The Stage

Songs of the chapter:

1. Hello You Beautiful Thing by Jason Mraz (how Niall feels; attached)

2. If I Needed Someone by The Beatles

3.  Feelings Show by Colbie Caillat

"You can call me, when you're lonely, when you can't sleep, I'll be your temporary fix..." I heard Niall sing on stage, barely over the dreams of thousands of girls dying to catch his glimpse.

Lilly is running around backstage at the Richmond, Virginia concert. Lilly even started calling Niall 'Nilla' because she had trouble with her lisp, but it was absolutely adorable. We got the adoption papers yesterday, and Lilly is going to take the Horan name. It was strange because I remember when Lilly agreed to it, Niall muttered something about "someone else will have that name soon." I was pretty confused, but after a while I realized what he meant. 

He was talking about me.

I heard him say something like that to Liam last week. No, I wasn't eavesdropping - they just didn't notice that I was in the room. I was listening to music and readying but I could hear them talking.

"No, Liam. I really love Rose. I can see a future with her," I heard Niall say over the music blasting in my ears. Taking down the volume, I pretend to read, and see Niall look over to me once out of the corner of my eye. Liam responded, "Mate, I can tell. You'd do anything for her. Honestly, you're pulling a girl almighty on 'er. You'd get down on your knees," he gave Niall a playful wink. Niall pushed his arm and mutters, "Shove off." 

"D'you know what her favourite song is by us?" Liam asked. Niall shook his head and said, "No, I wish I did. D'you?" I wanted to just tell them that my favourite was 'Something Great', but then they'd know I was listening. The next thing that Niall said was the one that got me. "I can't wait to go home to me mum one day and tell her I'm marrying my princess. Rose is my princess." I blushed and continued to read my book which was extremely depressing - 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl'.

Lilly ran up to my at the side of the stage with a magazine in her hand. "Look, Rosie, we're on the front page!" She shoved the paper in my hand. I scanned the front to see a picture of Niall, Lilly, and me walking down the street with the caption "Who is the Mystery Little Girl?" I flipped to the page it said that 'more details' were included in. As if they'd be true. Seeing the text, I read to myself:

"Niall Horan of One Direction and now nearly six month girlfriend are taking care of a child? For the past three-ish weeks, Niall and Rose have been spotted with a little girl whose name we do not yet know. One Direction's management has denied to revealed it. Fans are speculating that this is a younger sibling of Rose Pilla, Niall's girlfriend. Some people even took it far enough that it's her daughter? Some inside sources revealed to us, 'They plan on taking care of her for a bit. They're very excited with the feel of being a family." So is this an adoption? What's next, the engagement? Rose has become increasingly popular for her little videos of her playing guitar on Instagram and some even on YouTube. Among the Directioners, Riall (the ship name for them) is quite popular as well, many fans saying 'she's good for Niall, and she makes him happy'. In fact, further proof of this is to simply watch an interview of him. Whenever asked about his girlfriend, his eye light up and he grins from ear to ear. Check out our website for more updates on the #RiallFamily !"

I groan when I realize that we have to make it public at some point. I'd prefer to keep the liking of the fans, and they should know what's going on. They devote so much time to these boys that they deserve to know what is up with them. I know it from personal experience. Last year, I was just another fan in the crowd. But look at me now.

Snapping out of my trance, I see a sweaty Niall run off to my side of the stage, so I hand him a water bottle. He reaches out to me for a hug with a smirk. I squirmed away and told him, "Nope. After you shower after the show ends! Get back out there!"

But as persistent as that boy is, he reaches around me a places a sloppy wet kiss on the side of my neck before going back towards the stage. Lilly grabs his hand, pulling him back, and she asked him, her eyes looking up at him in wonder, "Does it feel good to be on a stage in front of screaming girls?"

He crouched down to her height and asked back, "Well do you want to know how it feels?"

Her eyes visibly widen and she stumbled on her words, "I d-don't know. Is it scary?" she pronounced the last word 'scawy'. I cock my head, waiting for Niall's decision.

"Angel, it is going to be the best experience ever," he told her, and picked her up, propping her little body on his waist. Before going back out, he muttered in my ear, "Going public was going to happen sooner or later. Are you okay with now?" I nodded, a bit in shock that he wanted to do this at a concert, but it was the best option. More people would see YouTube videos and Vines and Tumblr posts about this if it's now and not at an interview.

They boys had just finished a song, so when he walked out, the crowd 'aw'-ed and people shouted all kinds of questions. Niall ran over to the other boys in a huddle, where they all pulled their microphones away, and then they all went to stand by themselves again, occasionally waving to fans and wrecking havoc like they usually do at concerts.

Lilly looked as if she was clinging onto Niall for dear life like a koala baby. She buried her face in her neck and quietly told her (but you could still hear it through his microphone, "Hey, don't be shy. They love you." She peeked out, still holding her chin firmly on his shoulder. Louder, Niall announced, "Hello ev'ryone. This is Lilly. Say hello to Lilly." 

The whole arena sounded a "Hi Lilly."

Niall took a semi-shaky breath and started, "So I don't know what news you fans have heard about Lilly, but I'm just going to make it official."

