fight for control ↠ harry styles [b1] ✓

CHAPTER 10

Renleigh Kensington

My brother six feet under? A nice thought. Especially after he left me with Styles and made me give him a lift home.

And trust me, he had a home.

It was gorgeous.

But even before I got to see it, I had an hour-long drive with him next to me. And he didn't bloody know how to shut his trap. He just went on and on about whatever the hell was on his mind. My brain was fucking dead after my day at work and so I couldn't even hear half of the things that left his mouth.

"I wasn't meant to go out tonight," he sighed when the only thing heard in the car was the motor as I went – a little – over the speed limit. I looked over at him for a short glance just to see him manspreading with his hands on his thighs and his eyes focused on the road ahead of us. He got rid of his coat before he got in the car and his shirt was rather undone.

"Why did you?" I asked, bored. Talking was not something I wanted to do so late, especially not with him, but at that point, it was whatever.

"Peer pressure, you know," he said quietly. "It was good though. I like getting drunk."

"You sound like a teenager," I laughed which made him snap his head towards me. He did it so quick and hard that it could have flew off of his neck. "What?"

"Nothing... you just laughed."

"Why is that so surprising? I do normal things like that," he hummed as if he didn't believe me. "You know what else I do?"

"Um... run a business?"

"Well, yeah," I nodded as my hands slid up to the top of the steering wheel and my feet pressed down on the brake. "But I also breathe."

Both of us quieted down and I knew it wasn't funny. But I was funny. That thing I said in particular, wasn't. It happened.

"Kensington?"

"Styles."

"That wasn't funny," he told me as he laughed out loud. "You're cute."

"I know."

"Oh," he said quietly. In reality, there was no clue in my mind as to how to deal with compliments. Agreeing always seemed to work, however.

"Isn't it crazy how you went from telling me I'm annoying to cute?" I brought up the recent events. Talking about crazy, the fact that we acted like nothing happened in Italy could have been described exactly the same. "I love a nice character development."

"I... I didn't mean it," he admitted and sounded genuine. This time around, I was the one who hummed in response. Anger usually spoke for me too, therefore I didn't blame him. I couldn't, if I did the same. Plus, his comment didn't bother me at all. As I have told him many times, there were worse names people labelled me as. "It was just... I don't know. I thought you'd enjoy not working? I know I do."

"See, that might be where we are different. I don't enjoy doing nothing," I admitted what I thought was already pretty self-explanatory.

"That's silly... everyone loves doing nothing."

"Not me, I'm afraid," I sighed. "It makes me feel lazy and like I could be doing so much more. Even at night sometimes, when I wake up to get a drink or go the toilet, I stay up for the rest of the night to sort out my stuff."

"You're an owl... you shouldn't be one. You need rest," he told me. His drunk self was so much more relaxed and his guard was completely down. I knew I could have asked him for his card details or his future plans for his company and he would have told me all that I wanted to know. "Do you want to stay over? My bed is comfy."