Impact (H.S. AU) (COMPLETED)

16 * DANCE * 16

HARRY

I wake up to an empty bed and sit up, looking around the room. Where could she have gone this early? I drag myself out of bed and shove my legs through a pair of pajama pants to hear voices coming from the kitchen. I walk out to see her and Niall leaning across from each other on the counter, laughing as they make breakfast together.

I take a step back and observe, not wanting them to see me right away. It's crazy seeing Niall look this happy as he mixes pancake batter and Jess drops blueberries into the bowl. She tosses a few into his mouth, seeing how far back she can stand with him still catching them. I can't help but grin when I see them getting along, nearly in a daze as I hear her call my name.

"Harry? Come on, you want to help make pancakes?" She asks, gesturing to the hot pan in front of her.

"Oh, Harry's the best pancake flipper ever." Niall beams.

Niall looks at me expectantly and I stroll into the kitchen with a smile, taking the spatula from him with a smirk and bumping Jess out of the way.

"Let me show you how it's done, dollface." I laugh, pouring the batter into a perfect circle.

I wait for it to solidify on the one side and then back up with the pan in my hand, making sure I have plenty of room. I toss the pan up expertly and the pancake flips in the air, landing once again in the pan perfectly. I set it back on the stove and turn to Jess with an unapologetic bow. She claps, throwing her head back in laughter before shoving me back out of the way and putting the first pancake on a plate and pouring another in the pan.

The rest of the week goes a lot like this. Jess and Niall get along better than I ever would have guessed, always watching TV together or making food and dancing in the kitchen. A lot of the time I get dragged into joining them which results in a burnt batch of cookies and more playlists to be made on my phone to blast from the Bluetooth speaker in the living room.

Miles drives Jess to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we have math in the morning and despite hating her get in his car, I keep my cool. One night I run water down the driveway from the hose before going to bed when I see a freeze warning overnight on the news. The next morning, he nearly slipped walking to the door, his legs wobbling all the way up the driveway. Jess punched me in the arm and tried to be mad, but she was laughing at him just as hard as I was.

Being her assistant at work was the best part of my day. Sometimes she called me into her office just because she wanted to talk to me. Other times we would take turns doing dramatic readings of the manuscripts we were editing to pass the time and stay awake while reading through them. I still retreated to her office to smoke twice a day and one time she even asked to try it which lead to a coughing fit and chugging a bottle of water to get the taste out of her mouth.

Spiro's had become our regular dinner place and she was finally getting a bit adventurous with her food choices. Nonna loved her and every time we walked in the door she excitedly sat us at a booth in the back. She brought us desserts to try each time and warned us that we better tell her if they're bad. I knew for a fact that Jess would never tell Nonna that anything she made tasted bad even when she nearly gagged on a slice of prune pie.

The rumors about our relationship continued and multiple times I had to set a few people straight when they insisted that Jess was lying about us just being friends. One day after literature we were approached by a group of Omega Tau brothers that asked what she was like in bed. She dragged me away and assured me that she didn't care what other people thought before I could get a single punch in.

If we were best friends before the bet, I don't know what we are now. We spend every waking minute together. We study for math tests together, we still argue over the bathroom together, go out to dinner together, and party together. After her constant insisting to go to parties with me and Niall, I finally said she could come, but we made a pact first. She promised to only drink from bottles she opened herself or drinks I made her, nothing else. She had to stay in my line of vision, not right next to me or anything but within the same area so I could keep an eye on her. She rolled her eyes but agreed anyways. From then on, we ran every party we went to.