Ready To Run // h.s

eight

"But you have a bad back." He pointed out.

"I can lay on my stomach." I replied smoothly.

"What if you roll over in your sleep?" He asked.

I groaned and glanced over at Harry, who had been smirking at me the whole time. He knew that he was pushing my buttons and I was sure that he was getting a kick out of it, too. The whole sleeping situation was awkward and I felt bad making him sleep on a couch that was far too small for him.

"Tell you what- we can both take the bed." Harry said. "I'll stay far on my side and it would solve the problem entirely."

I bit my lip, at loss for words. I could feel a slight blush rising to my cheeks and I thanked my lucky stars that it was dark out and he would never see. I just thought that sleeping in the same bed as him, a man that I had only met the other day, was a tad bit awkward.

"Here's the thing." I sighed. "Last week, I was engaged to a different man, and this week I'm traveling cross country with you. You heard that man Harry, I sound like a damn whore." I paused, not trying to sound that harsh. "It would solve the problem, yes, but I can't stop thinking about what that guy said and how it could be true."

Harry paused and licked his lips.

"It's not true, though." He sighed. "Trust me, I know that you aren't like that. Just forget about what that asshole on the street said, because he probably still lives with his mum and is unemployed. But I understand that it would be uncomfortable, so you can sleep wherever you want tonight and I'll sleep where you don't sleep."

I fell quiet. I felt bad for saying that, because it wasn't like I didn't want to share a bed with him. He was incredibly handsome and had a charming personality to match, but doing that would mean that I would just feel worse about myself. Besides that, I didn't think I was ready to be sharing a bed with anyone at the moment.

"I'll take the couch tonight." I said.

"And I'll duct tape a soft pillow to your back so you don't get back pain." Harry grinned. I gave in to his command, although I didn't think looking like a turtle with a pillow for a shell would make me too attractive.

We sat in silence for a little while with the radio playing softly in the background. I was totally Twitter-stalking Harry at the moment and he had no idea. All of his tweets didn't make sense to me, they seemed like some kind of inside joke thing that he had going on. I also learned that he used the term 'All the love' way too much.

"Harry, what's a raconteur?" I asked.

"A person who's good at telling stories." Harry said. "I can see that someone found my twitter page."

"You caught me." I chuckled. "I thought your bio said raccoonteur at first, before I really looked closely. Very deep, Styles."

"Thank you, Roden." Harry smiled. "Most of my tweets aren't that good, though."

"So I've noticed." I said. "A skillful storyteller who writes 'All the love' in all of his tweets?" I teased. He took one hand off the wheel and playfully shoved me in my seat, but I ducked under my blanket for cover.

"Both hands on the wheel, Styles!" I reminded him.

"Look, no hands!"

"Harry, you're going to kill us both!" I groaned.

"I thought you said dying while eating pizza would be a good way to go?" He teased me back. I had to admit, he had me there. I had said that only a few minutes ago.

"True."

Five minutes later, Harry parked into a space for RV's and turned the engine off. We both headed to the back and I started to make my bed at the couch as Harry got into the shower and then brushed his teeth. Then we switched and I did the same, and by the time we were finished it was already about eleven.

"Mia, can we play a board game before bed?" Harry asked sheepishly.

"It's eleven at night." I said. "What board game would you wanna play at eleven at night?"

"Scrabble." Harry smiled. "It's my favorite."

"Fine." I sighed. "You'll probably beat me, seeing you're the raccoonteur and all." I grabbed Scrabble off of the shelf and sat it down on the floor, where Harry sat across from me and started to set up the board. I was still trying to figure Harry out- he had all this money and power but acted like he didn't. He acted like such a sweet boy, the polar opposite of what the media portrays people to be.

"You know how to play, right?" Harry asked. I only nodded in response as I collected my little wooden chips with my letters, frowning as I got the letter Y because I knew that would be a hard one to use.

"You can go first." I said, laying down on my stomach, examining my letters. I'd always thought this game was so boring as a child, but Harry seemed to love it a lot. I watched as Harry laid down the word "share" and cursed at how good he was already. Then, I managed to put down the word nest after him.

"I feel really awful about what happened in the city with that guy." Harry said as he looked over his letters. "You should have let me at 'im."

"It's okay." I said, biting the inside of my cheek. "It's done."

"Yeah, but you can't let him treat you like that. No man should treat a woman with disrespect, especially when he didn't even know you at all. And calling you that name, that was just so wrong. You weren't going to stick up for yourself, so I did. And I'm glad I did."

"Thank you for that." I said as he laid the word "barns" down on the Scrabble board. "I've never really defended myself." This was completely true- especially all throughout my long relationship with Matthew. I was always told to be good and submissive.

"I'll always defend you." Harry promised. "And I'll kick your ass in Scrabble, too."

"Cocky, are we?" I smirked. I looked down at the board and then back at my letters. They were such terrible ones, too, a few X's and W's and a Y. I bit my lip and set the word "Vibey" down.

"What the heck is a vibey?" Harry laughed.

"I needed to get rid of that Y!" I protested.

"I'm gonna need the definition of vibey, then." Harry insisted. "Because it looks to me like that isn't a word, Miss Roden."

"Vibey- noun." I cleared my throat. "One who possesses many vibes. There's your definition." Harry laughed and clapped his hands together as he snapped a picture of the board. "Hey, don't post that anywhere!"

"Too late." He smirked. "This one's going on Instagram."

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 a/n: fun fact: when harry posted the scrabble board of 'vibey' i automatically knew that it was going in this story lolol

ALSO PLEASE COMMENT A LOT GUYS. last chapter i was a bit dissapointed with how many comments i get, i also really like inline comments so make sure to leave those as well!

ps- thank you for 110K!!!!!!!

- del