Author: writeivywrite
Date: 2013-05-26T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fanworks; M/M; Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings; One Direction (Band); Zayn Malik/Harry Styles; Explicit
Description: It's the morning of the X Factor auditions in Manchester. It's raining and Zayn is stuck in front of a guy dressed as Britney Spears. He's ready to peace out but Harry can't wait to go in. He's not being smug, but he knows he can sing, so when the judges say no, he's devastated. Zayn finds him crying in the toilets before his audition and realises that he doesn't want it that bad. Four years later and Zayn's living in East London and about to graduate from Central Saint Martins while Harry's in a band and living in Camden. Their lives couldn't be more different, but when their paths cross agai
Publisher: Archive of Our Own

Preface

Fifteen Minutes
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/775054.

Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

One Direction (Band)

Relationship:

Zayn Malik/Harry Styles

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2013-04-26
Completed: 2013-05-26
Words: 56,396
Chapters: 6/6

Fifteen Minutes
by writeivywrite

Summary

It's the morning of the X Factor auditions in Manchester. It's raining and Zayn is stuck in front of a guy dressed as Britney Spears. He's ready to peace out but Harry can't wait to go in. He's not being smug, but he knows he can sing, so when the judges say no, he's devastated. Zayn finds him crying in the toilets before his audition and realises that he doesn't want it that bad. Four years later and Zayn's living in East London and about to graduate from Central Saint Martins while Harry's in a band and living in Camden. Their lives couldn't be more different, but when their paths cross again will they get what they want this time?

Chapter 1: Prologue

Harry has never been dumped. It’s not a fact he’s particularly proud of, it’s not like he swaggers around the morning after he breaks up with someone smirking and saying, ‘I wish she’d get the message and stop calling’ like the other boys at school. But then, it isn’t something he’s ashamed of, either. After all, there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing that someone’s thinking about you even if you’re not thinking about them.

That’s an awful thing to say, he knows, but he’d never say it out loud, not when he prides himself on being such a nice guy. Nice guys don’t say things like that; they hold the door open for you and stop to help if you have a flat tire. And he kind of likes it - being the nice guy - not the best looking one, the one girls lose their virginity to on top of a pile of coats at a party, but the one those girls go to when that guy doesn’t call.

‘You’re so sweet, Harry,’ they tell him between sobs as he kisses their forehead and tells them that it’ll be okay. And he is sweet, too sweet sometimes. He’ll go hungry giving his lunch to a friend just to prove that she doesn’t need to go on a diet and always makes up the difference when old ladies give him the wrong change in the bakery.

But his intentions aren’t always pure. Sometimes, when his fingers sweep across a girl’s cheek, it isn’t just to wipe away her tears, it’s so he can feel the heat of her skin as well. That’s only natural, he supposes, he’s sixteen and those curiosities – like if a girl’s cheek is as warm as it looks – are becoming harder to ignore. And it’s not like he’s taking advantage, but he kind of is, because he knows that when he’s comforting a girl in a dark corner of a party, far away from where her boyfriend is sloppily kissing someone else, Harry knows that when she stops crying and lifts her wet eyelashes to look at him, she doesn’t see that skinny kid from school any more, the one with too much hair. Harry knows that he’s growing into his looks. Every day he fills out a little more and feels a little less awkward. He’s still clumsy, of course (if he only knocks over one cup of tea a day, he’s doing well), but he knows that girls look at his big eyes and curls and find it endearing now.

He felt it – the shift – as soon as White Eskimo won Battle of the Bands, but it got worse when word got around that he was auditioning for X Factor. It used to be that he was lucky to find anyone to kiss at a party, but now girls pull him into the spare room and lick their way into his mouth. Last month, a girl called Laura Mann, who had a pink mouth and a turquoise bra with butterflies on it, gave him a hand job. ‘You gonna write me a song, Harry?’ she panted into his ear and he came so hard he nearly blacked out.

Something changed after that. Now he wants to touch every girl he sees. He’ll be standing next to a girl at the bus stop and be in love with her by the time the bus comes or be sitting next to someone at Fortune City, waiting for his crispy beef, and his hand will move along the sofa until his little finger and her little finger are almost touching.

He has a nice smile, he’s been told, and he knows what to say when she looks up, to compliment her nail varnish or ask what perfume she’s wearing, and it’s as if all those years of being a nice guy has paid off. His friend Nick says that he’s been in training and Harry laughs, but he kind of has, because every time a girl cries on his shoulder he learns another thing to say to make her feel better and how to touch her so she feels comforted, not groped. He knows to call when he says he will and to buy her flowers and send text messages for no reason and he loves it. He loves the ceremony of it, of cooking a girl dinner and lighting candles, loves being a dork and putting the napkin on her lap and pouring Diet Coke into her wine glass. All the things her last boyfriend never did.

So maybe this nice guy thing ain’t so bad because the kisses on the forehead are straying, lower – lower – and it’s almost too easy, like a skateboard trick he’s mastered. And he’d never say that out loud, either, how much he enjoys the thrill of whispering, ‘You deserve so much more than him’ to a girl as she looks up and fists her hands in his shirt. It shouldn’t, but it kind of feels like winning when their mouths meet, and while he denies it every time Nick says it, Harry always gets what he wants.

It’s because he’s a brat, apparently. He has a greedy heart. That’s what Laura Mann told him when he broke up with her. He didn’t think about it too much at the time, dismissing it as one of those things someone says when they’re being dumped, a rhetorical kick in the bollocks before they walk away, but that night, he couldn’t sleep because it was digging into him, like the proverbial pea under his mattress.

Maybe he does have a greedy heart. He wants everyone to love him. Everyone. Every girl at school. Every girl who serves him in a shop. Even the women with prams he holds the door open for, he wants them to see his smile and remember when their husbands were that young and spend the rest of the week wondering what his name is.

Is that greedy? Probably, but he always loves them back, even if it’s just for a minute. He’ll pass a girl in the street and fall in and out of love with her in the time it takes to watch her walk away. He’s addicted to it, he thinks, to that feeling, to falling for someone. Actually, it’s more than that, it feels more like falling into them, like walking around the edge of a swimming pool and losing your footing. He savours the shock of it – of being swallowed whole – but even that doesn’t come close to what he’s feeling now, standing by himself in the middle of a stage, the echo of Isn’t She Lovely?in his ears as he waits for one of the three judges in front of him to say something.

He’s trying not to look at Simon in case he starts begging because Harry wants this, wants it more than any girl he’s stood next to at a bus stop or passed on the street. Wants it so much that want doesn’t feel like a big enough word. He needs a whole new one – something big enough to describe the pain in his chest – and that feels kind of greedy as well, like he hasn’t eaten for a week. He’s weak with it.

Mad with it.

The closest thing he can think to compare it to is leaning in to kiss someone and waiting for her to kiss you back. It’s the same agony, the same dizzying clash of panic and hope as Harry holds his breath and thinks of his family backstage and his friends who’ve been texting all day to tell him that he’ll definitely go through to the next round.

Nicole says something nice, but Harry isn’t looking at her, he’s looking at Louis, who’s shaking his head. Then Louis says it – ‘I think you’re so young. I don’t think you have enough experience or confidence yet’ – and it’s as if Louis’s rolled up a newspaper and smacked Harry in the heart. The disappointment is crushing. He’s heard people say that before, but he’s never really felt it. He’s felt the sting of a girl not liking him back and the shame of failing a test, but he’s never felt that before and it is crushing. He’s sure that he can feel his bones detaching – one by one – and dropping to pile at his feet.

Usually he’d do what he always does when he’s late for class or he’s trying to get a girl to go out with him – say something charming or do that thing Nick says he does, where he tilts his head with a slow smile – but he’s in shock. He can’t move, every bit of him shaking as he realises that it’s too late, there’s nothing he can do. He just has to wait.

So he doesn’t hear what Louis says after that, not over the sound of his heart in his ears, his cheeks burning as he thinks about his family backstage in their WE THINK HARRY HAS THE X FACTOR t-shirts and he can’t go back there without this. He can’t.

Then Simon raises his hand to silence the crowd and when everything goes quiet – even the sound of Harry’s heart in his ears – there’s a sweet second of hope, before Simon says, ‘I have to agree with Louis. I don’t think you’re ready for this, Harry.’

And it’s over.

+++

This would be much easier if Zayn was drunk. It’s just started raining and half the queue is singing Umbrella and the guy behind him is dressed as Britney Spears from the Hit Me Baby One More Time video – in the grey pleated skirt, the knotted shirt, the pigtails, everything – and yeah, this would be much easier if he was drunk.

He considers legging it, but they’re almost at the front of the queue, so when he looks back at everyone behind him, at the girls in their best dresses and the boys in their neatly ironed shirts, their quiffs wilting in the rain, he realises that he can’t get out now even if he wanted to. So when a camera pans in their direction and the guy behind him starts singing, ‘My loneliness is killing me’, Zayn leans against the barrier with a sigh.

Not that he’d be allowed to run away. He’s just heard Doniya tell the girl in front of them that she ordered her dress online especially so he’s pretty sure that if he tried to make a break for it, she’d go after him and tackle him to the ground. But the guy behind him is singing Toxic now and Zayn has to get out, so almost resorts to distracting Doniya by telling her that the rain is making her hair frizzy because that usually makes her run screaming to the nearest bathroom. But he doubts even that would be enough to make her leave his side; she’s determined that he auditions this year, as is his mother who filled out the application without telling him. He had no clue what they were up to until they woke him up this morning, Doniya holding up his favourite t-shirt and his mother thrusting a mug of tea at him saying, ‘Okay. Don’t be mad, sweetheart.’

They had to drag him out of bed – literally, his mother grabbed one ankle and Doniya grabbed the other – but after hours of scowling (which got worse when they got to Old Trafford and he saw the queue), Zayn’s accepted his fate, albeit unwillingly.

‘I like your hair like that, Don,’ he says, biting his bottom lip so he doesn’t smile.

‘Like what?’

‘Curly.’

Her hands fly to her head with a gasp and it’s kind of cruel, but as he turns away to swallow a laugh and sees the guy about to go in – the pretty one he spotted when they joined the end of the queue, the one with the scarf and the unruly hair – Zayn doesn’t feel as bad as he realises that, thanks to Doniya, he’s about to make a complete arse of himself. X Factor isn’t for guys like Zayn. It’s for guys like that. Guys who wear scarves and won’t want to vomit if they have to sing a Westlife song. Zayn can see one of the producers talking to him (of course she is, his friends and family are wearing WE THINK HARRY HAS THE X FACTOR t-shirts) and Zayn doesn’t think he cares that no one's stopped to speak to him until he has to fight the urge to run away again.

‘He’ll go through,’ Doniya says, reading Zayn’s mind as the guy goes inside.

‘What do you reckon he’ll sing?’

‘Coldplay, probably,’ she says without looking up from her phone, her thumbs tap tap tapping at the screen. ‘Or Kings of Leon. He looks like a proper hipster.’

She must have spotted the scarf as well.

Zayn chuckles, but before he can say anything else, his mother elbows him and he looks up to find someone with a clipboard gesturing at him to step forward.

He doesn’t know when they got to the front of the queue, but there they are and everything is a blur after that. He’s told to sign this and wear this and wait over there, his mother and sister squealing and taking photos of him the whole time.

He’d tell them to stop if he could catch his breath, but he can’t so he just lets them corral him into a vast room that feels busier than the queue somehow. There aren’t enough seats, but after doing a circuit, past the girls fussing over their eyeliner and the groups struggling to harmonise as a tiny Chinese woman in a purple corset belts out Bat Out of Hell, he finally finds two seats together. He insists that his mother and sister sit down and when they do, he sits on the carpet at their feet, his back against the wall.

His mother asks him if he’s okay and he nods, then closes his eyes and lets his head tip back against the wall. He takes a deep breath and when he pushes it back out of his nostrils, his nerves feel a little looser, but then he hears someone say, ‘’Sup, bitches?’ and they tighten again. He opens his eyes as the guy dressed as Britney Spears struts in. He makes a beeline for one of the cameras and puts his hands on his hips. ‘You want the X Factor? It’s right here, baby,’ he says as Zayn lets his head tip back again.

He bangs it against the wall this time.

Zayn doesn’t know how long they’re kept in there, but it feels like hours before he’s led into another room, then another and another, each one slightly smaller than the last. He’s made to sing each time, made to pose for another photo and answer another round of questions and he’s so done with it that he’s about to say fuck it and peace out when he’s finally – finally – led into another room and told to stay there until his audition.

The guy from the queue – the one with the scarf – is in there as well and Zayn doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but when the guy’s ushered out of the room, they exchange a glance. He smiles and it’s sweet enough, but it unsettles Zayn for some reason. He doesn’t think the guy is trying to psych him out, but if he is, it’s working. His mother tells him to stop fidgeting, but he can’t so Zayn excuses himself, asking someone with a clipboard where the toilets are. As soon he finds them, he locks himself in a cubicle and presses his back to the door.

He needs a cigarette. Actually, he needs to get the fuck out of there. He did this last year – locked himself in the toilet before his audition – and asked himself the same question: Why am I here? He didn’t know then and he still isn’t sure. He could blame his mother and sister, but he didn’t have to come. He could have told them to leave him alone and pissed off to Ben’s until he’d calmed down, like he usually does.

He wants to sing, he knows that much. That’s the only thing that stopped him from crawling back into bed as soon as his mother and Doniya pulled him out this morning, the only thing that stopped him from telling the guy dressed as Britney Spears to shut the fuck up. But even so, he doesn’t know if he wants this – to be on a show like X Factor, with its pantomime villain judges doing Simon and Garfunkel covers. And it’s more than self-doubt, more than that voice in his head that tells him he can’t do something and not to raise his hand in class when he knows the answer. It’s deeper than that – louder. Then he thinks about the guy with the scarf, who’s probably been practising for weeks and won’t feel like an idiot if he’s made to dance to The Jackson 5, and he asks himself if X Factor is the right show for him. After all, when he daydreams about singing, he’s not dressed in a suit and sitting on a stool, he’s leaning over the edge of a stage singing to a crowd that feels like it’s coming at him like a wave.

I have to get out of here, he thinks, but when he opens the cubicle door, he’s sees the guy with the scarf standing at one of the sinks. His fingers are curled around the edge of it, his knuckles white, and when Zayn steps out, he jumps.

‘Sorry,’ he says, turning to face him and he sounds out of breath, like he’s just run up a flight of stairs. ‘I didn’t realise anyone was in here.’

Zayn shrugs as if to say, It’s cool, but as the guy turns to face the sink again, their eyes meets in the mirror over it. They look at one another for a second, then the guy dips his head and shakes his hair forward into his eyes, but Zayn still sees, sees how red they are, sees the sticky stutter of his eyelashes, and it makes Zayn’s hands shake because he’s crying. Not happy crying, but proper please-don’t-look-at-me crying.

He didn’t get through.

Him.

He didn’t get through.

‘Fuck this,’ Zayn mutters, walking over to the door.

And he doesn’t look back.

Chapter 2

FOUR YEARS LATER

People should fall in love with their eyes closed.

~ Andy Warhol

Not bad for a Wednesday, Harry thinks as he roots through the loose change at the bottom of his guitar case. He’s made about eleven quid, eleven quid and a strawberry Starburst, which is his favourite, so life is good. And he got through five songs, which also isn’t bad, especially for Kings Cross. Most of the time he’s lucky to get through a song and a half before the transport police show up to move him along, but not today. Today was one of those perfect days, the thick clouds suddenly giving way to a burst of mid-morning sunshine so bright it made the whole of London look brand new.

It made Harry feel brand new as well. He’s never normally up and dressed before midday, but when he felt the sun bleeding through the gap in his curtains to settle in a warm line across his chest, he stirred like a drowsy cat. ‘Who died?’ his housemate, Chloe, called out from the kitchen when she heard Harry coming down the stairs and Harry laughed, telling her that he’d see her later as he headed for the front door.

When he pulled it closed behind him, he stood on the doorstep for a moment, looking up at the unbroken blue sky and he can’t remember the last time it was that colour. It’s been miserable for so long – winter refusing to make way for spring like a gatecrasher that won’t leave a party – that he closed his eyes and drank it in, drank in every drop of sun until it had seeped through his clammy skin and warmed his blood.

He wishes every day could be like today because everything’s softer when it’s sunny. Happier. People are in a good mood; they walk a little slower, drive a little slower, their windows down and their sleeves rolled up to expose elbows that haven’t seen the sun for months. Harry had to shrug off his red plaid shirt before he got to Kings Cross so he must have looked like something from an ad for washing powder as he stood there with his guitar, his t-shirt brilliant white in the bright, bright sun.

It’s been so long since he needed them that he couldn’t find his sunglasses, so he stood with his back to it, but he could still feel it burning through his t-shirt, so by the end of his first song, his scalp was tingling with sweat. He probably should have moved, but as he stood there, looking across the road at the mural over Barclay’s bank, he could have been in Barcelona. Thinking about it now he wants to laugh, because Kings Cross, with its endless heave of traffic and grubby, chewing gum studded pavements, is hardly Barcelona. But it’s amazing where you can be if you want to be and as Harry closed his eyes and felt the sun on his cheek, he was in Barcelona.

That’s when it's worth it, days like today, when people just let him sing. No one threw rubbish in his guitar case or shouted, ‘You’re shit!’ as they drove past. Even the transport police officers who came to move him on waited for him to finish his song before the taller one clapped and said, ‘Take a bow, Johnny Cash.’

Harry asked if they had any requests before he did because he’s a cheeky fucking fucker, apparently, or so he’s been told. Harry prefers to think of himself as playful. They didn’t, of course, and while he’s cheeky, he isn’t stupid so he put down his guitar.

Eleven quid for five songs is hardly a healthy return, especially as he didn’t earn a penny for Kill the Night. That usually makes his guitar case feel a little heavier as he walks back to the bus stop because before he moved to London he daydreamed about busking, of singing his songs to a small but amazed crowd. It was only a matter of time, he thought. One day a record producer would stop and ask, ‘Did you write that?’ and that would be it. But it’s been two years and there’s been no record producer. The most he’s earned for one of his songs is fifty pence and that’s not how this was supposed to go.

But today he didn’t care because a topless man carrying a can of Special Brew stopped while he was playing Kill the Night and sung along. He had no clue how it went, but he sung it with such conviction, his head back and his arms out, that it made Harry laugh so much he the forgot the words. And that’s what keeps him going, moments like that. That’s what stops him giving it all up – his band, his untidy room in the untidier house they share off the Chalk Farm Road – and going home. He considers it sometimes, when his mother calls (every time his mother calls) or when he’s in the corner shop, counting his change hoping he has enough for a pint of milk. But then he has days like today, days when the sun is out and a drunk thinks he knows one of his songs, and he knows that he could never go back, back to his old bed in his old room in his old house.

It was his cover of Torn that earned him the most today. Usually it’s Wonderwall, but it must have helped that a pretty blonde with cardamom coloured eyes stopped to listen, so with hindsight he may have sung it with more conviction than usual. He must have because halfway through, she took a copy of the Metro out of her bag, scribbled her number into the corner of the front page, tore it out and dropped it into his guitar case with a smile. He called her as he waited for the bus and she clearly wasn’t expecting him to, no doubt assuming that he’d string her along for a few days before he called. Harry isn’t like that, though, he doesn’t have the patience – or the inclination – to play games. But then Harry has always been impatient like that and three days is a long time. Who knows how many people he’ll be in and out of love with in that time? If he waits until the end of the week he might forget who she is.

He arranges to meet her at the Dublin Castle. He doesn’t tell her that he has a gig so when she gets there, in something different from what she was wearing earlier, something she put on just for him – new shoes, perhaps, her favourite bra, her favourite red lipstick – and walks in to find his band setting up he sees her eyes go from green to black, even from the other side of the pub. He has her then, he knows, before he’s even sung a note. Or maybe he already had her, as soon as she heard him singing outside Kings Cross station, that’s why she stopped. And it’s not a game, but it kind of is, as his band takes to the stage and she watches them.

Every song he sings is for her – every lick of his lips, every smile – and when they do their cover of Lover, You Should Have Come Over, Harry has tears in his eyes because he loves her so much in that moment, this girl with the cardamom coloured eyes and the red, red mouth. And she loves him right back, he can see it happening. He sees her shoulders fall and her lips part and if he went into the crowd, took her hand and told her to run, she’d run. She’d follow him off the edge of the Earth.

But tonight she only follows him as far as the toilets and he wonders if she’s ever done anything like that before. He remembers how the sun caught in her blonde hair outside Kings Cross, how young it made her look. Then he thinks about what she was wearing – her neat grey suit and sensible shoes – and smiles, imagining her fretting about what to wear tonight, if her black dress is rock and roll enough for Camden.

She gasps his name as he nudges her into one of the stalls with his hip and he isn’t sure if she’s telling him to stop or to keep going, so he waits a beat as he closes the door behind them. Then she’s on him, her mouth on his, her hands reaching for his curls and tugging. They fall against one wall then the other as Harry puts a hand out to steady himself. As soon as he does, he slips his tongue into her mouth and when it curls around hers, he feels her tense in his arms then go slack and he’s sure that if he let go, she’d collapse to the floor in a boneless heap.

If he didn’t already have her, he has her then, as he kisses her and she tries to keep up. She can’t, though, because as soon as she starts kissing him back, he peels his mouth away. She gasps his name again as he turns her around to face the toilet. ‘Bend over,’ he tells her, kicking her legs apart and she does, putting her hands on the cistern and turning her head to watch him undo his belt. He opens it with a SLAP of leather, the buckle rattling. He sees her eyes get a little wider as he unbuttons his jeans so he slows down, puts on a show for her as he pops the buttons open, one at a time, before he takes his wallet out of his back pocket and pulls out a condom. He lets her see it, just for a second, lets her see a flash of red foil before he tears into it. Her gaze follows the wrapper as it flutters to the floor while he rolls it on, then she looks at him again.

The next band takes to the stage and his heart jumps up in chest at the sudden roar of guitars. It’s so loud that he feels it in his bones so he almost doesn’t hear her when she closes her eyes and bites her bottom lip, but he does. He hears her breathe, ‘Fuck me’ and Harry Styles doesn’t often do as he’s told, but he does then.

It’s quick and breathless, one hand in her hair and the other around her throat so that he can feel her pulse. He tears into her tights and she rips his black t-shirt reaching back to grab it, and as she does, he wonders if she needs something to hold onto. If she needs the warm patch of skin her fingers find through the tear in the cotton.

He pulls her hair then, tugging her head back and kissing away what’s left her lipstick. Her eyeliner is smudged and she’s lost an earring, but she’s still beautiful, and for a moment he lets himself wonder what it would be like to be her boyfriend, to learn the taste of her skin and fuck her like this every night. Except it wouldn’t be like this, he knows, it would be quiet and over-rehearsed, in a bed they bought from Ikea and put together one Sunday afternoon while they listened to Sufjan Stevens. Then she’ll stop letting him pull her hair and when he thrust into her like this – so hard that her jaw judders – she’ll tell him to stop, that it hurts, and that would be it. So he won’t call her – he never does – and even though she’ll hate him and leave nasty voicemails every time she has too much to drink, at least they have tonight. That’s more than most ever have.

When she comes, so hard that he has to cover her mouth with his hand because he knows there’s someone in the next stall, he wonders if she knows. If she knows that, even though it’s only for tonight, he lets her have every bit of him.

+++

Most Londoners get a nosebleed when they go north of Watford. Ben Adeyemi gets one if he goes north of Old Street.

‘Where the fuck are we going? It’s not even closing,’ he says with a frown as he and Zayn head out of the pub.

Zayn, predicting resistance, is prepared and whips a bottle of Peroni out of the pocket of his leather jacket with a grin.

Ben stops walking, looks at the bottle of beer then at Zayn. ‘Alright,’ he says, tilting his head and arching an eyebrow at him. ‘What are you up to?’

Zayn smiles sweetly. ‘Nothing.’

‘Then tell me where we’re going.’

Zayn hesitates. He has a lie prepared, one about blagging his way onto the guest list for the Laura Mvula gig at the Jazz Café, which will be enough to get Ben on the bus, but he’ll have a shit fit when he realises they’re going to the Dublin Castle and nothing is worth that. Not after the Lady Gaga incident. Zayn thought Ben was going to punch him.

‘The Dublin,’ Zayn admits with a reluctant sigh.

Ben’s eyebrow arches a little higher. ‘Tell me you’re joking, Zed.’

Zayn steps back and looks down at the beer bottle in his hand. ‘What?’

‘Will Dan be there?’

Dan.

Jesus. Just hearing his name makes Zayn’s heart beat too hard.

‘It’s just a drink, Ben.’

‘It’s never just a drink with you two.’

That makes Zayn’s heart beat even harder. He hasn’t seen Dan for four days, not since that night at the Superstore, and the memory of it, of the two of them hiding in the disabled toilet, Zayn kissing him fiercely as though if he kissed him hard enough – and held on tight enough – he’d stay, as though it was a magic trick he had to get just right or it wouldn’t work. But he didn’t and Zayn hasn’t heard from him since.

‘He’s playing tonight.’ He can feel Ben staring at him so starts picking at the corner of the label on the beer bottle. ‘I just want to say hello.’

‘It’s never just hello with you two, either.’

Zayn tries not to smile because Ben’s right; he can’t remember the last time he saw Dan and they didn’t end up stumbling into a toilet stall.

But that just makes Zayn want to see him more.

‘When did you start hooking up again?’ When Zayn shrugs and peels the label clean off the beer bottle, Ben sighs. ‘You didn’t stop hooking up, did you?’

He knows what Ben is thinking and he can’t blame him. Zayn’s done this before – too many times – he’s been with guys who don’t call, only text, who don’t kiss him if anyone’s there, only when they’re on their fifth beer and they follow him outside for a cigarette. Zayn’s the guy they can’t stop thinking about, the one that keeps them up at night, but he’s never the one they leave their girlfriends for. He’s the one they think about – in the shower, in bed, their girlfriend sleeping next to them as they jerk off thinking about his mouth – but he’s never the one they love.

He’s the one they won’t let themselves love.

But with Dan it’s different. He says that every time, but this time it is.

‘You don’t have to come,’ Zayn says with another shrug. ‘I’ll go on my own.’

He hopes he sounds nonchalant, but when he turns and continues on towards the bus stop, he’s stomping, which definitely isn’t nonchalant.

Ben makes him wait a moment or two before he catches up.

‘We better be on the guest list,’ he says with a huff, snatching the beer bottle out of Zayn’s hand.

They are, but they still have to queue, which earns Zayn a filthy look from Ben, then another when they get inside to find it packed. And he deserves it; neither of them would go near a pub like the Dublin Castle with its sticky carpets and mirrored walls if Zayn wasn’t making them. They look so out of place – Zayn in his leather jacket and Ben, immaculate as always, all in black apart from his red trainers. As they make their way to the bar, a heavily tattooed girl with Cola coloured victory rolls walks past.

‘So this is where all the white people are,’ Ben says, shaking his head.

Zayn laughs as he looks across the pub at the worn red velvet booths that are crammed with people, girls in skinny jeans and boys in skinnier ones, laughing and talking over pints of cider while the jukebox plays the one Arcade Fire song he knows.

‘You should feel at home, though,’ Ben says, nudging him with a wicked smile. ‘They’re all wearing your glasses. You’re among your people, Zed.’

Zayn pushes his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose, then flips him off while he waits for a break in the crowd huddled around the bar. As soon as there’s one, he slips into it and ignores Ben who tells him to order him a snakebite and black. Zayn catches himself fussing over his hair in the mirror behind the bar as he waits for his change. It needs a cut, he knows, the front of it falling over his eyes in a dark tangle that he tries to keep swept to one side, and he doesn’t know if it is actually a mess or if he’s just anxious about seeing Dan, but he can’t seem to do anything with it.

‘You look lovely, darling,’ Ben tells him with a smirk when he gets back to him with the drinks and Zayn resists the urge to kick him.

There’s nowhere to sit so they find a corner and lean against the wall, a framed photo of Amy Winehouse between them. Zayn tries not to because he hates it when Ben does it to him, but his gaze darts in all directions, his heart stopping every time he sees a flash of blond in the crowd. He’s so nervous that he drinks his beer too quickly, so when Dan suddenly appears at his side, he can’t play it cool and smiles clumsily.

‘Dude, you came!’ Dan says with a big smile.

Zayn knows he won’t kiss him, but it still stings when he doesn’t, especially when Dan slaps him on the back as though he’s someone he used to play football with and hasn’t seen for months. Zayn’s cheeks burn and he isn’t surprised – they’ve never kissed in public, unless you count all the times Dan went to kiss him on the cheek and caught the corner of his mouth, which Zayn does – but Ben’s watching. He’s never met Dan so as he looks him up and down, Zayn knows what he’s thinking. They bicker about it all the time and okay yes – yes – Zayn does have a weakness for hipster douches. He doesn’t know why but yes, Ben’s right, most of them are only gay when they’re drunk and would run a mile if they were ever called upon to suck a cock, but Dan isn’t like that.

As soon as he thinks it – Dan isn’t like that – he cringes. He sounds like an idiot, he knows, like a silly secretary who believes that her boss is going to leave his wife, but Dan really isn’t like that. They talk and laugh and on Saturday night, he asked Zayn to go down on him. Zayn suggested they go back to his, but Dan said that he couldn’t wait and Zayn saw it – the hunger in his eyes, the tremor in his chin – and Zayn knows how that feels, knows how hard it must have been for Dan to ask, so he did it, right there in the disabled toilet. His fingers tremor at the memory of it, of Dan’s surprised gasps as Zayn sucked him off like he kisses him, like if he did it right, Dan would stay. But he didn’t. He didn’t even offer to return the favour, just gave Zayn a kiss on the cheek and told him to wait a minute before following him back out into the bar.

Ben’s right, Zayn realises then, Dan’s no different from Rob and Ty and Aiden and all the others who went before him. So maybe Zayn’s the one who has to change. He slumps against the wall at the thought, but then Dan leans into him and when he drapes an arm across his shoulders, his spine tightens like a guitar string. And it’s nothing – the tiniest gesture – so Zayn kind of hates himself, hates how it makes his heart sing.

‘I like this,’ Dan says, as though it’s a secret, knuckles grazing the stubble on Zayn’s jaw. That makes his heart sing, too, his eyelashes batting drowsily as he remembers how he kissed Dan on Saturday until the corners of his mouth were raw.

‘I’m Ben,’ he interrupts, and there’s no warmth in his voice at all, as though he’s trying to sell them double-glazing. It makes Zayn stand a little straighter.

‘Dan.’ He holds out his hand and when Ben stares at it, Zayn looks at him as if to say, Be nice. Ben rolls his eyes then shakes Dan’s hand.

‘Looking forward to your set?’ he asks and he clearly doesn’t give a shit, but Zayn appreciates the attempt at conversation.

Dan’s eyes light up. Zayn hopes Ben sees it, how everything is suddenly a little brighter, because that’s why he puts up with it – the secret, breathless kisses, the frantic handjobs in bathroom stalls that are dotted with stickers for bands that probably aren’t even together any more – not just because Dan is good looking and charming and funny, but because he’s passionate. When he talks about music his whole face changes.

‘I can’t wait!’ he says with a smile that makes Zayn smile, too.

‘Can’t wait for what, babe?’ a girl with red hair says, appearing from nowhere and curling into Dan’s side like a cat. And Zayn’s used to that, too, to the girls who sit in his lap and play with his hair, so he doesn’t flinch, not until Dan pulls her into him.

‘This is my girlfriend, Abbie.’

Zayn’s heart stops. He turns his head to look at him, but Dan isn’t saying it to him, he’s saying it to Ben. When he does, Zayn sees Ben’s fingers tighten around his pint glass and that’s what his heart feels like, like someone’s squeezing it. Then Dan leans down and kisses her and she giggles – light and girly – before they melt into it and Zayn doesn’t know where to look. Dan’s arm across his shoulders is suddenly too heavy and he wants to shrug it off, sure that his legs are about to buckle under the weight of it.

When Dan pulls away, his mouth is red with lipstick and Zayn looks away, at the picture of Amy Winehouse, because he can’t look at Ben.

‘Enjoy the set,’ Dan says, wandering off as though nothing’s happened, as though Zayn’s nothing and he hasn’t just kicked him in the heart.

He brings his pint glass to his mouth and when he realises it’s empty, he laughs even though it isn’t funny and it sounds so fake, like something from an episode of Friends. Ben doesn’t say anything, just hands him his pint and Zayn has never loved him more than he does in that moment, when he doesn’t call Dan an asshole and threaten to kick the shit out of him, just waits for him to catch his breath.

Zayn takes the glass from him and drains it in a couple of greedy gulps, then lifts his eyelashes to look at him. If it was anyone else, they’d be looking at him as if to say, I told you so, but Ben would never do that and that’s worse somehow, the pity.

‘Come on,’ Ben says, taking the empty glass from him. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Zayn shakes his head. ‘I’m fine.’

‘No you’re not.’

