a/n: who's pumped ?!?! I AM !!!
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Jess hops off the last step of the staircase. I didn't see it, but I heard it. She was so excited that Harry and I were home from our trip, she couldn't leave us alone. I found it somewhat sweet, but mostly annoying.
Noah eventually responded to my text. Turns out, his mom is retiring in the spring and after that, his family is actually moving. Noah wouldn't tell me where though, all he said was it was somewhere he's always wanted to go. Not sure what that meant.
After such a casual--and slightly dry, if I'm honest--conversation with Noah, we lost contact after only a few days. I didn't tell Harry that I had been in contact with him, I didn't really think he'd care. He never asked anyway.
Harry and I now sit on the barstools at the island in my kitchen, laughing at Tik Toks. Even with growing up in the twenty-first century, I haven't always been the biggest fan of social media. It paints unrealistic pictures of how people are supposed to look and live their lives. Some aspects are good, but some are also negative. And with this particular thing, I choose to let the negative outweigh the positive, simply because I think it can be very damaging. But Tik Tok...that's something I can get behind. Some of the videos, at least.
"What are we watching?" Jess chimes as she enters the room with us, skipping about.
"Tik Toks," I tell her simply, Harry laughing at one currently playing on my phone. She doesn't find that very amusing, rolling her eyes.
"That's all you guys do anymore," she complains. "And you only watch them. You never even make them."
"We could make one," I challenge, looking over at Harry, who had wide eyes. "I'm practically a renegade god."
"Show me," Jess challenges, eyeing me up and down.
"Okay," I say, standing up.
Not surprisingly whatsoever, the video below the one Harry had just been watching was to the 'renegade' song. The number of videos I've seen with that sound, all doing the exact same dance moves, is probably unhealthy. But in my defense, it was like all that was on my 'For You' page.
Setting up the camera with the sound, along with a self-timer, I stand back, preparing to nail this dance.
"H, come here," I wave Harry over, wanting him to do the dance with me. I knew if we made it together, I couldn't post it. Harry and I would both like to keep our relationship under wraps until it becomes way more serious, if it ever does I mean. And we've done a pretty good job at it I'd say.
"No," Harry denies simply, shaking his head vigorously.
The music starts for the dance and I quickly run up to stop it, glaring at Harry.
"Oh come on," Jess whines, "I wanted to see this! I was about to make popcorn and everything."
"I don't dance," he argues.
"Hey! That's my line," I say, acting offended.
"I don't do choreography," Harry corrects himself firmly, a stern look plastered on his face.
"Please," I beg, pouting out my lip and giving him puppy eyes.
Harry's facial expression softens before he rolls his eyes, letting out a sigh of defeat. "Fine."
I squeal and reach out, grabbing his hand and pulling him off the chair he was sitting on. Neither of us had gotten ready for the day, so he was still wearing black Nike basketball shorts and was shirtless. Not that I'd ever complained to be in the presence of that.
"Okay, so just...do the dance moves you know," I tell him, hoping deep down that he'd seen it as many times as I have.
"But I don't think I know any of them," he says cluelessly as I press the timer button.
"Then make up your own."
And about a second and a half later, the music for the Tik Tok dance was playing. Next to me, Harry hits the first move with perfect timing. Then the next. Then the one after that. And soon enough, he's just done the whole dance without missing a single step.
I let out a loud laugh as I look over at him, shocked at his secret talentâor guilty pleasure if you will.
"You're a Tik Tok addict!" I announce, pointing my finger at him accusingly.
"Don't you ever say that again!" Harry yells jokingly, getting up in my face. But he couldn't hold back his smile, and as he tried to look furious, the corner of his mouth would repeatedly twitch up.
I hear the sound of the microwave door closing and I look over to see Jess standing by it. She holds her hands up in defense as if my eyes were pointing fingers at her too.
"What?" she asks defensively. "Now I want popcorn."
I chuckle fondly at my quirky best friend, rolling my eyes playfully as I retrieve my phone from where it was propped up against a vase--one filled with flowers Jackson cheesily gave to Jess the other day.
I sit back down on the same barstool from before, watching in admiration as Jess connects her phone to the speaker we kept in the kitchen. She and I like to have spontaneous concerts, ones where we're wearing nothing but our undergarments and socks, dancing on top of the island and using large spoons and the dish brush as our microphones.
Jess was obviously hyper and in the mood to dance, so she bobbed her head to a song playing inside her mind as she chose a song to play now that her phone had connected. I couldn't help but let out a laugh at her song of choice, immediately recognizing it within the first few seconds.
Only Jess would play One Direction in the presence of Harry Styles. I look over to see Harry, cheeks a dark shade of pink as he recognized the song also.
"My hands, your hands, tied up like two ships," Jess sings in a low voice, imitating Zayn. She sings to me, pointing her finger out as she uses her phone as a microphone. Not really the right shape, but I give her an A for effort.
Instead of singing the next lines, she begins to dance, bringing her hands up over her head and tip-toeing her feet to the beat. I've never really understood her choice of dance moves, but she seems to be having a blast so I don't dare question it.
"Why is it so hard to save it?" Jess sings at the top of her lungs, arching her back to only emphasize how passionately she was singing.
I decided I wanted to join in, seeing Harry's cheeks were only getting redder.
"My heart, your heart, sit tight like bookends," I sang to Harry, still remembering the lyrics to this song by heart. I tried to be as dramatic as Jess had been, but that was nearly impossible. Strong had always been her favorite One Direction song. "Pages between us, written with no end."
Harry shook his head and chuckled as I continued to embarrass him even further, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling as I sang ever so beautifully. As Liam's solo came to an end, I hopped up to join Jess in singing the chorus. When the beat dropped, she and I jumped at the same time, joining hands and getting ready to sing the chorus.
