Roommate Agreement || Styles

Chapter Eighteen

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"But you can see why Batman is awesome now, he's just—" Liam cuts off as he looks over at me. The glazed look he usually gets when talking about Batman disappears as he assess the look in my face. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Like what?" I ask, finally blinking. Ever since the revelation in theater class, I haven't been able to keep the surprised expression from my face. Jennifer and Liam? How's it even possible? They are the last people I could even imagine that would be together.

"Like I'm an alien."

"Well how do you expect me to look at you? I just found out that Jennifer and you are a couple! That is exactly like seeing an alien!" Actually, I think seeing an alien may make more sense than Liam and Jennifer being a couple.

Liam rolls his eyes, but his smile remains playful. "Come on, it can't be that big of a surprise."

I pretend to think about it. "You're right. It's not a big surprise... It's a humongous surprise!" I shove him playfully on the shoulder. "I mean, Jennifer is, like, your complete polar opposite! How'd it never come up?"

With a shrug, he turns away, his cheeks turning pink. "I don't know. You never asked and I didn't think you even knew her on a personal level, so I thought it'd be best if I just waited until it was a good time to introduce you two face to face. I guess I was a little late though. I think you knew her before you even met me."

"How'd it happen?" I ask suddenly. With curiosity like mine, I can't go very long without knowing every detail of a topic that interests me.

"Huh?"

"How'd you and Jennifer get together?" I repeat.

"Oh, I don't know. Last year we had a few of the same classes and we got paired up for a project. And then we realized that our parents used to be great friends until they grew apart. We started spending a lot of time with each others' families and it grew from there."

"That--" I cut myself off as the realization hits me. Same classes. Harry. Paired up for a project. Harry. Parents, friends. It may not be my parents who are friends with his parents, but Holly, my friend, has parents who are friends with his mom. Harry. It's pretty much exactly the same. 

"What?" Liam knocks me out of my thoughts when he nudges me in the arm with his elbow. "What were you going to say?"

I shake my head. "It's nothing." What I really meant to say was: It's a weird coincidence. There is no way that his story has anything to do with my life. It's not going to happen the same way.

Liam gives me an I-know-you're-lying-but-I-will-let-it-go-this-one-time and smirks before glancing at Mr. W get wrapped up in his speech yet again.

"Script interpretation is not only about listening to the words that are being acted out! It's just as much looking at the actor and reading their facial expressions as they speak. It's just as much reading the actor's body language, people! Read their essence as a whole, not as individual parts!"

.

"What would you like today?" 

"Surprise me..." I read the Starbucks employee's name tag not so subtly. "Christian.

"But no mint. I can't stand mint," I add, thinking of Harry and how he smells like mint. I love mint, but just the idea of liking something that has anything to do with Harry annoys me.

He looks up with a small smile and I manage a small one back. "You got it, Liana. Call me Chris." 

I go to grab a napkin, but abruptly pull back and do a double take at Chris. He catches me staring as he makes me whatever he chose to make and chuckles. "Is there a reason you're staring at me like you just saw a ghost?"