Like Clouds Cross Skies

My mind swims back into consciousness, fuzzy and clouded. I've officially slipped from deep sleep to that kind of half-awake stage. My head flits through random thoughts, scenes that don't make sense, until I realise what's going on. I'm awake whether I want to be or not.

Gravity seems to have a tighter grip on my head than anything else. It feels like it could just roll off my neck and thud to the floor. Because I am, in fact, in my bed. It takes me a few seconds to process this as my eyelids peel away and my room swims into focus. I definitely do not remember getting into bed last night.

I definitely do not remember anything about last night.

I sit up a little too quickly, my eyesight swimming dramatically with metallic lights and white blur. A weight shifts on my side, and I look down to see it's not a case of patchy gravity, but an arm is draped over me. An arm attached to a hand, long fingers limp as they just brush my stomach.

Oh God.

My head snaps to look behind me. My heart starts punching my ribs. It's not even a stranger lying beside me. My drunken self couldn't even grant me that. Instead, it's Harry.

My hand flies to my mouth, stifling a gasp. I mouth a silent “Shit!”, and look at the boy lying beside me, on his side. His side. We were spooning.

My breath struggles to burst from my lungs, but I keep it there to stop myself from panicking even further.

We're both lying on top of the covers, and we're also both wearing our clothes from the night before. At least, I think we are. I frantically sift through my memories of last night. I can remember Alan Carr Chatty Man, remember the taxi journey to the first club, remember the pulsing lights, remember knocking back a Jägerbomb or two, or three, or four. After that I can't string my memories together into coherent chains of events. They're just snippets. Lianne's hair as she danced. Zayn smiling at something. A bar. The back of Louis' head. The girls toilets. Harry doubled over with laughter. A glass on a counter. Harry counting down and us both doing a shot. Harry's mouth pressed close to my ear as he shouted something over the music. Harry grinning at me. And then - almost more a sensation than anything else - Harry's arm around my waist. A lot of Harry, basically. After that there's nothing. I can't remember anything beyond the clubs. I don't know how we got home, or when. I don't know how I came to be lying on top of my covers, still in my clothes from the night before, and with Harry beside me.

I don't remember doing anything. With him. That's the most important part. But is that good or bad? When he wakes up I could ask but god that's going to be embarrassing. An embarrassment I think I couldn't face right now, not with my stomach churning and my head pounding. The morning after is never pretty.

I glance at Harry. Sleeping, he looks like a boy, not a grown man. He looks younger, more vulnerable.

Please say I haven't got myself into more mess.

Carefully, I extricate myself from Harry's limp arm, moving it aside as I slide off the bed. He doesn't wake, doesn't even move, just lies there, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, his arm now cradling air rather than me.

My legs feel uncoordinated like a newborn lamb's as I cross the room to my door, careful not to trip over the shoes scattered across the floor. Well, at least we remembered to take them off before getting onto my bed.

A fresh stab of embarrassment slips between my ribs and sinks into my heart.

I open the door quietly, the hinges still creaking ever-so-slightly. I look back at Harry before I leave, still sprawled on my bed, and then slowly pull the door to.

I make my way down the hallway. My mouth tastes like stale alcohol and feels like it's stuffed with cotton wool. My hair also feels sticky to the touch, and I don't know if that's drink in my hair or just grease. My skin feels a little slimy. All I know is that I really need a shower.

Nick spots me coming down the hallway from where he sits at the kitchen island. Almost immediately his face breaks into a grin, and I have an urge to grab the dish cloth and wipe it from his face.

“Morning, sunshine,” he calls. “You're looking positively radiant.”

“Well, sunshine, I certainly don't feel radiant,” I reply, dropping onto the stool across from him.

“Would you like some water?” he offers in a reedy, patronising voice.

I fix him with a don't-give-me-any-shit-this-morning look and say, “If you'd be so kind.”

He heads over to the sink, grabbing a glass. “How about hair of the dog instead?”

I groan. “Alcohol is the last thing I could stomach right now.”

