The Reinvention of Harry Styles (Completed)

Chapter 20

Molly's head was buzzing with thoughts as she and Harry flew back to London that weekend. She still had yet to give him an answer, and that created a bit of awkwardness between them. On top of that, she was keeping Daisy's secret, even though she really wanted to talk about it with someone and make sure she had done the right thing.

When their plane touched down in London, Molly realized there was really only one person she could talk to about her situation with Harry: his sister, her "best friend." It wasn't ideal to talk about guy issues with the guy's sister, but she couldn't go to any of her friends with this conundrum, and no one else really knew about their fake relationship.

Luckily for her, Gemma was willing to help her out, and agreed to come over for lunch while Harry was out. Due to the time difference, Molly was just waking up when Gemma arrived, and didn't even bother changing out of her pajamas. Luckily Gemma had brought coffee, because Molly needed it after their long flight. Once she'd consumed enough caffeine for her brain to work properly, she sat down with Gemma in the living room to talk about her Harry issue.

"As you know, Harry and I are pretending to date for...reasons I can't even remember anymore. But, the fake relationship is for the benefit of his management, so as far as Jeff and the rest of his team are concerned, we've been dating since April. And of course, Harry had to complicate it more by actually having feelings for me, and this week he asked me out." Molly glanced up at Gemma to make sure she was following her story.

"Leave it to Harry to complicate things," she smiled. "So, I'm guessing you're wondering if you should turn him down or not?"

Molly nodded. "Exactly. Either way, it's going to make things awkward, I think. If I turn him down, I think he'll eventually get over it, but things won't be the same. On the other hand, if I say yes, I think it could be pretty awesome. When I was 16 I would have killed for the chance to be Harry Styles' girlfriend. Yet, if we broke up, it would probably have to be the end of...the fake relationship, too."

Gemma nodded, taking this all in. "Okay, I see how both sides could cause issues. Of course, he's my little brother and I don't want him to get his heart broken. I hate to ask this, but-"

"Yes. We've had sex, so that's not a factor in this decision. We decided having a 'friends with benefits' kind of relationship would benefit both of us. If that were a factor, yes, oh my god yes I wouldn't hesitate."

Gemma closed her eyes for a moment. "That's not what I was going to ask, but thank you. I meant, I hate to ask this - because it should be an obvious factor - but how do you feel about him? Do you want to date him?"

"Oh." Molly was quiet for a moment and sipped on her coffee. "It's hard for me to say. Sometimes I have a hard time separating the real Harry from the guy I obsessed over in high school and college, and wrote fanfiction about. The more I've gotten to know him, the more I realized they are quite different, yet sometimes they overlap - like a venn diagram. I have been trying so hard not to fall in love with him this past month, because I know it would just complicate things, and I don't know how to stop resisting that. I keep looking for reasons to not like him, to the point where I assumed he'd knocked up a mutual friend of ours."

Gemma nearly spat out her coffee. "What? Why would you think that?"

"Well, uh," Molly tried to work out a way to explain this without giving away Daisy's secret. "This friend of ours told me recently that she was pregnant, rather, um, unexpectedly-"

"Sorry, I have to interrupt, but this friend of yours isn't actually you, and you're just saying it's a 'friend' to avoid an embarrassing situation?" Gemma asked, indicating air quotes around 'friend.'