Quarter-Life

“When I’m drivin’ in my car, and that man comes on the radio,” Harry murmurs along with the song playing on Danny’s phone, sipping on the iced coffee Layla gave him as he waits for his Euro and World History study guides to finish printing. She couldn’t wait with him because she promised her younger sister she’d ring her to help with a speech; Amanda Robinson is a first-year Economics student at Princeton.

“He’s tellin’ me more and more...”

“I didn’t know you knew this one,” Danny remarks without looking at Harry. This morning, he’s under the table, trying to figure out what’s wrong with his computer while Harry uses the printer in his office. He’d have his own if he didn’t have to pay for it with his own money.

“Everyone knows this song,” Harry tells him as he keeps bouncing his leg to the beat.

“Yeah,” Danny starts, and peeks up from underneath just enough for the massive bun on his head and the freckles under his eyes to be visible. “But not everyone knows the Britney version.”

With a wink, he’s back under the desk.

“I can’t get no...” Harry hums the rest of the lyrics as he greedily swallows his coffee.

“You’re such a fucking queen, H.”

“Would you rather I act like Niall and complain about it the whole time?” He proposes through a chuckle. “Oi, me head’s gonna burst if y’keep this up, y’know. Put on somethin’ with soul, a li’l Otis—anything that’s not this godforsak-.”

“Stop,” Danny groans and pokes his head up again, eyes narrowed. “That was terrifying. Why are you so good at that?”

Harry loves all four of his uni-roommates-turned-brothers, but he has the biggest soft spot for Niall, the equally-blunt but much more energetic Irish kid he was assigned to live with when he started at uni. He’d had a good number of guy friends in his youth, but he never bared so much of himself with them as he did with Niall (because although those guys were present for many of his firsts, they never spoke about them).

Their bond grew out of that special fresher experience, the one where you’re doing your best to speed up your maturation now that you’re out of your parents’ house but you’re secretly terrified. The first time Harry cried over the pressure his father was putting on him to major in finance was atop Niall’s bed at two in the morning after a day full of final exams; Niall held him tight the entire time, silently listening, and did so until they dozed off. He woke up cuddling the then-blonde boy, and felt in his heart that they were going to be friends for life.

Harry and Niall went on to share loads of other firsts: first uni party (and every one after that), first time kissing another guy (each other), first time traveling outside the UK, first pub brawl, first time starting a microwave fire, first time dropping acid...

They also shared the most significant firsts to date: first adult apartment, first time having sex (Niall’s specifically, for which Harry—having passed out in the front seat of Liam’s beat-up truck—was unfortunately present while Niall and Louise Birmingham fucked wildly in the truck’s bed), first major relationships and first major heartbreaks, first pregnancy scares, first adult jobs, first car accidents, first time traveling outside of Europe, and their first actual adult apartment.

The list is immense, and so is Harry’s love for his best mate—even when he burns dinner like he did last night. Harry was crying into Rhiannon’s fur during the beginning montage in Up, and Niall had forgotten about the chicken on the stove to record it “for Gem and the lads”.

Harry shakes his head as the printer ceases, so he stands to retrieve the study guides he put together on Niall’s laptop last night. “I’ve lived with him for most my adult life—reckon I know him better than I know myself.”

That’s mostly true these days, he thinks, and pockets his pink flash-drive.

“Do you think you could take him back, then?” Danny’s head turns as his gaze follows Harry from the obnoxiously-big printer, back to the blue settee across the desk. Harry just stares at him after he tucks the hundred or so study guides and his briefcase under his arm.

“Like, back to Ireland?”

“Wherever you’d like, though culinary school’s a good idea.” Danny pops back under the desk, but is quick to stand up again. He sits on his chair, most likely waiting for the desktop to turn on. “He’s been driving me cuckoo-bananas about you sneaking off with Layla and giving her his half of your lunch, so I’ve had to give him half of my lunch because at twenty-five, he still doesn’t know how to make a fucking sandwich!”

Harry chuckles. “Only if you’re willing to finance that.”

