In Session [h.s]

Chapter Nine

I'd known Harry Styles for a whopping six days. And in those six days I'd witnessed him in a multitude of states: freshly snogged and thus rattled with shock. Quietly calm under pressure. Stoic and serious when teaching. Gleeful and humorous when mocking me, which seemed to be a favourite pass time of his.

But the newest state I was experiencing, as he followed the directions I gave him to Jaspers house, was my least favourite.

Because right now, Harry Styles was a stone wall. Rigid and rough edges and tight lipped and, most unnerving of all, quiet.

Lucky, or unlucky for us, Jasper wasn't quiet.

He was absolutely wankered, sprawled out on the backseat of Harry's neat as a pin car, wreaking of vomit and expensive whisky.

"Don't listen to her," he kept garbling, "Ruth has an entirely woeful sense of direction. You wanted that last left."

Harry's hands grip the steering wheel and embarrassment rattles me.

"No," I grit my teeth. "We're going the quickest way."

Because I need you out of Harry's car as soon as possible, because the vein in his neck looks like it may burst imminently.

"Oh, bollocks, Ruth," Jasper says, lurching his uncoordinated body between the two front seats. He squints blindly at the road ahead of us, and I know full well he's too drunk to have any idea where we are. "It'll take us all night this way. Harry, mate, turn right up here."

"No. We need to take the second left."

"Right really is the fastest way."

"Jasper! It's the second left for goodness sake!"

"Someone is touchy this evening," Jasper says with a hideous snicker, sinking back into his seat. "Good look with her tonight, Mate."

Finally, Harry's wall of silence cracks. "I swear to god, Ruth," he says, pinning me with a hard stare, "If he calls me 'mate' one more time, I'm throwing him out of this car."

I gulp. I nod. Then I turn back to Jasper and fix him with my best no nonsense glare. The one I use on students who thinks it's funny to scribble 'Miss Moore has tits like bee-stings' on the desks.

"Did you hear that?" I snap, and Jaspers red and lazy eyes widen. "One more word out of that slimy mouth of yours, and you're sleeping on a grass verge. Now shut up."

Frantically he nods and does as told. Which is surprising, and must only be because he's drunk and vulnerable in the back of Harry's car, because Jasper had not once in our relationship taken anything I said seriously.

We drive like that, in stilted silence, for three more streets until we hear Jaspers rattling snores.

"Thank fuck," Harry sighs, rubbing a hand through his curls. He's rubbed at his face so much that the gold glitter once confined to his lids and cheekbones had spread all over. "If he kept talking I don't think you'd have been able to stop me from clocking him this time."

"Which reminds me," I turn in my seat to address him with seriousness. "What on earth were you thinking, trying to throw a punch at him back at Ida's?"

"Did you not hear the way he was talking to you?"

"Yes, thank you, Harry. I have ears!" Harry's jaw is hard, clearly as annoyed as I am. I take a moment to calm my self. "You would have lost your job."

His jaw ticks, but I see something vulnerable flash over his face. Shame. Maybe regret.

He sighs. "I know. It was a stupid thing to do. Just couldn't stand to hear him going on like that."