Chapter 23

Louis is throwing a party for Eleanor. Apparently she got some job or promotion or something like that. I doubt the party will be small. It is dark outside by the time Harry and I are leaving.

Harry is driving us there as usual. "Why do you always drive?" I ask him.

He smiles. "Because. You're a terrible driver."

"And you think you're any better?"

He scoffs. "Well, yes."

I sigh, but honestly, I love our little arguments. It is so fun to be able to bicker and tease each other like this and both not get offended. Because we know we are joking, and even if we are not, we know we love each other. So everything works out okay.

"Who is all going to be at the party?" I ask next.

"Louis and Eleanor. You and I. Zayn and Olivia. Charlotte and her boyfriend. What is Charlotte's boyfriend's name?" He asks me.

"Parker, I think."

He continues. "Charlotte and Parker. A couple of people I have to introduce you to, and whoever else Louis invited."

My phone gives off its familiar vibration. Harry watches me as I take out my phone and read the text I have received.

From Zayn:

Are you guys going to the party?

To Zayn:

Yep. And you could've asked Harry that, btw :p

He always texts me about Harry and I. Never Harry. Harry is supposed to be his best friend, not me, and I am trying to get Zayn to remember that.

I throw my phone in my purse. The radio plays some song that neither of us recognize. Harry messes around with the station and eventually just turns it off. He seems fidgety, first of all because he never turns the radio off, and second because every now and then he slightly jerks the steering wheel, causing the car to move with it. I do not really pay attention to his actions, because I know he is a weird person I can hardly ever understand and because this proves that I am a better driver.

But then he pulls the car over.

He slowly removes the key from the ignition and sinks down into his chair.

I stare at him the entire time he is doing this. "Umm, what's wrong, babe?" I ask.

He drops his hands to his knees, slowly running his palms up and down against his jeans. His movements tell me he is nervous on what to say, so I start to realize that this is more than just a problem with the car. "What?"

He sighs. "Are you ever going to tell me who you've been texting?" He lets out flatly.

He turns to look at me. I probably look terrified. He knows? He has never acted like he knew anything; he has never even looked at me with suspicion. At least, not since the first time we told each other "I love you" and Zayn was texting me. But that was more than a month ago. "What?" I ask. He must hear the shock in my voice.

"You keep texting someone that you don't want to tell me about."

I shift in the chair. I have no idea how to respond.

"You don't have to tell me," he says in the same dead voice. "If you don't want to. I won't keep asking or go through your phone or anything like that."

I don't want to tell you. He has never said anything to me like this. I look at him. His eyes are pointed towards the road in front of him. His posture suggests normality, but I cannot shake the thought of how cold his voice sounds.

"Harry, I love you," I say. I want that to alleviate any suspicion he has. "Don't worry, please? If there was anything I was doing that you should be worried about, I don't think I could deal with the sickness I'd have."

My heart pounds off beat. The thought of him not trusting me honestly scares me. He does not respond to what I said.

"Okay?" I beg.

"Alright." He starts the car.

Fuck. I have to tell him now.

********

Louis and Eleanor live together in a cute apartment. Harry knocks on the door with his right hand, not letting go of mine with his left hand. Music pounds throughout the house so I guess plenty of people are already here.

A few seconds pass, and Eleanor opens the door for us. She smiles at Harry. "Hey," she says, and he returns the greeting. Harry lets go of my hand to give her a hug.

When Eleanor looks at me, the first thing I see on her face is worry. It takes me a moment to register why that is true, but it quickly falls together. Eleanor was the one who told me not to worry about Zayn popping up in my life, and here he is texting me every other day. She was lying when she told me that, and I just realized it. But I do not care much. Zayn has not had that bad of an impact on my life, so I do not plan on holding a grudge against Eleanor.

So when I smile at her and her smile of relief is formed, I conclude that any tension that could have been between us has been wiped away. We greet and hug each other.

Louis comes to the door and wraps his arms around Eleanor. "Hey guys," he says to us. "Come on in."

