A few weeks later.
“Hey babe, what’s up?” I typed, adding a winking face.
“Oh same old, same old,” came the reply, “btw I’m lovin’ the babe ;)”
A grin tugged at my lips. “Good. I guess I’ll be calling you that more often.”
“You better!” The message popped up instantly. “Hey, you know what I’ve realized? It’s been weeks and we don’t even know each other’s names.”
A flush of warmth spread through me. It was true. “Well, that’ll have to change! I’m…typing.”
I paused, glancing at the screen, biting my bottom lip nervously. Three weeks. Three weeks since I’d started browsing this dating site, and this girl—this stranger—was the first person I’d actually connected with. Part of me wanted to blurt out that I was Louis Tomlinson, from One Direction. But another, bigger part screamed *don’t*. So I lied. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe if I hadn’t lied, none of this would have happened. But I did lie, and it *did* happen. It happened alright, it happened big time.
“Well, that’ll have to change! I’m Jamie Flynn.”
“…”
She was typing. An awful long time typing. It felt like hours, though it was probably only five minutes. Finally, her message appeared.
“Cool name! :) I’m Charlie Moore.”
Louis smiled to himself. Charlie. A cute name. Charlotte, maybe?
“That’s cute <3”
“Aw, you’re making me blush! Lol.”
“Haha, I’d love to see that blush in person sometime…”
“Really?”
“Well yeah… hey, you know what? We should meet up or something :)”
“…”
I watched nervously as Charlie typed her reply. I didn’t know why I was so attached to her already, but we had been talking all the time lately, and I really liked her. It would be great to meet her in person. I really hoped she wouldn’t find out too soon.
“Okay! Sounds fun, when and where?”
I paused, doing a little victory dance. I was getting a date! This dating website had turned out far better than I expected. I wondered if Harry was having as much success. He’d been locked in his room for hours lately. I missed him, actually. But Charlie was a good distraction.
“How about… next Saturday at Nandos? Wear something specific so I know it’s you ;)”
“I’ll wear a purple hat, k?”
“Perfect. I’ll be wearing suspenders :D”
“Suspenders? Haha, reminds me of someone I know lol.”
I smiled, typing another reply. I was practically bouncing in my seat. I was finally going to meet Charlie! This was something worthy of bragging rights. After talking to Charlie for a little longer, I told her I had to go and bounded down the stairs to tell the guys the news.
“Guess what!” I exclaimed, rushing into the kitchen where Niall, Zayn, and Liam sat talking. They all looked up at me, surprised by my outburst.
“What?” Niall asked curiously.
“I have a date!”
I turned around in surprise when I noticed it wasn’s just my voice saying those words. Harry stood behind me, looking at me with the same puzzled expression.
“You have a date?” I asked him, furrowing my eyebrows.
“Yes… you do too?” He asked, just as baffled.
“Yeah…”
“I met this girl online and we planned to meet tomorrow,” Harry told me, “Where’d your date come from?”
“I met her on the dating site too… weird, huh?” I grinned as Harry high-fived me.
The other boys just looked at the two of us like we were crazy.
“What?” I questioned.
“You met them…online? Isn’t that ‘stranger danger’?” Liam said slowly, ever the cautious one.
I shrugged. “Well we’re meeting in a public place, so if she’s not who she says she is, I can just leave.”
“Yeah, same here,” Harry agreed.
Liam just shrugged and turned back to Zayn. Niall kept his eyes focused on us. “Don’t you find it a tad weird that you both found dates on the same night?”
“A little, I guess. It’s just a weird coincidence.”
Harry snorted. “Watch our two girls don’t know each other or something.”
A grin spread across my face. “That would be weird,” I agreed, giving a small chuckle.
“Very weird,” Harry laughed, walking over to the counter to start on supper.
The week went by quickly, and before I knew it, I was clad in suspenders, on my way to Nandos with a flower in my hand. With a small smile on my face, I headed into the restaurant, looking for a girl with a purple hat. I froze. For a second, I think my heart stopped. There was no girl with a purple hat… but there was a guy with one. Harry Styles stood near the door, purple hat clashing nicely with his curls, looking around as if expecting someone.
“H-Harry?” I asked, although I already knew it was him. I could pick Harry out from a crowd anywhere.
