Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)

Chapter 4

Before Karl got married, he referred a friend to Charlotte, let's call him Chris. That's how it works: Harry only goes by referrals. I think we have a friend in common, they're supposed to say when they call or see him sitting in a bar, nursing an £18 gin and tonic, which is all very le Carré, but that's part of the game as well. Actually, it isn't a game at all because the whole thing falls apart if they're not discrete. And yeah, okay, he does enjoy it - the thrill of it, the subterfuge. He enjoys the sideway glances and watching someone gradually inch towards him, waiting for whoever he's with to go to the toilet. And he enjoys the way they say it - I think we have a friend in common - their voice shaking and their gaze darting between everything else in the room except him, but Harry knows it's not a game because there are lives on the line. Careers and families and little girls' hearts. Little girls who think their daddy is the greatest and Harry would never do anything to make them find out that he isn't.

Luckily, that doesn't happen often, but word spreads quickly that he now has Monday nights free so Harry has his pick. He manages to whittle it down to four guys and agrees to meet each one to see which he prefers. Karl's referral - Chris - is the last. He's also a footballer and a cursory Google search confirms that provided he doesn't say anything too stupid, he's going to be the one. So Harry tries not to be put off when they meet in a club in Mayfair, one of those awful places that parade bottles of vodka with sparklers shooting out of them from the bar to the VIP section, or when Chris winks lasciviously when they shake hands and says, 'I think we have a friend in common.'

That would usually be Harry's cue to leave, but Chris is even cuter in person and he can see the hint of a tattoo across his chest under his unbuttoned shirt, so he stays for a drink. Chris orders the most expensive bottle of champagne which Harry is neither excited or impressed by, especially when the waitress brings it over in a rush of sparks. But Harry knows that Chris is showing off and he lets him because he's surprised he's being so brazen. Footballers are usually so far in the closet they've built extensions so they want to meet somewhere quiet, somewhere discrete. Harry would have met him anywhere so he doesn't know why Chris chose a nightclub.

'Are you out?' Harry asks with a frown when the waitress saunters off.

Chris looks appalled. 'Fuck no. My Dad was a boxer. He'd fucking kill me.'

'So what's all this then?'

Chris doesn't say anything, just knocks back the glass of champagne and pours himself another. Someone stops to slap him on the back when he's putting the bottle back in the ice bucket, a huge bloke with cornrows and a cheeky smile. He congratulates Chris on his goal and ruffles his hair and Harry gets it then. Chris is enjoying it, enjoying that people don't know who Harry is. But then that's the beauty of footballers, they're surrounded by so many liggers that he could be anyone, so when the guy walks away and Chris downs his glass of champagne, Harry knows what's coming. He knows that Chris is just one more glass away from suggesting they go to the toilet. He's probably already half-hard at the thought of it, of getting his dick sucked in the stall next to the one his teammates are doing coke in. And it's not that Harry objects, he's sure Chris has a perfectly lovely dick, but he can't risk being caught. His clients wouldn't go near him again. But that's the funny thing about his job: his clients know they aren't the only one, but they'd never acknowledge it. They don't want to know if he comes harder for someone else or if he does that thing with his tongue to anyone else, so they certainly won't want to see him on the front of tomorrow's Mirror tangled up in a scandal with a footballer.

Besides, that's not what this is about. He and Chris are meeting for no other reason than because Harry can. He's graduated from overweight men with sweaty palms and while he doesn't have to fancy his clients - he doesn't fancy any of them, now he thinks about it - he still wants to check them out. That's all he's doing. Charlotte handles everything else so there's no talk of anything vulgar like kinks or anything more vulgar like money. Chris isn't even paying for this so even if Harry was taking him on as a client - which he won't be, that much is clear already - he wouldn't follow him to the toilet. That'll cost him a lot more than a bottle of champagne.

It's a shame because on paper, Chris is perfect. He's tall and lean and he has that swagger Harry can't resist, but even if he could overlook the other stuff, he wouldn't be able to endure his company for more than ten minutes. Pretty as Chris is, he's painfully dull and a bit stupid and while Harry doesn't necessarily need to speculate over Edward Snowden's future while he's rimming someone, he can afford to be picky. So when Chris edges along the sofa, his lips wet as he glances towards the bathrooms, Harry guesses that their hour is almost up and readies an excuse. But before he can use it, a guy walks past their table flanked by a couple of blondes. He turns his cheek towards Harry and when he lifts his eyelashes to look at him, it's enough to pin Harry to the sofa.

'Who's that?' he asks before he can stop himself, but he feels more in those few seconds than he has in the last forty-five minutes with Chris.

In the last fucking year.

'You meant it when you said that you don't know anything about football, didn't you?' Chris chuckles, knocking back another mouthful of champagne. 'That's Zayn Malik.'

The name is familiar, but then so are a lot of things, like how to speak and how to walk, which Harry's fairly certain he can't do anymore without embarrassing himself.

'He's a footballer?' he says, as he watches the waitress seat Zayn and the girls at the table in the middle of the VIP section where everyone can see them. A better table than they're at, Harry notes, and Chris must too because his jaw clenches as he snatches at the bottle of champagne so suddenly the sharp swish of ice makes Harry jump.

The mood in the club changes after that. All the guys start to stand a little straighter and the girls smile a little looser. Even Chris' bravado wilts, his eyes not as bright as he tosses a look over to the table Zayn and the girls are sitting at. Harry can't help but do the same and when Zayn lifts his chin to meet his gaze, Harry looks away again as his heart stops dead in his chest as though someone's kicked it.

'I thought he was a model,' Harry adds hoping he sounds nonchalant even though his cheeks are so hot that he wants stick his head in the ice bucket.

Chris laughs - loud and bitter - and Harry cringes because it sounds like a line - a really bad one - and almost laughs as well, but then he realises that it's been a while since he's needed to use a line and he can't catch his breath.

'Zayn's too old to be a model,' Chris says, sloshing more champagne into his glass and dropping the bottle back into the ice bucket without offering Harry any.

'How old is he?'

'Twenty-six.'

Harry blinks at him. 'So twenty-six is old now?'

'To be a model,' he says, fussing over his hair. 'Why? How old are you?'

'Twenty-five.'

Chris seems surprised. 'You don't look that old,' he says, shrugging in that way only a nineteen-year old can as he downs the rest of his drink.