He isn’t, but he can’t move, certain that his clothes are the only thing holding him together. Besides, where are they going to go? Zayn’s stomach knots at the thought of walking home in silence, Ben next to him with a matching ache in his heart as he wonders why Zayn doesn’t want him and would rather have the Dans and Robs and Tys and Aidens who will never love him as much as he does. And Zayn can’t. He can’t deal with that, too. Not tonight. He just wants to stay there, where it’s too loud to talk.

Ben must know that because he tries a different tack.

‘Want a drink?’ Zayn lets go of a breath and nods. ‘Snakebite and black?’

Zayn laughs and only Ben can do that, can make him laugh when every bit of him hurts. So when Ben turns to head for the bar, Zayn reaches for the back of his t-shirt and stops him. He turns to face him again, and when he does, Zayn presses a kiss to his mouth then steps back to look up at him. Ben nods and he hopes he gets it because Zayn isn’t trying to lead him on, he does love him – of course he loves him – and that’s the problem: he loves him too much. He’s known Ben since their first day of secondary school and he made a Batman joke in class. Zayn laughed and when Ben looked over his shoulder and smiled at him it was enough to make Zayn’s eleven-year old heart slam into his ribs. He was Zayn’s first everything and he can’t live without him so he can’t do this because he doesn’t know how to do it without fucking it up.

When Ben gets back with the drinks, they head to the back bar to see who’s playing. It’s a band called The Pelicans whose lead singer is channelling Jagger, which is no bad thing. If it was any other night, Zayn might have paid more attention because from what he can see of him through his mess of dark hair, he’s Zayn’s type: tall, lean and a little awkward with a smile that makes the room a little brighter. Zayn can’t see his eyes, but he can see the curve of his collarbones under his black t-shirt and yeah, if it was any other night. Tonight Zayn just wants to hide in the dark, but then they do a cover of Lover, You Should Have Come Over and when he hears the guy’s voice break as he sings, ‘Oh will I ever learn’ Zayn has to retreat to the bathroom.

He doesn’t know how long he’s in there, locked in one of the stalls, but he’s been there long enough to draw an alien around the door hook so the rubber tip of it looks like it has one eye. He knows it’s strange, how he brings a Sharpie with him everywhere he goes, but that’s another of Zayn’s weaknesses: blank walls. Even when he was a kid, his mother would go spare at him for drawing on his bedroom wall. She bought him pad after pad of paper in every colour she could find, but they couldn’t compare to the thrill of drawing somewhere he shouldn’t. Most kids were scared of the monsters in their wardrobes, but Zayn would crawl into his and draw them inside – dragons and spiders and creatures with red eyes. Ben says it’s because Zayn sees things other people can’t – like aliens on toilet doors – and while that makes him sound like a bit of a nutter, he kind of likes that idea. Maybe he isn’t an artist after all. Maybe he’s an archaeologist.

When the alien is finished, Zayn realises that the music has stopped, and he should get out of there – and out of the pub – before Dan’s band gets on, because he can’t bear the thought of watching Dan swaggering across the stage and wondering if he’s smiling at him or the girl standing next to him. But as he’s about to the open the door, he hears someone laugh and a second later, someone else does, but it’s lighter – girlier – and his heart stops. He jumps back as they stumble into the stall next to his and when he hears them kissing greedily Zayn thinks that this could only happen to him, having to stand there listening to Dan and his girlfriend having a pre-gig quickie.

He wants to kill himself and as he contemplates how much damage he can do with a Sharpie, he hears the girl gasp Harry and he’s so relieved he’s lightheaded.

It’s not them.

As soon as he catches his breath, he unlocks the door, but before he opens it, he hears Dan come on and almost punches the wall. He can’t go now; he’ll have to walk past the stage to get out and he won’t give Dan the satisfaction which means that he’ll have to stick around and watch and Zayn isn’t sure what’s worse: having to pretend that he doesn’t give a shit or staying in there listening to a random couple fucking. Actually, he does, so he takes the lid off his Sharpie and looks for an empty space on the door. He doesn’t think about it, just draws, and within a few minutes, he isn’t even there any more, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he fills in a shadow.

It isn’t until he’s drawing a curl that he realises he’s drawing the guy from the band, the one channelling Jagger, and stops. He’s always had a thing for faces, but he prefers when they’re not so perfect because they’re more interesting to draw – the scar in the middle of Ben’s right eyebrow from when he tried to do a kick flip when they were thirteen, the woman who works in the café on the corner who looks permanently wrung out, like a pair of jeans that have just been pulled out of the washing machine. He has a series of paintings of his grandmother, each line around her eyes and crease on her forehead making her more beautiful because they’re there for a reason, because she’s laughed and lived and lost and it’s all there on her face for everyone to see. But this guy’s face is softer. His jaw isn’t a stubborn line, like his grandmothers, the skin under his eyes not so dark, but it’s still a joy to draw. And Zayn likes the sound the Sharpie makes as he draws it, the hiss of his bottom lip, the squeaks from his eyelashes.

It surprises him how much he remembers. He only hung around for a few songs, but it was long enough for his face to appear, between the telephone numbers and the torn off stickers, and he doesn’t know why. Zayn hasn’t drawn a guy for years because it demands a focus that he won’t allow himself. There’s a permanency to committing someone to paper – or toilet doors – forever. They can’t be ripped up or deleted and he needs to have that option, yet there he is, drawing this stranger. He can’t remember the last time he was so curious about a face, about the way someone’s hair curls and how long their eyelashes are. But when he gets to his eyes, Zayn stops.

+++

They have another long kiss on the curb, Harry’s hands cupping her face, before he hails a cab and waves her off. As soon as it turns the corner, he heads back into the pub, looking for someone he recognises as he makes his way towards the back bar.

Chloe finds him first and she’s so mad she’s fidgeting, her arms crossed as she tilts her head to look at him through her untidy fringe. ‘Who was that?’

‘No one,’ he says. He has to shout it over whoever’s on stage so there’s no way it sounds casual and he needs it to because he can’t have another fight with her.

He wishes – wishes – that he listened to Nick when he said that the friends with benefits thing was a myth. ‘One of you always falls in love,’ he told him, but Harry was more concerned about who Nick had fallen in love with than what was going to happen with Chloe. After all, she was so cool – so Camden – with her white blonde hair and gum piercing. Harry had never met a girl like her, a girl who played the drums and read Gloria Steinem and walked around naked, so the first time she got into the shower with him, he didn’t know what to do. He thought shit like that only happened in porn films, but there she was, her soapy hand working his dick and when he came with a stunned grunt, he couldn’t help but wonder what Gloria Steinem would make of it all.

Months of furious fucking followed and Harry thought he had it all, he got to rehearse with Chloe and the rest of the band all day, then go home and have sex with her until they fell asleep in a sweaty heap on her bedroom floor. He thought they were cool – she said they were cool – until the night they did their first gig at the Dublin Castle and he stumbled home with someone else. He was too drunk to notice the filthy looks she was giving him all night, it wasn’t until the next morning when the girl he pulled – he can’t even remember her name – was in the kitchen making toast and Chloe marched up to her and snatched the jar of Nutella out of her hand that he realised she was pissed off.

‘That’s mine!’

‘Chill, Chlo’,’ he told her, putting his hands up. ‘It’s just Nutella.’

‘Fine!’ Chloe spat, her eyes wet. ‘Have it, Harry! Have it all!’

She threw the jar at him and when he ducked out of the way and it hit the wall, he realised Nick was right: You can’t fuck someone every night and not feel something.

Harry doesn’t. It’s been two years and he still doesn’t feel a thing. He’s never said that out loud, though, because he’s pretty sure there’s something wrong with him. After all, Chloe’s almost perfect. She’s sweet and funny and an awesome drummer – Dave Grohl awesome – so he has no idea why. He cares about her, of course. He’d take a bar stool to anyone who talked shit about her, but he doesn’t think about her when she’s not there. You’re not supposed to forget about people when they leave the room.

He’s an asshole, he knows. He should put a stop to it because he’s fucking her up. He hears her crying sometimes, at night, when the rest of the band has passed out and he’s heading upstairs after putting whoever he’s just shagged in a cab. He’ll walk past Chloe’s room and hear her and it’s the worst sound in the world, almost as bad as hearing his mother cry. So he knocks on her door because he’s not sure what makes him more of an asshole, going to her or ignoring her. But he shouldn’t – he knows that now – because it just makes it worse. He thought it was the sex, all the times they’ve fucked on the kitchen table, drunk and laughing when his stray elbow sends the saltshaker flying, that was messing things up, but it’s that. It’s holding her until she stops crying and letting her fall asleep in his arms. Then it starts all over again in the morning when they have slow, sleepy sex, his hands holding onto the pillow under her head as she closes her eyes and tells him that she loves him between pants and he pretends not to hear. So yes, he’s an asshole. He’s an absolute, unrepentant asshole and in three pints time, when he looks at Chloe and thinks that maybe – one day – he could love her, he’ll do it again.

But until then, he changes the subject.

‘What’s that?’ he asks, nodding at the CD in her hand.

She gives it to him then gestures at the stage where Dan is standing under a spotlight, strumming his guitar and singing earnestly about someone with paint under her nails. ‘Desperate Dan’s demo,’ she says with a sigh that’s lost as the crowd cheers.

‘Holy shit,’ Harry gasps, staring at the cover. ‘This is amazing! Where’d he get it?’

‘He got some artist to design it.’

Harry chuckles bitterly. ‘Daddy pay for that, too?’

‘Right?’

‘He’s just handing these out?’ Chloe nods and Harry shakes his head. ‘What the fuck, Chlo’? I’m gonna have to go on the game to make this month’s rent and he’s getting Damien Hirst to design the cover of his demo?’

Harry wants to throw it across the bar, but he can’t stop looking at it. Even later, when he’s in bed, Chloe dozing softly next to him, he crawls out and tries to find his jeans. He can’t, not among all the other shit on the floor, so he opens the curtains a little to let in some light and it isn’t until Chloe groans and rolls onto her side, that he realises the sun’s coming up. That’s another night gone, he thinks, when he finds his jeans on the rug at the end of the bed and pulls the demo out of the back pocket.

He lies on the floor staring at it, the rug scratching his bare back as he traces the design on the cover with his finger. He doesn’t know why it’s pissing him off so much, but this demo represents everything that’s wrong with his life. He’s been killing himself for four years, singing to anyone who’ll listen, on street corners, in pubs where people don’t even see him, as though he’s a TV screen playing the news on a loop. He’s been laughed at and spat at and had ten pence pieces thrown at him from passing cars and his band is opening for floppy haired, cardigan wearing Daniel Delgado and his Martin D-18E, who’s playing at being a rock star in his gap year before he goes to Cambridge.

It isn’t fair.

Harry turns the CD over and at the bottom he can just make out a name – Zayn Malik. There’s a number, so he reaches for his jeans and finds his phone before hauling himself to his feet. He goes to the window and edges the curtain open again, just enough to see the number. It’s almost light now, an aeroplane leaving a line across the marmalade coloured sky. He can see the sun, peeking up from behind the rooftops and he doesn’t know why it makes him feel better, but it does. So he dials the number and heads out into the hallway so he doesn’t wake Chloe.

Zayn answers with an abrupt, ‘Yeah?’

‘Is that Zayn Malik?’ Harry asks, sitting at the top of the stairs.

‘Who’s this?’

‘My name’s Harry Styles. I’m a friend of Dan’s.’

The line goes quiet for a second or two then he says. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’m in a band I wondered if you’d do some artwork for our demo as well.’

‘Oh,’ he says and it’s weird; Harry’s sure he sounds relieved. ‘Yeah. ‘Course.’

‘Do you wanna meet up and talk about it?’

‘When?’

‘Now’s good,’ Harry suggests with a shrug.

‘Now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s five-seventeen in the morning, Harry.’

‘Sorry. Did I wake you?’

‘No, but it’s five-seventeen in the morning.’

‘I don’t sleep.’

‘Clearly.’

‘Where do you live? I can come to you. I’ll bring bagels.’

‘Okay.’ Zayn sounds a bit stunned. ‘Okay.’

Chloe isn’t amused when Harry wakes her up for bagel money, but an hour and two buses later, he’s in Dalston knocking on Zayn’s door. He lives exactly where you’d expect an artist to live, on the top floor of a converted factory on the sort of street you see on the news under the caption BODY PARTS FOUND IN BIN, so Harry can’t help but hold his breath and look over his shoulder as he waits for Zayn to open the door.

He’s made to wait a minute or two, but finally, he hears a series of locks turning and when the metal door slides open, Harry almost drops the plastic bag he’s holding.

Zayn Malik may live where you’d expect an artist to live, but he doesn’t look like one. Harry doesn’t know why not; you can’t throw a snapback in East London without hitting a twenty-year old who says they’re an artist. And it’s not like he thought about what Zayn looked like before he got there (if he thought at all, he wouldn’t have turned up at his door at six-thirty on a Thursday morning), but now that he’s looking at him, this isn’t how he would have pictured him if he had. Not that Harry even knows what artists look like, but he always imagines them to be slightly crumpled with mad hair.

Zayn is slightly crumpled and his hair is kind of mad, but that’s probably more to do with the fact that he’s just woken up than an attempt to be eccentric. If anything he looks kind of normal – tall and thin, his nose wrinkling as he stops pulling on his shirt to yawn. Or he should look normal, his black jeans a little saggy around the knees and the sharp line of his jaw softened with two-day old stubble, but he doesn’t look normal at all and that’s what startles Harry. Not that Zayn isn’t what he was expecting, but that he’s so far from it that he catches himself staring at him.

Zayn is beautiful. Harry’s never used that word to describe a guy before, but he is. He isn’t cute, like Harry, with his curls and dimples, or good looking like the guys Harry sees around Camden, the ones with narrow hips and practised smiles. Harry feels a pinch of envy when he sees those guys, wishing he had their shoulders or that he had the patience to do more than wash his hair before he leaves the house, but Zayn doesn’t make him feel like that because the way he looks can’t be achieved with a trip to the gym or some hair wax, it’s much rarer than that. Zayn isn’t the sort of guy you see every day. Guys like him don’t sit opposite you on the tube or approach your table in a pub to ask if anyone’s sitting on the stool next to yours. You might go your whole life and never see someone like Zayn Malik anywhere other than a magazine so beautiful is the only word to describe him. And he is beautiful, look-away-from-the-sun beautiful, even half-asleep and leaning against a metal door in a shabby, dimly lit corridor. All eyelashes and cheekbones and a full, soft mouth that’s the colour of those erasers at the end of pencils.

As soon as Harry makes the comparison, everything in his head jumps up and lands in a different place. He suddenly needs to do something with his hands so starts fussing over his hair and when he curses himself for not showering – or at least putting on a clean t-shirt – he asks himself what he’s doing. He can’t remember the last time someone made him worry about those things, but he tries not to think about it because it’s kind of nice, how his heart is spinning in a way it never has before, like a record playing at a different speed.

‘Jagger,’ Zayn says with a frown, blinking groggily.

Harry doesn’t know how he finds his breath to speak, not when he’s trying not to stare at the tattooed wings under Zayn’s collarbones, but he manages to mutter, ‘Huh?’

‘Nothing.’ Zayn shakes his head and pulls on his shirt. ‘You’re that dude.’

‘Harry.’

‘From that band.’

‘The Pelicans.’

‘So I wasn’t dreaming, then?’ Zayn says with another long yawn.

Harry isn’t often at a loss for words, but as he watches Zayn do up his shirt, he doesn’t know what to do with himself as the strip of skin down the middle of his chest disappears, one button at a time. Zayn starts with the last one and before he buttons it, Harry sees the glimpse of a tattoo on his hipbone, then it’s gone and it’s maddening. He’s often accused of having no self-control, but he must have some to resist the urge to reach over and tug up the hem of his shirt. He considers it – just for a second – his fingers fluttering as he imagines hooking one into the waist of Zayn’s jeans and tugging them down a little so he can see the tattoo. The tops of his ears burn at the thought, so he makes himself look at Zayn’s hands instead, at his plaid shirt closing. There are eight buttons, Harry counts, eight buttons from Zayn’s waist to his throat, and he doesn’t know why he feels the need to count them, but when Zayn licks his lips and leans against the door, looking at him from under his black eyelashes, Harry needs a distraction.

‘Bread,’ he says, holding up the plastic bag in his hand.

Zayn rears back. ‘Huh?’

‘I couldn’t get bagels so I got bread. And tea.’

‘What sort of tea?’

‘Yorkshire.’

The corners of Zayn’s mouth lift. ‘Then come in.’

‘I figured you’d prefer Yorkshire Tea, ‘cos of your accent.’

It isn’t until he hears himself say it that Harry realises how weird that is. He hears so many accents in London that he doesn’t know why he noticed Zayn’s, but a few minutes before, when he was in the Tesco Express opposite the Rio Cinema and cursing them for not having bagels, he thought of it as he ambled down the tea aisle.

‘You are from Yorkshire, right?’ he says, and he’s babbling, he knows, but his brain can’t seem to catch up with his mouth to tell him to shut up.

‘Bradford,’ Zayn says, turning and walking inside.

‘I’m from Cheshire.’

Harry grins as he follows him and he doesn’t know why; Cheshire is almost a hundred miles from Bradford, a fact Zayn acknowledges with a half-arsed, ‘Yeah?’

Harry’s about to launch into his well-rehearsed story about moving to London to make it as a rock star when he stops. ‘Holy shit,’ he gasps, as he pulls the metal door shut behind him and walks into the loft. ‘This place is amazing.’

‘Thanks,’ Zayn says with the sort of nonchalance only the truly cool can pull off. ‘It’s hardly the Silver Factory, but they used to make soup here, which is kind of cool.’

Harry has no idea what the Silver Factory is, but he nods anyway and says, ‘I’ve always wanted to live somewhere like this.’

He has, ever since he hooked up with a girl called Cheska who lived in loft in Shoreditch. Harry loved how open it was, how he couldn’t touch the ceiling like in his cramped, untidy room in Camden that feels like it’s closing in on him at times, especially at night when sleep feels like the bottom of a swimming pool that his toes can’t find. But Cheska’s loft was more self-conscious – more deliberate – with its Banksy prints and powder blue Chesterfield sofa. Zayn’s place isn’t like that at all. The floorboards are chewed up and dotted with paint and he doesn’t even have a bed, he sleeps on a mattress on the floor, but that’s what makes the loft cool: it isn’t trying to be. Nothing matches or has been agonised over, like in Cheska’s loft. His records are in plastic crates by his decks, not on custom-built shelves for everyone to see, and there are no fairy lights or retro floor lamps, just a row of naked bulbs hanging from the rafters.

It’s functional. The kitchen, which runs along the wall opposite the windows, is battered but practical with a deep stainless steel sink that has a huddle of jam jars next to it, brushes soaking in each one. The cupboards aren’t painted, though – nothing is – only the iron pillars which are rust red, Harry assumes, so no one walks into them. But the brick walls haven’t been touched, probably because they’re too big to contemplate.

It’s kind of a mess, everything bruised with paint – the handle on the fridge, the bucket on the floor by the easel, the rag by the sink next to the jam jars – but Harry can see that everything has it’s place. He guesses that the drafting table is in the middle because it’s under the skylight, while the table with the plastic bottles of paint and tin cans of brushes is in the corner so it’s out of the light. He doubts that even Zayn’s skateboard, which is propped against the wall by the door, is there so everyone sees it when they walk in; it’s probably where he left it when he came in.

The loft is clearly somewhere for Zayn to sleep and work, but no more. There’s no unnecessary furniture, no rugs or footstools or bookcases. There isn’t even a sofa, just a leather chair by one of the windows. And there are no fussy accessories, either, nothing personal like postcards or family photos, but Harry can see Zayn everywhere. In the brightly painted tiles drying on the windowsill centred with what he thinks is Sanskrit and the open box of cigarettes on the drafting table, one turned upside down.

‘This place is amazing,’ Harry says again as he walks over to the canvases leaning against the wall. Not all of them are finished, but as he looks at the pale clouds of watercolour that drip into lines down the canvas like tears, they’re more beautiful somehow. There’s one of someone playing the guitar and Zayn only painted his hands before he abandoned it but Harry can still see it – the guitar that isn’t there – like a misheard lyric. ‘You’re so lucky to live here,’ he says, looking at the canvas next to it with its thick strokes of oil paint that he wants to brush his fingers against.

‘I’m pretty sure that the guy downstairs is running a meth lab, but the light’s good,’ Zayn says, and when Harry turns to look at him, he waves at the windows that take up one wall before he grabs the kettle from the kitchen counter and fills it up.

As if on cue, a beam of sunshine arcs into the loft, scattering squares of light across the floorboards. Harry holds up a hand, utterly rapt as he watches the yellow light break through his fingers to warm his cheeks. When he lets his arm drop back down to his side, he looks at Zayn’s mattress, which is against one of the walls, and he can see the sun spilling across that too, onto the creased white sheets piled on top of it, and Harry knows then why the bed is there. What a way to wake up, he thinks as he notes the imprint that Zayn’s head has left in the pillow, with the sun on your back.

‘Sorry if I woke you,’ Harry says, almost to himself as he wanders over to the drafting table, which is exactly the same as the one in the art room at his old school. It’s cluttered with paper and the lamp arching over it is on so as he approaches it to find the beginning of a sketch of what he thinks is a bird, he wonders if he woke Zayn after all.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ Zayn tells him as he turns the kettle on.

Harry jumps back, the plastic bag in his hand rustling. ‘I wouldn’t.’

‘Did you bring milk, cos I don’t have any?’

‘Yeah.’ Harry trots over to him and hands him the bag.

Zayn roots through it, taking out the loaf of bread, then stops. ‘Butter,’ he smiles sleepily, taking it out and looking at it. ‘I haven’t had real butter since I left home.’

‘I bought strawberry jam and peanut butter ‘cos I didn’t know which you’d prefer.’

Harry’s fussing over his hair again and he tells himself to stop.

‘Strawberry jam and peanut butter?’ Zayn raises his eyebrows, his smile at little more playful. ‘You trying to impress me or something? ‘Cos you had me at Yorkshire Tea.’

Harry grins and it’s so clumsy that it makes him blush and dip his head, grateful that Zayn isn’t paying attention as he turns to get a couple of mugs out of the cupboard.

‘You lived here long?’ Harry asks over the building boil of the kettle, turning away in case his cheeks look as hot they feel. And it’s kind of lame – like complaining about the weather – but there’s something about Zayn that makes him feel kind of lame.

He doesn’t realise that he’s walked over to the leather chair and picked up the book that’s open face down on the seat until Zayn says, ‘I told you not to touch anything.’

The shock of it makes Harry drop the book and when it lands on the floor at his feet, he mutters, ‘Shit’ before he bends down to pick it up.

‘I’m sorry. I lost your page,’ he says, one hand fisted in his hair as he turns to Zayn and holds the book up. He expects to find him scowling, but Zayn just rolls his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching as he tears the plastic off the box of tea.

‘It’s alright. I’m sure I’ll find it.’

Harry puts the book back on the chair and retreats to the drafting table, dragging this teeth along his bottom lips as he peers at the sketches spread across it, their corners held down with masking tape. He can’t see all of them, just pieces – a wing, a feather, a row of pink smudges in various shades from light to dark – but under the sketch of the bird Zayn’s working on in the middle, he can see the shadow of another underneath. It looks like a face, but as he leans closer to look at it, Zayn is next to him.

‘Am I gonna have to make you sit on your hands?’

Zayn takes something from him and Harry gasps as he does, his heart suddenly in his throat as he realises that it’s a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

‘Sorry,’ Harry gulps as Zayn puts them on.

He didn’t even realise he was holding them.

Zayn doesn’t seem bothered, though. ‘What do you want on your toast?’ he asks as he pads back to the kitchen. ‘Jam or peanut butter?’

‘Both, please.’

Zayn looks at him like he’s mad as the toaster pops up. ‘Both?’

‘One of each.’

He still doesn’t look convinced. ‘Okay,’ he mutters, taking the lid off the jam jar.

‘Do you live here on your own?’ Harry asks, looking around.

He already knows that he does; there’s no trace of a girlfriend anywhere. No high heels interrupting the row of trainers by the clothes rail. No sweetness in the air, just the faint smell of tobacco and turps that’s being softened by the smell of toast. He doesn’t know why he noticed or why something in him relaxes when Zayn says, ‘Yeah.’

‘I’m so jealous,’ Harry says, turning to face him as Zayn sticks a knife into the jam. ‘I live in this tiny old house in Camden. The landlord thinks that there’s only three of us living there, but there’s, like, seven of us. I wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise.’

Zayn chuckles, then licks his thumb before walking over to Harry and handing him his plate of toast, the jam one on top. ‘I did that last year. Never again.’

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ Harry mutters, sitting on the stool next to the drafting table then swivelling it to face Zayn as he walks back to the kitchen. ‘I thought living with the band would be so cool, but we argue over the dumbest shit.’

‘It’s all rock and roll until you start labelling your milk.’ Harry laughs, almost choking on a bite of toast and Zayn smiles. ‘Last year, I lived with three people on my course. I’m pretty chill, but I punched one of them for not buying toilet paper.’

Harry laughs again, then wipes the crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand as Zayn walks over to him and hands him a mug of tea. ‘You still at Uni?’

‘Final year.’

‘Which one?’

‘St Martins.’

‘Holy shit.’ Harry blinks. ‘You must be good.’

‘Thanks.’ Zayn points at him with a slow smile as he heads back to the kitchen. ‘Can you tell my mum that, though. She doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal.’

Harry rolls his eyes. ‘My mum didn’t talk to me for a month when I moved here.’

‘Uni?’

‘Worse,’ Harry pauses for dramatic effect. ‘To join a band I met online.’

Zayn tips his head back and laughs. ‘You win.’

‘She still hasn’t forgiven me. It was only supposed to be for a year.’

‘How long’s it been?’

Harry holds up two fingers and Zayn smiles again.

‘She’s not keen on the rock star thing, then?’ he says, walking towards the dining table with his tea and toast and putting them down. He turns one of the chairs around to face Harry and when he sits down, he brings one leg up so his bare foot is resting on the seat of the chair, and Jesus, even his feet are pretty.

Harry looks away. ‘She used to be my biggest fan,’ he says, stopping to lick jam off his finger as he thinks about his X Factor audition, his mother in that HARRY HAS THE X FACTOR t-shirt, and he feels it like a splinter in his heart. ‘But she’s so practical. She thinks I should go to uni and do the band thing on the side and if I make it I make it.’

Zayn chuckles and shakes his head. ‘I’ve known you for all of ten minutes, Harry, but you don’t strike me as the practical type.’

He smiles to himself, picking up his piece of toast again. ‘My friend, Nick, and I used to be in this band back home. He played bass and now he’s training to be a stockbroker. When I went home at Christmas, his guitar was in the cupboard under the stairs with his mum’s exercise bike and his dad’s tool box.’ Harry’s gaze dips as he finishes the toast, peanut butter clinging to the bottom of it from the slice underneath. ‘It’s not a hobby, y’know? It’s the only thing I’m good at.’

Harry lifts his chin to look at Zayn and he’s nodding. There aren’t many people who get that, who know what it’s like to try and do something that no one else thinks you can do, but as he sits in Zayn’s paint-splattered loft, he knows that Zayn does.

It’s the first thing they have in common.

Zayn clears his throat. ‘All my friends back home are getting married or training to be solicitors and accountants,’ he says, pausing to sip his tea then he licks his lips. ‘I graduate this year and my mum keeps asking me how I’m going to support myself.’

Harry wants to tell him that he’ll be okay, that’s he so good, but as his gaze strays toward the canvases leaning against the wall, he realises that he’s more likely to make it than Zayn is. There’s no X Factor for artists.

‘She wants me to teach,’ Zayn says, and when Harry looks at him again he’s looking into his mug and biting his bottom lip. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, I think it would be kind of cool, I just wish that she hadn’t given up before I even started, y’know?’

Harry nods.

‘But she’s right: I’m gonna have to do something. I bartend almost every night and even with DJing and the stuff I do on the side, like the artwork for Dan’s demo, I’m still living on instant noodles.’ He picks up a piece of toast and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do when I have to move out of this place in August.’

‘Why do you have to move out in August?’

‘You think I can afford to live here working in the Dalston Superstore?’ He laughs looking around at the loft. ‘I’m just house sitting for one of my lecturers while he’s on sabbatical at Columbia for a year. He gets back in August.’

Harry frowns. ‘Yeah but you’ll stay in London, right?’ His cheeks flush when he hears that his voice is a little higher and he wonders if Zayn notices.

If he does, he doesn’t say anything, just shrugs. ‘Who knows?’

‘You can always live with me,’ Harry offers with a smile. ‘I always buy loo roll.’

Zayn rolls his eyes, trying to hide a smile behind his piece of toast but Harry sees the skin around his eyes crinkle and it makes his cheeks burn.

+++

Zayn doesn’t expect to see Harry again for a while, not until he has some sketches to show him, so when he walks into the bar, he thinks it must be a coincidence. But Harry heads straight for the bar and says hello with a loose smile, his hand in his hair.

‘Hey,’ Zayn says with a frown, wondering if they made plans and he forgot.

‘You alright?’ Harry asks, fidgeting on the spot.

‘Yeah. Are you alright?’

Harry nods, one of his dark curls catching in his eyelashes. ‘You?’

‘I’m still alright,’ Zayn says, eyeing him warily.

This isn’t the Harry who showed up at his door yesterday morning and shoved a plastic bag in his face. He isn’t babbling and trying to touch everything, so when he tugs his hair and clears his throat, Zayn holds his breath. If he didn’t know better he’d think that Harry had come to the bar to break up with him.

‘Just meeting someone for a drink,’ he says.

‘Oh.’ Zayn relaxes. ‘Date?’

‘Something like that.’

Harry won’t look at him, but Zayn sees him bite his lip. He likes her. But before Zayn can ask who she is, someone at the other end of the bar says his name and he goes to take her order. When he comes back, Harry is tugging a plastic bag off his wrist.

‘Been shopping?’ he asks, turning to grab a bottle from the shelf behind him.

‘Birthday present for a mate.’

Zayn smirks as he pours some vodka into the cocktail shaker on the bar then puts the bottle back on the shelf. ‘I’m just trying to picture you in Kristina Records.’

‘Hey,’ Harry says, feigning indignation. ‘I’m cool.’

As if to prove the point, he hops onto one of the stools, then almost falls off. He grabs the edge of the bar to steady himself and Zayn spills the passion fruit juice that he’s pouring into the cocktail shaker as he reaches over the bar to grab his wrist. As soon as he does, Harry cracks up laughing and puts his face in his hands.

‘Yeah, you’re the coolest,’ Zayn tells him, wiping the fruit juice off his hand with a bar towel.

Harry looks at him through his fingers. ‘Am I going to be deported back to Camden?’

‘Depends,’ Zayn says, tilting his head as he puts the lid on the cocktail shaker and starts shaking it. The ice rattles loudly and he can’t resist timing each shake to the Donna Summer song playing. ‘What’d you get your mate?’

‘A King Tubby album he’s been trying to track down for ages.’

‘King Tubby? That’s kind of cool.’

Harry perks up at that, taking his hands away from his face. ‘Yeah?’

‘I suppose,’ Zayn says with a slow smile. And with that, he’s back to the Harry he met yesterday, hands and eyes everywhere as Zayn pours the contents of the cocktail shaker through a strainer into a martini glass and fills a shot glass with prosecco.

‘What’s that?’ he asks, pulling a straw out of the box on the bar and chewing on the end then taking a cherry and popping it in his mouth like it’s a fucking buffet.

‘A Pornstar Martini,’ Zayn says over his shoulder as he carries the drinks down the bar to the girl with Lego red hair waiting with a £10 note in her hand.

‘Can I have one?’

‘You got money?’ Zayn asks, walking back to him and crossing his arms.

‘Do you accept credit cards?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then hell yeah, I got money.’

Zayn shouldn’t encourage him, but he can’t help but smile and when Harry smiles back – slow and smooth – Zayn begins to question his motives again. But before he can tell himself to look away, Ben appears.

‘Not interrupting, am I?’ he says, taking a long look at Harry – at his Pink Floyd t-shirt and white Converse – before tilting his cheek towards Zayn. Zayn knows what he’s thinking, but Harry introduces himself before he can say anything.

‘I’m Harry Styles,’ he says with a massive smile, swivelling his stool to hold his hand out to Ben, who just looks at it, then looks at Zayn again.

Ben waits a beat then says, ‘Harry?’ His eyebrows lift as he does, and Zayn doesn’t know how he does it, how he says people’s names as though they’re lying.

Zayn gives him a Be nice look and Ben reluctantly shakes Harry’s hand.

‘Pleasure to meet you, Harry,’ he says, doing the name thing again.

‘Nice to meet you, too, Ben,’ Harry says, unfazed, swivelling back to face Zayn.

‘So,’ Ben says, sitting on the stool next to Harry’s as Zayn turns to get him a bottle of Peroni from the fridge, ‘how do you two know each other, then?’

Zayn’s surprised, he looks amused, taking the bottle with a smug smirk.

But then Harry says, ‘I’m a friend of Dan’s’ and the corners of Ben’s mouth fall. He’s about to say something, when Harry adds, ‘I say friend. I hate him. Prick.’

Ben blinks a few times, then laughs. ‘I might like this one.’