Harry's hand takes hold of mine again and he leads me into the house. We pass a couple of guys I have not met that are running down the halls.

The house is sparsely scattered with people that I do not recognize. I tighten my grip on his hand. I really do not want Harry to leave me now. I know nobody that is here so far. We take a seat on the couch that is in the living room. Eleanor sits across from us, but Louis disappears. Harry is not his usual lively self, and it is pretty obvious. He does not try to start a conversation, so things are awkward until I cannot handle the silence any longer.

"So how-" I start to ask Eleanor, but the doorbell promptly rings. She excuses herself to go answer it.

As we hear the chatter from the doorway, Harry motions for us to get up in order to greet whoever has arrived. When Eleanor returns from the door, she brings back Zayn, Olivia, Charlotte and Parker.

I was the one who introduced Charlotte and her boyfriend to all of the friends that I got from Harry. They all seemed to like the two, so we just absorbed them into our group.

We go through the whole greeting process with them. Everyone that just arrived settles down in the living room with Harry and I. Zayn and Olivia sit with us on the couch: Harry, me, Zayn, and Olivia from left to right.

I notice that Harry still has not let go of my hand. It makes my stomach drop. He is trying so hard to trust me with the whole secret texting thing- he knows I hate it when he is too jealous or suspicious. I squeeze his hand. His lifeless eyes meet up with mine. He hits me with an empty smile- one that does not reach his eyes, and just barely one of his dimples- confirming to me his dispirited state.

Louis comes around and offers everyone drinks. Harry takes one, I do not. I never loved to drink. Louis takes this as an opportunity to make fun of me, but Harry has taught me to shrug off anything Louis says as a joke.

A conversation has started, putting Harry in a better state. Either that or the alcohol. The fact that Zayn is here and Louis is finally sitting down also helps calm Harry down. He has let go of my hand and is joking around with Zayn across me. It is a bit uncomfortable for me; he is literally leaning over me to talk to Zayn. Plus, Zayn is the one I am texting.

The doorbell rings again, and this time, Eleanor just calls for the people to come in. Four people walk in.

"Jess, let me introduce you to everyone," Harry says. I can now definitely tell that his attitude has changed. He called me Jess, which he would never do when he is being serious with me. He pulls me up off the couch. "This is Lou Teasdale and Tom Atkin."

I shake their hands and say hello. They have to be in their later twenties. They look pretty cool.

"This is Danielle Peazer and Liam Payne." (A/N: Payzer's the shit)

That name Liam rings in my head for a while, but I am honestly too distracted by Danielle's hair to take it seriously. When I am done obsessing over it, I turn to Liam to meet him.

Not again.

Different hairstyle and new tattoos, but definitely the same person. "Oh yeah, I know you," he says to me.

Dammit. I really know him.

"You know each other?" Harry asks.

"Yeah. She went to high school with us. She was in my art class senior year." He looks through the room and points at Zayn. "Actually, we had an art project with Zayn, too. You guys sat next to each other, right? All you ever did was laugh and joke and get the teacher pissed," he laughs.

I glare at Liam until he meets my eyes. Confusion shows on his face. His eyes flicker from me to Harry to Zayn, then when he looks at me again, his eyes widen. "Oh..."

"Wait. Jess, what?" Harry asks me. I doubt he has pieced everything together, but this has not helped his suspicion. His eyes switch from person to person continuously, wanting someone to give him an explanation.

"I-". I look at all of our friends in the room. There is no way I am having this conversation with all of them staring us down like this. I pull Harry into the kitchen.

"We went to high school together?" he asks. That is only the beginning.

I tell him almost everything: that Zayn and I were friends in high school, we had a bit of a falling out, and that Eleanor told me about Zayn on our double date. And I tell him that Zayn is the one I've been texting. I exclude the fact that Zayn wanted to be with me in high school, and I definitely exclude that I felt the same way.

"So this entire time, you knew that we all went to the same high school, and you were friends with Zayn, and you didn't tell me?"

