yall dis is chapter 8
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mia
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It was around ten at night when we got back to our bus that was in a large parking garage in the city. Harry carried the heavenly smelling pizza while I cradled the bottle of Coke like it was my child, earning a few chuckles from my roommate.
"M'sorry we couldn't stay in the city for longer." Harry sighed, licking his lips. "I would've liked to go sightseeing more, but... you know."
"It's fine, no worries." I reassured him as we weaved through people in the street. Harry had a hoodie on and it was very effective on covering his face, so nobody approached us on the way to our bus. I, on the other hand, wasn't wearing anything to cover my face, mostly because my fame wasn't as upscale as Mr. One Direction beside me.
"Are we going to be driving tonight at all?" I asked as we turned onto the street of the parking garage.
"I'm not sure yet." Harry said. "I don't want to stay in the city, mostly because I'm afraid of someone coming and tracking me down. Maybe we'll drive out of the city and stay at a rest stop just outside, then go somewhere new tomorrow."
"Sounds good." I nodded.
Suddenly, someone sharply grabbed my arm, catching me off guard and yanking me to the side. Immediately I let out a yelp- not because it particularly hurt, but because I wasn't expecting it at all.
"You're Mia Roden, oh my god." It was a man who seemed around my age, maybe in his twenties. I shook him off of me and gave him a look as he started pulling out his phone. "Everyone is looking for you!"
"Hey man, we've gotta go. No pictures." I heard Harry say, only his voice was heavily disguised by a very impressive American accent.
"I'm sorry." I apologized quickly to the guy, but he completely ignored our requests as he snapped a picture of me in the dark- the flash blinding me for a good two seconds. I glared at him and reached out for his phone, but he was already slipping it into his pocket. Usually I was recognized by people here and there, but for the most part they weren't this rude. New Yorkers tended to be ruder than most people, but this was just downright disrespect. I clenched my hands into fists.
"That's no way to treat a lady, especially after she said no." Harry growled. "Give me the damn phone, I'm deleting that picture."
"Sorry, man." The rude pedestrian said. "I'm not gonna treat her like a lady if she's going around acting like a whore." He chuckled, turning away from us. "Two days ago you were going to be married and now you're with another man?" I was too blown away by his rudeness to stop him, so instead I stood there with my shoulders slumped as I watched him disappear into the crowd.
My chin began to tremble and I nervously looked up at Harry. I couldn't see his face from the hood, but by his body language, he looked pissed as hell. He began to walk in the direction that the man left, but I reached out and grabbed his arm.
"Please don't." I begged him.
"Mia, he was completely violating you and your privacy. That is not okay." He said firmly.
"It's done." I whispered. "Can we go? Please?"
I heard Harry grunt and stay stopped in his tracks for two seconds before he kept walking toward the bus and I followed. I wiped my eyes quickly, trying my best not to cry, but his words hit home. How could someone who was a complete stranger to me affect me this much? I felt like such a baby for crying, but I couldn't help myself. Harry hadn't noticed as he walked rather quickly. I think he was just angry about the situation and I wasn't going to try and start a conversation.
We made it to the bus in silence. Harry set the pizza down and grabbed plates for us while I poured our soda into red solo cups. He bumped into me as I tried to get to the fridge and he tried to get to his plate.
"Hey, are you crying?" Harry asked. My eyes were probably red and puffy, something that I hated. It happened every single time that I cried, even if I hadn't been crying much. I shrugged my shoulders and glanced down, feeling so embarrassed about myself. He had probably gotten things like this all the time and it didn't phase him, but when it happens to me I just crumble.
"Hey, hey," He said soothingly. He pulled me in for a hug and held me there for a few seconds, rubbing circles into my back. To my dismay, the waterworks approached quickly as I cried into his chest.
"I'm sorry." I apologized.
"There's no need." He reassured me. "What that guy did... that was awful. He should have never taken that picture or called you what he did. He doesn't even know the whole story." Neither do you.
