thank you so much for your patience!! I hope you all enjoy this chapter & please vote 💟
// ugh I can't wait until the 100 comes back on 😫😫
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Recap
I held out my hand and watched the fallen snow melt in my hands. I tucked my hands into my pockets and threw my head back, closing my eyes.
"Norah?" I heard Harry's voice. It was distinctively soft.
"Hm?" I didn't move from my position.
There was a significant amount of silence before he spoke again.
"Do you think - Would you believe me if I told you that I truly do like you? That I care for you?"
I lifted my head back up and turned my body to face him.
Shadows casted across his face. His eyes were a saturated green color due to the lighting the moon and snow gave off. They held me with enough intensity that made it hard to look away.
"Well, if you say it's true...then, yeah, I'd believe you," I trusted.
The dimple in his right cheek formed as a small smile came to his face. He took three careful strides over to me until there were only inches between us.
"I do - like you and care for you, Nor." His eyes didn't waver from mine.
Despite my heart pounding out of my chest, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his cheek, letting them linger for a couple seconds before pulling back.
"I like you, too, Harry."
_
Norah
"Jeez, I thought Lou was going to squeeze the life out of you," Harry muttered, pulling me into a long hug.
I chuckled and rested my chin on his shoulder.
The realization hit me that it was going to be hard to tell when the next time I'd see him would be.
Before we pulled away, he kissed my cheek.
"Have a good show tonight," I told him.
"We'll try," he sighed. He looked over my shoulder, then put a hand on the the middle of my back. "I'll walk you to the car."
I nodded and picked my bag up off the ground. I'd already said my goodbyes to the crew I'd made friends with, as well as the rest of the boys. Louis insisted that the five of us take a group photo, and I don't think I've ever agreed to something so quickly.
"Bye, guys," I said to Soph and Lou.
"Text me soon, okay?" Sophia reminded.
I smiled. "I promise."
Harry and I caught up with Cal as we walked out, and I stopped to talk with him.
"Hey, girl, you leaving?" He asked.
"Yeah," I frowned.
"I was just getting used to having a partner!" He mused.
I gave him a short hug. "I just wanted to thank you for everything. You've really helped me a lot," I genuinely told him.
"Ah, don't worry about it. You have a good eye."
I smiled graciously. "I'll see you soon, then, Cal."
"You, too, love. Take care."
Harry clapped Cal on the shoulder, and Cal returned the gesture before striding off in the opposite direction.
"So, I never asked. Is Norah Gates a future photographer now?" He grinned over at me.
I sighed and tucked my hair behind my ear. "Mmm...Are you offering me a job?"
His eyebrows raised. "Yeah - yeah, sure," he agreed lightly.
I laughed. "In all honestly, I haven't decided. I'm still gonna finish school and see where life takes me."
His tongue ran across his lower lip before he bit down on it. The next thing I knew, Harry grabbed onto my elbow and pulled us down a hallway. Soon after, we were in a dark room.
Nothing was visible once Harry closed the door, and all light was sucked out of the confinement.
I felt Harry's hands grasp either side of my face. I couldn't tell how close he was, but his scent was all around me. He stepped closer and I felt his breath on my face.
"Can I kiss you?"
I wasn't sure he just asked that or if my mind was just playing games with me. Either way, I was completely okay with it.
"You've got to stop asking me," I sighed before closing the distance between us.
•••
Sixteen texts.
Over the course of two hours, I'd sent Winter sixteen texts and she hadn't responded.
This was from the girl who would live tweet through the apocalypse. The same girl whose phone was always glued to her hand.
So, in other words, Winter was ignoring me, and I had no idea why.
The plane ride back home was miserable. It was so horrible, that I actually regretted turning down Harry's offer of upgrading my economy seats to first class.
I had the middle seat between a guy experiencing a mid-life crisis and a woman with the window seat that had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes.
"Is anything wrong with Winter?" I asked Brandon when he picked me up from the airport. He was the only one out of all of my friends that was answering my calls - excluding Sam.
"Besides the whole, 'my best friend hasn't called me in a week because she's too busy making new friends and creating a new life', she's okay," Brandon noted.
I arched an eyebrow. "She said that?"
"Well, I summarized it a bit."
