warning: this chapter needs to be rewritten. I'll work on it and as soon as I repost it, I'll let you know.
07.
●•Harry•●
All that I know is that there was this annoyingly loud buzzing sound dangerously close to my ear, and I couldn't find the damn stupid button to turn it off. I really wasn't willing to open my eyes, nor get off the bed, but I knew it was time and there was no way I could take any longer. Unless I wanted to get late for work. God, I hated Mondays, and I really should've slept earlier the night before.
As I threw the covers on the floor, I heard my phone vibrating on the headboard, but I just ignored it while I kept making my way sleepily to the bathroom. The day had barely dawned yet, and when I peered out the window, the sky was still foggy from the storm that came rushing in the middle of the night before, and dark grey clouds still wandered around the darkness, cold air surrounding the small town.
When I undressed to get into the cold shower, the urge to come back to bed grew bigger than the usual, and I just couldn't stop thinking about how great it'd be to stop doing everything for a day, and just stay under my covers instead; no talking to friends, no helping with favors, no listening to my parents' "advices", no family dinners, no moody guys at work. But of course, that wasn't possible.
As the minutes passed by, I eventually had to turn off the water and get dressed, still against my will. The weather would be cold all day long, so I put my sweater and jeans on and wandered to the kitchen to have something before leaving home. Not that I had much an option; I wasn't any chef, and I urgently had to go grocery shopping before I ended up with no food on the fridge. In that case, I'd be forced to have dinner with my parents and listen to a bunch of sermons saying how irresponsible and immature I was; they'd probably also say I should go back to live with them, and my mom would start saying I needed a woman in my life, someone who could take care of me as much as she did when I was a kid. But according to her, now I was grown up enough for her to take care of her boy, so I needed another kind of woman. And then we'd be back to Charlie and how amazing she was and how perfect we'd look together, even though I totally disagreed.
Before long, I was inside my car, checking the messages on my phone before turning the key in the ignition and driving to work. There were only a couple of messages; one from Davie, saying he'd forgotten one of his bracelets at my place, and asking me to keep it safe. I quickly responded saying I'd look for it later. The other one was from a guy at uni; he needed to talk to me and he wanted me to call him back when I had enough time.
I ignored the message by now, and just started driving; knowing that if I called him he'd ask for some favor, probably something related to the last assignment the teacher had asked us. And, honestly, I wasn't on the mood to deal with that kind of people right now. It was Monday morning, I was exhausted and a lot of things were going through my head. He could wait a bit more; he'd have to.
--
"Hey, curly guy. You came early today." His sarcastic tone pissed me off, but I just ignored him. All I was wishing for was no one in sight when I arrived the store, but apparently, that wasn't my lucky day at all. On my way 'till here the guy from uni sent at least seven new messages saying he urgently needed to talk to me, though I doubted it was really that urgent; the fuel of my car decided to end up in the middle of the street, and I somehow had to manage pushing it to the nearest gas station with angry people honking behind me; as if it wasn't enough, I also had to fall into a puddle of grease and smudge black the seat of my Range Rover. After that, of course I had to head back home and take another shower, so then I could finally go to work. And there I was, staring at Joe with that pathetic, sarcastic and pissed look at his face.
"Yeah." Was all I said, saving myself from the mocking that would come next if he knew what had happened to me.
I headed to between the several rows of CD's and DVD's and started reorganizing it all alphabetically since everyday people messed with it. There were no customers yet, which made the morning the best part of the day at work; silent, empty and peaceful. Or that's what I thought.
As I said, that wasn't my lucky day.
"You know, make this a habit and boss will send you home in a blink of an eye." He came closer to me and repositioned the CD I'd just put there. "By the way, this is not here." That guy didn't like me at all; he never did. But I could notice today would be one of those days.
"You know I've been working here for a few years now, right?" I put the CD back to its right place and turned around, trying to get rid of that annoying guy.
"And that's something to worry about, don't you think? A few years working here and you still don't know the right place of the stuff." He blinked and followed me while I walked, and I was seriously thinking about turning around and making my fist meet his face.
"Get off, Joe. I'm not on the mood for your stubborn behavior today." Expectedly, he stood there; the same amused smile on his lips. It was annoying.
"Be nice to the customers. I have an eye on you, and so does the boss." Said Joe, winking right after.
"Yeah, 'cause you're his messenger right? His right arm, his best employee." When I rolled my eyes, his went from black to red, and I almost saw fire on it; it didn't take more than a few seconds so he put himself together though. "Go do your job, and let me do mine."
Finally by myself, I watched from afar as Joe walked back to behind the counter and put his headphones on while checking something at the computer in front of him; in the meanwhile, I just kept reorganizing the CD's and humming the low background song at the store.
As the hours went by, people started coming in, and I tried my best to smile and be comprehensive even when the customer seemed not to know exactly what he wanted; I had to walk around the whole store, showing him all the DVD's on the category he was looking for, 'cause he just didn't know the name of the movie. The only thing he could describe (poorly, may I say), was how the cover looked like, which was kind of useless, since one movie could have a thousand of different covers.
At the whole time, I could feel Joe's gaze on my back, having fun while I walked around like a fool. I even got to think he'd hired that guy to make me wander like an idiot, but as I couldn't be sure I had to smile and do my best; give him what he wanted and feed his ego wasn't exactly something I was willing to do.
