Crooked Heart

10 Months Ago

It was ten-thirty in the morning, Fiona had exams to study for, and Niall had dragged her to the house for Sunday roast. This was apparently going to be a new tradition, but Fiona didn’t see it lasting long. The lot of them would probably stress (self-designated) chef Harry into oblivion. Despite saying multiple times that he needed as much space as possible to cook, Fiona, Niall, and Cassidy loitered in the kitchen while Harry worked around them, workstations set up wherever there was free counter space. He hadn’t started complaining yet, though, which Fiona had to give him credit for.

“How’s that new job going, Harry?” Niall hauled himself up onto the counter next to Fiona, further limiting the space available to Harry.

“I’m a bus boy, Niall, it’s not exactly The Ritz.”

“Isn’t that the name of the hotel you’re working at?” Fiona asked, brows wound high on her forehead. She took a sip of her tea and grimaced. Too much milk.

“It’s The Franklin,” Harry said, his voice dripping with smugness, completely ignoring the fact that Fiona was making fun of him. She supposed he had a right to. Even as a lowly bus boy, The Franklin was the fanciest, most prestigious hotel — with the fanciest, most prestigious restaurant — in the city. “And I think they’re gonna promote me to cook already, at least for the morning shift. I made a bet with the saucier I could do a better Hollandaise, and the whole kitchen liked mine more than his.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m proud of ya, mate!” Niall cheered. Fiona rolled her eyes.

Louis appeared in the kitchen doorway, dressed to go out into the cold. “Harry, mate, could I borrow your car to go pick up Clara?”

“Sure, keys are in my room,” Harry answered, without turning away from the cooker.

“Cheers,” Louis said, and then he was gone again. Fiona heard his footsteps on the stairs, then, “Shall I wake up Zayn?”

“Good luck with that!” Cassidy shouted.

Niall laughed, then leaned toward Fiona and did the thing where he thought he was being sneaky but in reality was no less obvious than his normal behaviour. “Hey, did I really see Stephen Evans come out of your room this morning?”

“What?” Harry exclaimed, head whipping up. His fringe, pulled into a mini-ponytail, stuck straight up from the top of his head. Fiona had already pointed out how ridiculous he looked several times since her arrival fifteen minutes ago.

Because Harry was the last person Fiona wanted to know about her personal life, she gave Niall a sharp jab in the ribs with her elbow. He cried out and scooted away from her. “Thanks a lot, Niall.”

“Did you actually have sex with Twat of the Year Stephen Evans?” Harry asked, looking at her with the most serious expression she’d ever seen on someone while saying the word ‘twat.’

“You’re the only one that calls him that,” she replied.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” he said. “Answer the question, Fee.”

The nickname was newly designated, he’d come up with it while drawing out the syllables in her name in an effort to annoy her. Fiona glowered. “A few times now, yeah.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. That guy is a prick,” Harry scoffed.

“He’s not all that bad,” Fiona said. She was actually beginning to suspect that Stephen liked her, which wasn’t a good sign. The whole reason she entered into a casual relationship with him was because he was the last person she thought would develop feelings. That was his entire reputation, after all.

“I heard he was sleeping with Georgia Collins,” Niall said.

“Probably is,” Fiona shrugged. “I really couldn’t care less.”

“See, I don’t get that.” Harry washed his hands, then went over to the enormous piece of meat he had on the cutting board, an array of spices lined up on the counter next to it, and started preparing it for roasting. “You’re seriously comfortable with the person you’re sleeping with being with other people? Especially someone like Stephen? What if you get, like, an STI by association?”

“I’m not an idiot, Harry,” Fiona defended. “I know what I’m doing, all right?”

“You’ve got to be pretty dim to shag Stephen fucking Evans,” Harry muttered.

“What do you have against him, anyway?”

Harry didn’t respond, but he was practically beating the spices into the pork shoulder — or whatever it was he was cooking — which indicated some kind of backstory to the problem he had with Stephen. Niall, being Niall, didn’t see the harm in sharing. “Stephen was on Harry’s floor in first year,” he said. “Had it out for him from the start, after he and this girl Stephen was after hit it off during Freshers Week. Didn’t you two only go out for, like, a month? Anyway, the wanker managed to get with all the girls Harry went out with after that.”

“All of them?”

“All of them,” Harry sighed. “Aside from the academic stuff, that might’ve been the biggest reason for leaving uni. Getting away from pricks like him.”