Harry looks confused. ‘One what?’

‘Ignore him,’ Zayn tells him. ‘Harry’s in that band-’

Ben interrupts with another laugh. ‘Of course he is!’

Zayn crosses his arms and tilts his head at him. ‘Harry’s in that band we saw the other night at the Dublin. He’s asked me to do some artwork for his demo.’

‘And how’s this one gonna pay you?’ He nods at Harry. ‘Same way as Dan?’

Zayn glares at him, but when Ben doesn’t look away, he snatches a cloth from under the bar and starts wiping it down. Harry doesn’t seem to notice. ‘It’s alright,’ he says, reaching for another cherry. ‘I’m going on the game so I’ll have money.’

Ben blinks at him again then turns to Zayn, shaking his head. ‘Don’t.’

Zayn tries not to smile. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘If he plays the ukulele, I swear to God.’

Zayn laughs and when he looks Harry, he looks confused. ‘I’m sitting right here.’

‘Sorry,’ Zayn says, a hand to his chest.

‘What’s wrong with the ukulele?’

Ben laughs – a huge belly laugh – and stands up. ‘I can’t.’ He shakes his head and waves his hand between Zayn and Harry. ‘I’m going to say hello to Dixie.’

‘Ignore him,’ Zayn tells Harry as he wanders off. ‘He’s just overprotective.’

Harry goes to reach for another cherry and when Zayn slaps his hand, he sits back on the stool with a pout. ‘Why? What’s he got to be overprotective about?’

‘Things didn’t end so well with Dan.’

‘Why? Didn’t he pay or something? That fucker. His dad’s loaded, you know?’

Zayn scratches the back of his head. ‘Something like that.’

‘If you want me to punch Dan in the face, I’d be happy to. You know, for you.’

‘That’s very generous of you, Harry.’

Zayn lets him take a cherry this time.

+++

Harry doesn’t know why he went to the bar, not until he hears his phone ringing in his pocket and ignores it because he doesn’t want to interrupt Zayn’s story about the guy he had to draw for a life drawing class last week who got a boner.

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ he asks without looking up. He’s muddling mint in a glass, making the air between them smell sharp and sweet, like it’s just rained.

He doesn’t know how Zayn hears his phone in the growing din of the bar. It’s been getting gradually darker, the music louder, as the seats around them fill up. Harry’s been making himself useful, lighting the candles on each table and cutting limes in exchange for a series of drinks that are getting him steadily drunker. The DJ’s just arrived so, as people crowd around him, trying to get Zayn’s attention, Harry knows that he won’t be able to keep his stool much longer, but he just wants to hear one more story.

‘It’s not important,’ he tells Zayn with a small shrug when his phone stops ringing. But it is. Harry’s missing a gig. Not a big one, but then none of them are, they’re always in a shithole of a pub that Blur played once, back in 1989, so Harry and the band should be grateful that they’re not being paid because this could be the gig.

It never is and Harry needs a night off. It’s not unreasonable, but given that he hasn’t actually told the band, just fucked off while they were bickering in the kitchen over the last can of baked beans, it’s a assholey thing to do. But then, Harry is an asshole now. This is what he does. He lets people down and only thinks about himself. That’s what his mother says when he doesn’t call for two weeks, what Chloe tells him the morning after he shags someone else. And he’s not denying it – he can’t, can he? – he just wishes that making himself happy wasn’t always at the expense of someone else.

He can hear his phone ringing again and he knows it’s Tom. He’s probably having an embolism and he can’t blame him – Harry’s the singer, they can hardly go on without him – but for once, he’s not thinking about himself, he’s thinking about Zayn.

Harry doesn’t much believe in fate any more. He used to. For a while he believed in stuff like that, stuff like fate and destiny and love at first sight. He really believed that he was special, that he would make it if he just sang a little louder than everyone else, tried a little harder. But that’s bollocks, he knows now. If he makes it, it’ll be coincidence or dumb luck. It doesn’t matter how long he agonises over a lyric or perfects a chord, one night, Steve Lamacq will just happen to be in the pub he’s singing in and that’ll be it.

He used to think that he could make those things happen, that if he sung in enough shitty pubs, he’d eventually sing in the one Steve Lamacq was in, but look at Daniel Delgado. As if opening for him wasn’t a new low, Harry heard this morning that he’s going on tour with Bon Iver. Daniel Delgado. Daniel Delgado who has three fucking songs and can’t even say Bon Iver properly. If that’s fate, then fuck fate.

So maybe that’s why he went to Zayn’s bar, because for months it’s felt like he isn’t moving, like nothing’s changing. He’s singing the same songs in the same bars and shagging anyone who shows him a passing interest because he needs to feel something. He needs a distraction from the question that’s been playing on a loop since he walked out of that X Factor audition.

Is this it?

But somewhere along the way, somewhere between his mother stroking his hair and telling him that he can do anything – be anything – and opening for Daniel Delgado, it stopped being a question. Is this it? has become This is it and that’s what will break him, not that he didn’t try hard enough or sing loud enough, it’s that he isn’t enough.

But then he met Zayn yesterday and he felt it again, the thing he felt the day he packed a bag and told his mother that he was moving to London. It’s like an itch – in his heart, his bones – and he hasn’t sat still since he left Zayn's loft. Harry can’t stop thinking about him. They talked until the sun went down, talked about what they thought living in London was going to be like before they left home and swapped stories about their anxious mothers’ attempts to get them to go back. Harry had to sit with his back to the windows because he couldn’t bear to watch the day dying around them, but then the last slice of bread was toasted and they’d drunk so much tea that his hands were shaking. Then Zayn said it - ‘I’ve got to get to work’ - and Harry felt something in him wilt.

There are two types of people, he’s learned. There are people like his mother, the lucky ones who sleep for eight hours every night and find happiness in the little things, fish and chips on a Friday night and a film that makes them laugh. They’re lucky because they’ll never know the agony of reaching for something and missing, but then, they’re so scared of falling that they’ll never know what it’s like to fly. Not that Harry knows, either, but yesterday, as he watched Zayn pad around his loft, he wondered if the thrill is in flying or in thinking that you can. So maybe this is it. Harry doesn’t know what this is, but he realised yesterday that he still wants to find out.

That’s why he’s at the bar, because Zayn makes him feel restless, like Nick used to, before he put his guitar in the cupboard under the stairs. Friends like that don’t come along very often. That’s the funny thing about growing up, you stop making friends. Back home, when he went to a party he knew everyone there and, at school, when the weather was nice, he and his friends would sit on the hockey field at lunch. There would be a dozen of them, dozing in the sunshine, but now, thanks to his crazy sleep patterns and the permanent lack of credit on his phone, he only speaks to them now and again. So, apart from the band and a few regulars at the Dublin, he hasn’t made any new friends in years. London’s too big, too unapproachable. He doesn’t dare look at anyone on the Tube in case it’s interpreted as an act of aggression and the last time he opened a door for a woman with a buggy she didn’t even thank him, just charged off.

Zayn’s the first person Harry’s met since he moved here that he wants to hang out with. When he got home last night, he looked up the Silver Factory and when he realised that it was Andy Warhol’s studio, he felt kind of stupid, especially when Chloe knew. Not that she was in any mood to tell him, threatening to punch him if he didn’t shut up about Zayn as they walked out of the Dublin and headed for the kebab shop. ‘You wanna fuck him or something?’ she hissed and Harry rolled his eyes.

She’s getting jealous of dudes now.

It didn’t help that he didn’t kiss her back when they got home and he wonders if she heard him pacing around his room, listening to song after song. He didn’t even know what he was looking for; he just knew that he couldn’t find it. So he picked up his guitar, then put it down again, picked up a book, then put it down again. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, until he opened his Moleskine and began idly scribbling. He woke up a few hours later, the pen in his hand and a cold cup of tea on his bedside table, to find that he’d written a lyric. He reached for his guitar and sang it – I know you’re scared of heights, but if you jump, I’ll break your fall – and it sounded so familiar, like a song he’d been singing for years. So he sang, sang and sang, like a bird in a fucking cage.

He hasn’t written anything for weeks, so the relief of it made him lightheaded. When he eventually went downstairs, Chloe was at the kitchen table and she looked tiny, like a little kid, her hair everywhere as she sat there eating Nutella straight from the jar.

‘What were you singing?’ she asked. She had a smudge of Nutella at the corner of her mouth, but when he went to wipe it away, he stopped himself.

‘Nothing.’

Harry’s never done that. He usually plays his songs to anyone who’ll listen, parades them around like a new pair of shoes, so he knows that hurt her more than any girl he’ll sleep with, but something told him not to tell her. To keep it for himself.

‘I’d better go,’ he tells Zayn when he asks if he wants another drink.

The bar’s chaos. People are queuing to get in and even though there are now two of them behind the bar, they’re still struggling, so he doesn’t expect Zayn to object.

‘What about your date?’ he shouts over the music, which is now so loud, Harry can feel it in his teeth. ‘What time is she getting here?’

Harry shakes his head and pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, but when he opens it, Zayn puts his hand over his and looks at him from under his thick eyelashes.

‘Did she stand you up?’ he asks with a frown, and he looks genuinely worried.

Harry doesn’t know whether it’s only having a few hours sleep or the five cocktails he’s knocked back on an empty stomach, but he can’t lie. ‘There was no date.’

‘What?’ Zayn’s frown deepens, but before Harry can repeat himself, someone tries to shove him out of the way.

‘Excuse me,’ the guy slurs, clearly off his tits. ‘Can I get a fucking drink?’

Zayn doesn’t even look at him. ‘Can you wait your fucking turn?’

‘Just do your job, bitch.’

‘You want a drink?’ Zayn snatches the mixer tap and the guy screams and jumps back as soda water arcs across the bar at him. ‘Anyone else want a drink?’ he asks, holding up the tap, and it’s like the parting of the Red Sea as they all say no in unison.

Zayn throws it down again then says, ‘Sorry. What were you saying?’

‘Nothing.’ Harry shakes his head. ‘I have to go.’

‘But what about your date?’

‘I made it up.’ Harry wishes he doesn’t have to shout it, because it makes him sound more of a dickhead, but he’s glad that it’s too dark for Zayn to see him blushing.

‘What?’ Zayn cups his ear with his hand then reaches for Harry’s shoulder with the other as he leans over the bar and says, ‘Say that again.’

Harry doesn’t want to, but when he tries to pull away, Zayn leans closer. So he closes his eyes, his mouth catching on the stubble on Zayn’s jaw as he presses his mouth to his ear and says, ‘I don’t have a date. I made it up.’

Zayn steps back and looks at him for a beat too long before he says, ‘Why?’

‘I wanted to see you.’ Harry shakes his head. ‘I wanted to see you again.’ His heart cringes behind his ribs as he hears himself say it. It sounds so pathetic.

‘Why didn’t you just say that?’

‘I don’t know. I had to see you.’ Harry shakes his head again. ‘I had to see you.’

Harry doesn’t realise that his hand is cupping Zayn’s elbow until his fingers curl around it. As soon as he does, Zayn’s fingers tighten around his shoulder and it feels so natural, as though the two actions are somehow connected.

‘Okay.’ Zayn nods, his eyelashes batting slowly. ‘Then you should go.’

But he doesn’t let go of Harry’s shoulder.

Chapter 3

THREE WEEKS LATER

Zayn wakes with such a start his heart stops. ‘I’m awake,’ he gasps, kicking the huddle of beer bottles at his feet. They topple over skittering in ten different directions across the floor and the shock of it – of the sudden clatter of glass on glass – makes his heart start again, twice as fast. It’s like a guitar pick to his already tender nerves and he moans miserably, reaching for the duvet to pull it over his head. He can’t find it, though, and after groping blindly for a few moments, he inches an eye open to find that he isn’t in bed, he’s in the chair by the window. ‘The fuck?’ he mutters, but when he tries to lift his head, he can’t, the pain punching him back into the chair.

He’s dying, he’s sure. Every bit of him hurts – his head, his neck, even his teeth – and he doesn’t know what he did to deserve such a vicious hangover, but when he summons the energy to open his eyes and sees Harry on the bed, he should have known. He’s nowhere near him, but Zayn still throws an arm out and immediately regrets it as the pain moves to his temples, which makes him want to hit Harry more. ‘Fuck face,’ he mutters, but Harry is sparko spread eagle face down on the mattress as though he’s trying to sleep on every inch of it, all at once. He’s snoring so contently that Zayn wants to throw something at him, but as he’s looking for something he hears someone say his name. He thinks he’s imagining it, but when he hears it again – somewhere far off, as though they’re calling him from another room – he holds his breath.

‘Zed?’ It’s clearer this time, but it still takes a moment to realise who it is.

‘Ben?’ Zayn frowns, looking around the loft.

‘Zed, you in there?’

He pounds on the front door and Zayn looks over at it. It’s so far away, the stretch of floorboards between him and it impassable. He’s going to have to crawl, he’s sure, but after a couple of attempts, he pulls himself to his feet. His head spins as he does so he has to resist the urge to veer towards the bed and shove Harry out of the way, but he makes it to the door, kicking another empty beer bottle across the loft as he does.

‘Alright,’ he mumbles as he opens it. It’s never felt so heavy so that takes a couple of attempts as well, but he eventually heaves it open to find Ben glaring at him.

‘So you’re alive.’

The walk there almost killed him so all Zayn can manage is, ‘Huh?’

‘Where the fuck have you been?’

Zayn slumps against the door. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The lecture at the Tate Modern.’

It takes a second to register, but when it does, Zayn wants to punch the wall.

‘The colour thing?’ He covers his face with his hands. ‘Shit.’

‘What happened?’

‘Is it Wednesday?’

‘I’ve been calling you all morning.’

‘Dude, I don’t even know where my phone is.’

‘Well, that explains why you haven’t called me for a week.’

‘Sorry, man,’ Zayn yawns and rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms.

‘What’s going on with you right now? Are you working on something new? I was so worried I almost…’ He trails off. Zayn lifts his chin to see why and when he realises that Ben’s looking over his shoulder into the loft, he knows that he’s seen Harry.

His face hardens and Zayn shakes his head. ‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ he says, but Ben isn’t looking at Harry any more, he’s looking at Zayn’s chest and it’s only then that he realises that he isn’t wearing a shirt and he curses himself.

‘It really isn’t,’ he tries again, crossing his arms, but Ben shakes his head.

‘I should have known,’ he says, turning and walking back towards the stairs.

‘Ben.’ Zayn goes after him, reaching for his wrist, but he shrugs him off.

‘I’m such an idiot,’ he says, stopping at the top of the stairs and turning to face him. His eyes are wet and it’s like a splinter in Zayn’s heart. If he was mad, he could deal with it, let Ben shove him, punch him, but he doesn’t know how to deal with this.

He reaches for him, but Ben pulls away again. ‘I can’t do this any more.’

Zayn’s heart stops dead in his chest, like a car driving into a tree. ‘Do what?’

‘This.’

‘This what? Harry kept me company at work last night. He got wasted and-’

Ben doesn’t let him finish. ‘You’re doing it again, Zed.’

‘Doing what?’

‘You know what.’

Zayn shakes his head and takes a step back. ‘Harry and I are just friends.’

‘Of course you are.’

Ben sounds exhausted and when he looks down the stairs, Zayn feels panic fizz up inside him like he’s shaken a can of Coke and opened it. His instinct is to reach for him, to grab his arm and tell Ben not to go, tell him again that there’s nothing going on, that he and Harry are just mates, but then he gets a flash of Harry last night, leaning over the bar to hug him, mint on his breath from all the mojitos Zayn fed him. ‘I fucking love you, you know that?’ Harry told him, all curls and dimples and that pink, pink mouth of his. But he didn’t slur it, he didn’t hold his arms out and declare it to the whole bar, he slung an arm around his neck and said it in his ear like it was a secret. Zayn shivers as he thinks of it and when he does, he realises that Ben’s right. He’s doing it again.

Zayn takes another step back and he wants to fucking cry because of course Ben noticed it first. It’s the thing Zayn loves and hates most about him, that he knows him so well. He always knows what to say and what not to say, like when Zayn goes home with a bloke he met ten minutes before or he’s demanding another shot of tequila when it’s obvious he’s had enough. Ben waits. He’s good at that, at waiting. He waits until the next day when Zayn is sullen and hungover to ask if he’s okay because he knows that’s when Zayn will tell him that he’s not okay, that he won’t be able to deny it when there’s no tequila or strangers to kiss. And Ben’s his friend, he should know that. He shouldn’t have to ask what Zayn wants when they go into a pub and he should know that Zayn has to sit in the direction the train is going in otherwise he feels sick.

Friends know that stuff.

But they’re not friends, are they? Ben knows things, private things, like the sound Zayn makes when he comes and he knows his skin, he’s counted the moles on Zayn’s back and seen the birthmark on his hip, the one he says looks like a tea stain. But that’s the problem: the line between the friends stuff and the not-friends stuff is getting harder to see and it’s moments like that – when Ben knows before Zayn does that he likes Harry – that he wishes Ben didn’t know him so well because he doesn’t just remember the little things, he remembers his mistakes as well. It feels like Ben knows every lie Zayn’s told, every regret, every apology, and Zayn wonders sometimes how he’s ever supposed to move on if Ben still remembers. But maybe he isn’t even trying to move on any more because there he is, making the same mistake again with Harry.

‘This is my fault,’ Ben says, finally. ‘I’m doing this to myself.’

That throws Zayn. He was expecting another lecture about the futility of falling for straight guys, but Ben shrugs and there’s an air of defeat to it that makes the splinter in Zayn’s heart dig in a little deeper.

‘What do you mean?’

Ben’s quiet for so long as he looks down the stairs that Zayn doesn’t think he’s going to tell him, but then he puts his hands on his hips. ‘I just spent two hours at the Tate Modern listening to a talk about Lichtenstein and Benday dots and I didn’t hear a word of it because all I was thinking about was whether you were okay.’

Zayn crosses his arms and looks at his feet.

‘I ended up getting on the tube with the guy who gave the lecture,’ Ben goes on. ‘I didn’t even recognise him, not until he sat next to me and started telling me about this new gallery he’s helping set up in New York. He asked me if I was looking for an internship over the summer and do you know what I did?’ Ben stops to chuckle to himself. ‘I told him about my mate Zayn who’s so talented.’

He holds out a business card, but Zayn turns his face away, his cheeks stinging.

‘Take it.’ Ben tells him. ‘Call him.’

‘You call him.’ He scratches the back of his head. ‘He asked you, not me.’

‘So?’

‘It’s an amazing opportunity. You’ve always wanted to live in New York.’

Ben shakes his head. ‘No. You’ve always wanted to live in New York.’

‘But you said-’

‘I didn’t say, Zed,’ he interrupts. ‘I agreed. There’s a difference.’

Zayn looks at him with a frown. ‘So you don’t want to live in New York?’

‘I’ve been in love with you for so long I don’t even know what I want any more.’

Zayn feels it like a kick in the heart and steps back.

‘I know I’m not supposed to say that,’ Ben says when he does. ‘I know that’s the only reason this,’ he points at the space between them, ‘works, because I don’t say that out loud, but it’s true. I don’t give a shit about New York. I don’t even know if I like art or if I just say that I do so you don’t phase me out of your life completely.’

Zayn shakes his head, his cheeks burning. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Do you think about me?’

‘What?’

‘When we’re not together, do you think about me?’

‘Of course I do,’ Zayn snaps, and he doesn’t mean it to sound as defensive as it does, but every muscle in his body just clenched like a fist.

‘We haven’t spoken in eight days.’

‘It hasn’t been that long.’

‘Yes it has. I saw you last Tuesday after class so today makes it eight days.’

Zayn can’t look at him. ‘I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know it had been that long.’

‘How?’

‘What?’

‘How could you not know that we haven’t spoken in eight days?’ Ben asks as Zayn looks at his feet, at his toes curling on the scuffed floor. ‘You haven’t even texted.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Do you even like me?’

Zayn looks up at him, his lips parted. ‘What the fuck?’

He takes a step back, but Ben walks towards him, closing the distance between them. Their chests are almost touching and it’s not that Zayn’s scared, but they’re too close, he can feel the heat of Ben, can see his jaw clenching, and takes another step back. His back hits the wall and it knocks the air right out of him as Ben tilts his head at him.

‘What, Zed? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?’

Zayn knows what he’s doing, he’s trying to wind him up, but he won’t let him.

‘There’s nothing going on between me and Harry,’ he says more carefully this time, hoping he doesn’t sound defensive. ‘I don’t know why you’re going off like this.’

‘Like what?’

Something in him kicks back and he can’t stop it. ‘You always do this,’ he says, and he tries not to, but he raises his voice, which is exactly what Ben wants.

‘Do what?’ he asks with a smile Zayn wants to punch right off his face.

‘This. Act fucking crazy just ‘cos I talk to a guy.’

Ben leans closer and points towards the loft. ‘He’s in your fucking bed, Zayn!’

Their noses are touching and when he feels Ben’s breath on his lips something in him finally snaps. ‘The fuck do you care?’ Zayn hisses and he’s trying not to lose his temper – he’s trying – but it’s like chasing a stray football down a hill. ‘We’re not together, Ben. We’re not together ‘cos you do shit like this.’

‘Shit like what?’

‘Like accusing me of cheating on you.’

‘You did cheat on me.’

‘I fucking didn’t!’ Zayn hands ball into fists. ‘I didn’t! I swear on my mother’s life, on my sisters’, I never fucking cheated on you, Ben!’

‘So why did you break up with me, then?’

‘Because of this!’ Zayn nudges him away with his shoulder. ‘It’s been six years and we’re having the same argument. I can’t keep having the same argument with you!’

‘I can’t keep watching you make the same mistakes!’

‘And you can’t keep making me feel like shit because I don’t love you!’

As soon as Zayn says it, he wants to snatch the words out of the air and put them in his pocket. He shouldn’t have said that.

He shouldn’t have said that.

Ben steps back and laughs, loud and bitter. ‘You think I’m jealous, don’t you?’ Zayn doesn’t look at him. ‘Well, I’m not. I don’t want shit from you, Zed. My expectations are so low that I’m grateful if you call me back, but you’re not even doing that any more.’

That hurts so much Zayn would rather he punched him.

At least the bruise would heal.

‘So this is my fault. I should have locked this off years ago,’ Ben says, shaking his head, but he doesn’t sound sad, he sounds angry, like he regrets it and that hurts, too, because they’ve argued before – all the fucking time – but never like this.

Never like this.

‘But I can’t live without you,’ he goes on and Zayn wants to put his hand over his mouth, make him stop, because it feels like he’s hammering nails into his chest. ‘I can’t even remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you. I’d rather stick around and take whatever scraps you throw at me than never see you again so if I get upset about guys like Harry and Dan and Rob and Ty and Aiden,’ he counts each name off on his fingers, ‘it’s not because I’m jealous, it’s because I can’t fucking bear to see you hurt.’

‘I know.’ Zayn sighs. ‘I know.’

‘Is that love?’ Ben shrugs. ‘When you care about someone else’s feelings more than your own? I guess it is. When you sit there consoling them about some asshole who doesn’t give a shit, even though it hurts so much because you’d never do that.’

Zayn can’t catch his breath.

‘And the funny thing is: You can have it all.’ Ben holds his arms out. ‘I’ll give you everything, whatever you want. I’d never hurt you but you’ll love anyone over me. Anyone. You’ll fall in love with some guy you sit next to on the bus.’

‘Ben, please.’ Zayn holds his hands up. ‘I can’t.’

And he can’t. There’s nothing he can say to that, so he has to walk away because he doesn’t want Ben to see him cry, but Ben grabs his wrist and nods toward the loft.

‘Does he know you’re gay?’ he asks and Zayn goes from mortified to furious in a heartbeat. But Ben knows he will – that’s why he said it – and that’s more fucked up than anything Zayn has ever done to him because Zayn isn’t trying to hurt him. But that’s another line that’s becoming harder to see, the line between the things they know about one another because they can’t help it and the things they keep for ammunition.

‘What you scared of, Zed?’ he asks, licking his lips as he kicks the raw nerve again. ‘That he won’t want you or that he will? Until his band makes it, that is, and he marries a model and moves to Primrose Hill.’ Zayn yanks his arm away and when Ben laughs, he has to stop himself taking a swing at him. ‘He doesn’t even know who you are.’

Zayn can’t look at him.

‘Fuck you, Ben,’ he spits, making sure their shoulders collide as he walks away.

‘No, fuck you, Zayn.’

‘I’d rather fuck Harry, thanks.’

He shouldn’t have said that, either – he can’t believe he said that, it’ll be like a fucking bread knife in Ben’s heart – but he’s so angry he’s shaking. Zayn doesn’t think he’s ever been so angry so returning the shot should make him feel better, but as he strides back into the loft, it feels so far from winning it brings tears to his eyes.

The door is loud enough as it is, but he gives it a good slam then kicks it for good measure, which makes Harry, who is still asleep, jump.

‘I’m awake,’ he gasps, flailing like a fish that’s just been pulled out of the sea and dropped onto the deck of a boat. Then he puts his hands on his head and moans pitifully.

‘Sorry,’ Zayn mutters, marching towards the kitchen.

Harry collapses onto the mattress again. ‘Where am I?’ he asks.

That’s what it sounds like at least. It’s hard to tell with his face in a pillow.

Zayn ignores him, snatching the kettle off the counter. ‘Do you want a brew?’

‘Stop it,’ he pleads as Zayn crashes around the kitchen, opening the cupboard doors and slamming them shut again before rooting through the cutlery drawer. When he ignores him, Harry rolls onto his back, his arms out. ‘Zayn, I’m dying.’

‘You just have a hangover.’

‘Help me.’

‘Tea will help,’ Zayn tells him as he opens the fridge and sniffs a pint of milk.

‘I need a bacon sandwich.’

‘I don’t have any bacon.’

‘Go get me one from the café on the corner.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Please.’ When Zayn ignores him, Harry holds out his arm. ‘Come here.’

Zayn puts the milk on the counter with a petulant sigh and walks across to the mattress where Harry is looking helpless, his hair everywhere and his cheeks pink.

‘What?’ he asks, hands on his hips.

‘Get a pen,’ Harry tells him with a grand wave of his hand, like someone from a fucking Jane Austen novel. ‘I need you to write down my will.’

When Zayn arches an eyebrow at him, he grins, lopsided and kind of groggy, and Zayn immediately forgets what he was pissed off about, but fights the impulse to smile back because he knows not to encourage him.

‘Stop being so melodramatic. It’s just a hangover.’

Zayn turns to walk back to the kitchen, but Harry grabs his wrist and pulls him on top of him. He lands on him with an OOF that knocks his eyes out of focus for a second. Harry’s still fully clothed – right down to his grubby white Converse – but when he wraps his arms around Zayn and hooks a leg over his hip, Zayn’s suddenly, painfully aware that he isn’t wearing a shirt. He tries to wriggle away, but can’t.

‘I want you to have my skinny jeans,’ Harry tells him, nuzzling into his neck so Zayn gets a mouthful of hair. ‘I know you’ll take care of them.’

‘Get off me, you idiot,’ he grumbles, making a show of spitting his hair out of his mouth, but then he doesn’t let go either as Harry laughs.

They lie like that for a while, the midday sun beating down on them, and when Zayn feels Harry’s breath on his neck, he closes his eyes and lets the thought in, just for a moment: Is this how it could be? He shouldn’t, because he does this every time, but it’s different with Harry. It feels different. It isn’t like it was with Dan where Zayn lost hours thinking about him, thinking about what his face would look like if he pulled his hair and came inside him. And he doesn’t get doe-eyed when Harry talks about music or laugh at his jokes because Harry’s jokes aren’t funny.

Ben wouldn’t believe Zayn if he told him that, but the truth is: most of the time Harry is a pain in the arse. He never stops talking – never – and crashes around the loft like a toddler, knocking things over and spilling things and asking what this does and what that does and why that’s hanging upside down. He borrows his clothes without asking and finishes the milk and makes Zayn miss class when it’s too sunny to be stuck in a lecture theatre and adds #justsaying to the end of sentences. (Last night he actually said, ‘If you can’t handle me drunk, then you don’t deserve me sober, hash tag just saying.’) It should drive Zayn batshit, because he likes living alone. He never thought he would, but after living with three sisters, not waiting for the bathroom in the morning and being able to drink proper milk, not that skimmed shit his mother buys because one of them is always on a diet, is kind of nice. He likes the stillness of his loft. The order.

Then along came Harry and as much as it drives him nuts (particularly the piles of orange peel Zayn finds everywhere), that’s kind of nice, too, having someone to spend sunny days with and finishing a pint of milk for a change, instead of chucking it out after a week because it’s gone bad. So as they lie there, Zayn knows that’s what it could be like. Sleepy Sunday morning sex and Thursday night curries and shared mugs of tea because they’re down to the last tea bag, and the thought of it is enough to give him the courage to tell him. But he can’t and Zayn gets it then, what Ben meant when he said that he’d rather have the scraps then never see him again. It makes Zayn’s heart split open, because that’s what he’s doing to Ben – giving him hope – and that’s so cruel. Crueller than not loving him back because you can live on hope. Zayn knows that, he’d rather stay like that forever with Harry, in that purgatory between what they are and what he wants them to be, because until Harry says otherwise, there’s hope. Hope will get you out of bed in the morning.

When he untangles himself, Harry nudges him. ‘You alright?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Spill it, Malik.’

‘Nothing,’ Zayn tells him with a long sigh. ‘I just had a row with Ben.’

‘When?’

‘Just now.’

‘What about?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Give me the CliffsNotes.’

‘I’m an asshole.’

‘Okay.’ Harry rolls onto his side and looks at him. ‘I’m gonna need a bit more.’

Zayn can feel himself wriggling and tells himself to stop as he stares at the ceiling. ‘If I tell you something do you promise not to make a big deal about it?’

‘No.’

Zayn turns his head to stare at him. ‘What?’

‘I don’t know what you’re going to say, do I?’ Harry says with a yawn, his voice still sticky with sleep and rougher than usual, so rough it makes Zayn’s heart twitch. ‘What if you murdered someone? That’s a big deal. Losing the milk bottle lid isn’t.’

‘How do you lose the lid in the time it takes you to walk from the fridge to the counter, Harry?’ Zayn snaps. ‘How is that even possible?’

‘Shit happens, Malik. Deal with it.’

‘Anyway,’ he says, rubbing his temples. ‘I don’t know how to tell you, so I’m just going to tell you and it’s not that big a deal. Not losing the milk bottle lid big a deal, so-’

Harry kicks him. ‘Just say it. Do you need bail money or not?’

Zayn sucks in a breath and blows it back out. ‘You know I’m gay, right?’

‘Yeah. ‘Course.’

Zayn glares at him. ‘Don’t say it like that!’

‘Like what?’

‘Yeah. ‘Course,’ he says, mimicking Harry’s accent perfectly.

‘How do you want me to say it?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Your hair.’

‘What?’

‘You have homosexual hair.’

‘What?’ Zayn puts a hand on his head and when Harry giggles, he remembers the episode of Friends they watched yesterday and kicks him.

Harry laughs, long and hard, and Zayn scowls. ‘Glad you think it’s so funny.’

He crosses his arms with a huff, but when he looks at him, Harry is blushing. ‘Now I’m the asshole,’ he says, fisting his hand in his sleep-flattened curls.

Zayn isn’t actually mad, but making him feel bad is fun. ‘Yeah. You are.’

‘I’m not taking the piss. I know it’s not easy to admit something like that, but it’s me, you know?’ He nudges him. ‘You should never worry about telling me anything.’

Every muscle in Zayn’s body relaxes, all at once. ‘How did you know?’

‘The graffiti in the men’s loos at the Superstore.’ Zayn kicks him again and Harry cackles. When he stops laughing, he rolls onto his back next to him, his hands on his stomach. ‘I could just tell,’ he says with a shrug. ‘I see you talking to blokes sometimes and you don’t talk to them the way you talk to me, you know?’

‘And it doesn’t bother you?’

‘'Course not. I’ve kissed a few boys in my time, you know.’

‘Snogging your bassist when you’re drunk doesn’t make you gay.’

‘Not gay, per say.’ He holds up a finger. ‘But I’ll help out if someone’s off sick.’

Zayn rolls his eyes. ‘That’s very generous of you, Harry.’

‘I’m just that kind of guy.’

Zayn turns his head to look at him again. ‘So we’re cool?’

Harry does the same. ‘As the other side of the pillow, dude.’

‘Good.’

‘So what were you and Ben fighting about?’

Zayn turns his face away with another sigh. ‘Don’t remind me.’

‘So are you two?’ He whistles.

Zayn doesn’t mean to laugh, but he can’t help it. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘But he’s in love with you, right?’

He looks at him again. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘I can’t look at him sometimes.’

That stings.

Zayn looks up at the ceiling. ‘We do this every few months.’

‘What? Argue?’

‘Yeah. We have a huge row and promise never speak to each other again.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I’m done trying to understand me and Ben.’

‘How long have you known him?’

‘Since I was eleven. Our first day of secondary school.’ Zayn smiles to himself. ‘He made this Batman joke in Registration and I laughed so hard we both got detention.’

‘When did you start, you know?’ Harry whistles again.