Anyways, after that, the day was quite lazy; probably because of the pouring rain outside, or maybe the dark clouds, I couldn't be sure. Whenever the weather was like this, people used to get lazier than the normal, and for some reason they didn't go to the store. Maybe the fact that inside was colder than outside because of the air conditioner had something to do with it.
While Joe checked the sales spreadsheet, I sat in one of the loveseats scattered around the place and leaned my head against the wall as it suddenly started to ache. My phone kept vibrating all day long, and I had to message the guy from uni before that twat pissed the hell out of me.
"At work now, Nathan. I'll call you when I get home."
"Put that phone back on your pocket, Styles. You're not allowed to chat during work." Seriously, what was wrong with that guy?
Joe was standing on the wall next to me, trying to see what was on the screen of my phone. Not that it was really of his business, nor that I owed him any satisfaction of what I was or wasn't doing at work; he wasn't my boss after all, but sill, I made sure to show him the message, and I tried to hide the amused smile when his face fell to the ground and he got completely uncomfortable, not knowing what to say.
"As you see, I'm doing my work just fine. So leave me alone." And before he could answer, I stood up and walked as far as I could from him.
A few other customers walked in during the next few hours, and it wasn't really much of a hard work since then. They just bought their CD's and walked away. Soon it was 6pm and I finally felt free from that obviously uncomfortable workplace.
Unfortunately, I wasn't free at all already. First, I had to go grocery shopping before going to uni; second, Mark was standing in front of my car as soon as I walked out the store. What was he doing there after all?
"Hey Haz, need your help." Oh, of course he needed it. Why did I even get to think he was there to greet his mate only? If someday that happened, I'd probably buy him a pizza.
"Nice to see you too, Mark. By the way, I had a great day. How about you?" Mark rolled his eyes as we both got into the car.
"No time for that, Harry. We really need to talk."
I kept silent as I focused on the foggy street in front of me, trying to reach the grocery shop as soon as I could, 'cause I couldn't take long doing that task, considering I had only one hour free before sinking into studies.
"What do you want, Mark? I gotta go study now, you know. At least one of us does that, and I don't wanna lose my scholarship."
"I just need to ask you something... Uhn... Where are we going?" He asked, frowning, confused. I laughed at his awkward question while finally parking the car.
"I gotta buy some stuff, and since you're here, doing nothing but being a pain-in-the-ass you'll help me so I go faster. Was this really your question?"
He straightened himself uncomfortably on the seat and looked at me with those green eyes of his, fuelled with despair and a bit of persuasion.
"You're not gonna ask me to go to another double date, right?" I guessed, raising an eyebrow at him and sighing in disbelief when he shyly smiled, confirming my words. "No way, man. I'm done with it; get a girl by yourself. If she needs her friends to come with her it's because she doesn't trust you, nor want to be with you alone."
"C'mon, Styles. I just need a little help. Her friend is all excited because I told her you were coming. What can I do if ladies love you? Maybe it's your chance to move on, Haz!" Mark patted my shoulder while warmly smiling and I forced myself not to send him to hell, so I just opened the car door and stepped out, walking quickly. "Hey, Harry! Come back here."
"I'm not going, Mark. Told you I'm done with it."
"Harry, please." He begged, pouting. "I'm serious this time; I think I'm really starting to fancy this girl. Can't you please help a friend out?" Mark? Fancying a girl? Like, for real? I doubted it; he wasn't the commitment-like kind of guy, but for some reason he sounded serious this time. Hell. He better not be fooling me, or I'd kill him.
"Fine. When?" I finally gave in, already handing Mark the list of things I needed to buy, making a bit of an effort to pull it out of my pocket.
"Sunday, 10pm. Thank's Haz, I knew you'd help me." He walked faster in the middle of the shelves, and we both separated from each other while looking for the different stuff on the list. He was an ass, but he'd make me go faster. When he was finally out of my sight, I whispered to myself.
"I hate you for this Mark; I really hate you for this."
--
Not late; in time. Just in time. I still had two minutes before the class really started, but suddenly it seemed to be too much people between me and the classroom. I tried pushing people aside, and I squeezed between all of those bodies so I could finally walk up to where I should.
That until someone held my arm.
"Hey, Harry! I've been trying to talk to you all day long."
Oh God, no. I'd forgotten about Nathan.
"Can I talk to you for a sec?"
"You do know our class starts now, right?" I looked at the clock pinned to the wall, desperate. I couldn't get late again.
"It's really fast. I just need to talk to you. You think you can make me a favor...?"
There it was. The favor I was expecting him to ask. Did my curriculum include "favor-guy" or something? Gee, maybe I was just too nice.
--
●•Author's Note•●
dedication goes to: @Love_Drunk_on_Styles Thank you so much for the comment babe! I'm so glad you decided to make an account just to vote for this & leave a comment (: Means a lot to me that you liked the trailer as well as the storyline itself. I always try to be different and original and it's good to know someone appreciates it.
pic on the sidebar: This is Mark :) I don't know how you pictured him before, but that's quite much how I do. Harry has hot friends, doesn't he?
Note: If you thought the chapter was boring, sorry. I get you. I really do. But again, I need you to know a bit of my character's daily routine. And well.... This favor Nathan asked Harry will make him bump into Scarlett/Kirsten again. Yey :) So be patient. They'll eventually start getting into each other's lives.
next update: Friday (May 10th, 2013)
Best comment gets a dedication on next chapter.