Nora woke up sandwiched in a bed with Josh on her right and Harry on her left. She couldn’t remember how she got there. She couldn’t remember much of the previous night at all. All she knew was she drank too much and she kissed Harry Styles willingly. A very lethal combination.
Nora sat up between the two boys and saw Jon and Dan in the other hotel bed in the room with Zayn passed out on the couch. And Sandy, Liam, Louis and Niall weren’t anywhere in sight.
She quietly and carefully scooted herself off the end of the bed, trying her best to not wake up either of the guys next to her. Once her feet hit the floor, she tip-toed to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She couldn’t even see very well, her vision was so hazy. She looked like hell and she was literally fighting with her own mind to remember what happened after the fireworks.
She turned on the sink faucet, splashing water on her face to try and wake herself up a little bit. She had no idea what hotel room was supposed to be hers. She had no idea where her luggage was. She had no idea where the buses even were. She felt so lost.
Breaking her from her frantic thoughts, was a quiet knock on the bathroom door. Nora froze instantly staring at the back of the closed door.
“Nora?” She heard Harry through the door.
Her heart sped up at the sound of his voice and a part of her was hoping he was drunk enough to forget the whole night too – to forget they made out against the side of the bathroom at the 4th of July festival.
She slowly pulled open the door, as her eyes washed over him. She couldn’t deny that he held so many attractive qualities in the morning – from his tousled hair to his sleepy eyes, even the croak in his deep voice was sexy.
“How are you doing?” He smirked at her. She bit her lip and shook her head as she closed her eyes momentarily.
“That bad? You’re not going to vomit are you?” He asked with a concerned look on his face.
“No. I just… I… I don’t remember last night,” she told him.
“At all?” He asked.
“At all,” she repeated, exaggerating a bit.
“What’s the last thing you do remember?” He asked.
“Uh… drinking at that bar thingy,” she lied.
“You don’t remember the fireworks?” He asked, looking slightly disappointed.
“No,” she told him, barely remembering paying attention to them. She mainly just remembered the sound of them, the booming and rumbling in her chest as her tongue was down Harry’s throat.
“You don’t remember us taking a walk?” He asked carefully.
She bit her lip and shook her head ‘no’. His face fell even more and she knew why – because of the kiss. Because she just lied to him and told him she didn’t remember the kiss. But she was in no position to reminisce with him about something like that – something that could get her fired.
“Oh,” he said taking a step back.
“I… how did we even get here?” she asked him.
“A cab,” he said quietly.
“Oh.” She nodded. Now that was something she actually didn’t remember. It was all a little hazy once she and Harry met back up with the group.
“Um, I… I don’t know which room is supposed to be mine,” she told him awkwardly.
Nora watched as he dug his hand into the back pocket of his dark skinny jeans and revealed a plastic key card.
“One-eleven,” he said handing it to her.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, grabbing it from him. He nodded and backed out of the bathroom doorway completely, letting her go passed him to the door of the hotel room.
“Hey, Harry,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Thanks for making sure I got back alright,” she told him.
He nodded his head, his eyes falling away from hers. Nora’s vision lingered on him for a few moments before she opened the hotel door and fled the room.
Her opinion about Harry hadn’t changed much, but she could see little admirable qualities in him and wondered what else would come forth in the coming weeks and months. What kind of man would he be to her by the end?

Harry stood in the hotel bathroom shaving as Liam walked in with his toiletries, eyeing him through the mirror. He could hear Louis singing Michael Jackson in the shower and rolled his eyes getting slightly annoyed that he couldn’t just have a few minutes alone to get ready in the morning.
“What are you staring at me for?” Harry stopped mid-shave to ask Liam, looking at him through the mirror.
“Nothing,” Liam said, looking down at the shaving cream he squirted in his hands before he began lathering his face up with it.
“Hmm,” Harry hummed, rinsing his razor before he came up to shave another strip of his face.
“What happened with you and Nora last night?” Liam asked boldly. Harry stopped again to glare at him in the mirror.
“What makes you think anything happened?” He growled through his clenched jaw.
“Uh, the fact that she told Niall you two went off so she could go to the loo and you told me you two went off because she was hungry,” he explained, realizing their separate explanations didn’t matched up.