His eyes flew to mine, widening as they took in my attire, lingering on the suspenders. His throat went dry.
“What are you doing here…?” Harry asked slowly, his eyes narrowing.
“Erm… this is where Charlie and I planned our date,” I said awkwardly, my eyes never leaving that damned purple hat of his.
“Ch-Charlie?!” Harry choked out, staring at me in disbelief.
“...Please, for the love of God, tell me you’re not Charlie…” I pleaded, a blush forming on my cheeks.
“...Jamie?”
Harry’s POV
“Well this is awkward,” I chuckled weakly. I hadn’t expected Louis to walk through those doors… but then again, I should have known. No one pulls off suspenders like he can.
“Yeah,” Lou agreed and without looking me in the eye handed me a rose, “I, uh, got that for Charlie and since you sorta are Charlie I guess it’s yours,” he gave me a small tight smile.
With a smirk, I took the rose from him. “Why thank you Jamie,” I said in an overly dramatic tone.
He rolled his eyes playfully. “You are very welcome.”
Well, this wasn’t so bad. If I were honest, I was glad it was Louis and not some random girl. We’d made the same mistake, so neither of us could do much teasing. As long as we kept it a secret from the guys, we could pretend it never happened.
“Well, since we’re here, want to grab something to eat?” I asked Louis with a cheeky grin.
“Course I do, I’m starving,” Louis smiled back and walked up to the waitress. She looked bored and didn’t even seem to notice us at first, so I said loudly, “Table for two, please.”
She looked up then. Her eyes flickered from Louis’s face to mine, then to the rose in my hand, then back to my face. She gave me a small knowing wink. “Sure thing, table for two it is.”
I frowned. What was that about? Did she think… Oh, she did. She thought we were on a date. Great, I thought sarcastically as she led us to our table with a sweet grin.
Louis’s POV
I noticed the weird looks the waitress was giving us but didn’t pay attention to them. She left us with our menus, and I scanned through mine, looking for something good to fill my stomach with. As embarrassing as it was finding out I’d been flirting with Harry for the past four weeks, this wasn’t all that bad. We both made the same mistake, so neither of us could do much teasing. As long as we kept it a secret from the guys we’d be able to pretend it never happened.
But is that what you really want? A small voice in the back of my head questioned. I almost did a double take at the shock of it. Where had that come from? I shook it off as just my empty stomach talking and continued to look over the menu. I felt someone looking at me and glanced over to find Harry’s face only inches from mine. A small gasp escaped my lips, and I immediately backed away. He quickly looked back down at his menu. I watched him curiously, wondering what that had been about. Whatever. Probably just Harry being weird.
The waitress came back and took our orders and menus then left us alone again. I yawned and looked over at Harry with a lazy grin.
“Tired?” He smirked.
“Yeah, stayed up half the night picking out an outfit for my ‘date’,” I chuckled lightly, shaking my head. We could be so stupid sometimes. How had we not noticed that the two of us just happened to be on the computer whenever our ‘dates’ were online? Yep, we were stupid.
Harry turned to face me in the booth seat, a smile playing on his lips. “Well if you worked so hard we might as well have a proper date,” he joked.
I raised an eyebrow playfully, smirking now as well. “And how do you suppose we do that?”
“Well first of all, we should be holding hands,” he pointed out, holding his hand out for mine. I took it, entwining our fingers with a grin growing on my face.
“And if we were really on a date, I’d kiss you on the forehead when you first got here, like this,” Harry leaned in and planted a kiss on my forehead. I smiled. It was always a pleasant surprise when he did that. I heard a click and felt Harry’s head snap towards the noise, his hand ripping from mine. Immediately I missed the feeling of his hand in mine but I was able to forget that when I saw the source of the clicking noise. The waitress that had been serving us held in her hands her cell phone which she was madly typing away at.
“Oh my god! Larry Stylinson exists!” She squealed, hopping a little.
My face blanched. She didn’t just get a picture of me and Harry acting intimate… We were kidding around!
“What are you doing with that photo…?” Harry asked slowly, but the girl just beamed at him.
“Don’t be mad, now you won’t have to hide your love anymore!”
“What did you do with it?” Harry growled.
“I just texted all my friends,” she said simply with a shrug, “It’ll be all over Twitter by tomorrow.”
Oh shit….