the cool side of the pillow {styles au}

eleven

Cleo's POV:

Five seconds. That's how long it would have taken me to pull the car door open and get out, leaving Harry alone at the curb of my neighbor's house.

Less than a second. That's how long it takes Harry to stop me.

"I'm already in too deep."

He reaches out and cups my face with both of his hands, crashing our lips together. My head is spinning with all the questions still left unanswered, but instead of letting them overpower me, I lean further into the kiss. I'm helpless when it comes to Harry. No matter how hard I try, I can't quit him; he's like a drug. The worst kind of drug too: the kind you don't want to give up, despite what your better judgement tells you.

"Yours," he breathily whispers when I pull away.

"What?"

He pushes my hair behind my ear and leans his forehead against mine, "I'm yours, all yours. Nobody else's."

A smile creeps onto my lips, "Good."

"I'm sorry, I'm just shit at relationships. I hate calling them that, because in my experience they become work and always end badly. That isn't something I want for us; I want us to work out. I don't care about titles, because I have you and that is all I care about. All the other shit isn't important. Okay?"

My mouth speaks before my brain has a chance to overthink it, "Okay."

Harry kisses me once more before turning his attention to the road and pulling the car onto the street. As he drives, I allow myself to think about everything. Harry is mine - he already was I guess, but hearing him say it sent my heart hammering against my chest at 100 miles an hour. I've been waiting for that for a while now and to finally have it is the best feeling in the world.

When we pull up to Ian's house, it looks exactly the same as last time: people stumbling around, yelling over each other, and red plastic cups everywhere. The party is spilling onto the lawn and I groan internally, already knowing this is going to end badly. Harry parks the car and we exit, walking up the driveway and heading straight into the mass of bodies. Almost immediately I get separated from him, two guys knocking into me and making me stagger back. When I regain my balance and look up, Harry is nowhere in sight. I stand on my tiptoes and spot his curly head of hair heading towards the kitchen, so I follow.

It takes me extremely long to find a gap in the crowd big enough to squeeze my body through, and there's about another 50 year wait to get into the kitchen. People are lined up clear down the hall waiting to get anywhere near the alcohol, yet somehow Harry emerges with two beer bottles in his hands. When he spots me, he strides over and hands one of them to me, smiling proudly.

"Impressive," I praise, tapping my bottle against his before taking a giant swig.

Harry chuckles before snaking his arm around my waist and guiding me towards the dining room. When we get there I see a ping pong table set up with red cups already formed into small triangles on both ends. Beer Pong.

I smile like an idiot up at Harry and gesture towards the table, "Let's play!"

Harry raises a curious eyebrow at me, "Are you sure?! It's kind of a big boy game."

"Bring it on," I challenge, winking at him.

"Well, you happen to have a great partner; I'm kind of a pong professional."

"Oh is that so?" I tease.

We make our way to the table where two guys are pouring beer into all the cups. Harry approaches the taller one and asks him if we can get in on a game. At first he seems skeptical to let us, but eventually says 'what the hell' and hands Harry a pitcher of beer to help pour. It takes less than a minute for the guys to get everything set up and work out who's going first. Somehow we end up with the balls and Harry gestures for me to shoot.