I let out a heavy sigh and leaned my head against the window. I shut my eyes. This really wasn't the greatest time to have Winter angry with me.
"Then, Jared is angry, too...by association," he added.
"You aren't?"
He shrugged and pulled out of the airport parking lot. He merged into oncoming traffic before answering.
"I don't have a reason to. Winter is jealous...Jared is Win's boyfriend...you broke up with Sam. So, unless you're about to tell me that you killed my dog, then I don't have a problem with you at the moment."
I let out a laugh. A humorless one, since this situation really wasn't a laughing matter.
"At the moment?"
He shrugged for the third time in two minutes, then sighed. "Anyways, I'm supposed to meet up with Jared in a half an hour, so I'm gonna have to boot you out when we get to your place."
I crossed my legs and fixed my coat around my body, despite it being reasonably warm outside in LA. "'Kay."
A few moments of silence lingered in the car. Only the broken sound of a radio host was heard through the speakers of Brandon's old Toyota.
"So, how was England?" He asked, with an almost mocking tone.
"Fine," I replied surely.
"Anything exciting happen?"
I held back the ironic smile that wanted to burst free.
"I photographed a few concerts of the world's biggest boyband, if that counts as exciting."
He peeked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Don't be fucking sarcastic, Gates."
I raised an eyebrow. "Anything exciting happen to you over the past week?"
The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. There was a glint in his eyes that gave me enough reason to question the look.
"Brandon...tell me," I said, becoming intrigued.
His tongue skimmed his lower lip, but he couldn't hide the full blown grin from appearing on his face.
"Okay, normally I would guess there's a girl involved, but you're Brandon, and girls don't have you looking like that, so..."
"You'd be guessing right," he hummed.
My jaw dropped, but I closed it as soon as he looked in my direction.
Brandon has always been the guy to have a girlfriend for a period of a month or two, tops. He didn't sleep around or anything, but he had issues with trusting and committing to someone.
For the five years I've known Brandon, I've maybe only seen this look on his face once.
"What is her name?" I gasped, turning my body towards him.
"Iris."
"I don't believe it," I gawked.
"Your astonishment is very uplifting, Norah," he retorted.
I chuckled. "I'm happy for you. Honestly."
He lifted his chin up a bit and smiled. "Thanks."
I shifted my gaze back out the window. "So, when can I meet her?"
He responded lightly, "October 32nd is free for me."
"Ha! Shut the fu -"
"Dirty language is prohibited in this car, Gates!"
I sighed heavily and shook my head. "Has anyone else met her yet?"
"Nope."
"Oh, come on. How are we gonna scare her away?"
"That's a rhetorical question, right?"
•••
I parked in front of Yogurt Island for my five hour shift. It's been 24 hours since I'd landed back home, and Winter has yet to talk to me. Now, since we both had the Sunday afternoon shift, she was basically forced to communicate with me.
"Norah! How was your trip, honey?" Cece asked as soon as I walked through the doors.
I tucked my lanyard into my bag and sent her a smile. She was behind the counter. Almost all of the tables were filled inside the building.
"It was great. It's really beautiful there," I said.
I walked into the back room, tying my hair up in a ponytail.
"Hey, Norah. How was London?" Adam asked. He was one of my coworkers in his mid-twenties. He sat down at a table on his phone with a Starbucks pastry bag in front of him.
"Fun and cold," I smiled.
His tight, brown curls fell onto his forehead when he offered me a cake pop.
"Yes, please," I hummed and took the food from his hand. I stuck it into my mouth while simultaneously taking my apron off its hook from behind Adam.
I tied the strings around my back, then took the stick out of my mouth, chewing on the sugar.
I really need to get back into my gym routine.
I let out a sigh and looked down at Adam. "Is Winter here yet?"
As soon as the words left my mouth, I heard the door swing open in a rush behind me.
I spun around and came face to face with Winter. Her eyes went wide, then turned blank.
"You're back," she stated.
My lips parted. Part of me didn't want to believe that Brandon was right when he said Winter was mad.
She walked past me and grabbed her apron, tossing her purse onto an empty shelf.
"Winter," I started to plead.
"What?" She tied her hair up into a ponytail and turned around to face me again.
She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight.
"Why are you mad?" I asked.
"Can we just talk later, Norah?" she huffed with a sliver of annoyance in her voice. She walked past me and out the door that led behind the counter.
