Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)

Chapter 44

‘You’re right,’ Harry tells him when Zayn opens the door to his suite. ‘I wasn’t listening.’

Zayn’s face lights up, then it falls when Harry doesn’t smile back. ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’ Harry asks when Zayn steps back to let him in.

Zayn ignores him, walking over to a sideboard and pouring himself a drink from one of the decanters. He knocks it back in one then pours himself another before turning to hold the decanter up to Harry. He refuses, too distracted by the suite. It’s gorgeous and almost the opposite of Coco’s. Where hers is delicate with chandeliers and painted wallpaper, his is wood panelled with a vast view of Hyde Park, which, even in the dark, looks utterly magical in the snow. But that’s not why he’s distracted as he watches Zayn down the second glass of scotch. He fucked Karl over that sideboard, so hard the decanters shivered, and on the dining table and over the arm of the sofa, and Harry suddenly feels sick as he wonders if Zayn did, too.

‘This is a £3,000 a night suite. Why are you staying here when you live ten minutes away?’ Harry asks and he doesn’t mean it to sound as bitter as it does, but he can’t stop thinking of Zayn and Karl, in here, fucking under Egyptian cotton sheets.

‘My parents were supposed to stay here,’ he explains, pouring himself another drink. ‘But they can’t come because of the snow. It seemed a shame to waste it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry says, guilt nudging at him.

‘Before you say whatever it is that you’re going to say.’ Zayn turns and points the glass at him. ‘Can I just say one thing?’ Harry really doesn’t want him to, terrified that he’ll lose his nerve, but Zayn doesn’t wait. ‘I know I fucked this up. I fucked this up so bad and I don’t know how it happened.’ He puts his other hand to his chest. ‘I swear. I didn’t mean for this to happen. If I had any control over it, I would have stopped it.’

Harry feels it like a needle in his throat.

‘I don’t know how this happened,’ Zayn says, his voice a little higher. ‘When I moved to London everything was perfect. And Coco.’ He stops to rub his forehead with his hand. ‘She was so sweet and funny and kind and I remember, about a month after we met, we were sitting on her sofa.’ He smiles suddenly, his gaze flicking to the window and when he goes on, his voice is softer – looser – as something in him is unraveling. ‘Always her sofa because she hates my house. She says it’s like an airport hanger and compared to her flat, I suppose it is.’ He tilts his head then catches himself, turning to look at Harry again. ‘Yeah. So we were sitting on her sofa watching a film, eating Ferrero Rocher, because they’re her favourite chocolates. Not the ones I had imported from Belgium that she said tasted like medicine, but the £10 ones I bought from a fucking petrol station.’

He stops and when he looks into his glass, Harry wants to tell him to stop because he can’t bear it, but he’s never heard him say so much. ‘Anyway. So we’re eating Ferrero Rocher and watching this shitty Mark Wahlberg film I made her watch in exchange for the chocolates, and I remember turning to her and thinking, why does no one love this girl? This sweet girl with the fringe that she can’t see for and the chipped yellow nail polish.’ He shrugs. ‘I must have said it out loud because she asked me the same thing and I was so stunned because no one has ever asked me that. People think that everyone loves me, but they don’t. They love Zayn Malik, number 17. They don’t love me, you know?’

He lifts his eyelashes to look at him and Harry nods.

‘So I thought, okay, it’s not perfect, but it’s enough.’ Zayn smiles to himself again. ‘So I made her this ring out of one of the gold wrappers and stuck the little Ferrero Rocher sticker in the middle of it and I thought it would be one of those stories we told, you know? When people asked, we could tell them about the ring I made her out of a Ferrero Rocher wrapper. And for a second, I was so happy. I don’t know how he knew.’ He shakes his head and sighs bitterly. ‘But Karl called that night and well, here we are and I’m sorry.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me, too.’ Harry nods, putting his hands on his hips and looking down at his feet. ‘But it’s not all your fault. I’ve been a pain in the arse. You’re right: I wasn’t listening this morning. You’re not trying to get rid of me. You want me to go to Paris because it’s what’s best for me, not you.’

Zayn’s shoulders fall. ‘Yes.’ He takes a step towards him. ‘The thought of never seeing you again makes me sick. I can’t even think about it. But I’m being selfish. I want both of you and why should I have it all when you get nothing? That isn’t fair.’

Harry looks at him for a moment as though he’s trying to memorise everything – the pink of his mouth, the curl of his eyelashes, the tiny mole on the bridge of his nose that looks like a dot of ink – but he knows that he’ll never be able to remember it all, that Zayn will always be this unknowable, untouchable thing he will spend the rest of his days writing about.

So Harry shrugs. ‘I guess that’s it.’

Zayn looks into his empty glass. ‘So are you gonna go?’

‘I don’t need to go to Paris to write a book. I can write one anywhere. It’s not that hard, apparently. Once upon a time, some shit happens, the end.’

Zayn laughs, his eyes suddenly brighter. ‘Whoever said that is very wise.’

‘I think it was Kafka.’

Harry waits for Zayn to laugh again, but when he doesn’t, just continues to gaze into his empty glass, he walks over to him and presses his forehead to his. The sudden shock of skin on skin is enough to knock the air right out of him, but when Zayn nudges him with his nose and says, ‘This can’t be it’ Harry’s sure he’ll never breathe again.

‘I know,’ he says, taking Zayn’s face in his hands and lifting his chin to look at him. ‘But the thing is, even if you chose me, I don’t think I could make you happy. I can’t even make myself happy. There was this guy-’ Harry starts to say, but has to stop as tears gather at the corners of his eyes. ‘Please be happy. That’s all I want. So if you think this is enough, do it. Get a house and a dog and a Volvo and be so happy that you can’t remember why you ever thought you’d be better off with me.’

Harry looks at him one last time then kisses him and when Zayn holds him, he thinks that he won’t let go. But he does, and that’s the last time Harry sees Zayn Malik.