The Academy // Harry Styles AU

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Harry’s POV

The rest of Nicole and I’s time at the coffee shop probably wasn’t as awkward as I made it out to be in my head. She never answered the question I asked her, so I decided to take her avoiding the question as a good thing. If her answer was really no, then she would’ve straight up said that, but her hesitation just goes to show that she wasn’t exactly sure about her answer.

She never said no, so that was a start, and I wasn’t going to let myself regret asking her that question. At first I had really wished that I hadn’t asked it because I felt like I had embarrassed myself, and even if I did, at least I still got a somewhat answer from her instead of just wondering what her answer might be but never asking. What’s life if you don’t take some risks?

I knew that that wasn’t really much of a risk but it was still a bit out of my comfort zone. When I had gotten back to my dorm after lunch, I talked with Louis, Liam, and Niall as they finished up some last minute schoolwork.

As they all began to finish, they started to talk about the party tonight and some of the girls they had their eyes on. Liam and I weren’t taking too much part in that conversation though. Since Liam was practically dating Liz and I had whatever it was I had between Nicole and I. When we had about an hour until the party started, the boys started to change and pretty much just put nicer shirts on.

“I have a shirt you can borrow if you know, want to wear something different for tonight,” Louis offered as I sat on my bunk and waited for all of them to be ready to go.

“I’m fine,” I told him and he looked like he may insist a bit more on me wearing a different kind of shirt, but he just nodded and walked away to put his shoes on.

Once the boys were finished getting ready, we all left the dorm, and I made sure I brought my key with me in case I decided to come back and leave the party early. We walked across campus, following along with another group of guys from the dorm that were also walking to the party.

Once we made it to the girl’s dorm building, I remembered that Nicole had told me just to wait outside the building so she could find me easier than having to search for me through the crowds of people that were in the lounge. So I fell back behind the group and let them all head inside before I made my way up to the entrance of the building and just stood to the side of it.

After a few minutes passed I felt a bit awkward just standing out here by myself as I watched other people walk into the building, a couple of them giving me odd glances as they passed me. I was tempted just to forget what she said and just walk into the lounge anyway and attempt to find her, but I decided I would wait out here just a few more minutes because if she did come out here after I had went inside I didn’t want her to think that I had ditched her or something.

Thankfully waiting those few extra minutes paid off because I soon saw the doors being opened from the inside and someone walking outside.

“Why aren’t you inside?” she said with a giggle.

“You told me to wait out here,” I said, a bit confused.

“I know,” she dragged out and grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside the building with her.

Nicole’s POV

“I’m really nervous,” I admitted to my friends as we walked down hallway.

“Don’t be, you look great, you’ll be fine,” Christina told me.

“Just try and not worry and relax,” Liz told me.

I was kind of surprised with the support they were giving me since I had been so negative about having boys come here in the first place. There was no way I was telling them that all this was for Harry though because I knew that all this support was just going to go down the drain. Just as we were about to walk into the lounge, Becca pulled me to the side and told Christina and Liz to go on in without us.

“What?” I asked her and she held up a finger, telling me to wait as she pulled something out of her purse.

I watched as she pulled out a flask and handed it to me. I swear my eyes were about to pop out of their sockets when she placed it in my hands.

“Where did you get this?” I asked her in shock.

“Never mind that, just drink some, it will help your nerves,” she told me.

“What is it?” I asked as I hesitantly opened it.

“Whiskey,” she said,

“Just drink it,” she told me after a few moments as I had still been staring at the metal object in my hand, “It will just loosen you up a bit, and trust me you need it,”

I finally just went for it and took a gulp of the liquid. I cringed as I swallowed the liquid, as it didn’t have that good of a taste. The burning sensation of the liquid sent a rush through my body, and I instantly took another gulp.

“Whoa, don’t drink much at once or you’ll be completely out of it, I think you still want to be aware of yourself tonight,” Becca said with a laugh as she took the flask out of my hands.

“Now you go have fun,” she said to me as she walked with me into the lounge.

Becca was right; I was suddenly beginning to feel a whole lot more relaxed, less nervous. I soon remembered though that I had told Harry I would meet him outside the dorm building, so I quickly left the lounge and made my way to the front door. The alcohol was already starting to make me a bit tipsy and I tried to steady myself as I walked.

I knew tomorrow I was going to be pretty mad at myself for even drinking a little bit since I was underage and I was really going to have to talk to Becca about where on earth she got that flask. Right now though I was telling myself to just relax and have a nice time with Harry tonight if I could. Hopefully nothing too stupid would come out of my mouth when I spoke to him.

I had steadied my walking, but now I was feeling a bit giggly. I’d never had any type of alcohol before and I did take two pretty big gulps of that whiskey so it was going to have a bigger affect on me than it would on other people. I was finally at the entrance of the dorm building, and I opened the door to see Harry standing right outside.

“Why aren’t you inside?” I asked him with a giggle once I saw him.

“You told me to wait out here,” he reminded me.

“I know,” I said, dragging out the word and I grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside.

I took notice that he was still wearing his normal long sleeve black shirt and jeans like he always wore, and after the conversation at lunch about his clothes, I was kind of hoping that he would wear something different, but I guess I couldn’t really expect that from him since he told me he was perfectly comfortable with his clothing choices.

I kept my grasp on Harry’s wrist as we walked across the lobby area of the dorm and into the lounge.

They had the lights dimmed a bit in the space with a few colored lights on. All the couches had been moved to one side to create space for a make shift dance area and all the couches were created into a space for people to sit and play games and stuff. At the other side of the lounge there were tables lined up with different snacks and drinks placed on them.

“Well this looks fun,” Harry said as we walked in, with sarcasm obvious in his voice.

I rolled my eyes at him and continued to walk into the lounge.