Illicit [Harry Styles]

Chapter 40

The following morning, all eyes were averted to me as I stepped into the common room. Among others, Mckenzie, Harry and Louis were sitting in the corner and instantly stared at me as if they'd been waiting for me, probably each for a different reason.

"Jess!" Mckenzie was the first to call out, followed by Louis who did the same. Of course Harry kept quiet, I wondered if he was still stressing about last night considering I hadn't told him the outcome. I needed to have three very different conversations with each of them, so I wasn't sure how this was going to work.

Mckenzie was about six days behind; the last she knew Harry and I had squabbled over a trip to KFC and then I hadn't seen her since for whatever reason. I was still feeling a bit off that she hadn't even spoken to me in the five days I was having a tough time, I knew she wasn't aware of what'd happened, but either way she hadn't attempted to contact me when I hadn't shown up in the sixth form building for days on end. That was something I needed to talk to her about. Louis was only one day behind, he knew everything up until what happened when I went and spoke to Harry after our chat. Harry was only around twelve hours out of the loop, probably dying to know what my brother had said after he'd caught us in Harry's car.

"Hi," I greeted the group as I squeezed into a space between Harry and another girl, the common room was always busy on Tuesday mornings and you were lucky if you got a seat. "Are you ever not here? You are definitely going to get chucked out one day," I said to Louis, laughing nervously.

"I already told you, they'll never get rid of me!" he replied confidently with a grin. He was so funny, and I loved that no one else in the sixth form or even the school questioned what he was doing here. I think they were scared to, in all honesty.

Louis continued telling some story to Harry, and once they'd both managed to zone out despite wanting to bombard me with questions, Mckenzie leaned across Louis' lap and I leaned down to listen to what she had to say to me.

"This is the first time in like a week I've seen you or Harry in school, does that mean things are sorted between you two?" she whispered.

"Uh, yeah, sort of. I've got a lot to talk to you about, actually."

She nodded, probably buzzing to be in the know, and sat back up slyly.

"So Jess, Harry's actually here, so I guess that means you whipped him back into shape and you two made up?" Louis said bluntly, and both Mckenzie and I scoffed, rolled our eyes and complained to him about how casually he'd brought that up after we'd just been whispering secretively about it.

"You don't just say that out loud like it's a normal topic of conversation!" Mckenzie scolded him, "What do you think we were just whispering about?"

Louis raised his hands in surrender and laughed. "Sorry, sorry. But I'm right, aren't I?"

"I— Err..." I glanced to Harry for the first time since walking in and he was just looking neutral as always, like he had no opinion or comment to put into the discussion, "Yeah, I suppose we have."

"Nice one. Glad to see you—" he paused to make the most embarrassing sound similar to a whip cracking and even did an arm movement to go with it, "—put him in his place." Harry was scowling at his friend now, clearly displeased with him implying he was whipped by me.

"So, what? Are you two together now?" Mckenzie asked curiously, and instantly my eyes snapped to Harry again and I stuttered anxiously at the question. I detected a slight look of panic on Harry's face as well.

"I— We— Urmm..."

"No," Harry answered for me, his voice was flat but he sounded very sure of himself. I still didn't know what we were, but I didn't like the way he was quick to say we weren't together.