Not Again? || l.s

t h r e e

t h r e e | hold me steady

Take me by the hand,
lead me to a place where 
Slowly back and forth, 
moonlight dances on the water

~ 'hold me' by the sweeplings

ツ

Half an hour later, when Liam ditched them off to dance with a friend from one of his classes, and Zayn went off to smoke a joint with one of his friends. Harry yet again found himself in the corner, alone, sipping his drink. He could try talking to people, he knew, but most of them looked like they're already on their fifth or sixth drink, and being sober around drunk people was never fun. So he sunk down to the floor, legs pulled up to his chest, and played with his phone.

"Even when he parties he's boring," Harry heard. He looked up to find Louis not far from him, talking to his friend Niall. "Hey, Styles, you wanna have some fun?"

Harry smiled tightly at him, "Who says I'm not already having fun?"

Niall offered him a hand up anyway. Where Liam was an asshole to Louis out of sympathy for Harry, Niall had been nothing but nice to him since they met. Even when he hung out in the room and he and Louis would bicker, the most Niall did was chuckle at both of their insults. Other than that, he's fairly friendly, and Harry had no idea how Louis got a best friend that nice when he's such a dick.

So Harry took the hand and let Niall drag him up, and then he was being pulled into another room with a few people and a single long, rectangular table. 

"Need another for beer pong," Louis said loudly. "Who's up?"

"I'll play," offered a random girl. Instantly, Louis' arm went around her waist, pulling her in, and Harry averted his eyes in annoyance.

Because Louis actually looked nice in that jumper, a sheen layer of sweat on his forehead, and his adam's apple bobbed every time he took a sip of his drink.

"You'll be on my team," Niall said to him. "Don't worry, I'm fucking awesome at beer pong."

"Wait," Harry took a step backwards. "I never agreed to play."

"It's probably because he doesn't know how," Louis said with a smirk.

Harry glared at him, "I know how."

It's not like it's fucking rocket science. Right? It's just —throwing a ball into a cup and then drinking or something.

"Do they teach courses in beer pong at the library?" Louis wondered. 

The girl under his arm giggled. Harry's blood boiled. 

"Don't be a prick," Niall scolded them and gave Harry a reassuring smile. "I promise it'll be fun. Or you could always go back to sitting on the floor."

Harry chewed the inside of his lip and watched Louis untangle his arm from around the girl. He grabbed a pack of red plastic cups, and then he started filling them from the honest to fucking God keg of beer in the corner. Harry thought those were just a myth. He didn't know people actually had kegs at parties like this.

One by one, Louis placed the cups on the table until there's ten on each side, organized in perfect pyramids. When he finished, he looks up at Harry with a challenge in his eyes.

"Okay," Harry said. "I'll play."

"That's the spirit!" Niall clapped him on the back and steered Harry towards the table, producing two small plastic balls from seemingly nowhere. "We play pretty simple. Basically you throw the ball, no bouncing or it's disqualified, into one of the cups on the opposing team's side. If it gets in, one of them has to drink. You get to choose which. Once we've both gone, they go and we drink. The game keeps going until one of the teams has no cups left, or someone passes out."