With summer lurking, I was added 2 more shifts at the ice cream shop and promoted to assistant store manager. In other words, I'd be working instead of vacationing. Lilah was going back to her home in Texas, taking Louis with her. Which left me Harry and Niall, but when I asked Harry about his summer plans he said he'd be going back to Hawaii for an open position that counted as credits for his master's degree.

But first, today was Harry's graduation. Louis and I had driven down, in separate cars, for the ceremony in Long Beach and met up with Lilah and the rest of Harry's family. I had never really spent time with Harry's parents before, just a shallow hello and goodbye. I never knew what they thought of me since I was only introduced as a friend, and rightfully so.

During the reception after all the graduates had settled with their families, Harry had removed his toga showing off his sharp black suit. Some people ate and others mingled around. Meanwhile I was distracted with Harry's game of hard to get. We never spoke about what happened that night at his house, even though I was ready to confess my feelings if he should only ask me.

I was disappointed he hadn't even complimented me on how nice I looked tonight. Displaying a beige and gold dress that my mother had gotten me for my birthday, I thought this was a sure winner to grab his attention. Then unexpectedly he motioned me to dance with him. It was about damn time!

"You look outstanding. Please tell me that's for me," he spoke softly and I blushed; he was so full of himself. Even though it was for him.

"About that night…I just wanted to apologize for leaving like that," I fessed up.

"It's alright. I think I might have an idea of what that was about. But…I need to talk to you about something."

He held on to my hand as we walked out of the facility. It had turned into a cool evening with the sunset and the scent of the ocean. Some winds had picked up compelling Harry to remove his blazer and place it over my shoulders. His hands clasped the jacket together, slightly tugging me towards him. I couldn't help how doe-eyed and defenseless I became under his influence.

"I know things have been kind of up in the air with us, due to many things. We claim to be friends, though we haven't had a chance to spend some solid time together. I'm leaving in two days to Hawaii, and I was hoping to see you more this summer but it doesn't look that way now. Maybe the timing is just off…I adore you Brynn and I don't want to lose you. But I think the best thing for right now is that we stay friends for a while."

"You're right," as much as it pained me to agree with him.

Harry then bent down to kiss my forehead, my arms latched around his waist. I didn't want to let him go. He looked down and seemed equally saddened.

"I'm afraid to kiss you…"

"It never stopped you before," I smiled.

His hand gently held on to the back of my neck. I hated that this seemed more like a goodbye kiss, regardless if he was coming back or not. It was bittersweet and lovely. It wasn't as fiery as the other ones we've had. For the rest of the night, we sat glued next to each other. He laughed and chatted with anyone who demanded his attention. Meanwhile beneath the table, he held on tightly to my hand, caressing and playing with my fingers. I missed him already.

It turned out that this would be the last time I'd get to see him before he left. He already had all his bags packed in his dorm room. How sad was that? Finally when I thought we were both ready, life just kept getting in the way...growing up gets in the way. It's not like he could throw it all away to spend time watching me make sundaes.

---

Bored and lonely, any invitation I got I accepted. Whatever it was it had to be better than my normal summer thus far. This ranged from bowling with my coworkers to even a bible study group with Niall. That's how desperate I was for variety. I honestly thought I would walk into a room of happy freaks that wanted to instantly convert me, but to my surprise they were…better than the average person.

They were glad to see me, a new face, and encouraged me to come again. Some were my age, accompanying their older siblings; but it was mostly a college group. And after their little book study they busted out some guitars and instruments and began to jam. Others plugged into an XBOX match in a separate room while the girls just huddled together on the couches with coffee to talk about any and everything.

I'm not going to lie, I did have an interesting time. And more importantly, I saw a completely different Niall, as though he had switched bodies with someone else. I almost wished I had seen this side of him before, which brought on a new problem. I realized I had feelings for two guys. And while I liked Harry openly, secretly I felt a rare attraction to Niall. I could share this with no one.

Opening the ice cream shop on a Saturday morning, I was usually by myself for half an hour counting the register and so forth. But having recently hung out with Niall brought back another memory from last week with my coworker. Niall had stopped by to contribute to the shop, convincing all his friends to buy ice cream; as well as persuade me to the bible study. And after he left I could feel Lorena, my closest coworker, shaking her head at me. When I asked her what that was about she said:

"How come you have so many good looking friends drooling over you?"

"They're just friends, that's all!"

"Uh huh, my friends don't look at me like that."

"Like what?" I fronted putting my hands on my hips.

"Girl, open your eyes!"

What did she mean by that? My eyes were clearly open. I don't see why she had to make silly remarks about my friends, obviously hinting at Harry and Niall. So what if they were good looking? Depressing thing was it had been 3 weeks since everyone had left, including Harry.

