Fall Quarter

Jasey was still having a hard time believing that any of this was true. Even after Liam had repeatedly asked if she was alright and led her to the couch, she was sure she was dreaming. Part of her mind thought, Of course, Liam, the responsible one, would be helping me, while the other half scolded her saying, Ok, obviously there is more to the boys than those Directioner stereotypes. Niall hadn't helped that separation though, because the moment he stepped into the room, he headed straight towards the kitchen, demanding if the food was ready yet. Zayn had given her a couple of worried glances, but seemed to be immersed in whatever he was doing on his phone and stayed in the corner.

There was no way that she was in the same room as One Direction. No possible frickin’ way.

“She looks stunned,” a voice commented next to her. Jasey turned towards the sound and smiled through her shock as she recognized the face. Harry. He was the flirty one, the cheeky one - or so said all the tumblr blogs dedicated to him or the band. “Hey,” he said, flashing her a dimpled smile. He wiped his hands on his jeans before taking a seat next to her. “How are you feeling?”

Jasey blinked. Harry Styles as sitting next to her. Talking to her. Staring at her like something was seriously wrong. Oh shoot, I should talk, she thought. “Uhm,” she bit her lip and looked around, aware that all the boys were tuning in. She spotted Louis leaning against the far wall, arms crossed across his chest (in a way that really showed of his biceps, she might add). “I’m fine, just a little, surprised, that’s all,” Jasey said carefully.

Surprised, however, might have been a slight understatement. There was a reason as to why she was so horribly starstruck by the five lads. Back in about 2011, right before the band had made it big in the US, Jasey had been a little obsessed with One Direction. No, she didn't have posters plastering her walls and she hadn't even attended one of their concerts, but she was completely in love with their music and personalities. As the years went by, her insanity over the boy band died down slightly, but she was still prone to bursting out in jam sessions composed entirely of their music from time to time.

Nicole looked at her roommate with amusement in her eyes. She could relate. When she had gone to a Justin Bieber concert back when she was sixteen, Nicole had been pulled up on stage as the “One Less Lonely Girl”. She was so starstruck over the Biebs that she was completely speechless. Surrounded by One Direction however, didn't do the same to her though. Their music wasn't exactly her cup of tea. The boys seemed nice though, and she went in the corner next to Louis, talking about college and other typical small talk topics.

Tilly left the girls to mingle and walked to the kitchen to help with the food. Niall was there too, having been told to stop complaining and help. She turned to Niall, gesturing to Jasey and Harry talking on the couch. The older boy was leaning in close to her roommate, practically hanging on every word. "I reckon that he fancies her."

He looked over to where she was pointing and scoffed. "It's Harry, Tilly. He's like that with every girl."

On that, she had to agree. Harry was always labeled the flirt, but most of the time, it was simply his charismatic personality. Everyone just couldn't help but love the cheeky chap. "But they would be cute, don't you think?" she asked, propping her head up as she leaned on her hand.

"No, Tilly, don't go there," Niall warned, shaking his finger at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Remember last time you tried matchmaking?"

"I didn't know he was bloody engaged!"

Her friend rolled his eyes. "Exactly my point. Stay out of this one, Tills. If they get together, let it be on their own time."

Tilly sighed and looked over at Harry and Jasey again with a glum face. Those two genuinely seemed to really get along. Both of their dimples kept popping in, product of the endless smiles and laughs that were accenting their conversation. It's been a while that Tilly's seen him this happy. Not since...

"Food!" Niall cried out suddenly, making her jump. He began pulling the pizzas out of the oven with a couple of oven mitts and dropped them onto the table. "You wankers better get in here quick or there won't be any left!"





Jasey munched on her slice of pizza thoughtfully and looked over the boys of One Direction. They were all bickering and laughing just like she had witnessed them in their interviews. It was nice to see that even after all the years after unexpectedly being put into a band, they were still getting on like they had when they were teenagers. They were still linked by that special friendship that they shared. No, it was deeper than friendship, she corrected herself. It was brotherhood.

Liam looked at Jasey with concerned eyes. "Feeling better?"

She smiled. "Yeah."

Louis clapped Liam on the shoulder as he came between their seats to grab another slice of pizza. "Course she is mate, she's surrounded by all of us fit lads," he said with a cheeky wink to Jasey.

His comment made Liam roll his eyes, but Jasey laughed, though not necessarily denying it either. Each one of them after all, was incredibly attractive in their own way.

And they had accents.

Dear Lord, have mercy.

"So what are you all doing in LA?"