"I'm sorry if I say I need ya," Jess and I belt out so loud that we couldn't even hear the music anymore, "but I don't care, I'm not scared of looove. 'Cause when I'm not with you I'm weaker. Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong that you make me strong?"
We catch our breath, just as we hear a clapping noise. I look up to see Harry with a smirk on his lips, applauding Jess and I's performance.
"Well done," he says.
"Thank you, thank you," Jess says, bowing. "No pictures please."
The song continues, but we don't sing along. Somehow, we were already exhausted, just from that single chorus. I don't understand how Harry can do hourly long concerts whilst singing and dancing and jumping about on stage. It was quite impressive.
"Oh my god, Lils," Jess begins, retrieving her buttery popcorn from the microwave and already laughing at what she was about to say to me. "Do you remember when we went to that One Direction club for your birthday a few years ago?"
My face turns beet red as I look over at Harry, who looked intrigued by what Jess had to say. She opens the bag and begins eating straight out of it, instead of putting it in a bowl. Something I hate when she does but can live without saying anything.
"That was fun while it lasted, but the rest of the night was so shitty," I say lowly, looking down at the thought of it.
"When's your birthday?" Harry asks, now on the subject of the thing I wanted to talk about the least.
I shoot Jess a glare, hoping she'd take the hint. But with how clueless she is, she obviously didn't.
"January 15th," she tells him, making my breath hitch.
Harry's facial expression drops slightly as he switched his glance from Jess to me, a hint of hurt in his eyes.
"B-But that's the day I leave," he says, distress taking over his features.
"I know," I say, smiling simply.
"But I don't want to miss your birthday," his voice lowers.
"No no, it's okay," I'm quick to assure him.
"Yeah, Miss Liliana here doesn't like her birthday," Jess adds, rolling her eyes. She then turns to me with a confused look on her face. "Which I totally don't get, by the way. How could you not love a day that's all about you? Plus you get to stuff your face with cake."
"I just don't like it," I tell them both quietly.
"Jess, would you mind handing me my phone?" Harry asks. "It's right there behind you."
Jess turns around in search of Harry's phone. Once she spits it and begins reaching for it, I ask, "What do you need it for?"
"I'm going to reschedule my flight so we can be together for your birthday," he informs me just as Jess had picked it up.
"Oh, you shouldn't do that," I say, shaking my head vigorously.
Jess holds Harry's phone in her hand, preparing to give it to him, but stops immediately after the screen lights up on it.
"Harry," she giggles, switching her glance from the phone to Harry, then to me, then back to the phone, then back up to Harry, and...you get the gist.
"Yes?" he responds nervously.
"What's this?" She turns his phone around so it's facing him. The grin on her face told me it must've been something embarrassing on Harry's phone. I also got that hint when he jumped up and sprinted over to her, snatching the phone out of her hands before stuffing it into his pocket.
"What was it?" I ask, now insanely curious.
Harry shoots Jess a warning glare, but just as she did to me, she continues anyway.
"He has a picture of you as his lock screen," she tells me, smiling brightly still. My jaw drops to the floor before a smile creeps across my face.
"Do you really?" I ask the blushing Harry.
"Well I...yeah," he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Can I see?" I ask hopefully, drawing my bottom lip between my teeth.
Harry sighs, and pulls his phone out of his pocket before handing it to me. I take it gently in my hands peering down at it. And there I was...the first thing you see when you look at his phone.
"When did you even take this?" I ask, a smile on my face.
"Our last day in Anguilla," he says shyly, "at lunch. You just looked so beautiful and...art deserves to be displayed."
My heart warmed, sending fluttering butterflies swarming throughout my whole body. I could've broken down crying right then and there, but I kept my shit together. Instead of dropping to the floor as I felt like doing, I instead look down. The sincerity of his compliments never failed to make me blush.
"Awww," Jess says with a mouthful of popcorn, slightly ruining the moment. She shoves another handful in, muffling her words even further. "You guys are so cute."
I chuckle softly and hand Harry back his phone, smiling softly.
"Don't reschedule your flight," I tell him seriously, changing the subject. "You have work that needs tending to there. I don't want you to miss out on that."
"But I-"
"Harry," I cut him off before he can protest. "Seriously. Please don't."
He lets out a sigh of defeat, knowing I was far too stubborn to argue with on this.
"Fine, I won't," he says. "But, we will be celebrating your birthday before I leave."
"I don-"
"Lili," he cuts me off, the same way I did to him before, "no exceptions. I did what you asked now please do what I ask."
As much as I absolutely did not want to celebrate my birthday, Harry did make a pretty good point.
"Okay," I back down, letting out a sigh of annoyance. I had a really bad feeling about this, but of course, I'm going to do it anyway.
Harry envelopes me tightly in his arms, lifting me up off the ground. He squeezed me so tight I thought my organs were going to spill out of my mouth.
"Alright, I think that's enough," I say to him in a strained voice, tapping his shoulder.
"Right, sorry," he says, letting me down quickly, but gently at the same time. "Sometimes I forget you're fragile."
I chuckle fondly and switch my attention to Jess, who was watching us intently, still working on her bag of popcorn.
"Man, I am so glad I made popcorn." She shakes her head, shoving a handful in.
I crinkle my eyebrows, contemplating our friendship.
"Oh, how rude of me," she says, her mouth still jam-packed. "Want some?" She lifts up the bag as a way of offering popcorn to Harry and me.
"No thanks," I laugh, shaking my head. Harry shakes his head also.
"Fine," she shrugs, "more for me then."