"I was going to tell you," I try.

"Then why didn't you do it when I told you about the double date in the first place?"

"I don't know. I thought I needed to ask Zayn what he wanted to do first." I stare at the ground. "Not telling you wasn't an option, though."

"You've waited a month to tell me about knowing Zayn. And, how long? Four months to tell me you knew me? And you weren't even going to say anything if Liam didn't make you." His voice raises from what used to be a whisper to something thicker. He shakes his head. "You're hiding something still. There has to be a better explanation for this."

He starts to walk out of the kitchen and I grab his hand. "Where are you going?" I ask.

"To find someone who will tell me the truth." I pull him back to me.

"Okay, I'll tell you." I tell him the whole truth this time, excluding nothing.

"I remember that party. Zayn was freaking out over a girl. You were her?"

"Apparently," I mutter. "I didn't want to tell you because, well, you tend to get jealous. And there would be no reason for you to be."

"No reason?" he says with a sarcastic laugh. "You are texting the kid who you were going out with in high school and-"

I grab the back of his neck and pull him to me mid-sentence. I strangle his words with a kiss. His hands look for a way to get me off of him. They brush up and down my arms and I feel how tense he actually is. Calm down, I keep trying to tell him through my actions. My fingers mess with the curls of hair at the back of his neck. Eventually, he loosens up; his hands find their place holding my waist and he begins to kiss me back. We break apart, and I can hear him sigh. "Shut up. There is no reason." I say.

He lets his hand draw up to my cheek. A shy smile crawls onto his face, and I give him a peck on the lips. "Now lighten up. We are at a party," I request of him.

He chuckles, and I take it as his attempt at saying that everything is okay now. "Fine," he whispers. We walk into the living room hand in hand. I am really glad all of this is taken care of.

We turn the corner into the living room. Everyone is staring at us. Every single person.

I look at Harry, who looks just as shaken as I am. Someone needs to save the situation now.

"So you guys are alright, then?" Louis shouts from across the room. Thanks a lot, Louis.

"Erm." Harry glances at me. "Yeah," he says with a nod. The people stop staring, thank God, so Harry and I move farther into the room.

Our seats on the couch have been taken by Liam and Danielle, so Harry takes us to chairs near Tom and Lou.

"Where's little Lux at?" Harry asks Lou.

"Harry, she's three, I'm not taking her to a party."

He frowns. "Boo." Conversation does not really start between the three of us, so Harry decided to escape. "Want something to drink?" Harry asks me. I put a hand on his knee, hoping that he understands I do not want him to leave. "Well?"

Idiot. "Coke, please." I am trying to stay sober. I just have a feeling Harry will end up drunk and I will have to drive us home. He leaves the room and I put my attention on Lou. "Lux?"

"She's my daughter," she says.

"Her name is so pretty." Lou and I start to talk and she is literally as cool as she looks. I am now pretty grateful that Harry left us alone to talk. I feel like he knew what he was doing when he left.

Lou says she is a stylist.

"Remember Harry's hair and outfit that night you guys went to see Les Miserables?" She points to herself. "I did that."

I smile. His hair was too perfect to be his own styling, now that I think about it. Lou looks behind me. "Hey," she says with a nod, and she starts to sip her drink.

I twist my head around to see Zayn. "Olivia got caught up in some girl talk with Danielle and Charlotte. Mind if I join you guys?" He asks us.

"So we aren't girls?" I ask. He is addressing Lou and I.

"Well sure, but you guys won't be fighting over what eyeshadow would go best with my eyes." He pulls up a chair and sits with us.

"How are your sisters?" Lou asks him.

"As annoying as ever," he responds jokingly. He looks towards me. "You've met them, right?"

I try to remember. "I think I saw them once. There are three?"

He nods. "You've met Zayn's family?" Lou asks.

"A few years ago. We were friends for a while in high school," I say.

"Oh," she says back, but I feel like she means more. God, it is like everyone knows Zayn and I had a screwed up past.