The first bell rings just as Danny’s computer turns on, though only for a moment. It makes a weird hissing noise, and that combined with Danny’s growing frustration is enough for Harry to chuck his empty cup into the office bin with a goodbye. It’s rare for Danny to be in a bad mood, unless he’s having trouble with whatever he’s trying to repair, in which case the entire room’s mood shifts.

“Where are you going?”

“As much as I’d love to be getting paid for this,” he waves a hand about in the air, “I do have my own job to do. Thanks for letting me use up your printer ink, though.”

Harry’s already walking away from the door when Danny calls him again, so he peeks his head through the gap between the door and its frame.

“You promised me you’d come out for happy hour tonight,” he says with a pout. Harry confirms that he and Niall will be going after they drop off their rent payment, before he leaves him with a wave—but that’s a lie.

They withdrew the money from their accounts last night, and Harry dropped the envelope through the slot in the super’s door on the first floor this morning. However, if they’re going out for drinks tonight, they need to secure money for said drinks, and there’s only one way to do that: the jar.

Out through the library doors and buzzing past students through the garden between the library and building D, Harry makes sure to greet whoever sings their hello to him without stopping. The amount of kids who know his name still takes him by surprise considering he only teaches ninth and tenth graders, and half of the girls who wish him good mornings are definitely neither.

They remind him of the students he worked with when he was Dr. Thurmond’s TA. However, those girls (and that one boy named George he felt bad saying no to) were of age, and because he was only a year or two older than them, they called him Harry instead of Mr. Styles. Thankfully, none of the Greene East kids have burst into his classroom wearing slinky outfits to ask for extra credit or tutoring, though an extra credit rebound romp with a Literature major named Cassidy remains one of his favorite pieces of wank material—she tasted like cherries and had a maddeningly firm grip.

“Ciao, ‘arry,” he hears as he literally almost runs into Sergei Biondi, the fragrant Biology teacher and cross-country coach Jo’s been trying to befriend, while successfully wedging himself between a pole and a group of kids in track suits.

Harry doesn’t stop for him, but he does give him a friendly two-finger wave before he enters the hallway his classroom’s in, grateful to be in a hurry because Sergei’s underarms look way slimier than Harry’s own hands.

He’s rushing more than usual this morning because he overslept by a full thirty minutes yesterday. He’d only slept two hours total, and even though Daisy woke him up before she left yoga, he still had a close call as he arrived between the first bells of the morning. That left Layla to meet him by his classroom door with a watery cup, and himself as the butt of her joke for the rest of the day.

“Guess Jo and I can’t call you Mr. Punctual behind your back anymore” rings in his ears, and he’s determined not to repeat that mistake.

When he walks in, he promptly tosses the briefcase onto the desk so he can wipe his hands on his spotted button-up. He doesn’t say anything to the students that are already there; they’ve been trained, probably by example, to get to first period early. At least he’s done that.

What he hasn’t done when he gets to his first period European History class (arguably his favorite of the six, but he won’t ever admit it) is separate the World History study guides from the European History study guides like he should have. When Vanessa Shah quietly approaches him as he finishes organizing the papers into six stacks, he simply stares at her like she’s got a third eye in the middle of her spotty forehead.

“Sorry?” He feels bad when she sighs and rolls her eyes because he’s still reeling from his organizing frenzy. “No, I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I wanted to know if I could switch seats with Jake,” she says just as softly as before, tucking a thin braid behind her ear. Madison’s right behind her and scrolling through her phone absentmindedly, so Harry tries to keep his voice just as low in case Vanessa’s request is related to the ongoing tension in the front of the room.

“Um,” he starts, still eyeing Madison. “Sure. Can you put one of these on everyone’s desks?”

Vanessa lets a flashy giggle out as the second bell rings, turning to look behind her briefly before she obliges him. He’s only asked her because knows his sweaty hands have already mucked up the papers enough, and his muscles are still aching after yesterday’s arm/chest workouts; he could use a four-dollar margarita.

