Don't Be Predictable [Harry Styles]

Part one:

I wondered if I was being punished by karma; it wasn’t exactly that I shouldn’t be there, I reasoned, just that there was the minor issue of it being a tiny bit illegal; for a 17 year old borrowing my friends ID (although unimaginative) was at least effective, it had worked at the door and I had just been queuing at the bar when I had been distracted by the man standing in front of me.

I’m not a patient person, I never have been and for some strange reason I have the distinct suspicion I never will be. But I am cursed with a rare trait; I’m polite (usually). I find it very tricky to be rude to strangers, something inside me (maybe the voice of my father) insists that I want to make a good impression. It was this little voice that meant I was standing inside a club, next to the bar, with a drink in my hand. But instead of having fun I had been cornered by this man. It wasn’t that he was unattractive, he was distinctly average with dark brown hair, only about 5’10 but very nice eyes, he looked in his mid twenties and it wasn’t that he wasn’t nice-he had after all supplied me with the drink. The problem was that he was intensely boring.  It had started well enough, he’d come over and I’d smiled because I thought he was cute, he said hello, I asked him how he was and that was the last thing I’d said for about seven minutes (I know because I’ve checked my watch on at least three times, each time hoping he might get the hint), other than my drink order.

Initially I had tried to keep track of what he was saying but then he somehow strayed onto the topic of the stock market; something I have absolutely no interest in, yet he seemed to think talking nonstop about it was the way to inspire my interest. So I was using the time to peer around the room. I suppose I should have been partly impressed; the music was loud enough to mean that having this ‘conversation’ was requiring serious projection on his part, and it meant he was standing just that little bit too close.

The club was much ‘classier’ than I had expected (well from what I could see of it) the décor was somewhat understated-a fact cunningly disguised due to the customary low lighting favoured by such places (presumably so you can trick yourself into believing that the stranger you’re getting off with is actually kind of hot, instead of looking like someone out of a particularly unpleasant acne advert) and by the fact that it was-quite literally-packed. The writhing of the traditional mass of bodies was restricted to such an extent that any attempt to writhe meant you were essentially dry humping a stranger, which I suppose is a big part of the attraction. I had lost my friends in the crowd. I scanned the area around me wondering if there was any chance of rescue, or if I was going to have to claim psychic powers and tell him that my spidy senses were tingling, informing me I’d left my window open at home and must be excused to return home and close it due to my deathly fear of drafts.

It was at that moment when something returned my attention to the man in front of me; the fact that at first glance he appeared to have doubled. This was initially rather alarming-I had just idly looked over at him (only slightly hoping he had developed a sudden case of lockjaw) to find that he had replicated himself. Upon further inspection I was relieved to find that I had been wrong, in fact the only vaguely similar characteristic shared by the man who had materialised next to him was the colour of his hair. The second man was much taller, standing at about 6’2, with curly brown hair swished back in a way that sort of resembled a lion’s mane (very 80s), brushing the tips of his collar, he was certainly charismatic enough to pull it off though; even though he wasn’t looking at me it was obvious he’s the type that is used to getting attention, something about the self assured posture; leaning against the bar, the half smile on his face worn oh so casually. However I didn’t have to notice these little details to know that this man got more than enough attention; I recognised him as Harry Styles.

To my eternal gratitude he wasn’t looking at me when this particular thunderbolt struck, whilst not being a massive One Direction fan I was aware enough of his existence to realise that him standing mere metres away from me comes under the category of ‘a big deal’ , which in turn led to my rather slack jawed impression of a fish. He was addressing the man who had been boring me, who, to his credit, seemed almost annoyed at the interruption