𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐔𝐓𝐎𝐑! | harry styles

𝐈𝐈𝐈

"SO let me get this straight," Tom pointed towards Harry with suspicion. "You want me to ignore Connie?"

"I said be aloof. I didn't say ignore." Harry clarified.

"Ignore, aloof. What's the difference?" Tom stated. "She's going to think I'm pissed at her and then she's going to get pissed at me."

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You sound like a whiny bitch." Harry rolled his eyes. "You're Connie's best friend, right?"

"Yeah," Tom smiled.

"And you don't see a problem with that?"

"What? It's the next best thing."

"The next best thing to being a girl's boyfriend is being the guy she hooks up with on the side…scratch that. Being the guy she hooks up with on the side is better than being her boyfriend. That way you don't have to spend any money on her."

"Man, Harry, you're a dick."

"You're even starting to sound like a girl." Harry grimaced. "And I may be a dick, but at least I use mine."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that the last time you hooked up with Connie, you went down on her and then you went home with a raging case of blue balls. Tell me I'm wrong."

"That was different. She'd had a very stressful day and I was just helping to relax her. There is a lot of drama on that cheerleading squad. You have no idea."

"Oh my –" Harry pounded the dashboard in anguish. "If you could only hear how gay you sound right now…"

Tom stared out the windshield into the rain as he contemplated what Harry was saying. If Harry were the only one who'd said this same thing to him, he'd be prone to ignore it and chalk it up to one of Harry's ploys to get Connie completely out of the picture. Tom knew that Harry preferred not to have Connie usurping so much of his free time. But Harry wasn't the only who had pointed out that Tom doted on Connie too much. His parents, his brother, his cousins and all of his other friends said the same exact thing.

"What if I try this and it doesn't work?" Tom asked quietly.

"What you're doing right now isn't working. She's making a fool out of you. You need to have some dignity. Otherwise, she's only going to keep you around long enough to find someone else."

Tom exhaled through his nose before cutting the ignition off on his car. "So…what do I do again?"

"When you see her, don't be the first to speak. Let her speak to you. Don't even look at her until she acknowledges your presence. And then, don't act all eager. Answer her questions with as little information as possible. If she asks you to go somewhere or do something, say no or say you don't know," Harry began.

"What if I want to go?" Tom interrupted.

"Then call her at the last minute and tell her you can go."

"She'll never go for that."

"Again with the giving Connie all the power…"

"Okay, okay. What else?"

"Well for starters, you've gotta drop that damn cooking class!"

* * *

On the other side of the parking lot, at the front of the school, a similar conversation was transpiring between Jocelyn and Rebecca.

"I'm tellin' ya, Harry's that kind of guy that doesn't want anything that's too easy to get. He'll only be interested when he thinks you're no longer interested in him." Rebecca said.