Remember Me [harry styles] ✓

31 - Catfish and cream soda

"I know we only met but let's pretend it's love."

"I'm not going to lie," Gemma says from her seat on the opposite side of the booth and tucks a dark strand of hair behind her ear. "I honestly didn't think that you were real."

Heat floods my cheeks and Harry groans. "Gem - really? You've been watching too much of that Catfish show."

She beams at her brother before lacing the fingers on her right hand through my own. "I'm just saying! I always thought maybe Mum was the one writing back. I can't even begin to explain how thrilled I am to actually see you in the flesh."

Out the corner of my eye, Harry grimaces. "And now you sound like a creepy stalker, finally meeting their idol for the first time."

"Oh, bore off, H." Gemma sighs and throws her brother the most disapproving look. "This girl was willing to wait for you for eight years. As far as I'm concerned - she should be everyone's bloody idol."

Harry doesn't argue back and I can't stop the small smile that teases my lips. Gemma is feisty and I already like her a lot. In fact, I think perhaps I like anyone who can render Harry speechless.

The Better Sibling - as she likes to be known - touched down in Detroit two hours ago for tonight's show. It wasn't until she strode through arrivals with an enormous dimpled grin on her face that I realised she would be the first member of Harry's family I'd actually met - and as a result I'd come over all nervous and clammy. But Gemma had barely even registered Harry - stood at my side with an arm draped across my shoulders - and had made a beeline for me instead.

Attaining Older Sister Approval felt almost as good as getting Harry back in my life.

"Just wait until Mum meets her." She beams at her brother and releases my hand. "This has been the topic of every phone call I've had with her since you Facetime'd us from Melbourne."

Melbourne?

An overwhelming curiosity builds in my brain - desperate to know when exactly in Melbourne they had spoken. Had it been the night of the show; the night he tried to ignore my existence? Or maybe the day of teaspoon incident? I squash it down. It's not important; these are minor details of a time when I was Juni-With-A-Grudge. 

"Juni is a person, Gemma, not an exhibit." I can hear the irritation in his tone and it's quite adorable really. But so not to further aggravate his embarrassment with my teasing and amused expression - I lower my gaze to my glass of cream soda.

It turns out cream soda is not even remotely the same as Creaming Soda and I'm feeling oddly homesick for the cerise can of Kirks Originals. America's awesome and all but Australia wins hands down on the soda front. As the Styles siblings continue their bickering in the background, I poke at the golden froth with my candy-striped straw.

"Do you remember that time Robin helped Mum clean your room? I think you were about twelve?" Gemma starts with a wicked glint in her eye, and one of Harry's hands suddenly grips hold of my left thigh beneath the table; as if to protect me from whatever embarrassing tale Gemma's about to reveal. "He found that stash of used envelopes you were hoarding behind your computer, and threw them in the bin." She inclines her head towards me. "Turns out they were all the envelopes you'd sent him. Pretty sure he cried for a week."

Harry visibly tenses beside me; his nostrils flaring, and I have to bite down on my lower lip to stop myself from laughing. Harry kept all the envelopes? I think about the box under my bed at home - overstuffed and the lid barely seated. Perhaps Harry and I are more alike than we even know.