Chapter 66: Lightning In A Bottle

(The next day...)

"Have you ever figure skated before?" Camille asked over the phone, an amused expression on her face as Niall walked into the venue.

"No." he replied matter-of-factly, his tone surprisingly relaxed.

"Do you even know the first thing about figure skating?" she asked again, her head resting against a pillow, legs gently kicking back and forth in the air as she stared at him through the screen.

"Nay." he answered once more, a reserved jocularity to his voice.

"But you’re gonna do it anyway?" she knowingly asked.

"Yep." Niall’s reply was instant, a thrilled certainty oozing from him.

"What am I gonna do with you, cowboy?" she lovingly asked, her Caribbean-blue irises warm.

"Well, for starters, I could end up showing you the ropes someday should you ever feel inclined to try it out," he began.

"Okay, I see the vision..." Camille remarked, amused thoughtfulness coloring her tone.

"And secondly, you get to watch a daily montage of me falling on my butt. How’s that for a streak, eh?" he said with such casualness that the lady couldn’t help but let out a mirthful chuckle.

"Well, if you put it that way, then I’ll definitely look forward to them."

"Just be careful, okay?" she then added softly.

"I will." Niall assured her before saying,

"I have to go now. Talk later?"

"Definitely." she nodded, to which Niall replied with an affectionate smile,

"Love you."

"Love you too~." came the lady’s cheery tone from the other end of the screen.

With a shared wave, both individuals hung up the call.

Promptly, Niall made his way over to reception, sorted out the necessary deets by showing the schedule he’d arranged with the coach on-site, and then headed inside.

A few minutes later, he found himself seated on one of the many chairs overlooking the rink as he slipped on a pair of skating boots.

To Niall’s surprise though, there were quite a number of people already on the ice... most of them being teenagers.

Some were amateurs who had only recently gotten into the sport, others looked to have a fair bit of experience, while a handful of seasoned skaters simply flexed their skills with effortless confidence.

That said, it didn’t take long before Niall spotted his instructor--a middle-aged man with a lean build and salt-pepper hair--currently out on the rink, correcting the posture of a group of teenagers as they wobbled uncertainly across the ice.

Slowly making his way down, Niall soon found himself wobbling much the same as them, his skates gliding over the ice with little to no control.

Upon noticing him, Hector--his instructor--slowly skated over and asked in a curious tone,

"Ah. I’m guessing you’re Niall Parker?"

"In the flesh," Niall replied, though every ounce of his concentration was currently devoted to staying upright as he continued gliding forward, a motion Hector effortlessly brought to a stop with a gentle palm against his chest.

"Well then, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Hector Fernandez. I’ll be showing you the ropes."

"Nice to meet you too. Now, I’d appreciate it if we could start immediately," Niall let out a sheepish smile, prompting a faint one from the man.

"Sure. Let’s start with the basics."

As the instructor began adjusting Niall’s posture, a bunch of hockey-playing teenage jocks watched from the side, all of them finding Niall’s lack of skill funny as they whispered between themselves.

"Like a spring chicken fresh out of the coop! Ba-gawk, bawk, gawk!" one of them audibly jeered not a moment too soon, prompting all five to laugh in unison.

Clearly, they were jerks. And clearly, most people didn’t seem to give a flying fuck about whatever the hell they thought.

Still, they persisted.

Afterall, that had just been a brief distraction for them as they soon returned to mocking one of their classmates whom was figure skating on the rink much like others;

"Spin like a ballerina for us, Brendan!"

"My grandma performs axels better than whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing!"

Honestly, Brendan wished he’d had his parents book an appointment at another rink and not here--a place where his peers often trained at for ice hockey.

However, he more than anyone knew how much money they’d put into getting him this opportunity to improve his skills and support his dreams despite how hard things were for them.

As a result, he knew he had no choice but to suck it up and make not just them, but also himself, very proud.

Which was why, he gritted his teeth, ignored their jeers and jibes and focused on getting better.