‘It’s not like that.’ Zayn rubs his forehead with his hand.

‘What’s it like, then?’

‘We never actually went out. I just knew that we weren’t friends.’

‘Like Pacey and Dawson?’

Zayn cuts his eyes at him. ‘Did you just compare my life to Dawson’s Creek?’

‘They’re showing it again on E4,’ Harry shrugs.

‘Get a fucking job.’

‘So why didn’t it work?’

‘It was fun at first, when it was just us, in his room, listening to Usher and kissing with the door locked, but we bring out the worst in each other. I don’t why.’ Zayn shakes his head. ‘He’s usually so chill, but I do something to him. I make him fucking nuts. He gets jealous and possessive which makes me not want to tell him anything which makes him jealous and possessive and it goes on and on until we want to kill each other.’

‘Do you love him?’

‘’Course I do,’ Zayn mutters, smoothing his homosexual hair down with his hand.

‘But not like that?’

‘But not like that.’ He lets the words hang there, before he holds his hands up. ‘And I don’t know why, because it’s not like with you.’

Harry frowns. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Ben and I actually have shit in common.’

‘We have stuff in common.’

‘Since when?’ Zayn looks at him like he’s mad. ‘We don’t agree on anything.’

‘Yes we do!’

‘Remember the Jackson Pollock argument?’

Harry slaps the mattress with his hand. ‘You threw a drink at me!’

‘You said modern art is bollocks!’

‘It is bollocks! Splashing some paint on a canvas isn’t art.’

Zayn can feel himself losing his temper again and holds a hand up. ‘Okay, Harry,’ he says, stopping to take a deep breath. ‘Can we at least agree that we’re different?’

‘We’re not that different.’

‘We can’t even agree on that.’ He throws his hands up. ‘We’re like night and day!’

‘Oh God!’ Harry groans banging his head on the pillow. ‘And I bet you’re the night. Zayn Malik, the poor tortured artist. Lonely as the night.’

‘And you’re as annoying as sunburn.’

‘At least people go on holiday to see me.’

Zayn ignores him. ‘Anyway, as I was saying: Ben and I have so much in common. He has taste in things like modern art and Marmite-’

‘Evil in jar!’ Harry tries to interrupt, but Zayn doesn’t let him.

‘So I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Ben’s perfect. He’s charming and funny and kind and gorgeous and patient and there’s nothing there, you know?’ Harry nods and something about the way he does stabs at Zayn. ‘You thinking about Chloe?’

He sees Harry’s cheeks go red before he turns his face away and that’s another thing he shouldn’t have said.

This is why he never tells anyone anything.

But then Harry says, ‘Perfect is overrated’ and something in Zayn’s chest flutters.

‘It just reminds me that I’m not.’

Harry nods again and when he looks at Zayn, a braver man would kiss him, but Zayn lets his gaze dip to the tongue on his Rolling Stones t-shirt.

‘I kind of wish that I did feel something, though, because this would be so much easier if I did,’ Zayn says, almost to himself. ‘But that’s what Ben doesn’t get. It’s because I love him that I won’t pretend. He deserves more than me. He should have it all.’

‘Is that what you were arguing about?’

‘Among other things.’

‘Am I one of those things?’

Zayn’s breath catches in his throat. ‘What do you mean?’

When he doesn’t answer, Zayn looks at him and Harry tilts his head as if to say, You know what I mean. It makes him start wriggling again. ‘Why? Should he be jealous?’

Harry shrugs then smiles – slow and smooth – and there it is again: Hope.

Wild, cruel, useless hope.

+++

‘This is what I get for being spontaneous,’ Harry says, sighing dramatically when he sees Zayn ambling down the corridor towards him. Zayn’s rooting through his backpack and stops just as he’s about to trip over Harry’s legs.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks, looking down at him with a frown.

‘I told you.’ Harry holds his arm out. ‘Being spontaneous.’

Zayn takes his hand and helps him up. ‘Spontaneity only works if you call first.’

‘I did call,’ he huffs, bending down to pick up the pizza box at his feet. ‘I’ve been calling all day. You should answer your phone. It’s very annoying.’

He makes a show of rolling his eyes and Zayn takes the bait. ‘You never answer your phone!’ he snaps, finding his door keys in his backpack and pointing them at him.

‘So you know how annoying it is, then?’

Zayn gives him a look as he opens the door that tells Harry he’s about to get punched in the face, so he waits until Zayn has put down his skateboard and is halfway across the loft before he follows him in.

‘I brought pizza.’ Harry holds up the box.

‘Good. I’m starving,’ Zayn tells him, toeing off his DMs.

‘But I ate it.’

Zayn rolls his eyes. ‘Only you would bring someone pizza then eat it, Harry.’

‘Excuse you.’ He thumbs over his shoulder at the door. ‘I was waiting out there for almost an hour. I got hungry. Where’ve you been anyway?’

Zayn ignores him as he bangs around the kitchen, grabbing a glass from one the cupboards then striding over to the fridge and pulling a bottle of vodka out of the freezer compartment. ‘Breaking up with Ben,’ he says at last, unscrewing the lid.

‘Shut up!’ Harry says, eyes wide as he drops the empty pizza box on the dining table. He doesn’t mean to sound like a fourteen-year old girl, but O M Fing G.

‘I wish I had shut up,’ Zayn mutters, half-filling the glass then knocking it back.

Harry watches his Adam’s apple rise and fall in his throat as he does and usually he would be rapt, but he’s distracted by how rough he looks. He’s never seen Zayn look anything other than perfect, even in the morning when he’s hungover and can’t open his eyes, he could still be in a Chanel ad, but he looks wrung out, like the woman who works in the café on the corner who always looks like she hasn’t slept for a week. And he looks thinner, which is impossible given Harry only saw him yesterday, but Harry’s sure that his cheeks are sharper and his jeans are hanging a little lower on his hips than usual.

‘What happened to your face?’ Zayn asks with a frown.

‘Chloe punched me.’

He holds up the empty glass and shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to know.’

That’s what Harry wants to talk to him about, but when Zayn doesn’t laugh and roll his eyes like he usually does, he feels the hairs on his arms bristle. Zayn puts the empty glass on the counter and there’s something about the way he does it, about the way he looks away and refills the glass with a disgusted sigh that makes the air tighten.

Something’s wrong and Harry doesn’t think, just walks over to him, but as soon as he does, Zayn walks to the cupboard to get another glass. Harry tells himself he’s being paranoid, but there’s something instinctive about it, as if the two actions are connected, like the way Zayn squeezed his shoulder that time in the bar. So Harry follows him and sure enough, Zayn walks to the other side of the kitchen.

Harry’s stomach knots. ‘You okay, man?’ he asks, then holds his breath.

‘Fine,’ he says with a sniff, but he obviously isn’t. ‘Drink?’

He doesn’t wait for Harry to answer – doesn’t even look at him – and when Harry goes to take a step toward him, Zayn lifts his chin and the look he gives him is enough to stop him midstep. Shit, it’d be enough to derail a train, so Harry freezes, his heart throbbing in his ears as he watches Zayn put the glasses side by side on the counter.

It’s not me, Harry tells himself. He’s upset about what just happened with Ben. But it’s more than that, Harry knows, because he’s doing exactly what Chloe does when she tells him that she’s fine a moment before she throws a jar of Nutella at his head and he wants to be sick because Zayn’s never been pissed at him before. Not even when he should be, when Harry’s drunk and obnoxious and taking the piss out of his tattoos.

Harry has no idea what he’s done, his ears burning as he tries to remember what he said yesterday. He didn’t say anything. He can’t have. After they talked about Ben, they fell asleep again then went to the pub for dinner. They were still too hungover to drink so apart from bickering about whether gravy should have onions in it when Harry ordered the sausage and mash, Harry can’t think what he did to upset him. Zayn seemed fine when they said goodbye at the bus stop. He even smiled – uneven and kind of goofy, his tongue behind his teeth – when Harry told him that he’d be stealing the Run-D.M.C. t-shirt he was wearing, then rolled his eyes and thanked Harry for warning him for once.

What did I do? Harry asks himself, the knot in his stomach tightening, but then Zayn nudges one of the glasses towards him and it’s nothing – such a tiny gesture – but it’s enough to make Harry feel better. He grins and bounds towards him like a puppy, but as soon as he does, Zayn turns his back and walks across the loft. Harry’s heart sinks like a stone as he watches him, and when Zayn puts the glass on the lip of the drafting table he should leave it, he knows – he should leave it – but he can’t.

‘What happened?’

‘I just lost my best friend is what happened,’ Zayn mutters, taking his box of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jeans and lighting one.

‘I’m sorry. I-’

He doesn’t let him finish. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he says over his shoulder, knocking back a mouthful of vodka then striding over to the window when Harry walks towards the drafting table.

When he gets to it, Harry stops and looks at Zayn’s glass that is perched next to one of his pencils. ‘We don’t have to talk about it,’ he tells him with a shrug as he watches the imprint of Zayn’s bottom lip disappear from the rim like a ghost.

Harry knows he should go – it’s obvious Zayn wants to be left alone – but he’s never seen him like this before and he can’t leave him on his own. So he starts rambling about the episode of Hollyoaks he watched earlier for some reason because he needs to say something – anything – to fill the painful silence. Not that Zayn’s listening. He’s smoking and pacing back and forth, trailing grey threads of smoke behind him as he fusses over the paint brushes soaking by the kitchen sink then scoops a pile of orange peel off the counter and walks over to the bin muttering. It’s as if Harry isn’t there and for a moment he wonders if Zayn’s forgotten that he is, but then he’s next to him.

‘The fuck are you doing?’ he barks, snatching the book out of his hand.

Harry turns to stare at him, stunned. He was just flicking through it while he babbled on, he wasn’t even reading it, so when Zayn holds it up, Harry stares at him, his lips parted, as he asks himself again what he’s done wrong.

‘Why do you have to touch every-fucking-thing?’ Zayn snaps, but before he can defend himself, a photograph falls out of the book and flutters to the floor between their feet. They both bend down to pick it up, but Harry gets to it first.

It’s of Zayn and a guy with jaw length brown hair. Zayn has his cheek pressed into his and he looks younger – softer – and there’s something about it, about Zayn’s helpless grin and bright eyes that makes Harry’s heart feel heavier. Not heavier, harder, actually, because he’s happy, Harry realises. Not just-got-off-work happy or four-bottles-of-Peroni happy but happy in a way Harry has never seen before.

It occurs to him then that he doesn’t know this Zayn, the Zayn with short hair and untidy eyebrows who grins in photographs. But he can’t, can he? He’s known Zayn all of a month so how well can he know him? Harry thought he did. He thought they told each other everything when they had their 4 a.m. conversations, Harry drunk and restless and Zayn half-asleep, his eyelashes stuttering as Harry asks him what they’re going to do if they don’t make it. And maybe Harry did tell him everything, but when he looks at the photograph he realises that Zayn hasn’t told him everything and he wonders what else is hidden around the loft, if there are more photographs hidden in books or a sketchpad of drawings that he can’t look at any more. And Harry doesn’t know why it feels like a betrayal – the life Zayn had before they met, all those defeats and victories and heartbreaks he knows nothing about – but as he looks at the photograph, he can’t help but wonder if he knows Zayn at all.

Then Harry sees his t-shirt. ‘I didn’t know you liked Nirvana,’ he says and it’s ridiculous, but he feels it like a drawing pin in his heart.

Zayn snatches the photograph from him. ‘Jesus!’ he hisses, putting it back between the pages of the book. ‘Why are you always in my shit?’

‘I’m sorry. I-’ Harry blinks at him but he doesn’t let him finish.

‘Can I just get a minute?’ Zayn stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray on the dinning table so aggressively the saltshaker topples over. ‘I just had to tell my best friend that I can never see him again so can I just get a minute to catch my breath?’

‘Fine.’ Harry holds his hands up. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go.’

‘I think you should,’ Zayn tells him, walking into the bathroom and kicking the door shut.

The next morning, Zayn is in a very different mood. It takes Harry a few moments to gather the courage to knock on his front door, but when he does and Zayn slides it open to look at him from under his black eyelashes, the muscles in Harry’s shoulders relax.

‘I’m sorry,’ Zayn says, shaking his head. He looks like he hasn’t slept, either, and as worried as Harry is, he’s so relieved that he’s not mad any more that he just wants to explode all over him, to hug him and apologise and ask if he’s okay, all at once.

But he stops himself.

‘I brought donuts.’ He holds up the paper bag in his hand. ‘I only ate one.’

Zayn dips his head and smiles – loose and a bit unsure, as if he doesn’t know if he still can until he does – and when he does, Harry can’t stop himself and launches himself at him, hugging him so hard that Zayn staggers back and laughs.

‘I ate two,’ Harry admits, burying his face in Zayn’s neck and inhaling.

There are tears in his eyes as he drinks in the smell of him and he tells himself to memorise it – tobacco and Palmer’s cocoa butter and something else, something he’s never been able to find in his loft – because there was a moment last night when Harry was checking his phone for the one hundredth and fourteenth time that he was sure he’d never see Zayn again. He’s never felt that before and it scares him because he isn't the one who holds on. He’s the one who tries to wriggle away.

Zayn laughs and hugs him tighter. ‘You ate three, didn’t you?’

‘I eat when I’m nervous.’

‘Sorry I made you nervous,’ Zayn breathes, stepping back and shaking his head.

Harry frowns. ‘I thought I did something.’

‘No.’ Zayn looks mortified. ‘It’s me. I’m an asshole.’

Harry reaches for his elbow and squeezes. ‘No you’re not.’

‘I am. I should never have spoken to you like that yesterday. I’m so sorry.’

‘You were upset.’

‘Yeah, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’

‘You wouldn’t have if I’d taken the hint and left you alone,’ Harry tells him with a sigh as he follows him into the loft, sliding the door shut behind him. ‘It’s my fault, I push and push and I never listen. But lesson learned,’ he holds his hand up, ‘when you say that you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I don’t listen, either. I’m a moody asshole,’ Zayn shakes his head again. ‘I know you were just trying to help, but there’s nothing you can do when I get like that.’

‘I’ll leave you alone next time.’ Harry smiles and he waits for Zayn to as well, but his frown deepens and when it does, it takes Harry a moment to realise why. ‘But I’ll always come back,’ he adds and even though it’s just the two of them in the loft, he still says it under his breath.

Zayn finally looks him in the eye and when he raises his hand, Harry’s sure that he’s going to touch him and the promise of it make his heart jumps up in his chest like a scared cat, but Zayn just points at the kitchen. ‘Brew?’

Harry feels something in him wilt and it takes another moment to realise why: he’s disappointed. It’s been a while since he felt that, since watching someone walk away made him breathless, and it makes him think of the first time he saw Zayn when everything in his head jumped up and landed in a different place. He didn’t think about it at the time, but that’s something he hasn’t felt for a while, either.

‘Yes please,’ he says, his legs not as steady as he follows Zayn to the kitchen.

There’s an awkward moment of silence as Harry puts the half-empty bag of donuts on the counter and watches Zayn potter around the kitchen. He isn’t sure what to say, if Zayn wants to talk about what happened yesterday or if he’d just rather pretend it never happened. He’s quiet for so long that Harry assumes the latter and is about to launch into another summary of Hollyoaks, when Zayn says, ‘His name’s Adam.’

Harry stares at him then says, ‘Adam’ as though he’s tasting it.

‘The guy in the photo,’ Zayn explains, reaching for the kettle and walking over to the sink. Not that he needs to, it’s all Harry’s thought about for the last nineteen hours.

Nineteen hours and fifteen minutes, actually.

When Zayn stops to fill the kettle Harry knows he should tell him that he doesn’t have to tell him if he doesn’t want to, but he wants to know. He couldn’t sleep last night thinking about who he was, about why Zayn had to hide the photo. That’s not just love, that’s I’ll-never-say-your-name-again love. The sort of love that leaves a scar. Harry has never loved anyone like that and it’s such a fucked up thing to be jealous of, but he wants that. He wants to love someone so much he’s weak with it, so much that he has to hide the photographs, like an alcoholic hiding empty bottles at the back of cupboards.

‘I lived around the corner from him,’ Zayn explains as he flicks on the kettle.

Zayn won’t look at him and when he starts fiddling with his hair, flattening it with his hand and letting it fall over his eyes, it hits Harry.

‘He’s the guy that made you realise you didn’t love Ben.’

Zayn turns his face away, but before he does, Harry sees that his eyes are wet and he feels a punch of something. Jealousy, he realises as it dawns on him that Adam was Zayn’s first. And he shouldn't be jealous but this is what Harry does: when he likes someone, he wants all of them. It’s as though he has to devour them. He has to know everything, what they're scared of, what they’ve lied about, who they’ve lied to. He wants to know what songs they listen to on repeat, what films they watch when they can’t sleep, what makes them cry and laugh and come. That’s why that photograph has been driving him nuts, because he wants to know what else Zayn is hiding. He wants to tear his loft apart, pull up the floorboards, see what’s underneath. But even if he does, Adam will still know Zayn in a way Harry never will and it makes his blood burn.

‘I love Ben,’ Zayn says and it sounds less like a declaration and more like a disclaimer. Harry waits for the but. ‘I was so lucky to have someone to come out with,’ he says with a small sigh, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without him. I’m Muslim, for fucks sake, and he’s Nigerian, our families aren’t the most understanding when it comes to being gay.’

That never occurred to Harry and with that, Zayn, skinny Zayn with his delicate hands and long eyelashes, becomes the bravest man he’s ever known.

‘Was it awful?’ Harry asks, edging closer.

‘It could have been worse.’ He shrugs. ‘I mean, my dad isn’t thrilled, but he hasn’t disowned me or anything. And Mum gets it, she knows that you can’t choose who you fall in love with. But Ben’s parents threatened to send him to Nigeria. I mean, towards the end, before we moved here, he was practically living with me.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I know.’ Zayn rubs his face with his hands. ‘But other than that, we had it pretty easy. Ben’s been 6’4” since we were about thirteen so no one at school fucked with him and I’ve always had a smart mouth so I never put up with any shit, either.’

Harry thinks of the incident at the Superstore with the mixer tap and smiles.

‘Mind you, we weren’t a threat. We were the arty kids who listened to The Roots and wore DMs, so it wasn’t like we were gonna try and bum anyone after football practice or anything. Plus, the girls loved us.’ Zayn chuckles to himself, then arches an eyebrow at Harry. ‘If you ever want to get laid, tell everyone you’re gay.’

‘Duly nodded.’

‘I’m not saying it was easy,’ he says quietly, his gaze dipping to a dot of red paint on the kitchen counter. ‘I’ve been called things that I can’t,’ he starts to say, then stops as his voice breaks. He scratches at the paint with his fingernail and Harry wants to reach for him so much that his arms are shaking with the effort not to. ‘So if I didn’t have Ben, I don’t know what I would have done. I might never have come out. But-’ He stops again and there it is – the but Harry has been waiting for – and he holds his breath. ‘But just cos we realised we were gay together, didn’t mean we had to be gay together.’

Harry realises then what he’s trying to say.

‘You didn’t fancy him.’

‘He’s my best mate,’ Zayn says, brushing the counter with his hand. ‘Just cos I’m gay doesn’t mean I fancy every guy I meet. I love Ben like I love my sisters.’

Harry nods, his shoulders relaxing when he doesn’t add or you.

‘It took me a long time to realise that, though,’ Zayn admits, crossing his arms. ‘For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me.’

There isn’t, Harry almost interrupts, but stops himself.

‘I even tried going out with a girl.’

Harry can’t resist interrupting this time. ‘What was that like?’

‘Weird. Her name was Keisha and she was gorgeous. She had a nose stud.’ He touches his nose.

‘But nothing?’

‘But nothing,’ he says with another shrug. ‘Poor Ben was in bits.’

‘I bet he was.’

‘He was so relieved when I went around to his house after my first date with her that we ended up doing it on his kitchen table. I don’t know what we were thinking.’ He covers his eyes with his hand and shakes his head. ‘His parents were upstairs.’

‘You weren’t thinking.’

Zayn takes his hand away and looks at Harry. ‘That’s it.’ He nods. ‘I didn’t have to think with Ben. With Keisha I kept asking myself if I should be holding her hand or if I was talking too much or if I wasn't talking enough or if I should have offered her some of my ice cream at the cinema, but with Ben it was so easy. Then it wasn’t,’ he says, biting his bottom lip. ‘That’s when things started getting shitty between us. I was so fucking confused. I mean, I knew I liked guys, but something still wasn’t right. I think Ben knew that because he just got more and more possessive. He wanted to know where I was constantly. It got to the point that I was hiding in the art room at lunch.’

‘Did you talk to him about it?’

‘That’s the thing,’ Zayn says with a weary sigh. 'Once you go past that line, you can’t go back, you know?’ He lifts his eyelashes to look at him and Harry nods.

‘You seem cool now.’

‘I know, but it’s taken years to get to this point and we still want to kill each other. It’s like we’re holding on and holding on and I don’t even know what we’re holding on to any more.’

‘You’ve been friends for ten years.’

‘But we’re not friends.’ Zayn looks up and shrugs. ‘We’re, like, in this fucked up purgatory between the two and he wants to go one way and I want to go the other and how are we ever supposed to make that work?’

Harry crosses his arms and looks at his feet. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Which is why I had to put a stop to it today.’

‘Not forever, though. You’ll work it out when you’ve calmed down.’

‘I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I don’t think we can be friends. We tried and we can’t.’ Zayn shakes his head. ‘Back then I thought we could, though. I mean, Ben was so upset when I told him, he thought I was in love with Keisha and I should have known then, but I wanted to try. And it worked for a while, but then every time he got drunk, he’d try to kiss me or if he saw me talking to someone, he’d ask if I wanted to fuck them.’

‘He was hurt,’ Harry says, and he doesn’t know why he feels the need to defend Ben – he doesn’t even know him – but he gets it.

‘I know.’ Zayn nods sheepishly and Harry feels awful; he wasn’t trying to make him feel bad. ‘I knew he needed time, so I stopped going to parties if I knew he was going to be there and I started hanging out at the park after school. That’s how I met Adam.’

Zayn’s face changes when he says Adam’s name, and when Harry watches the corners of his mouth twitch it turns his stomach inside out. ‘He was lying on the grass wearing this Warhol t-shirt and as I rode my bike past him, my heart.’ He stops and Harry wonders if he knows that he’s doing it, but Zayn’s hand is on his chest. ‘He looked a bit like Kurt Cobain, you know?’ He looks up and waits for Harry to nod. ‘Except his hair was dark and he had these huge blue eyes. Disney hero blue. He was just my type: tall and skinny and he wore Converse and baggy cardigans with holes in the pockets,’ Zayn surrenders to the smile then. ‘I didn’t even know I had a type until I met him.’

Harry doesn’t want to hear any more and looks at the kettle. It’s long since boiled, the steam rising from it dying to a puff. He’s about to reach over and switch it on again when Zayn says, ‘But it was nothing’ and Harry feels something in him lift.

‘I mean, I thought it was nothing,’ Zayn explains. ‘We just used to smoke weed and ride our bikes around the park and talk, but it was so nice. Things were so bad with Ben that we couldn’t talk for more than five minutes before we had a row, but with Adam it was so easy. It didn’t even occur to me that he liked me, I just thought it was a hopeless crush, so the first time he kissed me, I thought my heart was going to explode.’

He smiles that smile again – the way he smiled when he said Adam’s name – and Harry looks away as he goes on. ‘He’d never done anything like that before, I mean, he had, but not with a guy, so he was relying on me. That’s when it changed, you know? When Adam made me take the lead. That’s when it finally felt right.’

‘Did you love him?’ Harry asks and there’s a hardness to his voice that surprises him. He sounds mad. Actually, he sounds scared, as though the words are made of glass and he’s frightened that he’s going to break them.

‘Yeah, but he didn’t love me back.’

Zayn won’t look at him and Harry blushes, ashamed at the relief he feels.

‘He was just curious, I think,’ Zayn adds.

‘Curious?’

‘I’m the guy you experiment with, but I’m not the guy you have a relationship with.’ Zayn shrugs and Harry has to stop himself taking a step towards him. ‘But then that’s my fault. I don’t want that. I want what I had with Adam. It was like a house fire. Afterwards I felt burnt out, like there was nothing left, just smoke and pieces of things I used to know. I had to start again and I didn’t know love could be like that. I didn’t know that it could ruin you and that’s all I want,’ he says, and he sounds breathless. ‘I know how fucked up that sounds, but I would rather have a week of that than a year of going to the cinema and sitting in silence in restaurants. I want it to burn me up.’

Harry can’t catch his breath, either, and if Zayn didn’t turn and walk over to the kettle at that point, he doesn’t know what he would have done.

‘But I can’t tell Ben that, can I? I’ve hurt him enough.’ Zayn says, almost to himself as he switches the kettle on again before opening the cupboard over his head. ‘So he has no idea about Adam because right now he thinks that I fell out of love with him, not that I never loved him in the first place. Is that kinder?’ He asks, but he doesn’t wait for Harry to answer as he takes two mugs out of the cupboard. ‘I hope so.’

‘So what happened to your face? Why did Chloe punch you?’ Zayn asks changing the subject so quickly, it makes Harry dizzy. But he obviously doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and Harry knows not to push it this time.

‘Oh yeah,’ he says, touching the bruise on his cheek. ‘She’s seeing this guy, Matt something, he works for the Whitechapel Gallery and he’s curating this exhibition-’

Zayn turns to stare at him, a teabag in his hand. ‘Not London Calling?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘I will not.’ Harry says, rooting through the pocket of his jeans. ‘That’s why Chloe punched me, because I asked if he’d look at your stuff.’

Zayn points the teabag at him. ‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘I’m a cheeky fucking fucker to even ask, apparently, but here,’ he says when he finally finds the piece of paper she begrudgingly wrote Matt’s number on. ‘Call him.’

‘You’re winding me up.’

Harry holds out his hand, but Zayn doesn’t take it, he pulls him into a hug. Harry laughs when their chests collide and tells him it’s just a number, but when Zayn presses his cheek to his and thanks him, Harry doesn’t let go.

An hour later, they’re on their second cup of tea. They should have split the third donut, but Zayn insisted that Harry earned it for the Whitechapel Gallery thing (which he did) and Harry, who isn’t one to turn down a donut at the best of times, gladly accepted because he couldn’t endure another five minutes of Zayn licking sugar from his fingers.

‘I’m getting a tattoo,’ he announces when he finishes it, spreading his arms out on the mattress and looking up at the steel beams crossing under the roof.

Zayn’s sitting at the drafting table, agonising over what he’s going to show the guy from the gallery and groans. ‘Oh God. It’s gonna be an emo lyric, isn’t it?’

Harry grins. ‘That’s the best bit: you’ll never be able to take the piss out of it.’

‘I’m sure I’ll find a way.’

‘No you won’t, cos you’re gonna design it.’

Zayn looks up from the sketches he’s sifting through. ‘Oh I am, am I?’

‘It’s my first tattoo. I want it to be special.’

‘I thought you wanted those stupid birds.’

‘Says the dude with angel wings.’

‘I’m not taking shade from someone in a Elton John t-shirt.’

‘You know what’s gayer than a Elton John t-shirt?’ Harry says, stopping to lick raspberry jam from the heel of his palm. ‘Tattooed angel wings.’

‘True. They do get me plenty of dick.’

Not that much, I hope, Harry almost says, but manages to stop himself.

He changes the subject. ‘I want a Malik original.’

‘I thought you hated my tattoos?’

‘I do, but I liked what you drew for our demo. I want something like that.’

‘What? A bird?’

‘I don’t care.’ Harry shrugs. ‘Just something cool like you.’

‘I’m cool? I thought I was as lonely as the night.’

‘You are, but that’s kind of cool.’

Zayn chuckles to himself. ‘Oh yeah?’ he says, putting the sketches down on the drafting table and reaching into the pen pot for a pen.

‘What are you doing?’ Harry says as he walks over to the mattress. Zayn kneels next to him and Harry puts his arms up. ‘Don’t hurt me. I was joking about the angel wings.’

He sits up, trying to grab Zayn’s wrists, but he won’t let him. ‘Calm down,’ Zayn says, pushing him back down and slapping his hands away. ‘I’m gonna draw it on you.’

‘What?’ Harry asks, eyes wide as his head falls back on the pillow.

‘The tattoo.’

‘Why?’

‘So you can see if you like it before you commit to it.’

Harry’s impressed. ‘That’s a pretty good idea, actually.’

‘I have them sometimes.’ Zayn sits back on his heels. ‘Where do you want it?’

‘Here.’ He points to his right forearm.

‘Okay. Close your eyes.’

‘Why do I have to close my eyes?’ Harry asks warily as Zayn lies on his side next to him, pulling his arm away when Zayn reaches for his wrist.

‘Because I want it to be a surprise.’

‘Why?’ He holds his arm to his chest. ‘What are you going to draw?’

‘You’ll see.’

‘Is that permanent?’

Zayn looks at the Sharpie in his hand. ‘It’ll wash off.’

‘Okay.’ Harry reluctantly lets Zayn take his wrist. ‘Just don’t draw a dick.’

‘Why would I draw a dick? I’m not twelve.’

Harry nods, neglecting to mention the one he drew in the steam on the bathroom mirror this morning as Zayn’s fingers curl around his wrist.

‘Close your eyes.’

Harry does, but as soon as the pen touches his arm, they fly open. ‘What is that?’ he tugs his arm away again. ‘It feels dick-shaped.’

‘It’s a dot.’ Zayn rolls his eyes, grabbing Harry’s wrist and holding his arm up so he can see the black dot just below the crease of his right elbow. ‘I barely touched you.’

‘Okay.’

‘Close your eyes.’

‘No. I want to see.’

Zayn sighs and grabs a pillow, putting it over Harry’s face.

‘No peeking!’ Zayn tells him when Harry starts laughing, which makes him laugh more as he swats the pillow away.

‘I won’t look, I promise,’ Harry says, covering his eyes with his hand. But as soon as he feels the tip of the Sharpie on his arm again, he opens his fingers to see what Zayn is drawing. He can’t see anything, though, just the top of Zayn’s head as he leans over him, so Harry gives into it and closes his eyes.

‘Stop wriggling,’ Zayn tells him a moment or two later.

Harry doesn’t realise he is wriggling, not until he tries to stop and can’t. Then he realises why and he doesn’t know what it is, if it’s the tickle of the Sharpie, or the heat of Zayn’s hand on his arm, but he’s suddenly so hard that he can’t see straight.

He covers his eyes with his hand, mortified, as he says a little prayer that Zayn doesn’t notice. Thank fuck for his jeans, because while an erection in skinny jeans is a special sort of agony, they’re tight enough that it shouldn’t be too obvious. But then Zayn’s hand brushes against him and it’s enough to make Harry lift his hips off the bed.

‘Stay still,’ Zayn laughs, poking him in the side with his finger.

Harry can’t, his cheeks burning as his hard on digs into the zip of his jeans. Zayn must be able to see it or at least hear the shallow breaths Harry is taking as he grasps for the least sexy thing he can think of to kill his boner. Ann Widdecombe naked, he thinks. Ann Widdecombe’s pants. Ann Widdecombe’s big white pants. But then Zayn’s hand brushes against him again and when he has to choke back a whimper, he remembers the dream he had the other night. Then even Ann Widdecombe’s pants aren’t going to help as he remembers how Zayn had him beant over the bar at Dalston Superstore, one hand fisted in his hair as he fucked him from behind. He kept telling Harry to take it, and it made him come so hard, he woke up with a gasp, the sheets sticking to his skin.

Harry can’t remember the last time he had a wet dream and he’s never had one about a guy. He’s thought about it, of course, usually when he’s shitfaced and getting off with Tom at the Dublin Castle because the barmaid, Mary, loves them so much it earns them a free drink. But it’s not proper kissing, not slow, deep, curious kissing, the way he thinks about kissing Zayn since he had that dream. Harry’s doesn’t care what Tom’s lips taste of or he isn’t trying to make him moan into his mouth.

When they kiss, it’s a joke. Drunk frat boy kissing. At some point, Tom will cup the front of Harry’s jeans and give him a comedy grope while Mary cheers and pours them a shot of Jack, but it does nothing to him. He’s considered it, of course, wondered how it would feel if he fancied Tom and they didn’t just kiss for the free drinks and the slaps on the arse from whoever else in the pub is watching. It’s usually when he’s talking to his friend, Kit, and trying to persuade her that she isn’t a lesbian. She always laughs at his advances and tells him that, ‘Only a woman knows what a woman wants, Harry.’

By that logic, men must give the best blow jobs, so he’s thought about it. He’s considered pulling Tom into the toilets at the Dublin and telling him to suck him off, but the thought of it, of his hand in Tom’s unwashed hair and the chill of his tongue stud on his dick doesn’t provoke much more than a twitch. But his dream about Zayn left him shaking for hours afterwards. Now it isn’t a passing thought when he’s drunk and bored, it’s an itch, something that’s got under his skin. It’s distracting. He can’t stop thinking about it. Even in the shower this morning, when he was worried sick that he’d upset Zayn, he was thinking about it. Harry didn’t even realise he was touching himself until he said Zayn’s name as he came and looked down at his dick in his hand as though he’d never seen it before. So, as Harry is lying there, trying not to squirm, the thought of Zayn unbuttoning his jeans and taking him in his mouth, is enough to make him pant and he must be able to feel it, to feel the frantic stutter of Harry’s pulse under his fingers.

