Olivia Salavan stared at the opposite wall, contemplating on how she would tell her daughter about her husband. It wouldn’t go well, that she could predict. Maybe she should think about booking a flight for herself and her daughter. Strike that. Maybe she should think about booking a flight just for her daughter.

She heard the screech of tires and knew her daughter had arrived. She only hoped that Amy was alone and not with her usual lap dogs. What were their names again? Either way Olivia couldn’t care less. She knew the two girls just put up with Amy’s attitude and mood swings hoping the popularity would rub off. But girls like these never make it to the top, she knew that from experience. They always remain nothing but suck-ups. Her daughter, however, would shine and succeed wherever she went; just like her mother had. Olivia would make sure of that.

She heard the front door open and turned to see Amy walk in with her two puppets. She noticed the shopping bags in the other girls’ hands and sighed in relief knowing that her job would be easier now that she knew her daughter was in a good mood. She got up from her chair and watched Amy halt in her tracks as she noticed Olivia.

“Mother?” Amy whispered, frowning as her body tensed. “You’re home early.”

“Yes. Do you think I could have a word with you, honey?” Her mother pointedly smiled at Amy’s two side-kicks who were as equally surprised as Amy was. They quickly scurried away with the shopping bags when Amy indicated them to head upstairs to her room.

Amy turned towards her mother and asked what was wrong without beating around the bush.

“It’s your father. He isn’t doing very well.” Olivia informed, her lips turning into a grim line. “The doctor says he doesn’t have much time.”

Amy blinked a couple of times in surprise and felt her throat clog at the thought of the strong and stubborn business tycoon bed-ridden. Her gaze focused back on her mother and she voided her face off of any emotion.
“And you want me to go see him so that I could get the power of attorney for the business and estates in my name.” Amy finished for her mother, her face hardening as she tried to hide the disgust in her voice.

Olivia flinched at her daughter’s blunt statement and looked away. She too felt the heaviness in her chest and wished she could run away from all these mixed feelings. Her face softened a little and she turned towards Amy.

“Your father and I had our differences but not even I am so inhuman, Amy. I thought I should let you know. In case you wanted to see him before….” Olivia couldn’t bring herself to complete the sentence as she felt her throat constrict.

“Oh. I see. So you’re telling me that you are genuinely feeling bad for the guy who cheated on you a thousand times? The same guy who slept with a wretched hotel maid, only to get her pregnant?”

“Hush! Lower your voice!” Her mother whispered angrily, checking to see if anyone was around. Olivia hoped that nobody else heard the ‘white’ lie she had told her daughter as a child to steer her clear of ‘that’ girl. But now, she felt embarrassed for associating her husband with such a woman. Despite his previous feelings towards that low born.

“I’m tired of hiding dad’s dirty little secrets. Okay? And I’m fucking tired of that stupid whore’s daughter trying to steal my man from me! Just like her mother tried to steal dad from you.” Amy announced, her face hardening.

Olivia frowned at her daughter’s outburst before asking, “What do you mean?”

“She’s trying to steal Harry away from me! You should see the way she eyes him up! Like he would ever look at a filthy nobody like her!” Amy gritted her teeth in frustration and balled her fists by her sides.

“Anne’s son? I didn’t know you two were seeing each other.” Olivia’s eyes sparkled as a new opportunity rose before her. She would have to pay Anne a visit soon.

“We would’ve been seeing each other if it wasn’t for this stupid bitch trying to grab Harry’s attention all the time.”

“Language, Amy!” Amy simply rolled her eyes to her mother’s scolding before the older lady continued. “How is she managing to get his attention? I thought you guys moved in different cliques?”

“We are! But she is dating Louis to get to Harry. And Louis has like super weird taste in women! Do you remember Maya? The girl who died two years ago from a drug overdose? Word was that Louis used to like her and even dated her a few times.”