“And it’s so far-fetched that she was hungry and had to go to the loo?” Harry asked, furrowing his brow in anger at him.
“And you’re just such a gentleman that you went with her to do both?” Liam spat at him sarcastically.
“Would you have rather she went alone? She was completely pissed, Liam,” Harry scoffed at him.
“And I bet you just enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Liam asked narrowing his eyes at his mate.
“Christ,” Harry growled, ignoring him as he went back to shaving his face.
Louis got out of the shower with his towel already wrapped around his waist.
“Why was it you that went with her?” Liam pressed on.
“She asked me, okay! Jesus fucking Christ,” Harry growled.
“Whoa,” Louis said, looking between the two of them in the mirror.
Harry quickly finished shaving, not putting as much detail into it that he had been and washed the rest of the shaving cream off his face. He threw the towel onto the sink, giving Liam one last glare in the mirror before he stalked out of the bathroom.
Apparently nothing happened between them anyway because Nora didn’t fucking remember.

When Nora got on the bus that morning, she felt all kinds of awkward. For one, it would be back to business as usual with the tour. And for two, she would be around Harry in close quarters. One thing she was grateful for was that it was a travel day. She hadn’t bothered really getting ready for the day – wearing sweats and her hair up in a messy ponytail.
Harry, Niall, and Zayn were already in the bus, sitting at the table eating cereal and she could hear Louis laughing in the back lounge. As far as she knew, Liam and Paul were back there too, but she hadn’t gotten any proof in the matter.
Her eyes locked with Harry’s the moment she walked on the bus. He stared back at her just the same, except there was no smile on his face, not even his usual devious smirk. Nothing. She turned her lips up into a small smile and he followed suit, but looked away almost as quickly.
“Nora, are you hungry? We’ve got Froot Loops,” Niall smirked at her.
“Sure,” she smiled back at him, sitting down next to Harry in the only open seat.
She poured herself a bowl of cereal and began eating as Niall shoveled the rest of his cereal into his mouth and Zayn scrolled through his phone ideally. Harry ate his cereal casually, not making a single sound. And it was so unlike him. Nora was beginning to realize she really knocked his ego when she claimed she didn’t remember what happened the night before.
“Did you have fun last night, Nora?” Niall asked her with a big smile on his face.
“Uh, yeah,” she nodded, looking around awkwardly at Harry and Zayn, and then back at Niall.
“You were pretty funny,” Niall chuckled.
“Was I?” She smirked at him awkwardly.
“I thought so,” he told me.
“She doesn’t remember last night,” Harry said, sucking down the leftover milk in his cereal bowl.
“You were really that far gone?” Zayn asked, looking up at her from his phone.
“Uh, I think it was that last jeg-bomb,” she said quietly.
“What did you guys do once we got back to the hotel?” Niall asked.
Nora immediately looked over at Harry and Zayn waiting for an answer since she legitimately did not remember that part of the night.
“I don’t know. Just hung out in the guys’ hotel room. It was pretty chill,” Harry shrugged.
“You didn’t… you didn’t stay up?” She asked Niall.
“Nah. I was really tired,” he told her.
“Are we ready to hit the road?” Paul called out as he walked toward them from the back of the bus. They gave him a whole chorus of yes’s as he reached the table.
“Did you have fun last night? How were the fireworks?” He asked, looking down at them.
“Great,” Nora heard Harry say bitterly and she felt a twinge in her heart for him because she knew she was making him feel like shit.
“Glad to hear it,” he chuckled as he walked up to the driver.
“Can I get up?” Harry grumbled at Nora moments later.
“Oh. Yeah,” she said awkwardly, pulling herself up quickly to let him out of the booth.
He didn’t even flinch or look in her direction and it almost made Nora feel incomplete.

“You missed a spot,” Nora said, pointing at Harry’s cheek as she walked into the front lounge later that day. It looked like he shaved that morning but completely missed a patch.
“Oh well,” he grumbled, swatting at her hand.
Nora took her usual spot on the couch, looking at him oddly. She’d never seen Harry so despondent in all the weeks they spent together and she couldn’t help but be bothered by it. And even miss his attention a little.