Nick plonks the glass of water down in front of me and I grab it, tipping the liquid down my throat in great gulps. I force myself to stop, aware that if I chug it all down now I'll only bring it back up again later.

“I see we have a guest,” Nick says, grinning as he nods his head in the direction of my room.

I shake my head, but that only makes my brain swim about and knock into the sides of my skull. I'm about to tell him I don't want to talk about it when I think, Nick's room is next to mine, the walls are thin, and he's pretty much nocturnal. I'm going to have to ask.

“We didn't...?” I begin, cringing as I don't know how to ask my older brother about my sex life.

Nick starts laughing, a low chuckle that grows in volume before I shush him. He shakes his head. “No, if anything happened I definitely would have heard. You weren't exactly quiet when you three rolled in at half four in the morning. I could hear everything you and Harry were saying.”

“What were we saying?” I blurt out a little too quickly.

Nick keeps smirking. “Drunken drivel. Flirting. I can't remember the words exactly. Nothing too special or soul-destroying, you'll be happy to hear.”

I sigh heavily. “Well, that's not too bad at least.”

Nick takes a sip of his tea. The smell of it has my stomach sloshing like a rough sea. “How much of last night do you even remember?”

I shrug. “I remember Alan Carr and the first couple of clubs, I think. After that it's all jumbled up. There are fragments of things, but I'm guessing I have quite a few gaps in my memory.”

Nick grins. “Oh the joys of being drunk. You go out for the best night of your life, only you can't remember half of it.”

“It's stupid, really,” I say.

Nick shakes his head. “Nah, it's the best bit. At least you can't remember all the embarrassing shit you've done.”

“You just have to live with the consequences of it the next day,” I add.

“Yeah, there is that part.”

“Anyway,” I say, climbing off the stool, “I'm gonna go for a shower.”

“You look like you need one, to be honest.”

“Thanks Nick.”

“Don't mention it, Kailey.”

I trudge down the hall, attempting to drag my fingers through my matted hair like a brush, but all the hairspray and god knows what has practically glued it all together. I'm betting Lianne spat her drink out at me or something. It wouldn't be a first.

When I turn into my room, Harry is just sitting up, groggily rubbing at his eyes. He looks at me, squinting against the sunlight streaming in through the gap in my curtains. Motes of dust flit about in the light.

“Morning,” he says, his voice seemingly lower and huskier than usual.

“Morning,” I reply, unsure of what else to say after that. “How are you feeling?”

“Shit,” Harry answers, and laughs.

“Join the club,” I say. “Haven't woken up feeling this rough for a while.”

Harry scratches at the back of his neck. He looks washed out, and I bet I look the same. I dread to think what my make-up looks like, unless it's all just run off my face. “Well, we did go all out.”

“You can remember?” I ask, a little astonished to say the least.

“You can't?” he counters.

I shake my head, smiling awkwardly. “I can remember going to two clubs, then everything after that is just random bits that don't make a lot of sense.”

His face breaks into a grin then, those familiar dimples on display. How someone's smile can look so bright during a hangover I have no idea. “You're the funniest drunk.”

“Really?” I say, leaning back against the door frame for a bit of support. “Lianne's normally too pissed to remember what I'm like drunk.”

“You're funny,” Harry says. “A lot more open.”

My smile drops. “Oh God, what did I say?”

He laughs and waves away my words. “Nothing too bad. I'm pretty sure I said some weird things too,” he answers. He lets out a chuckle then, sniggering to himself about something. “I can remember you saying this one thing to me, though.”

My face feels like it's burning. “What?”

He meets my eyes, still smiling, thoroughly amused by something. Just put me out of my misery already. “I'll quote you,” he says, and then sits up a little straighter, adopting an earnest frown. “'You know, Harry, I actually reeeeeeeally didn't like you when we first met. Like, I thought you were gonna have your head buried in your arse but you're actually really, really nice. And I mean it, I honestly do, from the bottom of my heart.' And then I can't remember what came after that, but that was the main gist of it.”

