𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋! | harry styles

𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈

He blanches, and I push off the seat, leaving him to deal with his self-righteous bullshit. Asshole.

Still, thoughts of Harry's kind of girl swarm my thoughts. Does she make him smile? Does she get to see the smile that crinkles the side of his eyes? The one that makes his whole face light up? The one I'm so desperate to see?

I can't take it anymore.

Seconds later I'm back in the locker room with my phone out, dialing his number before my brain has a chance to catch up. Thankfully, he answers on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Um, hi, it's Scarlet?" I want to slap myself for the timid sound to my voice.

"Hey."

There's a pause, and the even in silence it suddenly feels like the space between us isn't quite so wide. I can hear the sound of the TV in the background, and something about it feels immediately comforting, and I can practically feel the stress leeching out from my skin and evaporating into the air around me.

"Everything going okay?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine. We're watching TV."

I glace at the clock. It's past nine thirty, way past Cody's bedtime. He's going to be one grumpy little guy in the morning.

"He's here if you want to speak to him."

"He is?" I glance around before tucking myself into a quiet corner. "Can you put him on?"

There's some rustling, and then the sweetest sound in the whole world.

"Momma?"

His voice makes me smile. "Hey, baby. What are you still doing up?"

"Harry's letting me watch Cars."

"Again?"

"He hasn't seened it, Momma!"

"Are you being a good boy? Did you brush your teeth?"

Cody sighs exasperatedly, which turns into a yawn. "Yes."

"Don't forget to go to the bathroom before you go to bed, okay?"

"Yeah, Momma. Okay gotta go."

"Can you put—"

He hangs the phone up and I stare dumbly at the screen.

Did my four year-old just hang up on me?

Talk about attitude.

I think about calling back since Harry and I kind of got cut off, but I don't really need to, and I probably should get back to work. However, as I replay the conversation in my head I realize that I don't want to be here all night. Any night but tonight - tonight, something inside of me screams to be at home.

The click-clacking of my heels echoes through the hallway outside of Nick's office. His door is open, and I find Tania inside, draped across his leather sofa like a streak of blonde and red. There are dozens of tiny bags on the table, into which I watch him slide half a dozen or so pills before sealing them up. There has to be at least a thousand of the pills sitting on his desk. While Nick has never made a secret of his drug dealings, he's also never been so brazen about it.

"What do you want?" he asks impatiently.

"Oh." I swallow thickly. Moments like this are like a bucket of cold water. A scream in my ear that says what are you doing here? "Um - any chance I could leave early tonight?"

"No."

I step forward, trying to look confident, determined, feeling anything but. "I'd really like to get home to Cody. My babysitter pulled out at the last minute, and I—"