Illicit [Harry Styles]

Chapter 18

"I passed!" Niall cheered as he burst through the front door with the glorious certificate in hand. He'd been learning to drive on and off ever since the day he turned seventeen, but somehow he'd lose interest every so often along the way and stop his lessons. My Grandma who still lived in Ireland had even given him enough money to buy his own car (insisting we share it when I passed as well, but come on who is she kidding), which had rarely ever been driven but had been parked outside our house for months only to be touched up and tampered with by Niall who acted like he was an ace mechanic. But now, aged nineteen, he'd finally taken and passed his driving test.

"No way, brother, nice one!" I congratulated him as he ran over and high-fived us all in turn.

After my scrap with he-who-shall-not-be-named (and I'm not talking about Voldemort, here), I decided I wanted to surround myself with only the best people to take my mind off it, so here I sat on Liam's lap with Mckenzie on the adjacent settee in my living room on a Tuesday afternoon after a couple of days of feeling sorry for myself all alone. I'd finally convinced my boyfriend to put his excessive revision on hold just for one evening so we could hang out, and it didn't take much convincing Mckenzie to come over.

"Sick, mate, well done," Liam added supportively.

Niall was running around the room cheering and waving the life-changing, fancy piece of paper around like he was celebrating a goal, and the three of us were laughing happily at him. He stopped suddenly, struggling for breath just a tad, and excitedly stared at us. "You know what this means, right? The classic - the traditional - celebratory McDonalds trip!"

"Oh man, yeah!" Mckenzie practically grunted, sounding like a forty year old man at a football game at the mention of food.

"Niall, you can't just get in the car and drive. You know that, right? You have to have insurance," I reminded him.

"I know that, thank you, mum sorted the insurance the second I told her. Now come on folks, all aboard!" Niall picked up the keys and urged us to get up and follow him with a proud, boyish grin covering his whole face. We all huffed through our smiles and trailed after him to get in the car.

Mckenzie called shotgun and barged past us in a hurry to make it to the front seat whilst I held back and locked the door behind us. We climbed in to the tiny black Polo and Niall's voice was so high with excitement that if it was any higher I think only dogs could hear it as he rambled on in excitement and finally started the engine. He carefully pulled out of the space at the side of our road before roaring off up the street which had us all shooting wide-eyed glares at each other.

"I don't trust Niall as far as I can throw him," Liam chuckled to me and I nodded in agreement, Niall calling out a 'hey!' when he overheard and going off on one about how his driving was up to Formula 1 standard - but in all honesty, that's what we were afraid of.

Mckenzie fiddled with the radio which kept me distracted for a while, but when I looked out the window I didn't recognise this to be the way to where we were headed. "Ni, where are we going? This doesn't look like the right direction."[a/n: don't.] I asked.

"We just have to make a quick pit stop," he said cheerily.

"Where?" Mckenzie spluttered. Trust her to be more concerned about the food, wanting to get there as soon as possible.

"Harry's."

Oh God no.

What could I have possibly done in my past life to deserve this? What wrongs have I committed that now force me to suffer this eternal hell?

My eyes nearly jumped out of my skull and into the footwell of the car. I gulped audibly and then I was holding my breath without even realising until I practically had to gasp for air to stop myself from passing out. "What? Why?"