Real men stay faithful. They don't have time to search for other women because they're too busy looking for new ways to love their own.

"That...is not at all what it looks like..."

"Then what is it?" I ask calmly.

He sits down across from me on the couch and grabs my hand in his, looking into my eyes. I glance down at our hands with an angry face but make no effort to pull my hand away from his. 

"Alexis, I have told you a million times that I love you. That girl, she was outside the studio at our interview today. After we were leaving we stopped to say hello to a few of them. I recognized her from the meet and greet last night, so we chatted for a bit, but when I turned away to talk to Zayn about something she grabbed my hand to turn me back around. Someone probably snapped a picture and made it look worse than it actually was. I promise you that I'm not lying. I would never lie to you or try to hurt you. Please don't be mad at me or upset with me about this. It really wasn't under my control." 

His eyes were pleading. Begging me to forgive him for something that wasn't even his fault. My angry expression softened. I wrapped my arms around him in a hug and I could feel him relax in my arms.

I could tell he was honestly afraid. He was afraid he'd lose me. The thought of breaking up with Niall made a single tear run down my cheek, but I quickly wiped it away so he wouldn't see. 

"I'm sorry I got mad," I say softly, still hugging him. I didn't want to ever have to let go. 

"I would be mad too if I saw something like that online. Don't worry about it." I finally release him. I really do have the best boyfriend in the universe. He smiles at me. "We better get our things packed though. We leave extra early tomorrow morning," he says, pecking my forehead. I sigh and pack my things into my suitcase. 