He stopped for a moment, and the entire crowd went silent. Peering out, I could see more and more people taking out their phones and cameras to record it. "Rose and I are going to adopt Lilly."

A chorus of gasps could be hear across the arena. "T'is is only going to take a second, I promise." He paused again, collecting his thought and said, "At the charity ball that Louis and Liam organized this year, Rose and I found Lilly." He looked Lilly in the eyes and put her down, grunting. He held firmly onto her hand as she stood close to his leg. "Lilly is homeless. Her parents died and she has no other family, so she was living on the streets. Rose wanted to just take care of 'er for the night and find an orphanage in the morning or somethin' but we got very attached to Lilly. So we talked to the boys and management and decided to adopt her. It's going to bring us all closer together," he finished.

I felt proud of Niall. He executed it well, only explained just enough to suffice. Harry then added, "By the way, Lilly really is a ball of fun. Hey, Lilly, want to come over here and play with silly string?" He asked her, making his way to her across the stage. She barely nodded, and Niall nudged her to go over to him. She tugged on the end of Niall's shirt so he leaned down to her and we could hear her stay through the microphone, "Thanks,Nilla." It caused the crowd to roar in laughter.

Harry took her hand and handed her a can of silly string out of his back pocket. How in the world did that get there? I had no idea. But Harry found a couple more lying around on the stage and he gave one to Louis and Liam. The next song on the setlist, 'Wolves', started  up and all of the boys and Lilly were running around while singing their solos attacking each other with silly string. 

Lilly chased after Harry, who just happened to be wearing his gold ankle boots which seemed to be hard to run in. He let out a girly yelp when Lilly latched onto one of his legs and he fell down with an 'oof'. You could quietly hear a "Sorry, Uncle Harry" from Lilly. She got off of his leg and Harry immediately starting chasing after her, threatening that the tickle monster was going to get her. I'm happy that a bunch of people got this on video, I'll have to find them online later.

*******

Niall finished signing the last of the papers on the adoption packet and handed it to me. It was one A.M. and we both just wanted to get to bed already, but we were determined to finish the papers before going to sleep. Lilly fell fast asleep as soon as we got into the hotel room, so she was knocked out on the couch. Niall sat across from me on our bed and said, "I'm so happy we're doing this."

I smiled and looked up into his bright blue eyes. "I am too," I told him, signing off on all of the lines. After finishing, I put the packet back in the envelope, sealing it and addressing it to the agency through which we decided to adopt Lilly. I threw the envelope on the table and muttered, "We'll mail it in the morning, now let's just go to sleep."

I flopped down onto the bed face down, causing Niall to chuckle. "You're pretty tired, aren't ya?" his thick Irish accent came through. I said into the pillow, "Tired as fuck," but it came out as more of "twad s fud."

I scooted up so that my head was on the pillow, and Niall wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer to him. "Goodnight, princess," he whispered, and I could feel his hot breath fanning out on the back of my neck.

I woke up the next morning at eight sharp, getting ready to drop by the post service to drop off the envelope. Both Niall and I felt so excited about it. Maybe it was just jitters, but this felt like such a huge thing. Adopting a kid is like giving birth to one, minus all of the pain for us women. It's signing up for taking care of this child, to give them a good and happy life, to raise them. We promised to love them. And that is exactly what we will do for Lilly.

Because Lilly is so behind on her education, so I ordered some teaching books online and I will teach her in my free time. Since she hadn't gone to kindergarten yet, she only had pre-k education. I'll get her up to speed and as soon as we settle down then we can enroll her in school, or get her a tutor. Since I'm only the instrument technician, I have much time off like the stylists do. We're only need for the last few hours before, during, and after the show. 

Niall agreed to help me teach her, but I doubt it will do anything but distract her. He'll probably end up giving her Irish dancing lessons. But I'll admit, that would be very cute.

I snuck out of the hotel room, leaving Niall and Lilly sleeping on the couch. Yes, Niall too. Around four in the morning, Lilly complained that she couldn't sleep, so Niall went to go sleep with her on the pull-out couch. They looked so adorable, so I snapped a picture of it to my Snapchat and posted it on Instagram with the caption: Niall looks so comfortable with Lilly aw :D.

I reached the hotel's front desk and spoke to a woman with her hair in a tight, neat bun.

"Hello, how may I help you?" she greeted me with a big smile, which honestly looked a bit overdone. "I'd like to find a post office where I can mail this," I told her, waving the envelope. She nodded and said, "We can actually mail it from here. Do you want express mail or regular?"

"I'll go express. Thank you," I handed her the envelope and she placed a ton of stamps on it. I paid and headed back up to our room, but not without grabbing some food first. Niall's going to be extremely hungry when he wakes up so...

I walked in to already see him up in the kitchenette making coffee. I poked his sides to let him know I was here, and he yelped a little bit then shushed me and whispered, "Lilly's still sleeping." I covered my mouth with my hand to keep my laughing down.

"So, what are we going to do today?" I asked Niall.

Hello you crazy mofos!

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Have a wonderful day, and all the love like always,

Juliet