✓ lights /styles au/

18 Collarbones

(A/n: [unedited] Slow chapter. Forgive me.)

maybe i was willing to give everything for you.

The human body goes through so many defense mechanisms. One of them is shivering.

Josephine was shivering. Her nerves were traveling from the expanse of her body to her brain until her muscles were contracting and expanding in speedy and quaky spurts. Her hands were shaking with nerves that seemed to know it was below 0° F, and her body was shivering because it was a defense mechanism against the cold.

Her jaw was shakily chattering when something was laid on her shoulders from behind. All she smelled was Harry from the leather jacket, but when she turned, she saw Niall looking down at her with his hands in his pockets.

She vacantly looked at him, ignoring her ringing phone because she was passive aggressive and ignoring problems was a defense mechanism against people she was mad at.

"He's calling me too," Niall said quietly while they walked on the curb past too many cars. Joey kept looking at them and wondering which one was his and which one she was going to be sitting in while he drove to the parking lot government stored her car. She was forced to pay the ticket hours earlier.

She grimaced. "How do you have his jacket?"

"Grabbed it before we left his apartment."

Joey took lead in front of him, biting down the chilly air and trying to settle herself by rubbing her hands together. Like that would somehow warm the rest of her body. She was shocked when her arm was taken back, making her fall back into Niall's chest. "What is it?" She asked, still sensitive from being rejected by Harry. She felt mistreated and definitely didn't appreciate being grabbed and pulled back.

"My bike is right there," he said softly.

Her eyes widened as she took in the motorcycle sitting on the street. With a shake of her head, she turned to look at him. "I can't go on motorcycles."

"Why not?"

"They're dangerous and I'm not allowed to risk my life like that," she said. Surely it was an obvious answer. She had a family that forbade it and she wasn't allowed to disappoint them.

"What are you- twelve?" He walked over to the two wheeled contraption and picked up his helmet.

The towing place wasn't far away, she bargained. It would be impossible to get into an accident since the streets were so empty and the drive wasn't very long. She took one step forward and held her hand out, looking at him in confusion when he began to lift the only helmet on the bike to his head.

"What do you want?" His voice broke through the silence, blue eyes more intense than ever in the growing dark of the night. He hadn't cleaned the bloody mess above his split eyebrow properly and she noticed it as the street lamp light hit his face.

"The helmet please," she tightened her (Harry's) jacket around her still-shaking body.

"I only have one and I feel safe wearing it," he explained, swinging a leg over the seat and settling his gloved hands over the handlebars.

Jo made a face at him and forgot that he could see it. Decided she really didn't care that it was unappealing. "That's great. Really," she nodded. "But I uh, I'm new to this and I'm not getting on without that helmet."

Niall's shoulders hunched forward as he pulled the helmet away from the top of his head. For a moment, she thought he decided to give it to her, but he shook his head slowly; undecided. "This is my only helmet, though."