Bad Habits | Harry Styles A.U.

Chapter 6

The thing with Daphne – one of Livy’s roommates – is she is always one of two things: messy or missing. Occasionally, she is both.

The messy thing killed Nicole because, as she was the clean freak of the house, Daphne was the slob; she left her things everywhere, her dishes were never put into the dishwasher, and she hardly ever did her laundry. Nicole threw fits at least once every week because of Daphne’s ‘terrible habit’, as Nicole called it.

And the missing thing killed Rain because Rain was Rain, and worried about every single one of her housemates. It was natural for her to do so, but no one understood why she would work herself up over Daphne disappearing for two days and then coming back unexpectedly, only to leave again. This cycle was on repeat, and had been ever since the girls had all moved in together about a year ago. The other girls had gotten used to it, but Rain never seemed to be able to grasp the concept that Daphne was fine.

When Daphne walked out of her room two days following Livy ‘breaking up’ with Niall (as he so jokingly had called it), as if she had actually come home and slept in her room for once, Livy was quite shocked. But she smiled brightly at her and jumped up from her seat at the kitchen table.

“Hey, Daph!” she said excitedly.

Daphne yawned and smiled at Livy afterwards. “Hey! How’re you?” Her voice was low and quiet, a result of her just having woken up.

Livy glanced at the clock – it was 3:30 p.m.

“I’m pretty great. What about you? Did you sleep here last night? It’s been awhile since that happened!”

The thing with Livy was that she always asked a lot of questions, and spoke a lot. She was always going 100 miles a minute. But that being said, Livy’s friends and family were used to it by now, so Daphne was able to calmly reply when, say, Harry would just stare at her as if she were an idiot.

After Daphne pulled out a box of cereal, a bowl, spoon, and carton of milk, she focused on Livy as she sat down at the table. “Yeah, I’m alright. And I did! I know, crazy isn’t it?”

Livy smiled at her. “What were you up to-“

Livy was cut off by the sound of feet shuffling into the room, and a voice gruffly saying ‘good morning.’ Livy recognized the voice, but couldn’t quite place it.

When she turned around, she was shocked to see who it was.

When she turned back to Daphne, she was shocked to see her grinning and standing up to meet him in a kiss.

“Liv, this is Louis, do you-“ Daphne started to say after they pulled away from their embrace, but Livy cut her off.

“Louis Tomlinson! Yeah, I met you at that party a few weeks ago. Niall introduced us,” Livy said, smiling.

Louis’s eyes widened, and he looked around the kitchen as if there were people in there other than the three of them. Then he said, in a hushed tone, “Yeah, and I’d appreciate it if you kept this under wraps. I’ve already spoken to Daphne about it. I’d just prefer it if it weren’t made a big deal with multiple people.”

Daphne patted his shoulder then sat down to continue eating her cereal. Livy noticed she looked completely fine with what Louis had said, so she looked back at Louis and nodded her confirmation of keeping his secret.

“Great, thanks!” Louis said, then rounded the table and headed towards the door. “Well, I’m off. Daphne, I’ll be seeing you soon?”

Daphne smiled, and, through a mouth of cereal, gurgled, “See you soon!”