Know: A Harry Styles Fan Fiction

I slouch against the wall on my bed, absentmindedly chewing on a pencil as I read my textbook. Finals are next week and I've been cramming intensely to soak in as much information as I can. I don't want to start winter break anxious about whether or not I did well, I want to be sure of it.

Harry is at the end of my bed and my legs are crossed over his. He's been frequenting at my apartment lately since I've been locked in my room, feverishly studying. He browses a few vinyls that are spread on my bed while quietly humming a tune.

"Did you know that 'Hotel California' is supposedly about Satanism?" he asks, spreading open one of my Eagles albums.

"Yeah, I heard," I mutter.

"Isn't that creepy?"

"I guess," I mutter again, not taking my eyes off the book.

He gets up from my bed and turns on the record player. "You don't mind, do you?" he says, with the tone arm already lifted.

I sigh, trying my best to keep patient. "Actually, I do, Harry. I'm trying to study here."

"You've studied this entire week and the week before," he points out. "And I think the week before that, too."

"So? I'll be prepared," I reply.

"You're losing the 'work hard, play hard' spirit," he says, almost reprimandingly.

"I'm not," I defend, shifting my eyes back down. "I'm just doing the 'work hard' part right now. Maybe if you help instead of distract me, I could get it done quicker."

Harry gets back on my bed and slowly crawls over to me. He closes in, moving the textbook out of the way and sliding off my reading glasses.

"Then after, can we get to the 'play hard' part?" he whispers, his voice irresistibly husky and his warm breath tickling my lips. I have to work hard to stay composed and force back a grin, gently shoving him away.

"If you word it differently," I mutter, pushing my glasses back on.

"Okay fine. Can we doing something fun afterwards?"

"Help me memorize these terms first." I place my textbook between us. He doesn't bother glancing at the page and keeps his eyes on me, smiling.

"Have I ever told you how sexy you are when you wear glasses and tell me what to do?"

"That sounds a bit unhealthy," I answer, hiding my amusement, "might wanna get that checked out."

Harry springs from my bed and exits the room.

"Where are you going?" I call into the hall.

There's no response but about ten seconds later, he returns with an oversize bag of fruit snacks.

"Where did you get that?" I ask while watching him pull it open.

"Effy brought it home from the store."

"Effy's home from the store?"

He tilts his head to the side, slightly scrunching his eyebrows. "Were you studying that hard?" he says, popping a fruit snack into his mouth.

"Go ahead, help yourself," I deadpan.

He shrugs innocently. "She said we could. And besides, this is for you."

Then he returns to his spot on the bed and faces me with his knees bent in front of his chest. He swivels the textbook around and props it up in front of his face.

"Are you ready for round one?" he says.

"Sure, but who am I up against?"

"Me."

"That's not fair, you have the answers!"

"Hey, I don't make the rules. Ready?"

I scoff, slumping my back against the wall. "I'm gonna beat you anyway."

"What is..." he pauses dramatically, "...value?"

"The lightness or darkness measured by degree," I answer rapidly.

"Point one goes to Jules!" he announces, tossing a snack in the air to me. I catch it in my mouth with victory.

While stroking his chin, he asks, "What is a leading edge?"

"The edge that appears closest to the viewer," I recite.

"Oooh, she's on fire!" he roots, popping another one in my mouth.

"C'mon," I cheekily say, "give me a real challenge."

He eyes me with amusement before fixing his eyes on the book and thumbing past pages. "Alright, alright..."

"For one little gummy strawberry," he says, holding it up between the tips of his fingers, "can you tell me what interpretive texture means?"

I pause for a moment, racking my memory. The phrase sounded familiar, but I haven't heard it since the beginning of the semester. We were learning about gradients and how to use atmospheric perspective and---

"Five seconds," Harry says, an eyebrow cocked as he peeks at me from behind the book.

"Umm," I shake my head, and with much reluctance say, "pass."

"Yes! Point one for Harry!" he cheers, flipping the snack into his mouth.

"Hey!" I protest, tackling him backward onto the bed. "That's mine!"

He lands with a soft plop onto my comforter and defensively fences his arms over his face, but I grab them and pin them down. Looking up at me with a cheeky grin, he reveals the uneaten fruit snack lodged between his front teeth. "Come get it," he mumbles, but it comes out as more of a, "Cun geh eh."