I couldn't wait to leave the state of Georgia and get away from Maggie. I wouldn't have to worry about her trying to steal my boyfriend. I trusted Niall though. Maybe it was a misunderstanding...

~~~~~~

"Good luck," the boys all say to me. I had Claire in my arms as I prepared to go onstage. I took a deep breath and Niall kissed my cheek as I put Claire down and grabbed the microphone. 

By now we were in South Carolina. Three stops left. It made me want to freeze time. 

"Here we go..." I mumble as the music begins and I bounce onstage just like every night. After performing How We Do by Rita Ora I left the stage and headed to my dressing room like always. I switched out of my dress into a pair of sweatpants and a cami. Claire sat next to me as we watched the boys perform on the screen. By the time they finished I had dozed off. 

"We're back!" Harry's voice woke me up. 

"Shh! She's sleeping..." Liam scolded him. I kept my eyes shut, listening to them argue. 

"Sorry," Harry whispered back. I heard Louis then chuckle. 

"I bet if Niall was here he would be jealous of that couch..." Lou says. The other boys laugh quietly. 

"Where is he anyway?" Zayn wonders aloud. Silence followed. 

"He'll turn up," Liam reasons. I hear the sound of someone plopping down on the opposite end of the couch from me. I squirm a bit before fluttering my eyes open. I pretended to act like I had just woken up. 

"You guys are back," I state. They all smile back at me. Claire was sitting by Louis half asleep. I look around with a curious look on my face. "Where's Niall?" The boys all exchange glances. 

"We don't know…" Zayn answers truthfully. 

"You lost my boyfriend," I say chuckling. 

"He's probably just chatting with some fans or something," Louis says. 

"It happens," Harry shrugs it off like it's no big deal.

For some reason an image of Maggie flashed through my head.

Forget her, she's a whole state away. I don't have to worry about her stealing Niall anymore. She's gone. 

After a bit of relaxing, the boys decided to head back to the bus to wait for Niall.

"Shouldn't we try to find him?" I ask, a bit worried. 

"It's not like he's gonna run away or get stolen. There's security around every corner here. He'll figure it out," Liam ensures me. I sigh and flop down onto the bed in the back of the bus. Liam and Louis sat down on the one across from me, and Harry and Zayn sat on the top bunks with Claire by Zayn's side. 

"Move your legs," I complain as Harry's feet dangle off the side and practically kick me in the face. 

"NEVER!" 

I sigh and pull on his feet, causing him to fall from the top bed and land on the floor. He wasn't hurt though. Claire and the boys all laughed at him while he just glared in my direction. He climbed back up, this time sitting cross-legged. 

"Smart boy," I comment, smirking. 

"Shut up." 

We all sit and talk for a bit. When Liam and Zayn get into a heated debate on whether or not an avocado is a fruit or a vegetable, I decide to pull out my phone and check twitter. I haven't been on all day. I tap my mentions and scroll through. A lot of them seemed to be saying similar things. 

@OMG1D: @Lexiboo2 Do you forgive Niall? :(

@LiamMyLover: @Lexiboo2 Are you and Nialler breaking up over this? D: nooo!!!

@Smile1231D: @Lexiboo2 I CAN'T BELIEVE HE CHEATED. I would kick his ass.....you guys were so cute though :( 

I stared at the tweets, confused. Surely all these people are talking about the pictures from the other day of Niall and Maggie outside the TV studio. I'm sure they're just hearing about it now or something. I scrolled through more. 

@SexyStyles69: @Lexiboo2 TWICE HE CHEATED IN A MATTER OF DAYS? wow...please forgive niall :( hes finally found his princess...

@LoveMeLouis: @Lexiboo2 I hope you guys can work it out :) xx I would hate for you guys to split up over Niall's stupid mistake. I'm sure it was an accident I guess?? :P

Okay, now I'm more confused. 

"What's wrong?" Louis asks me. I must have had a weird look on my face because all the guys were staring at me. 

"I um...just....these tweets..." I manage to respond. 

"Is it hate? Ignore it..." Zayn advises. I shake my head. 

"It's....this," I say, showing my phone to them. I let them all scroll through and read some. They all looked at me worried and confused. 

"What did he do?" Liam asks. 

"I don't know...." I answer honestly. I see the trends and notice that '#ForgiveNiall' is trending as well as 'Nexi'. I finally come across a link. I click it and an article pops up. I bite my lip in frustration as I stare at the screen in front of me.

Niall and Maggie. Niall was pressed up against a wall and Maggie was locking lips with my boyfriend. His hands were on her waist and hers were resting on his shoulders. I don't hate anyone besides the man who killed my loved ones years ago, but at that moment I felt a surge of hate for Maggie. I hated her more than I ever thought I could. I wanted to rip her eyes out and cause her pain. She was planning this. She's wanted Niall from the start, and now she's got him. 

Off to the side of the picture I saw something else. Katie. She had that same nervous and panick-stricken glint in her eye that she's had every time I've seen her. Like she's known Maggie's plan the entire time but was too afraid to say anything. 

That's when Niall runs through the door of the tour bus looking right at me. His hair was messed up and he was out of breath, probably from running to the bus. I looked at him angrily and he stared back with apologetic eyes. He knew what I was angry about. 

"Lexi...." he starts. 

"Don't bother." I lock my phone and push past him as a teardrop rolls down my cheek. I wish the bus was bigger. I could hear the boys asking questions as I hopped off the unmoving vehicle. 

I sat on the curb of the road and angrily stared at a pebble I picked up. A nanosecond later, Niall came outside. He must have told the boys to stay because they didn't follow, but I could see their heads popping up from the window, trying to watch us. 

"Will you let me explain?" 

"There's nothing to explain. I saw a picture Niall! Obviously it wasn't photo shopped. There's no way to explain that! I just want to finish the tour and go home." 

"Home to London."

"Home to California," I spit at him, glaring. He looked heartbroken. 

