"Are you sure you have to go back home?"
Harry grins as Camille pouts, straddling his lap. He can barely hear her above the noise of Alexa Chung's birthday party, focusing on her red-painted lips to try and make out what she's saying.
"I'm sure," He nods. Camille continues to jut out her bottom lip, reaching down and behind Harry's back. Her fingers travel to his back pocket, where her box of cigarettes rest. The feeling of her fingers tickling down his back makes him shiver.
"Mon briquet?" She asks. Harry digs the lighter out of his other pocket, and she sticks the cigarette between her teeth while Harry lights it. She tucks her hair behind her ear with one hand, using the other to remove the stick from her mouth and blow out a stream of smoke.
She is beautiful, Harry thinks as he looks up at her. Effortlessly and timelessly. He puts his hands on her hips to steady her, and she grins down at him. Fully wrapping his arms around her waist, he says "I could just take you back home with me."
Camille recoils slightly at the prospect. "My other boyfriends might be jealous," She teases back, although she's not totally kidding, and it sends a heaviness to the pit of Harry's stomach.
This is what every 22 year old wants in a bird. A lack of commitment, a girl you can just have fun with without any of the strings attacked to a girlfriend. At least, that's what Niall has told him time and time again.
Harry agreed, at first, he was in no position to get into a relationship. The band will be back on tour in two weeks, and recording their next album, and it would be far too difficult to manage that and a girlfriend.
But the more time he spends with Camille, the more he touches her and hears her talk in French and watches her sleep, the stronger the yearning in the back of his head becomes. He hasn't had a real, domestic, committed relationship in years, since before they went on their first tour, and that was fine for a while.
"You're still so young," His older sister had told him three days before over the phone. "This is your time to have fun, and get your heart broken, and experience things. You don't have to settle down just yet." He couldn't tell if she was being genuine, or just low-key griping because she's married and very pregnant and jealous of his freedom.
"They can come too," Harry replies, finally. Camille giggles, leaning her head back, cigarette still between her fingers. The song changes to something by Kanye West, and one of Camille's friends runs over and grabs her.
"Camille!" She exclaims, pulling her off of Harry's lap. "Our favourite! Il faut danser!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Camille sighs, putting her cigarette out on an ashtray next to the sofa. She holds her finger up to Harry. "I'll be back."
"I'll be waiting," Harry smirks. She rolls her eyes at him, following her friend to the more open part of the room where people are dancing.
She disappears into the crowd, and Harry stands to walk over to the bar. He realises he's been here almost an hour and hasn't had anything to drink yet.
"Two shots of Smirnoff, please," Harry tells the bartender. The bartender starts on pouring them, and Harry's eyes travel back to where everyone is dancing. After a few seconds he spots Camille, dancing with some guy. He holds back a sigh, not even noticing Zayn approach him.
"Could I do a whiskey on the rocks?" He asks before looking over to Harry. "Who's that?"
"Hm?"
"That bloke your girlfriend's grinding up against."
This time Harry really does sigh, lifting one of the shot glasses off the bar top. "She's not my girlfriend," He grumbles, staring down at it. He wants to focus his vision on anything that isn't Camille and that guy. "That's the whole point."
Zayn studies Harry's face for a second. Harry takes the shot in his hand, not even wincing. "Have you told her?" Zayn asks. Harry furrows his eyebrows at him. "That you're actually into her, mate."
Harry tightens his mouth. He never told Zayn how he feels, he's just so sensitive to other people's feelings. Harry wishes he could be like that, so intuitive to everyone around him. "No," He admits. "That's not fair to her, Z. She warned me, over and over, that she didn't want anything serious, and I told her I felt the same way."
"And did you?" Zayn asks. The bartender slides his drink in front of him, and Zayn nods towards him. "Thank you."
"I mean, yeah," Harry shrugs. "At the time." He looks back over. She's still dancing with him. He turns and picks his other shot up from the bar top.
"So you changed your mind," Zayn points out. "Isn't it possible that she might have?"
That's...actually kind of a good point. He takes the other shot, this time wrinkling his nose and shivering a little. Maybe she's just with this guy because she thinks Harry doesn't want to commit either, when really they're both ready and just haven't said it. Harry turns around and orders one more shot so he can be the one to.
He mentally prepares himself to tell Camille that he really likes her, that he wants to be with her and that he's willing to go all in, when he notices her walking towards him. Her skin glows with sweat from the dancing, a sated smile on her lips, and the man she was dancing with in tow.
"Coucou!" She greets them. "This is Scott. Um, he's leaving, and..." She looks back at him and they both laugh, like it's an inside joke Harry can't be a part of. "I think I'm gonna go with him."
He tries not to show how much his heart sinks, how much he was looking forward to spending the night with her before going home tomorrow. "Oh, um, okay," He nods. He's not fooling anyone with his dismissiveness, especially Zayn. He looks Scott right in the eyes as he pulls Camille's cigarettes and lighter from his pockets, handing them to her. "Don't forget these."
"Ah, merci," Camille grins, taking them before following Scott back into the crowd. As soon as she's out of sight, Harry slumps against the bar top, biting his bottom lip.
Zayn eyes him carefully, but doesn't say anything, knowing there's not much he can say to lessen the sting. Harry turns around, takes his third shot, then orders another one, scanning the party for anyone else he could spend the night with so he can ignore the fact that she isn't there.
