No Control (Book 1)

20. Save You Tonight

Callie arrived half an hour later, equipped with wine, Doritos and chocolate. She sat down at my kitchen table and opened the wine, poured 2 glasses and opened the bag of Doritos and began to munch.

"OK, shoot," she said.

"OK, so first of all, don't freak out," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't freak out over Harry Styles, you do."

"You might when you hear this," I said, twisting my fingers together.

She grinned at me and said, "I doubt it, but go on."

I took a deep breath. "I slept with him."

Callie looked at me blankly and crunched another Dorito. "Who?"

"Harry Styles."

Callie looked at me, expressionless. I could tell she thought I had finally lost the plot. I took another deep breath and continued, "A photographer snapped a picture of us leaving his place yesterday morning, and it's on the internet. You can't see my face but he followed me on Twitter and his psycho-fans have figured out it's me in the picture."

Callie just looked at me. I silently opened my laptop onto the Sugarscape article and turned the screen to face her. She began to read, her eyes slowly widening and her mouth dropping open. I reached for my phone and opened up Twitter, and put my phone on the table in front of her. When she got to the bottom of the article she wordlessly looked at my phone. Then she looked up at me. Her mouth was still open and her eyes were like saucers. It's the only time Callie has ever been speechless in her life.

"What the fuck...?" she breathed.

I smiled sheepishly and she broke into a grin, screamed and began stamping her feet in excitement. "Shhhh!" I giggled, thinking of my poor neighbours in the flat below.

"Oh my fucking God, Jess!" she squealed, jumping up and throwing her arms around me. "Why didn't you tell me???!!!!"

"I was just trying to process it all I think," I replied. "It still doesn't feel real."

Callie sat back down and took a large gulp of wine and immediately topped her glass up. "Sit," she ordered, pointing at the chair opposite. "Now, tell. Me. Everything. From the beginning. "

So I did. I recounted every second of the evening as best I could, and she was a brilliant audience, squealing and gasping in all the right places. I reached the end of the story and said, "So what am I supposed to do now?"

"Well first thing's first," she said, picking up my phone. "Turn those damn Twitter notifications off. They're doing my head in!" They had been pinging constantly for the last hour while we'd been talking. She fiddled about for a moment then put my phone down. "Done."

"Thanks," I said, gratefully. "But how do the girls know it's me in that picture? I haven't posted anything on Twitter for weeks."

"Well duh, there's your reason," Callie said. "It's obvious you're not just a random crazy fan. You don't spam him and you didn't gush all over him when he followed you. The Sugarscape article says he was out with a girl on Friday night, and was seen leaving his home with her on Saturday morning. He followed you late Friday night, so he was obviously with you when he did it. And you can see your hair in your Twitter picture is long, dark blonde and a bit wavy, which matches the picture in the article." She smiled triumphantly. "Mystery solved."

Now it was my turn to gape open-mouthed. Of course - why didn't I see it before? If I wanted to deflect the attention properly, I should have been more crazy. Oh well. If I started now it would be weird, and quite frankly I didn't have the energy to spam Harry 24/7. I would much rather spend my spare time watching One Direction videos or daydreaming about Harry Styles. When I'm not busy having a life, obviously.

"OK, o wise one. What should I do now?" I asked.

"Nothing," Callie replied. "If you react, you'll draw attention to yourself. If you keep quiet, they'll eventually leave you alone."

"But what if Harry thinks I've been talking to the media?" I said desperately.

"It's obvious you haven't. They don't have any concrete evidence," Callie reasoned. "You were seen in Lagoon and seen in his car. Nobody has confirmed or denied that. So he'll know it hasn't come from you. If he's even seen it at all."

"I hope he hasn't," I said.

"I doubt he reads Sugarscape," Callie smiled.

I smiled back, feeling relieved. I had needed someone to be the voice of reason and calm me down. "You're probably right," I agreed. "And it's not like I'm ever gonna see him again. I suppose he can think what he wants."

"Exactly. Now I don't know about you but this wine has made me hungry. Shall we get a takeaway for dinner?"

We spent the evening watching crap TV and eating a takeaway off our knees. Callie filled me in on her evening with James, and by 11pm we were both yawning. Callie left and I got my work clothes out ready for the next day and then fell into bed. I lay there for a while thinking.

Being totally honest with myself, I was a little bit disappointed he hadn't tweeted me back, but I also wasn't sure he'd seen my tweet. And even if he had, if he'd also seen the picture of us there was no way he would risk drawing attention to us. But still, the 1D fan in me was secretly wishing for a tweet.

I sighed and closed my eyes. It was time I stopped being so deluded. I had a busy week ahead of me at work and I needed to be focussed.