Bloodsport

chapter 11

On Monday, Harry arrived at school with Zayn in tow. Both of them had History together that morning, and then English later that afternoon. As they strode through the hallway after the first class, plenty of the other students congratulated Harry on Friday night’s match. It was as though they’d actually won when in truth they’d all played pretty poorly. It definitely wasn’t a passable game. He expected them to have a long talk with Coach that afternoon during practice. Despite Coach’s encouraging words after the match, he knew there were things he was bound to discuss. Harry knew for certain he had a few things to mention, personally.
When it was time for English class, Harry was ready to bounce off to footie training instead. Having scored in the last match, he was eager to get back on the grass as soon as possible. He’d jogged about the park during the weekend with a ball, but it truly wasn’t the same. He and Zayn were in the hallway, heading towards their lockers to fetch their books for English, when suddenly a few girls entered, ending up huddled on the opposite side of the hallway. Harry almost turned around and headed back, but in front of Zayn, such a thing would be questionable.

Naturally, the girls were Jasmine’s friends. She, in person, was standing to the side, dressed in blue jeans and a white sweater. Her lips were red as usual, and her eyeliner was artfully painted in large wings. Harry knew it would take her long minutes to paint those; he had watched her do it at the mirror in her bedroom, whilst he sat on the bed trying to make himself feel attracted to her slender body and neat shoulders.

Jasmine looked up when they passed. Her eyes locked, hawk-like, on Harry. They went from relaxed to suddenly grim, and then her face went sour as she noticed Zayn right beside him. Her eyes followed them as they passed her, Harry’s heart thrumming nervously. When they both looked back over their shoulders at her, she sent them an expressive grimace.

Zayn lifted his hand and flipped her off. She returned the favour and turned her back to them in a swift spin. The group of girls strode off.

Zayn laughed quietly. “What is she doing?”

Harry didn’t find it quite so funny. He felt extremely uncomfortable.

They continued on, and first fetched Zayn’s book before they went to get Harry’s. It wasn’t until they rounded the corner that Harry realised that someone was standing right in front of his locker. It was Louis.

The last time he’d seen him near his locker, he’d found a mousetrap set up under his science book. It was after he’d told their teacher that Louis had thrown a piece of paper at him in the back of the classroom. The message was clear: rat. They’d been in ninth grade, and Louis clearly thought he belonged to the mob.

It was odd how different he felt, running into Louis and Jasmine respectively. Jasmine made him want to dash off, and while Louis didn’t exactly make him want to stick around, he didn’t scare him in the least.

They walked up to the locker, and Harry cleared his throat loudly, making Louis stir and twist around to face them. What Harry noticed first, was that Louis was wearing tracks and a t-shirt with his jersey number on. The second thing was that while he looked freakishly fit, he also seemed uncomfortable where he was standing. Thirdly, he was holding onto Harry’s t-shirt and two socks.

Louis’ face was as tan as ever, and his hair was perfectly tousled to look both unintentional and deliberate all at once. His eyes were blue, of course, and a training bag hung snugly over his chest in a way that really emphasised his physique. Harry tried to keep his eyes on his face instead, and it wasn’t difficult when Louis’ expression all of a sudden changed from surprised to entirely and completely haughty. He slowly met Harry’s gaze, lifted Harry’s shirt, placed the socks on top of it, and extended them towards him in a way that suggested he was doing him a truly gracious favour, handing him… socks.