"I remember your sister. Her name was Eve, right?" Zayn asks me.

"Yeah."

"One of my sisters, Safaa, goes to school with her, I think. She talks about Eve a lot. They must be good friends."

"Really?" I had no clue about this. I did not even know they were friends. I have not exactly visited home in a while, though. Maybe I should. And I can bring Harry with me to meet them.

"Hey Zayn," Louis calls from the other side of the room. "Can you help me with this?"

Zayn gets up and leaves me. I look to Lou, but apparently she left the conversation for Tom when Zayn and I were talking about our sisters. Oh well. I get up and sit on the now unoccupied couch. Harry will be back with drinks soon, right? I flip through Tumblr on my phone. Actually, he should have been back a while ago...

I have no time to care because immediately, two hands cover up my eyes from behind. I jump and drop my phone on the couch, but soon realize it is probably just Charlotte or someone like that. "Guess who?" the disguised voice asks.

I really cannot recognize the voice at once, but it has a certain aspect to it that makes it completely different from anyone I know well. "Umm, give me a hint."

"Today is the twenty-turd of November." I smile and throw his hands off my eyes.

"Niall?!" I run around the couch to meet him. He smiles wide and holds out his arms to hug me, one hand lightly holding a beer bottle. I wrap my arms around his neck, and he lifts me up. "I haven't seen you in forever. What are you doing here?"

After Zayn and I had that whole party experience in high school, Charlotte had given Niall my number. We became really good friends the three weeks he was in Britain. Then he went back to Ireland, but we stayed friends. "Just visiting some old friends," he says as he puts me down.

We move back onto the couch. Everyone I have seen today that I knew in high school has gotten tattoos except for Niall. He is so cute. We catch up with each other and talk and joke for a long time. I forgot how much I actually loved Niall. He is like the brother I wish I had instead of Isaac.

"So Zayn is here, too. How's that for you?" he smirks, sipping at his beer to hide his smile.

I shove his shoulder. "Shut up. That's way over. And I have a boyfriend now."

He raises his eyebrows. "Really?"

"It's Harry. Remember him?" I figure that he will know Harry since he knows Zayn.

"Harry... Styles?"

"No. Harry Potter."

He rolls his eyes. "You are always so sassy."

I shrug. "Have you found a girl yet?"

He looks down. "Yeah. She's back in Ireland. Her name is Diana." His lips curve up into a smile a little when he says her name.

"Like the princess?"

He looks at me. "Yeah, I guess so."

I smile at him. We talk a bit and get back onto the subject of Zayn again. "I heard he had a bad break up not long ago. What happened?" I ask him.

He looks honestly surprised. "You don't know?"

"I never asked."

He starts the story. "Zayn started dating a girl named Perrie a little less than two years ago. (A/N: I love Perrie with all of my heart, honest.)They dated for a year and he asked her to marry him. And he really loved her. That ZAP tattoo he has- it stands for Zayn And Perrie. The girl he has on his arm is her, too. Anyways, she said yes, and they were engaged for a few months. She cheated on him. Just once, and she told him about it and felt really guilty. He took her back willingly. Like I said, he really loved her. But one day he just flipped on the guy who she had cheated with. Really bad, too. The guy ended up in the hospital. And Perrie thought Zayn was crazy for it, so she ended things between them." He must see the horror on my face, because he stops. "Zayn isn't crazy though, trust me. After the breakup, Zayn just left everyone. For months, we never talked. No one actually knows what he was doing then. Then he came back and went out with that Olivia girl." He smiles. "I don't think he really likes her too much, though."

"Then why is he with her?"

"I- uh, I don't know."

"Hm." I never would have thought that is what happened to Zayn from what I have seen of him. Obviously, he had a bit of an attitude change since high school, but he still hides all the shit that he has gone through pretty well.

Niall sips his beer, making me aware of how dry my throat actually is. Where the hell is Harry with my drink? "I need to go find my boyfriend," I tell Niall.

