Tangerine

Chapter 82

Soundtrack: KISS - I Was Made For Loving You

Dedication: isabel (@HarrehStulls) i love you and your predictions ;) thank you soooo much for staying dedicated to tangerine after all of this time, you have no idea how much that means to me! you are one of my favourite readers, hands down :)

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One hour into our outing, I've downed at least two full pints, and Louis' extra company still has yet to arrive.

I know I should be acting like I'm not even the least bit interested in Louis tonight - well, in that way, at least - but it's proving to be much more difficult than I'd imagined. Even with all of these people surrounding us, Louis is still the hottest one in the entire pub. There's no doubting that.

We've been sharing glances all night, and sharing drinks, for that matter. There are a mess of people at our table and anything could be anyone's anyway. I'm drunk enough to kid myself that no one can see me and Louis playing footsie amid the distraction of the group. Another pint, and it'll become a fact.

"I just want to thank my generation for wearing socks and sandals," Louis raises his pint in the air. "Now my grandfather thinks it's cool. Thank you, again."

The entire group barks out some laughs, downing more of their own drinks.

"Are all your relatives weird like you?" I smirk at Louis, taking in that I still have yet to properly meet his family.

"My nan is pretty cool," Louis shrugs, swirling his beer around in his tall glass. "She got pretty excited about purchasing a 1982 Magnum PI comic book once," he winks at me and I practically melt.

Louis is so cute.

The fact that he loves his family just makes him that much more endearing.

And okay, I want to kiss him. I want to grab him by the front of his shirt and smear his lips against mine. I want to run my tongue over his, soak in that all-familiar taste, and not have a bloody care in the world of who sees us.

However, I also want to do none of that.

I don't want to snog Louis so soon, as if his attraction doesn't mean anything to me. I don't want to snog Louis right after fucking Harry - fucking Harry - as if our first real time together didn't mean anything, either.

Harry and I waited for so long to make even a single move on each other. Now that our boundaries have been broken, it feels as if everything has happened all at once.

It's overwhelming to even think about.

Before, everything seemed to lead up to this moment. I figured that once I'd slept with Harry, my mind would settle, and I would understand where I've been headed with this nonsense all along. Now that the big deed has passed, now that Harry and I have slept together and shared a full session of actual sex, it's proven to be the exact opposite.

One step forward and two steps back.

The deeper I invest myself in these boys, in this boyband, the more lost I become.

I take a drink.

If Harry is my so-called boyfriend for publicity, and Louis is my real-life boyfriend in this newfound open relationship, then where does that leave me? Who am I to them?

I take another drink.

I've been so caught up in my own head, always thinking about myself. I've hardly ever opened my mind to Louis and Harry's perspectives; how they feel about everything that's been going on between the three of us. If I really cared about them, I wouldn't be so fucking selfish. Everything that's lead up to this point has been fucking selfish of me and I hate myself for it.