Illicit [Harry Styles]

Chapter 15

I found myself waking up to darkness. It wasn't exactly pitch black but the room was still very dark, I expected it to be around seven am at least, and a few minutes of curiosity passed before I decided to find out. I reached for my phone and as I clicked the home button I squinted as the dazzling light coming from the screen hit my face and temporarily blinded me. I tried to recover and adjust to the new light and finally I read that it was only five, meaning I'd probably been asleep for only three hours or so. I always found that when I drank I was extremely tired but couldn't sleep very easily; I'd learned in psychology that alcohol made it usually impossible to enter the deepest stages of sleep.

I sighed as I unlocked my phone and browsed through all my social media, obviously finding that there was nothing new after four hours ago since everyone was rightfully sleeping. I placed my phone under the pillow and rolled over to find Harry lying on his back (much too close to my side), still snoring softly with his mouth parted and a few stray curls covering his face. The blanket was half way down his body and I tried to occupy myself by studying the tattoos on his chest and arms through the darkness but they just looked like various black shapes.

Suddenly he began to roll over towards my side and I screwed my eyes shut to look asleep incase he was waking up, but when he stopped moving he was still again and now he was practically lying on top of me. Uncomfortable and wanting to regain my personal space, I nudged him in the hopes of stirring him a little so that he'd roll over but hopefully not waking him up. When he didn't respond to my light nudges I accidentally pushed at him too hard and he took in a sharp breath and groaned in response. I shut my eyes again and stilled as he moved across the mattress away from me and got comfortable, hoping that he wouldn't know what was going on and just go back to sleep.

"Jess?" his deep voice croaked, it was laced with sleep and sounded gravelly since he'd just been woken up in the middle of the night by a rough shove to the side. "Jess, are you awake? Did you just... did you just elbow me in the ribs?"

"Sorry," I whispered sheepishly, "You were lying on me."

"Oh... sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"No, no. I was already awake and you rolled onto me. I didn't mean to wake you up, sorry."

"It's okay," he sighed breathily, "Why are you awake? What time is it?" He groaned the last part with slight annoyance.

Both of our voices were just above a whisper, apart from the fact his was throaty and thick so it sounded hard for him to talk quietly and actually manage to get the sound past his chest at the same time. I continued to lay with my eyes closed since I couldn't see a lot anyway, and I'm assuming Harry was rubbing his with his fists because I could sense his movement.

"It's like... half five, I can't sleep."

"Why not?" he questioned. He almost sounded concerned.

"Don't know. I find it hard to sleep when I've been drinking." Harry exhaled in a sleepy laugh in response and I smiled despite him not being able to see me. "Are you going back to sleep?" I felt like a child at a sleepover once again but I asked nonetheless.

"Was planning on it. Why, do you wanna... talk?"

"No it's okay I feel bad for waking you up," I said with a hint of embarrassment.

"You're lying - you do want to. If you want to talk, we'll talk. What do you wanna talk about?"

"I don't know."

"I feel like I'm thirteen again, at a sleepover, chatting in the middle of the night and hoping we don't get caught and shouted at by my mum for being awake late," he said absentmindedly.