"TOM!" Connie ambushed him the next morning as he approached his locker. At first he looked taken aback, but quickly altered his expression to one of indifference.
"What?" he asked as he averted his gaze.
"What do you mean what?" Connie shrilled. "What's your problem?"
Tom noticed that even though Connie appeared confident in her questioning of him, she was fidgeting with the hem of her shirt and shifting her weight from her left to her right foot. She was nervous.
"I don't have a problem." Tom shrugged. The wind was whipping his hair all over the place and as he swatted at it, he fleetingly wondered if it made him look weak. Harry's assessment of how he acted around Connie had really messed with his mind. Now Tom over-analyzed every little movement.
"So what, you're like, mad at me now?" Connie continued.
"Why would I be mad at you?" Tom asked evasively.
"I have no idea. But if you're not mad, how come you didn't call me back last night? I called you twice."
"You did?" Tom feigned confusion. "Did you leave messages?" Tom rummaged around in his locker, though there was absolutely nothing in there that he needed.
"Yes. Two! I left you two messages." Connie held up her fingers in case he needed a visual.
"Oh. I didn't get them. What'd you want?"
Connie narrowed her eyes at his tone. "If you're so interested to know what I want, try returning my call." She turned away from him and stalked off, but before she rounded the corner, she glanced over her shoulder to see if Tom was watching her. He wasn't.
When he was sure that Connie was gone, Tom leaned against his locker and rubbed his hands over his face. Avoiding Connie was harder than he'd ever imagined.
"Why am I doing this again?" he asked himself aloud as he softly banged his head against his locker.
As if in answer to his question, Harry appeared, seemingly out of thin air, and walked towards him.
"Dude, I don't know whether to punch you or hug you," Tom began.
"Why?" Harry asked wearily. He reached into the well-worn leather jacket he was wearing and fingered a pack of cigarettes, as if they were a source of security.
"Connie." Tom explained in one word. "I'm not sure, but I think it's working." He whispered.
"Of course it's working. The second she realizes you're not her little flunky, she's going to want a cum-cream salad with a side of Tom." Harry said as only he could.
Tom laughed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He noticed the balled up classified ads in Harry's hand and pointed to it.
"What's up? Pops making you get a job?" he asked.
"Nah. I'm looking for a car." Harry said as if it were an everyday occurrence.
"You're getting a car?"
"If I pass English…basically."
"Okay…so you're not getting a car."
"Man, shut the hell up! I'm going to pass."
"No offense, Harry, but is it even possible to get a grade lower than what you currently have in that class? You have, like, a negative F."
"It's that cunt, Teale. She waits until I'm not there to give all the study notes and then when I get the test, nothing from the book is on it. She does it on purpose."
"Seriously, Harry. How many classes have you even been to?"
Harry looked over at Tom as if to ask, 'whose side are you on?' "Do you want me to punch you in the mouth? Is that it?"
Tom laughed at the not-so-implied threat. "Anyway. What's up after school? There's a new manager at the Cove. They'll probably let you back in."
"Can't. I have to do something after school today." Harry answered.
"What?" Tom inquired.
"It's just…something with my parents. I have to be home after school." Harry answered speciously.
"How long?" Tom pressed.
"Who knows. Why?"
"Well…with Connie…what's step two? I mean, since the first thing you told me to do worked so well…what do I do now?"
"That's easy. Now you give her a taste of what she wants. If she calls, talk to her. Confuse the hell out of her."
"That is confusing…" Tom frowned. He was obviously thinking of Connie's state of mind and how she would fare by having him jerk her around.
"Tom, if you want her to go back to treating you like a douche bag, then forget about everything I say." Harry sighed. Even though he spoke, it was obvious that his mind wasn't on the conversation. His eyes scanned the campus area, as if he were looking for someone. And then, without so much as another utterance, he took off.
It was funny how easy it had been for Harry to find out which locker belonged to Bree Hanson. All he'd had to do was say that he needed to return some test notes to her and just like that, the secretary whipped open a file on her computer and rattled off Bree's locker number. He casually entertained the idea of getting her combination just as easily. He dismissed the thought rather quickly. From the looks of Bree, there would be nothing in her locker that even remotely interested him.
Harry arrived at Bree's locker before the bell sounded to end the first class of the morning. He watched as students began to exit classrooms and approach the lockers near him. No one spoke to him, not that his glare or his stance invited conversation. Everything about him: his unruly hair, his sinister glare, his dark clothing and his caustic verbiage – all of it worked together to keep his peers away.
Even though he didn't wear a watch, Harry figured enough time had passed for Bree to show up at her locker if she was, in fact, going to do so. However, just as he made a motion to leave, he saw her enter the corridor towards him. She had her head down, and she was looking over a crinkled piece of paper. Harry watched her, unhindered by her gaze.
