Dreaming about London

The following Wednesday I picked up the new key after work, so that Em, Aida and I would all have a pair. It had been another great day, I was feeling less and less stressed out working which made it all a lot easier. I texted Niall, realizing how much I already missed him as I sat in the tube heading towards Marylebone Station.

“I miss you. Can we do something tomorrow afternoon?”

He didn’t answer until I was home, he was probably busy recording at the studio. “Yeah, that sounds nice. You can come to my place when you’re done working.”

“Ok, looking forward!”

“Me too.”




I locked my phone not being able to push away the thought that he seemed a just a little bit off. Not only writing these messages but also this Sunday when he’d helped us moving in to the apartment, we hadn’t talked nearly as much as we used to.
But I decided to leave it, most of the times I had done this – thinking too much about insignificant stuff – I always ended up deluding myself in to something completely wrong.




When I got home nobody was in the apartment. Em was probably working, but I didn’t know what Aida was doing until I saw her note lying on the table in the kitchen.


Hi Maja. Em is at work, I’m out shopping things for our home. U wanna make dinner? Xx Aida



I smiled. I didn’t know anyone else I would rather trust things like that than with her, she had an incredible taste in styling both people and homes, I couldn’t wait to see what she’d bought for us. I decided to sit down and flip through some life style magazines that I bought on my way home to find some inspiration for decorating my room, cause it was bothering my quite a bit that I didn’t have any place to put all the stuff and clothes in the suitcases and boxes in my room.


Then I practiced playing on my violin, since I thought that it might be a good idea to do that once both of the girls weren’t at home to be bothered by it too much.




At 5 o’clock Aida came through the door breathing heavily as I stood in the kitchen preparing dinner.

“Hey you, what’ve you bought?” I asked as I walked out to the door where I found her dragging on two huge bags of stuff.

“I need you to help with the rest, there’s lots of shit like this,” she heaved while taking off her cowboy jacket. “Man, I’m sweating!”

“Let me help you then,” I said and walked down to pick up stuff from the big black Mercedes that had been parked down on the street. “I see, you’ve borrowed the car again?” I asked.

“Yeah, I was going to take the tube, but Harry insisted on letting me borrow it, while they were at the studio, so I have to drive it back to them once I’ve finished here,” she answered.

“Aah, I see. So Hazza insisted?” I said teasingly and she just gave me an annoyed look before smiling.



Hazza was what we used to call him during our time of intense One Direction-fandom and I guess we both found it quite embarrassing to use words and names like that now.



We had to walk up and down between the car and the apartment about three times to get it all out. Aida then drove away to bring back the car to the boys and I went inside to finish dinner, I didn’t have time to look through all the stuff that she’d bought and I would much rather let her present it. I imagined her proud face expression while pulling out one thing after another.





Em came home half an hour later, right before Aida. She immediately dropped her shoes and sat down in the kitchen rubbing her feet and letting out a huge sigh.

“Oh you poor thing,” I said as she looked at me with a tired glance.

“I’m telling you, that job… I seriously can’t wait till I get used to standing up for 7 hours at a time,” she said.

“Yeah me too. It might help if I tell you that I’m making Portobello Pizzas for dinner?” I said knowing that that was one of her favorites.

“Mmh! With parma ham and fresh basil?” Her eyes lit up when I nodded smiling.



“Hello girls!” Aida shouted as she walked in the door as well. “Something smells amazing!”

“Grilled Portobello Pizzas!” Em said cheerfully.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t put any parma ham on yours,” I added when I saw Aida looking inside the oven.

“Oh okay, thank you!” she said. “Now Em, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you this morning, what did you and Liam find out about the paper and so on?”


I turned towards to her being very curious to hear her respond.


“Well,” she said and had already a huge smirk written all over her face. “He said that he didn’t want to make it official if I wasn’t ready for it, but that he felt completely sure that he wanted to be with me, or else he wouldn’t go through all the trouble of confirming and justifying it to the entire world.”

“So… what, are you a couple now? Like for real?” Aida asked with sparkles in her eyes as Em nodded.

“He’s taking me out on a date Friday night, you know out in public,” she said blushing slightly.

