Finally

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I was surprised at the extent of the relief I was feeling from the realisation that Harry's week of touring across England was finally over. Well, apart from the three tour dates in London that they were heading home for, but at least he was going to be closer to Nola and hopefully further away from trouble. He had Skyped with her every day since the incident, without interruptions much to my amazement, but I was pleased that soon he would finally get to socialise with her face to face. I was so paranoid that Nola would struggle to form an attachment to him if he was so absent all the time, but so far the relationship between the two of them had been no natural it was as if he'd been parenting her since the day she was born. Sometimes I couldn't help but feel slightly jealous. 

"So, Harry's home today." Elenore's eyes twinkled as she tapped away at the laptop resting on a cushion on her lap. 

"Yes, he is." I confirmed, trying to mask the emotion behind this fact. If Elenore knew that I was looking forward to Harry coming home she'd try and turn it into some sort of evidence that I had feelings for the guy. Which I didn't. Obviously.

"You and Nola must be thrilled." She smiled wickedly and looked up at me from under her lashes. 

"Don't," I warned her, shaking my head as the blush crept up my neck. "Just don't." 

My phone vibrated in the pocket of my cardigan and I threw her a frantic look before stalking out of the room and into the kitchen. I was definitely blushing now. There were only two people who ever called or messaged me - Elenore and Harry - and considering Elenore was only in the next room, it was embarrassingly obvious who it was going to be. Especially as Elenore was also very much aware of this fact. 

As predicted Harry's name flashed up on my screen, accompanied by a photo of Nola wearing her gifted bandana. I hoped Harry was planning on buying Nola more because sooner or later that one was going to have to come off of her head and be washed. I'd even been forced to shampoo around it when she was in the bath. 

"Hello?" I said quickly into the phone. I could hear deep voices chattering away in the background and cars racing past. He must have been on the road still. 

"Hey, Marnie!" Harry said cheerfully. "How's it going?"

"Great," I lied, my thoughts lingering on Elenore's constant interrogations. "How are you? How was last night's show?" 

"Really good!" Harry boomed. Sometimes I could tell when he was smiling just from the tone of his voice. "We can't wait to play the O2 now though, it's such a huge arena. How's my girl?" My heart stumbled over it's beating, struggling to keep up witht he surge of feelings.

"Um, Nola's great too. She's looking forward to seeing you, of course." I bit my lip and mentally kicked myself for acting like such a school girl. I wasn't even sure where these ridiculous feelings had come from. 

"Is she awake?" He pressed. Of course he wasn't really interested in talking to me anyway. My eyes flashed to my bedroom door, behind which Nola was sound asleep. 

"I'm sorry, Harry, she's actually having a nap." I always felt terrible if he rang and Nola wasn't available to speak to (not that she was one to hold a conversation anyway). I knew that she was the sole reason for all our communicating, so I hated the thought the of him feeling as though he had to stay on the phone in case he came across as rude. 

"Oh, really? Damn. I need to get my head around the idea of babies actually needing to sleep during the day. I wish I could do the same." He laughed. 

"When Nola was born I tried to sleep whenever she did!" I confessed. "She was a little devil when it came to keeping me awake."

"But she sleeps like a log!" Harry exclaimed, snorting. I leant back against the kitchen counter and switched the phone to my other ear. 

"Believe me, that has taken a lot of work to perfect!" It had been during situations like that where I'd found myself wishing Harry had been involved or at least my parents. Raising Nola alone on few hours of sleep had driven me to tears on a daily basis. Elenore had always offered her help and support but it was difficult when she had to get up for work at the crack of dawn most days too. 

"I really can't wait to see her." Harry sighed. I heard other voices in the background as he finished speaking. "Stop asking me questions while I'm on the phone, Niall! I'll ask in a minute, ok?" I had to hold back my amusement as Harry snapped at the other members of the band in a hushed voice.

"Everything ok there?" I asked, my voice slight shaky as a result of amusement and fear at the fact that the rest of the band were gradually becoming more involved in this situation. 

"Uh, here? Oh, yeah." Harry stammered. "Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to bring Nola to mine tomorrow during the day? We've obviously got a concert in the evening, but I'd really like to introduce her to the this motley crue and as you can probably hear, they are all dying to meet her."

My heart hammered in my chest erratically. I was speechless and caught completely off guard. This question was always going to come and I was never going to be prepared for it. Of course having Harry in Nola's life meant he came as a package deal where the rest of the band was concerned and obviously one day Nola was going to develop a relationship with them as well as her father, but allowing it to begin away from the comfort of our flat was absolutely petrifying. I opened my now dry mouth but no words formed.  

"Hello? Marnie, are you still there?" Harry said urgently. "Hello?" The chatter in the background had fallen silent as if anticipating my answer. 

"Harry, can I call you back? Nola is screaming." I blurted out, cringing at my terrible and unrealistic lie.

"Reall? I can't hear-" he began.

"Trust me, mother's intuition!" I interrupted, in a very high pitched voice as if someone had just stamped on my toes. 

"Oh...right. Ok then, speak to you soon I guess? I hope she's ok." I slammed my finger on the red telephone icon and let me phone clatter onto the side. 

"ELENORE!" I cried dramatically, marching back into the lounge. Her jaw dropped as she took in my slightly manic appearance.