“Jake, switch seats with me,” Vanessa purrs as she waltzes over with a study guide. Her transparent messenger bag is already slung over her shoulder, and her tanned arm is outstretched with a paper for him. Jake, the skinheaded boy with terrible handwriting, groans like he doesn’t want to switch, though he gets up anyway.

Harry idly watches as the boy grabs his patched backpack with the same hand he uses to take the study guide he spent all night typing out. When Jake slams the bag down on what used to be Vanessa’s desk, hers in first period even though Harry doesn’t assign seats, he pokes Madison on the shoulder.

“Hey, Madi, I heard you’re going to the carnival with Trey.”

Madison turns around to say something, and though Harry doesn’t hear what, he thinks her mumbled tone sounds pretty glum. She looks it, too; eyes glistening like she’s on the verge of tears throughout his lecture on Catherine the Great. At the end of the period, he manages to remind them that their homework is due tomorrow morning, though he can't take his eyes off the droplet on the tip of Madison's nose.

Before he can get a chance to ask her for his now-usual morning horoscope, wanting to gauge if she’s alright though it’s not his place, Angelo posts up on Harry’s desk to ramble about The Graduate and his thoughts on it. He watched it for the first time last night after finding out that “those two nerds” were heavily featured on the soundtrack.

Harry forgets all about teary-eyed Madison when Angelo uses the movie’s plot to argue that he “has a shot” with Layla— Miss Robinson, and it’s enough to make Harry choke on his own saliva.

He turns around from the attendance record on his computer. “What?”

Angelo’s playing with the cord on his white Nas hoodie when he looks to Harry with a confused look on his face. “You don’t think I’m her type?”

“No,” Harry tells him, leaning back in his chair and tucking his hands behind his loose hair. “You’re, like, fifteen.”

“Sixteen,” Angelo corrects him. “What’s her type, then?”

Harry’s pulling on his lips as he tries to wonder what Layla’s type would be. They’ve never talked about anything below the surface; more about inheriting their dads’ music tastes, cigarette brands, coffee purism, and out-of-date textbooks.

All Harry really knows about Layla is that she’s funny and aloof in a pleasant way, she smells like pears, and mostly wears neutrals. She has a cynical air to her that art-types tend to have, and she even she named her dog after some French painter, but thankfully she’s not twatty in the slightest. Maybe she’s into fellow art snobs, or just Type-A people in general like Liam and Niall’s old roommate Silas.

Both, Silas when Harry knew him and Liam, only date busybody women. Liam’s long-distance girlfriend Macy (an Australian model he met at a BBC charity gala) seems like she’d be friends with people Layla knows. Fashion types mix with art vendors, Harry reckons, though he doesn’t know much about that world. He’d stuck to parties at the flat he shared with his friends and sneaking into graduate seminars instead of figuring that out for himself in uni.

“How should I know?” He finally asks because he doesn’t want to enable the crush, anyway.

“You’re friends with her,” Angelo says. He stays put on Harry’s desk despite the teeny freshmen walking in for second-period World History.

“Yeah, no,” he chuckles, referring to the nine-year age gap.

“You sure, dude? I always see you guys together in the mornings, and at lun-”

Harry holds up a hand. “Yes, I’m friends with her—kind of—but you’re too young for her.”

“It worked for Dustin Hoffman!”

“No, it didn’t! Mrs. Robinson put him through hell, and besides, he doesn’t even get with her at the end. He gets with her daughter.” He laughs as the kids continue to trickle in, looking away from Angelo to stop a chubby girl in a Hello Kitty hoodie walking past the desk. She’s wide-eyed as he asks her hand out a stack of study guides; Harry does so because she has yet to speak up in class and thinks she could use the mingling... and because he’s lost count of how many times he’s wiped his disgusting fucking hands on his jeans in the last two hours.

She’s hesitant when she takes them from Angelo’s outstretched hand (he beat Harry to it), and moves slowly about the filling room.

“So?” Angelo asks as he blindly unties the knot he made with his hoodie’s strings

“So, nothing! For starters, it’s illegal, and you should be focusing on girls—or boys, if that’s the case—your own age.”

