Descendants.

“Okay girls!” Karen shouted over the laughter spilling out of the kitchen. Several of the guys’ siblings and significant others had stayed and we had all set up camp in Harry’s kitchen, playing drinking games. Ruth, Nicola, and I turned to see Karen and Geoff standing in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear.

“What’s up, mum?” Nicola asked.

“We should probably head to the hotel. Let the boys catch up on their rest and we’ll see them tomorrow.” Everyone groaned. I had to admit, we were having a pretty good time. Even Nicola had loosened up on her anti-big sister movement. I was sure it wouldn’t last, but I was happy for the break anyway.

“No way, Mrs. P.” Harry shook his head, a stray curl falling into his face. He pushed it back up, finding a way to twist it around the ponytail holder at the crown of his head. “Sisters stay put. We’re too far into catching up to let them go now.” Nicola and Ruth shrugged and went back to the cards in their hand, too deep in a game of ‘Go Fish’ with Niall and the dark haired one to wait for their parents’ reactions. I stood up, picking my bag and my coat up off the chair behind me.

“That includes you too, Blair.” Liam shouted from the other end of the room. I was surprised he even heard the conversation. Ever since his girlfriend had arrived, they’d been off in a corner somewhere, appreciating the fact that they were together again. I glanced over at Nicola and Ruth, who either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, before looking at Karen and Geoff. The pride in their eyes was apparent to anyone who bothered to look for it. For the first time in their lives, all of their kids were under the same roof, acting like maybe a new sister wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

“Blair?” Karen asked. “Are you okay staying here or would you like some downtime at the hotel? We know this bunch is a lot to handle all at once.”

“I think I’d like to stay.”

“Good girl.” Harry grinned, pulling out my chair so I could return to the game of Scrabble I’d been in with one of the guy’s girlfriends. I couldn’t remember her name, but she had been nice to me all evening, going out of her way to include me in whatever the next adventure consisted of. Harry slid into the chair beside me, thumbing through his phone and humming a melody I hadn’t heard before. My phone buzzed in my pocket, alerting me to a new Twitter post. Considering I hardly ever updated or did anything on Twitter, I opened the alert immediately.

There was a picture of Liam and I laughing hysterically at something Ruth had said earlier in the evening, the same smile on our almost identical faces. The caption had me swallowing back the lump that it brought to my throat.

@Harry_Styles: Clearly already one of the family, @bbgone. Welcome to this insanity that we call life.

I glanced up at him, a sweet smile on his face. ‘Thank you,’ I mouthed. He simply nodded, getting up from his chair and leaving the room without another word. I didn’t know how old he was exactly, but I could bet he was around Liam’s age. They all were, most likely. And yet, they had an air of maturity that surrounded them a majority of the time. Except for that little Irish one, none of them were so loud or crazy that it made my head spin. I finished the game I was playing with Perrie (I had asked someone her name while she was getting another drink), barely losing to her insane vocabulary. The girl was not only pretty, she was smart too. But for the past hour, all I had really wanted to do was lose myself in one of those big chairs in the library, a book in hand in front of the warm fire. Maybe even with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate.

I saw the fire already crackling from inside the room before I stepped foot into the library. I should have known this was where the curly haired one had retreated to. He seemed to seek this room out just as much as I did. The door squeaked as I pushed it open slowly. He pulled his eyes up from the page he was reading.

“I wondered how long it would be before you found your way in here again.”

“What’s one thing you wished you had that you don’t?” I asked, quietly. Scanning over the book titles, my back to him, I quickly found the book that I was looking for. To Kill a Mockingbird.

“Where on earth did that question come from?” I could hear him close his book and set it on the table beside him. Turning around, book in hand, I shuffled over to the unoccupied chair and sat down.

“You have all of these amazing things. This great big house, a nice car in the driveway, family that travels hours to see you just because you’re home, adoring fans, money… This library. I’m just curious. Is there anything you don’t have that you wished you did?”

“Someone to share it with.” I scoffed. He had more people around on a day-to-day than I had ever known at one time. He seemed to catch my hesitation in his answer immediately. “Not someone I pay to be around. Or someone I pal around with every now and again. Someone who understands what I do and why I do it. Someone who wants the same things out of life that I do.”

“And what do you want out of life?”

“To be happy with the choices I’ve made. To be able to live life like I’m not some freak show that people can make money off of. There’s always the flip side of a coin, Blair. People see us and think how wonderful it must be to buy whatever we want and never have to worry about money. To be able to do what we love. And all of that is true. But at a point, doing what we love has become a job.”

“You need a break.” I stated. It was clear as day that these boys ran themselves into the ground for their career. He sighed quietly.

“What about you?” He asked. “What’s one thing that you don’t have that you wish you did?”

“A horse.” I answer honestly. He chuckled. “That sounds so silly compared to your ‘I just want someone to understand’ speech. But it’s true. I never grew up with money, but a neighbor at one of my foster parents’ houses had horses and they’d let me ride them all day if I wanted. Our neighbor was a riding instructor and she had these beautiful horses. She taught me how to jump fences and I wished I could just stay there forever. I didn’t care for that particular set of foster parents, but boy did I love that neighbor.” I sighed at the memory.

“Did you ever get to ride again?”

“It just wasn’t in the cards for me once I left that home. But someday, I’d like to have my very own horse. Something to call mine.”

And just like that, our conversation stilled and we dove into our respective books, finding comfort in the fictional world that the author’s had given to us. It was one of my favorite things about a novel. The fact that getting lost in it was so incredible easy to do.

Notes

Chapter Title lyrics: "Wild Horses" by The Rolling Stones.