I closed my eyes for a moment to recollect myself. When I turned around, Adam was looking up at me with a conflicted look on his face.
"Did that just happen?" He blurted, motioning between me and the door with the stick from his cake pop. "The two girls who literally fight anyone who tries to take one of them off of the others shift."
When he saw that his attempt at lightening up my mood failed, the smile fell from his face, and he stood up from his chair.
"What happened?" He asked.
"I'm not exactly sure," I remarked. I reached over to grab my employee's hat and slipped it on. "I'll let you know when I figure it out, though."
I gave him a weak smile, then walked out of the room.
Once our shift was over, I figured then was a better time than ever.
"Winter! Can we please talk?" I begged, following her out of the shop after our shift was over.
"Winter, please, just stop walking!"
She stopped so suddenly that I almost ran into her. I stepped back and took in the angry expression on her face.
"What's there to talk about? The fact that you have a whole new group of friends? Or maybe how you're following around a guy you hardly know?" She threw up her hands. "I mean, God, Norah, what are you doing?"
My lips parted in surprise. "If I somehow...ignored you or did something else to you while I was gone, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," I reasoned. "You're my best friend, Win."
She looked back and forth between my eyes. "I don't want to talk right now, okay?"
My shoulders dropped, and I watched her walk away to her car.
•••
"Hey, do you by any chance have any of those, um, pan things?" Brandon asked as soon as I answered his phone called.
With one hand, I slid my English textbook off my lap and put it on the lawn chair next to me.
"You're gonna have to be more specific," I said, standing up and walking into my apartment.
I went into my kitchen and leaned against the center island.
"It's a...damn, I forgot what it's called."
"What does it look like?"
"A loaf pan!" He suddenly bursted out, loud enough to make me instinctively pull my phone away from my ear.
I chuckled. "Uh, yeah, I think I have one. Why do you need a loaf pan?"
I opened a drawer under the oven and took out the pan Brandon requested.
He let out a breath. "Iris likes banana bread. She's coming over tonight."
"Aww..." I gushed.
"Anyways," he groaned, "can I come by and pick it up?"
"Mmhm. Can you come now? I have to leave in about an hour for work."
"Oh, yeah. Sam has the six o'clock shift, too." I heard him chuckle right after he said it.
"Can you?" I ignored his sly comment.
"Yup, thanks, Gates."
"Bye, Brandon."
I hung up the phone and stuck it in my pocket. I walked back out on the balcony to bring my textbook inside. As soon as I reached down to grab it, my phone rang again.
I set the book back down and stood up straight. I looked down at the caller ID. My stomach flip flopped and my heart began beating erratically when I saw Harry's name on the screen.
My smile was obvious in my voice when I answered his call. "Hey, stranger."
"Hey, Nor. I was wondering if I'd be waking you up or not," he chuckled.
"Nope. I have work in an hour. Jet lag hasn't kicked in all the way yet." I sat down in the lawn chair and crossed my legs.
"Ah. Do you have time to talk, or do you have to go?" He asked hesitantly.
"No! No, we can talk."
"Good. What are you doing?"
"Sitting on my balcony," I hummed.
"What are you wearing?" He teased.
"Harry!"
"Sorry, sorry, sorry. Inappropriate..." He laughed. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be in the same room as him.
"When are you going to be in LA again?"
He let out a heavy, exasperated sigh. "Not until the beginning of November once the tour is over."
"How ever am I going to survive?" I said dramatically.
"Sorry, babe. Though, our reunion could be sooner if you would come to the last show."
"I would, but I have school. You know, gotta get as much as I can out of the $25,000 tuition."
"Well, crap. Then I'll see you early November?"
"Mhmm." The corner of my mouth twitched upwards.
"So, should we address the elephant in the room?" He decided.
"Which one?"
I could imagine him smiling as he said, "The, uh, k-i-double s."
My mind replayed the night at his house. The hot tub, scrabble, the way he looked at me...I only hoped I wasn't just imagining it.
"I think it was actually the k-i-double s-e-s," I corrected.
His laugh was scratchy through the phone, but it was still just as contagious.
"Yes, my mistake. The kisses."
I wasn't sure what else to say, so I kept the light mood going. I didn't want to make this conversation heavy with the "is this a relationship" talk.