“Oh my God, I’m so happy for you!” I squealed. “Let’s celebrate! We bought a couple of bottles of Merlot the other day, didn’t we Aida?” I looked through the cabinets in the kitchen.

She nodded. “Uh, that reminds me…” she began while messing around in one of the bags that she’d brought home earlier, “I’ve bought wine glasses!”

“Yay!” Em clapped her hands as I poured wine in to the big and classic glasses.

“Cheers!” I said. “To Em and Liam for having found each other. To Aida for having bought wine glasses and probably lots of other shit as well. And to me for having survived almost a week of working in London.”

“And to your fantastic pizzas!” Em added as we all toasted and drank a sip.



When we had finished our dinner I went for a run for the first time in a week, and once again I was feeling quite scared that I would get lost in this enormous city. But of course everything went absolutely fine and London actually seemed like a great city to be running in – there were lots of parks, wide sidewalks and lakes to run around away from traffic.



An hour later I came home sweat dripping as usual and went in to the kitchen to get some water. On my way through the living room a familiar deep and slightly raspy voice stopped me.

“Someone’s been exercising.”


I turned my red face around to see Harry sit in the sofa holding a cup of coffee. “Oh hi Harry. I didn’t know you would be here?”

“I asked Aida earlier if I could come and hang out and she said yes.”

I cursed Aida for not having told me that he would be here in my mind a few hundred times, before I managed to ask: “Where is she then?”

“The toilet. Hey, Maja, I have an idea. What do you think about going out on Friday night? All of us, I know a great bar not very far from our studio.”

“Yeah that sounds great. Listen I would love to stay and talk some more but my face is running down my clothes, I can’t focus at all with all this liquid in my eyes,” I said suddenly a bit afraid that I might have been too honest, but luckily he just started laughing at me.

“Off you go then,” he said smiling and I went in to my room to get a towel and some clean clothes. When I went through the living room on my way back towards the bathroom Aida was sitting next to Harry, quite close to him actually. He was very busy telling her about some great Tattoo Artists in London, so I just frowned at her on my past the sofa and she smiled a bit of an insidious smile.



I rubbed my face, hair and body harshly in order to get properly cleaned, dried off and put on an oversized plain white t-shirt, a pair of peach floral shorts and some woolen socks and went back out to the two love birds, where Em had joined them now.

I sat down in the armchair and lid up a cigarette. “Is there any more wine left?” I asked.

“In the kitchen,” Aida answered. I went to get the wine and sat down again sipping at my glass.

“So Maja, when are you going to see Niall again?” Harry suddenly asked, I almost choked on my wine.

“Uhm. Tomorrow actually. Yeah, he said I could come over after work tomorrow,” I said still feeling a bit stunned by the question. “Why are you asking?”

“No it was just because, you know… he wants to talk to you,” he said and now I was feeling even more confused.

“He wants to talk to me? About what?” I asked.

“He likes to talk to you, that’s what he said, yeah,” Harry said in a not very convincing way. I looked at him suspiciously but he just kept staring out the window trying to look completely casual.

“Hey Maja, we were just talking about Tattoo Artist here in London, Harry knows some great places. What do you think about getting one? You know, Em, you and me?”

“Uhm. Yeah, that could be nice,” I said again feeling that I was put in a situation where I didn’t exactly know how to react. “What kind do you think?”

“We don’t really know that yet, but we’ll find out,” she said cheerfully.



Harry went home before I got a chance to confront him with his weird behavior, he was hugging the three of us tightly, but as I watched him hug Aida he seemed like he could hold on to her forever, before she made this awkward sound, obviously not getting his signals. God, she was such a dork.


Right before I went to bed I got a message from Niall saying: “Bring your violin tomorrow!”

“Well. Okay!” I texted him back before I sat the alarm clock to 6.30 once again. The great thing about having a hard job like the one at Aunt Betty was that every single night I would fall asleep almost immediately.




The next morning I rolled out of bed still feeling a bit tired in my legs from my run last night. This time I decided on an outfit consisting of a pair of denim skinny jeans, a plain black top and my green belt. I quickly ate my breakfast and then went in to the bathroom to do my makeup – I don’t know why but I was feeling slightly nervous about seeing Niall today. Probably all because of my annoying ability to delude myself in to something that’s not real. I literally had to tell myself over and over again that everything was completely normal as I sat in the tube all the way to Tottenham Court Road, but as soon as I entered Aunt Betty my mind only evolved around working – this was the only time I felt grateful of my non-existent amount of surplus once the customers started arriving.