Angelo merely laughs rowdily, like Harry’s just said the funniest thing he’s ever heard, and it nearly startles the papers out of the chubby girl’s hands. Second period is the quietest of the six; Angelo’s presence, at six-foot-one with a massive head of hair, combined with Harry’s enthusiasm for classical empires is terror on their meek souls.

“You’re a trip, Styles.”

“I’ve heard—now get out. You haven’t been to Chemistry in ages, and if John Kessler sends me another email about it, I’m going to have to revoke your pass.”

Angelo clicks his tongue in disapproval, but he stands to leave anyway as the second bell rings. He turns to smile at Harry, pulling the crumpled, yellow pass he was given a week ago from his hoodie’s pocket and pointing to it. “You drew an infinity sign under ‘time’. You can’t revoke infinity, my man.”



“Where... could it...” Harry’s chewing on the inside of his cheek as he examines the small, cluttered living room. The jar is hiding somewhere—rather, has been hidden somewhere, but he doesn’t remember where, and he’s torn the flat apart looking for it.

He would never hide it in Niall’s room because, technically, it’s not Niall’s jar. He would never hide it in his own room because knowing himself, he’d probably take it to a tattoo parlor on a late night should impulse strike. There’s no place to hide it in the bathroom because the sink is one of those old standalones, so the living room is the only place left.

Yet, it’s not in the old, wooden dresser Silas found on the side of the road years ago, where the telly and VHS/DVD player sit. It’s not on the massive bookcase towering beside it, holding the entirety of Niall’s insane movie collection, as well the books Harry doesn’t want on his bedroom floor for fear that Rhiannon will tear them up if she’s in a bad mood. It’s not in between the couch...

Niall’s voice rings out from the bathroom as Harry realizes he hasn’t checked that spot. “Y’find it yet, mate?”

After bolting from the bookcase toward the couch to check in between the cushions, he pauses to gently lift Rhiannon off before kneeling to the carpet and tearing them off.

“You’re going to knock the—fuckin’ hell, Styles,” he hears Niall groan as he flings the third and final cushion behind him, but it slips through his fingers and he winces when he hears the half-empty water glass on the coffee table fall.

He sits up, resting on the back of his bare ankles, and palms at his face because the jar isn’t there, either.

“I can’t find it,” Harry moans and turns to face Niall while still holding on to his cheeks, pulling down at his bottom eyelashes. Niall picks up one of the cushions and holds it out for him, but Harry has a hard time gripping on to the chunky, leather pads because his hands are sweating.

Niall’s beside him to help in a moment, though he pokes fun at the sweat Harry’s palms have left on the cushion he couldn’t even hold up.

Harry glares at him because Niall knows he can’t help it. “Fuck off.”

“What about the kitchen?”

Harry clicks his tongue at the idea, but then, suddenly, remembers tucking the jar into the cupboard above the stove. He also remembers drunkenly knocking a takeaway carton onto the floor as he did so, and stepping on a scorching-hot bao with his bare foot. His stomach rumbles at the thought of dumplings, but he pushes past it as he steps over Rhiannon and makes his way into the kitchen.

They can’t afford any more takeaway ‘til next month anyway, and they’re supposed to meet Danny and Layla in a half hour. Rhiannon zooms between Harry’s bare feet, beating him into the kitchen, but running out as quickly as she came. She tends to mirror his energy, and her buzz reflects the uneasiness Harry’s been pretending doesn’t exist.

He slides open the creaky door and reaches in, his head too big to peek into the slim cabinet. On the tips of his toes, a throaty blech leaves his mouth when his fingers brush over what is positively a dead cockroach when he finds what he’s looking for.

“The only way we’re getting anything...” Harry starts, closing the cupboard door and walking out into the living room to find Niall sidestepping on a towel he’s draped over the water on the carpet. "The only way we’re getting anything out of this jar is if we break it.”