“You still hang out with Niall,” Fiona pointed out. “He’s slept with half of our building and it’s only December.”

“Hey! I’ve got rules, y’know. Separates me from guys like Stephen.”

“Your rules are bullshit.”

“Why don’t we get back to how you’re shagging the Twat of the Year?” Niall suggested with a smirk.

Fiona narrowed her eyes at him. “Fuck off, Niall.”

+++

The pub was suffocating. There were always too many people on Thursday nights, due to the cheap drinks, but this was so much worse than usual. It was only the four of them — Fiona, Niall, Louis, and Harry — and their table still felt overcrowded. Just to make matters worse, Harry had been teasing her ever since Liam and his mates passed by on their way out and he asked her to come along to the party they were headed to. All his friends stood by and snickered when she said no, then they told Liam (very loudly, and with more laughter) that he’d “get her next time” as they left the pub. It seemed everyone found his persistence ridiculous, not just Fiona.

She waited until she was certain Liam and his friends would be far from the pub before excusing herself for a cigarette. Louis, who preferred spliffs to cigarettes but smoked the latter anyway, politely declined the offer to join her. He and Niall seemed to have some kind of plan in the works, and Fiona suspected it had something to do with the fit barmaid everyone (aside from Harry) had been admiring all evening.

The rain from earlier had stopped. Fiona moved away from the other smokers outside the door, and closer to the alley on the side of the building. Sometimes Louis and Zayn went down there to get high, when the atmosphere in the pub was boring or they had a craving for chips, since the food in the pub was only good if you were really drunk or on something.

"Smoking's bad for you, Fee," Harry said, strolling out of The Gallery several minutes later, one hand in his pocket and the other clutching that battered journal of his. She noticed with a flicker of surprise that it wasn’t battered at all, and the cover was orange instead of black, the pages not yet warped from constant thumbing or marked up by the cheap pens he always carried around. He had to be writing in it a lot to have a new one already, though she couldn’t say how long he’d had the black one before it. She hadn’t been paying attention until recently.

In Harry's hand, the Moleskine looked tiny, the bright cover peeking out from between his ringed fingers. The other one, lying open on the counter in her kitchen, uneven writing scrawled across it’s pages, flashed in her mind. Fiona wondered again what Harry could possibly be writing in it. Perhaps something he didn’t want anyone else reading, due to his immediate reaction to cover it up when he’d caught her looking.

Pushing all of this from her mind with the reminder that it didn’t matter anyway, Fiona fixed Harry with a glare. Constantly reminding her how unhealthy her habit was had become a favourite pastime of his, like he thought he could annoy her into quitting. “Well we can’t all drink fucking green smoothies. Somebody's got to be killing themselves to balance out you healthy lot."

"That's possibly the worst reason I’ve ever heard from someone trying to justify their smoking," Harry said, not teasing anymore. "Don't do it just to spite other people.”

"Haven't you realized?" Fiona lifted the cigarette to her lips with a malicious smirk. "I do everything out of spite."

"No, you do it because you're angry with yourself, and you're a masochist."

"Fuck you," Fiona muttered, turning away from him. She leaned a shoulder against the brick wall, bringing the cigarette up to her lips. But this time all she got was a foul taste in her mouth and none of the calm she wanted. With an angry flick of her wrist Fiona flung the stick onto the pavement and stomped on it with the heel of her trainer. She hated that she was giving Harry the satisfaction of knowing he’d had a part in her throwing the cigarette away. When she looked up, she was surprised to see that he was still standing there, watching her curiously. The lack of self-satisfaction was peculiar on him.

"Gotta head off," he said, after a moment of them staring at each other in unusually meditative silence. "See you later, Fiona."

Back inside, Niall and Louis were still conspiring, but they’d shifted focus from the barmaid to a group of girls a few feet away. Though she’d never say it at the risk of seriously offending Niall, Fiona wanted them to get mercilessly rejected by the girls. They could use that sort of thing now and again.

With the boys ignoring her, Fiona wished she and Zayn or Allison there to talk to. But Allison had a paper due, and Zayn was at some big do at the art gallery where Cassidy worked. Fiona wasn’t too sure what they were doing there, whether it was an exhibition or a party; he’d been very vague over the phone.

