Sonata (Harry Styles FanFiction)

18. Don't Fold On Me Now

"My drink."

"Excuse me?"

"I asked you for my drink." She must have been just as surprised as I was that I was even capable of speaking that she handed my glass back to me without a word.

"Thank you," I downed the rest of the glass, struggling to ignore the four pairs of eyes I could feel burning into me. Popping the top three buttons on my shirt and loosening my tie, I moved away from the two girls and towards Caleb and John, "Anything I can do to help?"

"How about the two of you go take a cold shower... separately, I mean," John chuckled, putting his arm around his partner.

"I think I'm going to need more than one before the night's out," I breathed, raking my hands through the front of my hair.

"For now though, get the girls to help you set the table."

Harry Styles

I couldn't sit still throughout the entire dinner. Every time I found some sort of reprieve from Jas's ridiculous prying or Ren's heady gaze, there was always something there to ruin it. More than one time, I had to swat her wandering hands away under the table. It seemed the more she drank the more she returned to her usual self and, dear God, the girl was persistent. She'd have to have made it through three quarters of a bottle herself. How Caleb and John hadn't noticed was beyond me; she wasn't subtle.

I'd tried to sit on the opposite side of the room— I needed the distance. Distance was good. The father away she was, the easier it was to focus on the world around me rather than the ridiculous fantasies that had been playing themselves out in my head for the past week. But no, Ren Grace wasn't going to have it. It was like she could read my thoughts. Before I could make a move, she grabbed my hand and yanked me down into the chair next to her. Jas was no help either. She just sat there smirking, swirling the ice in her glass.

Why had I ever agreed to come to this dinner? I should have known that something was going to happen, I could hear it in Jas's voice when she'd called me. Somehow she'd managed to perfect the symptoms of only child syndrome despite the fact that she wasn't truly an "only" child; she was cunning and manipulative. Hell, they both were. By one fleeting glance, you could tell that those two had always gotten everything they ever wanted. However, where Jas was fairly transparent in her ventures, Darien was equally as opaque. She carried herself in a way that constantly kept you on your toes, always guessing, never knowing until it was too late.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered, jerking away as once again as Ren's wandering hands found their way into my lap. Restraining them as best as I could, I turned to glare at her.

"Enough," I growled, my temper dangerously close to surfacing. She kept pushing me farther and farther and at this point I was unsure of how much more I could take. It was already a constant struggle to keep her out of my mind and I was failing miserably at it. I'd had to resort to alcoholism—a habit I'd detested until about two weeks ago. I'd lost count of how many glasses I'd emptied and how many bottles littered the bins in my flat. The more I drank, the more the world started to make sense. There were less decisions to make and the lines between right and wrong were blurry. I knew that it was wrong to look at her the way that I did; I knew it, but I couldn't help it. I knew that it was wrong to think about her the way that I did, but there was no stopping it. The only things that kept me from crossing all of the lines that needed to remain between us were my job and the fact that I would be breaking Caleb's trust.

"Not a chance, Professor," she smirked, dragging her free hand down the valley between her breasts, tracing the chain to her necklace. I couldn't help it, my eyes followed the siren's every movements, my hands loosening their grip on hers.