“Hey, did I do something?” She asked, furrowing her brow at him, watching as he put all his focus on the phone in his hands.
“What are you on about?” He asked looking up at her just long enough to send her an odd look before looking back down at this phone.
“You’re… you’re just being really cold. I thought… I thought we got passed this,” she pointed out hesitantly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dismissively, not even looking up from his cell phone screen.
“That’s what I am talking about,” she pointed out.
“What?” He asked looking up at her.
“You’re ignoring me. Yesterday you would have joked around with me or hit on me. Today it’s like I don’t even exist with you,” she explained.
“I’m cool,” he shrugged.
“Yeah. You are,” she said sarcastically, feeling really shitty about everything.
Secretly, she was praising herself for lying about not remembering the kiss. She couldn’t imagine how it would be if that awkwardness would have been brought into the situation. She pulled herself up from the couch and walked to her bunk, ignoring Harry the same way he was ignoring her.

Nora spent an awkward day and a half on the bus feeling so incredibly out of place. She spent most of her time in her bunk, trying her hardest to ignore Harry. But by the time they finally reached their next destination, she was going stir crazy. She felt like she had been buried alive just living in her tiny bunk.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked her when they finally got outside.
“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine. I just can’t stand to be on that bus for one more second,” she told him truthfully.
“I know what you mean,” he laughed as they moved toward the luggage compartments under the bus, where the crew was already starting to unload things.
Liam pulled out the big suitcase of all Nora’s work supplies and sat it upright for her on the ground.
“Thanks,” she said smiling at him weakly, as her vision cut away to Harry, who had just stepped off the bus, looking around with his black Ray-bans on.
Nora shook her head, pursing her lips as she grabbed onto the handle of the suitcase and started walking toward the venue.
“HARRY!” She heard a girl screech and realized it was Alexis, one of Camryn’s dancers. She constantly clung to him and it was so annoying.
“Hey, what’s up?” She heard Harry’s deep voice as she caught a glimpse of him walking up to her and another dancer named Dani.
Nora scoffed to herself as she moved quickly inside. She needed to just focus on her job and not that little bastard who’d been occupying her thoughts for far too long. She was directed to the bands large dressing room right away, where the crew already loaded in the tour furniture and boxes of things that made their dressing room their own.
She immediately began unpacking things, and setting them up. Her job wasn’t hard, but it sure was tedious. She had fallen into a routine, always unpacking the coffee pots, and getting them percolating right off the bat as she unpacked everything else. It was a lot of work for just a few hours of use, but this was what their hard earned money paid for – a lifestyle of everything they wanted at the tips of their fingers.
As people started trickling into the room, it began to feel like normal again – loud conversations and chaos. When Harry, Alexis and Dani walked into the room talking and laughing with one another, Nora couldn’t help but be bothered by it. Harry thought Alexis was one of the most annoying girls on the planet and it seemed to her like he was only hanging out with them to prove a point. And she knew it was a point directed at her. She also knew it was something she shouldn’t care about, but she did. It ate away at her as she tried to do her job.
The sounds of Alexis’ obnoxious laughter every time Harry said anything was too much for Nora to handle, so she left the gathering room and went to work on setting up the guys’ more intimate dressing room.
All the crates with their wardrobe had arrived and Nora slowly opened each and every one of them, pulling out the steamer to work on their clothes for that nights show. As she finished up Liam and Niall’s clothes, she moved onto Harry’s trying hard not to think about that stupid kiss that they shared on the 4th of July. She didn’t want to think about how close to perfect it was as the fireworks boomed in the sky. She didn’t want to think about how it affected her and how it hadn’t left her mind since.
“Oh,” she heard and her head shot quickly to the dressing room door to find Harry walking into the room. Nora’s wide-eyes just stared at him as she felt flustered in his presence.
“What?” He asked, looking up at her.
“Nothing,” she scoffed, turning back to steaming his clothes.
It annoyed her that he was in there – that he couldn’t just leave her alone like he’d been for nearly two days. Why couldn’t he just have turned and walked back out the door when he saw her? It would be so much easier.
“What are you doing?” He asked from over her shoulder.