Niall breathes out a high-pitched giggle, sounding slightly amused, though Harry can’t tell if it’s because of his suggestion or the way Rhiannon is curling around his bare feet. “How d’you suppose we do that? You glued it shut, no?”

“Yeah,” Harry shrugs. “We can take a hammer to it, though I don’t think we have a hammer, but we can break it with something else.”

“We definitely don’t have a hammer,” Niall confirms.

The fact that they even have a hot glue gun is baffling, but Harry’s grateful that Niall’s last fling, Katherine, made jewelry for a living and left it behind. However, that’s the only thing Harry will ever like about Katherine Taylor because along with the glue gun, she would bring her pieces with her when she came over. Rhiannon choked on stray beads nearly every day for the entire two months Katherine and Niall were together last winter.

He was mid-kitty-Heimlich when Niall called about breaking it off with her, and it was so ugly that she never bothered to come back for the glue gun.

“We just have to break it, mate.”

“How much d’you reckon’s in there, anyway?” Niall wonders aloud, reaching out to take the jar and hold it over his head. Harry’s thinks there are at least a hundred dollars in there, because he’s certain he made more than that over the summer holiday at the restaurant, Ugly Mug.

He drunkenly decided on the safe jar after they came up short on their utilities bill at the end June. They’d had to shower at Daisy’s flat twenty minutes away, and though it did wonders for the blossoming relationship (Daisy and Niall took to showering together), Harry didn’t enjoy showing up to the restaurant a pasty mess (because those shared showers lasted ages).

“I don’t know, like, maybe three hundred? I put my tips in there every night in case of an emergency...” Harry trails off when a little pang in his stomach reminds him that drinks are definitely not an emergency, but he promised Danny and doesn’t want to upset him. 

Sadly, there’s no way to keep his promise or retrieve the money inside it without breaking the jar. It’s as if Niall can tell because he frowns; Harry feels like he’s only reflecting his own expression.

“It’s for the best yeah?” Harry only answers with a glum nod, and Niall holds the jar out for him. “D’you want to do the honors? They are your tips.” 

Harry takes the little mason jar, and kisses it softly before he realizes he still doesn’t have a way to break it. “Wait—a tool. I need a tool.”

Niall groans impatiently, and grabs the closest thing: the telly remote control sat on the coffee table.

“This isn’t going to work, mate.”

“I need a pint, man, just try it,” Niall pleads, and tucks a fist under his chin to watch as Harry follows his instructions.

Rhiannon lets out a scratchy yelp when he starts to hit the jar with the taped-up remote. Harry’s using so much force that he can feel the vein in his neck jutting out, and it ticks along with his pulse. He stops trying when he sees that there isn’t even a single crack on the jar—not that there should be. It’s plastic against glass, after all.

“I don’t even know why...” Harry starts, dropping the remote to the floor and deciding to try unscrewing the lid instead. He’s never been good with handiwork, so he’s expecting he did a shit job of gluing it on as he attempts to twist for what feels like forever.

“Let me try.”

“No, I think I got it.”

Harry strains again, but as per his new normal, his hands are slick with sweat. He hisses when he drags his palm against the lid, feeling the stinging of a burn he’s given himself. Then, he thinks to the only cool party trick in his repertoire, and starts looking around the living room for his white lighter.

“Maybe I can pry it open with a lighter, like a beer bottle, right?”

Niall groans again as he takes the towel off the carpet and chucks it onto the couch. “Let me try!”

“It could work!” Harry frowns, clutching the jar to his chest and trying to remember where he’s left his pack of cigarettes. He hasn’t smoked in an hour or so, his last cigarette had before he started looking for the jar. 

“I need a fucking pint, mate, it’s been an entire—just give me the fucking jar.” Niall reaches for the jar, but Harry feels like his idea’s their best bet, and steps backward.

As he’s trying to hold on to the jar, raising it in the air away from the impatient Irishman with pint-withdrawal, his fingers betray him. Niall snatches the jar, and blasts it to the floor, startling both Harry and Rhiannon when it thuds between their feet. She hisses at Niall, making Harry laugh along with the fact that he thinks plastic can break glass, and that glass can break atop carpet.