Nicole's question took most of them off guard, seeing that she had mainly kept to herself a majority of the time. After Louis had decided to go and help in the kitchen, she had attempted to make conversation with Zayn. Unfortunately, he hadn't been the best contributor to their talk and she eventually just sat on the sofa by herself, scrolling through Instagram.

"Erm, we're recording our new album," Harry replied politely.

"Wow!" Jasey looked up from the particularly entertaining conversation she was having with Louis. "Really? That's crazy!"

All the boys' faces turned grim with the mention of the album. "Yeah, but we're having a bit of trouble on it," Niall admitted.

"Bro!" Zayn protested. They had just met these girls. What if they went off and told some reporter or posted that piece of information online? Where would they be then?

His bandmate, however, seemed unfazed. "They're roommates with Tilly," he told him. "Chill out." Zayn looked like he was about to add something, but decided against it and moodily attended to his slice of pizza.

Niall turned to the girls and continued on with what he had been saying. "It's just writing the songs you know? We've always had songwriters, but we want this album to be mainlyus. But it seems like all the good ones, they're all already written," he finished glumly.

"I'm sure that you guys'll figure something out," she said encouragingly.

"Thanks, love!" Louis swung an arm around the young girl and grinned. Jasey squirmed, trying to get out from under his arm, but a certain curly haired young man made that impossible.

"Ah! Group hug!" Harry said, fitting his arms around her tiny waist. The other boys laughed and joined in, not quite noticing her discomfort, surrounding her in 1D love. All but one that is.

"Uhm," Zayn stood up awkwardly and pointed to his phone. "I'm going to meet Marnie. See you later."

"Bye," Liam called and retracted from the huge embrace Niall and Louis soon followed suit. He knew that this was going to happen. Out of all of them, Zayn was the most wary with meeting new people. Sure, meeting fans was completely fine, but when they started to bring people into their personal lives, that was when his bandmate began to get paranoid. There was a reason to it, of course, but Liam hoped that one day Zayn would see that not everyone was just simply using him for his fame. "Better start cleaning up now," he said as he carried an empty plate to the kitchen.

"Marnie's his girlfriend," Tilly explained after seeing Jasey and Nicole's confused faces. "You two would love her and she's absolutely gorgeous."

Hearing this, Nicole couldn’t help but have her spirits downed a bit. Sure, she wasn’t a fan, but Zayn was completely hot. She could tell by Tilly’s relationship with the boys and how Jasey was getting along with them that they were going to be spending quite some time with them in the future. Zayn could have made it slightly more tolerable. If he had a girlfriend though… With a sigh, she got up, ready to help with the dishes.

Nicole's departure left Harry and Jasey were alone at the table since Louis jumped up and started to help as well while Niall walked off with Tilly. Jasey made a mental note to ask her friend about that later. There seemed to be something especially... cozy about those two. But right now, she had something else to think about. "Uhm, Harry?"

"Yeah?"

Jasey wiggled a bit in his tight grip. "You can let go now." He still hadn’t released her from the tight hug.

Instead of heeding her hint, he squeezed her tighter to his chest. Jasey stiffened. "Mmm, are you sure?" he asked, his voice soft.

She scoffed at his attempts to cling on to her, but managed to escape by forcefully prying herself away from his body. "You're such a flirt," she said and started to move away to bring her plate to Liam.

Harry quickly moved and blocked her path, stepping closer so that there were only just a few inches between them. She was trapped. "Is it working?" His blue-green eyes searched her warm brown ones.

His close proximity made her step back in shock. "Keep trying," she said with a nervous laugh. Harry thought that he saw something else flash in her eyes, but brushed it off.

It was a trick of the light, he concluded. Besides, what did she have to be afraid of him for?


* * * * *


Ever since Nicole and Jasey had met the One Direction boys, Tilly has been trying to get them back to their hotel once more. Jasey however, claimed to be swamped in homework and Nicole just "wasn't feeling up to it".

Their excuses however, didn't deter their blonde friend from her mission.

”Come on,” Tilly pleaded. “They’ve been texting me mercilessly, especially Harry,” she added with a sly smile to Jasey who was doing homework at the desk.

Jasey tried not to let the name bother her, but she already felt the corners of her mouth rising. She kept thinking of him, unable to get over how obvious his flirting was. It was something else to think that Harry Styles, one of the five boys that she had absolutely adored when she was younger, had a thing for her. But Jasey didn't want to let the girls in on her little secret until she was completely sure of her feelings herself. Plus, there was also some other things that just made it so much more complicated. So she just said, “Oh really, that’s nice.” A look from Tilly told her that she had to do better to sway her from the topic, so Jasey continued by saying, “So, what’s up with you and Niall?”

