Carry On {A Harry Styles Love Story}

7.0 ; Out of Control.

7.0 ; out of control.

❝ i’ve never told a lie,

and that makes me a liar.

i’ve never made a bet,

but we gamble with desire.

i’ve never lit a match

with intent to start a fire.

but recently, the flames are

getting out of control. ❞

★ j e r s e y ☆

Apparently, I had cried myself to sleep because I was gently awoken sometime later. Moaning in protest at the light bleeding through my eyelids, I rolled over to smother my face in the pillow.

“Jersey.” A large hand lightly shook my shoulder. “Babe, wake up.” He shook me again. “Baaaaabe... Jersey, I really have to talk to you.”

I stubbornly shook my head into the pillow, prompting Harry to huff in exasperation. “Fine then, be that way.” The mattress sunk a bit as he lowered himself to lie beside me on the bed. I resisted the urge to look at him, instead opting to stay still, hoping he’d go away and let me rest longer. That plan worked for about ten seconds until I felt his fingers softly stroke my cheek. Now I really froze, feeling increasingly nervous as his hand trailed up the side of my face to tuck some hair behind my ear. When his fingertips grazed my jaw, I flew up into a sitting position before he could even blink.

Staring up at me was a startled Harry, his hand still suspended over where I had just been lying. Once he took in the blush creeping onto my face, his lips turned up with a cheeky smirk. “Got you up, didn’t I?”

Too embarrassed to acknowledge his teasing words or my flushed cheeks, I quickly bounced out of bed. “Um.” I racked my brain for an excuse. “Ummm...” A lightbulb went on in my head. “I have to pee! Yes. Okay, I’ll just—go do that right now.”

As I darted out of the bedroom and away from his roaming touch, I could hear Harry call after me, “Don’t miss!” Rolling my eyes at his comment, I locked the door and simply stood at the sink, realizing that I didn’t actually have to use the bathroom. With quick fingers, I reached back to gather the top layers of my brown hair and secured it at the back of my head with the white ribbon I’d left on the counter earlier. Turning around, I scanned the tile floor for the pile of clothes I’d also previously abandoned. Spotting them in the corner, I rushed to yank on the pair of gray sweats, nearly tripping—which wasn’t surprising—as I shoved my legs into them and rolled them up my ankles. For good measure, before walking back out, I flushed the toilet needlessly just so he wouldn’t question me.

Re-entering the bedroom, I suppressed my nerves and started towards the bed, planning to just sit on the edge, blissfully unaware of the duffel bag that was still lying on the floor. Before I knew it, my bare foot had caught on the strap and I was falling. I didn’t even get to be dramatic about it or anything. I just staggered a step and tumbled down, barely catching a glimpse of Harry lurching forward on the bed and reaching out for me. In a cliché love story, he would catch me around the waist and I would fall into him and we would have some intimate moment, gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes, and then sappy love confessions would just be flying all over the fucking place.

But of course, because I don’t live in a cliché love story, what happened instead was this: Harry’s outstretched hand flailed uselessly from where he sat on the bed, as it realistically should, and I fell flat on my face and our intimate moment was just laughing together at my own expense, me staring up at him from the floor and him staring down at me from the bed, and the only words exchanged were a teasing “You’re such a dork, get off the floor” and a petulant “Fuck you, Styles.”