Pint in hand, Fiona left their table and nabbed a seat at the bar. She made sure to bring her purse along too, since Niall and Louis couldn’t be trusted to look after someone else’s belongings. The barmaid was a lithe redhead with impossibly long eyelashes that had been a major focus of conversation for the majority of the night, but Fiona had kept most of her thoughts to herself to avoid any off-colour comments from the boys. They couldn’t care less that she fancied girls too, but didn’t realize that some of the things they said weren’t as hilarious or appropriate as they thought.

Before she even got the barmaid’s attention, a hand was brushing her shoulder and someone was sitting down next to her. Caught off guard, Fiona whirled around, prepared to give out a verbal lashing at whoever it was for sneaking up on her, but it was only Cassidy, and she let out a sigh of relief. Though her chic bob, knowledge of art movements, and affection for denim usually made Cassidy blend right in at the hipster-heavy pub, tonight she looked quite out of place. Her indigo blue dress was tailored to flatter her slender frame, with an asymmetrical hem that cut across her thighs. Expensive-looking jewelry winked at her wrist and ears. Her inky hair was curled, the ends just grazing her jawline. Her makeup was light, but whatever she'd done to her eyes brought out gold tones amidst the brown, and her lips were a deep, matte red. If Cassidy looked this amazing, Fiona imagined that her and Zayn would induce fainting spells just by standing next to each other.

After returning Cassidy’s greeting hug, Fiona glanced over her shoulder and saw Zayn slouched next to Louis at their table, dinner jacket hung over the back of his hair and the sleeves of his black shirt rolled to his elbows. He’d loosened his tie and mussed up his hair, so that it hung in his face instead of being slicked back.

“How was the thing?” Fiona asked, still without the faintest idea of where they’d been.

Cassidy groaned. The shiny bangle on her wrist slid around while she gestured, glinting under the lights above the bar. “So boring. I’m obligated to go to these events, but I don’t think I’ve ever stayed the entire time. Zayn and I always end up ducking out once we’ve said hello to everyone.”

“What was it for again?”

“There’s a new investor. They planned this big do for him, but I really couldn’t be bothered with any of it,” Cassidy explained. “The exhibitions are much more fun. Tonight was just an excuse to drink expensive wine, make tee times, and talk about basically everything except for art.”

“I guess not everyone’s in it for the same reason, huh?”

The barmaid finally came over and Cassidy ordered a gin and tonic. Fiona tried to catch her eye, but it seemed like that just wasn’t the way the night was going to go. “No, and it’s really sad,” Cassidy said, fiddling with a beer mat. “Actually, that’s the one of the things that drew Zayn and I together. He’s in this business not just because he’s really good, but because he absolutely fucking loves it. Some of the guys at that studio are talented, sure, but you can tell that graphic design isn’t really their passion. They’d rather be surfing in Australia or designing video games, not something different every day.”

“How does that work, exactly?” Fiona asked, curious. Zayn didn’t talk much about his job, and so she’d never had a clear picture of what it was. Something to do with art and computers. She knew even less about how him and Cassidy got together, since they’d already been dating for two years when she met them. According to Niall, they hadn’t been so perfect when he first came into their lives. Apparently Cassidy and Louis fought a lot back then, and her mum wasn’t the biggest fan of Zayn’s tattoos and smoking habit. Fiona guessed that she wasn’t aware of her own daughter’s little ink collection. When she hooked one knee over the other, the edges of the Picasso-inspired piece on Cassidy’s right thigh peeked out from the hem of her dress.

“The studio gets hired out for different things,” Cassidy said, sipping her drink. “They’ve done stuff for advertising agencies, movies, online magazines, all sorts of things. I’m not totally sure what the job entails, to be honest. I need to be able to pick up a canvas and decide where it goes on a wall, or how to make the sequence of paintings and sculptures and stuff flow right as you walk through the exhibit. Hands-on sort of stuff. Zayn’s job is all about imagination.”

They rejoined the boys a few minutes later, but it seemed that everyone was ready to call it a night. This particular Student Discount Thursday wasn’t going that great for any of them. Louis and Niall were set on going back to the house, insisting that the best way to end a shitty night was with more beer and video games. Fiona found herself getting on the bus with the rest of them, her brain humming at a pleasant level, and even letting Niall lean into her in his overly-affectionate drunken state.

The house was on the opposite side of campus from Fiona and Niall’s flat, in a residential neighbourhood populated with families and couples, rather than students. It was a gorgeous old thing that Fiona loved, aside from the fact that Harry lived there. The ground floor was open plan, and she’d only been upstairs where Louis and Zayn’s bedrooms were a few times, but never as far as Harry’s room on the third level, for obvious reasons.