But then Zayn rolls onto his side next to him and says, ‘There.’ It’s an effort to lift his head off the pillow, but when Harry does, he smiles.

‘The moon,’ Harry breathes, staring at it.

‘Nothing says lonely as the night like the moon.’

‘I love it.’

Zayn tips his head back and laughs. ‘Dude, I’m only joking. Just give me a minute and I’ll draw you something better. Something more you.’

Harry shakes his head. ‘No. I like this.’

‘What?’ Zayn says, as though he’s mad.

‘It’s perfect.’

‘Okay.’

They lie like that for a while, Harry on his back, staring at the Sharpie drawing on his forearm, and Zayn on his side next to him. Harry doesn’t realise that he’s playing with Zayn’s hair until he twirls his finger in it and feels him shiver against him. He wonders how long he’s been doing it, but judging by the state of Zayn’s hair, it’s been a while. He should stop, he knows, as he twirls his finger again, and that’s the last thing he thinks before he gives into the weight of his eyelids. I have to stop.

When Harry wakes up, Zayn is getting ready for work.

‘What time is it?’ he mumbles, rubbing his eyes.

‘Nearly five o’clock,’ Zayn says as he crouches down to lace his DMs.

He must have showered. The loft smells of his shampoo and Palmer’s cocoa butter and there’s steam drifting out of the open bathroom door. It makes Harry feel more lightheaded so he has to wait a moment until he can haul himself off the mattress.

‘I’ll come with you,’ he says, tugging down his t-shirt.

‘Okay. But hurry up,’ Zayn tells him as he grabs his backpack. ‘I’m late.’

Harry keeps looking at the moon on his arm as they walk to the Superstore. He’s glad it didn’t smudge when he was asleep and tentatively touches it as he wonders if it will endure a shower. When Zayn sees him do it, he laughs and nudges him with his hip.

‘I can’t believe you like it so much. It’s just a doodle.’

‘That’s why I like it,’ Harry tells him, following him into the bar and nodding at Dixie, who’s heaving her record box towards the decks. ‘’Cos you didn’t think about it.’

‘Alright,’ Zayn says, unconvinced, as he disappears into the office.

When he ambles back, Harry is behind the bar with Ruth who’s complaining that the till drawer has been sticking all day. Zayn’s hand trails across his back as he slides past and the shock of it makes Harry jump and hit the till at just the right angle that it pops open. Ruth throws her arms up and cheers when it does, then cheers again when Harry pulls out the two pence piece that’s been causing the trouble.

‘Finders keepers,’ Zayn tells him with a smile, squeezing Harry’s shoulder as he hands him a bag of tealights. ‘Don’t spend it all at once.’

‘Put it towards my tab,’ Harry says with a wink, pressing the coin into Zayn’s palm. But he just laughs and drops it into the purple charity tin by the beer pumps.

‘You two are so cute,’ Ruth says when she gets back from the office with her bag.

They exchange a glance and laugh.

Zayn shakes his head. ‘Cute is not a word I’d use to describe him.’

‘Excuse you,’ Harry says, tearing into the bag of tealights. ‘I’m fucking adorable.’

‘Yes you are! You’re like an old married couple.’ She grins and points at Harry dropping the tealights into the candleholders. ‘You even have a routine.’

Harry’s never thought about it before, but he hangs out at the bar so much now that they do have a routine: when they get in, Zayn checks the float while Harry lights the candles, then they put them on the tables together. When they’ve done that, Harry cuts the limes while Zayn refills the fridge and bloody hell Ruth’s right. He might as well work there, but given all the free drinks Zayn slips him, it evens out in the end.

‘Less of the old, you,’ Harry tells her with a chuckle when she says goodbye.

He turns to smile at Zayn, but he’s not there. He assumes that he’s gone down to the cellar, but when he turns to grab the lighter from the drawer under the till, he sees him at the other end of the bar, talking to a guy. He’s probably serving him, Harry thinks, but when he sees Zayn lick his lips and tilt his head, his heart clenches like a fist.

He’s seen Zayn do it enough times to know that Zayn likes him – this guy, whoever he is – and Harry can’t help but stop and stare as that thing happens in his head again where everything jumps up and lands in a different place. The guy says something and when Zayn throws his head back and laughs, Harry frowns. There’s something kind of helpless about it – kind of silly – that makes Zayn look about five years younger and it makes Harry think of the photograph, the one of Adam, and when Zayn laughs again, it’s like a door shutting between them. Harry puts the candles on the tables by himself and when he’s cut the limes, he puts them in the container himself because Zayn is leaning over the bar and going through the cocktail menu with the guy who is deliberating over what to have with the sort of concern usually reserved for disarming a bomb. And that’s how it is for the rest of the evening, Zayn lingering at the other end of the bar, his smile getting looser and looser as Harry’s muscles get tighter and tighter.

‘You alright for a drink?’ Zayn asks, eventually sauntering back to where Harry has been sitting with an empty glass in front of him for the last twenty-two minutes.

Not that he’s counting.

‘Can I have another?’ Harry asks, pushing the glass towards him.

He doesn’t want another drink – it’s not helping, each mouthful making his blood burn hotter – but he wants to keep Zayn at this end of the bar. It’s not a game, but before Zayn turns to reach for a bottle of Jim Beam, Harry grabs his wrist and pulls him over the bar. Zayn laughs, then laughs again when Harry presses his mouth to his ear and thanks him for the free drink, promising to pay him back in kind. He makes sure he looks past the heads huddled at the bar at the guy Zayn’s been talking to, and it’s not a game, but when he sees the guy frown, he realises that it kind of is.

‘No Coke,’ Harry tells him, watching the guy as he watches Zayn.

He’s Zayn’s type – tall and skinny with Kurt Cobain hair – and when Zayn looks down the bar at him before he refills Harry’s glass, Harry feels a tremor of panic in his hands. Zayn smiles when he looks at him again, but it’s not at Harry, he’s somewhere else, somewhere unreachable, and if it is a game, then Harry loses then.

‘Easy, cupcake,’ Zayn tells him, an eyebrow arched as Harry knocks back the drink. ‘I’m not carrying you home again tonight.’

Home.

Maybe it’s the shot of Jim Beam he’s just pounded, but the word brings tears to his eyes. So when Zayn reaches over to brush the hair out of Harry’s face, he grabs Zayn’s wrist again as he’s about to walk away. He presses a kiss to his palm, thinking of the loft, of the lidless pint of milk in the fridge and the jam stain he got on the sheets when he was eating his second donut earlier. His mouth fits perfectly into the curve of Zayn’s palm and he wonders if Zayn can feel it, but if he does, he doesn’t say anything, just walks away. The guy smiles when he sees Zayn walking back towards him and when Zayn tilts his head again, Harry’s stomach lurches at the thought of them going back to the loft and fucking on their bed. He’ll never go back there if they do. Never. He never wants to smell someone other than Zayn on their sheets.

Their sheets.

That brings tears to his eyes as well.

‘Can I have another drink?’ Harry barks over the David Bowie song playing. He bangs his glass on the bar, a move that would earn anyone else a spraying with the mixer tap from Zayn, but he seems faintly amused as he walks back towards him.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, crossing his arms.

‘Nothing.’ Harry holds up his empty glass. ‘I just want a drink.’

‘I’ll get that,’ the girl sitting next to Harry says, holding up a £20 note.

She’s been trying to talk to him all night, her hand lingering on his back when she asked if the stool next to his was taken, then she made sure that her bare arm brushed against his when she sat down, but Harry hasn’t so much as glanced at her. It’s not that she isn’t pretty, she is, pretty enough to hold his attention if it was any other night, but all he can see is Zayn and that guy and the space closing between them.

‘I like your curls,’ she purs in his ear when Zayn goes to get the bottle of Jim Beam again. She twirls a finger in one of them, but he doesn’t even feel it as Zayn glances back at the guy before he walks back to Harry with the bottle.

‘Who’s that?’ Harry asks before he can stop himself and he hopes that the music is loud enough to hide the edge in his voice.

‘Who’s that?’ Zayn asks without looking up as he refills Harry’s glass.

He shrugs her off with a scowl as she hands Zayn the £20 note. ‘No one.’

‘Okay, Harry,’ Zayn says with a long chuckle as he walks over to the till. He doesn’t look at him when he comes back, just hands the girl her change and turns to amble back to the other end of the bar.

‘What’s your name?’ the girl asks, the heat of her breath on his ear making Harry recoil as he watches Zayn lean over the bar to whisper something in the guy’s ear.

‘Not interested.’

‘I’m, Jess,’ she persists, as though Harry hasn’t said anything.

She puts her hand in his hair again and he shrugs her off. ‘Thanks for the drink.’ He holds up the glass and nods. ‘But I’m really not interested.’

‘What’s that?’ She ignores him again, reaching out to touch the drawing on his forearm with her finger.

‘Don’t touch it,’ he says through his teeth, almost knocking his drink off the bar in his haste to tug his arm away.

‘Is it tattoo? I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo.’

‘For fucks sake. I’m just trying to have a quiet drink with my mate.’ He gestures at Zayn, but when he turns to look at him, he’s gone and Dixie is behind the bar pouring a pint. Harry stands up. ‘Where’s Zayn?’ he shouts down the bar at her.

‘Smoke,’ she says, nodding toward the office door.

Harry frowns. They usually go for his smoke break together, Zayn grateful for the company in the not at all terrifying East London back alley and Harry grateful for the fresh air. Not that the air is very fresh and Harry’s not much bigger than Zayn so there’s fuck all he can do if they’re confronted by an axe murderer, so maybe that’s not why they like to go together. The thought makes his scalp shiver.

Zayn must have thought Harry was hooking up with Jess and didn’t want to interrupt, so he scowls at her as he climbs off the stool and fights his way through the cluttered bar to the office door. Zayn’s boss doesn’t like him smoking outside the bar, so Zayn smokes in the alley out back, next to the trapdoor to the cellar. You can only get to it through the office, and Harry’s gone with Zayn so many times, he knows the code for the door, so he doesn’t think as he punches it in and opens the door. He’s half-drunk and too concerned with getting outside before Zayn finishes his cigarette so it takes him a moment to notice that Zayn isn’t outside, he’s inside – in the middle of the office to be precise, the guy from the bar in his arms – and Harry freezes in the doorway.

It’s another moment before his brain registers what he’s seeing and when it does, it’s as if his heart drops to his feet. They don’t see him as they kiss greedily, Zayn’s hands fisted in the collar of the guy’s shirt, pulling him into him as they stagger towards the desk. They fall against it and it scrapes loudly on the lino as they turn so that the guy is sitting on the edge of it and Zayn is between his legs. They break their kiss long enough for Zayn to tell him that he only has ten minutes as he takes off his t-shirt to reveal the long line of his back and the tattooed feather at the back of his neck. Then they’re kissing again and when Zayn closes his eyes and tilts his head, Harry can see the silvery edge of his tongue in the guy’s mouth and steps back.

He lets the door shut and stares at it as he tries to catch his breath. He’s sure he can still hear them. He can’t – not over the racket of the bar – but in his head all he can hear is the scrape of the desk on the lino and the sound Zayn’s t-shirt made as he pulled it off. Then he does hear something, a desperate Zayn that’s somewhere between joy and agony and Harry jumps back from the door as though it hurt to hear it.

Harry doesn’t think then, he marches back to the girl at the bar and pulls her into a kiss. She doesn’t hesitate and within seconds they’re kissing just as greedily, Harry’s hands on her face. He doesn’t know how long they’re kissing, but he hopes it’s long enough for Zayn to see. The thought of it makes him kiss her deeper and he’s never kissed anyone like that before, like he’s starving, like he hasn’t kissed anyone for years.

She peels her mouth away first and he thinks that he’s scared her – come on too strong – but she takes his hand and tugs him towards the toilets. He makes sure he glances back at he bar as she does and he looks at Zayn as he looks away. He sees Zayn’s jaw tighten as he stares at the pint he’s pouring and that’s when the pain in Harry’s chest turns into something else, into something that makes him laugh as she leads him across the dance floor. And it isn’t a game, but if it was, the look on Zayn’s face when she pulls him into toilets would be enough to score a point.

How does it feel, Zayn? Harry wants to shout and he’s so thrilled that for a second, he forgets what’s happening. It isn’t until the girl literally shoves him into one of the stalls that he remembers where he is. In the harsh light of the bathroom, it suddenly isn’t as funny, the buzz from the bourbon fading as he asks himself what he’s doing.

‘Do you want me?’ he breathes when she locks the door and there it is – at last – the one thing he’s been trying not to say to Zayn since he had that dream about him. The thing he’s been trying to drown with Jim Beam all night.

She smiles. ‘Of course.’

It’s so easy. Of course. There’s no hesitation, no confusion, no what-if-I-fuck-this-up. She just wants him and he hasn’t felt that in such a long time. This used to be so simple: meet a girl and fuck her. It was never more complicated than that. He may have enjoyed the chase when he was younger, enjoyed the theatrics of candlelit dinners and sentimental text messages, but if he’s honest it was always a means to an end. Even with Chloe. She made it complicated, Harry didn’t. All he ever wanted was sex. All he wanted was to hear her say his name like it was the last thing she was going to say, because there’s nothing like that feeling, like coming so hard you think you’re dying. It feels like you’re flying and falling, all at once.

But there is, he knows now. There’s the thrill of making someone laugh so much they can’t breathe and the agony of looking at someone and waiting for them to look at you. He never used to care about those things, about waking up next to someone, in their bed, the smell of them everywhere. He wanted to be missed, to be the guy you can’t stop thinking about, the guy you hope is calling every time your phone rings. That’s all he’s ever wanted, to leave a fucking hole in someone’s life, to be the one who got away, a name they can’t stop themselves saying in their sleep. But now he’s the one checking his phone and he wants to go back because he will never be that guy to Zayn. He’s just his friend, his annoying, donut eating friend who makes him late for work. So he wants to go back – he has to go back – because knowing that hurts. It hurts so much. And that kind of feels like dying, too.

Harry doesn't know what's happening to him. It's fine when it's just the two of them in Zayn's loft, bickering over Marmite or whose turn it is to make tea, but out there, he doesn't know who he is. It's like he's forgotten. He's forgotten about his untidy room in his untidier house, forgotten about the Dublin and Chloe and the band. He's even forgotten how to sing, the lyrics to songs he used to know now somewhere out of reach when he's at band rehearsal, one eye on the clock so he has enough time to get to the Superstore before it closes. And he needs to remember because he hates this, hates how the ground doesn't feel as steady under his feet when Zayn isn't around. It scares the shit out of him. So Harry kisses her, this girl with the blonde curls and delicate chin, this girl who wants him. He kisses her because this is something he knows, something that still makes sense. He knows that if he kisses the warm patch of skin behind the ear, she'll moan and that if she rolls the heel of her palm against the crotch of his jeans, he'll get hard.

So he kisses her - kisses and kisses and kisses her - kisses her like he used to kiss Chloe and all the other girls, but there’s nothing. Nothing. So he puts his hand under her skirt and tugs her underwear to the side. She’s wet and he wonders how long she’s been like that – since he kissed her? since she played with his hair? – and he would normally feel a shiver of pride, but he doesn’t. And he doesn’t feel anything when he slides a finger into her, either, even when she whimpers and tells him not to stop.

He doesn’t and she comes quickly, her hands on his shoulders and her nails digging into him so desperately he can feel them through his t-shirt. But before she’s caught her breath, her hands are on his belt buckle and he pulls away, his cheeks burning.

‘What’s wrong?’ she pants, blinking at him.

‘What do you want?’

‘You,’ she says with another smile, then gets on her tiptoes and presses her ear to his mouth. ‘I want you to fuck my mouth.’

He shivers. ‘Are you sure?’

She turns around to face the wall and puts her hands behind her back. She looks up at him over her shoulder and when he sweeps her hair back with his hand to look at her mouth, he sees that it’s the same colour as Zayn’s, the same pencil eraser pink. That’s what gets him hard, the thought of running his tongue along Zayn’s bottom lip before he dips it into his mouth. Then he can’t get his jeans undone fast enough.

‘Are you sure?’ Harry asks again as he takes off his belt.

She nods. ‘Please. I want you to come in my mouth.’

The way she says it makes his hands shake as he knots the belt around her wrists. He can feel her pulse throbbing against his fingers as he does and when he turns her around to face him again, he squeezes her left shoulder with his hand and she sinks to her knees.

Harry feels the heat of her breath first, then her tongue, then Oh God.

He closes his eyes as he tells himself to go slow – slow, slow – but as soon as he does, he has a flash of Zayn and that guy in the office and his hips buck as he wonders if this is what they did. He can’t keep up with his breath as he thinks about it, as he imagines the guy’s head in Zayn’s hands as he thrusts into his mouth, and the thought makes the bones in Harry's legs dissolve into dust. Then it isn’t the guy’s head in Zayn’s hands, it’s his, and when Harry fists his hands in the girl's hair, he tells himself to stop – to slow down – but he can’t, his forehead pressing into the tile wall as he fucks her mouth.

He’s going to lose it, he knows – lose it – so he makes himself open his eyes and look down at her. ‘I’m gonna come,’ he warns her, the tiles cool against his temple. ‘Tell me to stop.’ But she shakes her head and he gives into it then. He lets his head tip forward against the wall and closes his eyes as he hears himself gasping, telling her to take it over and over until the words just melt together into a mess of breathless gibberish that’s punctuated every now and then with a yes or a fuck or a so good.  Then he’s coming and just for that second, he forgets. Forgets about Zayn and that guy and how his sheets are never going to smell the same again.

His sheets.

His sheets.

His sheets.

Harry staggers back and stands there for a moment, his back against the other wall of the stall as his heart beats so hard he’s sure it’s about to break through his ribs.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks when she stands up. He unties her hands and as soon as he does, she slaps him so hard across the face he almost loses his balance.

‘Holy shit,’ Harry gasps, pressing his hand to his cheek.

What did he do?

It was such a blur that he doesn’t even remember what he said so Jesus fuck what did he do? A rush of panic floods through him as he hopes that he didn’t hurt her, that he didn’t pull her hair too hard or that she wasn’t telling him to stop. His stomach lurches at the thought so when she slaps him again, he’s sure that he’s going to be sick.

But then she says it: ‘Who the fuck is Zayn?’

Chapter 4

He better be worth it. That was the last thing Ben said to Zayn. He better be worth it. Zayn had to walk out of the café then because Ben didn’t get what he was trying to say and maybe that’s his fault; he’s never been good at these things. He never says things at the right time, he either says things too soon or too late. There’s no middle ground.

With Ben he said it too late because it didn’t matter how carefully he chose his words or how many times he said that he wanted to be friends, all Ben heard was that Zayn was choosing Harry. He didn’t, if Zayn chose anyone then he chose himself for once, but that’s why he had to walk away, because Ben wasn’t listening any more. But the truth is: Zayn was the one who wasn’t listening. If he was then he’d know that Ben wasn’t telling him to choose, he was telling him to be careful. It takes Zayn a while to realise that, though, because he’s a stubborn bastard and he’s trying so hard to prove Ben wrong – to be okay – that he doesn’t notice that he’s not. If anything, Zayn thinks he’s happy. He thinks that he and Harry are fine, that they can sleep in the same bed as though it’s nothing, as though it’s Harry’s snoring that keeps Zayn awake, not the nearness of him, the curve of his bare shoulder or the misplaced curl in the middle of his forehead that Zayn has to turn away from before he moves it back into place.

He knows people think they’re together and he should correct them, but Harry doesn’t seem bothered, he just laughs when they ask so Zayn laughs, too. Like tonight, when they walked into the bar together and Dixie winked at him as she passed them on her way to the decks. Harry didn’t notice, but Ruth wasn’t as subtle. She’s been teasing Zayn for weeks, so when they’re setting out the candles and he hands Harry a bag of tealights she can’t let it pass without telling them how cute they are.

Zayn shakes his head. ‘Cute is not a word I’d use to describe him.’

‘Excuse you,’ Harry says, tearing into the bag of tealights. ‘I’m fucking adorable.’

‘Yes you are! You’re like an old married couple.’ She grins and points at Harry dropping the tealights into the candleholders. ‘You even have a routine.’

Less of the old, Zayn is about to tell her but he’s distracted by a flash of red and turns his head as a guy walks into the bar. When Zayn smiles, he actually thinks it’s a good thing, that it proves he and Harry are just friends because he wouldn’t notice another guy if he was in love with Harry, right? The sight of a stranger wouldn’t make his stomach tighten so Zayn’s legs are weak with relief as he starts walking towards him.

‘Nice t-shirt.’ he says with a smile as the guy approaches the bar.

‘You like the Stones?’

When the guy licks his lips, he does it on purpose, Zayn knows, and it’s not lascivious, but it’s just enough to make them pinker as he presses a hand to the red cartoon tongue on the front of his t-shirt. But then, when Zayn licks his lips, he does that on purpose as well, and it doesn’t go unnoticed because the guy leans closer. Not too close, but just enough to make Zayn tilt his head and lick his lips again.

‘What do they say?’ he says, his blue eyes blowing black as Zayn copies him and leans a little closer as well. ‘You can't always get what you want, you get what you need?’

Don’t you just, because a couple of hours later Zayn is kicking the guy’s legs apart and telling him to bend over the desk in the office. And he can’t remember the last time he did that, the last time he fucked a guy he didn’t know. Usually he just kisses them, maybe gives them a breathless handjob in the disabled toilet, his forehead against theirs, but he never fucks them. He can count on one hand the number of guys he’s slept with so he doesn’t even a have condom on him. The guy does, though, and Zayn doesn’t know what’s wrong with him; he can’t get it on quick enough before he thrusts into him.

The desk skids forward as he does and he doesn’t even get it then, when the guy gasps his name and Zayn covers his mouth with his hand because the way he says it doesn’t sound right. He just thinks it’s because he doesn’t want them to get caught. That’s why he doesn’t make a sound, either. Why he closes his eyes and presses his lips together, swallowing back every grunt until he’s choking on them. But it’s so good. So good. So good. The guy’s fierce pants into the palm of his hand are making Zayn harder and the way his whole body twists when Zayn bites his shoulder makes Zayn fuck him a little deeper so he does it again. Zayn laughs when he does – actually throws his head back and laughs – because he wishes Ben was there to see, to see how wrong he is. But as soon as Zayn thinks it – I’m okay – Harry’s name is in his mouth, about to spill off his tongue, and it’s like being shaken awake in the middle of the night. His eyes fly open and when he looks down, he finally sees what he didn’t in the bar.

The guy looks like Harry.

He does and he doesn’t. His hair isn’t quite curly enough and his skin isn’t quite pale enough, but with his head down and the muscles in his shoulders clenched, it could be Harry and fuck. Something in him gives way then. There are tears in his eyes as Zayn fucks him harder and it’s too much and not enough, all at once, but he needs it. He needs it. But not saying Harry’s name feels like the hardest thing he’s ever done. Holding it in is making his skin weep. Even when he comes Zayn doesn’t dare open his mouth, choking back each gasp because he’s terrified that if he lets them out, Harry’s name will fly out, too, like a bird breaking out of a cage. He has to, though, because he can’t breathe – he can’t breathe – but when his mouth falls open and he finally lets go, he doesn’t say Harry’s name, he says ‘I love you’ and the relief is enough to split his chest right open.

‘You okay?’ the guy asks when Zayn staggers back.

But Zayn can’t look at him because he’s not okay.

He’s not.

As Zayn walks back into the bar, his legs are already unsteady, but when he sees Harry and the blonde, they almost give way completely. She’s on a barstool and he’s between her legs, his hands on her face as Harry does what he does with blondes, and it almost makes Zayn feel better because if he really was as naïve as Ben seems to think he is, then he would have let himself think that Harry wasn’t interested in her. After all, Harry didn’t so much as glance at her when she sat next to him earlier, even when her hand lingered on his back as she asked if the stool next to his was taken. But Zayn’s seen Harry do it enough times – that half-arsed smile and shrug – to know that pretending not to give a shit is part of his schtick. It sends women batshit trying to get his attention so when Harry ignored her, Zayn knew it would end this way.

That’s why he stayed at the other end of the bar, because he couldn’t bear to watch. He should of known then, when he was flirting with the guy in the Rolling Stones t-shirt to avoid looking at them, that Ben was right, that he should be careful because that’s what Harry wants, a delicate blonde with a soft mouth. He doesn’t want Zayn’s eager hands and stubble and Zayn knows that – he does. He’s trying to remember it, at least. He’s trying to keep Harry at arm’s length, to make sure that there’s enough space between them, but judging how much space is enough is getting harder and harder.

Not that it matters, because Harry has no concept of personal space. If they’re in a pub, he can’t sit on the sofa opposite him, he has to sit next to him, knee digging into his, and if Zayn’s reading a book, he’ll take it from him and ask what he’s reading. Closing the door on him doesn’t help, because he doesn’t take the hint and follows him into the bathroom, babbling through mouthfuls of apple while Zayn is trying to brush his teeth.

The only time Harry leaves him alone is when Zayn’s working on something. He only started doing that recently, though. He used to hover, the skin between his eyebrows pinched as he watched Zayn fuss over tubes of oil paint as he tried to mix a shade of brown that seemed to only exist in his head. It was the only time Harry was quiet, as he watched, rapt, as that carefully mixed blob of paint became a line on a canvas and that line became a cheek and that cheek became a face and by the time Zayn was done, there was another person in the loft with them.

Harry must have wanted to return the favour because one afternoon he brought his guitar over and tried to play Zayn a song he was working on. He kept messing it up, though, his fingers fumbling and his voice failing. He eventually gave up with a sullen sigh. ‘I can’t do it with you watching,’ he complained, which made Zayn throw his head back and laugh. ‘Aren’t you trying to make a career out of performing live?’ he reminded him and Harry laughed, too, but when he bent down to put his guitar back in its case, Zayn saw his cheeks go from pink to red and it made his cheeks burn, too.

Zayn felt awful. He doesn’t know why he said it; if anyone knows how difficult it is to share things like that, it’s him. He’d be inconsolable if Harry took the piss out of one of his paintings. Not that Zayn was taking the piss, just teasing him, but they keep doing that, they keep forgetting where the line is, the line between what’s appropriate and what isn’t, and Zayn hates it, how they keep stepping on each other’s toes.

He should have apologised, but he couldn’t get his tongue around the words quickly enough before Harry stood up and padded toward the kitchen, asking if he had anything to eat. Zayn felt like shit for the rest of the day and slipped Harry so many drinks that night at the Superstore it was wonder he could stand up when they left. He couldn’t, actually, not really, so it was a struggle getting him back to the loft, but when Zayn did and they were in bed, the moonlight catching on Harry’s face – on his cheek and the tip of his nose, like dabs of white paint – Zayn lifted his eyelashes to look at him.

‘Sing me a song.’

It wasn’t an apology, but it was as close to an apology as he gets. Harry got that because he smiled and that made Zayn feel better and worse, all at once. Better because Harry knew him and he doesn’t know how because Zayn catches himself holding his breath sometimes, when it’s 4 a.m. and Harry’s rambling and restless. ‘Do you think this is it?’ he’ll ask, playing with his bottom lip. ‘What are we going to do if we don’t make it?’ And Zayn doesn’t know when that happened, either, when they became we.

They haven’t, he knows, it’s just a word, but Zayn still presses his lips together whenever Harry says it in case it spills out of him, how much he wants it – to spend the rest of his life with paint under his nails, to be somebody. How scared he is that he never will be, that he’ll have to go back home and become a teacher and that scares Zayn more than anything. More than dying. More than Harry never loving him back. He just wants to live. Live a long, loud life on his terms. To run and fall and fly.

So that night, as they laid there, the moonlight catching on Harry’s face, Zayn realised that despite spending weeks trying to keep him at arm’s length, there he was, in his bed, smiling at him when he should have been kicking him and demanding a proper apology. No one’s ever known Zayn like that – not even Ben – and it made him feel seen, made him feel invincible, like he could leap a tall building in a single bound or hold a bus over his head. But it also made him feel like an asshole, because Harry shouldn’t have to put up with his shit, with his self-doubt and his inability to say sorry when he should.

A month ago Harry would have kicked him and the thought was like a scratch on Zayn’s heart as he wondered if he’d changed him. He hoped not. He doesn’t want Harry to change because that’s what he loves most about him, that he has no filter. He says everything he feels and Zayn wishes he was more like him because Harry doesn’t just put his cards on the table, he fans them out and asks you to pick one. Zayn hides his – he puts them in his back pocket or slips them between the pages of a book he thinks no one will want to read – so he has no idea how Harry knows him. When he let him in.

Harry rolled onto his side, his smile a little wider. ‘A song about what?’

‘Anything.’

‘Okay,’ he told him, his voice shaking a little as he did. ‘But close your eyes.’

He did and when Harry started singing the song he tried to sing that afternoon, Zayn held his breath. But his voice didn’t shake and when he sang, You’re so scared of falling that you won’t look down, but look up, my love. Look up. Can’t you see the light? Zayn was glad that his eyes were closed because he didn’t want Harry to see the tears in his eyes as he wondered who he wrote that for. Whoever she was, she probably had no idea and was sitting in a pub with her friends somewhere, drunk on white wine and cursing Harry for not calling her back. But there he was, singing into the dark to her and it kind of broke Zayn’s heart because she had it all and she didn’t even know. She probably thought she meant nothing to him, but she was a song he’d sing forever.

Maybe it did break his heart because something changed that night. Zayn never asked him to sing again and Harry stopped watching Zayn while he was working. If he had to pick a moment that things shifted between them, then Zayn supposes that was it, the moment he realised that Harry’s heart was deeper than he would ever know, the same moment Harry told himself not to intrude. The truth was: he wasn’t intruding. Zayn kind of misses him hovering when he’s painting now. He liked the way Harry used to stand behind him when he was at the easel, his chin on Zayn’s shoulder as his gaze followed the paintbrush as it swept back and forth.

But it’s probably for the best. The more space there is between them the better. And it was working until fifteen minutes ago when Harry reached for Zayn’s hand and kissed it. He did it with such a mischievous smile, his eyes bright, that he probably didn’t even notice how perfectly his mouth fit into the curve of his palm, so Zayn had to retreat to the other end of the bar before he crawled over it into Harry’s lap.

He was right to, because now Harry is kissing the blonde like the world is about to end and Zayn has to give it to her, she’s known Harry all of two hours and she’s doing everything he’s been daydreaming about for weeks. The first time he saw her put her hand in his hair, Zayn had to fight the urge to charge over and slap it away, but he can’t hate; he’s been wanting to do that from the moment he slid his front door open to find Harry standing there holding a plastic bag. And it’s not like Zayn hasn’t had plenty of opportunities to do it, either, so well done her.

Fortune favours the bold, and all that.

Zayn leaves them to it, busying himself with taking orders while she and Harry kiss, oblivious to everyone huddled around them, trying to get to the bar. Zayn can’t look at them, not just because it feels like he’s being punched repeatedly in the gut, but because he’s never been kissed like that. He doesn’t know how Harry does it, how he manages to summon so much passion for someone he’s just met. She’s flushed and loose limbed in his arms, her hands fisted in the front of his t-shirt, and as she moves them up to grab his hair, Zayn sees that her fingers have left creases in the white cotton. That makes Zayn’s legs a little more unsteady, the thought of what Harry could do to someone if he actually cared about them, if he wanted to know what their lips taste of or what sound they made if he took their bottom lip between his teeth and pulled.

Zayn looks away again, snatching a pint glass from under the bar, but when he looks up again, they’re gone. His gaze darts around the bar until he sees them, hand in hand, weaving across the dance floor. For one silly moment he thinks that they’re going to dance, but then Harry looks up with a smile and Zayn looks down at the pint he’s pouring, his eyes losing focus for a second as he struggles to keep hold of the glass. He knows that they’re heading for the toilets and he can’t be mad given what he just did in the office, but it’s all he can do not to throw the pint glass at them because once – just once, please just once – he wants to want someone who wants him back.

He wants to be enough.

It’s fine. We’re fine. That’s all Zayn’s heard playing in a loop in his head for the last two weeks, like a jingle for car insurance he keeps singing in the shower. He hears it between heartbeats as he waits for the kettle to boil, between footsteps as he walks to the bus stop. He even wrote it in class yesterday. He didn’t realise he did it, not until he was flicking through his notebook this morning, looking for a clean page, and there it was – It’s fine. We’re fine. – scribbled among his notes about Jeff Koons.

As soon as he saw it, Zayn crossed it out, the tip of his pencil puncturing the page as he did, because it’s not fine. He hasn’t seen Harry since that night in the bar. One minute Harry was there, then he wasn’t and Zayn has no idea why. Actually, he can guess why – Harry’s seeing her, the blonde he hooked up with in the toilets – and while Zayn would be lying if he said that didn’t hurt, what hurts more is that after a month of all but living together, of playing rock paper scissors for the last piece of pizza and waking up half-covered by the same sheet, the sun in their eyes, Zayn is so easily forgotten.

