under my skin || n.h. au

sixteen: i wanna shout about it

Brooklyn spent her night searching for jobs on the Internet.

Although Oliver has assured her again and again that Dominic isn't the kind of person that would use a piece of information to jeopardise someone's career, she'd still like to be safe. It feels wrong to be looking for another jobs but she'd thank herself later if her fear comes true and she has a safety net to fall back on.

The thing is, Brooklyn doesn't want to work at a place where Niall isn't sitting in front of her and constantly teasing her. As much as she refuses to admit it, seeing him at work is one of the things she looks forward to. It makes her weekdays bearable and sometimes, it even makes her weekdays enjoyable.

"You have nothing to worry about," a deep voice startles Brooklyn whose eyes widen in horror and whose heart jumps in her throat. Instead of feeling apologetic, he simply chuckles and shakes his head as he picks up a cup and pours some coffee in it. "Fantasising about Niall, huh?"

"What the hell- When did you walk in?" She asks, a confused expression crossing her face. Has she been so deep in her thoughts until she isn't aware of her surroundings?

"Y'know even though he's my best friend you can share it with me." He teases her as he wriggles his eyebrows at her and bumps her shoulder with his.

Brooklyn moves away from the coffee pot and takes a seat on one of the chairs in the break room. As she brings the cup up to her lips, Harry pulls out the chair in front of her and sits.

"Niall told me what happened at the dinner," he mentions and she winces.

She hopes her boyfriend left some details out because whilst she thought what she did last night was a brave move, this morning she woke up thinking it was a reckless and foolish move – not that she regrets the kisses, though, because they were amazing.

"I don't really know Dominic so I can't say if he'd blab about you two or not but I do know that if it does get out, you or Niall won't lose your job." He says it with such confidence and Brooklyn wishes she could have some of it. "I've asked Mr Storm, remember? And he told us that there are no rules against employees dating one another."

"What if he makes an exception for us?" Brooklyn quizzes, allowing her paranoia to take over for a moment. "What if he makes new rules and this one states that employees can't date one another?"

Harry shakes his head. "I doubt that." Again, Brooklyn wonders if she can have a bit of his confidence. "Besides, 90% of this office is rooting for you two – believe it or not."

"Not," Brooklyn replies. Harry gives her a pointed look. "I don't believe you."

"Do you want me to make a poll so I could prove it to you? Because I can definitely do it. I can start right now."

Brooklyn shakes her head. God, that'd be embarrassing.

"No, there's no need for that." Harry grins, knowing that he's won this time. She sighs. She can't believe she's about to do this. She's going to vent to Harry, the person she used to label as enemy #2 – enemy #1 was Niall, of course. "I don't know, Harry. I just... I've never dated anyone from work before and most of the articles I've read said it's dangerous to date your co-worker. There are more cons than pros."

Harry scoffs – loud. "You need to stop believing those articles."

"Hey," she kicks at his foot, offended that he'd say such a thing. "We write articles for a living, remember?"

"That's not what I meant," he tries to backtrack. "You and Niall – you aren't Ray and Eva, and you aren't those people who didn't make office romance work. You two are..." he trails off as he tries to think of something to describe Brooklyn and Niall. His face lights up when he remembers what he's going to say. "You two are Jim and Pam although you weren't engaged to anyone."