While Zayn and Cassidy went upstairs to change out of their fancy dress, Louis grabbed beers from the kitchen, and Niall and Fiona settled onto the massive leather sofa. Fiona, in a better mood than she had been all night despite the disappointment regarding the pretty barmaid, threw her legs across Niall’s lap and stretched her arms behind her head, turning her head to side so that her nose brushed against the words tattooed on the inside of her arm.

“You’re drunk,” Niall observed, pleased. “Louis! Come and have a look at this!”

“What’s up?” Louis asked, strolling in with his arms full. He handed each of them a beer and flopped onto the armchair to the left of the sofa, which was equally as comfortable.

“Look at Fiona, she’s actually smiling!”

“I can see that, Niall,” Louis replied. He grinned at Fiona. “Doing all right there, Fiona?”

She flipped him the bird without lifting her head, then let her arm fall over her stomach. Zayn and Cassidy made it downstairs a few minutes later, taking up the remaining space on the sofa next to Niall. Fiona’s feet ended up in Zayn’s lap. Louis fired up the Playstation and turned the volume was up to full, the menu screen music blasting through the house.

It took about thirty seconds for Harry to get downstairs, rubbing his eyes and complaining about the time. Fiona couldn’t see him from her horizontal position, but she bet he looked like a tired, grumpy mess.

“Stop whining and join us!” Louis cried, while mashing the buttons on his controller and apparently doing something, because Niall groaned and started furiously pressing buttons on his.

“I’ve got work tomorrow,” Harry said, still somewhere near the doorway.

“Yeah, in the afternoon. Honestly, Harold, you’re the second youngest person here and you act like you’ve got ten years on everyone.”

“More like a retired old man,” Zayn grunted. “He went to bed at, like, eight the other day.”

“I needed to go in early and meet the suppliers!” Harry defended, his voice growing closer. He stomped around the sofa and sat down on the remaining piece of furniture, an ottoman, the finishing piece of their living room set. Fiona glanced over, only to see that he was dressed in nothing but a pair of joggers, his hair unruly and falling into his face. Harry pushed it back with an impatient, but weary, hand. “So sorry for being favoured for the next promotion at work, Zayn.”

“You’re getting promoted?” Niall asked, sipping his beer.

“Dunno, maybe.” Harry was slouched over, head practically between his knees. He barely lifted it to look at Niall, but his eyes skimmed right over the blonde and landed on Fiona, her legs still stretched across Niall and Zayn’s laps. He smirked sleepily, letting out a breathy laugh. “Comfortable over there, Fee?”

“For your information,” Fiona began to think up a retort, then realized there was nothing clever to say. She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I am very comfortable.”

“Why’d you have to go and do that, Harry?” Niall asked. They all looked at him, confused. “What? Fiona was smiling until he came down here and ruined it.”

Fiona slapped Niall’s arm. “I was not.”

“You were positively beaming,” Louis said helpfully, sending a tight-lipped grin Harry’s way. “Well done, mate. Always manage to sour the mood.”

“Just Fee’s,” Harry said cheerfully, heaving himself up. “Right, I’m going back to bed, my job is done.”

“Dickhead!” Fiona shouted at him as he left.

“Only for you, love!” he called back. “And turn down the music!”

+++

2 Months Ago

“I wasn’t flirting with him, Wren, for fuck’s sake,” Fiona stomped after her girlfriend, catching her arm. “I can hardly stand the guy, much less be attracted to him.”

The blonde whirled around, her eyes flashing. “All you do is flirt! For months I’ve been watching you two, the way you argue about everything and all the looks you give each other.”

“Looks? What looks?”

Wren laughed bitterly, her eyes on the street as cars sped past them. To any random passersby, the situation might seem obvious; two girls arguing over a boy was nothing unusual. Fiona didn’t think the fact that she and Wren were a couple arguing over her alleged flirting with said boy was particularly unusual either, but to some people — whom she generally didn’t like to associate with — it was. It had recently come to her attention that these people included her father and, to a lesser extent, her mother. Fiona was having a hard time dealing with it, but Wren didn’t seem to understand or sympathize. “Just forget about them, they don’t care about you,” was her advice.

“Don’t act like you don’t fucking know,” Wren hissed. “You never...you never look at me like that.”

“Like what, Wren?” Fiona’s hand slipped down Wren’s arm and she tried to grasp her hand, but Wren reeled back.

