My Little Bird

The photos that the paparazzi had taken of them on their way to and from Tesco had surfaced by the next morning and Abigail was furious to say the least. Every article on the internet that went along with those pictures mentioned something about how happy Harry looked when he was with Asher, as compared to when he was with Abby. He insisted that the articles weren't true, even though he hated that he had to. Abby got so angry when the tabloids wrote things about her, but she loved to read gossip about other celebrities-- even her own boyfriend.

Even though he had denied it to her, he couldn't help but notice the differences when he compared the photos himself. He clicked through the photo set of him with Asher from the day before and noticed that he was smiling as he looked at her in every single one. In some, she was looking back at him with a smile of her own, but then there were others when she was completely oblivious, looking straight ahead while he still stared. The dimpled grin never left his face.

After those photos, there was a sequence of him out in various places with Abby. He was never smiling, never looking at her, and rarely touching her at all. Honestly, those articles hit the nail on the head. Harry really didn't look happy with Abby and he really did with Asher. At this realization, he became annoyed with himself and he shut his laptop forcefully, sliding it off his legs and onto the bed beside him.

He needed to do something fun and he knew just the person to call for that.



Asher heard the door creak when it opened but her eyes were still too heavy with sleep to look and see who it was. She could feel a draft as her comforter was lifted up on both sides and then she felt the mattress sink with the weight of two bodies as they slid under the covers with her. They both scooted in close to her and she could feel the presence of their faces in close proximity to her own. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut even tighter as she reached her left hand up to touch the face of the person next to her.

Her hand collided with the face, emitting a rather loud smack, followed by the chuckle of her favorite Irishman. "Watch it! Ya tryna blind me, woman?"

"Niall," she whined, her voice still thick with sleep. "It's so early."

"It's noon, love."

"Shit."

She immediately recognized the chuckle that sounded from her other side and she turned her head to the right, finally opening her eyes only to be met with Harry's green ones mere centimeters from her face. His head rested on the same pillow as hers and he just gave her his adorable stupid dimpled grin as she blinked a few times to let her eyes adjust to the daylight.

She turned to look back up at the ceiling as she yawned softly, letting her eyes flutter closed again as she pulled the blankets up to her chin. She could feel Niall shift next to her. "Niall, if you don't be still, I'm going to kick you out of my bed," she grumbled. The sound of a camera shutter a few moments later forced her to pry her eyes open again, glaring at the blonde boy to her left. "Did you just take a photo?"

"Possibly...."

"But I haven't even brushed my hair yet," she protested half-heartedly. "If you want a decent picture of me, you should wait until I've at least taken a shower."

"Ah, who needs showers? You're a beaut, Ash, with or without a rat's nest in your hair."

She laughed, shaking her head as she sat up on her elbows, taking in her surroundings. "Send it to me at least," she told him and only a few seconds later, her phone chimed with a new text from the nightstand where it was plugged in to the charger. "Thanks."

"What're your plans for th' day?" Niall asked her, sitting up with his back against the headboard. She flopped back down onto her pillow, tilting her head back to look up at him.

"Don't really have any. Though I was wondering yesterday if there's a gym around here. I haven't been since before I left campus and I'm in dire need."

Harry silently disagreed with her statement but answered her question. "There's one just a few blocks over. But you should go to ours instead. It's bigger and less crowded."

"Sounds good to me. You two aren't going to make me go alone, are you?"

The two boys exchanged looks before Niall shook his head and grinned. "Course not!" When Harry had decided to go to Niall for some fun activities, he didn't know that Niall had already planned on going to hang out with Asher for the day. He had initially wanted to spend his day doing something that would take his mind off of Asher, but he somehow found himself spending the day with her instead.

"Guess there's no point in me taking a shower then," she muttered to herself as she slid out from under her blankets and climbed over Niall, hopping down onto the floor and walking over to the closet where she had put all her clothes. She pulled out a pair of running shorts and a tank top, then grabbed an old hoodie and her shoes, laying it all out on the foot of her bed. She placed her hands on her hips, tilting her head slightly as she waited, but both boys just looked at her blankly. "Well are you two going to watch me change then?"

"Oh!" Harry's cheeks immediately turned pink as he threw the comforter off his body and got up from the bed. Niall got up too, but he wasn't so much embarrassed as he was amused. "Um, we'll be downstairs," Harry told her, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly before disappearing out her bedroom door after Niall.