I went to the front door to switch on our open sign when I saw Niall's black Jeep pull up. Surely he didn't want ice cream at nine in the morning. I couldn't help laugh at his wardrobe as he was running inside the shop. I continued to open the window blinds and acted as though I hadn't seen him.

"Hey Brynn!"

"Oh hey there, I think you missed the beach," I teased as he was zipped up in his wetsuit.

"Yeah, nice try. Listen, I have a proposition for you…"

"I'm listening."

"I'd like to buy 6 buckets of ice cream," he announced.

I turned in astonishment, "6 buckets? Do you know how much that's going to cost?"

"I don't care it's for a good cause. So how can we arrange this?"

"Well, if you paid now than I could drive down with one of the guys and deliver them to you, with the serving supplies included."

"Great," he clapped his hands together.

"What's this for?" I asked making my way to the register.

"You'll see. Just be sure to deliver them to The Pit."

"Oh Niall, I thought you changed your ways; still partying at the same place," I shook my head.

"You'll see."

He pointed out which flavors and made the whopping purchase, which was a great benefit for our local shop. Once I shared the news with my manager, he was thrilled and said we could stay at the beach to help serve whatever cause it was, even handout some gift cards.

Later around noon, Pedro, my coworker and I had parked our truck by the sidewalk to start taking down the coolersto the beach. We spotted some canopies and expected the event to be there. A couple of guys ran towards us and resumed the task of bringing the rest of the stuff down while I began setting up under their shade. Still unsure what this event was pertaining to, when I looked out into the water I saw a group of kids in wetsuits along with surf instructors.

I asked the stranger who was helping me set up the cups what was going on, he informed me that they were an organization of Christian surfers giving free lessons to an orphanage brought from Mexico for the weekend.

My heart about dropped; seeing these people spending time with these kids who were clearly having the time of their lives. Seeing Niall being selfless instead of self-centered, was a new look for him; a look that I was being drawn to more and more. As I continued to watch and even laugh at the sight of it all, in my mind I was more confused about what my true feelings were. Perhaps being alone was making me bend.

"By the way, I'm Lloyd. I'm the Pastor and event coordinator, if you like the fancy titles," he said with a huge smile. He seemed super friendly.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Brynn. I work at the Flavors of Fun ice cream shop."

"Thank you so much for donating this ice cream for the kids…I can't tell you how excited they're going to be."

"No but-" before I could finish Lloyd ran to help a volunteer carry the last cooler over to the table.

I was beside myself. Why did he think we donated this? I mean I'm sure my boss would have loved to participate but the donation of 6 buckets would have been too much. Like a truck, it hit me. Niall bought it with his OWN money and gave the credit to us. I couldn't take that credit, it wasn't ours to take.

"Hey, I'm glad you made it!" Niall announced from a distance.

"Yeah, I'm glad I came. Do you know how magnificent this is?!"

"I sure do! These kids are amazing! I feel like I want to adopt one." Biting down on his lip, his crazy eyes gleamed that he was considering the idea. "We've been here since 6 am and these kids just don't want to get out of the water!" he grinned innocently.

"So Niall, why does Lloyd think we donated this ice cream?" I crossed my arms and raised a brow waiting for his clever answer.

He raised his finger to his lips for me to keep quiet. Not only had he done a kind act for these kids but for my shop as well. How could my feelings for him not sway? Sure he still had that bad boy hotness but coated with a sense of good made him more irresistible. He still attracted the girls, no matter what crowd they were from. Only now he wasn't flirting back at them.

"So what are your plans for the rest of the day?" he asked delightfully.

"Well, they pretty much end here…" unless he wanted to do something.

"Okay, I'll tell you what, one of my buddies lives just up this street. We can park our cars up there and take two of his bikes?"

"A bike ride, huh? That's different." His idea had potential.

"I'd have to go back to the shop and get my car and go home and change…"

"You're not making up excuses to bail out are you?" he smirked.

"Oh no, I want to go. It sounds fun."

"Alright, how about I pick you up at your house in 30 minutes?"

"Sounds like a plan, Niall." And for the first time ever, I flashed him a flirty smile. Gasps!

When I got home, I found myself excited to 'hang-out' with Niall. I had the perfect outfit in mind, yes, the one I bought for Harry. My mom suspected of my bubbly behavior but I told her I'd explain later since my friend was waiting outside. Before I could escape there was a knock at the door.

My mother wore an evil grin and went to answer it.

"Good afternoon Mrs. Rael, I'm Niall," my eyes about popped out of my head. First of all, my mom obviously knew who he was.

