Uncertainty {frat boy!Harry Styles}

Part Two

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, mentions of smut

Harry didn't know whether he should be feeling elated or uneasy. It was precisely forty seconds before his calculus class was set to begin and Y/N had failed to show her face. One one hand, she wasn't here and that meant Harry wouldn't have to face her after what happened at his party this weekend. She wasn't able to ask him questions that made his chest vibrate with anxiety and he wasn't going to have to tell her about how he had been in her apartment when she was more or less unconscious from having one too many cup fulls of the punch his fraternity brother made from several mismatched bottles of liquor in their basement.

However, on the other hand, the fact that she wasn't here made him almost feel like losing his breakfast into the nearest trash bin. What if she remembered him taking her home and was so appalled that he'd invaded her space that she couldn't even stand to look at his face? What if she remembered him buying her chips and making her nurse a cup of water in the car ride home and untangling the delicate straps of her dress until she was down to her bra and panties and felt so violated by it that she dropped the class? Better yet, why did he care so much about what someone who was merely an acquaintance thought of him when he was only trying to take care of her?

Because of this, because of the fact that the obnoxiously pretty girl he sat beside in calculus had unknowingly dug her claws into the pores of his psyche and refused to release him from her grip, he was almost certain that her absence was worse.

He didn't think his leg had stopped bouncing on the metal support bar of the uncomfortable desk chair since he'd taken his seat fifteen minutes ago. Every time there was even the slightest disturbance that wasn't his profressor's obnoxious voice or the squeaking of a marker on the white board, his head snapped up to the weighted, wooden door to see if it was her finally making her grand entrance into class. In an attempt to busy himself, he checked his phone - A few texts from the president of his frat about sweatshirt orders that he knew he was going to ignore before he finished reading the first sentence, one from his sister about his mum's birthday that needed to be planned two months in advance for some reason, one from his friend about the girl he had fucked at the very party that Harry was trying very hard not to think about right now. The pads of his thumbs were clammy and catching on the screen; it was no use. He wasn't going to be able to stop thinking about Y/N until he saw her face.

He kicked himself for not leaving her his phone number along with the pain medicine and water that he'd laid out on her counter so that he could have at least checked up on her and explained himself then. Had he made it worse by not saying anything or leaving her a note? Had she spent all weekend knowing that it was him who had taken her home, or did she have no idea that he had quite literally saved her from being assaulted at his frat house and more or less tucked her into bed that night like a toddler sans the bedtime story before ducking out without a word? If he asked himself one more fucking question, he thought he was going to explode.

Nearly twenty minutes into the class and Harry had convinced himself that she wasn't coming. He had accepted that he'd have to sit with his anxiety for two more days and pray to whoever was listening that she'd either show up to class on Wednesday and ease his qualms or tell him off and he'd never be able to hear her sweet laugh when he made one of his dumb math jokes again. It was right when the weaselly profressor with glasses that made his eyes look three times their actual size and a comb-over hairdo to mask his premature balding starting babbling on about derivatives that the clicking mechanism of the door handle pierced the walls of the lecture hall -- and there she was.

She scurried in with her head down and muffled her footsteps the best that she could in order to not disrupt the lesson any further. A sweating, plastic cup of coffee clutched tightly in her hand, careful as to not allow the ice to slosh around and draw even more attention to her tardiness (most likely a soymilk latte with an extra shot of espresso - Harry had picked up on her caffeine preference when he'd steal glances at her and read the markups the barista had made on her cup). Harry finally let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding when she muttered quiet apologies to the students around her and took her unoffical seat next to him.