I didn’t get a chance to take in my old and so well-known surroundings before my attention was instantly turned towards the blonde haired girl running down the wide stairs in front of me. Her smile was bright and her eyes were big and round, the exact same as mine, the only difference was the grey-green color in hers.

“Hey sis,” I smiled back at her before she threw her slim arms around my neck.

“Come on, you need to come out and taste all the things that we’ve made for Lars’ birthday tomorrow,” my mum said after closing the front door behind us, and I followed her in to the kitchen.
Christian, my mum’s boyfriend, was sitting at the table with his three children, my step siblings. It looked like they were rolling out a bunch of different cookie doughs, one badge was already in the oven and some were laid out on cooling racks at the kitchen table. I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that I went over to snatch one to eat, before actually saying hello to any of the people that I hadn’t seen for months.

“Well, merry Christmas to you too,” my stepbrother, Anders, chuckled as he gave me a hug. I then went on and said hello to the rest of them; Christian and my two stepsisters, Anne and Mie.

After another few cookies – a very healthy and nutritious breakfast – I went further in to the living room, where Lars was now sitting on the couch next to Niels and a girl with long dark hair. Was that…? Yup, they were holding hands.

What sounded like screaming robbers in one of the “Home Alone”-movies came from the television and filled the room as I approached them.

“Maja!” Niels exclaimed when he noticed my presence.

“Hey you,” I said as I got a longer hug from him than I was expecting, he’d never been one to show off much emotion, other than anger because of a football match, so it did take me a bit by surprise when he almost lifted me up off the floor.

“Wow, you’ve gotten skinnier,” he pointed out looking up and down my slimmer frame. “How much?”

“Uhm… about twenty pounds,” I smiled proudly from my big accomplishment.

“You look great,” he replied with an acknowledging nod making me blush, even though he was only my brother. I knew that if he said so, it had to be true, he had always been completely honest. Sometimes a bit too honest.

“Oh, this is Sarah,” he then said and stepped to the side for the brown haired girl with clear blue eyes. She reached out her hand and I shook it eagerly.

“Nice to meet you,” she smiled widely and I was immediately stunned with how beautiful she was.
Her face was so perfectly shaped with big eyes, a straight nose and a set of full round lips. It was easy to understand that any guy would easily be in treed by her beauty.

“Nice to meet you too. Niels has told me so many great things about you,” I responded.

“She’s a Christiano Ronaldo fan, like us,” Lars interrupted the conversation, still having his eyes glued on to the movie on the television screen.

“Oh really?” I asked her and she nodded.

“Yeah, I do like my football,” she admitted.

“Well, I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t,” I joked.

“Then I wouldn’t be here at all, you wouldn’t have to do anything,” she said sarcastically making Niels and I laugh. The two of them did begin looking at me with confused expressions, when I couldn’t seem to stop laughing several seconds later.

“What is it?” Niels asked frowning a bit as they sat back down on the couch.

“Oh nothing,” I smirked as I plopped down in the armchair next to them.

But it wasn’t nothing. It was the look on my brother’s face when Sarah had made that joke about football before. He had looked so captivated at her and… in love. Like, he really looked like a real fool. And it was just too god damn funny.
He had always been that cool and collected boy with a rude, but incredibly hilarious sense of humor and an arrogant attitude. That was the only way I knew him, the only way anybody knew him really. Except for this girl sitting in front of me, apparently. Cause now he was the dorkiest and most sensible guy I’d ever met. I have to say, it wasn’t something that I got used to right away. Instead I spent the next hour talking to them and probably staring with the weirdest wide eyes at how Niels would act, every time Sarah opened her mouth to speak.


Despite the great amount of fun I was having with myself over my brother’s behavior, I couldn’t deny the sleep from entering and it rushed over my body quicker than I was expecting. One minute I was smiling, the next I was woken up by my mum telling me that dinner was ready. I had been asleep for four hours. Possibly the best four hours of sleep in a very long time.
Just the fact that I had my mind wrapped around nothing but relaxing, and not work, gigs, concerts, red carpets or medias stressing me out like they had been doing for the past couple of months.
The smell of some chicken wok with vegetables filled the kitchen when I entered the room. The rest of my huge family was already closely spaced together around the big table and I scooted in on the chair at the end closest to me. I was glad that it was a healthy dinner, I felt a bit bad for eating several cookies earlier today and drinking way too much alcohol last night. I could only hope that Niall and I’s intense round of lovemaking had burned off just a few of those many calories.

Niall. I already missed that boy.


“So how’s everything going with Niall?” my younger sister, Laura, asked me snapping me out of my rather dirty thoughts.

“What do you mean?” I heard myself ask surprised and I silently cursed at myself for not acting anything near fucking normally.

“Nothing, just… How everything was between you two?” she elaborated frowning slightly at my defensive respond.