Glancing over to the messy, brown-haired youth from afar whom was dressed in a figure skating attire, Niall on the other hand, couldn’t help but stare at him in interest for a brief while.

Afterall, his Gift of Discernment was currently highlighting a strong hue of platinum exuding from him.

*

Just as March was rounding up, Tyler’s song, [Closer, Baby], claimed the stop spot on the music charts once more, thereby relegating Niall’s song to second.

A major reason as to what spurred this on were the music festivals and shows Tyler had begun attending.

In that regard, the outcome was to be expected, especially against a song like [Hello, Goodbye] which had simply been coasting on the airwaves mostly by word of mouth.

Still, it wasn’t as if the gap between both songs was wide enough for Tyler to feel assuredly bougie.

In fact, despite his sudden dedication to his craft, solely out of spite that his former band members had one-upped him, he had only managed to stay at the top of the charts by a million streams.

A number that he’d had been confident of any day, but not when [Hello, Goodbye] was steadily gaining almost a hundred thousand listens per day even after the initial craze for the song.

As a result, he knew better than to let up and chill, when all it would simply take was a spike of interest in the second-placed song to blow his out of the water.

In any case, Tyler wasn’t the only one who wasn’t so happy for Niall’s success.

Callow, his former agent, was just as bitter to see the young man he tried to put down, continue to keep himself relevant, one way or the other.

It was even worse when his fellow colleagues would sometimes bring it up, most of them subtly jibing at him for losing out on a potential money-printing machine.

Still, Callow had been very glad for one thing.

That was the fact that despite Niall’s success as an indie musician, he hadn’t heard any news about his acting career moving forward whatsoever.

That alone had been enough to placate his fickle ego.

Yet, the second week in the month of May had come to completely shatter that ego, the first of it being a post from Vrael Productions about an original musical-comedy drama called [Silver Comets].

Naturally, Callow’s mood touched on an all-new height of galled when it was revealed that not only was Niall going to be playing the lead role, but that he had also written the entire script and made all the music to be used in the movie.

Yet, as if that wasn’t enough, Feyre Publications had done the smart thing and used the hype the announcement generated to also announce that the second book in the Fate series, [The Spire of Fate] which was set to be released in the last half of the year.

Truly, Callow was beyond dumbfounded at how little of his former talent’s skillsets he had known, yet just as irritated that none of his plans to put his career down, seemed to have had not as much of an impact as he’d hoped.

In any case, the buzz that was generated from those two announcements alone, had gotten all sides of Niall’s budding fandoms ecstatic.

To that effect, it didn’t take long before they generated enough hype that #Niall Parker became the fifth trending topic on TweetTalk.

Afterall, very rarely did fans get to see a favorite artist of theirs gearing up to be quite the formidable triple threat.

A lightning in a bottle, so to speak.

That said, as all this had played out, Niall himself had gotten far better at figure skating, Hector seemed unable to believe his eyes as he watched the young man glide over the ice...

...only to leap at the right moment, execute a double axel and land on one leg, his form exquisite as he shimmied his way backwards into a spinning pirouette.

’Where the hell’d he come from?!’ the man couldn’t help but mutter as Niall continued the routine with a carefree grin on his features.

Genuinely, he looked to be having the time of his life.

Unsurprisingly, Hector wasn’t the only one who was just as stupefied by what he was witnessing.

The five bullies whom had often come to make fun of him and Brendan were just as stunned, as they watched him nail jump after jump like he’d been doing it his whole life when in fact, he had only started learning three weeks ago.

But for Brendan whom had felt rather dispirited all this while for not improving, his mood sunk even lower when he saw someone else whom had started after him, doing far better and making far more progress than he’d ever make even if he was given a whole year to train.

However, just as he tried to skate off the rink to go mope in a corner, he heard a voice call out to him;

"You wouldn’t wanna let those jerks win now, would you?"

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/Caer07