“Like you actually care,” she said, then shook her head. “No, that isn’t it. Me, this, us, it isn’t exciting for you anymore. Now that you’ve got me, you think you can just relax. But with him, you never relax. You’re always full of…”

“Full of what?” Fiona asked slowly.

“Fire.” Wren’s voice was so low, Fiona almost didn’t hear her. But then she lifted her head, and her face was filled with disappointment. “Look, I couldn’t believe it when you were seeing that dickhead, Stephen. But now—”

“I wasn’t seeing Stephen.”

“Would you let me speak, please?” Wren exclaimed, chest heaving. “You were doing whatever with Stephen, and now him. I don’t even like blokes and I know you’ve got shit taste. I just don’t understand it, Fiona. How can you and I be together when you’re off chasing lads like Harry, who’re total arseholes? Is that why you like me? Because I’m just as horrible as them?”

Fiona couldn’t tell Wren that it was what had attracted her in the first place. It was so much more than that now, but back then, their mutual dislike for the world was what had drawn them together. Or it was for Fiona. Maybe Wren had always seen things differently. It made her wonder what else she had failed to notice, or failed to feel. That was always the problem, it seemed.

“You aren’t like them,” Fiona insisted. “You don’t attack people’s weaknesses just for your own enjoyment. Guys like Harry and Stephen, they think it’s funny to tease and mess around. It’s a joke to them.”

“But I’m still horrible. Shit. We both are, aren’t we?” Wren laughed, raking a hand through her hair. She made a face. “I really don’t understand why you like boys, Fiona.”

“They aren’t complicated,” Fiona replied. She finally managed to take Wren’s hand, and they wandered back toward the pub. Fiona lit a cigarette and felt her heartbeat go back to normal, a sense of relief washing over her. She and Wren may have been angry people, but they didn’t fight with each other. What worried her was that Wren’s outburst seemed to be the sudden release of emotion she’d been keeping inside for some time. She tried to think about all the little things, things she might have disregarded before. There had to be an answer somewhere, she wouldn’t settle with accusations of being a ‘heartless bitch’ or having commitment issues. Not again. Not with her.

Wren was restless, pacing the immediate area around Fiona, their linked hands keeping her from wandering off. The cigarette dangled precariously from Fiona’s lips as she watched her girlfriend, still feeling the anxiety from earlier lingering in the pit of her stomach. Harry came out of the pub then, one hand tangled in his hair and the other swinging at his side. Always the worst timing with that one. He glanced over at them, his smile twisting into a frown.

“Smoking’s bad for you, Fee.”

+++

Fiona had spent the last eight hours dealing with indecisive customers, listening to her coworkers complain about said indecisive customers, and spilling pop on her polo, which was already in need of a deep cleaning. The salty scent of popcorn felt like it had been permanently infused into her skin and hair. It was Friday night, arguably the busiest day that the cinema had during the week (but still non-comparable to Saturdays) and everyone working wanted to be somewhere else, Fiona included. She was even sort of looking forward to Liam’s party tomorrow night, which just showed how eager she was to have the weekend off.

Her sleep that week had been uneven at best. Fiona hated the way it came in waves, some nights more restful than others, some where she couldn’t sleep at all. During the day she had to stop and get coffee more than once, and keeping her eyes open in lectures was proving to be a difficult task. Everyone had noticed, of course, but she only got gentle reminders from Allison to drink some chamomile before bed and encouragement from Zayn on the benefits of midday naps. It felt like they were all being more careful than usual, but maybe she was just too tired to notice any other changes in behaviour.

On the bus ride home Fiona couldn’t stop yawning. This was what it felt like just before a really long, deep sleep, the kind where you woke up without realizing how long you’d been out and it felt like five minutes when it had really been twelve hours. They happened once a month or so, usually after a bad week like this. Fiona was glad when they came on weekends, because she didn’t have to feel bad about missing her morning classes.

It was a struggle to get up to her flat without drifting off in the lift. Fiona made it to the door, and paused to listen for voices inside. But she realized this was pointless, because whoever was over would probably just let her sleep, thinking it would make her better somehow. Fiona kicked off her trainers and hung up her coat, then slipped into her room quietly. The telly was on down the hall; Niall was most likely doing coursework with the news or sports on in the background. She didn’t hear any voices.

