Love and Fame (Harry Styles)

Chapter 8

"Hey, Styles," I said casually and continued what I was doing as he entered the room.

And then I realized what had just happened and snapped my head back around to look at my friend. Harry was staring wide-eyed back at me as the hot water kept running over my naked body.

"I guess I did accidentally walk in on you in the shower," Harry said numbly as I was extremely grateful that I had my back to him.

"I guess you did," I said, trying to keep it cool as I put the shampoo bottle back on the shelf and rinsed my hair.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," I said, expecting Harry to turn around and leave, but he just kept staring at me. And it made me extremely uncomfortable. "You can leave now."

"Yeah, sorry," Harry said quickly and shook his head as if seeing my back had been too much for him to handle.

Harry left the bathroom and I hurried to lock the door when he had closed it. How could I have been so careless as to forget to lock the door? I lived with five boys for crying out loud! It was the last thing I wanted to have them walk in and out while I was naked.

Harry hadn't seen anything special, but it was still pretty embarrassing. Had he deliberately walked in on me while I was in the shower, or had it been an honest mistake? He had been talking an awful lot about wanting to see me naked... And now he had.

And to be honest I wouldn't mind seeing his toned body naked either, but I didn't want to think about him that way. So I quickly shook my head to clear my mind. Thinking of a naked Harry was dangerous territory if I were to keep our relationship strictly non-sexual.

But I couldn't stop wondering if Harry had walked in on me on purpose or not... I tried to avoid over analyzing every move Harry made, because it was Harry Styles we were talking about. He was a good guy, but there was no ignoring the fact that he was a very famous and desired young man. And the fact that he could have everyone he wanted made me cautious around him.

I wouldn't allow myself to have another than a professional and friendly relationship with him, because I didn't want to have my heart broken. Rumor had it that guys like Harry broke girls' hearts even when they didn't mean to be heartbreakers.

I tried to stop thinking about the Harry-walking-in-on-me incident and wrapped a soft towel around myself as I stepped out of the shower. I hadn't brought a change of clothes to the bathroom, so I had to leave the safety of the locked door in just my towel.

I knew that the guys would comment on it because that was who they were. They were dirty minded as fuck, but I kind of liked it. I had grown up with two older brothers, so I had from an early age been taught how to be dirty minded. I liked that I didn't have to hide that when I was around the boys.

"Look at those legs," Louis commented the second I stepped out of the tiny bathroom and I giggled because they were so predictable. "Fit."

"Shut up."

"What? It's a compliment!" Louis exclaimed and I giggled again.

"So you finally flashed Harry, yeah?" Zayn teased and I rolled my eyes as I slipped on underwear without dropping my towel.

"By mistake, yeah..." I mumbled and glanced at Harry as he grinned. "You should knock, you know?"

"You should lock the door," Harry just stated and I nodded.

"Yeah, I know, it was actually my bad. Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize, I'm fine," Harry said with a shrug and I sighed as I pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of soft shorts.

"Yeah, of course you are..."

I wrapped the towel around my damp hair and slumped down on the couch next to Liam as I unlocked my cell phone. I opened the Twitter app and logged onto my account to find that the amount of followers had seriously increased since the day before.

Seemed like word had spread about One Direction's new acquaintance... Perhaps not so weird considering all the boys in the band had started following me and had retweeted my first post.

I should probably have posted something new, but I still had no idea what to write. So I put my phone away and turned to the boys.

"Should we work some more on the single?" I suggested as Liam and Niall fired up another round of FIFA on the flat screen. Did they ever do anything else? "It's getting along pretty slowly... Management won't be happy with me."

"They will be when it's finished," Liam said through his concentration as he tried, and failed, to stop Niall from winning the game. "I can already tell it's gonna be great."

"I can't tell anything from the few lines we've written," I commented dryly and the boys laughed.

"Aren't you satisfied with our work?" Louis chuckled.

"Don't you mean my work?" I teased and the boys laughed again.

It was actually true that I had written all of the lines in the verse we've reviewed and agreed upon. But it didn't matter. It would be our song in the end anyway.

"Fine," Niall said as the FIFA match ended. "I'll make an effort today. For you."

"Thanks, babe," I said and everyone raised their eyebrows.

"When did he become your babe?" Harry said and for a minute I thought I heard a flicker of jealousy in his voice. But I must have been mistaken, because why would Harry be jealous?

"Oh, I call everyone babe," I said with a casual shrug. "All my friends are babes to me."

The boys actually did make an effort and we came a long way. We wrote the chorus together and added a few more verses to the one we already had.

And though it was far from finished, I loved what we had so far.





We arrived in Florida in the middle of the night, so Don the Driver took us straight to our hotel so that we could go to sleep.

Louis and Liam didn't want to stay in the hotel room. They had a weird thing about making the tour bus their home and wanted to sleep there as much as possible.

But Harry, Niall and Zayn always took good use of their comfortable hotel beds. And I was on their team, because though the bunk beds were all right, a real bed was better.

I don't even know how we decided on the sleeping arrangements, but suddenly it was decided that I were to share a room with Harry and that Niall and Zayn were to bunk together.

I didn't particularly have anything against the arrangement, but at the same time I felt like it was a bad idea. I didn't know what it was, but I had feeling that Harry and I would have to be careful around each other to make sure we didn't do anything we would regret later.

I was too tired to notice anything about the room once we had checked in. I knew that it was fancy because it was a hotel room booked by the members of One Direction, but I didn't have the energy as to see just have fancy it was.

I just eyed the comfortable double bed and crawled under the covers immediately after brushing my teeth. Harry crawled under the covers next to me and flashed me a dimpled smile before he turned off the lights.

"Sweet dreams, love," he murmured and my heart skipped a beat against my will. Why did my heart skip a beat? It wasn't like I had feelings for Harry or anything...

"Love?" I commented and arched my eyebrow, though Harry couldn't see that through the dark.

"You call your friends babe, I call mine love."

"Fair enough," I said and clutched my fluffy pillow closer to my chest. "Sweet dreams, babe."

I had this weird habit of sleeping on the very edge of the bed - I did that even when I had a king sized bed to myself - and it made it seem like I was deliberately keeping away from Harry.

Truth be told, he looked a little disappointed that I didn't show any signs of wanting to cuddle. But why would we cuddle though? We were just colleagues sharing a bed for the night. It didn't mean anything, did it?