"I know." I mumbled, pulling away from his embrace and grabbing my plate. He smiled at me and handed me my drink. I, to my embarrassment, hiccuped from crying and we both started laughing. He grabbed my hand and brought me to the front of the bus, where he put the keys into the ignition and started to drive off towards wherever the road would take us.
~ ' ~ ' ~ ' ~
Fifteen minutes into our drive, we were out of the city and full of pizza. Harry was singing loudly along to the radio and I was taking videos of him on my phone. I had grabbed a blanket from the back and was cuddled up in it, my seat reclined in case I fell asleep up here. Harry was literally singing at the top of his lungs in between shoving pizza into his mouth, a bit of pizza sauce at the corner of his mouth.
"I hope my singing cheered you up," He laughed. "Who am I kidding? My singing cheers everyone up!"
"It's such a good thing you aren't cocky about your talent." I said sarcastically. "You're the most humble person I've ever met, honestly." I teased. He threw the road map at me and I squealed as I tried to dodge it.
"That's distracted driving! Are you trying to get me killed!?" I laughed. "Although I'd have to say, dying while eating pizza would be a good way to go."
This caused Harry to roar with laughter again. I noticed in the past few days that we had been on this roadtrip together that either Harry laughed at everything or I had a magically capability of making him laugh. Either way, it made me feel good knowing that some of what I had to say was entertaining.
We were just driving toward the nearest rest stop, which should have been coming up soon. I was exhausted, mostly from crying and walking 300-some stairs and all I wanted to do was go in the back and go to sleep, but I didn't want to leave Harry up here alone.
"You can go back to bed, if you want. I'm sure we'll be stopping soon anyway." Harry said with a yawn.
"I'm not sleepy." I lied. "Plus, I want to keep you company up here."
"You're taking the bed again tonight." Harry insisted. "I think I might get rid of the couch and put in a blow up bed or a mattress or something."
"I thought you said it was comfy?" I smirked at him, obviously seeing through his lie. It was only this morning that he insisted that the couch was extremely comfortable and that he didn't have a problem with sleeping on it.
"I, uh, I'm too tall for it." He mumbled. "My feet stick out on the end."
"Okay, so since I'm shorter and don't have that problem, I'll take the couch tonight until we have two beds for the bus. It only makes sense- since I'm not seven foot something like you." I pointed out.
"But you have a bad back." He pointed out.
"I can lay on my stomach." I replied smoothly.
"What if you roll over in your sleep?" He asked.
I groaned and glanced over at Harry, who had been smirking at me the whole time. He knew that he was pushing my buttons and I was sure that he was getting a kick out of it, too. The whole sleeping situation was awkward and I felt bad making him sleep on a couch that was far too small for him.
"Tell you what- we can both take the bed." Harry said. "I'll stay far on my side and it would solve the problem entirely."
I bit my lip, at loss for words. I could feel a slight blush rising to my cheeks and I thanked my lucky stars that it was dark out and he would never see. I just thought that sleeping in the same bed as him, a man that I had only met the other day, was a tad bit awkward.
"Here's the thing." I sighed. "Last week, I was engaged to a different man, and this week I'm traveling cross country with you. You heard that man Harry, I sound like a damn whore." I paused, not trying to sound that harsh. "It would solve the problem, yes, but I can't stop thinking about what that guy said and how it could be true."
Harry paused and licked his lips.
"It's not true, though." He sighed. "Trust me, I know that you aren't like that. Just forget about what that asshole on the street said, because he probably still lives with his mum and is unemployed. But I understand that it would be uncomfortable, so you can sleep wherever you want tonight and I'll sleep where you don't sleep."
I fell quiet. I felt bad for saying that, because it wasn't like I didn't want to share a bed with him. He was incredibly handsome and had a charming personality to match, but doing that would mean that I would just feel worse about myself. Besides that, I didn't think I was ready to be sharing a bed with anyone at the moment.
"I'll take the couch tonight." I said.
"And I'll duct tape a soft pillow to your back so you don't get back pain." Harry grinned. I gave in to his command, although I didn't think looking like a turtle with a pillow for a shell would make me too attractive.
