Oh, Won't You Let Me Burn (Won't You Let Us Conquer) [Zarry]

Chapter Four | That's Kinky, Apollo

where are you ?

He pulls his phone out and sends the text message to Louis as soon as his car is in park.

It's the third unanswered one in a row, meaning that Zayn has to take a deep breath to calm himself as  he realizes that he's been left with no other choice. He has to leave the safety and comfort of his own vehicle.

He groans at just the thought of it, wearily eying the enormous crowd of people scattered across the nearest beach that he'd headed to after he'd basically woken up in a cold sweat about a half hour ago.

Maybe he should just turn back and forget this whole thing, he immediately thinks. He doesn't even know if he's at the right place for fuck's sake, (because all of his mates have apparently forgotten how to answer a bloody phone) and he briefly has to wonder if this is all a sign– all a sign that he shouldn't be attempting to make things better with Harry Fucking Styles, weird as shit dream or not.

He means, they're not friends, and they've never been friends, so the gnawing feeling that pokes at the insides of Zayn's stomach every time he thinks about Apollo and the face that he made when he asked if he could leave is absolutely incomprehensible, as is the abrupt desire that he felt to see him after waking up, the abrupt desire that is still present at the moment.

He bangs his head against his steering wheel. What is he even doing right now, and how did his life come to this?

"Zayn," he heard Deborah call for him from a table in the corner. "Would you come here for a minute? There's someone that I'd like for you to meet."

He glanced away from the main entrance of the bakery then, which he'd been inattentively staring at for who knows how long as he leaned against the counter, and instead peered over at his boss, raising an eyebrow when he noticed the fit bloke from his English class standing next to her, the one who always made awful puns during their lessons.

Zayn guessed that he was the new employee that Deborah'd been searching for to replace Paige.

"Zayn, love, meet Harry," his boss said to him once he'd moved from his station and headed over to them. "He's going to be working here from now on," she confirmed his suspicions. "Harry, dear," she then turned to Fit Bloke, who was smiling widely, and holy shit, he had dimples. Zayn had never noticed that. "This is Zayn. He's going to be training you."

Dimples instantly stuck his hand out towards him, and Zayn looked down at it for a second, taking in all the tattoos and rings that he could see, which just happened to make him even more attractive, before he took the hand in his.

"Hi," he mumbled, smiling politely as he glanced back up into ridiculously green eyes and attempted to ignore the sensation that was shooting through his skin.

"Hello," he got a smile back and literal chills too. Fit Bloke's voice was deep and raspy and kind of sounded like the vocal embodiment of sex. "It's very nice to meet you, Zayn."

And as he listened to the way that Dimples– er, Harry drawled his name, Zayn couldn't help but think how nice it was to meet him too.

He sighs, pushing all his thoughts to the back of his mind, and finally opens the door to his right, because his overthinking isn't helping anything.

"Holy shit, watch it, will you?" A voice instantly yelps as soon as he does though. "Can you not see or something?" It goes on to berate, sounding extremely annoyed, and he really did not need this on top of everything this morning. Why does the universe hate him?

"You nearly hit me with the door, you–" The person suddenly stops themself, and rather than being told off, he hears an uncertain, "Zayn?" being called out to him instead, and his eyebrows pinch together at the familiarity of the way that it's uttered.