I try and cover my smile with my hand, but it doesn't work. I bite my lip, but I don't know if it's to stop myself from groaning or laughing. “Well,” I try, “at least I said something nice.”

Harry laughs and nods. “Yeah, it could have been a lot worse. I probably said something similar.”

I look at him incredulously. “What, that you hated me when we first met?”

He laughs again, a lot louder this time, his eyes squeezing shut with the force of it. He shakes his head and his hand for emphasis. “No, no, I liked you when we first met. I still like you.”

Somewhere amidst those words the tone shifted. I don't know why or where or how, but it's almost like I feel it on my skin, like the hairs on my arms stand just that little bit higher. Harry looks at me, his grin dropping to just a smile, but it's warm.

But before either of us can utter another word, the door to Lianne's room opens down the hall. I peer around my door frame and watch my best friend drag herself from her pit. Her blonde hair is sticking up on one side of her head like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards. I choke out a laugh and she glares at me.

“Don't,” she says, holding up a finger to silence me.

But I still tell her, “You look like a zombie.”

She stops her shuffling. “What part of 'don't' do you not understand?”

Harry appears beside me in the doorway, and I'm aware of the heat radiating from him. He raises an eyebrow at Lianne, a smile dancing on his lips. “Let me guess, you don't remember trying to force Liam to give you a piggy-back to and from clubs?”

Lianne narrows her eyes at him, her mouth aghast. “Who blessed you with omniscience after a night out?”

Harry shrugs. “What can I say? I know everything.”

“I'm guessing,” Lianne says, rolling up the trouser leg of her pyjama bottoms; at least she remembered to get changed, “that I fell over at some point last night?”

She reveals the shallow cut on her knee, speckled with dried blood and imprinted with a livid purple bruise for good measure. Both Harry and I grimace.

“You fell out of a cab, actually,” Harry informs her.

I snigger, the memory suddenly washing over me. “I remember that. Not your finest moment, Li.”

She sticks her tongue out at me like a petulant little kid, but it only makes my smile wider. “Anyway, shotgun showering first,” she says.

She starts hobbling as fast as she can towards the bathroom door, but even with her knee she was closer to the bathroom than me, and she shuts the door on me. I can hear her cackling on the other side of the door.

“I'm gonna head home for a shower, I think,” Harry says, and I turn to see him slipping his shoes on and grabbing his jacket from the floor.

“Alright,” I say. “Well, thanks for a good night out.”

He grins at me. “Any time. I think I need to see drunk Kailey again.”

I groan. “No, you definitely do not.”

He moves back into the hallway. Even after a night out, his hair still looks like that's the way it should be. A perfect mess,I think, and I quickly wish I hadn't thought it.

“Maybe I'll just stick with sober Kailey then,” he says, smiling down at me, and I can't help but smile back; it's infectious.

“Maybe that's for the best,” I say.

He pulls me into a hug then, an easy laugh spilling from his lips, and I realise this is the second time he's hugged me in less than twenty-four hours. Well, the only two hugs I can remember.

“Au revoir,” he says, turning to leave.

“Adios,” I call as he disappears round the corner of the hallway, and he throws a smile back over his shoulder.

Something in his words told me this won't be the last we'll see of each other. Not too long ago, I was all for letting him go, letting him exit my live as quickly as he entered it. But then I guess he's not a stranger any longer, and he's more than an acquaintance now I suppose. It seems I've inadvertently found a friend in Harry. A friend that doesn't seem to want to leave any time soon.

Or more than a friend, as Mum is pretty much hoping for. She said as much when she practically invited him to the get together tomorrow.

Oh shit. That's tomorrow. I'm going to have to face Aaron again tomorrow.

Suddenly, having Harry by my side doesn't seem like so much of a bad idea. Moral support would be greatly appreciated, but I shake the thought from my head. My family will be there, and Nick will be moral support enough. God, when did I suddenly become so dependent on Harry? It's not like I exactly want him and Aaron to meet again.

No, that definitely wouldn't be good at all.