"Alright, I'll just go make new friends."

I smile. This boy is so stupid. I get up off the couch and go down all the hallways in the house. One leads to the garage, and Harry is in it, along with a sea of people.

It takes me a while to figure out what is going on, but once I see Harry bounce a ping pong ball on a table, I realize they are playing beer pong. I roll my eyes and rest on the wall watching Harry fail at the game. Zayn comes up to me. "Your boyfriend sucks at this."

"I'm sure he's just half drunk, that's all," I respond, but, no, Harry really does suck. He sees me while drinking from one of the cups off the table and points at me. He puts the cup down, and it falls, spilling out the rest of the liquid. He jogs up to me, slamming his hip against the beer pong table, stopping to readjust it, then continuing to jog to me.

I look at Zayn, who is very much judging my choice of boyfriend right now. 'He's cute,' I mouth to Zayn.

He just shakes his head.

"Hey baby," Harry says as he walks up to me. He comes to me and hugs me tight, keeping my head pinned against his chest.

I struggle to get him off of me. "You abandoned me to play beer pong?"

"Oh, yeah." He grabs a can off a table and hands it to me. "I almost forgot your soda. Here you go."

It is warm, open, and half empty. I throw it in a nearby trash can.

"Did you meet the Emos yet?" Harry says. "Guys, come here."

He calls them in with big swooping motions of his arms. Four guys come up to us. He puts a hand on one of the guys' shoulder. "This, is Ashton." He moves to the next guy and does the same thing. "This, is Luke. This, is Calum. And this pink-haired friend, is Mikey."

These were the guys we saw as we walked into the house. They were running around. "Hi," I say apprehensively. Drunk people are not my favorite people to be around.

"Hey," one says after the others. They are Australian. How many foreign friends do these people have?

"I have a great idea," the one with the pink hair announces. He waves people closer to him. "Everyone sit in a circle." People actually start to sit on the ground, including Harry, and he drags me to sit on his lap. "Alright, so we are going to play truth or dare."

Oh god.

"But everyone needs to have had at least one drink." Thank the heavens. I start to get up from the circle, but Harry pulls me down.

"Don't leave," he says.

"I haven't had anything to drink, Harry," I retort.

"Oh, well then go get something and get back here." He pushes me off of him and waves me off.

"Fine," I mutter. I decide to get one because I know he will not stop bugging me until I do.

The kitchen is at the opposite end of the house from the garage. A few people are standing throughout the room in between, but most are in the garage. As I reach the empty, walled-off kitchen, the music that pounds through the house is barely noticeable.

There is an island in the middle of the kitchen, with a bag of plastic cups and a bottle opener on it. In the corner opposite of the doorway, there are a few coolers which I imagine to hold beer. I walk to that side of the room and stoop down to choose a drink from a cooler.

What did Harry have? Like I said, I do not drink much, so I do not know what would be considered good. And Harry drinks a lot, so I guess I can trust his choice of alcohol. I spend a while searching for whatever it is that Harry got. How many has he had? All I know is that he is not driving us home, no matter how much better at driving he claims to be.

I shut the cooler and turn around, giving myself a heart attack because of the unexpected body placed in front of me.

Zayn. He takes the beer bottle out of my hand. "Thank you," he smirks.

Yeah the fuck right. He is not getting away that easily. I grab for it, but he holds it above our heads, making me jump to reach for it. He blocks me from his body with his arm, keeping me away from the bottle. I shove at his chest to get him off of me. A wave of fear flashes through his expressions, and he trips back, landing on the ground and throwing the drink. I have no clue what instinct takes over me, but my body lunges forward to catch the beer before it hits the ground.

I look at Zayn, and both of our chests heave, expelling that breath of relief.

"You're such a dick," I say, but reaffirm it as a joke with the smile that does not fail to adorn my face.

He responds with the same sort of smile and holds out a hand for me to help him up. I step over his outstretched legs without even regarding him. He drops his hand to the floor, making a smack sound, and sighs.

