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The arroan I rolled tohi--coht keeping hi pills would ht have considered it The sheets smelled like hiertips, and lips and--holy shit, his come--everywhere If I closed ers pus

But with the quiet, soft sounds of Niall sleeping canore, like hearing someone shout fro it would stay that way If there was one thing ut, to take note when so felt worriso terrifying

Niall seemed to approach our relationship with fits and starts I kneas hesitant about his ability to be a good partner, but was that all it was?

The roo myself back into the warm space at his side His skin smelled faintly of soap and his breaths were soft and even I closedthat it was too early to worry about things I couldn’t control There would be plenty of tiain, I was alone, blinking up at the ceiling overhead

The blue curtains glowed, backlit froht flooded the carpet near the hotel roo and the faint tap tap tap of soainst the sink

"Niall?" I called out, pushing up onto an elbow The water shut off and a head of dark hair peeked out the doorway

"Good ," he said, one side of his face still covered in an even layer of shaving cream "I hope I didn’t wake you?"

I frohen I realized that he was shirtless--yay--but he earing dress pants--boo "Where are you going?" I asked through a yawn

He’d stepped back into the bathroo water "I woke to a e from Tony," he said, and I felt the involuntary eye roll that somehoays acco across town I need to get to"

"At" I glanced at the clock "Seven in thewe’d have breakfast together Actually, I’d hoped we’d have room service and maybe feed each other bite-size pieces of fruit followed by rigorous shower sex

"Okay," I said instead The bed suddenly seeht resurfaced and slipped back between the sheets

Niall walked out of the bathroom and slid his arms into the sleeves of a dress shirt I stared as his torso disappeared with each button slipped through its hole "You’ll meet me at the office later?" he asked

"Of course" I propped ht occurred to ht was a?

Pretty h for you?" he asked, and I kneasn’t looking for false praise or ego boosting, he was sih I don’t think people appreciate the aweso his head as he focused on his hands knotting his tie "The things you say"

"I’, each step is athe way he watched ht my knees to o back and tell Teenage Ruby anythingwell, first I would say to wearwould be to slon and enjoy all those firsts Enjoy the anticipation Once you have sex, all the good stuff becomes a means to an end Nobody wants to just make out anymore"

Niall looked up and smiled at me fro patient with ht at tirown quite fond of you, Ruby"

I bit h a smile "I’m quite fond of you, as well, Niall Stella"

He walked over to the bed and bent, kissing etting ready back in ht hair, and rabbed a quick breakfast at Nor to the office I needed an extra layer of confidence today and this outfit always did the trick Manhattan was chilly, and I tugged at her againstfor a different route than I’d used before, having googled a landmark I knew my mom would love to see in a photo I remerowing up, and that the cover was inspired by a version of the sculpture located on Sixth Avenue

It was easy to find Groups of tourists crowded around it, re-creating iconic poses while they took each other’s photo It was simple: red capital letters with blue accents, the L and O set on top of the V and E, and I pulled outto snap a quick photo to send to her