"Hello Niall, It's nice to see you," I couldn't tell if that was a sincere comment from her or if I'd have A LOT of explaining to do later.

I had a split second to check myself in the mirror before he stepped inside my house. Now come to think of it, Niall had never been inside my house before; or any other guy really. Louis didn't count, we were buddies and this was more like a …date?

I took a glance at him modeling a white polo shirt with khaki plaid shorts and his white K-Swiss sneaks. His hair was wet and fell over his forehead, a classic 'Abercrombie' look. But for once the blonde locks didn't bother me as much; maybe my 'type' was open to more diversity.

We said goodbye to my mother all the while I couldn't help feel like this was an actual date; the classic kind where the boy greets the parent. Now all I was missing was…Oh boy!

"Here, these are for you. I just picked them out of our yard…you know on my way over," he smiled coyly.

"And yet you still managed to put them in the plastic wrapping you had lying around in your car?" I grinned as I smelled the lovely lilies.

"Yeah…" he replied bashfully.

He had already picked up the Beach Cruisers and had them racked on the back of his Jeep. I loved how the lilies matched my peach dress beautifully and couldn't help pluck one out to put in my hair. Niall looked over and smiled; still quiet, I knew he liked what I had done.

"So, I can't help but feel like…" I struggled to acknowledge the word.

"Like this is a date?" he finished my sentence. "Would that make you feel uncomfortable?"

"So it is," I cleared my throat. "No I guess not. Funny thing is, this would be my first ACTUAL date," I confessed.

Maybe this confession was too much too soon? I noticed Niall get a little nervous. I rarely ever saw him nervous for he was always too busy being confident. But that was before. I had to stop seeing him that way; that was the old Niall.

He drove on over to the pier where I saw the long boardwalk, it went on for miles, perfect for our cruise. He unloaded our bikes and we walked them over to the end of the pier, it was too crowded to ride on there. At the end we happened to see a pair of seals hanging around the foot of the post down in the water. This was a different taste of SoCal I was missing out on. It was amazing!

"Are you hungry?"

"Pretty much to the point of starvation, yes," I exaggerated.

We walked our bikes back down and finally rode them to a burrito joint. I had to carefully adjust my dress to not show my world to the world, but otherwise I thought this was fairly romantic for a first date.

"Wait till you try this California Burrito, gulp it down with some Horchata and you've just tasted a piece of heaven," he described.

"This burrito is huge, I can't down that by myself!" It was alarmingly big, I wasn't kidding.

We ended up splitting one and a large drink. I have to admit the boy spoke the truth about our meal. It was incredible and just enough to fill our tanks for the rest of our bike ride. He kept filling his bites with extra sauces but when I tried one I thought my mouth had caught on fire. He burst out laughing of course and didn't blame me for finishing our drink.

We kept staring at each other and looking away like a couple of 4th graders. I was enjoying his pretty blue eyes watch me like I was something special and proud to be seen with. The more I thought about it, I remembered catching that glimpse before as well. It made me wonder how he had always felt about me even in his jerk-hood days.

If I could play the perfect melody in the sky to escort our lovely cruise, it would be something along the lines of a soothing acoustic guitar with a little piano. We rode along the wooden path by the beach overlooking the water, passing by people walking their dogs and couples holding hands. I felt like a little kid again.

Niall spotted a man selling ice cones and motioned for us to stop. Setting aside our bikes we went and sat on the sand to enjoy our desserts. There was something about the colors of the beach that made his eyes stand out.

"Your eyes, they're changing," I said pointing at them.

"Really, I never notice if they do or not. What color are they?"

"Hmm…" I leaned over a bit to observe them better. "They look grey but with a hints of blue and green."

In the midst of me staring purposefully into his eyes I think we both choked up. Realizing that the observation part was over and now we were just gazing deeply into each other. My stare began to bounce from his eyes to his lips and he did the same. In disbelief, I admit that I wanted to kiss him, but he leaned back.

"Brynn…sometimes I still can't get over what a creep I was to you. It blows my mind that you actually forgave me and that you're even sitting here with me right now. Even though I've changed, there's still one thing that hasn't… and I don't want to steal your heart from someone else, I want to WIN it," he admitted.

He delicately placed his hand next to mine, eyes fixed on what I might do. Was it my turn to decide if I really wanted to let him in? It was so tempting to see his hand beside mine, being a gentleman… being patient. I wasn't sure what I would be venturing into but I slid my pinky in the sand and under his.

Notes

This was a twist, huh? Let me know what you think about this chapter.

And don't forget to vote, please, if you like the story of course :)

Ciao, muah!