I move to the island to retrieve a plastic cup. I figure that if sober me cannot handle one beer bottle, then drinking me cannot either. Zayn gets up to his feet and goes digging through the cooler.

As I pop the cap off of my beer, I hear the sounds of Zayn moving the ice around in the cooler. Apparently he has trouble finding a good beer as well. Quickly, though, he shuts it and joins me at the island.

For half a second, I put my capless beer down to tear open the bags of cups, and Zayn swiftly swoops the beer away from me. Before I can snatch it back, he brings the bottle up to his parted lips and takes a long sip from it. I watch him drink half of it then and there. He finally puts it down and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "Thank you."

"Like I said, you're such a dick."

I slide the bottle back to me and wipe the top off with a napkin. I grab a cup and, as I pour the liquid into it, Zayn reaches under my arms to get the bottle opener. "Excuse me," he says only after he has done the action.

"You're being so irritating today," I say.

"And you're being so sassy." I roll my eyes and walk towards the refrigerator, casually bumping into his side with my hip as I pass him, causing him to spill some of his drink as he pours it.

I conclude that I have won. At the fridge, I grab myself a coke for when I have finished my beer. I close the door, and am surprised at seeing Zayn leaning on the counter behind it. He smirks at me and puts his drink on the counter, giving me a second to wonder what he is doing. But only a second, because immediately after, he grabs me by the waist and pulls me to him. Some of my beer sloshes out of the cup and stains my clothes. "Zayn!" I yell.

I try to struggle away from him, but I accept in the back of my mind that I have lost this time. I continue to wiggle around in his hold, pushing at him with my one free hand and twisting around so he can never get a good grip on me.

He tries to confine me to a small space to get control of me; he pushes my back against the island, keeping me pressed to it by resting the weight of his legs on mine. He catches my hands. It is all over now.

Dammit. He takes the cup from my hands and places it on the island behind us. I do not really know how he plans on getting me back for the fight we had. I shift a bit under him, but conclude that any further effort to fight is in vain. He is smiling at me, and I smile back. We are both breathing heavily from the fight we just had. His body is warm, but I expected that. He still smells subtly of smoke, but the scent is overtaken by a musky cologne. He looks at our hands. He slowly releases the tight hold he had on them. He pairs our hands up so as to compare their sizes. His are bigger than mine and unbelievably soft. He lifts his head slowly, revealing to me that his playful smile has disappeared, and glances at my eyes. Then my lips.

"I really want to kiss you right now," he says quietly.

I laugh and roll my head to face the ground. "That's funny."

He softly chuckles at my response, confirming in my mind that he is joking. He draws his hand to my chin and nudges it up so that I am forced into staring in his eyes. His perfectly sweet, brown eyes. "You don't have to kiss me back," he whispers.

I furrow my brow. The proximity of our bodies, the flirty fight we just had, the soft, seductive voice he wears.

I have no chance to comprehend anything further. He gives me no time to think. He dips down, leaving a soft, lingering kiss on my lips, desperately trying to spark a reaction. I am in too much shock to react.

But then I stop thinking, and I start to move. But I am not fighting back.

I shouldn't be doing this. My eyes flutter close.

We could get caught. My hands slide up to his chest, feeling his warmth and the firmness of his muscle.

This is wrong.

When he feels me returning the embrace, he deepens the kiss. His lips are soft and warm, eagerly moving with mine, and I respond with the same willingness. He moves his hands to my hips, lightly gripping them and lifting me up to sit on the island. We have more access to each other, which Zayn readily makes use of. His hands fall to my knees. He parts my legs and slips his body between them, moving us even closer. He climbs his hands back up my sides until he reaches my cheeks. He cups my chin, lightly rubbing his rough thumb against my jawline.

My hands want more than his chest. One goes to the back of his head, lightly running through and tugging at his hair. The other stays at his neck and face, doing whatever it can to pull him deeper into the kiss.

Then we hear a knock.