Olivia Salavan watched her daughter plop down on the couch dramatically and pulling at her hair in frustration. She slowly walked to the couch and sat down beside her daughter. Grabbing both Amy’s wrists, Olivia pulled Amy’s hands away and gave her a warm smile.

“Now honey, don’t beat yourself over such a petty matter.”

“Please tell me you did not just call my problems petty!” Amy stood up and crossed her arms in indignation.

“Calm down, honey! I called it petty only cause you can easily rid yourself of this problem.” Olivia’s lips pulled into a satisfactory smirk when she noticed the dumbfounded look her daughter gave her.

“And how do you suggest I do that?”

“Simple! Just cut off her source of connection to Harry.” Olivia picked up a magazine as boredom clawed its way to her.

“You mean break her off with Louis?” Amy wondered why she had never thought of that.

“Either that…” Olivia shrugged, a sadistic smile appearing on her face as she finished. “Or get her to despise Harry to the point where she doesn’t chase him anymore.”

---

Chapter Playlist: Gravity by John Mayer

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Harry leant against the wall of the café and watched the manager take a drag from his cigarette. The old pervert had been eyeing up all the girls that entered and left the café since Harry had been watching. He wondered how Aria was working with this creep and hoped that the old perv didn’t have any ulterior motive when it came to her. Harry would snap the creep’s neck into two if he ever made a move on Aria.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and Harry took it out to find a text message from an unknown number. It read, ‘You said you’d help me out with Amy if I didn’t tell Li and Car about you and Ari. You haven’t bothered to even contact me.’

Harry sighed when he realized his promise to the highly intelligent and yet foolish Indian. Why he would even associate himself with Amy, Harry could not comprehend. Nikhil needed to find himself a quirky and sharp girl who shared his love for studying and books.

He typed in a reply, ‘Meet me near the park at 7 tonight.’

Harry checked his phone to see that it was time. He made his way through the alleyway and headed to the back of the café. Leaning against the wall next to the door, Harry waited for her to come out.

Aria grabbed the bag of trash and made her way outside. She swung the door open and without looking around, she lowered the black bag into the trash can. As soon as she turned, she was taken by surprise when a hand wrapped around her mid-riff and pulled her against something solid. She would’ve yelped if she hadn’t recognized his fragrance instantly.

She turned around to check if she was right, however, heaving in some much needed breath. Her eyes met the beautiful sight of the curly haired, green eyed boy with his dimples on full display. She felt her heart do a somersault and her lips curve up to a smile on its own. His eyes were a mixture of grey and green again today and it made him look even more attractive. Winter suited him.

Aria wrapped her arms around his neck and leant her body against his.

“Hey, you!” He whispered, stealing a quick peck from her as she giggled.

“Hi!” She replied, stifling a moan as he began trailing his lips against her neck. His hands explored her clothed body in frustration, cussing the weather for not giving him the opportunity to touch her bare skin. Her breath came out in puffs and Harry captured her soft red lips once more to bring some warmth into her body.

“When can I start coming to your place again? It’s been a week, babe. I hate trying to sneak kisses between classes.” Harry groaned, when she pulled away and chuckled at his expense.

“Mom still checks my room every night, Harry. It’s still too risky.”

Harry sighed in frustration and looked up at the heavens for patience.

“B= but my grandparents are c- coming home for Christmas!” Aria tried to cheer him up. She didn’t want him to be mad at her. She couldn’t lose him, that’s all she knew. She was already losing enough people as it was.

Her father had refused to return back when she had called but had instead promised to phone her every day. She had kept in touch with him just because she couldn’t bear the thought of him being upset with her. Then there were her best friends. Liana had stopped talking to her altogether; both in school and out of it. As for Carol, well…she was torn between being mad at Aria and trying to support her through all these ordeals.

Lastly, there was Louis. He had gone awfully quiet for the past few days. The first three days he would come to class, talk to only Niall and Zayn, and leave. Aria had tried to talk to him the first couple of days but he had pretended not to hear her or notice her. Aria had noticed that he had stopped coming to school in the last two days. To say she felt horrible would be an understatement.

