*Hannah’s POV (Evening, Friday Christmas Day)

It’s Christmas!! I love Christmas and I’m so happy that I get to spend it with my four best friends, Louis, and…my friends’ boyfriends. No matter; I have Susan as my date for the night. She and I just got to Sam and Louis’ apartment for the party. I wonder if the others are here yet.

It’ll be interesting to see how the guys react to meeting each other, and how Liam and Harry react to virtually meeting the others. Needless to say, this will be an overall very interesting night. We’re all wearing an ugly Christmas sweater too. We get up to the apartment and knock on the door. Moments later the door opens and we see Sammie with a Santa hat on.

“Sammie!!” we shout. “Girls, come on in!” she says. We enter to see the living room decorated so nice. There are different dishes of food on the table and lots of decorations all over the place. “Sammie, everything looks so festive.” Susan says. “Yeah it looks really nice. Great job, you two.” I say.

“Thanks, girls. Sam did most of it though, to be honest.” Louis says. “Doesn’t surprise me. I’m shocked she let you help at all. She gets pretty into it.” Susan says. Sam sticks her tongue out at her.

We hear a knock on the door. That must be the others. Sammie goes to open the door and she lets them in. “Hey, everyone! Let’s do introductions, shall we?” Mac says. “Okay, everyone this is my boyfriend Zayn.” Emily says. “And this is my boyfriend Niall.” Mac says.

Zayn goes and shakes Louis’ hand and gives Sam a hug, Niall does the same. “Are you boys taking good care of Sammie’s sisters?” Louis asks. “Of course, and we always will.” Niall says pulling Mackenzie close. Zayn grabs Em and kisses her.

“Okay, if you guys are gonna do that it’s allowed under the mistletoe only.” Sam says. With that, the couples go to it and do just that. Everyone “ooohs” and whistles. “Okay, let’s eat!” Lou says. We all go to the table and take our seats. “You got Pizzeria Uno, didn’t you?!” Emily says. “Sure did.” Sam says.

“YES!!” Niall shouts before digging in. Everyone laughs and we all serve ourselves. Everything tastes amazing and when we tell Sam that we love the veggies, she gives Louis a look and he sticks his tongue out at her.

During dinner we all catch up on stuff that’s happened. Zayn’s EP is dropping on iTunes on New Year’s Eve and starting in 2016 sometime, he’s gonna start booking gigs. Emily is pretty excited that they will get to perform together. Mac’s album is still being recorded, having five out of eight songs finished. Her relationship with Niall is still being hidden from his father but they’re hoping that once enough time passes, they’ll be able to tell him and finally get his approval.

Susan told everyone about having fun at AMDA with the dance classes/groups and rooming with me. She also says she really misses Liam and can’t wait for all of us to meet him. Nothing has changed with Sam. She seems happy that her last year of high school is halfway done and still has her Applebee’s job on weekends. Then it’s my turn.

“I’m loving being at AMDA doing acting classes and productions and also rooming with Susan. I wish that I could see Harry in person but at least you’ll all get to meet him through Skype tonight.” After dinner, Susan suggests that we play some party games. Everyone agrees, but I take out my laptop from my bag instead and log into Skype. “Hannah, aren’t you gonna play?” Louis asks. “No thanks. I can’t risk missing Harry’s call.” I answer. “Okay, but you’re missing out.” Em says before they start playing Apples to Apples.

An hour or so later…

Everyone else is playing Apples to Apples still and I’m still in front of my laptop knowing that it’s midnight in England right now and it’s only a matter of time before Harry has to be calling me. Liam hasn’t Skyped Susan either but she doesn’t seem bothered by it.

They’re all in the middle of laughing about something in the game when there’s another knock on the door. We weren’t expecting anyone else… “Who could that be?” Sam asks looking at Louis.

“I’m not sure, but…Susan, why don’t you answer it?” he asks her. “Why me? It’s your apartment.” she says confused. “Yeah, but we want you to answer it.” Sam says. “Yeah, go on.” Niall says. Susan gets up very confused and goes to the door to open it.

The scream that comes out of her body is SO loud that I’m pretty sure it broke our eardrums. Who in the world is at the door?! My question is answered when the door opens further and she shouts, “LIAM!!!!” jumping into his arms. …How? He’s even wearing an ugly sweater like the rest of us.

“Liam, how are you here? How did you find me?...What?!” she asks. “Well I had a little help from your friends.” he says gesturing to Sam, Louis, Mac, and Niall. “Um…explain?” she says. Apparently Louis and Liam know each other from England before Louis moved here for his career. Once Sam started living with him and he talked to Liam about the girls, it got discovered that he was the Liam dating Susan.