"They're nice," I stated honestly.
I was definitely down playing it. Once I kissed him, I didn't want to stop. That is completely unlike me. I'm normally the "play it safe" type. Harry was a complex person. In regular circumstances, I wouldn't start kissing a guy I didn't know very well.
"I agree wholeheartedly."
Though I was alone on my balcony, I bit down on my lip to contain my smile.
I looked up at the sunset-contrasted clouds. "Should we keep kissing?"
"I think we should," he noted.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears. "Me too."
A few moments passed before Harry spoke. "Okay, then."
"Okay," I echoed.
"I should let you get to work then."
"Mmm...almost forgot," I huffed. "How late is it over there?"
"1 AM."
"Are you serious? You should be sleeping not talking to me."
"Sleep is for the weak."
I scoffed. "Harry. I'm hanging up."
"Talk to you soon, Nor. Don't work too hard," he teased.
I smiled. "Bye, Harry."
I ended the call and stood up from my chair, taking my textbook with me inside. Five minutes later, Brandon showed up to take the loaner loaf pan. Not long after, I left for my dreaded shift that I shared with Sam.
I made eye contact with him as soon as I walked through the restaurant doors. His eyes lingered on mine for a few seconds. Then, he returned to sweeping underneath tables as if he'd never seen me.
About two hours into my shift, because it was a slow evening, my boss told both Sam and I to do inventory on toppings in the backroom.
I started walking towards to room while Sam went straight to our boss.
"I could do it alone. There's not a lot to check off," he proposed.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and instead, walked into the storage room and closed the door. A few seconds later, the door opened again, and Sam walked in.
His hair was pushed back in the restaurant's uniform hat. His chocolate eyes were bleak and trained on the ground.
It hurt me to know that just two weeks ago, we were best friends. If we were stuck in a room together, we talked each other's ears off. Now, the silence was too painful to bear.
"Am I that bad of a person?" I blurted.
For the second time since I'd walked through the door two hours ago, he looked at me. The muscles in his jaw flexed as his eyes skimmed over my face.
"No," he spoke in a raspy voice. "No, Norah."
I stepped closer. "What happened to us?" I whispered.
He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders while closing some of the distance between us. He rested his hands on either side of my shoulders.
I looked up at him, my eyebrows furrowed. When his face got closer to mine, sirens went off in my head, and I took two steps back.
"No, Sam. We should..." I breathed.
He dropped his head and tucked his hands into his pockets. "Right."
"Please. I need us to be okay. I need you. Apparently, everyone's mad at me except Brandon. So, I don't have a lot of friends right now."
His eyebrows furrowed, but he finally cracked a smile. "Jared doesn't really count as someone who's mad at you. It's just because -"
"Because Winter is mad at me," I finished. He nodded.
He twisted his lips in a smile, but the look in his eyes sent a pang to my chest.
•••
Sam and I did ultimately end up doing our jobs. We avoided the topic of England and our friends, leaving us with our nuisance of a coworker to complain about.
Rocko sits on his ass basically his entire shift yet never gets fired. There's a 99.9% chance it has to do with him being our boss' brother, but it still annoys the hell out of everyone.
At eleven o'clock, Sam and I are finally free to leave.
I felt dead on my feet. I could've fallen asleep on the dirty LA concrete right then if I wasn't so afraid of being kidnapped.
"Hey, have you been on Twitter since you got back?" Sam asked, looking down at his phone with a taut expression.
I stopped at my car, looking over the hood at him with a confused look. "Not a lot, why?"
Whatever was on his phone was snapping him back into cold shoulder Sam.
"Some girl I follow retweeted an article about 'Harry Styles' new love interest'. Figured you'd be interested in reading it." He shrugged and climbed into his car without giving me another look.
A/N: I seriously think it's impossible for me not to leave a cliffhanger of some sort at the end of every chapter.
I'm so sorry.
I hope you all enjoyed this update! I'm sorry it's been so long! School sports have started and I've been juggling that and keeping my grades up. Thank you for all of the nice messages, I've read them all!! <3 <3
I'll update the next chapter ASAP & will continue to let you all know when I think it'll be up (: Hope you like the new covers!
Twitter: @wtvrharold
Instagram: @harry.reckless
xx