“Are you that pressed? You’re trying to defy physics for a pint, mate. ’S a little desperate.” Harry picks up the stuffed jar, and takes it into the kitchen, mindful of Rhiannon in front of him, and a rambling Niall close behind them.

“We’re poor, Styles! We’re poor, and I’ve had an impossibly hard day!”

“Of what?” He purses his lips when Niall gives him a pointed look. “What? You watched Chinatown six times today; that’s hardly work.”

“I still had to teach—on an empty stomach, thanks to you,” Niall counters, referring to the turkey sandwich Harry split with Layla this afternoon, “and D’s been driving me up a fuckin’ wall about Thanksgiving, or whatever, for the last two d-”

“Thanksgiving, with her parents? You’re going to meet her parents?” Harry presses the jar to his chest. Niall’s never met Daisy’s parents, so this development excites Harry because he’s a big fan of their relationship, even if it means he’ll be alone for the holiday... though that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

He could use five days of undisturbed solitude; no sex marathons through the walls, no angry strumming, no burnt chicken in the sink. Rhiannon snoozing on his shoulder while he watches a Harry Potter marathon in his pants sounds better whatever a holiday with Daisy’s strict, Haitian parents is like.

Niall (therefore, Harry) has yet to meet them, but the two know that they live in the city and are completely unaware of what Daisy’s really up to in Brooklyn. They think she’s working an office job, that her Sociology degree is proving to be of significance, that she’s celibate—they’re in for a rude awakening when she shows up toting a crazy Irishman with zero filter. There’s no doubt that, at the very least, he’ll be spilling the beans about her burlesque gig considering their love story starts at The Cage.

“That’s big.”

Niall grunts and lets out a tense sigh while he shakes his head. “I just want a fucking pint,” Niall says and wiggles the fingers of his open hand.

“What about the whiskey?” Harry asks, referring to the bottle behind the coffeemaker neither of them know how to use. Niall leaves his hand outstretched when he cocks his head to the side.

“What?”

Harry nods behind him. “The whiskey back here—you know, in case of emergency.”

“This isn’t an emergency,” Niall simply tells him. “Now... give me the fucking jar.”

Harry stares at him, at the red on the tops of his ears that lets him know Niall’s anxious, and decides he won’t press the issue. Niall wiggles his fingers with more urgency before Harry silently hands over the jar, back to chewing on the inside of his cheek when Niall thanks him with a smile.

He knew it was coming the moment they walked into the kitchen considering Niall’s impatience in the living room. Still, Harry flinches harshly when the glass shatters on the kitchen floor, as does Rhiannon before she darts out. Niall seems to deflate, and sounds like it as he picks up the odd ten and twenty notes from the floor.

“We out for a pint, then? Reckon you should sweep before we leave,” He says as he motions to the shards on the floor. Harry sighs and pushes both hands into his tangled curls, not even bothering to answer him back because the pressure that’s been steadily building in his chest is inching up towards his throat. “I’m going to put my shoes on. Careful y’don’t cut your foot, man.”

Harry tongues the crater he’s chewed into his cheek as he watches Niall walk out of the kitchen with the notes cradled against his chest, and presses the tip of one foot to the floor as he moves to reach for the broom tucked into the space between the refrigerator and the countertop. He’s still trying to process Niall’s desperation to forget about Daisy’s Thanksgiving request as he sweeps, as well as the sudden heaviness pushing his lungs apart.

He decides he’ll pretend it’s not there; maybe this is the way he should start coping, he thinks when he pushes his feet into his boots. If suppressing things (at least in the moment) works for Niall, it could work for Harry. On the bus ride to the bar, however, Liam calls Niall just before his radio show starts, and effectively shits on Harry’s plan.

The two split Niall's earbuds to listen to Liam gush over Louis and Cara's baby news, and how it's moved him to ask Macy to move from Melbourne to London and close the year-long gap between them. Harry doesn't contribute because he feels like if he opens his mouth for anything that isn't a cigarette, he'll vomit.