Unbreakable

to Arabella Sykes
Party tonight. Grimmy has personally asked for you to come. Pick you up at 8?

from Arabella Sykes
Can't. Major paper to be done by tomorrow. Sorry.

to Arabella Sykes
Right. I'm coming over and helping you with that then we'll go to the club to par-tay. :)

Harry grinned at the face he already knew Arabella was pulling at her phone screen. He knew her well enough to know that she was probably pouting at her phone screen but not thinking of anything to reply his text with, since he'd already made up his mind to go over to her flat. He hadn't seen her since they were in Holmes Chapel, anyway, and that was about a week ago since she was swamped with schoolwork and Harry was preoccupied with meeting his other mates.

Since he was going over, he decided to just bring along a change of clothes for the party later on – since he wasn't going to show up in a set of joggers and a large knitted pullover. He grabbed a loose, plain white t-shirt from his wardrobe, a black blazer, black skinny jeans, and stuffed them into a paper bag, since he couldn't be bothered to find a proper bag for his clothes, and he would probably just iron them at her house. He grabbed hair gel, too, and then he slid on his favourite brown boots before heading out the door.

It was an odd combination that didn't really work out – the joggers and pullover with boots – but he didn't really care.

"I'm going over to Ara's," he called over his shoulder as he grabbed up his coat, knowing that Louis was somewhere in the flat. Kitchen, probably.

"Tell her I said hi!" The older boy called back, making Harry grin.

"Yeah, bye!" Harry called again before he was out the door and walking to his car.

Twenty five minutes later, he was pulling up at the complex she lived in. Arabella lived in the dorm rooms for her first year of uni, till she eventually managed to save up enough money for a flat that was a fifteen minute drive away from campus. It wasn't walking distance, and she still had to drive, but she didn't mind. She said that as long as she wasn't staying in the dorm rooms anymore, she was happy.

He climbed up the stairs to her flat – since she lived on the third floor – and went straight to her door, not even bothering to knock. Knowing her, she'd probably left the door unlocked, and he was right.

Harry pushed open the door with a small chuckle to himself, hanging his coat up on the coat hanger. "You should really start locking your front door!" He called into the flat, knowing that she was either in her living room or her bedroom.

"Maybe you should've just accepted that I have work to do and gone to the party without me," she sassed, her voice coming from somewhere in the living room.

Harry chuckled as he kicked off his boots, lining them next to a pair of her black heels. "You know you want my company," he teased as he sauntered into the living room, grinning when he saw her on the sofa.

Her feet were crossed at the ankles on the coffee table in front of her, an open MacBook to her side on the sofa cushions, a pad of lined paper in hand and a pen in the other, the telly on at a low volume, and hair pulled up into a messy top knot – she looked to be the epitome of a student working on schoolwork. It was little things like that that made him grateful that he still had connections to bits of his old life – what he would probably look had One Direction not been as successful as they were.

He settled down next to her, placing the paper bag with his clothes on the floor and then looking around at her flat.

She'd always had a knack for vintage-like things, and he could already see a couple of different vintage things in her flat. His favourite had to be the vinyl player she had sat in the corner of the room, as well as the stack of vinyl records next to it. He'd gone through her collection before, taking notes on which band he should give a listen, especially since she'd bought a vinyl record of their album. There were the classics – The Beatles, Nirvana, etc, – of course, but then there were also vinyls from bands like Pierce The Veil, Arctic Monkeys, The Maine and Bring Me The Horizon.

Another thing he adored about how she'd decorated her flat was the one wall behind where her desk and iMac sat, where it was filled with Instagram pictures, mostly from her own account, and band posters, and lyrics that she'd cut out from old newspaper and magazine pieces. Harry knew that he was on the wall and it made him giggle silently to himself whenever he thought about it. She'd shown him his photos the first time she'd put it up, the photo that usually made him giggle being a cheeky, extreme close-up of his face that was hidden behind the desk.

Her flat was very... her, in the simplest of terms. He liked hanging around in there, even if it meant having to silently watch the telly while she worked on her paper.

"Louis says hi," Harry nudged her arm lightly with his elbow, "How much longer do you think you'll take?"

Arabella shrugged, "A couple hours, maybe." She sighed. "I told you to go ahead without me. You're just gonna be bored now," she looked at him.

Harry chuckled as he shook his head slightly. "I'm fine. I wanna go to the party with you. If it means having to sit around for two hours, so be it."

"You'll end up falling asleep," Arabella snorted. "You fall asleep everywhere."

"Not true," he gasped in mock offence, bringing a hand to his heart. "You're making me seem like an old man."

"You probably are," she shrugged casually, shooting him a grin before picking up her MacBook and diverting her attention to the piece of technology balanced on her thighs.

Harry gasped again, reaching over to gently shove her head to the side as she laughed, shoving his hand away. He opened his mouth to say something then, but her front door opened and both teenagers turned to look in that direction. The door closed, and then a second or two later, a very attractive male (Harry wasn't one of those pompous twats who would immediately reply with the sentence I'm not gay if someone asked him if a fellow male was attractive) with a lean body, dressed only in a pair of football shorts, appeared in their line of sight. Harry blinked, before he turned to Arabella.