The fucked up thing is, he isn’t even surprised. He knows what Harry’s like, he doesn’t fall in love with people, he falls into them. That’s what Harry told him one night as they walked home from the Superstore. He said that when he likes someone he lets it devour him. ‘There’s nothing like that feeling of being swallowed whole,’ Harry said, his lips parted, as Zayn stopped under the white shadow of a streetlamp to light a cigarette. ‘It’s like walking around the edge of a swimming pool and losing your footing.’

So that’s what happened, he’s lost his footing.

It was bound to happen eventually. Zayn knew that every time he came out of the toilet at a gig to find Harry talking to a girl. He’d see Harry do that half-arsed smile and shrug thing and Zayn’s heart would stop as he thought, Please don’t fall in love with her. Each time he didn’t it felt like a reprieve, but Zayn knew that one day one girl would hold Harry’s attention for more than fifteen minutes and that would be it. So it’s been like waiting for an axe to fall and it’s almost a relief because it feels like he’s been holding his breath since he met Harry. It’s kind of nice to let go of it.

Nice probably isn’t the right word, but there’s some satisfaction, painful as it is, in being right. Zayn knew Harry would go. They always do, so that’s why he tried not to tell him anything – not everything, at least – because they always take a bit of him when they do. Harry will, too, and that’s fine, he just hopes that whatever he took, he uses it wisely. Maybe Zayn taught him something. Maybe Harry will be more patient with his next girlfriend and won’t push her when she’s in a foul mood. It’s a pathetic thing to think, that he’s made Harry a better boyfriend for someone else, but Zayn’s done this enough times to know that he’s never the one, he’s always the one before the one. And that’s fine – actually it isn’t, it’s so far from fine, Zayn wishes his heart had a switch he could switch off – but he wishes Harry at least had the bollocks to be honest about it, not lie and promise to call him back when he knows that he’s not going to. Because that’s the cruellest thing, not being forgotten about, but not realising that he has been.

Zayn doesn’t know why it takes so long with Harry. He’s done this before. He knows when someone’s gone too far and has to pull away. But it usually isn’t as brutal as this. It’s more drawn out. There’s usually a few weeks of I’m fine-s or It’s not you, I’m just busy-sfirst. That’s what happened with Dan. First he stopped following Zayn outside when he went for a cigarette, then he stopped calling him back, then he stopped looking at him. Zayn knew it was over then – when Dan started looking everywhere but at him – because Dan used to stare at him, his eyes wide, as though he had no control over it. So that’s why Zayn let him pull him into the toilet that night. It wasn’t just to kiss him, to feel the warm curl of Dan’s tongue in his mouth or to give him that last desperate blow job, but because he wanted Dan to see him again.

That’s all Zayn has ever wanted, to be seen. For someone to not just see his face, but see him. See his scars – his insecurities and faults and fears, the ugly things he keeps hidden in his back pocket and in books – and still want him. Dan didn’t. He never did and if he’s honest, Zayn knew that all along. He knew it every time Dan ran the pad of his thumb along Zayn’s bottom lip and told him that he was so pretty or whenever he wore his purple plaid shirt and Dan told him that he looked good in it with an approving nod. So Zayn doesn’t know why he bribed Ben with that bottle of beer to go to the Dublin that night, but that’s the thing with hope: sometimes you forget to let go of it.

Zayn should be excited. He should be beside himself. One of his paintings is in a gallery, and not just any gallery, the Whitechapel Gallery, no less. His parents are here, his sisters, his grandmother, his tutors, most of his year at uni, and he’s just been introduced to Rachel Whiteread, but all Zayn can think about between the kisses on the cheek and slaps on the back is if Harry’s going to show up with the blonde. He’s so busy fretting about it, his heart stopping and starting every time he thinks he sees Harry in the crowd, that it doesn’t even occur to him that he might not come at all, not until it gets to nine o’clock and his mother tells him that his grandmother is getting tired.

‘We’d better take her back to the hotel. Why don’t you come back with us?’ she says, pressing her cheek to his chest as she hugs him. He kisses the top of her head and she smells the same, of the perfume he buys her every year for Christmas and those pink washing tablets Safaa makes her buy because she says they look like sweets. It makes his stomach clench like a fist. ‘We can get McDonalds and watch a film in bed.’

God, that sounds good, but when Zayn’s gaze flicks to the door as a guy with untidy brown hair walks in, he takes a step back. ‘Breakfast tomorrow, yeah?’

‘But-’ she starts to say, then stops when Doniya gives her a look.

Zayn knows what she wants to say, that they never see him any more, that they just spent three hours on a train and he’s been so busy posing for photographs and being introduced to people to say more than hello to them. She’s right, of course, so he doesn’t know what he’s doing, why he doesn’t just go back to the hotel with them, but when he looks at the door again, it feels too much like giving up.

So he hugs them all goodbye, trying not to think about the half-hug Safaa gives him. She’s growing up, he tells himself when she says, ‘See ya’ and walks away playing with the bracelet he bought her from Spitalfields Market. But it’s more than that, he knows. They’re all different. His father is a little greyer, his mother a little thinner. Even Doniya and Waliyha look different, despite posting photos of themselves constantly on Facebook. Waliyha has a fringe and Doniya is trying to hide a tattoo under her watch. He can only a bit of it, but it looks like initials, but that’s another thing he tries not to think about as he watches her walk away: why she hasn’t told him that she’s in love.

When they leave, he suddenly feels very alone. The gallery is full of people, but he doesn’t recognise any of them, and it reminds him of the day he moved to London, how he stepped off the train at Kings Cross and was immediately swallowed up by the sea of men in grey suits. Rush hour in Bradford is crazy, but Zayn had never seen anything like that. Everyone looked the same and dressed the same and had the same newspaper in their hand and there he was in a Chicago Bulls snapback, a skateboard tucked under his arm. Someone spilt coffee on his new trainers as he fought his way outside for a cigarette before he had to get the Tube and they didn’t even flinch, let alone apologise, so when he stepped out into the daylight and looked down at the stain on them, the urge to turn around and go home was almost impossible to resist. But then he looked up and when he saw the mural splashed across the building on the other side of the street something in him settled. That was the London he knew, loud and bright. He could hear a busker playing a guitar and singing Wonderwall and as he stood there and looked at the mural, the sun on the back of his neck, he remembered why he was there.

So tonight he does the same thing, he stands in front of his painting. He’s looking at it so intently, at the light catching on the thick layers of oil paint, that he doesn’t notice the girl with white blonde hair until she turns to him and says, ‘You must be Zayn.’

He looks at her with a careful smile, hoping that he isn’t frowning as he struggles to think how he knows her. He’s sure he doesn’t, reminding himself that there’s a photograph of him next to the painting in the exhibition guide, but as he’s about to ask her name, she smiles back at him and he sees her gum piercing.

‘Chloe?’

Her smile widens. ‘Hey.’

He blinks at her a few times, unsure what to say. He feels like he should get on his knees and kiss her hand, or something.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he admits, out of breath as he pushes his glasses back up his nose and fusses over his hair so he doesn’t throw himself at her and hug her. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. If it wasn’t for you, my painting wouldn’t be in here.’

She shrugs and he’s surprised by how demure she is. The way Harry described her, he thought she would have more swagger. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she says, holding up her wine glass and turning to the painting. ‘Matt loves your stuff. I can see why now.’

He has to fight the urge to hug her again. ‘Thank you.’

‘Who is she?’

‘My grandmother.’ He thumbs over his shoulder at the door. ‘She just left.’

‘The lady in the green sari?’ He nods. ‘She must be so proud.’

He nods again, his cheeks burning as he remembers how she squeezed his hand when she walked into the gallery and saw the painting. His chin tremors at the memory, so he makes a joke. ‘She’d be prouder if I moved back home and married a nice girl.’ He laughs and that isn’t fair, because his grandmother can barely stand, but she didn’t leave his side all night, her arm hooked through his and her eyes wet at the steady stream of people who came up to compliment him – and her – on the painting.

He wants to take it back because he can’t bear the thought of Chloe thinking badly of her, but he doesn’t have to, because she smiles and shakes her head.

‘She adores you. I can tell.’

That makes his chin tremor as well and he almost makes another joke, but he presses his lips together before he can as he looks back at the painting.

It’s not that he was avoiding Chloe, but he was in no rush to meet her, either, so he’s surprised by how much he likes her already. He gets it then, as they stand next to one another while everyone bustles around them, drinking red wine and picking at cubes of cheese, gets why Harry keeps going back to her. Zayn’s known her all of three minutes and he can already see how easy she is to be around. She doesn’t try to fill the silence with inane chatter about how it’s too hot for June, or ask a dozen, breathless questions about what’s going on between him and Harry. He’s the first one to bring him up, actually, his fingers fluttering with the effort of keeping it in.

‘Harry with you?’ he asks, sliding his hands into his pockets so she doesn’t see.

‘I haven’t seen him all day.’ She looks over her shoulder at the people milling around behind them. ‘But he said he was going to come.’

Zayn’s heart lifts at that, but then he gets a flash of that night in the bar, Harry between the blonde’s legs, his mouth on hers, and hooks a finger into the collar of his shirt and tugs. He hates referring to her as that – the blonde – but he doesn’t know her name. He almost asks Chloe, but he doesn’t want to know, so makes another joke.

‘Give him a break. It’s nine-thirty, he only got up an hour ago.’

‘True.’ She throws her back and laughs, loud and dirty, and if he wasn’t so tense it would be enough to make him laugh, too. ‘But then the poor boy needs his rest.’

She winks theatrically as she takes a sip of wine and that hurts.

‘Is he in love again?’

Zayn tries to sound nonchalant and he must pull it off because Chloe laughs again, but there’s no bitterness to it, she’s genuinely amused. ‘I wouldn’t call it love.’

That shouldn’t make him feel better, but it does, because that’s what’s been keeping him up at night, when he doesn’t have the distraction of class or work and he’s too weak to fight it off. It isn’t the memory of them kissing, her hands fisted in the front of his white t-shirt, or the thought of them fucking in the toilet, Harry’s palms pressed against the wall, it’s the thought that it might be more than that. That Harry can’t sleep for thinking of her, even though she’s lying next to him, her head on his pillow.

That’s what will break him, if he lets it, imagining them together. Zayn can’t even remember what she looks like, but he’s sure that he can picture her flat. He can see the Polaroids on the fridge and the fairylights around the wrought iron headboard that Harry reaches for when he’s fucking her. He can see Harry wandering around her flat, sniffing her perfume bottles or checking her books for photographs as he babbles on about Hollyoaks, and when he really wants to twist the knife – make sure that his heart is still working – he pictures them, sitting cross-legged on her living room floor, eating Chinese food straight from the foil containers, her in his Rolling Stones t-shirt and him just in jeans. He imagines Harry pointing to his forearm with his fork and telling her that he wants to get a tattoo and it hurts so much that Zayn can’t breathe.

‘Well, he’s been seeing one girl for two weeks,’ he says, and he hopes that Chloe doesn’t hear the crack in his voice. ‘That must be a record for Harry.’

She looks confused. ‘One girl?’

‘He met someone at the Dalston Superstore a couple of weeks ago.’

‘I don’t know about her. All I know is that our house has been like Piccadilly Circus recently. I think he’s shagged every girl in Camden.’ She stops to shake her head then takes a sip of wine. ‘I love Harry, but that boy rides his heart like it’s stolen.’

Zayn suddenly feels lightheaded. ‘What?’

‘I don’t know what’s got into him. He’s been acting like a loon for the last couple of weeks.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. He was fine, but then we went to the Bon Iver gig at Brixton.’

Zayn can’t help but interrupt as his heart misses a beat. ‘I went to that.’

Harry was supposed to go with him.

‘Yeah. We saw you talking to Dan Delgado.’

‘Why didn’t you come over?’

‘Harry was in a foul mood. As soon as he saw Dan, he wanted to get out of there. I think that’s why he’s been acting so weird. Dan makes him batshit.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘He’s been on a mission ever since. It’s like when he first moved to London; he’s determined that we’re going to make it and keeps telling us that we have to stop fucking around and take it seriously. Says the guy who missed our last,’ she stops and pretends to count on her fingers, ‘four-hundred and twelve rehearsals.’

That makes Zayn feel better for a moment, until Chloe says, ‘But it won’t last. This is what Harry does. He’s like a greedy toddler. We’re all just toys that he plays with for a couple of weeks, until he gets bored and moves on.’

He waits for her to roll her eyes again, but when she doesn’t and holds his gaze for a beat longer than is comfortable, he knows that was for his benefit. Then she smiles – a small, knowing smile – and it’s enough to tear a hole right through his heart.

‘Got it,’ Zayn says with a nod, stepping back.

Chloe nods back.

‘I’m going to get some more wine,’ he says, holding up his empty glass.

He knows what she’s thinking, he can see it – the pity – in the sudden softness around her eyes, so he shouldn’t run away. He should stay and make another joke, something about modern art making more sense after three glasses of wine, so she thinks he doesn’t care, but he suddenly needs as much space between them as possible. But she doesn’t stop him and that hurts more because the sad thing is, she knows why he has to go and that makes him want to put even more space between them as he heads to the door. He almost trips over his feet in his haste to get to it, and when he does, he collides with someone, almost knocking the glass out of their hand.

‘Sorry,’ they say in unison.

Zayn hears the splash of wine, hears it splashing on his shoes then on the painted white floor, but he doesn’t see it as he looks up to see that it’s Harry and suddenly everything stops. Then it’s so quiet that Zayn can hear his heart in his ears as he looks at him, looks at his tangle of hair and the familiar sweep of his mouth, and he’s so happy to see him that the he can feel the tension seeping out of his bones.

‘You came,’ he says with a helpless smile, but when Harry doesn’t smile back, just lets his eyelashes dip as he shakes the wine off his hand, Zayn tenses again.

He looks different, but he doesn’t. His hair is a little longer and he’s all in black, like Zayn, but unlike Zayn, he hasn’t made any effort. He looks like he always does in skinny jeans and Converse and that black t-shirt he loves so much, the one with the rip, but he has a tan and that makes something in Zayn’s chest tighten.

It’s such a pathetic to be jealous of, that Harry’s been sitting out in the sun somewhere, drinking beer, the sleeves of his t-shirt rolled up. After all, it's summer. Zayn will be doing the same in a couple of weeks when he graduates. But he thought he and Harry were going to do that stuff together, when Zayn has to move out of the loft. He thought they’d go to Brighton for the day and eat fish and chips on the pier, or rinse out their credit cards like Harry suggested one particularly miserable Monday last month, and buy a train ticket to Paris. Harry was going to busk and Zayn was going to draw tourist’s portraits until they had enough money for a motorcycle then they’d bum around Europe – Harry the Moriarty to his Kerouac – picking grapes and sending postcards home from places they can’t pronounce. But Zayn knows now, as he looks at Harry’s tanned arms, that they’re not going to do any of that stuff, and as he thinks about him, eating ice cream and dozing on a blanket in Regent’s Park while Zayn has been pacing his loft, chain smoking and checking his phone, and he feels like an idiot.

Zayn can’t help but look at Harry’s forearm then. He knew it would be, but when he sees that the moon he drew is gone, Harry’s skin scrubbed clean, he takes a step back.

Harry seems relieved and looks at the door again. When he does, Zayn realises why and he’s suddenly so embarrassed that he wants to cover his face with his hands.

‘Were you leaving?’ he asks, but Harry doesn’t say anything – doesn’t even look at him, just fists a hand in his hair and pulls – and Zayn’s so stunned that he doesn’t know what to say. ‘Alright,’ he mutters with a shrug. ‘I hope you enjoyed the cheese.’

There are tears in Zayn’s eyes as he pushes past him, their elbows knocking together in his rush to get out of there before Harry sees. He hears someone say his name as he steps out into the street, but he doesn’t stop until he gets to the top of the road, his legs shaking so much that he has to stop and catch his breath. When he looks up, he realises that he’s standing outside an Indian restaurant and when he sees the group of girls at the window watching him, he would walk away if he could rely on his legs not to betray him because he needs a moment without someone looking at him.

The funny thing is, there must be hundreds of people in the gallery. So many of them have come up to him to congratulate him and they all know his name, but none of them are for him. Some of them are, but he’s under no delusions. The ones from uni are only there for the free wine and the opportunity to impress someone at the gallery. He can’t blame them, the game’s the game and they’re about to graduate, after all, but even his family aren’t there for him. They are, he knows that they’re proud, but when he thinks of Doniya’s tattoo, he knows that he’s not their first thought any more. They miss him, of course, but he’s not the one they call first with news and that’s fine; they all have their own lives. Even Safaa, whose started worrying about her hair and makes Waliyha paint her nails. But that’s all Zayn’s ever wanted, to be someone’s first thought. To be the first person they have to tell when they get news. Harry was the first person Zayn called when he found out they were including his painting in the exhibition tonight. He called him as soon as he walked out of the gallery, but Harry didn’t answer, just sent a text saying, Congrats, dude! a few hours later.

Zayn knew then and nearly called Ben. Not because he was lonely, but because he missed him. Missed Ben getting in his face and calling him out on his bullshit. If Ben was there he wouldn’t have let him wallow in it and wonder if Harry was going to show up tonight. He would have told Zayn to stop checking his phone, made him shave then led him by the elbow around the gallery until he’d met everyone worth meeting. Zayn doesn’t realise how much he needs him until that moment, until he’s standing in the street with an empty glass in his hand. And the truly fucked up thing is that he was Ben’s first thought once, before he threw him away, so maybe this is no less than he deserves.

‘Hey,’ Harry says, appearing in front of him.

Zayn can’t look at him. ‘What do you want, Harry?’

‘I wasn’t leaving,’ he says with a sigh. ‘I was going outside to meet someone.’

This is it, Zayn knows, the big We’re Just Friends, Right? speech, and as much as he wants to tell Harry to go fuck himself, Zayn forces himself to lift his chin because he’s not going to walk away this time, like he did with Dan and Rob and Ty and Aiden and Adam. He’s not going to go quietly and let it fizzle out. So if Harry’s going to do this, he’s going to say it to Zayn’s face, because he’ll be fucked if he spends the next six months wondering what he did. But Harry isn’t looking at him, he’s looking down the street at the gallery. Zayn won’t turn his head because he doesn’t want to see her, but he can’t resist and his heart stops when he sees that it isn’t the blonde from the bar, but Ben.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Zayn hisses.

Harry holds his hands up. ‘Don’t get mad, okay?’

‘What did you do?’

‘You need to sort this out, Zayn.’

‘The fuck is it to do with you?’ he asks with a sneer.

Anyone else would take the hint and walk away, but Harry steps closer and it makes Zayn’s fingers curl around the stem of the wine glass as he resists the urge to throw it just so he can hear it break. He’s so angry he’s shaking and it’s not even at that – at Harry interfering – it’s that he knew he wanted to talk to Ben. How did he know?

How did he know?

It tears a new hole in his heart as Harry drops his chin and shrugs. ‘Nothing.’

‘Stay the fuck out of it, then.’

‘I probably should.’

‘You should,’ Zayn tells him, pacing around the corner where Ben can’t see him.

He follows. ‘You’ve been friends for ten years.’

‘Leave it, Harry.’

‘I know you fight, but there’s a reason you haven’t killed each other.’

‘Haven’t killed each other yet.’

Harry lowers his voice. ‘I know you miss him.’

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this now.’ Zayn shakes his head. ‘Here.’

He looks at the restaurant window to find that everyone looking and he walks further up the road to lean against a street sign, his back to Harry.

‘I’m sorry. I’m not trying to ruin your night.’

‘Well you have.’

‘I know, but he should be here. He deserves to see this.’

He’s right, Zayn knows. Ben’s been there all along. He wasted his Saturdays traipsing around art galleries with him and bought Zayn his first set of gouache paint for his thirteenth birthday. He should be there. Zayn wanted him there. He composed at least a dozen text messages inviting him, but he couldn’t bring himself to send any of them. He even called once and when he got Ben’s voicemail, he was so relieved he nearly dropped his phone into the sink at the Superstore in his haste to hang up. But as much as he wants to see him, Zayn wanted it to be on his terms. Somewhere familiar – quiet – where he had the distraction of a cup of tea and packets of sugar to fiddle with when he didn’t know what to do with his hands. But as usual, Harry is forcing his hand.

‘You need to fuck off,’ Zayn warns him, when Harry stands in front of him.

‘You need to tell him about Adam.’

Zayn has to walk away then because he’s going to punch him. So he turns and walks back to the top of the road, heading for the light of Aldgate East station. Harry catches up so he’s in front of him and walks backwards shaking his head.

‘You have to, Zayn or you’ll never get past it.’

He stops. ‘He won’t understand.’

‘He will.’ Harry stops, too, his hands pressed together. ‘I guarantee that whatever Ben thinks happened is way worse than what actually happened.’

Zayn frowns at him. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because you need to put him out of his misery.’

‘Why the fuck do you care? Ben hates you.’

‘Well he loves you and you can’t just throw him away.’

Zayn feels it like a punch in the jaw and steps forward.

‘That’s fucking rich coming from you. I haven’t heard from you in two weeks.’

Harry looks like he’s about to throw up and fists his hand in his hair.

‘Fine,’ he says with a shrug then sighs. ‘If you want to lose your best friend over someone you’ll never see again, then fair enough.’

Harry lifts his chin to look at him and when he does Zayn’s heart stops. Not because he’s right, but because he doesn’t think they’re talking about Adam any more.

+++

Zayn finds him at the Dublin and the shock of it makes Harry gasp and duck down in the booth he’s sitting in when he walks in. Tom does it, too.

‘Shit, is it our landlord?’ he whispers, chin to his chest.

‘It’s Zayn,’ Harry mouths.

Tom’s eyes widen and he twists around, peering over the booth at the doors to the pub where Zayn is standing, a hand pressing down his hair as he looks around.

‘That’s Zayn? Holy shit,’ he hisses, turning back to stare at Harry, open-mouthed. ‘I love you, mate, but you’re punching way above your weight with him.’

‘Thanks, mate.’

‘Those glasses are so fucking hot.’

‘Stop staring.’ Harry kicks him under the table.

‘Dude,’ Tom says, still looking at Zayn. ‘There’s a parallel universe somewhere where kittens send each other YouTube clips of him.’

‘Will you shut up,’ Harry says through his teeth. ‘If he sees us.’

Tom turns back to him with a frown. ‘Why don’t you want him to see us?’

‘Because,’ Harry whispers, kicking Tom when he peers across the bar again. ‘I haven’t seen him for two weeks then I just showed up at his exhibition and forced him to talk to his best friend. I’m pretty sure that he wants to punch me in the face.’

Tom turns back and nods. ‘You’re a really shitty friend, you know that, right?’

‘I love you, too, man.’

‘Just talk to him.’

‘I can’t.’

‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

‘He could hear me.’

‘Friends again? Really, Harry? Get a job.’

‘You watched that episode with me!’

‘Rachel, he like, totally changed time,’ they say in unison, then laugh.

Harry catches himself and ducks again, his cheeks pink. ‘Is he looking?’

Tom rolls his eyes. ‘Stop being so melodramatic and talk to him.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘What am I going to say, Tom? Oh hi, Zayn. I think I’m in love with you.’

Tom arches an eyebrow. ‘Think?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’

‘Why don’t you know?’

‘Because I’m dead inside, clearly.’

‘You cried at a RSPCA ad last week, you’re not dead inside, Harry.’

Harry glares at him. ‘Thanks for bringing that up. As if I’m not emotional as it is.’

‘Look, all I’m saying,’ Tom sits up and reaches for his pint with a sigh, ignoring Harry as he gestures at him to get down. ‘I’ve never seen you like this. You’ve never felt like this about anyone. Which,’ Tom points his glass at him, ‘I’m totally not offended by, by the way, given you stick your tongue down my throat once a week. So just get on it.’

‘Get on it?’ Harry looks appalled. ‘Thank you for that pearl of wisdom, Tom.’

‘You know what I mean. Tell him how you feel.’

‘I can’t. You can’t tell someone that you think you love them.’

‘You have to tell him something ‘cos you can’t avoid him for the rest of your life.’

‘What if he doesn’t feel the same way? It’ll fuck everything up.’

‘You’re hiding from him, Harry. It’s already fucked up.’

Harry agrees with a reluctant sigh, but before he can sit up, he gets a text. He flaps his hands, ssh-ing his phone as he snatches it off the table. It’s from Zayn and Harry’s tongue leaps onto his tongue as he reads it: It’s alright, I’ve gone. You can stop hiding.

‘Where are you going?’ Tom asks as he jumps up, but Harry doesn’t stop, just runs for the door and out into the street. He runs towards the bus stop, but Zayn isn’t there, so he keeps going, running towards the blue bridge. They called last orders at the Dublin just before Zayn walked in so Camden Road station is mess of people heading home. Harry can hear the train coming and says a little prayer that he has enough left on his Oyster card to get him through the barriers. He does and runs up the stairs towards the platform, two at a time, but he doesn’t get there in time and throws his hands up when he gets to the top of the stairs and sees the train pulling out of the platform.

There’s a twenty-two minute wait for the next one, and the thought of waiting that long is unbearable. He’s about to run back down the stairs and get the bus instead, just so he’s moving, but that will take at least an hour so he won’t get there any quicker, so he paces up and down the platform calling Zayn over and over until the train comes. He doesn't answer so by the time the train finally pulls up, Harry’s fidgeting to get on, his head spinning as he leans against the handrail and tries to catch his breath.

It’s only four stops to Dalston Kingsland and Harry’s done this journey so many times to and from Zayn’s loft that he knows every moment of it. He even knows the carriage he’s on – the one that someone’s written SHE’S NOT DEAD on an ad for the book Chloe’s reading – so he knows that he’s going to get there, but his legs shake the whole time. They don’t stop until the train finally pulls into the station, then Harry is jabbing at the button to open the doors with his finger.

He doesn’t know how he doesn’t fall down the stairs, but all he can see is the light of the ticket hall, then the road, his heart is banging as he runs for it. He pulls his Oyster card out of the back pocket of his jeans and slaps it on the reader, but the ticket barrier doesn’t open and Harry slams into it so hard, it knocks the air right out of him. By the time he recovers and realises what’s happened, a ticket inspector waves him over. He takes Harry’s Oyster card and checks it on the reader. It says SEEK ASSISTANCE again and the ticket inspector shakes his head.

‘You’ve only got £2.50 left.’

Harry almost bursts into tears. ‘How much do I need?’

‘Two quid.’

He roots through his pocket and produces seventy-nine pence in loose change and a half-empty pack of peppermint Extra gum. The ticket inspector shakes his head again.

‘Please-’ he starts to say, but is interrupted as a Transport Police officer ambles over, his hands tucked into the front of his neon yellow vest.

‘Oh here he is. Johnny Cash,’ he says with a smirk and Harry almost kisses him.

‘Please, officer! Let me through. I have no money and I think I’m in love.’

He sighs, gesturing at the ticket inspector to open the barrier.

‘Thank you!’ Harry grins, jumping through it, then grabbing him and kissing him on the cheek. ‘The next time I’m at Kings Cross, I’ll sing you whatever you want!’

He arches an eyebrow. ‘Do you know Shut Up and Go Home?’

‘I’ll do the disco remix,’ Harry promises as he runs out of the station.

He’s never run so fast, the bones in his legs like overcooked spaghetti by the time he gets to the top of Zayn’s road. He looks up when he does, his heart beating harder as he sees that the lights are on. He runs even faster then, skidding to such a sudden halt when he gets to Zayn's front door that he feels the soles of Converse burning, even through his socks. He presses the buzzer and holds his breath, his legs quivering as wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He’s pretty sure he looks disgusting, his t-shirt sticking to his back and his hairline damp, but there’s nothing much he can do about it as he waits for Zayn to answer the door.

There’s no response so he presses the buzzer again, but when Zayn doesn’t answer, Harry doesn’t know what to do. He’s only turned up unannounced once, but luckily the woman who lives in the loft below Zayn’s was on her way out and recognised him, so let him in. He considers ringing her bell when the door swings open.

It’s Zayn and Harry has to stop himself flying at him. He’s barefoot and when he crosses his arms and puts one foot on top of the other as he leans against the doorframe, Harry forgets everything he was going to say.

‘What?’ he says, clearly still furious.

It takes Harry a moment to catch his breath. ‘Can I come in?’

‘No.’

‘Please. I don’t want to do this in the street.’

‘Do what?’

Harry frowns. ‘Please, Zayn.’

He licks his lips then opens the door and steps back with a bitter sigh.

‘Thank you,’ Harry says, closing the door behind him.

He crosses his arms again. ‘What do you want, Harry?’

‘To say I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For everything.’

‘Okay.’ Zayn shrugs. ‘Is that it?’

Harry has never seen him like that, even that day he found the photo of Adam, and it scares him because it isn’t anger. If Zayn was angry, like he was outside the gallery, then Harry could cope with that. He’d risk a punch in the face to make his point because it’s only a bruise, but Zayn isn’t angry. This is something else. Zayn’s perfectly still; his jaw isn’t clenched and his hands aren’t shaking. There’s a coldness to it – a hardness – as though he’s burned past anger and he’s now somewhere else. They’re both somewhere else and that’s what it’s like, it’s like a door has closed between them, and the thought makes Harry’s bones shudder. So when he doesn’t respond and Zayn turns and starts walking towards the stairs, he panics and grabs the sleeve of his black shirt. Zayn stops and the look he gives Harry over his shoulder tells him to let go.

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry says again.

‘Stop saying that. You’re not.’

‘I am.’

Zayn turns away again and starts walking up the stairs. Harry hesitates, as he watches him go, unsure if it’s an invitation to follow, but then Zayn’s at the top of them and when Harry loses sight of him, he runs after him before he can tell himself that it’s a bad idea. By the time he gets to the top floor, Zayn is at his front door, a hand in the pocket of his black trousers as he looks for his key. Harry doesn’t know what to say. Actually, he knows exactly what to say, but he’s so scared that he can feel the words shrinking back inside of him as he tries to catch his breath.

When Zayn finds his keys, a voice in Harry’s head screams, SAY IT but before he can, Zayn turns and walks back to where he’s standing at the top of the stairs. Zayn lifts his black eyelashes to look at him and it reminds Harry of the morning they met, of the first time he saw him and he almost dropped the plastic bag he was holding. The memory of it makes the edges of his heart soften, then he can’t catch his breath for another reason.

‘You hid from me,’ Zayn says, and Harry steps back as if he shoves him.

‘I know.’ He covers his face with his hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I only wanted to thank you for making me talk to Ben.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry says again, but Zayn doesn’t listen.

‘And to let you know that I sold my painting.’

Something in him soars. ‘You did?’ He grins. ‘I knew you would!’

‘Don’t you fucking pretend to give a shit, Harry.’

Zayn points at him and it’s like a pin in his chest. ‘I do.’

‘I haven’t heard from you for two weeks.’

Harry looks away again, his cheeks stinging. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop fucking saying that!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Harry says, before he can stop himself and Zayn steps forward.

‘Stop saying that, Harry, and tell me what I did! You have to tell me what I did!’

He doesn’t say it, he roars it, and there’s so much pain in his voice that Harry has to turn away from it as he considers running back down the stairs. The force of it must startle Zayn as well because, he looks stunned. He blinks a few times, then steps back.

‘You need to go.’

‘No.’ Harry reaches for his sleeve again, but Zayn pulls away before he can.

‘What do you want, Harry?’

They stare at each other, the skin between Zayn’s eyebrows pinched. Harry can hear himself panting and the word is on his tongue, he can feel the weight of it, hear it in his ears between heartbeats, and before he can stop himself, he says it.

‘You.’

The word hangs there for a moment and it’s like waiting for a bomb to go off, that moment of silence like the tick tick before the BOOM.

Zayn heard him, Harry knows he did. He sees the sudden softness around his eyes before his face tightens again. ‘Don’t, Harry.’

The pain is swift and consuming. Actually it’s crushing and suddenly he’s sixteen again and on that X Factor stage, his bones detaching – one by one – and dropping to pile at his feet. Except this is worse because he wants this more. He knows it then, as he watches Zayn turn and walk away. Think becomes know and he’s running again.

‘Please,’ he says, getting between Zayn and the door. ‘Please, just listen.’

Zayn won’t look at him. ‘I can’t, Harry.’

‘Please.’

‘No. I can’t.’ Zayn steps back. ‘I can’t do this. You don’t speak to me for two weeks and you make me feel like shit, like I’m fucking nothing.’ He bangs his chest with his hand. ‘Then you go and find my best friend when I need him the most and you make me feel like you’re the only one who knows me and I can’t.’

Harry holds his hands up. ‘Please, Zayn, just let me-’

Zayn won’t let him finish. ‘No, Harry. Just stop. You’re fucking with my head,’ he jabs at his temple with his finger, ‘and I can’t. I fucking can’t.’

‘I know.’ Harry reaches for the front of his shirt. Zayn tries to pull away, but Harry’s too quick and Zayn sneers at him like a cornered cat, but he isn’t letting go this time. ‘I know and I’m sorry, but I was confused. You remember what it was like to be confused like that, don’t you?’

But Zayn isn’t listening and tries to shrug him off. ‘Let go.’

