Some Place To Hide. [ Harry Styles ]

s i x t e e n

“Avery! Over here!”

I turned my head to look behind me and found Louis’ face inches from my own. Before I could scream, he pushed me overboard. I watched his laughing face recede before I shut my eyes upon impact, letting the cool water rush over my head.

“Fuck you, Louis!” I screamed once I broke the surface, looking up at him doubled over laughing on the deck of the yacht. I had been planning to jump in on my own, to surprise Harry while he horsed around with Niall in the water. I splashed my way over to the ladder, but a shadow passed over me. I looked up to see Liam diving over me, and then I felt a tug at my ankle, drawing me away from the boat.

“No fair!” I yelled once Liam’s head popped out of the water, shaking the salty water from his eyes. “Two against one!”

“I’ll save you, Avery!” Zayn’s voice reached my ears from the sundeck, where he’d been lying earlier, soaking up the sun. His head appeared over the side, followed by a life saver ring on a rope. The ring plopped into the water a good twenty feet away from me, followed by the other end of the rope. I looked up to see Zayn’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, before he realized his mistake. His mouth formed a small ‘oh’ of surprise.

My abs were starting to hurt from laughing. I grabbed the rope and swam tiredly to the ladder, pulling myself back onto the bow deck. Louis, seeing me approach, grinned mischievously and dove off the deck, no doubt to escape my wrath. I grabbed my towel and laid it down on the deck, the cloth shielding my skin from the scalding deck. I straightened my bandeau top and laid down, marginally grateful that Louis had pushed me in, because the water cooled me off significantly.

Zayn’s head appeared in my field of vision as he stood up, climbed carefully down the ladder and sat next to me on the deck, handing me a Corona. I accepted it hesitantly. “Make sure I only have one, okay?”

He grinned and watched me struggle to twist the cap off before taking pity on me and unscrewing it with a flick of his wrist. “I don’t think we’ll have any problems if you can’t even open one,” he said, his eyes gleaming.

“Shut up,” I said, taking a sip and making a face. Not a very pleasant taste.

Zayn laughed again. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to.”

I stared at the amber liquid, rolling the bottle around with my wrist. “I want to have drunk it, but I don’t want to drink it.”

I couldn’t believe I’d been intimidated by Zayn when I first saw him. Something about how physically different he was, which was shallow, ignorant, and stupid of me. He was sweet and funny. They all were, now that I knew them so well. This was their third day with us, and they were leaving tomorrow. Harry had wheedled another free afternoon for the two of us, and we’d taken the Armadillo out into the ocean with the boys. I knew Zayn was nervous on the open water, so I vowed to myself to stay on the boat as much as possible so he’d have company.

I turned my head to watch Harry in the water. He was slowly swimming towards Liam. who was completely unsuspecting, relaxing on a large inflatable raft shaped like a killer whale. Harry ducked under the water and disappeared from my view, until he surfaced underneath Liam’s raft and tipped it over, Liam’s arms and legs flailing in surprise as he hit the water. I grinned.

“I hope he never did that to you.”

I turned back to Zayn, smiling. “Never. He wasn’t quite as…rambunctious with me as he is with y’all.”

Zayn opened his mouth. “Y’all,” he repeated in a mocking tone. “Y’alllllll.”

“Shut up,” I told him again with a roll of my eyes. I whacked him on the shoulder to express my irritation.