“Oh. Well, everything’s fine. Great actually.” I smiled widely hoping that nobody would get suspicious of my thoughts about him seconds earlier.

“What about Harry?” she smirked.

“Fine.” It was now my turn to frown a bit. “He’s a good friend.”

When she didn’t say anything more, but just sat still with that huge grin on her face and the rest of my family looking confused back and forth between the two of us, I felt the need to speak up.

“You honestly don’t think that I’m with Harry, do you?” I asked her, feeling slightly angry. I knew she was just making fun of it, but it felt all weird to be even thinking about him in any other way than as a friend.

“Why would she think that?” my mum asked. She had never been one to read much magazines or anything, so I guess she had no clue of what the medias were trying to convince the public about.

“Apparently some people think that I’m both with Niall and Harry. It’s ridiculous really,” I told all of them.

“Yeah, I saw that,” Sarah joined in making me look at her. “I’ve read it a couple of places. You’ve become quite famous, you and your two friends. Em and…”

“Aida,” I finished for her. “What exactly do people write about… us… here in Denmark?” I was curious to hear what she had to tell me, she seemed to have a bit more filter than Laura, when it came to stuff like this.

“Mostly, you know… things that are, as you said, ridiculous. That either you are with more than one of the boys, especially you and Harry, but also…”

She paused for a few seconds which made me stop chewing on the piece of chicken that I’d stuffed in to my mouth while listening to her. When she started laughing I couldn’t help but asking:

“What is it?” I didn’t know how to react on her behavior.

“You and your friend that has short hair, was that Aida?” she asked and I nodded before she continued: “Apparently there are people writing some crazy shit about you two having, you know… a relationship. And not just… a friendship.”

She was smiling widely as she told me about the stuff that was just as ridiculous that I could ever imagine. I thought I’d gotten used to it, but this actually made me laugh along with her and the rest of the table as well.

“You’re kidding, right?” Niels laughed. “Like… Aida and Maja are a couple or something?”

“It’s true, I read it as well,” Laura nodded.

“What have you read?” Lars asked.

“Uhm… Nothing, Lars,” I chuckled over at him. “Let’s wait with this conversation to a more appropriate time.”

“Yeah, please do that,” mum told us as we couldn’t stop laughing at the thought of Aida and I actually being together. Ew. Hell no. What the fuck?! Why would people think that? And so soon? I mean, us girls hadn’t even been around for more than a second according to this kind of business’ timeline.


I ran downstairs to my room in the basement as soon as I’d helped cleaning up after dinner and dialed Aida’s number.

“Aida!” I exclaimed in to my phone before she even got a chance to say anything.

“Wow, girl, yes, I’m here,” she said sounding a bit confused. “It’s only been a few hours though…”

“I need to talk to you!” I said.

“Okay…” She sounded even more confused now. “What is it?”

“Sarah, Niels’ new girlfriend, just told me about some of the things that people write about us and so on, and it’s… it’s quite crazy.” I almost laughed at the thought of people actually believing some of this stuff. “Can we meet or something? Is that possible?”

“Yeah, sure, I was going to call you anyway, I have something to tell as well.”

“Already? Well, I’m getting all excited by now! Okay, so you go call Em and hear if she can meet, let’s say in about half an hour?”

“Okay.”


She texted me back a few minutes later to tell that we could all meet home at Em’s place. And so I put on my warm winter coat and made my way out in the dark, after my mum sending me several disappointed and curious looks and remarks as I hurried out the door. I was eager to tell everything about what Sarah had said, but also what Aida had to tell all of us about.

It was Em’s mum who opened the door for me and I was immediately pulled in for a long tight hug, I hadn’t seen her in months either. She, Em’s dad, her younger sister and brother were some of the sweetest people that I’d ever met, hands down. Very much like my dear friend, really. It was easy to tell where she’d gotten her caring and loving person from.

“They’re both in her room, I’ll bring you in some tea in a minute,” her mum said.

“Thank you so much,” I smiled before finding my way to her room through their kitchen.


“Wow, I had already started to miss you guys,” was the first thing I said to them when I saw them sitting on Em’s bed.

“Yeah, me too, it’s weird to have gotten used to living together,” Aida said as she went over to place a kiss on my cheek, the way she had always done it for years.

“Really,” Em agreed. “So what’s up with you two? You said you had news, Maja?”

“Yeah, I have,” I said as I sat down on the bed next to her. “Okay so today I spoke to Sarah, Niels’ new girlfriend, and she’s a Directioner, so apparently she stays tuned on what the boys and now also we do.”

“She’s approved,” Aida joked with a nod.

“She definitely is,” I smiled.

“How does she feel about… you know, us? Does she hate us as well?” Em asked looking a bit concerned.