Nathalie had told me when I arrived that Thursday to Sunday was the busiest days, so I did nothing but making bagels almost the entire day and then Nathalie took care of the coffee, milkshakes and smoothies.



At around half past two a slightly familiar face entered the café and I looked in to the warm brown eyes as Erics voice said: “Well hello there! It was Maja, right?”

“Yes it was. And you’re… Eric,” I said and he nodded. “What can I get you today?” I asked.

“I actually really enjoyed that bagel you made me at Monday, that certainly was a very nice surprise. Do you think you could surprise me again?” he asked winking at me and I had no clue how to react. I ended up just nodding and then going straight in to making the bagel trying to look very concentrated as I felt him looking at me from the other side of the counter.

“So tell me, Maja. When do you get off?”


I was in complete chock when I looked up and saw him standing with a huge smirk on his face, and surprisingly enough I knew exactly how to react at this moment. He did not just say that. “Way past your bed time, my dear friend.”


Luckily he laughed, cause I didn’t want any tense atmosphere, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t serious about me not wanting to spend time with him. Yes, he was cute, but he was also very aware of that, and so he just seemed way too confident.

I gave him his bagel that this time consisted of cheese and ham with fresh spinach and some homemade pesto, and received his payment.

“So,” he began still having that same smirk all over his face, “guess, I’ll just see you some other time then?”
“You probably will,” I said smiling politely back at him as he went out the door.




“He’s in to you,” Nathalie suddenly said and I jumped a little by the sudden sound of her voice near my left ear.

“I think he’s in to everybody,” I said still looking out the door.




When I got off I went in to the staff room to change. I checked my phone and saw a message from Niall saying that I should take the tube to Liverpool Street Station where he would pick me up. I grabbed my violin and went towards the tube having a cigarette on the way.


It took me about 20 minutes to get to Liverpool Street station that turned out to be a lot bigger than most of the others, so I ended up walking around inside it for a while before Niall called me.


“Hi, where are you?” he asked.

“Uhm. At some travelling information booth or something,” I said feeling extremely confused.

“Okay, just stay right there I’ll find you.”




And so he did a few minutes later wearing a beanie and sunglasses. I smiled and hugged him tightly. He let go a little faster then I’d liked to even though I knew that we were in public and that we couldn’t risk anything. We walked through loads of people until we reached the parking lot outside. He showed me the way to his car that was parked far away in a more desert area.

“So do you live close the other boys?” I asked on the way.

“Yeah, we actually live in the same building, but just in separate apartments. We found that we were old enough to pull that far away from each other now,” he said and I smiled.

“I’m glad you brought your violin,” he said as we both were sitting in the car. “I was thinking that maybe we could play some folk music, I just thought it sounded so amazing in the church, and then I could play the guitar.” He smiled proudly at his idea.

“That sounds fun!” I said smiling back at him. How could I have had any doubt about this guy? He was so great and easy-going, guess I just needed a reminder about that.




He parked the car a few minutes later outside a tall building that looked a bit like the one I lived in, it was just bigger. I followed him up the stairs to the second floor where he locked up the door and I walked in to a huge amount of space and light.


“Oh my God, this place looks amazing!” I gushed as I looked around. The ceilings were incredibly high, the windows were tall, all the furniture looked big and extremely cozy and light reminded me a bit of the beautiful summer house in Denmark he and the boys had been staying in a month ago. I put down my violin and walked around and not being able to close my mouth.


But it turned I didn’t have to, since Niall suddenly came out of the blue and pressed his lips forcefully against mine, sliding in his tongue right away. He pushed my body up against the wall quite hard and let the same second his hands travel up underneath my shirt. I moaned in his mouth getting incredibly turned on by his dominance.

That was until he started letting his hands travel down in my jeans. I pushed his hand away and he got the hint. His kisses slowed down and he pulled back and looked in to my eyes.


“Come on, let’s play some music,” he said and picked up his guitar that lied on the sofa.

Notes