Carry On {A Harry Styles Love Story}

11.0 ; Stronger Souls.

11.0 ; stronger souls.

❝ the path into this heart

is littered with corpses

and strewn with body parts

of stronger souls than you,

of stronger souls than you. ❞

★ j e r s e y ☆

Josh Devine seemed like a nice enough guy, but it still made me a bit apprehensive to be meeting yet another brand new person. It appeared that he—thankfully—already knew I was tagging along and understood the situation, considering he easily accepted my minimalistic introduction—I probably could have done better than just, “Hi, I’m Jersey, where’s the bus?”—and simply started leading me out the door after abruptly handing me a random black amp, claiming I’d look less suspicious if I were carrying some equipment like he was. Liam and Zayn trotted ahead of us, capturing most of the attention of the awaiting Directioners so we could slip past without much difficulty.

My eardrums were instantly shattered by the desperate screams of young girls, ranging from preteens and little kids to teenagers and women even older than me. I found it both bizarre and sweet that they were so damn enthusiastic about these five idiots that they’d never even personally met before. Although, then again, I would probably act in a similar fashion if I ever met Max Bemis or Jon, Barry, or Mince Fratelli. In fact, just thinking about it made me grow a bit giddy.

Josh, ever the friendly musician, waved kindly to some of the fans and shouted out a couple greetings here and there, but he mostly just hurried along without stopping to say hello to them. Within about ten seconds or less, we had reached what was presumably the boys’ tour bus, which was more than I could say for the others. They would probably be stuck chatting up their rather copious abundance of fans for a good while now.  Thank God the bus was parked just right so the side with the door was parallel to the hotel, ensuring that the crowd wouldn’t be able to see me board it. Obscured by the large vehicle, Josh halted and turned to me. “Here, you can just set that down here.”

I hesitated. “You sure? I mean, I could carry it all the—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted with a pleasant smile. “It’s really no big deal. I’ll just come back for it. You can wait inside for the lads to catch up, okay?”

I returned his smile with a crooked one of my own from under the shadow of Niall’s snapback and gently set the large amp down on a smooth part of the blacktop, lightly wiping my palms off against the thighs of my—or rather Harry’s—skinny jeans. Wanting to chuckle at the fact that the only clothes that I was wearing that actually belonged to me were my underwear, I awkwardly extended my hand to Josh for him to shake, uttering a tentative, “It was nice to meet you.”

Catching me off guard, he dismissed my hand and instead pulled me into his arms, enveloping me in a friendly embrace. When he released me moments later, his smile had broadened into a cute grin that somehow reminded me of Louis. “Pleasure meeting you too, Jersey. Welcome to the family.”

For some reason, his simple words ignited a flush of elation that blossomed in the pit of my stomach, warming my insides. His kindness, in addition to everyone else’s, left me momentarily speechless, and before I could properly reply, he was already scurrying away at a busy pace, heading off to one of the other buses. I managed to call to his retreating figure, “Thank you!” before I turned towards the boys’ bus. Just as I did so, the door swung open and my head shot up to see yet another new face giving me a friendly smile. The man greeted me politely as I bounded briskly up the steps and ushered me inside the bus, reaching out to shut the door behind me.