‘Look at me,’ he breathes, and when Zayn won’t, he fists his hands in his shirt.

‘Let go,’ Zayn tells him when he does. He steps back, taking Harry with him. They collide and Harry steps on his toes, but still doesn’t go of the front of his shirt, his fingers about to snap with the effort of holding on as Zayn’s face gets harder and harder.

‘Let go,’ he says, his voice is lower, so low it makes Harry’s scalp shiver.

‘Look at me,’ Harry says through his teeth,

But Zayn won’t, he just says, ‘Let go.’

‘Why won’t you listen to me?’

Harry shakes him – actually shakes him – and when Zayn lifts his chin to look at him, his arms begin to shiver as he tries to hold onto him because he’s sure Zayn’s about to lose his shit and punch him. And Harry wants him to because that would mean he still cares. He wants Zayn to punch him so hard he can’t feel the pain in his chest any more.

But Zayn doesn’t need to punch him, because he says, ‘Because its not worth it, Harry.’

Harry let’s go then, his arms falling to his sides as he steps back. He knows that this is his fault – he did this, he left, he didn’t call – so it’s no less than he deserves. Harry knows that, he knows that Zayn’s right, but he didn’t need to say it out loud.

He didn’t need to say it out loud.

‘You fucking asshole,’ he says and Harry doesn’t realise he’s crying until he hears himself say it, until he hears how sticky the words are. And he hates himself then, hates his weak, traitorous heart and the hot, hot tears spilling off his jaw. Hates that Zayn sees.

He wipes at his cheeks with the heels of his palms then walks towards the stairs, but before he goes down them, he turns back to Zayn.

‘I know I fucked up,’ Harry tells him, stopping to suck in a breath. He wishes he didn’t have to, that Zayn didn’t see that too, because he hasn’t cried like that since he was a kid, cried until he couldn’t breathe. ‘But this is me.’ Harry holds his arms out. ‘I say stupid shit sometimes and do stupid shit sometimes because I’m not perfect. I’m so far from perfect that I wonder why anyone puts up with me.’

‘I never needed you to be perfect.’ Zayn points at him. ‘I needed you to be there and you left. You fucking left me here like I was nothing!’

‘Not nothing!’ Harry raises his voice, too. ‘Everything! You’re fucking everything! You’re the best thing that's ever happened to me and I’m so scared of fucking this up that I don’t know what to do because I wish,’ Harry takes a step towards him, his hands balled into fists. ‘I wish that I could promise you that this is going to work because I know you need that, Zayn, but I can’t.’ He shakes his head. ‘That’s not how this works. But that’s the difference between me and you,’ he points at the space between them. ‘You don’t think it’s worth the risk, but I do.’

When Zayn shakes his head and turns to walk back towards the door, Harry knows what he’s thinking, that it’s just words, so he gets between him and the door. ‘I do,’ Harry says, reaching for the front of his shirt again. ‘But if you try, I swear to God I will love you like I’ve never loved anyone. That’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry. I can only promise to try and even if it doesn’t work out, it will break me, but you will still be the best thing that ever happened to me. Every song I sing until I stop breathing will be for you. I’ll never be able to look at the moon and not think of you and I don’t know how you can think that isn't worth it because that’s more than most people ever have.’

Harry lifts his chin and holds his breath as he waits for Zayn to look at him, but he doesn’t.

He kisses him.

+++

For the first time in a long time, Zayn doesn’t think, he just kisses Harry. He knows that it startles Harry as much as it does him, because he makes a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp and a moan as their mouths collide. It makes Zayn nudge Harry into the door and the force of it knocks their mouths apart. ‘Do that again,’ Harry breathes, his eyelids fluttering open. His bottom lip is wet and if Zayn had any control over this, he loses it then, his lips parting as soon as they touch Harry’s.

Harry takes the hint, tilting his head and opening his mouth, too. Their tongues touch and Harry makes that sound again and when Zayn feels the hum of it against his mouth, he has to stop because it makes his heart beat so hard he’s sure that it going to burst right through his skin. ‘Do that again,’ Harry tells him, his fingers curling in the cotton of Zayn’s shirt when Zayn slips his tongue back into his mouth.

Then they’re kissing – really kissing, mouths on mouths, tongues on tongues – and like Harry, it’s demanding and restless. It makes Zayn pin him to the door with his body to keep him still and he feels the hum of that too, the hum of the metal door as they knock into it, all elbows and knees and hips as Harry puts his hands in Zayn’s hair and pulls and Zayn puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders and pushes.

Zayn keeps telling himself to slow down, to taste him, to enjoy the soft heat of Harry’s mouth and the rough curl of his tongue, but he can’t stop. It’s Harry who pulls away first, his mouth somehow on Zayn’s cheek and ear and jaw, all at once. Then he’s panting, 'Open the door' against Zayn’s neck and he doesn’t even know if Harry knows what he’s saying as he licks hot stripes down his neck, but it’s making Zayn’s hands shake so much that he forgets that his door keys are still in his hand. When he does, they turn so Zayn’s facing the door, Harry behind him, his mouth on the back of his neck as Zayn tries to open the door. He can’t, not with Harry rolling his hips and letting him feel how hard he is. Zayn doesn’t know why it’s a shock, but it is, all of his nerves jerking up at once as he realises that he did that to him.

He did that.

So Zayn gives up and lets his head tip back onto Harry’s shoulder. They kiss again, Zayn reaching a hand up to fist it in Harry’s hair as Harry curls his fingers around his throat. He doesn’t know when Harry takes the keys with his other hand, but the next thing he knows, the door is open and they’re stumbling in towards the bed. He hears the keys clatter to the floor as they do, then he hears something else – something heavier – and realises that Harry is kicking off his Converse.

They undress between kisses and as soon as Harry tugs his t-shirt off, Zayn puts his hands on his waist and leans down to mouth every patch of skin he finds. He starts at Harry’s neck then moves down, down, his front teeth dragging along his left shoulder before he traces the line of his collar bone with the tip of his tongue – first his left, then his right – and moves down to his chest. Harry lets out a gasp as Zayn presses his hand to the small of his back and circles his nipples with his tongue – his right first, then his left, this time – making sure his front teeth catch on them as he does.

It earns him a oh fuck from Harry, who pulls his hair as Zayn’s mouth moves lower, then stops. ‘Get on the bed,’ he tells him. He doesn’t mean to push, not that Harry needs much persuading; his hands are already on his belt. His bottom lip is still obscenely wet as he lays where he falls, his mouth opening a little wider as he watches Zayn unbutton his black shirt.

‘Let me,’ Harry breathes, hands in the air as Zayn kneels down, straddling him, a knee on either side of his waist. Zayn stops, letting Harry push his shirt over his shoulders, but it’s not even halfway down his arms before Harry’s hot mouth is on him, kissing and biting and licking him, all at once, the shirt forgotten while Zayn tries to take it off himself. As soon as he does, his hand goes to the back of Harry’s head, the pads of his fingers seeking out the heat of his scalp as Harry’s tongue laps at the tattoos on his chest and shoulders as though he’s tasting them. So Zayn leans over him, his hands on the mattress – one on either side of Harry’s head – as if to offer each tattoo to him. Harry accepts, licking each one before moving lower – lower, lower – Zayn’s stomach clenching as the tip of Harry’s tongue dips into bellybutton. It makes him arch his back and roll his hips forward and as soon as he does, Harry gasps, his head falling back against the mattress.

If Zayn didn’t know better, he’d think he hurt him, but then it occurs to him that Harry has never felt that before, so he rolls his hips again and sure enough, Harry groans - louder this time, deeper - his eyelids fluttering frantically. ‘Fuck, Zayn,’ he pants when he does it once more and it feels so good – Harry’s hard on catching on his own through his jeans – that he can only imagine what it must be like for Harry feeling it for the first time. He reaches for the top of Zayn’s arms then, his bitten down nails digging into him as he tells Zayn to do it again. He does and Harry does, too, then they’re grinding into one another until they’re moaning and struggling for breath. The next time Zayn does it, he rolls his hips a little harder and it’s enough to make Harry lift his head off the pillow. Zayn takes advantage, snatching a kiss as he does and when he peels his mouth away, Harry whispers, ‘I’m gonna come.’

As much as Zayn wants to hear what sound he makes when he does, it would be a shame to waste it on his jeans, so he moves his hand down to Harry’s belt. It’s already undone, so he unbuttons his jeans, Harry wriggling beneath him as he does, his eyelids flicking open. Zayn can’t help but laugh when he tries to get into his underwear and can’t. ‘How do you get laid in these fucking things?’ he chuckles as he makes a show of trying to get his jeans off. ‘They’re so fucking tight.’ Harry covers his mouth with his hand and laughs as Zayn tugs. Harry's phone pops out of his pocket followed by his loose change and the half-eaten pack of peppermint Extra and as it all spills onto the sheets it’s probably the least sexy thing ever so they can’t stop laughing as Harry tries to help Zayn between kisses. ‘Shall I get the lube now, or what?’ Zayn says, which makes Harry laugh more, his cheeks red when Zayn finally gets them off, holding them above his head with a cheer as more loose change falls on the bed like confetti.

Zayn’s black trousers are less of a struggle, and as soon as they’re off, he kneels over Harry again. Harry lets his hands fall to his sides as he does, closing his eyes as Zayn leans down to kiss him softly. Zayn's tongue dips into Harry’s mouth for just a second, before he rolls his hips and their erections catch again, making Harry gasp against his lips. Zayn sits back on his heels and when Harry’s eyes go straight to his cock, he realises that’s another thing he isn’t used to. ‘Do you want to touch me?’ he breathes and Harry nods, sitting up on his elbows. He waits for Zayn to nod again, then reaches for him, his fingers fluttering before they circle around his cock. It makes Zayn’s hips stutter and Harry’s lips part, his eyes huge as he strokes him slowly.

He’s rapt so when Zayn reaches into the drawer of the bedside table for the lube, Harry doesn’t notice until Zayn flips the cap. Then he stops, his mouth tightening into an O as he watches Zayn squeeze a little into the palm of his hand.

‘Are we?’ he asks, pink cheeked and breathless. He's never looked so beautiful so Zayn can't resist leaning over to press a kiss to his mouth.

'Not yet,' he breathes, kissing him again. ‘Lie down.’

He does and when Harry lets go of him, Zayn rubs the lube into his cock. Harry watches, his eyes darker than Zayn has ever seen them and Zayn has to kiss him again as he squeezes some more lube into his palm. ‘Can I touch you now?’

Harry nods, his bottom lip trembling as Zayn reaches for his erection. As soon as he does, his hips buck off the bed and Zayn tells himself to slow down again as he leans over him, his left hand flat on the bed next to Harry’s head and his head dipped. Harry meets him halfway, their mouths catching in another kiss as Zayn works his hand up and down Harry’s cock.

‘Like that,’ Harry breathes, rubbing his lips together.

Zayn does as he's told, stroking him until Harry’s eyelids are shining with sweat, before taking both their erections in his hand and rubbing them at the same time. That makes Harry spit out a string of fucks and when Zayn starts to roll his hips again, Harry’s back arches and their mouths meet in another kiss, before Harry starts moving his hips as well.

‘Zayn, I’m coming,’ he whispers, eyes closed, like it’s a secret. Zayn hopes so, because he isn’t going to last much longer himself, not if he keeps looking at Harry beneath him, his cheeks hot and his curls sticking to his forehead.

‘Come on,’ Zayn whispers back, trying to keep his hand around their cocks as they grind into one another. ‘Come on.’

Then Harry’s hands reach for Zayn’s elbows as he rolls his hips one last time. He says Zayn’s name when he comes and it’s the sweetest sound – rough and smooth, all at once – so sweet that it makes Zayn come, too.

They stay like that for a moment or two, snatching kisses as they try to catch their breath. Zayn could stay like that forever, listening to Harry mutter gibberish as he slips his tongue in and out of his mouth, but it's an effort to kneel, his legs like water. So when Harry finally lets go of his elbows, Zayn rolls off and lies next to him on the bed. As soon as he does, Harry opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling.

‘What the fuck was that?’ he pants. Zayn laughs - a little smuggly, he'll admit - and Harry reaches over and punches him in the shoulder. ‘I hate you. Why didn’t you tell me? We’ve spent weeks arguing about Jackson Pollock when we could have been doing that?’

Zayn smirks - and that's a little smug as well - rubbing his stomach with his hand before he sits up with a sigh.

‘How are you walking?’ Harry groans as he watches Zayn get off the bed and walk over to the drafting table. ‘I’m gonna need to be airlifted out of this bed.’

Zayn winks at him as he lights a cigarette and inhales deeply.

‘Come here,’ Harry whines, holding his arm out. ‘I’m a cuddler.’

Zayn rolls his eyes, feigning disgust as he picks up the ashtray and walks back to the bed. Harry watches him put the ashtray on the floor next to the mattress and when Zayn lies on his back next to him with another contented sigh, he smiles.

‘Hey, you.’

‘Hey, you,’ Zayn says with a slow smile.

Harry licks his lips and Zayn takes the hint, rolling on to his side and kissing him. It's long and deep and slow - so slow - and when Harry’s purring, Zayn gives him a few pecks on the mouth, then returns to his cigarette as Harry watches.

‘That’s fucking obscene, you know?’ he says.

‘What is?’

‘You naked and sweaty and smoking a cigarette.’

The corners of Zayn’s mouth lift as he turns to look at Harry, then at his stomach. Harry looks down, too, then frowns when he sees the mess.

‘Isn’t that lovely?’

Zayn laughs, sitting up and stubbing his cigarette out. 'Don't move,' he murmurs, hauling himself off the mattress again and padding over to the bathroom.

When he returns with a face flannel, Harry grins. ‘You do it.’

Zayn does, but after a few seconds, the flannel is forgotten and they’re kissing again. Then they’re on their sides, Zayn’s leg hooked over Harry’s hip and his hand on his face, his thump sweeping back and forth over Harry’s cheek. They take their time this time. One of Harry’s hands is in Zayn’s hair while the other explores his body – the long line of his back, the curve of his ass, the sweep of hip – and it feels like hours - hours and hours - until it stops between his legs. Harry breaks their kiss to look down, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he strokes Zayn carefully. Zayn kisses the top of his head as he watches him because he remembers that, that curiosity, that awe. But as good as it feels, he tells him to stop.

‘Am I doing it wrong?’ Harry asks with a frown that Zayn wants to kiss away.

‘Of course not. I just want to show you something. Lie down.’

‘What?’ Harry breathes, rolling onto his back.

But Zayn doesn’t tell him, just leans down and takes him in his mouth, and when he does, Harry makes a sound that makes his heart trill. He’s so hard that he's close, Zayn knows, so he doesn’t need to do much. He could show off a little, do some things that will make Harry grind his teeth and come so hard he blacks out, but he wants to take his time, let Harry get used to it. Enjoy it. So he stops for a moment to kiss the inside of Harry's thigh, from the back of his knee then down, down, stopping to run his tongue over the smooth patch of skin over his perineum before doing the same with his other thigh. Then Zayn takes him in his mouth again – up, down, up, down, up, down, slow, slow then faster, deeper – Zayn's thumbs stroking Harry’s hipbones as he whimpers beneath him. Then he stops again and it takes Harry a second or two to realise why, before he takes Zayn’s head in his hands and lifts his hips off the bed. He thrusts once, then twice, then he gasps that he’s coming, his hands fisting in Zayn's damp hair.

‘I’m close,’ Harry warns him again, but Zayn doesn’t move and Harry comes with a choked, ‘Fuck, Zayn’ his whole body twisting as he does.

When Zayn rolls onto his back, Harry throws his arms out, his right one falling across Zayn's chest. ‘We are doing that again,’ he tells him, still struggling for breath, then returns the favour. Zayn tells him he doesn’t have to, but it’s hard to put up a fight with Harry’s tongue lapping at him. It’s obvious that he hasn’t done it before, but what he lacks in finesse, he makes up for in tenderness, stopping every now and then to kiss Zayn’s stomach and ask if he’s doing it right. Zayn doesn’t come in his mouth, though, much to Harry’s horror.

‘Slow down, cupcake,’ Zayn says when his eyes come back into focus. ‘We don’t have to do everything at once.’

‘Yes we do,’ Harry says with a petulant pout, giving Zayn a playful shove when he goes to get up. ‘What are we waiting for? We’ve wasted weeks talking and drinking tea when we could have been doing this so you’d better fuck me right now.’

Zayn laughs, then clambers up and heads over to the drafting table. ‘Slow your roll, Styles,’ he tells him, lighting another cigarette and walking back to the mattress.

‘Hello?’ Harry says as Zayn picks up the ashtray from the floor and sits cross-legged on the bed. ‘Have we met? I want it all or nothing.’

Zayn gets that. He’s looking at him now and all the can think about is getting inside him. Not just fucking him, but getting inside him, in his blood. He wonders sometimes what it would be like to swim in it, to climb up his ribs and lick his heart.

‘It's your first time, aren’t you scared?’ he asks with a frown, taking a long drag on the cigarette.

‘Why?’ Harry shrugs. ‘It’s you.’

Zayn smiles - loose and a little silly - then leans down and takes his face his left hand, kissing him until his cigarette is quivering with ash.

‘Are you sure?’ he asks with another frown as he sits up and stubs it out. ‘Having someone inside you isn’t the same as having a finger in you while you’re getting a blow job.’

Harry sits up, cupping the back of Zayn's neck with his hand and kissing him again. When he pulls back, he nudges him with his nose. ‘You’re not someone.’

Zayn smiles another silly smile, his cheeks a little hotter as he tells Harry to lie down and looks under the sheet for the lube. When he finds it, he watches Harry tense and presses a quick kiss to his mouth as he lies on his side next to him.

‘It’s okay,’ he whispers as he rubs some of the lube onto his index finger. ‘We’ll take it slow, I promise.’

Harry nods, lifting his knees and biting down on his bottom lip as Zayn puts his hand between his legs.

‘Relax,’ he tells him, kissing his cheek as he starts to ease his finger into him. ‘Relax.’

Harry closes his eyes and lets go of a breath and when he does, Zayn pushes in a little deeper. He holds his finger there. ‘How does that feel?’

‘Weird.’

‘Do you want me to stop?’

‘No.’ He opens his eyes and looks at him. ‘Show me what you’re going to do.’

Zayn does, slowly working his finger in and out as Harry goes limp on the bed. Harry tries to maintain eye contact, but when he can’t, Zayn eases his finger out and tries to slide another finger into him. It’s met with resistance as Harry chokes out his name, but Zayn persists until he’s knuckle deep inside him.

‘Oh fuck yes,’ Harry pants, as he begins to move his hips in time with Zayn’s fingers. After a few minutes, Zayn isn’t doing anything, just holding his hand still while Harry fucks himself with Zayn’s fingers. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, Harry’s hair a mess and his top lip sweating. Zayn can’t resist reaching over and licking it before dipping his tongue into Harry’s mouth as he eases his hand back and slides a third finger into him.

‘Oh God. I’m ready,’ Harry tells him with a grunt when he does. ‘Just fuck me. Fucking fuck me.’

He licks his lips and it makes Zayn so hard his hand is shaking as he inches his fingers out and reaches over to the bedside table. Harry opens his eyes when he hears the drawer open then tenses again as he watches Zayn tear open a condom. Zayn tells him to relax as he rolls it on and looks for the lube. But he doesn't, not until Zayn rubs some into his palms then reaches for his erection, stroking Harry until he's limp and breathless, before rubbing some over his own. Then he puts his hands behind Harry’s knees and lifts them.

‘Tell me if it hurts,’ Zayn breathes, one hand on his cock and the other on Harry’s hip to keep him down as he begins to inch into him.

‘Jesus, Zayn,’ Harry hisses as soon as he does, his hands fisting in the sheet under him.

‘Do you want me to stop?’

‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ Harry says through his teeth, opening his eyes and reaching for Zayn’s elbows. ‘Don’t you fucking stop.’

Zayn can feel the sweat rolling off his shoulders and down his back as he tries not to lose it, both hands on Harry’s hips as he tries to go slow – slow, slow, slow.

‘Does it hurt?’ he asks, but he knows it does. He remembers how scared he was, how it brought tears to his eyes, and bends down to kiss Harry’s mouth. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks sweeping his sweaty curls away from his forehead with his hand.

‘Yeah,’ Harry pants. ‘It’s so good. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.’

Zayn closes his eyes because he can’t look at him, otherwise he’s going to come, so he starts reciting the eight times tables in his head so he won’t. It feels like his body is rabid dog that’s trying to slip its leash as he holds his breath and inches his hips back before he eases into Harry again. That prompts another Fuck, Zayn and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold out, his nails digging into Harry’s hips.

‘Hey,’ Harry breathes, cupping the back of Zayn's neck with his hand and pulling him down to nudge him with nose. When Zayn opens his eyes, Harry smiles. ‘Why so serious?’ He nudges him with his nose again. ‘Is this your sex face?’

Zayn chuckles. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You won’t.’

Zayn doesn’t believe him, but pushes in a little deeper.

‘It’s okay,’ Harry reassures him, his hands on his face. ‘It’s okay. Let go.’

He hangs his head and closes his eyes. ‘I can’t.’

‘It’s okay. It’s me.’

Zayn lifts his head to look at him and he wants to cry. He looks so sweet. So soft.

‘I love you,’ Harry breathes and everything stops for a moment as Zayn stares at him, the words suddenly between them, filling the space between their chests.

‘I do,’ Harry says, his thumbs stroking Zayn’s cheeks.

Zayn can feel the words, stuck at the back of his throat, and he wants to say them so much, but he can’t get them out.

‘It's okay, say it,’ Harry says.

‘If you leave,’ Zayn says and it’s not the three words Harry wants to hear, but it’s all Zayn can think about.

All he’s thought about since Harry said you in the corridor.

‘I’m here,’ Harry says.

‘But if you go again I-’

Harry doesn’t let him finish the sentence. ‘I won’t.’ He presses a kiss to Zayn’s mouth, then another. ‘I’m here.’ Then another. ‘I’m here.’ Then another. ‘I’m here.’

Zayn lets go then, because he has to, because Harry won’t leave him behind, and when he does, he’s never felt anything like it. It’s breathless and blurry, Harry clinging to him like no one has before, and when Zayn comes it’s like flying and falling, all at once.

They fall asleep kissing, the sun rising from behind the rooftops to set light to the sky. And Zayn's never held someone like that – with both arms, his chest so close to Harry’s back that he can feel the outline of his ribs, like wings beneath his skin. And he’s never slept like that, either, a deep, blissful sleep that makes his bones feel brand new. But when his alarm wakes him up a few hours later and he reaches over to kiss Harry’s shoulder, he isn't there and Zayn knows, before his hand strays to his side of the bed, that he's gone.

Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Zayn’s a contradiction, his mother says. A head fuck, Ben prefers. He won’t drink orange juice because he read somewhere that it gives you stomach cancer but smokes twenty a day, and he never calls home but tells Doniya off if she leaves it more than a week between calls. And that’s another contradiction because while Zayn adores his friends and family, he hates people. Hates them. They interrupt him and distract him and sit at his favourite desk in the library. He hates how they smell, hates having to listen to their inane conversations about EastEnders in the queue for the cash point, hates how they have to sit next to him on the tube when there are plenty of other seats.

Zayn hates that most of all because he doesn’t like to be touched. Since he moved to London he’s made his peace with accidental contact – hips nudging in the rush hour crush, knuckles catching in the shuffle for space in a crowded lift – but when people do it on purpose it drives him batshit. He loves London, he loves how big and bright and loud it is compared to Bradford with its rows and rows of terrace houses and flat grey sky, but in London it’s as if wherever he’s standing, he’s in someone’s way. If he stops in the street to look in a shop window, suddenly there’s someone next to him, or if he’s in the supermarket, trying to decide if the name brand baked beans are worth the extra ten pence, someone will reach over him to get something from the shelf over his head.

If Zayn had his way, he’d never see another soul again; he’d just stay in the loft and paint all day. But then, at night, when his sheets feel too cold and his bed feels too big, he aches to feel someone next to him, to feel the nearness of them. He’ll close his eyes and imagine someone beneath him, gasping and hot and alive. Imagine them saying his name like no one ever has, like it’s a secret only they know.

So sometimes, when a hip nudges his on the tube or someone’s knuckles catch on his in a lift, he doesn’t move, he just stays there, enjoying the moment of contact, fleeting as it is. He doesn’t know why, but then that’s what makes Zayn a contradiction. It’s as if the two sides of his brain can never agree: the vulnerable, creative side that paints things other people can’t see and still believes in things like fate and destiny and love at first sight, and the deeply practical side that tells him that stuff is bollocks, that he’ll be back home in five years, teaching art at Tong High.

That he’s better off on his own.

The practical side usually wins, which is why, when his hand strays to Harry’s side of the bed to find that he isn’t there, Zayn knows that he’s gone. But as soon as he thinks it, the other side of his brain kicks in – the side that told Zayn to kiss Harry in the corridor last night, to believe what he was saying – so when he lifts his head off the pillow and looks over at the kitchen, he expects to find Harry dusted with flour, trying to make pancakes. When he isn’t, Zayn turns his head to look at the bathroom door. It’s closed and that extends his hope for another second or two as he waits to hear the shower running, but there’s nothing. Just the sound of his heart in his ears.

He’s gone to get a bacon sandwich, Zayn tells himself as he rolls over and turns off the alarm on his phone, hoping to find a text from Harry saying as much. He does have a message and his breath catches in his throat when he opens it but his shoulders fall as he realises it’s from his mother. Still on for brekkie, sweetheart? 10am at Albertinis? xxx

It’s just gone 9a.m. so if he’s going to get to Kings Cross for 10a.m. he needs to get in the shower now, but he can’t move as he stares at the front door, willing it to open and for Harry to bound in with a half-empty bag of donuts. He doesn’t know how long he stares at it, but his head is aching when he finally looks away and checks his phone. He looks at the screen, at the photo he took of the sky last month when he and Harry were walking home from the Superstore. Harry was drunk and singing Sabotage (which sounded ridiculous in his Cheshire accent) and Zayn tried to take a picture of him but Harry moved so he got the sky instead. He’ll be fucked if that doesn’t sum them up perfectly – never in time with one another – so Zayn calls him. It goes to voicemail and he tells himself that he’s forgotten to charge it again as he leaves a message. ‘Call me back, fuck face,’ he says with a laugh and it sounds so fake. Not sitcom fake, but like the time his grandmother called to say that his cousin died and his mother was so shocked that she laughed then burst into tears.

Zayn makes himself look away from the front door and stares at the ceiling, at the thick metal beams, counting each one, then the light bulbs and the panes of glass in the skylight as he waits for Harry to call back. When his phone finally pings, the relief brings tears to his eyes, but it’s his mother. Nabbed the table in the corner. See you soon! xxx Zayn checks the time – 9.57a.m. – and literally jumps out of bed, kicking the ashtray clear across the loft as he does. He doesn’t have time for a shower, but he can’t hug his grandmother reeking of cigarettes and sex, so he has the quickest one he’s ever had. It’s just long enough to wash his hair and douse himself in enough shower gel that he doesn’t so much step out of the shower as skid out of it, but he appreciates the distraction from worrying about Harry as he tries to find something clean to wear.

His hair’s still wet when he gets to the café. There’s a chorus of hellos from everyone around the table as he runs towards it, gulping for breath. His father isn’t there – thank fuck because he’d flatten him with a look – and his sisters don’t seem arsed. Doniya and Waliyha don’t look up from their phones and Safaa is distracted by an almond croissant that she’s getting all over her. His mother isn’t amused, though.

‘Zayn! Where’ve you been? We have to get our train in a minute.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says between pants. ‘I’m sorry. I overslept.’

‘We couldn’t wait,’ she tells him as he leans down to hug his grandmother, who doesn’t seem bothered at all by his tardiness, just squeezes him and smiles brightly.

‘That’s okay. I’m not hungry,’ he tells her, which pisses his mother off more.

‘Well, you’d better eat something. You look like you haven’t eaten in a month.’

‘Okay. Okay. I’ll have some toast.’

‘Have you even shaved?’

Zayn touches his face. ‘I didn’t get a chance.’

‘You’re perfect,’ his grandmother says, kissing his cheek as he sits next to her, which prompts a collective groan from his sisters who finally acknowledge his arrival. He pokes his tongue out at Safaa, who giggles, getting more icing sugar on her t-shirt.

‘Here he is,’ his father says with a sigh as he ambles towards the table, hitting Zayn on the back of the head with the newspaper in his hand. ‘The Prodigal Son.’

‘Hey, Dad.’

‘Have fun last night?’

‘I sold my painting,’ he grins.

They all look up then and cheer. His father hits him with the newspaper again and his mother forgets that she’s pissed off with him and runs over, kissing his cheek.

‘Perfect,’ his grandmother says again when she goes to sit back down, stroking Zayn’s cheek with her hand as Doniya rolls her eyes.

‘I don’t know about that,’ Ben says and Zayn almost jumps clean out of his skin.

He’s sitting next to his grandmother and Zayn turns to stare at him, then at the empty plate with the remains of a Full English in front of him.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’ Ben holds up the mug in his hand and smiles. ‘You look like shit, mate.’

His grandmother gasps and Safaa giggles again.

‘Cheers,’ Zayn mutters, taking the mug from him and gulping down some tea.

Ben winks at him, and it’s so easy – Ben there, like he always is, no matter what Zayn says or does or doesn’t do – that Zayn thinks of Harry, of the hole he left in his bed this morning. He checks his phone and when he sees the blank screen, the practical side of his brain kicks in again before he can make another excuse about Harry not charging his phone or not having any credit because if he wanted Zayn to know where he was, he would find a way. He would have left a note on his pillow, even written it on Zayn’s arm if he had to. Anything to let Zayn that he was okay, that he was coming back. He didn’t because he’s not coming back and that’s fine (actually it isn’t, but Zayn doesn’t have the strength to think otherwise, not now, anyway, maybe later, at 4a.m. when he’s cleaning his paintbrushes to avoid going to bed), but as much as it hurts that Harry lied, that he lured him over the edge and didn’t wait at the bottom to break his fall, Zayn will never forgive him for robbing him of the chance to wake up next to him, Harry’s cheek on his chest and his hand on his stomach, fingers splayed, even if it was just once.

He could have given him that.

‘So, what’s up, mate?’ Ben asks as soon as they’ve waved his family off at Kings Cross station. His mother cried, which always makes Zayn feel like shit, telling him to call more and eat more and sleep more while his father pressed a twenty pound note into his palm and told him to spend it on ‘something illegal’. Even Safaa seemed sad to see him go, hugging him tightly as they parted at the ticket barrier, her little hands fisted in the back of his t-shirt. It was enough to make him want to follow her through them.

‘Nothing,’ Zayn tells him with a shrug. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘Bollocks.’

Zayn’s about to say something pissy then catches himself and smiles. He’s missed Ben, he realises, and almost hugs him as he stops to light a cigarette. As Zayn inhales, he tips his head back and blows the smoke up to the sky, squinting as he does. He was so worried about being late that he didn’t register how sunny it was earlier, but now he can feel his t-shirt sticking to his back. It’s obscenely hot and before he looks down again, Zayn scowls at the sky as though it’s doing it on purpose. Given his mood it should be miserable, grey and cold, not this cheerful.

‘What the fuck is up with this weather?’ he says, the cigarette quivering between his lips as he runs a finger under the collar of his t-shirt.

Ben kisses his teeth. ‘Are we really going to talk about the weather, Zed?’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘Your phone’s still working. You don’t have to check it every thirty seconds,’ Ben says and Zayn almost drops it. He didn’t realise he was, he thought he stopped doing it after his mother told him off in the café.

‘I was just checking the time.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Ben asks, his hands on his hips. ‘I know something’s up.’

Zayn shuffles on the spot, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and picking a dot of tobacco from the tip of his tongue with his finger before taking another drag.

‘I dunno,’ he starts to say then stops, his gaze dipping to Ben’s red trainers. He wants to tell him about Harry – needs to tell him about Harry before he loses his shit right there, next to the woman selling copies of the Big Issue – but he and Ben have only just started talking again. It’s too soon.

But of course Ben says, ‘Is it Harry?’ and Zayn wants to hug him again.

‘Yeah,’ he says with another sheepish shrug.

‘What happened?’

‘I dunno.’ Zayn starts fidgeting again. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Haz and I are cool.’

Zayn looks up. ‘Haz?’ he asks, horrified.

‘We talked and it’s all good.’

‘Haz?’

‘Deal with it.’

‘Haz,’ he says to himself, blinking a few times, then takes a pull on his cigarette.

‘Did you have a row or something?’

Zayn looks at Ben’s trainers again. ‘Something.’

‘What kind of something?’

‘The doing it kind of something.’

‘What? It it?’

Zayn nods.

‘You fully fucked?’

Zayn glares at him, his cheeks stinging. ‘Can you say that a bit louder? There’s someone on the 12:08 to Peterborough who didn’t hear.’

‘You actually fucked?’ When Zayn starts shuffling again, Ben sighs and shakes his head. ‘What is wrong with that boy? I told him to take it slow.’

Zayn blinks at him. ‘You told him?’

