Just Friends || h.s.

32

***Song: To Be So Lonely by Harry Styles

• • •
Harry

"Gift time!" Gemma exclaimed with excitement, bouncing up and down in her seat at the table. I find it hard to believe she's almost twenty-five.

Riley's party was today. Maddie was kind enough to make dinner for everyone and allow the party to be at her place since it was slightly bigger than ours.

It was around eight at night and we had all finished the chicken Parmesan she had made, so I helped Maddie gather the dishes and brought them to the sink with her, taking the sponge from her hand and hip-bumping her out of the way. My lips held a grin as I bit down on the bottom one when she let out a gasp.

"Harry, you got soap in my hair!" She says through a giggle, trying to take the sponge back from me. Having the advantage of being much taller, I hold my arm up and look down at her as he huffed and gave up on trying.

"Thank you for the amazing dinner, but now it's time you sit your cute little ass down and let me do the dishes in return." I argued, still finding it hard to put my damn smile away.

"But it's my apartment." She tried arguing, but sighed in defeat when I was left unfazed. "You're annoying."

"I know." I wink at her, bringing my arm back down and looking away after I saw her roll her eyes with the smile I adore on her lips.

She walked out of the kitchen and gathered any other dishes left on the table, but my mum took them from her and told her to take a break, noticing her movements were slow due to the tenderness in her shoulders.

My mum walked into the kitchen and put the leftover dishes into the sink as I scrubbed a plate.

"Don't think I didn't see you two." She says with a smirk, placing her hand on her hip and the other on the counter.

"What?" I questioned, hiding my smile because I knew what she was referring to. I certainly felt something as it was happening.

"You know what I am talking about." She chuckled. "I miss you two together. I can see how happy you make each other."

As fast as my smile grew, it fell just like that into a frown. "We're friends, mum." I tell her, more to myself than anything. But it made me think back to a few years ago when I had the same exact conversation with Gemma.

• • •
June 27, 2016

"Wait, so Ferris isn't actually sick?" I asked Maddie in confusion, looking over at her as she sat next to me on my couch, her eyes on the tv hanging on the wall.

"Obviously not." Maddie snorted, gesturing told the screen where teenage boy was on the phone with his friend. "I can't believe you've never watched this before. It's such a classic."

"It's totally unrealistic, Mads."

"That's the whole point, Harry. It's a movie, not reality." She says, looking over at me to see I was already looking over at her. I've been catching myself staring at her a lot, just admiring how beautiful she is.

Before she can ask why I was staring, I quickly came up with an excuse as to why I wasn't looking away. "Your curl is flat."