Probably against my better judgement, I lean down and try to use my teeth to pluck it from his. He quickly sucks the fruit snack inward, and I bite into nothing but his bottom lip. It's fleshy and soft and tastes faintly like strawberry.

"Mmm," he lowly moans.

I sit upright and sigh emphatically.

He props himself up by his elbow and smirks. "I only wanted a kiss, is that so bad?"

"You're supposed to help me study, remember? I'm gonna flunk out of school and it's all because of you," I say, bitterly jerking the textbook out of his hands.

He chuckles. "Stop it, drama queen. You're not going to flunk anything."

I resist the urge to argue with him, keeping my focus on the text on the page. Interpretive texture, I read, is when the texture of an image represents an idea rather than its physical surface.Alright, so my guess would've been completely off.

"Are you really mad at me?" Harry asks, a worrying tinge in his voice. "C'mon, Jules, you're very smart. You don't need to be so uptight."

This time, I can't ignore him. Jebb's words crawl back into my head, Maybe if he was better at giving cock, you wouldn't be so uptight, and I cut a dangerously sharp glare at Harry, so sharp, I think I even see him wince.

His smile dims into a frown. "Jules..." he says again, softer this time.

I cut my eyes back on the page, determined to tune him out. But I don't have to; he doesn't say another word. A second later, I feel a pair of large hands pulling me by my sides, digging into my rib cage. I roll over and convulse with fits of laughter.

"Stop it, Harry!" I wheeze.

"No, you're still mad at me."

"Fine! I'm not mad anymore!"

"I don't believe you."

He keeps me at the mercy of his fingers and starts to tickle me harder, probing the most sensitive areas along my waist. My twisting and squirming prove to be pointless as his grasp is firm and he traps me between his kneeling legs.

"Stop tickling me!" I beg through uncontrollable giggles.

"What's the magic word?"

"Please!"

"Wrong one."

"Pretty please?" Tears are leaking from the corners of my eyes now. "Thank you? Abracadabra!?"

He throws his head back and laughs, the only time his attacks feel weaker.

"No, it's baby," he says.

"What?"

"Say, 'I'm not mad at you, baby, and you're the best tutor in the world.'"

"I'm not mad at you, and you're the best tutor in the world!"

"Baby," he stresses. I'm going to kill this boy if he ever lets me go.

"Baby!"

"Say it all."

I clamp my eyes shut and practically scream, "I'm not mad at you, baby, and you're the best tutor in the---"

He muffles me with his lips, and finally relents from the tickle war. While he blindly fumbles to take the black square frames off my face, something in my head tells me this isn't a good idea. It's a quiet voice, reminding me of what happens when I fall for boys who are too charming and too good at kissing and holy hell, is Harry good at kissing. My eyes are shut but I can feel that unmistakably adorable smile as he softly massages his lips against mine, over and over, and that disapproving voice grows quieter and quieter until I can't hear it at all.

Hold on... why was I yelling a minute ago?

I don't know how much time passes as I lay there locked in his arms, but it doesn't feel like long enough when I tap something with my foot and it slides off my bed with a thump. We both snap up and see my textbook on the ground, flipped open upside down.

My head collapses back on the pillow. After a brief moment of recovery, from both the soreness in my sides and the breathlessness of his kiss, I quietly ask, "Do you really think I'm uptight?"

He turns his attention back to me, his emerald crystal eyes wandering all over my features. "No, of course not," he gently says. "I was being a dickhead and I'm sorry."

After a peck on my forehead, he hops off the bed and starts toward the door. "Now that 'work hard' is finished, it's time for 'play hard,'" he calls while racing down the hall and motioning for me to follow.

I get up and stand in front of the window, surveying the fresh blanket of snow outside. "Do we really have to go out?" I holler over my shoulder.

He doesn't reply. After shrugging on a couple thick layers, I follow him out and find him waiting at the cracked-open front door.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

"I don't know," he says, a tiny smirk entertaining his face.

"We're not doing anything illegal again, are we?" I ask, remembering our break-in of the world-renowned Membley Stadium.

"Most likely not," he says as we pad down flights of stairs.

"So where are we going?" I repeat.

He turns and looks at me with serious eyes. "I honestly haven't got a clue. But that's the fun part, trust me."

Notes