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HARRY'S POV

Pavement disappeared beneath my feet; my boots slapped the grey cement with each breathless stride. I knew I looked like a wild man, dodging and darting between the crowds as my destination finally came into sight. I could feel the building looming over me with a fiercely judgemental glare. Each window stared down at me with the same derisive look, mocking me and letting me know exactly how late I was.

As I entered the lobby of the grey structure that had helped pay my bills for the past few years I could practically feel Liam's anxiety radiating from the fourth floor. Normally I would've laughed and told him to calm down, but today I knew I was in the wrong. I had over-slept and was now late for our biggest meeting of the year.

"Harry – "

"I know, Liam! I know!" I sped into the kitchen and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. I had three minutes. Normally I would be annoyed that our coffee machine spat out lukewarm coffee but today I was thankful, for it afforded me the ability to scull the caffeinated elixir before I raced to our meeting.

"Harry!" Liam stood at the kitchen door with a pained expression on his face. I swiped the mug from under the stream of steaming milk and walked towards him as quickly as I could without spilling my cup.

We hurried down the hall to room 416 together; Liam with his head buried in a huge pile of papers and me with my thoughts tripping over each other as I tried to remember everything I had to say for this pitch. The state of our team balanced on us winning this contract. We had spent months preparing for this very moment and I could already feel it slipping through our fingers because Liam was anxious and I was frazzled. And it was all my fault.

"I'm sorry, I really am. I was out late last night," I tried explaining to Liam. "Dad said he had news about – shit!"

Papers fluttered around my feet and I felt my, thankfully, lukewarm coffee seep into my shirt. My eyes met a pair of bright blue ones briefly before flitting to her coffee soaked shirt. Great. Just fucking great.

"I am so sorry," The words sputtered from my mouth, laced with a mixture of disbelief and laughter. This day could not get any worse and it wasn't even eight o'clock. I dug my hand into my pocket and grabbed a tissue. Without much thought I reached out and started to dab at the moisture on her shirt before I realised what I was doing.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to ... ah ... spill coffee on you. Sorry. Shit. Sorry, for swearing. Again." My words stumbled over each other.

"It's fine." Her voice was soft, amused and not at all stressed sounding, which helped ease my guilt.

"Harry ..." Liam sounded close to tears as he stood awkwardly next to me.

"I'm sorry," I apologised for what seemed like the hundredth time this morning. "I have to ..."

"It's fine, honestly." I had no option but to believe her as I stepped around her while she picked up her papers. My tissue was now dabbing at my sopping wet shirt as we entered room 416.

I felt like my morning could be perfectly summed up with one line from that old Matchbox 20 song 'Disease' – "feels like you made a mistake".

"If you stuff this up for us, I will kill you," Liam whispered in my ear as we took our seats. "Promise."

"Gotcha boss."

***

"Did something seem off about this morning?" My hands clenched and unclenched as I tested the strapping I'd just wrapped around them. "It just didn't feel right to me."

"You mean the part where you were late? Or the part where you spilled your coffee on that girl?" Liam's reply was laced with sarcasm, but also held a hint of teasing.

I rolled my eyes and shoved him as I walked out of the change rooms. "You know what I mean. The meeting. Something about it didn't sit right with me. I don't know what it was though."

"No, you're right. Something didn't feel right to me either. I thought it was just my nerves." Liam followed me out to the sparring mats and started bouncing on his toes to warm his calves up.

I felt marginally better knowing that he felt the same way I did. Nerves was part of it – we'd just pitched the biggest game changer to the commercial team – but it was more than that. I'd felt sick to my stomach, and my head had hurt like I had a sinus migraine. There was only so much of that that could be attributed to lack of sleep, nerves, or shitty lukewarm coffee.

"You know, it was probably the fact that we could potentially lose our jobs if this fails," Liam's voiced interrupted my thoughts. "I legit wanted to puke while I was in there ... and did you think one of them smelt really fucking bad? Like, worst B.O. you've ever smelt in you life?"

I laughed and rolled my shoulders, shaking the nerves from today off. It was nothing more than nerves and paranoia. Today had been a massive day and the small amount of sleep I had last night hadn't helped.

Liam and I stood against the wall while we watched two people spar in front of us. This was a weekly tradition now. Every Friday we came to the gym and fought out our stress. Monday was leg day, Tuesday was arms and back, Wednesday was cardio, and Thursday was boxing. We'd been doing the same routine together since high school. At first it had been a group of five of us that worked out together, but eventually jobs and other commitments got in the way and now it was just the two of us.

Cardio was my favourite day. I liked doing weights; it's just that I wasn't really into the more physical stuff like sparing and boxing. Liam, on the other hand, lived for the physical contact. He had always been rougher than I had; always more keen to fight. Even as kids he would be the first to initiate a fight if he felt like one of us was being threatened. That attitude followed him into the office too, which is why he made a good boss – he wasn't afraid to fight for our team.

"You ready, mate?" Liam looked over at me as the space before us cleared. I rolled my neck and shook my legs out.

"Ready to show you who's boss," I replied, as I cracked my knuckles and grinned at him.

"Lads," A cheerful voice made us both turn around. "Getting ready to take your sexual frustration out on each other again, I see?"

"Yes Louis, that's exactly why we do this," Liam rolled his eyes. "I just love Harry so much I can't wait to pin him beneath me to show him I'm soooo manly."

"Hey, whatever gets you going," Louis raised his hands in mock self-defence. "Listen, you're going to have to dry hump later boys, a meeting's been called."

"What, now?" I snapped my head around to stare at him. "Why?"

"No idea, mate. I bumped into Will just before and he said to make sure we were all there." He picked at his fingernails as he shrugged.

"But ... it's Friday. What are we going to tell Niall?" Every Friday night the five of us got together and we'd already blown him off once this month. "We can't keep throwing lame excuses at him. He's going to either know something's up, or start to –"

Liam cut me off, "How long did William say the meeting was going to go?"

"Don't think it'll be too long," Louis shrugged again.

"Then we don't tell Niall anything. We go to the meeting and maybe we'll be a bit late, but he'll be okay with that." Liam and Louis looked at me in unison.

"Yeah, okay. Let's go," I ripped the strapping off my hands as I walked back to the change rooms. I hated keeping secrets from Niall. He was one of my best friends, but I knew this was the one thing I would never be able to tell him about. If he knew then he would no longer be safe. "This better be good. I already spoke to Dad last night."

***