“She doesn’t hate us, don’t you worry,” I chuckled. “And definitely not you, nobody could ever hate you or Liam, you are too sweet a couple for that.”

“And Sarah is fucking your brother, I’m sure she’s more than satisfied with that,” Aida then said with a smirk.

“Aida!” I exclaimed swatting at her arm, hard. “You’re an idiot!”

“I’m just telling you, he’s hot,” she shrugged and I rolled my eyes at her.

“But anyway, she could tell me some crazy things that are being said about us and stuff,” I continued desperately wanting to change the subject away from my brother and his girlfriend having sex.

“Like what?” Em asked while scooting closer to me widening her eyes the way she would always do it, when she was really curious or excited about something.

“Well. There’s always the story about me sleeping around with both Niall and Harry. Which is just stupid. And that Em and Liam are nothing but sweet and perfect, seriously guys, everybody loves them. But then there’s also like this kind of belief that… Aida and I… are like… together. Like a couple or something.”

“What?!” Aida shouted with a grin on her face and at the sight of her reaction I cracked up once again.

“I know, right?” I laughed along with the two of them.

“Wait!” Em suddenly cut through the laughter with a raised hand. “We need to find out what they think of you two!”

She immediately opened her laptop to go on Tumblr to see what the fans would think about us.

“There aren’t exactly journalists or articles about stuff like this, it’s mostly among the fans that stories like these arise,” she told us a few minutes later with an expression that was a mixture of a frown and a wide smile on her face. “Oh, here’s something.”

“What, show it to us!” Aida almost squealed before she turned the screen towards us.

“Okay, so there’s a few fanfics here,” she said pointing at some text boxes or something. “But there are also people actually believing this is true, and there are a few videos with evidence that this is true.”

“It’s like Larry Stylinson!” I shouted excited, half laughing. “This is too good! Let’s watch some!”

We found a video that was a bunch of different video clips of Aida and I from walking around on the streets in London and from our concerts. All would be when one of us touched the other, smiled or laughed at a joke and apparently we looked very much in love, according to the people making these videos.

The three of us were laughing hard throughout the entire video and we couldn’t keep ourselves from watching the others as well. There weren’t that many to go through, yet, but it was just too funny. Too fucking funny. I had tears streaming down my cheeks by the time we’d finished the fourth and last one that we could find on Youtube.

“Do people actually believe this?” I asked as I was desperately trying to compose my breathing.

“It’s so fucked up!” Em cried as well.

“But isn’t it quite natural?” Aida asked making all of us quiet down immediately and look over at her. “I mean, if suddenly all three last single guys in One Direction weren’t available anymore and taken by the same group of friends, I would definitely find ways to think that this was all bluff. A PR stunt or something. Maybe not believe in crazy shit like this, but you know what I mean.”

“But still. This is too weird,” I heaved.

“Girls, do you know what this means?” Em asked us with a smile. “People are really starting to notice us. And sooner or later they will start noticing our music. And then… We will maybe get to do what we’ve always wanted to do!”

“OH MY GOD!” Aida practically screamed excited, which Em and I happily joined in on, we were going crazy over all this stuff happening. It hadn’t been until we got home in our normal surroundings, where we’d been almost anonymous for our entire lives, that it had begun to hit us how much attention these boys and their girlfriends were actually getting. This felt incredible.

“And speaking of attention…” Aida began. “What I wanted to talk to you two about tonight was the fact that our band email has been going completely bonkers for the past couple of days. People want to get an interview or a performance or something, when we’re finally home these days.”

“What?” I asked. I had stopped laughing, I had stopped breathing, but my pulse was racing faster than ever. “Are you serious?”

“You bet I am,” she nodded looking completely overwhelmed herself. “Look, we’re completely idiots if we don’t reach for these opportunities to create a fan base here at home. I know that you two have Christmas and that you need to spend time with your families more than I, but I think we should still arrange as much as possible, at least for a day or two.”

“You’re right,” Em nodded. “We need to grab this chance. We’ve been waiting so long for something like this to happen. Which day are you free, Maja?”

“Uhm…” I mumbled still having trouble thinking the tiniest bit straight from all the crazy information that I’d just received. “Tomorrow is Lars’ birthday, but maybe… The 23rd? Or the 25th?”

“Let’s do both days,” Em nodded. “I’m free as well, I guess I’ll just have to skip a Christmas party on Christmas Day, it should be fine.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said.

“Okay, so if we say that I work on arranging some meetings and interviews on the big places, or at least hear them out on what they want us to do. And then I’ll call you?”

“Sounds like a plan,” I nodded with a smile that almost made my face muscles hurt. They’d been working out one hell of a lot this evening. Something that I would definitely like to keep them doing. I wasn’t done feeling as excited as I was at that point. I was ready to rock and roll. I was ready to live the life I’d always wanted.

Notes