave me a whole new view of him. We were the same height, but he still gave off the impression that he was towering over me. Maybe it had to do with his superiority over me from years ago, but I hated it. I hated feeling hypothetically small next to him.

"Jace mentioned a name, uh, I think it might have been Linda-"

"Lynn," I interrupted, my fist clenching just from the sound of her name through my lips. "Lynn Mercury."

"Right," he nodded. "She was the girl on your football team in college, no? The one you were seeing at the time."

"What are you getting at?"

He didn't say anything at first, and instead looked me up and down. It was degrading, or spiteful, but he looked at me like he couldn't believe his son turned out this way. His eyes were full of gratitude with a hint of curiosity.

Being away from me this long no doubt made him wonder. He had to pick my brain, wonder how I worked and how I would react to something. It couldn't be easy going from knowing every little thing about your son, to not even getting invited to the wedding. He had to start over, and I wasn't giving him the chance.

"I just think if you were committed to Elise, you wouldn't have gone and slept with someone else," he said boldly. "If you're pulled toward an old relationship, there's a reason."

"All you know is what you read in the articles," I glared at him. "What Lynn and I had was strong. We shared more about each other than anyone else, and seeing her again after so many years brought back the times we spent together. But that was all it was last night; just longing nostalgia."

"If it was so strong," Dad said carefully, "then why did it end?"

"We both wanted-" I paused, finding it ironic how trying to stop myself from becoming my parents, I was doing exactly that. "We both wanted different things."

From those words, his brows raised. I watched him as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around the room. I could tell his mind was reeling with what to say, but at this point, he might as well save his breath. Nothing was going to change my mind.

"Something must have changed over the years, then," he said slowly. "Because it takes more than just nostalgia to put your wedding in danger like that."

The problem with Lynn and I was the opposite. Nothing had changed. Which is why I did what I did. Being with her was familiar and liberating. It did more than bring me back to the past, it made me see my future in a whole new light, the way I imagined it back then. Everything was the same as I saw it then, the picket fence and children running around, the only difference was I was spending it with Lynn.

"I haven't told anyone this, but," he started, looking at me again. "If your mother would have changed back to how she was in college, back to the women I fell in love with who wanted the same things as me; I would have taken her back. In a heartbeat."

Lynn Mercury always had me wrapped around her fingers. She did nothing to provoke it, but I just simply latched on and never let go. Even after all these years, I had gone back like no time had passed at all.

She got into my brain and pulled all the strings that connected to the logical sense of my mind and intertwined them together to make everything I had ever believed in crumble around me.

"But she didn't," he finished. "So I'm still alone."

× × ×

I wasted no time climbing the stairs to the second floor of the hotel. I had to see Elise, now more than ever.

"Elise!" I shouted as I ran down the hall. Once I got to room 218, I rapped my knuckles on the door. "Elise! I need to talk to you! It's urgent!"

Not to my surprise, Isabel was the one to open the door. "What's wrong?"

I grabbed the doorknob and threw it open, stepping past Isabel and into the hotel room. There was about a million things to look at but my eyes instantly landed on the white dress hanging on the hook directly across from me.

I could hear Isabel protesting behind me to leave the room, as well as her and Elise's mother and the other two bride's maids who were in the room, but I ignored them as I stared at the dress.

Elise wasn't wearing it yet, but I had enough of a vivid imagination to picture her in it. The wedding dress was her mother's and even though I assured her that I could pay for a new dress, she was all about tradition and insisted on wearing this one... after a little tailoring and modifying so it looked like it belonged in this decade. The top half had floral embroideries stitched to silk fabric that flowed down and out to the floor. There was a golden belt to give it some accent tones and straps that intertwined together in the back in a crisscross look. It wasn't anything fancy or outstanding about it, but Elise had always enjoyed the simple things.

"Niall?"

The sweet, soft Italian accent woke me from my mind and I turned to look at me wife-to-be. She was standing in the doorway of the bathroom wearing a white robe and slippers. Her long, blonde hair was pulled up in a messy bun and it seemed that she had started putting on her makeup.

Seeing her after the events that just happened was like seeing her for the first time all over again. All those emotions - the butterflies and sweaty palms, all the expected reactions of seeing a school crush - came rushing back to me. But I had to man up and brave this before I lost the courage.

"I need to talk to you," I said through a thick voice. "Alone."

Elise's brown eyes watched me carefully before turning to her family and friends in the room. She gave them a curt nod, and in a huff, the four ladies left the room.

This was probably stupid, but I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life. But I didn't care. When Elise opened her mouth to say something, I crossed the room and cupped her face in my hands and kissed the living daylights out of her.

No doubt it took her by surprise, but not even a moment later did she melt into me and wrap her arms around my torso and kiss just as feverously back. I shuddered from the touch, missing those gentle plump lips against mine. I knew kissing her would haunt me for life, but it would also satisfy my empty heart that was beating against my chest.

With the mix of my father's conversation, running into Lynn, and seeing the wedding dress... I needed this. A million emotions were shooting through my nerves but this, being in Elise's arms, was a constant reminder that she wasn't going to go anywhere.

Elise pulled away first, but very slowly and cautiously. She looked up at me, the browns of her eyes swirling with wonder. "Niall..." she said softly. "You shouldn't be-"

"I'm so sorry, Elise," I interrupted, placing my forehead against hers. "I'm so, so sorry."

Her arms removed from around my waist and went up to my chest, playing with the loose tie around my neck. "What's going on?" she asked suspiciously. "Why are you sorry?"

I tangled my fingers in the hairs behind her ears and closed my eyes tightly. "I ran into an old teammate of mine, uh, someone I was really close to," I started, having no idea how to start. Was there really a correct way to say it? "We have- we had a lot of history and I guess I got all caught up in the superficial shit and..."

"Niall," Elise said softly. "Niall, you're starting to really worry me."

Opening my eyes, I stared at her brown ones - the brown I had first noticed about her in the bar were we met. Backing out on my confession wasn't an option anymore. Elise deserved to know what happened, better to tell her now then having it somehow be brought up later where it could possibly affect more than just our marriage... but our children as well.

"I slept with her," I finally admitted, my voice cracking low in my throat. "Last night."

Elise didn't move and I was afraid she didn't hear me because there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to make myself say it again. But then her hands left my chest and she took a slow step back away from me. Her expression had gradually changed from concern to understanding, to complete devastation.

"You don't have any idea how sorry I am," I whispered through a rough voice. "This is something unforgivable, and I understand that I fucked up but please... can we talk about this? Try to figure something out?"

I remember the night I met Elise. I was with some of the lads from the team at 37 Dawson Street, sitting at the bar drinking Guinness after Guinness after a won home game. I had just ordered my third glass when the most breathtaking blonde came up to the counter and asked for a round of shots for her friends. The first thing that caught my attention was her eyes. The brown depths drew me in the moment she looked at me and I knew I needed to get to know this girl.

I was quick to strike up a conversation with her, not wanting to let the opportunity slip through my fingers. Ever since Lynn, it had been hard to jump into the dating pool again, especially since I was never really in it to begin with. There was no doubt that I had lost opportunities, but the girl who was standing next to me had already made me feel things I hadn't in a long, long time.

Now three years later and I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life because I couldn't control my fucking emotions.

"Elise... Please say something. I really need you to say something."