She quickly changed clothes and attempted to tame her wild hair as much as possible by pulling it into a top knot. She laced up her shoes and grabbed her phone, quickly saving the photo that Niall had sent her, before heading down the stairs where they were waiting. They both stood when she reached the bottom stair and she followed them out the front door and down the steps.

They headed toward a black Range Rover that was parked by the curb, Harry getting into the driver's seat and Niall in the passenger seat, Asher sliding into the leather seats in the back. "Holy shit, did you steal this or something?"

Harry laughed as he pulled out onto the road and headed in the direction of his complex. "No, it's mine."

"So, fucking rich, huh? I'll have to remember that," she grinned, giving him a wink when he looked at her in his rear view mirror. Of course she knew that he was well off. She had been to his flat a few times and she knew that it was quite nice, immaculate, seemingly professionally decorated, but it wasn't over-the-top extravagant.

A short time later they arrived at the complex, and Harry let Niall out at his flat to change clothes before driving to his own. Asher followed him inside and he went down the hall to his bedroom, leaving her to wait in the living room. She walked around, examining the photos that lined his mantle. Most of them were him with the other boys and some other friends that she hadn't met. The last photo on the end was him standing between two women, his arms around them and a huge grin on his face, the happiest she'd ever seen him.

"My mum and sister," he told her upon noticing the photo frame in her hands when he re-entered the room. She jumped a little at his voice, slightly startled, but then she smiled.

"They're both gorgeous. I see where you got that smile of yours." She placed the frame back on the mantle and turned around to face him, her mouth dropping ever so slightly as she couldn't help but stare. His black athletic shorts hung low on his hips as he pulled a plain white tee shirt over his head. "Nice shoes," she remarked when she finally tore her eyes away from his torso to see the neon yellow trainers on his feet.

"Yours aren't much better," he replied, reminding her of her own bright blue ones.

She smiled, shaking her head as he pulled an American flag bandana out of his pocket and tied it around his head, pushing his curls back off his forehead. "You look ridiculous," she giggled as he pulled on a dark grey thermal over his tee shirt.

"You're just jealous," he told her, grabbing his car keys from the table. "Ready?"

Asher followed him out to the car and back to Niall's flat to pick him up. He grumbled about Harry taking forever as he slid into the passenger seat and they drove to their gym about fifteen minutes away. There weren't many people working out inside considering it was 1:30 in the afternoon. Niall immediately headed for the weight benches while Harry went for the punching bag in the corner and Asher headed for the treadmills. She quickly shed her hoodie then slipped her earphones in and turned to a playlist of all fast-paced songs that she'd recently come to know courtesy of the boys before hopping on the treadmill to start her run.

She felt like death by the time Harry rejoined her. It had been too long since she'd last exercised and she could definitely tell it. Harry had already shed both his thermal and his tee shirt, downing almost his entire bottle of water as he gave her the one in his other hand. She turned her pace down to a slow walk and took the bottle from him, turning it up and drinking over half of it without taking a breath.

She pulled her earphones out of her ears and turned off the machine, jumping off as she wiped her face with the towel that was draped over the rail of the treadmill. "Jesus Christ I need to exercise more often," she grumbled. "This day could possibly kill me."

He just laughed as he followed her over to the elliptical machines on the other side of the room. She put her towel on the rail of the machine and her water bottle into the drink holder before stepping up onto the elliptical as Harry did the same on the one directly across from her. She rolled her eyes at him when he got onto his machine and she realized that they were going to be staring at each other for as long as they used those particular ones.

"You still look ridiculous," she said aloud, though he had his earphones in and most likely couldn't hear her.

"That's not very nice." Apparently even though they were stuck in his ears, he hadn't pressed play on his iPod yet. She laughed, shaking her head as she put in her own earphones and picked up her phone to play her music.

"Sorry, but it's true." He made a silly face at her and she quickly snapped a photo of him before he even knew what was happening. She laughed as she looked down at the picture she had taken before holding her phone up for him to see, even though he was a good meter away from her. "You're an idiot."

"I resent that," he pouted.

"Shhh, I'm trying to listen to The 1975." He didn't say anything else after that, but they did catch each other staring more than a few times as they continued working out. At one point, they participated in a silent race against one another to see who could go faster and of course Harry won.

Eventually, Niall came over to them to complain about his hunger and they finally got ready to leave. Asher pulled her hoodie back on as they walked outside, the temperatures relatively chilly for a June afternoon. They all climbed into Harry's Range Rover and he asked where he should go to so that they could eat something. "I have an idea," she suggested casually.

"And that would be?"

"We could go to Finch's? I mean, I know it won't be busy because it never is. Plus you could meet Olly. But it's just a suggestion," she added with a shrug.

