COUPLE IN FLAT 102 // Harry Styles

He Said, She Said

"Jack Coleman!"

"Miss Davis, you can't—"

Rose raised a hand to tell Kate to shut up, causing the poor assistant to back away in fear. The younger girl headed straight to the VP office, expecting to see Jack behind his desk. But as soon as she burst into the room, it wasn't him that she saw. It was Maria.

The last time Rose met that woman was at her twenty-first birthday party. Just like Jack, Maria's family did business with Rose's father, so Maria was invited by default even though she wasn't friends with Rose. But Rose didn't really care since she couldn't keep track of her birthday guests anyway. What she did care, was the fact that she saw Jack flirting with Maria after Y/N had left, and them leaving the Davis' mansion together.

Maria had never actually done anything mean to Rose, but Rose hated her still because Mr. Davis kept comparing Rose to her. And the way Maria treated Rose like an immature little girl was only adding fuel to the fire. Jack wasn't the nicest to Rose, yet he cared about her in a way because they'd grown up together. So she couldn't accept the fact that Jack and Maria were now...something to one another.

"Oh, why are you here?" She closed the door, crossing her arms to mimic the Latina who had risen from the chair.

"Can't I come see my boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend?" Rose scoffed as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Wow, Jack Coleman's got a girlfriend? Is the world coming to an end?"

"Problem?" Maria lifted an eyebrow, receiving a shrug from the younger girl.

"Nope." Rose laughed wryly. "It's just...odd."

"Aren't you supposed to be on the plane to Paris by now?"

"Did Jack tell you?" Rose's eyes widened at Maria's unexpected question, yet she wasn't very stunned, because she knew how words could spread nowadays. One person knew, the whole world knew.

"Your father did," Maria said with a smirk. "Imagine being such a brat that your own father has to send you away."

"I got a scholarship, you uncultured swine!"

The Latina lifted her shoulders and pursed her red lips, slightly amused by the dumb insult rather than be pissed about it. Ignoring that attitude, Rose narrowed her eyes and walked straight to Jack's desk to pick up the white envelope she saw lying there among the piles of papers. Maria tried to reach for it, but Rose turned away quickly so she could open the invitation.

"Ooh, he's invited to Y/N's wedding," she exclaimed, turning to smile enthusiastically at Maria. "You do know Y/N, right?"

"Yeah." Maria nodded, looking through the glass wall to watch Y/N who was sitting at her desk and talking on the phone. "I've talked to her once. She's really nice."

"Jack's not going to the wedding, is he?"

"How do you know?" Maria chuckled, a bit confused. "He said he got plans that day."

"Plans?" The sarcastic tone in Rose's one-word question made Maria's face contort. She didn't know what was so funny about that, but she started to feel like there was more than she'd been told. "How naive can you be?" Rose snorted, shaking her head. "He just made up an excuse to not attend the wedding, because he's in love with her."

"No, he's not. He said she was just an employee to him."

"And you believed that?" Rose dropped her jaw, hand on her chest, but of course, she wasn't actually surprised. "Come on, Maria. I'm sure anyone in this building can see the way he looks at her. Did you know that he gave her a wedding dress?"