Brother's Best Friend || l.s.

chapter 26

After school the next day, Jamie was waiting outside for Harry, Niall and Liam. It was clear he was trying maybe a little bit too hard to look cool, what with the leather jacket on a too-hot day, and his foot propped up behind him against the brick wall. He winked at Harry as they approached, causing Harry to scowl at him in secret.

"Hey, babe." Jamie chirped, encasing Harry in a tight embrace.

"What are you doing here?" Harry hissed in his ear, using the hug as his chance to do so without Niall and Liam hearing.

"Do you want this to be convincing or not?" Jamie challenged, before holding Harry at arm's length with a wide smile. "It's nice to see you too."

"Right, love birds, where should we go?" Liam asked, clapping his hands together. "It's a pretty nice day."

"How about yours, Liam?" Jamie smirked, and Harry immediately shook his head.

"No, I'd say we go hang out at the park," He cut in, "Better during the sunshine, right?"

He already hated his mind's spontaneous decision to blurt out Jamie as being the giver of the now gone love bite. Just because he and Louis had gotten a bit too carried away in the car, they were stuck in this mess with an over-confident Jamie. Bloody stupid. He felt extra bad for Louis during the mess, considering he was the one most at risk if Liam happened to find out through Jamie.

"Yeah, I agree with Harry, the park sounds like our best option." Niall smiled, patting him on the back. "Otherwise we will just be cooped up inside all afternoon."

"Park it is." Liam agreed. Thank God. If they had to see Louis again while they were all together, and Jamie kept giving those annoying glances that he did, Harry would probably end up with twenty-five to life.

So they began the short walk to the local park. And throughout, Harry wanted to push Jamie over approximately seven times due to the sheer number of times he went a bit too far with their act. For example, when he slid his hand a bit too far down Harry's back, despite Niall and Liam being unable to see anyway. Clearly he was taking advantage of the position he was in.

They had a stroll around for about ten minutes, drinking in the sunshine, before they came to a halt at a bench by the duck pond for a sit down. Harry was trying to let the glaring sun keep him positive for now, but he was getting quite tired of both Jamie's over-perfected behaviour and his excessive layering of several aftershaves.

"You two are lucky. I wish I had someone to hold hands with right now." Niall rolled his eyes. "Remember my last girlfriend, Li?"

Harry wanted to join Niall with the eye-rolling, seeing as he had no idea what the real truth was.

"What, the girl who wasn't ever allowed to leave her house?" Liam snickered. "I swear her parents never let her see you. And what do you mean your last girlfriend? You mean your only."

"Shut uuup," Niall drawled out, punching Liam on the arm, "Harry's only on his first partner."

"Is he?" Jamie muttered under his breath, and Harry elbowed him in the stomach, reasonably hard, so Jamie groaned in protest and rubbed the injured spot. "Sorry." He breathed.

"Anyway," Liam continued on, "Niall and Haz, did you guys hear about the gossip at school?"

"What gossip?" Harry asked, intrigued. He was always up for a good gossip, especially considering it had all seemed to be about himself lately. It was nice to have a bit of escapism for once.

"Apparently that short red-head girl, Julie is it? She's been secretly seeing Mr. Simons outside of school!" Liam announced, so Niall sucked in a shocked breath, whereas Harry could only link their situation to his with Louis, so he felt more bad for them than anything.