Harry's grip on the steering wheel tightened as he thought about coming face to face with the boy that Asher had her eye on. He really couldn't care less about meeting the kid, but he knew that she wanted him to. "Who's Olly?" Niall asked, breaking Harry from his thoughts.

"O-oh," she stuttered, completely forgetting that Niall and the others hadn't heard the first thing about him; she'd only told her cousin and Harry. "He's just this boy I've been hanging out with."

"You're seein' someone?" he asked, turning around in his seat to look at her with wide blue eyes.

"It's really not like that," she shrugged. "We're just hanging out. Nothing major."

"You're breakin' me heart, Ash," he sighed dramatically, placing both hands on his chest. She shook her head at him, trying to fight a smile, and occupied herself with fixing her hair since some of it had fallen down while she was at the gym.

"It's fine, Ash," Harry said after a moment of silence. "We can go there."

The rest of the drive was dead silent, not even music playing lowly in the background. She sent Olly a text to let him know that she was coming in and bringing some friends for him to meet. Harry parked at Eleanor's flat and the three walked the two blocks to the cafe. "This is it," she announced when they'd reached the front of the building. Harry opened the door for her, letting her walk in first before he stepped inside while Niall stayed outside to make a quick phone call.

Harry was too busy taking in his surroundings to notice that she had already walked to the small table by the window, sliding into the wrought iron chair by the wall. He made his way over to the table, and sat down in the chair across from hers. Asher was right about the place being practically dead; there wasn't a single customer in sight save for the two of them. He was partly thankful for that.

The door to the kitchen was pushed open and the boy was already speaking before he'd even looked up. "Well, Ash, have you brought your friend for me to-" He froze when he saw Harry sitting there across from her. "Jesus Christ, aren't you Harry Styles?"

Harry winced at his words and Asher just looked between the two of them confused. "You know him?"

Olly eyed him carefully, noticing the pained expression on his face, and he guessed that Asher probably wasn't fully aware of his celebrity status. "Well, no," he finally answered. "I've just heard of him."

Harry stood up to shake the other boy's hand and the two of them had an intense stare-off until Asher stood up to give Olly a quick peck on the cheek. "Harry, this is Olly of course."

"Usual?" he asked her when she'd taken her seat.

"Actually, right now I'd like nothing more than a giant cheeseburger, if that's possible. With fries. Do you have fries? Or whatever you Brits call them...."

Olly chuckled. "I'll see what we can do. And for you?" he asked, his eyes moving to Harry.

"Whatever she's having is fine," he shrugged. "And add another one to that. We've got a friend outside as well."

Olly nodded shortly and left the table to go back to the kitchen. It was easy to see that he didn't like serving Harry, even though it was his job. Niall joined them shortly after, just as Olly came back from the kitchen with four cokes. He looked surprised all over again at having another international celebrity sitting in his cafe, but he quickly recovered before Asher noticed him.

Once he had handed out their drinks, he sat down in the empty chair between Asher and Harry with his own drink. "So how'd you lot meet?" He couldn't resist the curiosity of how Asher knew two famous people and how she didn't know that they were famous.

"El dates their friend Louis," she replied simply.

"Right." He knew who everyone in One Direction was; it was practically impossible to not know. He didn't know however that her cousin El was the same Eleanor who was the girlfriend of Louis Tomlinson.

"How'd you two meet?" Niall asked, turning the question on Olly. He and Harry had automatically gone into some sort of protective mode from the moment they came in and they hadn't relaxed even a teensy bit yet.

"Remember the other week when we were hanging at your place and I said I was going to Trafalgar Square? I just happened to stop here to get dinner that night."

"I remember," he nodded, glancing pointedly at Harry. That had been the day when they'd had to lie about Harry being in Cheshire because he was trying to avoid her for her own good.

A tense silence took over the table, but Asher didn't seem to notice. She was too focused on herself and the fact that she didn't even think about it before then that she probably looked horrendous after coming straight from the gym without showering or even changing clothes.

The bell rang from the kitchen, informing Olly that their meals were ready and he went over to the window to get them and bring them back to the table. The radio station in the background began a familiar tune and all three boys looked up wide-eyed, two of them in pure panic. Olly turned to go over and change the station, but Asher grabbed his arm. "Don't change it," she asked sweetly. "I like this song."

Olly looked at the other two boys unsurely but returned to his seat at the table. Asher began smothering her fries in ketchup as she danced a little in her seat, unaware of the added tension that came with Harry's and Niall's singing in the background.