"You don't underst-"

"I understand perfectly fine! She tried to steal you from me and she did. I hope she's fucking happy." 

"Maggie means nothing to me! Nothing!" he yells. I don't say anything. I sit and stare at the ground, extremely pissed. "What you saw wasn't my doing!" he adds. "I was greeting fans. Afterwards I was headed back to your dressing room to hang with you and the lads and someone pulled me back. Pinned me against that wall. The next thing I know her lips were pressed on mine. I didn't kiss her back!" 

I laugh humorlessly. "Is that why your hands were on her waist? Pulling her closer?" 

"Pushing her away actually." I stare at him. "I tried to get her off of me. I was thinking of you Lexi. I couldn't do something like that to you. I wouldn't cheat." 

"You're an eighteen year old guy. She’s the size and weight of a stick, and you're telling me to believe that you couldn't fight her off?" 

"She's stronger than she looks!" 

"Niall...." I give him a look. He looks a bit angry now. 

"Why won’t you believe me?"

"You're argument isn't exactly fool proof."

"My argument is the truth! Why don't you trust me?" 

I squeezed my eyes shut and let more tears fall to the ground below me. 

"If I didn't trust you..." I choke out, trying my hardest not to cry but failing anyway. "If I didn't trust you, I would still be back in London living with my two siblings and working at my photography job. If I didn't trust you, I never would have gone to meet you at Starbucks in the first place. If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't have moved in with you and the other boys. If I didn't trust you, Niall, my life would still be the same. I wouldn't be on this tour with the five most amazing guys in the world. But I do trust you. And it's not the same. It's a hell of a lot better with you than it was without you. Not just for all that you've given me, but because I get to spend it with you. I'm in love with you Niall."

"I'm in love with you too," he says in a deep voice just above a whisper. 

"Then why do I keep finding these pictures?!" 

"Because she's a creepy psycho! I don't know how many times I have to explain to you that I love you Lexi! I'm not going to fuck this up on purpose! As long as I have a say in it, you and I will be together forever." 

Hearing his words made me cry harder. I covered my face with my hands and refused to look up. I didn't hear him say anything but I soon felt his strong arm around me. He hugged me tight. 

"I'm sorry, okay? I don't know what to do. Security held her back after she grabbed me today. I promise to try my best to stay away from her from now on," he tells me. I keep letting the tears pour from my eyes, still covering my face.

"Hey," he says, tilting my head up so I would look at him. "You don't have to cry. I hate it when you cry." I look at him for a moment. I'm sure I looked terrible. Makeup smearing and puffy red eyes. A complete mess. He gave me a weak smile and wiped away a few remaining tears on my cheek with his thumb.

"You don't know what it’s like," I say, barely audible. "To find something like that." I look away again, staring at the road. We were hidden by the bus so the fans couldn't find us. Thank God. "When I go online and see pictures like that of you with someone else it just....breaks me," I explain. 

"I know. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I will do my best to make sure you don't have to deal with it again." 

"I realize it's not your fault," I say, leaning into his hug. He seemed to relax a bit at my words. "Just....please....try to stay away from that Maggie chick?" He smiles and nods, kissing my head. 

"It's cold out here," he whispers in my ear softly. That alone sends chills through me. "We should go back into the bus. You don't have a jacket." I sigh as he gets up and holds out his hand to me. I take it and we walk back on the bus. 

"Look whose back together!" Louis calls cheerfully. I smile and roll my eyes. 

"It's really hard to stay mad at him," I say, blushing a bit. Niall grabs my waist and pulls me in for a kiss. I could hear the boys’ comments in the background as we stood there. 

"Why always in front of us?" Zayn complains. 

"Single as a Pringle..." Harry states. I heard him hi-five Liam on that one. 

"A little warning please? Ugh. Next time I'm bringing El on tour..." Louis moans. 

"Pringles aren't single!" Claire protests to Harry. "They're in a can with other Pringles!" 

"Not if you take the Pringles out of the can..."

I laugh as Niall and I pull away. 

"Thank God. I thought it would never end..." Liam says dramatically. I roll my eyes and slap his arm lightly. Niall kept staring at me and smiling. I wondered what he was thinking about. What was going through his head?

Liam told the driver to take us back to the hotel. As we drove I sent out a tweet to clear the break-up rumors. I hope Niall and I never have to break up. I hope those rumors never become true. 

AUTHORS NOTE

ALRIGHT. who thinks those rumors are going to become true? leave your comment below of what you think will happen next(: I actually use your comment-prediction things to write new chapters. Like I use some of your awesome possum ideas that you give me somtimes(: So COMMENT. by the way if you fan me I may or may not fan back becauz ive been getting ALOT more fans recently and its just hard to keep up but if you're a fan of me on Wattpad and a directioner or youre reading one of my stories I usually will dedicate a chapt to you(: BUT YOU MUST FAN ME ;D I have a "who to dedicate to" list on my phone so i go from that and if you fan me i add you to my list(: lol btw idk if those twitter names i used are real or not i just made them up :P

Anywhoo I am so sorry i dont have like ANY time to update. 8th grade is tough :P lol only the second week and Im slammed with work so i apologize :( I try to update at least once or twice a week but its really hard. Who wants to hear my scehdule? :D ok too late cuz i already typed it. 1. I get home and eat a snack(: 2. I shower. 3. homework 4. prepare for school the next day. By the time i finish this all it's like 9 or 10 at night and i need sleep O_O i have like nooo wattpad time :( this authors note is uber long so sorry XD PLEASE FORGIVE ME MY POPTARTS<3 love you guys...byee(: