Uncertainty {frat boy!Harry Styles}

Part One

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: Frat boy!Harry, use of alcohol, mentions of sexual assault, Harry being a sweet angel because I can't picture him being anything else.

Of all places Harry had expected to bump into her outside of class, his frat house on a Friday night was definitely at the bottom of the list. One minute, he was taking shots of tequila with his bed buds in the dining room and the next, he found his whole world coming to a halt when he saw her work her way through the sweaty, intoxicated crowd and move towards the kitchen for a drink. He swore the music stopped and everything around him had ceased to exist in the moment he saw her throw her head back in laughter at something her friend said, exposing her neck and chest to the open air.

"Who's she?" one of his fraternity brothers asked with a nudge to Harry's shoulder, clearly aware that Harry had temporarily abandoned the conversation he was having to gawk at the party's newest arrival.

Harry snapped out of his daze in which he was staring at her bare legs that shimmered in the dim light of the frat house due to her lotion and a thin veil of sweat to see his brother staring at him as if he was the dumbest man alive.

"Hmm? Oh, her?" Harry pointed towards the girl in question with the neck of the beer bottle he had been nursing on all night.

"I sit by her in calculus... Just didn't think I'd ever see her 'round here is all."

The boy standing beside Harry nodded hesitantly, though he was far too intoxicated to press him any further. Harry would never admit it to anyone as long as he lived, but he had quite the soft spot for this girl. He had no explanation for the way he felt inside when she smiled at him every time she took her seat before class. He had no explanation for how bummed he was when she'd skip a day, or how relieved he was when she'd burst into the room late with a large iced coffee in her hands. He used any and every excuse he could to get her to talk to him, to say anything to him in that voice of hers that he found to be sickly sweet.

But she didn't run with the people that he ran with. She didn't spend every weekend blackout drunk and wake up in a stranger's bed that she knew she'd never see again. She was shy and quiet for the most part and was very much the polar opposite of everyone Harry went for both in terms of friendships and in one night stands. Which was exactly why Harry could never figure out what it was that he wanted from her. Did he want to shag her a few times and then pretend as if she never existed? Did he just want to be her friend that he could lay around with and watch stupid romantic comedies on Netflix with? Did he want to, dare he say it, date her? Take her out for nice dinners and fall asleep holding her in his arms? He didn't know the answer to any of those questions. She was simply different than all of the people Harry had associated himself with in college. And Harry, as scared as he was to say or even think it, liked that.

One might think that now would be the perfect opportunity for Harry to get to know this girl that he had been tied up over for the past several months given that she was attending a party at his own frat house, but he couldn't bring himself to approach her. Instead, he drowned his feelings in shots of bitter liquor and half-assed games of beer pong. He figured that whatever had enticed her to come to this party certainly didn't involve him, and it was best that he kept his distance. She'd passed by him a few times to refill the red, plastic cup she clutched like an accessory, but she never once looked his way.

Several hours had passed since her arrival and Harry, being the heavy partier that he was, had almost completely forgotten about her. The bass-heavy music pumped through his veins along with the icy burn of whatever he was drinking at the moment, and he was too preoccupied with the tiny blonde grinding her backside against his front to remember that she was even present at this party. He had forgotten she existed. That was until he broke away from the buzzing bodies and lager-soaked living room floor to use the restroom.