Bree had an uneven gait to her stride. Just when a rhythm would emerge, she'd stumble or drag the toe of her shoe, throwing off her tempo and her balance. Harry also noticed that she didn't really seem to care much about her appearance. She didn't look homely, as much as she did basic. Her hair – brown – screamed nothing special. In fact, that was a great summation of her entirety: nothing special.
She glanced up, then, and noticed Harry at her locker. She gasped audibly and stopped a few inches from her intended destination. It was clear that the threat Harry had left her with the previous day was fresh on her mind.
"What?" she asked.
"What do you mean, what?" Harry arched his eyebrow. "You think you own these lockers?"
"Well, this one in particular, yes." Bree pointed to her own.
"I believe it belongs to the Washington State education system." Harry mocked her.
"Whatever," Bree said in a tone that communicated that she wasn't in the mood to deal with Harry's banter. However, her voice held a tremor that also revealed the fear beneath her words.
"So listen, I need to know what time we're doing this tutoring thing." Harry leaned over and said in a loud whisper.
"Your mom said after school…at your house." Bree clarified.
"For how long?" Harry asked.
"Didn't your mother tell you all this?" Bree frowned.
Harry eyed her. "If you're so good at English, how come you don't know you're not supposed to answer a question with another question?"
This guy is a piece of work. Bree stared at Harry for a moment. Surely he had to be joking, because no one person could be as calloused as he was. But as she looked him over, she saw no evidence of humor.
The warning bell rang indicating two minutes to get to class. Without even opening her locker, Bree turned away from Harry and quickly made her way towards her English class. The last thing she wanted was for Miss Teale to think that Harry's tardy and delinquent ways were rubbing off on her.
Harry snickered at the way Bree hustled off to class. It was like junior high all over again. As he pushed off the bank of lockers he'd been leaning against, he saw Jocelyn watching him a few yards away. He gave her a slight nod before he trudged slowly towards Bree's same destination.
* * *
Usually Jocelyn hung out at the outskirts of her PE class, but today the class was running the mile, and Jocelyn saw it as the perfect way to let off some steam. Why was Harry with the new girl? How had he managed to meet her so quickly? Why was he asking about her the other day? Surely he couldn't be interested in her…she was all wrong for him. She wasn't even pretty.
These thoughts and more swirled around in Jocelyn's mind as a slow burn began in her lungs at the exertion she was putting forth. Note to self: cut back on the cigarettes, Jocelyn thought. But she knew she'd never give up her cigarettes. They defined her. And it was one more thing she and Harry had in common.
After the mile run, Jocelyn hurried into the girls' locker room to commandeer one of the few stalled showers. By the time her classmates came in to tidy up for the rest of their day, Jocelyn was completely dressed and heading out early to find her friends.
Connie was standing with a few of her cheerleader friends discussing an upcoming pep rally. Jocelyn pointed to their usual table and kept walking. Connie recognized the signal, nodding that she'd appear as soon as she was done.
Although it wasn't Connie's company that Jocelyn was interested in at that moment. She had a few words for Rebecca Hinchley. She needed to tell Rebecca that her advice sucked. Because even though she hadn't approached Harry, as she usually did, and she didn't call him to ask him if he wanted to go to the Cove (they had changed management and maybe Harry wasn't still banned); despite that, Harry still wasn't giving her the time of day. No. Instead he was hanging around the lockers of bland, nerdy girls. Girls Harry Styles shouldn't even be able to get it up for.
* * *
Bree managed to ignore Harry for the duration of their English class, although she couldn't take much credit for it, because he didn't give her a second glance either. However, that changed at the end of class.
As Bree packed up her books and binder, she noticed him looking at her. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it.
"Don't say 'what'." He said.
"I wasn't going to." She told him.
"Then what were you going to say?"
"I was going to ask you why you didn't bother to just talk to me in class instead of ambushing me at my locker and almost making me late to class."
"Oh," Harry smirked. He could see that he made Bree anxious and it invigorated him. He found the experience empowering.
"So why didn't you?" Bree asked.
"Talk to you in class?" Harry waited for an affirmative nod before continuing. "Because people are nosy and I don't like people knowing my business."
"Yeah, I know. Hence the threat," Bree reminded him.
"That wasn't a threat," Harry said evenly. "It was a promise."
"You know, I don't understand why you're being so difficult. I mean, I'm doing you a favor—"
"You're not doing me a favor. You're doing my parents a favor. There's a difference. So don't think I owe you anything." Harry spat out.
"I don't. And for the record, I'm not exactly getting a Nobel Prize for my services, so you might want to ease up a bit."
Harry's eyebrows arched and his mouth relaxed into a lazy smirk. "I see you put your big-girl panties on today. Bree's got a bark."
"Sorry. I didn't know I was supposed to be afraid of you."
As soon as Bree uttered her last sentence, she quickly left the classroom before Harry could counter her stance. Besides, though she wasn't that scared of him, Jocelyn was a different story and Bree didn't want to give Harry any ammunition to make good on his "promise".