‘Yeah. He was going out of his mind. He didn’t know what to do. I told him to stop avoiding you and talk to you about it.’

‘So he meant what he said?’ Zayn holds his breath.

‘I don’t know what he said, but yeah, he likes you. But I told him to take it slow.’

Zayn chuckles and it feels kind of nice, all warm and soft in his chest.

‘Come on, Ben.’ He takes one last drag on his cigarette then flicks it toward the road. ‘You know what Harry’s like. He has two speeds: running into a wall and asleep.’

‘So what happened?’

‘It was amazing,’ Zayn tells him, stopping to try and swallow the lump suddenly lodged in his throat. ‘He told me he loved me and we you know-’

‘He told you that he loved you?’ Ben interrupts. ‘Taking it real slow, Styles.’

‘But when I woke up this morning he was gone.’

‘Have you called him?’

‘Called him?’ Zayn says, feigning surprise. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

Ben ignores him. ‘He’s probably just freaking out, Zed. It was his first time.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. You’re right.’ Zayn hopes he’s right. ‘I forget how easy it was for me, having you.’

‘Easy? You didn’t speak to me for a week after we did it the first time.’

Zayn frowns at him. ‘What? No I didn’t!’

‘Yes you did. Then you got off with Amy Salter at Caleb’s 15th, remember?’

Ben arches an eyebrow at him and Zayn’s cheeks flush. ‘Oh yeah,’ he says, mortified. ‘God, I’m such a shit friend. Why do you put up with me?’

‘I don’t know. You’re not even sucking my dick any more.’

Zayn feels awful, but he doesn’t realise he’s crying until Ben sweeps his thumb across his cheek. ‘You idiot.’ He sighs. ‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘Course I do.’ He mutters, lifting his wet eyelashes to look at him. ‘I wouldn’t risk losing you for anything less.’

Ben sighs and rolls his eyes. ‘Okay that’s why I put up with you, you idiot,’ he says, kissing Zayn’s forehead. ‘Go back to the loft. I’ll find him.’

By the time Zayn gets back to the loft, he’s much calmer. He shouldn’t, but he starts making excuses for Harry again. He’s out of credit. He forgot to charge his phone. He got chatting to the woman in the café on the corner and by the time he got back, Zayn had gone. He’s halfway up the stairs when it occurs to him that Harry might be waiting for him, equally anxious. Zayn’s heart hiccups at the thought as he runs up the rest of them expecting to find Harry sitting in the corridor by the front door, complaining that he had to eat the fried egg sandwich he bought him.

When Zayn gets to the top of the stairs, Harry isn’t there and the disappointment almost makes his legs give way. His fingers are trembling so much that it takes a few attempts to get the door open and when he does, he looks down for a note. WHERE ARE YOU, SHITHEAD? CALL ME. H x but there’s nothing and it’s all Zayn can do not to collapse into a heap on the floor.

He doesn’t know what to do and paces towards the dining table as he checks his phone. It’s futile, but he calls him and when it goes to voicemail, panic plucks at his nerves again. Something’s wrong. This is more than Harry freaking out. Something’s wrong. Harry wouldn’t just say what he said last night then leave. Something’s wrong.

So he calls him again. ‘Harry, it’s me,’ he breathes into the phone when he gets his voicemail. ‘Zayn,’ he adds, squeezing his eyes shut because he doesn’t know if he’s Harry’s me. If he ever was. ‘I, um,’ he has to stop again and sits on the stool by the drafting table. ‘Look. If you’re freaking out about last night, don’t. Don’t run away again. Just talk to me, okay? Just talk to me. It’s okay. Just talk to me. Talk-’

His throat is so tight that he can’t say any more, so Zayn hangs up and covers his eyes with his hand as he tries to catch his breath. He doesn’t know what it is, if it’s having his eyes closed or focusing on his breathing for a moment – the in out, in out, in out that suddenly feels so difficult – but he notices that the loft smells different. He didn’t know it had a smell – cigarettes and white spirit, his mother tells him every time she comes to visit as she empties the ashtray with a sneer, counting each butt before she does – but he can smell something else. Not Harry, something new. Them, he realises as he looks at the bed. Then all he can think about is last night, Harry beneath him, his eyes closed and his mouth open as Zayn reached for his hands. His hips faltered when their palms touched, before he held Harry’s wrists to the bed and thrust into him again.

One corner of the sheet has pulled away to expose the mattress underneath and Zayn wonders if the sheets are still warm, if they smell of them, of Harry’s skin and the aftershave Zayn put on before the exhibition. Is that what he can smell? The two of them melting together, mouths on mouths, palms on palms? Then he sees the indent from Harry’s head in the pillow, as though it remembers him, and Zayn has to look away because he can’t keep doing this. How long’s it going to be this time? Is Harry going to leave him hanging for two weeks again? Three? A month?

Zayn gets it, he gets that Harry’s confused and scared and thrown, but he can’t keep being the one who’s left behind, the one who has to wait and hope that he’s worth being confused and scared and thrown for. He never is and he keeps forgetting that. It’s as if every time his heart breaks, it heals back twice as strong, like a bone, and he forgets.

He should have known, so maybe this is his fault, too. He should have just accepted it and enjoyed last night for what it was: a desperate fuck neither of them could avoid. But he didn’t know. There are so many things he didn’t do in his haste – his thirst – to taste Harry’s skin. There are huge patches of it that he neglected – his back, behind his ear, the space between his eyebrows – but he thought they had time.

He thought they had time.

The sad thing is, Harry did mean everything he said. He’s heard it all before – the I’m so scared, Zayn-s and the I love you, Zayn-s and the Show me, Zayn-s – so he knows that Harry meant it. He meant every word he gasped, every word he breathed into his neck. They always do, when it’s just them and the curiosity burning through them like a fever. Harry would have said anything to feel Zayn’s tongue in his mouth again, on his collarbones, his stomach, so it’s not that he was lying, it’s that his curiosity has been quenched and the reality of being gay (or bi or whatever the fuck he is) and coming out to his parents and being called a faggot in the street suddenly isn’t worth the blow jobs, good as they are. It really is as simple as that and Zayn can sit there making excuses about how scared Harry is and how confused he is, but the truth is: When you love someone, you run to them, not away from them.

Something settles in him then and Zayn doesn’t know if it’s that he’s giving up or if the practical side of his brain has finally taken over, but he stands up and puts his phone down for the first time since he got out of the shower. He needs a cup of tea, he thinks with a sudden smile, knowing that’s the first thing his mother would do if she was there – put the kettle on – but then there’s a knock on the door and he’s running.

‘Harry,’ he breathes, his heart hammering.

‘Hello, stranger,’ Dan Delgado says with a smirk when the door slides open.

Zayn’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach. ‘What are you doing here?’

Dan doesn’t wait to be invited in, just slides past him and when Zayn turns to face him, he’s standing under the skylight, looking up at the sun.

‘So this is the Silver Factory.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Zayn asks, hands on his hips, but Dan ignores him as he turns on the spot, his gaze darting from the kitchen to the bed to the leather chair by the window, before settling on the drafting table.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ Zayn tells him, but he ignores him again, and when Dan leans down to peer at a watercolour, Zayn paces over and gathers everything up, his cheeks hot and his hands shaking, as though Dan’s walked in on him while he was naked. ‘These are private.’

‘They’re beautiful,’ Dan says, clearly amused by Zayn’s reaction. ‘Like you.’

He raises his hand to touch Zayn’s cheek, but Zayn pulls away before he can, walking over to the dining table and putting the pile of paper down with a scowl. He still feels his traitorous heart skip beat, though, as if to say, Remember?

Remember?

‘You look good,’ Dan tells him with a smooth smile as Zayn takes the cigarette box out of his pocket and lights one. And he hates the way he says it – You look good not You look well – and waits. Sure enough, Dan adds, ‘You always look good in black.’

‘What do you want, Dan?’ Zayn asks, tossing his lighter on the dining table.

‘I came to get my painting.’

Zayn closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose.

Of course. Of fucking course he was the one who bought his painting.

‘It’s not here.’ Zayn tells him, nodding at the door. ‘It’s at the gallery.’

He’s about to tell him to go, but then he’s next to him, his hand on the small of his back.

‘I miss you,’ Dan whispers, the tip of his nose grazing Zayn’s cheek.

Zayn shudders and turns his face away. ‘Don’t.’

‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ Dan rests his forehead against Zayn’s, their eyelashes catching as Dan slides into the space between Zayn and the table. Their hips nudge as he does, then Zayn feels the outline of Dan’s belt buckle through his t-shirt as their chests touch and his traitorous heart skips beat again, as if to say, I remember.

I remember.

‘I’m sorry. I’m an asshole,’ Dan breathes and when Zayn feels his breath on his mouth, his eyes flutter shut. ‘It’s you. It’s always been you.’

He kisses Zayn then and the shock of it makes Zayn step back, but Dan’s hand is there, on the small of Zayn’s back, so he rocks forward, their mouths catching again.

‘Don’t,’ Zayn gasps, turning his face the other way as he stubs the cigarette out.

But Dan follows. ‘I’m not letting you go this time.’

When he kisses him again, Zayn can’t fight it and tilts his head as their mouths meet in a breathless bite of a kiss. Zayn reaches for the collar of Dan’s shirt and he doesn’t know if he’s pushing him away or pulling him closer as they fall against the dining table. Dan parts his lips first and as soon as he does, Zayn’s tongue slips into his mouth. It’s hot and wet and familiar, but instead of feeling that thing he feels, the thing he feels every time he says something to make Harry laugh or when Harry walks into a room and Zayn waits for him to notice him, there’s nothing.

Nothing at all.

‘Don’t,’ Zayn breathes, pulling his mouth away and looking at him, trying to find something that he recognises, something in Dan’s face – his mouth, his eyes – to remind him why he ever felt that for him. Why he laid awake at night, aching for him. But then Dan kisses his neck and it makes Zayn’s heart recoil behind his ribs. He tells him to stop, but Dan isn’t listening as his hands slip under Zayn’s t-shirt to unbutton his jeans. As soon as he does, he slips a hand under the elastic of Zayn’s underwear and when he touches him that doesn’t register, either and Zayn doesn’t know why because he’s saying all the right things – I want you, I need you, It’s you, It’s you, It’s you – and it’s all he ever wanted, for Dan to say those things. For Dan to want him. But then he says it again – It’s you, Zayn – and it brings tears to his eyes because Dan isn’t the one he wants to hear say that. So Zayn wriggles away, but before he can tell him to go, he hears someone say, ‘What the fuck?’ and his heart stops as he turns to find Harry behind him.

‘Harry,’ Zayn breathes, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Harry says and he’s never heard his voice like that before, hard and weak, all at once, as though it hurts to say each word. It even flusters Dan who starts pulling down his shirt and blushing as Zayn does the same.

‘I’ll go,’ Dan says, then glances at Zayn. ‘Call me about the painting, okay?’

Harry watches him go and when he looks at Zayn again, Zayn has to look away because Harry isn’t looking at him like he did in the corridor last night, like he can’t help how he’s feeling, like he can’t stop it. This is rawer than that, Harry’s eyes wide and wet and his chin shivering. Zayn’s broken him, he knows.

He’s broken him.

‘What are you doing?’ he whispers, and Zayn has to suck in a breath before he can speak because he sounds like a little boy asking if Santa is real.

‘Dan bought my painting last night,’ he explains, but it sounds so feeble.

‘And that’s how he’s paying you?’

Harry nods at the table and Zayn’s stomach knots so suddenly he’s sure he’s going to throw up.

‘There’s nothing going on, Harry.’

‘That would be more convincing if your jeans weren’t unbuttoned.’

‘Jesus.’ Zayn closes his eyes and turns around to do them up.

When he turns to face him, Harry is shaking his head. ‘Seriously, what the fuck? I tell you that I love you. I let you-’ He looks over at the bed and when he turns back, he’s crying, a big tear rolling down his cheek. Zayn steps forward to catch it with his thumb, but Harry pulls away. ‘No,’ he says, slapping his hand away. ‘What the fuck, Zayn?’

Harry takes two steps back. He lifts his chin to look at him and Zayn is suddenly so confused that all he can say is, ‘Where’ve you been?’

He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but his hands are balled into such tight fists to stop himself touching him again that his nails are cutting into his palms.

‘I went to get bagels.’ Harry throws the plastic bag in his hand at Zayn. It lands on the floor between them and Zayn presses his fists to his forehead.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Harry? I woke up and you were gone.’

‘I tried to wake you up, but you were sparko. So I left you note.’

‘Where?’

‘In the kitchen. I was worried it’d get lost in the sheets so I left it under the kettle.’

Zayn’s head is spinning so fast – spinning and spinning – that he has to close his eyes.

‘The kettle?’ he spits, taking a step back before he reaches for the front of Harry’s t-shirt and shakes him. ‘Why the fucking kettle? Why the fuck would I look there?’

Harry raises his voice then, too and Zayn wonders if he wants to shake him, too. ‘Because it’s the first thing you do every morning!’ he shouts back, ‘Make a cup of tea! You light a cigarette, which I hate, by the way, then you ask me if I want a brew!’

Zayn covers his face with his hands because he knows Harry is crying – really crying, he can hear it in his voice – and he can’t look at him because he does do that. He does. An oh God, he’s fucked it up.

He’s fucked it up.

‘Why didn’t you answer your phone, Harry?’ he says, and it doesn’t matter now, he knows, but he wants to scream it, to charge around the loft and tear it apart. To kick over the easel and rip the sheets to shreds. ‘You should have answered your phone.’

‘So what? I forget to charge my phone and you hook up with someone else? It’s been five fucking hours,’ he hisses and Zayn deserves that, but Jesus fuck it hurts. ‘And Dan Delgado? Of all the people in the world, Dan Delgado? I’d rather you fucked my dad!’

He deserves that, too, but he can’t take it, his legs threatening to give way as he turns his back on Harry and leans against the dining table. Zayn’s hand shakes as he reaches for the lighter and he doesn’t even want a cigarette, but he needs something to do with his hands, something to distract him as his stomach lurches.

‘It’s not like that,’ he tries to say, but he’s going to be sick. ‘Dan and me-’

‘Dan and you what?’ Harry interrupts. But Zayn doesn’t respond, just lights the cigarette, his jaw juddering as he does. ‘Fucking look at me,’ Harry tells him, his voice harder than he’s ever heard. ‘You fucking owe me that.’

Zayn turns around slowly, but when he lifts his chin to look at Harry and he sees how red the skin around his eyes is, he can’t speak.

‘Dan and you what?’ Harry pushes, taking a step towards him.

Zayn shakes his head and looks at the floor.

‘You’re not,’ Harry says and he laughs – actually laughs, sudden and too loud – but when Zayn doesn’t respond, he walks over to him and shoves him. ‘You wouldn’t.’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘I dunno,’ Zayn says and he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know.

‘Look at me.’ Harry waits for Zayn to look at him. ‘How long?’

Zayn looks away again. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘How fucking long?’ Harry roars and it’s so loud – so raw – that it makes Zayn jump. He’s sure that he hears the jam jars by the sink shiver when he says it again. ‘How fucking long?’

‘Six months,’ Zayn says, turning to stub out his cigarette so he doesn’t have to look at him.

‘Six months?’ he says and it sounds like all the air has been punched out of him.

Zayn nods.

‘This whole time?’

‘No.’ Zayn rubs his face with his hands.

‘When did you stop seeing him?’

‘The night I met you,’ Zayn says quietly, and he wants to reach for him so much, to stick his finger through the hole in his black t-shirt and kiss him and tell him he’s sorry.

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

‘No. It’s the truth.’

Harry’s quiet for a moment, then he says, ‘Did you fuck him?’

Zayn almost doubles over in shock. ‘No.’

‘Did you fuck him here?’

‘No.’

‘Did you fuck him in that bed?’

‘No.’

Zayn walks over to the drafting table and he follows. ‘Was it good?’

‘Stop it, Harry.’

‘Did he let you pin him down?’ he asks, standing behind him, breath on his neck, quick and hot.

‘Stop it.’

‘Did he let you pull his hair?’

‘Stop it.’

‘I bet he did. You fucking love that, don’t you, Zayn?’

‘Stop it!’

‘Did you come in his mouth?’

That bit is true and Zayn turns around and nudges him back with his shoulder.

‘We didn’t have sex, I swear. You’re the one, Harry.’

He was meant to say, the only one. What a time to say it. Too late, as always because Harry isn’t listening as he shakes his head, sending fresh tears down his cheeks.

‘I can’t, Zayn.’ He steps back and presses a hand to his chest. ‘I cant breathe.’

‘I’m sorry, Harry.’ Zayn doesn’t think and reaches for him, but he pulls away.

‘No.’ He takes another step back. ‘I thought it was me. I thought I was going to fuck things up because I’ve never done this before-’

‘I’ve been gay my whole life and I don’t have a clue!’ Zayn interrupts and Harry steps forward so suddenly, he’s sure he’s going to punch him.

‘Not gay!’ he says, his hands balled into fists. ‘In love! I’ve never been in love. I don’t have a Ben or an Adam or a Dan. There was just you.’

Was.

Zayn grabs the front of Harry’s t-shirt, every bit of him shaking as he tries to pull Harry to him, but he pulls away. Zayn hears a rip as he does, but he doesn’t let go as he hears the word was playing in a loop over and over in his head. Was. Was. Was. Was.

‘Let go,’ Harry tells him, jaw clenched, but he doesn’t.

‘Just listen to me,’ Zayn says, breathless.

‘No! You’ve ruined it.’

‘I thought you left!’

Harry manages to wriggle away, then shoves him. ‘Why would I leave?’

‘You tell me, Harry. Before last night, I didn’t speak to you for two weeks!’

He lunges forward again. ‘Because I was scared! I was so scared I couldn’t move!’ He shoves Zayn again. ‘I was so fucking scared that I was going to hurt you that I thought it was better if we stayed friends because I would rather be miserable then fuck it up and make you miserable.’

Zayn stares at him. He doesn’t know how they got there and he wants to go back. He wants to go back to arguing about Jackson Pollock and trying to get Harry up the stairs when he’s drunk. Back to the Harry he met that morning in May, the one who had to touch everything in his loft as though he was claiming it as his own. He wants to go back.

He wants to go back.

‘I tried, you know,’ Harry admits when he’s caught his breath, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. ‘I spent two weeks trying to drink and fuck and puke it out of me, but I couldn’t. Then you saw me hiding from you in the Dublin and when you sent me that text I thought that I was going to lose you and that scared me more than all the other shit I was scared of. That’s why I fought for you last night.’

‘Harry-’ Zayn starts to say, but he stops him, shaking his head.

‘I thought it was me, but it’s you.’ Harry says, lifting his chin to look at him. ‘Why would I leave? Is that how little you think of me? Why would I say all of that then leave?’ Zayn looks away and Harry finishes the thought. ‘Because they always do?’

He stops as Zayn wipes a tear from his jaw with the heel of his palm. ‘That’s not fair,’ Harry tells him, his voice a little softer. ‘Just ‘cos Adam fucked you over doesn’t mean you get to fuck me over. That’s not how this works.’

Zayn shakes his head. ‘I’m not trying to fuck you over.’

Harry starts to walk away, then stops. ‘Everyone thinks that I’m so impetuous,’ he says, turning to face Zayn again. He’s standing in the middle of the loft, under the skylight, and he’s never looked so beautiful, like he did last night, pink cheeked and breathless, the sun catching in his eyelashes. ‘They think I just packed a bag and moved to London, but I spent two summers here, riding Tom’s couch and busking before I did and I made sure I finished my A-levels so I can go to uni if all of this doesn’t work out. So if you think that I charged over here last night and blurted all of that out without thinking, then you don’t know me at all, Zayn, because it’s all I’ve been thinking about since the morning you opened the door to me.’

TELL HIM, a voice in his head roars, but Zayn can’t catch his breath as Harry smiles, small and sweet.

‘You know, there was a moment last night, when we were out there,’ he nods towards the door, which is still open, and Zayn wants to go over and close it as he hears the sound of someone’s stereo intruding like an eavesdropper, ‘when you were kissing me and I could feel your stubble and it was the nicest thing I’ve ever felt.’

Harry touches his cheek and looks at Zayn. ‘I didn’t think it could be like that. Before last night, it was either friendship or sex, never both. I didn’t think you could have both. Then last night, when you were trying to take off my jeans and we were laughing, I thought, So this is it. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. It was like these two parts of me finally fitting together and all I could think was how lucky I was,’ he says, almost to himself as he starts playing with his bottom lip. ‘Most people go their whole lives and never feel like that. They marry their high school sweetheart or whoever they happen to be with when they hit twenty-nine and realise that they should settle down and they never have that.’ He looks at Zayn again. ‘They get safe and compatible, but they never have what we had last night. I actually felt sorry for them.’ He laughs. ‘And look at me now.’

‘Don’t,’ Zayn says and he doesn’t know how because he can’t catch his breath.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t use the past tense.’

Harry shrugs. ‘You’re right, it’s not worth it, Zayn.’

It’s as if the world falls away from his feet and he can’t speak, all he can do is reach for Harry’s wrist and not let go.

Harry looks at his hand, then at him.

‘Just say it,’ he breathes, fresh tears in his eyes. ‘Please, just say it.’

Zayn stares at him. He knows what Harry wants him to say, but he can feel the frantic flutter of Harry’s pulse under his fingers, like a bird trapped under his skin, and all he can think about is locking the door and keeping Harry there forever. But it’s too late.

‘Do you know where I was this morning, Zayn?’

Harry yanks his arm away and points to his arm. Zayn has to blink a few times to get his eyes to focus and when they do, he doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it, the cling film wrapped around Harry’s arm, just below the crease of his right elbow. Then he sees the tattooed moon and his heart snaps in two.

‘I was having this done while you were getting off with Dan Delgado. That’s how much I love you, Zayn and you can’t even say it. You were inside me last night and you couldn’t say it. I’m about to walk away from you and you can’t say it.’

Zayn covers his mouth with his hand as he tries to catch his breath because he wants to say it – he wants to, he wants to, he wants to – but then Harry is walking away and he panics.

‘Please don’t go,’ he says, but he knows they’re not the right three words.

Harry stops and for one sweet second, Zayn thinks it’s enough – that he’s enough – but then Harry shakes his head.

‘You’ll never be able to feel it if you can’t say it out loud, Zayn,’ he says.

Then he’s gone.

+++

SIX WEEKS LATER

Harry saw the first moon six weeks ago, painted on the side of the telephone box by the Dublin. He thought it was a cruel coincidence so didn’t think anything of it, just waited for the sting in his chest to pass as Chloe hooked her arm through his and tugged him towards the kebab shop, promising him chips in pita. He saw the second one the next day, on the road sign at the top of his street. No one else would have noticed it – the Sharpie moon drawn just above the 1 on NW1 like a dot on top of an i – but as soon as he saw it, he knew it was Zayn and his heart broke anew.

He almost caved and called him, but Chloe had his phone so he wouldn’t give in to such whims. She’d promised to tell him if Zayn called and he hadn’t, not since the first week of incessant calls and messages that prompted him to give Chloe his phone in the first place, but Harry still wanted to call him. He even tried to remember his mobile number, but he couldn’t and he told himself that it was nothing, that he didn’t remember anyone’s mobile number, but it felt like a betrayal because Zayn wasn’t anyone.

So maybe Chloe’s right, if he gives it one more week – maybe two – he’ll forget everything else as well and that will be it. Is that when it will be over? When he can’t remember the colour of Zayn’s eyes? Harry can’t even imagine it. He can’t imagine going a minute without thinking of Zayn. His every thought, every breath, every heartbeat leads back to him, as though Zayn is an ocean that will swallow him whole if he lets it. So it’s probably best that Harry doesn’t call him, but he still aches to hear his voice again, to hear him say his name. No one says his name likes Zayn did, with a roll of his tongue that made the Rs rub together, and that scares him more than anything because the truth is: as much as Harry knows this is for the best, he’s still sure that he’ll hear Zayn say his name again. That Zayn will show up one day, holding a ghetto blaster over his head, or he’ll spray paint I LOVE YOU, HARRY across Camden Town bridge and everything will be okay.

That’s all that’s getting him through this because this can’t be it. This isn’t what happens in books and songs and films so Harry keeps telling himself to wait – wait, wait, wait – and he’ll get his happy ending. So when he sees the moons – sees them everywhere, at bus stops, on posters, on post boxes all over Camden – Harry thinks this is it. But it’s been six weeks and Zayn hasn’t said a word and Harry realises that nothing’s changed. So when Chloe sees the moon spray painted to the shutters of the newsagent’s at the top of their road and asks what it means, he tells her that it doesn’t mean anything. And that’s what he keeps telling himself until Ben marches into the Dublin and takes him by the elbow.

‘What are you doing?’ Harry gasps, his pint spilling over his hand and soaking through his Converse as Ben takes the glass, puts it on the bar and leads him through the crowded pub.

‘Returning a favour.’

‘I told you,’ Harry hisses, trying to pull away. ‘Zayn and I are done.’

‘That’s bollocks and you know it,’ Ben tells him, not letting go.

‘Will you just leave it?’

Ben ignores him. ‘Taken a shit recently?’

‘What?’ Harry asks, appalled, as Ben drags him into the toilets.

He shoves him into one of the stalls and when he shuts the door behind him, Harry’s heart starts to throb. He holds his breath, wondering what Ben’s going to do, if he’s going to flush his head down the toilet until he promises to call Zayn.

‘Listen to me, you floppy-haired fuck. I know you’re hurt and I know Zayn fucked up, but I am not letting you do this.’ When Harry tries to object, Ben points at him. ‘No. No more talking. Just listening. Listen.’ Ben points at his ear and Harry crosses his arms with a surly sigh. ‘Here’s the thing with Zayn: he sees things that other people can’t see. He creates things from nothing, from a bit of paper and a pencil, but when it comes to talking he’s useless. I told him I loved him when we were fourteen and do you know how long it took him to say it back?’

Harry shakes his head.

‘Seven years.’

‘Seven years?’ Harry stares at him.

‘Seven years. He told me when we talked at the Whitechapel Gallery.’

‘Seven years?’

Ben holds up seven fingers. ‘Seven years. So if that’s what you’re waiting for him to say, Harry, he ain’t going to say it. He’ll just say: ‘Course I do, because that’s all he says. Do you love me, Zayn? ‘Course I do. And I know.’ He stops to roll his eyes. ‘I know it’s fucked up and it will mess with your head, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. It’s taken me ten years to realise that, but if you pay attention, he’ll show you every day. He’ll let you sleep on his side of the bed and make you a cup of tea in the morning and he’ll remember what you were wearing the day you met and that’s love.’ Ben puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders and squeezes. ‘Who needs I love you? It’s just words. The other stuff means so much more. Case in point.’

He turns and points at the door. Harry peers at the tangle of graffiti, wondering what he’s supposed to be looking at, then his heart stops.

He looks up at Ben. ‘Is that me?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did he do that?’

‘Before you even spoke. He loved you before he met you, you idiot.’

Ben gives him a small shove and when he recovers, Harry reaches over and touches the Sharpie drawing, thinking of Zayn in the stall drawing him and it’s as if his heart sheds its skin and he loves him more, in a louder, deeper way than he did thirty seconds before. So when Ben slings an arm across his shoulders and leads him back out of the stall, Harry leans into him, his legs suddenly not as steady. There’s a guy at the sink, washing his hands, and when their eyes meet in the mirror over it, it’s like being hit over the back of the head with a cricket bat.

‘Did Zayn try out for the X Factor?’ Harry gasps and Ben looks stunned.

‘He told you that? He doesn’t tell anyone that.’

Then Harry’s running. He hears Ben calling after him, but he doesn’t stop. He runs and runs. Runs towards the blue bridge and through the ticket barriers at the station and up the stairs. Tonight, the stars align, because the train’s there and he jumps on it as the doors close. ‘Oh here hell come,’ the ticket inspector at Dalston Kingsland says when he sees Harry running down the stairs. Harry waves at him then hears him laugh – proper belly laugh – as Harry almost falls over his feet as he stops halfway down and goes back to the top to help a woman with her buggy.

The stars must align again, because Harry has enough money on his Oyster card this time, then he’s running out of the station and into the night. He has that spaghetti feeling in his legs again, but when he gets to the top of Zayn’s road and sees the lights on, he runs toward it like a lighthouse. The woman who lives in the loft below Zayn’s is coming out as he approaches and she holds the door open. ‘Thanks, Alice!’ he calls out, running through it and up the stairs and it’s like the end of a rom com, everything falling into place until he’s at Zayn’s door, hammering on it with his fist.

‘X Factor,’ Harry blurts out as soon as he opens it.

Zayn, rightly, looks at him as though he’s having a seizure. ‘What?’

‘You won’t remember,’ Harry says between pants. ‘But X Factor.’ He stops to suck in another breath, his hands on his hips. ‘You were in the toilet.’

Zayn stares at him, then his eyes widen. ‘You’re the guy with the scarf!’

Harry’s heart slams against his ribs. ‘You remember me?’

‘‘Course I do.’

Harry throws himself at him, wrapping his arms around Zayn’s neck. ‘‘Course you do.’

‘All those people and you were the only one I saw that day,’ Zayn says into his hair, tucking it between his curls and Harry hugs him tighter, so tight, his feet leave the floor as Zayn puts his arms around him and steps backward into the loft.

‘I love you,’ Harry breathes and he doesn’t wait for Zayn to say it back, just covers his mouth with his. Then they’re kissing and Harry’s sure that his feet are never going to touch the floor again as Zayn lifts him up. Harry hooks his thighs on his hips, giggling into his mouth as Zayn struggles under the weight of him. Zayn manages to slide the door shut, almost dropping Harry as he does, which only makes them laugh more. They fall against it, laughing again when Harry bangs his head and while Harry’s sure that’s never happened in a rom com he couldn’t give a shit as he takes Zayn’s face in his hands. But before he kisses him again, he looks over Zayn’s shoulder and stops.

‘What?’ he breathes, his fingers pressing into Zayn’s cheeks.

Zayn lets go of him and as soon as he does, Harry untangles himself and runs into the middle of the loft. It’s all gone. The decks, the plastic crate of records, the easel, the jars of brushes by the sink. All of it, gone. Even the drafting table is bare.

‘Is it August?’ Harry says, turning on the spot.

Zayn nods.

‘Where are you going to go?’ Harry asks, turning to face him again.

Zayn rubs his lips together then slides his hands into his pockets. ‘I got a job.’

‘Brilliant!’ Harry grins, a hand in his hair. He’s about to suggest he move in with him, but Zayn doesn’t smile back and his heart starts to throb.

‘I haven’t heard from you for six weeks.’ Zayn shrugs and it doesn’t sound like an explanation, it sounds like a disclaimer. ‘I thought we were done.’

‘You’re leaving, aren’t you?’

Zayn nods and Harry’s heart turns inside out.

‘Where?’

‘New York.’

‘No.’

Harry doesn’t realise that he’s said it out loud, not until Zayn is in front of him, his hands on his face. He waits for Harry to lift his eyelashes.

‘This guy asked me, actually he asked Ben, but Ben’s moving to Berlin with this guy called Oskar he met on the Southbank. Anyway,’ Zayn shakes his head, ‘I’m going to Williamsburg to help set up a new gallery.’

‘Williamsburg New York?’

‘Williamsburg New York.’

‘So that’s it?’ Harry says, but he knows it is.

He waited too long.

Harry wraps his arms around his neck again and clings to him because Ben’s right: he is an idiot. Now he’s there – with Zayn, in his loft, the faint smell of tobacco and turps in the air – he can’t even remember what he was waiting for. For Zayn to tell him that he loves him? Why? All he needs is him. Needs Zayn to hold him like he did that night, like he doesn’t know how to let go, and to wake up next to him, the sun on their backs, but he’s going and why did he wait? It’s just three stupid words. Why did he wait?

But then Zayn kisses him and says it – 'Come with me' – and they’re not the three words Harry was waiting for.

Except they are.

Chapter End Notes

There's an epilogue so don't forget to click on. [points down at the Next Chapter button]

Chapter 6: Epilogue

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

September 26th, 2014

Mum,

Glad you’re enjoying the postcards. One of the benefits of an artist boyfriend! This is the skyline from East River State Park. Zayn drew it yesterday. I don’t have much space so I’ll call tomorrow for a proper chat, but I have just enough to say that today was a good day! I finished that song I was telling you about and Zayn sold another painting so we had sushi for dinner. We talked about X Factor and what losers we are, but I guess Andy Warhol was right, everyone does get their fifteen minutes of fame. If this is ours then I have to say, it doesn’t feel much like losing.

Love,

H x

Chapter End Notes

So that's it, guys! I hope you've enjoyed this. If you've taken the time to leave a comment/kudos here or have been in touch via tumblr, I hope you know how much it means to me. Much love to you all. - Ivy x

ETA: This is now on Wattpad, if you'd prefer to read it there. There's also a playlist of some of the songs I mentioned in this and some stuff I listened to when I was writing it, if you're in the mood for some pretty music!

Afterword

Works inspired by this one

Not Language But A Map by Vicepresidents

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!

Table of Contents

- Preface
- Chapter 1: Prologue
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6: Epilogue
- Afterword