"Oh god, what has he done now?" She removed the laptop and cushion from her lap and placed them at her feet, her eyes flickering towards the kitchen where I'd just stormed in from. "Do we need wine?" 

"Elenore it's eleven o'clock in the morning!" I gasped, but then sighed. "Although I'm tempted to say yes anyway." 

"If wine is required it must be bad." She grimaced. "Who has he jumped in a pool with now?" 

I rolled my eyes. "No, nothing like that. Harry and One Direction have invited Nola and I to go and spend the day with them tomorrow." 

Elenore's jaw dropped again, only wide this time, and her whole face ignited with excitement. She launched herself up and off of the sofa, practically falling into me. "OH MY GOD!" She squealed. "I AM SO COMING WITH YOU!"

"Um, the invitation didn't exactly extend to you, Ele, although I'd probably feel a hell of a lot better if you were there." I bit my lip. For Niall's sake, inviting Elenore was possibly the worst idea this year, but on the other hand if Harry had all his friends there - then why couldn't I? 

"Take me, take me, take me!" Ele practically begged. "I have to meet Niall."

"This isn't a One Direction meet and greet, Ele. This is Nola meeting the rest of the band at Harry's own place." I gulped. The more I spoke about it, the more uneasy I felt. 

"Stop overthinking it and say you'll take me!" She gripped onto the front of my t-shirt and pouted. "This might not be a meet and greet for you, Marnie Owens, but for the normal folk like me who are unfortunately no way affiliated with One Direction, I'm going to work with what I've got." 

"Which is a fifteen month old child wanting to see her father," I frowned at her and playfully added. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Self-hate does not stand in the way of true love, Marnie." She released my shirt from her grasp and took a deep breath. "However, I will of course be accompanying you for moral support as well as to fulfill my own personal desires."

"Mainly for your own personal desires though, right?" I raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged, not ashamed in the slightest. 

"I never said I wasn't selfish when it came to Niall Horan, did I?" A smile played at her lips and eventually she grinned at me. "But you will go and take me won't you?"

Sometimes living with Elenore was like having a second child. She got so over excited about some things that you felt like you just couldn't say no. Kind of like taking Nola into a toy shop and being unable to leave without buying whatever she'd picked up off the shelves and become immediately attached to. 

"But what about the paparazzi?" I whined. Right now I was desperate for valid excuses, anything that could potentially prevent me from going through this I would take. Kind of like Ele using whatever she could but to go. "I bet they're crawling over Harry's house 24/7."

"Just make sure you look good?" Ele suggested, shrugging as if the idea of being plastered across a magazine, article or newspaper really didn't bother her in the same way it did me. She noticed the irritated look on my face and sighed. "I'm sure they'll come up with something to sneak you in there. Harry wouldn't want either of you publicised anymore than you do."

"What if Nola doesn't like them all? Or what if they don't like me?" I blurted out.

"Don't be so stupid," she snorted. "Nola will love them no matter what and they're hardly going to be unkind to you if Harry likes you. Not to mention it's his house. That would just be disrespectful." Unfortunately this was true and I was already all out of excuses. There was no way out of this one.

"Ugh!" I groaned. "Fine, we're going. All three of us."

"THANK YOU SO MUCH!" Ele cried, grasping hold of me and kissing both my cheeks. I squirmed away and headed towards the kitchen in search of my phone, once again scolding myself for having a child with a member of a globally known boyband. 

I tapped on Harry's number and tried to control my heart rate as my phone dialled and rang. The connection established and he cleared his throat. "Hey again." 

"Um, hi." I mumbled before proceeding to whack myself in the face in an attempt to pull myself together. I'd made my decision, I just had to tell him.

"So was Nola ok?" He sounded worried. 

"What do you mean?" I momentarily forget about my pathetic excuse to get off the phone before and blanked. My eyes darted to the door of my bedroom.

"You said she was screaming..." Harry sounded just as confused as I felt. Suddenly I twigged.

"Oh, that! Yes, she was fine. Her bandana had fallen off." I lied for the second time that day. I really was a terrible person. 

"Ok," Harry chuckled. "So anyway, back to what I asked before - would you like to come tomorrow with Nola or are you busy?" The chatter behind him died down. 

"About that," I began. Harry remained silent as if he was holding his breath. "We'll be there, but Elenore is coming too. Warn Niall." I added. I heard an erruption of cheering at the other end and felt myself blushing. Harry laughed and told them to be quiet.

"Ok, I think we can handle that. I'll text you my address once we're off the phone. You could head here for eleven? I don't know if that'll mess up Nola's sleeping pattern." Harry was rambling now and my brain was turning to mush.

"She'll sleep in the car." I assured him, gripping the phone a little more tightly. This was really happening. Tomorrow.  

"Ok, if you're sure. We'll also be able to talk some more about Nola's party!" He said excitedly. "And don't worry about the 'paps', none of them have actually figured out where I live yet so you three should be fine." 

I smiled. It was as if he'd read my mind. "Thank you."

"No worries. See you tomorrow, Marnie." 

"See you tomorrow, Harry." 

I hung up and headed towards my bedroom to wake my sleeping daughter, glancing once at my bestfriend performing a celebratory dance in the lounge.

What had I gotten myself into?

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