If that wasn’t bad enough, she had been plagued by Amy and her group of friends like never before. Amy had taken it upon herself to seek vengeance for the shower incident that took place the previous week. So, she had gone all out to torture Aria and make her regret her decision of standing up against them. The tortures had ranged from throwing eggs at her while she had walked home to making her trip and fall on her butt infront of the entire school to pushing her in Chemistry so that her beaker of Hydrochloric Acid fell on the teacher, who had detained her for an entire month.

The only highlight of the entire week had been when Harry kept pulling her into empty classes randomly and kissing her senseless. While she did wish he’d kiss her infront of everyone, she didn’t want to be greedy and jinx what they had. She didn’t understand his reason to hide what they had from the world but she respected his decision to go slow.

“And how does that make the situation any better?” Harry queried, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, if they come, my mom is gonna be busy tending them and won’t be able to concentrate as much on me!” Aria smiled, hoping it would make Harry relax a bit.

“Are you sure? What if all of em decide to put their attentions on you instead?”

“They won’t! Just… trust me. Okay?” Aria tried to distract him by leaning in for a kiss but Harry had other things on his mind.

“What about your dad? Did he say anything about coming back for Christmas?”

Aria sighed and shook her head, her mood leaping downwards by the minute.

“Hey! I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to make you upset. I was just concerned…”

“I know!” Aria bit down on her lips and gave him a sad smile. Harry rested his gloved hand behind her head and began pulling her into a kiss. However, it was broken by the voice of Aria’s fellow colleague shouting for her from inside the cafe.

“ARIA? WHERE’D YOU GO? ARIA!”

The two of them heard the voice grow louder, indicating that someone was coming. Both of them split up; Harry ducked behind the trash can while Aria stood just in front of the back door to hide Harry from view. The door swung open and one of the temp popped out her head.

“What are you doing here? Everyone’s looking for you inside!”

“Umm- I was just taking out the trash. Why’s everyone looking for me?”

“Oh! Some guy walked in the café and kept asking for you! Said he needed to see you urgently. He wouldn’t leave until he saw you but the boss man managed to convince him to wait outside at the parking lot while we got you! What did the guy say his name was again?” The temp scratched her head before snapping her fingers together. “Oh. That’s right! Ryan!”

“Ryan?” Aria felt her heart drop and soar simultaneously at the thought of Ryan being in town again. “Are you quite sure he said ‘Ryan’?”

“Duh! Do I look deaf to you?” The temp crossed her arms and began walking away. Aria followed after her, without giving Harry another thought.

Harry found himself frowning at what he had just heard. Who the fuck was this Ryan? And what did he want with Aria? He slowly made his way to the front and cautiously walked towards the parking lot. As he reached the lot his blood turned cold at what he saw.

Aria stood in the middle of the lot, in the tight embrace of another guy.

---

Notes

A/N: Hi, my loves! :) It's been ages since we last updated the story! Almost 2 months now! We know you probably want to murder us but we apologize for being total asswipes!:( We hope this super quick and grammatically incorrect update will make up for it somewhat. We promise we'll make it up for the inconvenience that we have caused all of you! So, we've decided that we will be updating both BL and TOYT once a week from now on.:) en awfully quiet lately! So, here's what we are gonna do!
We'll set up some questions for each chapter and want you to answer them! The more you answer and share your P.O.Vs the more we'll be inspired to write! :D So....

Questions: What do you think of Olivia Salavan? What do you think Amy will do to set Harry and Aria apart? Do you think things will get better or worse for Aria with time? Why do you think Ryan's back? How do you think Harry will take what he saw in the parking lot?

Most importantly, do you like this side to Harry?

AND, AND, AND.............Should we shorten the story or keep it in its original length? -N.K

Please answer, vote and subscribe for the next update!! :D Love you guys to bits and pieces! <3

P.S- Shoutouts next chapter! ;)