That One Thing (A One Direction Story)

The Betrayal

Harry's POV:

The door closed behind Evie, and Harry took her seat on the couch next to Niall, who greeted him with a loud belch. Louis had control of the remote, and had changed the TV to a show called "Duck Dynasty." After a few seconds of watching hairy men try to catch frogs, he pulled out his phone. His thumb clicked the blue twitter app out of habit, and he went to shift through his mentions. That was when he saw them. Dozens of images that showed him and the boys around town with Evie."Shit," Harry swore, and jumped off the couch. Not even bothering to slide on his boots, he pulled open the hotel door, and ran after Evie.

Evie's POV:

Evie had to remind herself to breathe. She hadn't expected one afternoon would result in such a strong reaction from the fans; she didn't think anyone would find out in the first place. But no matter how hard she wished, she couldn't go back and change what happened. All that was left was to try and fix it. "Okay, so where do we go from here?"

Harry gave her a bewildered look, as though he wasn't expecting such a calm reaction from her, and to be honest, neither had she. "Well, we have three options here: Accept, deny, or ignore it. We in One Direction are fans of the latter option." He finished his sentence with his camera-ready smile, and a wink. "Thankfully, since it is just between us, it is easy to keep hidden," he went on. "If the fans and other news sources haven't figured out who you are yet, they probably won't. This is good. As long as you don't tell anyone what happened here today, and keep your head low for a couple of days, it should all fade away. It'll probably be replaced with some story about us spitting on a baby, or something as equally ridiculous."

Evie tried to calm her breathing again. Harry made it seem like it was no big deal, but this was her life. While he could fly away on a jet to another country, another life, this was the only one she had. She didn't want it tarnished by being another one of his "mystery girls." Wilmington was big, but not big enough to escape a rumor like that.

"I know I already said this, but I have to say it again. Do not tell anyone. No matter how long you have known them, or how much you trust them, people will sell out anyone for the right price. Trust me." The tone in his voice made Evie want to ask who had betrayed him, but the look on his face warned her against it. "It's like whenever you read a magazine article, and you see 'an insider source has told us...' That insider source is almost always someone one of us thought we could trust, but the promise of money has always been worth more than our friendship." With that, Harry turned around and walked away. It would have been more dramatic, Evie thought, if he hadn't been doing it in his socks.

Evie pulled into a parking spot in front of her dorm, and turned off the car. Looking at her phone, she had two messages:

Ella King - 6:35 pm:

EVIE! Where have you been all day? I'm in our room waiting, so hurry up and get back!

Harry S.- 6:36 pm:

Remember, tell no one.

She remembered typing out "Styles" into the box for his contact, and changing it last minute to "S." This was a secret that no one could know about. With a sigh, she put her phone back into her purse, and started the journey back to her room.

When she opened the door to her room, Evie was greeted with the familiar voice of her best friend, Ella. "Evie! Finally! I thought you were going to be back hours ago." A blonde with short hair and a big smile jumped off the bed furthest from the door, and ran to embrace her. She sort of reminds me of Niall, Evie thought. They might get along.

After the two girls hugged, Ella held her at arm's length. "So? Aren't you going to tell me where you have been?" All Evie could hear was Harry's deep voice, echoing in her head: Don't tell anyone...no matter how much you trust them. But she pushed it aside. This was Ella, her best friend since elementary school, and roommate at UNCW since they began school in August. Evie knew Ella would keep her newest secret, like she had been keeping all of her other ones for years.

"You are never going to believe who I ran into today," Evie began.

•••

After staying up late talking to Ella about how she spent her afternoon, Evie gladly welcomed sleep. During what she thought would be a short conversation, Evie discovered Ella was a much bigger fan of the boy band than she had previously thought. Ella wanted to know all about Harry's curls, Niall's laugh, Louis' sense of humor, and so on. She was so happy to be sleeping, that she was less than thrilled when a phone call woke her up at 9:30 the following morning.

Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Evie reached toward her bedside table, and took her phone off the charger, more or less by yanking until it came free. Through squinted eyes, she saw the name of the caller, and groaned. After sliding her thumb to the right, she lifted the phone to her ear and waited. A gravelly voice, hinted with an accent, said "Evie, why couldn't you listen?"

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A/N: Hey guys! I am sorry for the shorter chapter, but I was excited to leave it at this cliff hanger. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Please vote, comment, and let me know what you think!