Note To Self (Harry Styles AU)

Chapter Sixty One.

"You're really giving him flowers?" mom's voice echoed through the hallway, infiltrating the bathroom where Harry stood in the mirror perfecting his hair.

She'd found the bouquet he'd brought home sitting on the counter, and she held it in her hands when she peered through the doorway. Harry's eyes flashed to the blooms clutched in her hands, while his arms fell and his palms splayed on the countertop. "It's senior prom, I have to give someone flowers."

"Why not, perhaps, a female?"

He leaned over to grasp hold of the bouquet, taking it from his mother. "Liam's a nice boy, he deserves flowers sometimes too." His hand lifted to gesture to himself, "Besides, he did agree to go to prom with me of all people."

He got a chuckle from his mother. "You boys are weird."

Harry squeezed his way out of the bathroom and headed toward the kitchen with his mother following closely behind. Dad was in pajamas, heating a bowl of oatmeal in the microwave with sleep in his eye. He looked his son up and down and muttered lazily, "Spiffy."

A pleased grin graced his features, while his mother stepped from around him. "I don't understand why you didn't just ask Sophie to go with you."

"She has a date already," Harry informed, while his father spoke up at the same time.

"He doesn't like her."

Mother's eyes darted up to Harry, stunned, "What?"

"No, no," he rushed. "I like her, I just don't like her."

He watched the frown grow on her face, "Why not?"

There really wasn't a reason. He shrugged. That wasn't quite a full answer, and when he rapidly remembered his mother hated non-verbal answers, he spoke, "Just not really into her like that, no real reason."

"Why not?" she prodded some more. "She's pretty."

"She is," Harry agreed. He wasn't blind, and Sophie certainly was pretty, but beauty is only skin deep. What mattered more was the emotional connection. "But I still only feel like friends with her."

His mother frowned some more, disappointed that her son rejected the girl she loved so much. She'd been hoping for a long, long time that one day, whenever her son was ready to settle down, it would be with the eldest O'Donald. Instead, he opted to go on a friendly date with his best friend.

Harry's eyes darted to the clock on the wall, anxiously waiting for the minute he got the chance to leave, and that minute had already unknowingly slipped by. "I have to go."

The microwave beeped, and his father pulled it open to take his snack out. "You can take the cool car."

"The Mercedes?"

He watched his father dangerously pull the scalding hot bowl from the microwave and practically throw it onto the countertop, shaking his burning hands off when he nodded. "Yeah, I'm here for the night. Keys are on the hook."

Harry grinned, "Cool, thanks."

It was much less of a big deal to them than the last time he was sent off for a school formal. Last time had been a date with Sophie, his first date, and they were excited to push him out the door. This time, wasn't so much.

Still, as Harry brought himself to the doorway to exit the kitchen, his father called out to him, "Hey." Harry turned, and he was told the same words he was the last time, and any other time his father had gotten the chance to remind him. "Don't be an idiot."

A chuckle passed his lips, "You think the amount of times you've told me that, I'd know that without it being said."

"Just don't be an idiot," he repeated.