Meet Me In The Hallway

Trail blazer

As the party wears on, I'm feeling worn down. All of the power I'd felt is slipping away. My natural introversion asserts itself more often than I would like. As I sit and listen to Niall, I am thankful that he doesn't really need my participation to carry the conversation. But, even listening attentively, or feigning head nods and pretending  to track his leaps from subject to subject has become extremely exhausting.

Also, after seeing my brother take a bottle and a girl with grim determination and exit the room , I'm feeling bad about my little one girl play. I know he wanted to walk over to me and whisk me away from his friend. I think that is one of Michael's rules.

When he first approached me about hitting the road, on a global scale, with him and the boys, we'd both set out some ground rules. Mine were mostly housekeeping details, I'm your sister not your maid, was at the top of my list, his had been more wide ranging. Number one had been no nagging, number two had been don't hook up with my band. Niall wasn't in his band, but I'm sure in Michael's mind he was included in the off limits circle.  I didn't even let myself think about Harry. I knew there was something special about Harry. He didn't try to be the center of attention, but he was like the sun, everybody and everything orbited around him, was drawn to his gravity.

It was blessing and curse, both by turns. In this case, more curse. If my brother grit his teeth and left at the thought of me with Niall, I couldn't imagine his reaction to me with Harry. Harry with his smile and magnetism and high profile relationships and interest in older women and REPUTATION. I knew it was bullshit, first hand. Harry was actually a gentleman of the first order, Or all of my yearning would have already been met. And if he was a womanizer, I'd have been shown the door shortly thereafter, once again orphaned in the hallway. Instead I was his best friend. Treated like a treasure and all of my likes and dislikes carefully cataloged by his considerate nature.

In any case, I was sure that my brother would not be pleased about my nocturnal omissions. If I was sitting on that couch under Harry's arm and not Niall's, no matter how much I knew Michael looked up to and admired Harry, I would have been unceremoniously pulled up from my place and frogmarched to our room, despite my protests and the willing girl in a dress even more eye catching than my own.

I'm also feeling quite forlorn on top of exhausted, because my triumph was very short lived. That's the worst part, and probably why I've dropped my persona.

Talk about mourned expectations.  Harry did not stand up and cross the room determinedly and lay one on me like I had fantasized about. Nor did he follow a more sensible path of distancing himself from his single serving friend and meeting me discreetly to press a fevered repressed kiss to my lips and declare his concealed feelings. I'd deflated because my triumph was trumped. 

 I definitely had Harry's attention an hour ago. The girl, who I heard someone call Tilly, had looked surprised when she seemed to have lost Harry's concentrated attention. She wasn't sure where it had gone, but she had redoubled her efforts and won it back. Tilly, stupid name not withstanding, had gone a way that made me unable to loath her anymore, instead of turning up the flirt factor, she had fetched him a drink and set up a beer pong game. Love to hate her I guess. This was much more effective in regaining his attention from where it had wandered to. It had captured the attention of the room, and I, the girl always with the boys, was unwillingly impressed. Impressed but not happy about losing his eye. Harry was engaged and distracted from my place on his band mates arm now. As was the rest of the room. Even Niall a bit. Harry, however,  was having a great time. His dimples were out in full force. I could hear his affectionate ribbing of the crew guy he was handing his ass. It was the gloating but sweet voice he had used with me when I lost at anything, mostly scrabble. It was not layered with concern though, he was less afraid of taking the piss out of this guy, Ryan, I think. I kinda was wishing I was losing to him, though I hated to lose even more than he did. I'd heard his snort laugh, the best sound ever, escape multiple times, too. It had drawn an unwitting smile to my lips.