Nicole perked up from her bed. She had been meaning to ask the same exact question. The way that Niall looked at her was something much more than friendship. They had hung around each other the whole entire time and seemed not-just-friends when it was the pair of then.

“Oh, we’re just really good friends, that’s all,” Tilly said, but her overly nonchalant tone told her friends otherwise.

“Really, really good friends, I'd say,” Jasey said suggestively.

"Yes, and just friends!"

"For now..."

Tilly fixed her friend a death glare. "Jasey I promise you, if you don't bloody drop it..."

Nicole laughed at her roommates' banter. "Seriously though, Jase. Shut up. It's midnight and I don't think people want to hear your voice right now." Tilly's grin of victory soon faded when her friend turned to fix her with a penetrating look. "And if you don't start talking about your love for a certain Irishman..."

Tilly started stammering, saying that she wasn’t sure what they were saying. Nicole was much scarier than Jasey and her words were actually hitting home. She was pulling out every trick in the book to dissuade them from the chase. But Tilly eventually gave into their pestering and sighed. “Fine”, she muttered, burying her head in her textbook. “It was around the time that they had just come back from Australia,” she told. “My dad had just been assigned to them and they came over for dinner one night. Niall and I met then, and we got along really well.” Tilly took a deep breath. “I cannot believe that I’m telling you guys this.”

Jasey laughed. "I'm surprised you haven't yet."

“At first, we were just really good friends and we always talked together with the other boys…”

“That’s how it always starts, right?" Nicole nudge Jasey with her elbow and waggled her eyebrows suggestively, making her giggle.

“And then we started talking non-stop and texting. Then Niall and I would just hang out together by ourselves, and getting to know each other. And somewhere along the line, I ended up fancying him,” Tilly finished.

“Awh, that’s so cute,” Jasey said with a smile. “You two would be perfect for each other.” She could almost see it in her mind already, Tilly and Niall watching their cute little blonde babies as they sipped lemonade on a white porch.

“But wouldn’t it be hard?” Nicole asked. “I mean, Niall’s a celebrity.”

Tilly shrugged. "That's not really the problem..." After all, she had been dealing with it ever since her dad had been signed to One Direction.

Jasey looked at her friend, reading the emotions in her blue eyes. "You're scared about your friendship, aren't you?"

"I just don't want to lose it."


* * * * *


Harry shuffled his feet and gripped the edges of his blazer. He put on his best intense, pouty look and froze.

CLICK.

“Alright, now tilt your chin a bit higher,” the photographer instructed from behind the lenses.

Silently, Harry followed his instructions. He and the boys were at a photo shoot, getting ready to be all over the pages of People magazine. He had never really liked photo shoots. The group shots were always fun since they were allowed to goof off with one another, but individuals were the worst. Here he was stuck there in front of the white tarp, unable to do anything but stare at the camera lenses for at least an hour or so until they got the perfect shot. Someone had actually asked what he thought when he was doing these shoots, making him answer brutally honestly: Nothing. But now, there was something on his mind.

Or at least, someone.


When Niall had announced to the lads that Tilly was dropping by with a couple of girls, he was mildly surprised. The best that he had hoped for were some nice girls to keep him company, preferably nice fresh faces that wouldn’t scream every single time that he looked at them. But when Tilly’s friend Jasey had walked through the door, Harry knew that he got more than he had bargained for. The American girls had always intrigued him, but there was something different about Jasey that caught his eye. She was childish, yet sophisticated at the same time. She still had an air of innocence about her that drew him closer. Plus, Harry had been in the music business since he was 16. It wasn’t that he was regretting anything, but he was sure that there were things that he missed, becoming an adult in the spotlight. Knowing that she had lived a completely normal life, one polar opposite of his, peaked his curiosity.

“Give me a smile now.”

The popstar adjusted with a sigh, but continued his train of thought. And then there was the way that she seemed completely unaffected with his flirting. The whole day that Nicole, Jasey, and Tilly had been with the band, Harry had been sneaking in little cheeky comments here and there, trying to get Jasey to respond in some way. But Jasey was a tough nut to crack. It was either she didn’t care or she was simply playing hard to get.

But then again, there was that flash of fear that he kept on noticing whenever he would so much touched her. It wasn't like she'd cower in the corner crying, but past the uneasy smile, he'd see the fright that she was trying so hard to mask. And it wasn't just him, but with any of the others as well. Jasey warmed up to Liam by the end of their time at the hotel, and even allowed a light goodbye hug, but she'd still flinch when any of the others laid a hand on her.

It was interesting, to say the least. And all of that just made him want to get to know her even more.

Notes

Hey (; I just met you, and this is CRAZY!

Why did I just do that...

~Sianna