Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

28ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

“Just something,” Harry states with a shrug, noncommittal. “There’s nothing certain yet, so I’ll keep it to myself for a while, yeah? Promise you’ll be the first to know when I have things settled.”

The eldest closes his eyes and keeps them shut for a long while, breathing in and out quite a few times before eyeing Harry sceptically. “You’re such a prick at times, you know,” he comments the same way he’d tell Harry something he’s just seen on the news he’s not particularly fond of: expressionless. “Just hope you’re not sinking your arse into something you won’t be able to handle later.”

Harry beams at that, leaving the curved position he’s assumed over his bent knees to lean back fully against the armchair, fluffing the cushion he’s sitting on. “Don’t worry, Z. I think I can take care of my arse just fine.”

Zayn snorts rather loudly, theatrical exaggeration just so Harry can feel the sarcasm. Before his mate even opens his mouth to the next words, he already knows what’s to come out and tries to block it as well as he can. “I’ve already made the mistake to hold you to that before and look what happened.”

He throws himself to the floor and lies there on the carpet, toes toying with the leg of the coffee table and eyes fitting the ceiling, anger bubbling inside his chest in way minor proportions than they had previously. He’s improving, but Zayn keep testing his boundaries, seriously.

“Aren’t you the one to say ‘past is past, we’ve always got to look forward’?” he says quietly, holding back his outburst and trying to keep calm. “Also, there’re no women involved, Zayn. Whatever I want to do now I want to do it because of me and me only.”

Suddenly there’s a cushion hitting against his stomach, a muffled ‘oopf’ leaving his mouth unwittingly. “Past is past and we do gotta look forward, but we can’t simply ignore the experiences we’ve lived. They’re lessons, Harry. Lessons.”

Harry’s about to protest, mutter something like ‘I do understand it, but’, however Zayn rolls off the couch and onto the carpet next to Harry, elbows plopped on the floor to support the weight of his head.

“Oh, talking about women. What’s with this lovely one you brought along today?” his rough voice has turned into a mere whisper, and the silence in the living room must be suspiciously heard in the kitchen, but they don’t mind. “You haven’t told me about her before.”

Harry lifts his head and tilts it slightly, holding it up until the muscles in his neck start aching. “What? Leesh? Works at the café across the carwash, great friend. Has helped me with everything since I left rehab, actually.”

Zayn gives him that knowing look, quite uncertain and quite suspicious. “You two look… close. Am I witnessing my best friend getting emotionally attached to a not-Chrissie?”

The curly-haired one rolls onto his stomach, grabbing the cushion Zayn had thrown on him and using it to bury his head into, groaning again at his friend’s intrusion. He understands where he’s coming from, really – or kinda –, but it still feels a lot like not having his own privacy and it’s… disturbing.

“You’re not,” he says pointedly, holding his breath against the softness for as long as humanly possible until he’s forced to lift his head for air. “She’s just really easy to be around, not making questions nor undue statements like someone I know,” he wiggles his brows suggestively, and if it so happens to fit Zayn. Then well. “And, er,” Harry clears his throat, doesn’t look at Zayn when he says “wemightalsohavemadeadeal.”

There’s shuffling next to him, and then suddenly his friend is right in front of his nose. He shouldn’t have turned around to check on it. “You what?”