Perfect Teeth by Sylvia Wrath

the best falafel in the city.

"I can't believe you outted my Niall obsession to all of London." ZZ huffed, bringing the oversized coffee mug up to her lips. She was glaring at me over the rim, her newly dyed peach hair falling in her face.

"Out of the entire interview and everything that I just told you, that's what sticks? Half of London already knows you're obsessed with Niall. You won't shut up about him." I rolled my eyes at her, before breaking off a flaky piece of croissant and popping it in my mouth.

"Also," she continued, completely ignoring me as she swallowed the last of her latte foam and picked right back up on her rant. "How is it that I've been living in London my entire life and only met One Direction a few weeks ago, yet you're here for three bloody weeks and you've ran into Harry Styles twice?"

"I only ran into him once." I corrected. "I met him the first time when you did, remember? And it's not like we're suddenly friends."

"He asked you to lunch." She grunted, fixing me with a look. "He let you spit water all over his precious hair and then he asked you to lunch. And he followed you on Twitter."

"He did?" I raised my eyebrows, before fishing my phone out of my pocket and opening my Twitter app. My follower count had gone up drastically within the last few hours, the numbers rising so dramatically that I didn't even bother to check who exactly decided my 140-character musings were worth reading. "I didn't know that."

Sure enough, when I looked at Harry's profile, the words "follows you" were right there next to his name. "Huh." I mused. "Would you look at that?"

"I still don't understand why you didn't go to lunch with him." ZZ stated, shaking her head at me as she reached over and stole a piece of my croissant. I slapped her hand away, but she was quicker than that, tearing off a huge chunk as I glared.

"Because he didn't ask me to lunch, he told me we were going to lunch, like I suddenly didn't have an option. I don't care if he's Harry Styles, he can have some common courtesy, especially because I know the boy has manners." I practically, huffed, shielding my croissant with my hand as she continued to eye it hungrily. I told her to buy her own, but she persisted, adamantly stating that she really wasn't that hungry. Apparently she was misreading her own signals.

"So if he would've asked you to lunch, you would've gone?" She clarified, quirking an eyebrow skeptically.

I shrugged, before tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear and taking a sip of my tea. "Probably? Maybe?" I guessed with a little half shrug. "He's nice. Funny. And Grimmy seems like a laugh."

"So you stopped yourself from potentially making two new friends today because Harry didn't ask you to lunch?" ZZ pressed, now looking more exasperated than concerned.

"It's more than that." I protested, because it was. Or at least I thought it was. It was about manners and politeness and also, my nerves were shot after Innuendo Bingo and I wasn't sure how much more I could handle in one day. "Do I really want the whole Hezra thing to get blown up even more than it is?"

"Why not?" ZZ shrugged. "People are going to talk about Harry and whatever girl he happens to look at that week anyway. He's a celebrity, it happens, but I don't think you should hold that against him."

"I'm not holding that against him!" I argued, shaking my head at her accusation. Because I wasn't.

"Oh really?" ZZ only rolled her eyes again, with such force that I thought she might perhaps give herself a migraine, and took my momentary distraction to finagle the rest of my croissant from the napkin and pop it into her mouth, chewing quickly. "Because you not wanting to go to lunch with him because someone might talk about it is holding it against him."