Floss // A Harry Styles AU

fourteen

"Can I ask you something?"

After I'd locked the garage up, Harry had followed me in his car to my house, and we'd left straight from there to take Bongo for his walk without even going inside.

The grass in the field was still wet from the previous night's rain, and Harry definitely wasn't wearing the right shoes for it, but he never complained. The air was noticeably cooler still, not cold enough for a coat but I was glad I bought a thin jacket. Again, Harry did not have something of the sort with him.

I gave him a curious look, "Sure."

"Well," He smiled at the floor, "I actually have about a hundred things I want to ask you, but this one is the most recent thing that's been bugging me."

Now I was scared. "Okay..."

"Why did you lie about coming to Lodge Park the other week?"

My stomach twisted into a giant knot, and I screwed my face up as if it might hide my red complexion. "Oh, God..."

He giggled through a closed mouth and it made me feel less shitty about what I'd done. "I'm not mad. Well, not anymore. I was mad for a while."

"I thought you were, but I was hoping I'd got away with it and you were upset about something else."

"No, I was mad about that. And you had got away with it for about three hours, and then I saw your mum and dad there even though you said they were taking you and Ruby to Stow."

I snorted and smacked my hand against my face. "Fucking... sociable parents."

"So why did you lie?"

I bit my lip, refusing to look at him. "Er..." My voice had gone unusually high and squeaky.

"Florence, you can tell me the truth - I'm a big boy."

I glanced at him again and he was looking at me, but I quickly averted my gaze back to the grass below us. "Alright, I'll be honest. Spending, like, a whole day with you and Oscar kind of terrified me a little bit."

"Why?" He was laughing.

"I don't know! Because you're a dentist? Because you're so... charming and good-looking and nice, and I'm an idiot. Like, I'm so thick people try to take advantage of it. And I embarrass myself in front of you all the time anyway and if I spent a whole fucking day with you just imagine how many times I'd make a fool of myself. I'd really like to not do that just once. And I've got people in my ear all the fucking time telling me I need to make a move otherwise you'll be snatched up by some other... person, and going out with you for the day would just, you know, make it worse."

When I looked back at Harry he was wide-eyed, but his lips were twitching in that annoying way and he was obviously trying not to flare his nostrils.

"So... I lied." I concluded.

"Right," His chest heaved quickly with a laugh. "So it wasn't because you hate me?"

"No. It's practically impossible to hate you. It's really annoying, actually."

He kicked something with his foot as he smiled down at me. He crouched down and collected the branch he'd knocked, turning it over in his grip. "Can I throw this?"

"Yeah, sure."

I unclipped the lead from Bongo's collar, and he made a break for it as soon as the stick was launched across the wide field.

"Good throw." I commented.

"Thank you." He was smug, it was obvious. "Can I ask you something else?"

I took a deep breath. "Alright..."