From then on, they secretly were making a plan to get Liam here for Christmas to surprise her. “All right well Liam you already know them, obviously. This is Emily and her boyfriend Zayn, and that’s Hannah. …Hannah?” I am speechless and horrified. Now everyone’s boyfriend is here except for mine. Mine who I have barely been able to talk to and who still hasn’t Skyped me like he said he would on Christmas.

I feel myself about to cry and run to find the bathroom. I find it and close the door behind me, kneeling on the floor. Minutes later, Susan is knocking on the door. “Han, can I come in?” she asks gently knocking. “Yeah.” I squeak out. I hear the door open and feel Susan come behind me and hug me. I turn around to hug her properly.

“I’m so sorry, Hannah. I know how badly you must feel right now.” she says. “Do you? Your boyfriend surprised you by being here. And now I’m the only one here without a guy. Even Sam has Louis even though they aren’t together.” I retort.

“C’mon, Hannah, we wanna have fun with you tonight. I know Harry hasn’t called yet but until he does…because he will…you should play games with us. We’re gonna kick it up a notch and do Cards Against Humanity. It’s your favorite, right?”

Yeah she’s right. I shouldn’t let this ruin my Christmas. I get up laughing a little. “Oh yeah, you know that game is my shit.” Susan laughs and hugs me, taking me back to the living room. We get in there and everyone greets me asking me if I’m okay now.

“Yeah, I’m feeling better. And it’s so nice to meet you, Liam. Sorry I didn’t give you an appropriate greeting before.” I say going over to shake his hand. “Not at all, I understand.” he says pulling me in for a hug instead. I sit down in the circle and we start Cards Against Humanity.

It’s not too far in when I hear that familiar Skype tone and I run to my laptop in the middle of reading out the cards. I immediately answer to see my Harry looking exhausted in a Santa hat.

“Merry Christmas, Hannah!” he cheers through the screen. “Merry Christmas, Harry. I miss you so much.” I say. “I miss you too, love. Is everyone there?” he asks trying to see behind me. “Yeah everyone’s here. Come over, guys.” I say to the group.

“This is Sam and Louis, our hosts for the evening.” I say gesturing to them. “This is Emily and Zayn, here is Mackenzie and Niall, and here is Susan and Liam.” Everyone says hi to Harry. “Hi, everybody. It’s nice to finally meet you all. Sounds like everyone is there except for me…” Harry says sounding guilty.

“It’s okay, sweetie. I know you don’t have the money to fly here. And I’m seeing you now so I’m more than happy.” I say smiling. He gives me a smile back and says “Look what I happen to have with me.” He holds up mistletoe in front of the screen. “I know we can’t really kiss, but through the computer maybe?”

Everyone says “Aaaawh” and I agree. Harry holds up the mistletoe and we both touch our lips to our screens. “I love you, blondie.” he says afterwards. “I love you more, Eugene.” I say back. “I love you most.” he says for the final comeback. We always quote Tangled when saying “I love you.”

“Okay, well I should get back to the party and you should get some sleep. It’s pretty late there.” I say. “Yeah I’ll let you go. Have a great rest of your Christmas, I’ll try and talk to you as soon as I can.” he says taking off his hat. “Okay talk to you soon. Say bye everyone!” I say to my friends.

“Bye, Harry! Nice meeting you.” they all say. “You too! Hopefully we’ll meet in person one day. Bye, Han.” he says waving. “Bye, Haz.” I say, we log off. “He seems really nice and sweet.” Em says. “Yeah, very much a romantic.” Mac adds. “Should we continue our game?” Susan suggests.

Louis gives Liam a look and Liam says “Actually, I have something I wanna do first.” taking Susan’s hands. “Susan, we’ve been dating for ½ a year now and I feel like it’s been long enough that I can tell you this.” He takes a deep breath before getting out “I love you.” Everyone gasps and Susan immediately responds “I love you too, Li!” before they kiss and we all cheer. Finally everyone in the room is in love…and Sam and Louis…well they have whatever it is that they have. None of us really know.

Anyways, all of us have dessert which is a beautiful cake that Sam bought. It says “Merry Christmas, Gang!” referring to all of us and it has red and green frosting. The couples feed each other a little bit of it while Sam and Lou give me sympathetic looks. I give them a look back as if to say “I’m fine, don’t worry.” and I actually mean it.

Sure, Harry isn’t here with me, but I still got to see him and talk to him and finally introduce him to everyone. It feels really good to know that even though our relationship hasn’t been ideal we’ve been getting through it and we know that one day we’ll be reunited.

After dessert, Niall surprises everyone by saying that he brought his guitar. He goes to get it and all nine of us sit together in a circle and sing Christmas carols; the couples snuggled together and Sam and Louis making a space for me to sit cuddled between them. The night is ending on a high note, literally, and I have a feeling that the New Year is going to be very bright; for me and for all of us.

Notes