At twenty past eleven the next morning, Fiona woke up. Her body was energized and her mind alert, and she felt better than she had in weeks. Even Thursday night, when she’d been drunk and happy, it was a temporary feeling. Thanks to Harry, her mood had been sour for the rest of the night. She’d woken up yesterday morning after just an hour of actual sleep and barely made it through her classes and eight hour shift.

But now, with the whole day ahead (for the most part) and Liam’s party that night, Fiona had a feeling she’d either be more productive, or more bored than she had for the last few weeks. It wasn’t likely anyone would be around today; Niall had some kind of Model UN thing, why it was on a Saturday she had no idea, and wouldn’t be back until tonight. Allison worked Saturdays. Harry probably did too, Fiona wasn’t sure. Unless she felt like calling up Zayn to hang out, she had the flat to herself.

That was until she came out of the corridor and there was Harry, placing a perfectly poached egg (if Fiona thought her poached eggs were good, Harry’s were probably a million times better) on a plate with spinach, sausages, and toast. Though she’d let him ruin her mood on Thursday night, she’d been drunk then, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again. So she went over with the sole intention of making a cup of tea and going back to her room as quickly as possible. His food smelled heavenly, but she was still annoyed with him, so she put on the kettle and prepared a cup without so much as a greeting.

As usual, Harry had other ideas. “Didn’t hear you come in last night,” he said, his tone conversational. He put salt and pepper on his egg, then went over to the sofa. Fiona didn’t say anything, remaining in the kitchen while she waited for the kettle to boil. “Actually, this is the first I’ve seen you today. Sleep well?”

Whatever he was playing at, she wasn’t going to let it ruin her mood. Fiona fiddled with the tea bag, twisting the string around the mug handle and unravelling it again and again. Across the room, she could feel Harry’s gaze float back to her every few seconds, like he was still waiting for her to reply.

“Massive party tonight,” Harry said. Fiona pursed her lips, staring pointedly at the kettle and willing it to boil faster. “I bet Liam Payne is looking forward to seeing you.”

Fiona couldn’t help it, she threw a dirty look across the room. It only made Harry grin wider, knowing he’d hit a nerve.

“How much longer are you going to make the poor boy wait? He really wants to shag you, Fee. It must be torturing him to keep getting rejected, and yet, you must be giving him some kind of sign that you’re interested, because he keeps coming back. Perhaps Stephen told him something about you.”

At that, she whirled around so her body faced him completely, rather than just a tilt of her head. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Harry shrugged, setting his plate down and shifting toward her on the sofa, hands loosely clasped between his parted knees. “To my knowledge, there’s definitely some connection between you and Stephen starting that...arrangement you had, and Liam asking you out, yeah? And, I mean, clearly he thought you were the type to sleep around, because it’s not like he stopped while you and Wren were together.”

“He’ll get the idea one of these days,” she said flippantly, hoping it would sway Harry away from furthering the subject. It wasn’t that Harry had been paying attention, because Harry paid attention to a lot of things. He had an eye for detail, which came with the whole cookery territory, but also bled into his daily life. It was that he’d made connections Fiona herself didn’t like thinking about, much less being reminded of.

“Or, you could just fuck him and be done with it.”

“Be done with it?” she echoed, folding her arms over her chest. “I seriously doubt fucking him is going to solve the problem.”

“What, you think he’s in love with you or something?”

She shrugged.

“I think he knows better than to fall in love with you, Fee,” Harry said, giving her a knowledgeable, close-lipped smile that made his dimples cut deep into his cheeks.

“Yeah?”

“Or maybe he doesn’t. I guess he’s got to be pretty thick to still be trying to get with you after all this time, so he probably doesn’t notice the fact that you’re a cold-hearted bitch!” Harry said this last part with exaggerated, sarcastic delight.

“Your opinion, as always, is enlightening. Thank you,” Fiona replied flatly. She refused to give into his provocation. He was always looking for a fight, and this time she wasn’t going to give it to him. Maybe if she took the high ground now, she could to it again next time, and the time after that. Then Harry would just be a fly going round her head, whose irritating buzzing she could no longer hear.

The kettle whistled then, and the second she turned away, Fiona let her carefully constructed blank face fall. Odd as it was, when she was already in a bad mood, it was easier to ignore Harry. It wasn’t like he could make her feel any worse then. But the few times her shoulders felt light, his comments had a sharper sting. Either way, she’d decided to pursue a path of indifference where Harry was concerned, for the sake of her own weary soul.