“Jesus Christ!” Nora yelped, jumping nearly two feet as he startled her.
“Sorry,” Harry smirked and chuckled lightly.
“What do you want?” She snapped at him as she took her place back in front of his luggage crate.
“Nothing,” he said eyeing her. She couldn’t help but eye him back suspiciously.
“What?” He laughed.
“Why do you even hang out with that Alexis girl?” She asked him snidely.
“Why do you care?” He smirked, cocking his eyebrow at her. The old Harry was back, the Harry who prided himself in getting a rise out of her.
“I don’t care,” she scoffed, going back to steaming the sleeve of his button down.
“Sure you don’t,” he chuckled lightly and she sent him a glare.
“I don’t get you,” he continued on.
“What don’t you get?” She shot back at him.
“Why you’re trying so hard to act like you’re not jealous,” Harry told her. Nora’s head snapped in his direction and caught his stupid grin.
“You’re ridiculous,” she scoffed.
“You’re acting as if everything I do isn’t affecting you, as if you don’t have a thing for me,” he said, smiling deviously at her.
“Uhhh-ckk,” she scoffed dramatically as she tried her best to ignore him.
Harry didn’t like that, grabbing the steamer attachment out of her hand and turning off the machine.
“What are you doing?” She growled at him.
“Stop,” he told her firmly and she looked up into his eyes like she was under some spell.
“Stop pretending,” he told her.
“I’m not—” She started to protest.
“Stop,” he said again, moving in just a little closer. Nora didn’t know why, but she immediately obeyed his command, closing her mouth.
“You kissed me and you liked it,” he breathed out seductively. Nora sighed, trying her best to come up with an excuse in her head that he might believe.
“I only kissed you because you were there. Because you were being nice for a change. You’re never nice and you were being nice that night. So I kissed you,” she said, rolling her eyes as she rambled without thinking of the consequences. When she looked back at him, his eyes were wide, staring at her.
“You remember it?” He asked, his voice full of disbelief. Nora’s eyes went wide, remembering the lie she told him about not remembering.
“You fucking remember,” he shot at her.
“I-I…” She stammered, not sure what to say.
“How long have you remembered?” He asked and she scoffed, trying to avoid his question. But she should have known better. Harry wasn’t one to let things go.
“Seriously, how long have you remembered?” He asked more firmly, more demanding.
“All along,” she admitted quietly, trying to avoid his piercing stare. Harry scoffed and she finally looked up at him.
“Why did you lie?” He asked, his eyes looking angry or hurt or something.
“Because…” She said quietly.
“Because why?” He demanded.
“I don’t fucking know!” She shouted at him.
“Because you liked it,” he said, letting a smirk dance across his face.
“Fuck you,” she scoffed, completely annoyed with him.
“Admit it, Nora. You kissed me and you fucking liked it,” he pressed, letting out a dark little laugh.
“Yeah, I fucking liked it, okay. But fuck you, because… just fuck you,” she scoffed, turning to walk away from him.
“Nora,” Harry said grabbing her arm and spinning her to him, so their bodies pressed together. His arms pulling her even closer to him.
“Harry…” She whimpered as his eyes searched hers.
And as if his mind contemplated it long enough, his mouth pressed against hers firmly, and she found herself kissing him back. His tongue moved fluidly with hers and she felt herself melting, her hands gripping tightly to the front of his t-shirt. She didn’t want to stop. She really didn’t. But she knew this was ridiculous. She was playing with fire. Harry just so happened to be the fire and he was going to burn her if she didn’t stop.
“Just… just—” She said, pushing against his chest, breaking the kiss.
“What?” He shot at her, staring at her for an answer.
“YOU’RE GOING TO GET ME FIRED!” She screamed at him, pushing against his chest harder, breaking free of his grasp.
“You’re not—” He started.
“Who the fuck are you going to mess with when I get sent home because of you, huh? Why do you have to do this? Why can’t you just leave it alone?” She yelled at him.
“Because I don’t want to,” he told her honestly.
“Well, you’re a fucking dick, Harry,” she spat at him and hurried out of the room.
Suddenly Nora found herself missing Harry’s silent treatment, because normal Harry was way too much for her to handle.

Notes

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