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Niall was starring at himself in the mirror. His ash blonde hair looked just the way he wanted it to and as he fixed the collar of his shirt she grinned at himself in the mirror. He looked good. Not extraordinarily good, but decent enough to go out on a date.
Sighing quietly he made his way out of the bathroom and down to the living room where he found his shoes. He put them on slowly thinking about the evening that lay ahead of him. He was to go out with a girl he had met the other day at a coffee shop. To his joy she had had no idea who he was but talked with him anyways for a few minutes. He had asked for her number and called right away the next day, asking her out for dinner.
Niall was somewhat tired of going out though. Louis and Zayn were so happy with their girlfriends, and Harry and even Liam (for now) were glad being singles. Niall was the only left who was not happy with his current situation. Though he felt like the harder he tried to actually find a nice girl the harder it got. Being famous world wide didn’t help it either. Of course there were millions of girls throwing themselves at him, but they didn’t really want Niall. They wanted who Niall was supposed to be. And he liked being that one for the cameras and the fans. But once he got home, got to his potential girlfriend, he wanted to be able to be himself.
Sighing yet again Niall knew what he wanted was next to impossible, so when grabbing his keys and jacket he decided that tonight was going to be his last date for some time. He would stop trying to find someone. Stop wasting first kisses. But of course he could not ditch Leila right now. She was nice enough and he didn’t mind spending the evening with her before returning to his flat and fall asleep, lonely and all by himself.
It was just past eight when Niall reached Leila’s house. He was about to get out of the car when he saw her front door open and the little girl making her way over to his car. Her short dark hair was messy but incredibly cute and showed off the deep neckline of her dress. Niall could not help but notice that her innocence was in a weird way sexy and very attractive.
“Hey.” He said happily as she opened the door and jumped onto the passenger’s seat.
“Hi.” She grinned widely.
“Ready to go?”
“Sure.”
The ride to the restaurant Niall had picked luckily wasn’t very long because Niall had no clue what to talk to her about. His own thoughts still had him wrapped up a little and he felt bad for not at least doing some small talk. He was feeling awkward thinking about what she was thinking about him.
“This looks fancy.” Leila said quietly when Niall pulled into the parking lot of a large restaurant. He liked going out on dates here but of course he would not tell her how many girls he had taken out here before. “It’s a place me and my friends come often.” He said instead and she nodded.
Niall got out of the car and made his way over to Leila’s side quickly to open the door for her. He had gotten kind of used to the whole gentleman-thing but was delighted to see a small smile creep upon Leila’s lips as he held out a hand for her. She carefully climbed out of the car and the two of them made their way towards the entrance of the restaurant.
“Reservations on Horan, please.” Niall said as they entered and a waiter led them to their table immediately. As they sat down he handed them the menus and then disappeared again. Niall flashed Leila and encouraging smile before opening his own menu and taking a look at it.
They had just finished their food when Leila excused herself to go to the bathroom. Niall leaned back in his chair satisfied with how the date was going so far. Leila was very nice indeed, laughing at his jokes and doing this very adorable thing with her wrist every time she tucked her hair behind her ear. Niall actually considered changing his rule about ‘no more dates’ to ‘no more first dates’, playing with the thought of asking Leila out again if things kept going as well as they were thus far. And if she liked to, of course.
A few minutes later Leila returned to the table with a weird look on her face. “Everything alright?” Niall asked a little concerned.
“Are you.. keeping something from me?”
Niall was genuinely surprised. This could only mean one thing. “Like what?”
“Like being part in an apparently very popular boyband?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Her eyes grew wider with surprise.
“Yes. I’ve been keeping that from you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind.. I- Niall!” She struggled for words. “I’m-I’m on a date with a international popstar. I do mind, frankly.”
And gone was Niall’s chance for a second date. Too bad. Leila was such a nice girl. He had been having a good time. But as always his career was in the way of his love life. He sighed a little and leaned onto the table.
The ride back to Leila’s house had been even quieter than the ride to the restaurant and the silence was incredibly awkward. Niall was pissed at his career for ruining yet another date, pissed at the who girl asked Leila about him in the bathroom (he could only imagine that girl’s face when she found out that Leila apparently was unaware of who she was with) and pissed at Leila herself for making such a big deal about it. Why couldn’t she be like those other girls who wanted to be with somebody famous?
Niall parked in front of Leila’s house to let her get out of the car, but she didn’t right away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked after a long time and Niall looked up in surprise. Was she really asking him that?
“Well, for once it’s not the first thing I tell people about me. I’m not like ‘Hey, I’m Niall and I’m a famous singer.’ That would just be odd. And also I liked that you didn’t know who I was and gave your number to me anyways. You gave it to me, Niall. Not this Niall Horan from One Direction nobody really knows. I just.. I think I liked that. I’m sorry though. I never meant for you to feel like I kept it from you. I would have told you, but you never asked, you know?”
He looked at her, but Leila just starred at her fingers with out responding right away. As Niall shifted a little she turned her head, revealing a little smile lingering on her lips.
“You’re quite the jabberer, you know that?”
Niall didn’t really know what to make of this. “Am I talking too much? I’m sorry. I really am. It’s probably just because I don’t mean for this to be awkward. You know, I was having a pretty good time all evening and actually even thought about asking you out again but then the stupid boyband thing came up and I’m just sorry that this kind of ruined the evening. I should have told you right away, could have saved you some time.”
“You wanted to ask me out again? Past tense?”
“Yeah, I figured I scared you off by now.”
“Why don’t you give it another shot?”
Niall eyes grew wide. Okay. “Well, would you like to go out again with me sometime?”
“I would actually.”
They smiled at each other. It was somehow nice and comfortable though Niall had expected things to be a lot more awkward. But as he came to realize now things with Leila were never as he expected them to be. And out of the blue the next question fell our of his mouth.
“Can I get a goodnight kiss?”
Leila’s grew wide in amusement and after a short moment she leaned towards him until their lips met softly. The kiss was warm and sweet and when Leila pulled away again an idiotic grin was plastered on Niall’s face.
“Call me.” She said quickly before opening the car’s door and jumping out waving one last time at Niall. He was still grinning like a Cheshire cat and he bit his lower lip thoughtfully. Maybe this was going to be the Last First Kiss in a long time.