No Matter What // Harry Styles AU -- Dunkirk inspired

Chapter Forty-Six

I stop dead in my tracks. The cheering crowds and bright lights melt into a blurry backdrop behind Harry and Kitty. With his hands tucked into his coat pockets, I suppose it's more that she clings to him rather than anything else, but that alone is enough to make my blood boil.

"Hey Harry!" I hear Louis shout. "Guess who I found?" Harry looks up from Kitty and our eyes meet immediately. His pleasant smile grows into a sheepish, adorable, and completely stupid grin that makes me want to smack him and then kiss him wildly.

No, not kiss, my brain corrects itself, smack.

I keep my feet glued to the ground, completely uncertain of what to do in my sudden fire of jealousy. My head is filled with a calamity of scenarios that pretty much all end with me decking Kitty in her perfectly pointed nose.

"Hey," Harry says gently, shaking his arm slightly as he approaches me. Kitty only seems to grip harder.

Hey yourself, you big fat phoney, I shout internally. "Hi," I manage to somehow say. My throat feels dry and tight like I might as well have swallowed sand. His smile shifts nervously as his eyes narrow inquisitively, probably as he registers my undoubtedly upset face.

Harry looks over at Kitty with the same peculiar face and jerks his shoulder a little more intently causing her to finally let's go. She looks up at him, a sultry question mark resting on her crimson lips, and presumably finding an answer, looks back at me with a calculated glare.

"How are ya, Chapman?" Louis asks as if I shouldn't have a concern in the world. I blink a couple of times, unsure of how to respond, leaving Kitty the opportunity to speak first.

"Didn't expect to see you here," she says sweetly. Too sweetly. "You look lovely tonight. I do ever so love your bow," she adds, her long lashes batting daintily as her eyes flicker up to my hair.

That's it, I'm gonna kill her.

"So," Louis immediately says, stepping ever so slightly in front of Kitty as if he can read my brain. "Is Niall with you?"

"No," I hear myself say. I blink hard again, looking around at the mass of people who swarm around us. My ears ring as the cheering and excited squeals of the happy crowd has been turned up like a radio dial. I can hear the hard wheels of the coaster pound against the rails and the banging of bumper cars driving into one another all while people hoot and holler like they're diving off of a cliff.

"Did he leave you alone?"

"What?" I stammer, trying to press the loud noises out of me head. I shake my head slightly to see Harry staring at me with deep concern.

"Did he leave you?" Harry asks again, his deep voice edged with worry. Frustration floods my veins. How dare he act like he's worried about me when he's off flirting with some other girl?

I tear my gaze away from Harry, too annoyed to look at him and reply to Louis instead. "They, um," I sputter, "They went on the Ferris wheel."

"You knew she was coming?" I hear Kitty softly ask Harry. Guess she knows about this night as much as I do.

"Yeah," Harry says, clearing his throat. "Niall mentioned it." My eyes fly up from the ground to Louis. He turns to Harry, looking at him with such bewilderment that it nearly matches how baffled I feel.

Harry jerks his shoulders in a defensive shrug, now avoiding my eyesight. "Right," Louis says slowly, "well, now that we're all here, might as well make a night of it, hm?" Harry nods like this is some great new plan. Jerk.

"Sure thing," he says to Louis. Kitty looks at me with a wince. I shoot her an equally phony smile back.

"So Chapman, see anything interesting? I noticed you found some friends," Louis says, extending his chin towards Ida and Mary. "You know if you wanted to introduce me, I wouldn't be opposed," he says cheekily.