She would've told him if she had a boyfriend. He raised an eyebrow over at her, only to see that she was raising at eyebrow at the unknown half naked bloke.

"Didn't know you had people over," the bloke said, waving in greeting at Harry, before walking into her kitchen.

"Didn't know you have one-night-stands at – " she paused, glancing at her wall clock, before turning back to him. "– half four in the afternoon."

The bloke chuckled, walking back into the living room with three glass bottles of Coke in hand, passing one over to Harry and another to Arabella. "We went for round two," he smirked, wiggling his eyebrows over at the younger girl as she scoffed, kicking him since he'd taken a sit on the coffee table. He laughed, running a hand through his messy light brown hair. "You alright, mate? I'm Finn." He offered the curly-haired lad a hand.

Harry took it, shaking it whilst eyeing him suspiciously. "Harry," he introduced with a slight nod.

"You're one of the 1D guys, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Cool," Finn nodded, too, then he turned his attention back to Arabella. "You doing anything tonight?"

"She's got plans," Harry interrupted quickly.

Arabella rolled her eyes, "Only if I finish this bloody thing on time." She told Harry with a pointed look, then she turned back to Finn. "And how long are you staying?"

"Till she wakes up and leaves," he grinned and Arabella rolled her eyes.

She got to her feet, thwacking the back of his head gently in annoyance as she made her way over to the front door. She pulled it open just in time to see Finn's flavour of the night/late afternoon scurrying down the stairs. Arabella shot her a sympathetic look, asking a silent question if she was okay, to which the girl nodded with a small smile, before continuing on her way down.

Arabella made her way back into the flat, "She's gone," she said as she plopped herself back down onto the sofa.

"And that's my cue to leave. Thanks, babe," he grinned, pulling her head closer to him to place a kiss in her hair before patting Harry on the shoulder. "Nice meeting you, mate."

"Yeah, uh, you too." Harry responded with an easy grin, watching as the still half naked bloke walked out of her flat. Then he turned to his best friend with a raised eyebrow. "Care to explain?"

She shrugged, "There's nothing to explain. He's my neighbour. We got talking one day because he came in while trying to run away from one of those psycho girls that immediately assumed they're together because of one night together and... Yeah," she shrugged again. "I let him hide here most of the time, and he repays me back by either helping me with my schoolwork or getting me dinner when I forget to eat."

Harry looked at her for a moment before he nodded with a small sigh. "Promise me one thing, though?"

"Hmm?" She hummed, looking away from her laptop screen to look at the brown-haired, green-eyed boy.

"Don't be one of his one-night-stands. Ever."

+

Harry groaned as he looked at himself in the mirror for the fifth time in the past two minutes. He ran his hand through his quiff, groaning again as he looked in the direction of Arabella's still-closed bedroom door.

"Hurry up," he whined, plopping himself down onto the sofa, glancing at his watch. It was barely half eight, but he was sick of waiting for Arabella while she got ready so he was getting restless, and all he really wanted to do in the current moment was go to the party and have fun.

The door finally pulled open, the girl he'd been waiting for huffing in annoyance. "I'm done, let's go," she huffed, the sound of her bare feet walking behind the sofa to go to the front door and pull on her shoes.

"Finally," he grumbled, earning another scoff from the younger girl as he got to his feet. "Took you long enough. I've been waiting around since – " he trailed off, his mouth going agape at the sight in front of him. "Holy shit..." he breathed out, effectively making her look up.

"What?" Arabella let out a self-conscious laugh, a hand running through her ginger hair that was set in its perfect little waves.

"You look, um, wow," he spluttered, eyes raking over her figure as she flushed, biting slightly on her pure bottom lip – no piercing in for the night.

Her bright eyes were lined with black eyeliner, and she'd had other eye things on, but fuck him if he knew what those things were all called. She was clad in a little black dress, tight on her skin and completely hugging her slim figure. It ended mid-way her thigh, so the dress exposed her long and toned legs – she used to run track – and added in with the heels that she'd just pulled on... She looked beautiful.

Harry found himself biting down on his bottom lip as he gulped, eyes trailing over her figure one more time. Arabella let out a little chuckle, turning to pull on her coat. "Let's go, then," she raised a brow, nodding over in the direction of the front door.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Right. Let's go." He spluttered out again, nodding as he went to open the front door for her, walking out, and then watching her as she locked the door.

Harry gulped one last time, still in a state of awe as he took in the sight of his best friend. He took in a deep breath before placing a hand on the small of her back, leaning down the small distance between them – since the heels made her two inches taller than her usual 5'7" – speaking quietly and directly into her ear.

"You look beautiful, by the way."

"Thank you," she mumbled, turning to look at him and give him a once-over. "You look rather handsome, yourself." Arabella dropped her keys into her bag, then turning to see that Harry had an arm offered to her with an eyebrows raised.

"M'lady?"

"Why, thank you, kind sir."