Eleanora [Harry Styles AU]

[3] The Morning After

A/N: the song is bye bye baby by the bay city rollers because i wrote half the chapter while listening to it on repeat jesus christ what is my life

the picture is how harry looks in this story (hot diggity damn am i right ladies?). i think i wrote that he was 16 in the first chapter or something but that has changed because i've now decided that he is 17 because you're lying to yourself if you say 17 y/o harry isn't your favourite harry 

dedication goes to whouffle_ for the current cover

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The hotel room smelt like the ocean. Not the real one, of course. The manager must’ve thought that adding in an artificial sea scented air freshener would be a nice touch. Brighton being a seaside town and all.

            When I woke up that morning, stretching my hands above my head and looking down at my temporary bed, I immediately decided I didn’t like the scent. It was too overpowering and fake for me to be fooled for the slightest second that I was waking up on the sand.

            I looked around the unfamiliar room. It felt like I was inspecting it for the first time, as the previous night when I’d bustled into the hotel at an inconvenient hour it had felt like a blur. Then, all I’d wanted was to collapse onto a soft surface and drift into unconsciousness.

            The boys were all asleep by the time I shimmied out of my clothes and fell onto the bed. I desperately tried to stay awake and dwell on what had just happened; to immense myself in the way she said my name, and how she mentioned that we were her favourite band, and how she indirectly told me that I had lived up to her expectations, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open for another second.

            I reluctantly sat up, giving one glance at the bedside clock and finally accepting that it was too late in the morning for me to fall back asleep. We were leaving Brighton that morning. If the previous night's events hadn't occurred I probably wouldn't have been fussed at the slightest. But after finally encountering the mysterious girl, whose name we were still yet to learn of, I felt that this place had some sort of significance to the tour. It was like a check point, or a historical marker. Instead of the standard gigs we'd experienced in places like Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol and Birmingham, this one was different. To me, anyway.

            Our penultimate stop on the promotional tour was Eastbourne, and naturally that was where we were heading that day. I guess our second to last gig could've played out like any other, or it could've been in its own league. Now that I'd talked to Blondie prior to the show, I wondered if she would run away, just like the other times, or if she would stay. We weren't exactly strangers anymore, but we weren't friends either. It made me excited yet nervous for the gig that was to take place tonight, in a town basically identical to the one we were staying in.

            I looked to my left, expecting to see Will. But he wasn't lying there in a position that could only have been achieved by belly flopping straight onto the mattress and allowing your arms and legs sprout in all different directions. My wrong prediction was soon explained when I heard the sound of a shower running. I looked at the cream bathroom door, now realising that the door had been locked ever since I'd woken up. The dripping noise stopped and Will emerged a second later, as if on cue, with a white towel wrapped around him.

            "Oliver and Alex have gone down to the pool for a swim before we head off." he explained as he knelt by his overflowing suitcase and somehow managed to pick out an outfit through all the mess. He stood up, clutching his clothes to his sides and stared down at me. "So," he started "Are you going to tell me what happened last night or what?"