We sat in silence for a little while with the radio playing softly in the background. I was totally Twitter-stalking Harry at the moment and he had no idea. All of his tweets didn't make sense to me, they seemed like some kind of inside joke thing that he had going on. I also learned that he used the term 'All the love' way too much.
"Harry, what's a raconteur?" I asked.
"A person who's good at telling stories." Harry said. "I can see that someone found my twitter page."
"You caught me." I chuckled. "I thought your bio said raccoonteur at first, before I really looked closely. Very deep, Styles."
"Thank you, Roden." Harry smiled. "Most of my tweets aren't that good, though."
"So I've noticed." I said. "A skillful storyteller who writes 'All the love' in all of his tweets?" I teased. He took one hand off the wheel and playfully shoved me in my seat, but I ducked under my blanket for cover.
"Both hands on the wheel, Styles!" I reminded him.
"Look, no hands!"
"Harry, you're going to kill us both!" I groaned.
"I thought you said dying while eating pizza would be a good way to go?" He teased me back. I had to admit, he had me there. I had said that only a few minutes ago.
"True."
Five minutes later, Harry parked into a space for RV's and turned the engine off. We both headed to the back and I started to make my bed at the couch as Harry got into the shower and then brushed his teeth. Then we switched and I did the same, and by the time we were finished it was already about eleven.
"Mia, can we play a board game before bed?" Harry asked sheepishly.
"It's eleven at night." I said. "What board game would you wanna play at eleven at night?"
"Scrabble." Harry smiled. "It's my favorite."
"Fine." I sighed. "You'll probably beat me, seeing you're the raccoonteur and all." I grabbed Scrabble off of the shelf and sat it down on the floor, where Harry sat across from me and started to set up the board. I was still trying to figure Harry out- he had all this money and power but acted like he didn't. He acted like such a sweet boy, the polar opposite of what the media portrays people to be.
"You know how to play, right?" Harry asked. I only nodded in response as I collected my little wooden chips with my letters, frowning as I got the letter Y because I knew that would be a hard one to use.
"You can go first." I said, laying down on my stomach, examining my letters. I'd always thought this game was so boring as a child, but Harry seemed to love it a lot. I watched as Harry laid down the word "share" and cursed at how good he was already. Then, I managed to put down the word nest after him.
"I feel really awful about what happened in the city with that guy." Harry said as he looked over his letters. "You should have let me at 'im."
"It's okay." I said, biting the inside of my cheek. "It's done."
"Yeah, but you can't let him treat you like that. No man should treat a woman with disrespect, especially when he didn't even know you at all. And calling you that name, that was just so wrong. You weren't going to stick up for yourself, so I did. And I'm glad I did."
"Thank you for that." I said as he laid the word "barns" down on the Scrabble board. "I've never really defended myself." This was completely true- especially all throughout my long relationship with Matthew. I was always told to be good and submissive.
"I'll always defend you." Harry promised. "And I'll kick your ass in Scrabble, too."
"Cocky, are we?" I smirked. I looked down at the board and then back at my letters. They were such terrible ones, too, a few X's and W's and a Y. I bit my lip and set the word "Vibey" down.
"What the heck is a vibey?" Harry laughed.
"I needed to get rid of that Y!" I protested.
"I'm gonna need the definition of vibey, then." Harry insisted. "Because it looks to me like that isn't a word, Miss Roden."
"Vibey- noun." I cleared my throat. "One who possesses many vibes. There's your definition." Harry laughed and clapped his hands together as he snapped a picture of the board. "Hey, don't post that anywhere!"
"Too late." He smirked. "This one's going on Instagram."
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a/n: fun fact: when harry posted the scrabble board of 'vibey' i automatically knew that it was going in this story lolol
ALSO PLEASE COMMENT A LOT GUYS. last chapter i was a bit dissapointed with how many comments i get, i also really like inline comments so make sure to leave those as well!
ps- thank you for 110K!!!!!!!
- del