Darren leans her head onto Finn’s shoulder. After she had let out all of her tears and anger, she made up with her brothers. She realized that she can’t be mad at them, especially when they sacrificed their time to drive her all the way to the airport to pick up James, so here they sat, waiting for him.

She hasn’t put much effort into what she looks like when she sees him. All that matters to Darren is that he’s back, because she really does miss him. Her brothers don’t put much effort either, none at all. In fact, the only reason Jack and Finn agreed to come with her to the airport is because Darren still hasn’t gotten her driver’s license yet.

“Is his flight almost here?” Jack complains. He is the most against coming here. Jack doesn’t like James, James doesn’t like Jack, but they both love Darren. Well, at least one of them truly does.

Darren opens her eyes from her napping state and looks at Jack when she speaks. “His flight already landed, but he’s probably just getting his luggage and going through customs or something – I don’t know what it’s called. You’ve been on many more planes than I have…”

“And we would’ve taken you with us on every single one of them, but… well, you know…” Finn trails off at the end, not wanting to remind out loud of why. Darren just sighs and nods in understanding. “Just remember how early you’ve made us get up to look at the sunrise in other countries. Louis [A/N: funforlouis on YouTube] will never forgive us for those days in India.”

Darren chuckles at the remembrance. She had texted her brothers everyday, making sure that they were okay, but mostly to ask them for a favor. She wanted to know what sunrises were like in other countries, so Jack and Finn wake up early when on trips just to take pictures of the sunset and be able to describe it to Darren. Poor Louis just had to go along with them.

One of Darren’s dreams is to travel the world and experience every kind of sunrise there is. She wants to see that beauty in person, but she doesn’t have the expenses to pay for it. Needless to say, most dreams don’t come true and this is one of them.

“Darren!” another voice calls out from across the airport. Darren turns her head towards the gate where a familiar person, about 5’11’’ with blonde hair and a muscular build, walks towards her. Darren smiles ecstatically, scrambling to grab her crutches.

“James!” she shouts as she starts to crutch her way over to him. He starts running to her, throwing his arms around her waist as they collide. She drops her crutches and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling his face towards hers so that her lips can feel the breath escaping his. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” he says, though his tone doesn’t seem too convincing. He tugs on her waist, connecting their lips into a kiss. This kiss isn’t rough, or passionate. It’s just a kiss, not two souls connecting like lovers, just a kiss. It’s just two lips touching, nothing more, and nothing less.

They pull back and smiles at each other before pulling away. Darren grabs her crutches from Jack who picked them up shortly after she dropped them. Finn greets James with a stern handshake and blunt hello; Jack refuses to even make eye contact with the guy that somehow holds his sister’s heart.

“What happened to your leg?” James looks noticeably worried, actually showing some emotion now. Darren huffs and points to her brothers, causing James to let out an unsure laugh.

~

“Just ask already, Harold. It never hurts to ask,” Louis scolds Harry yet again.

“But what if she says no? What if she never speaks to me again? Well… message, but what if she does? What if-”

Liam cuts him off. “There are no what-ifs. Do you want to meet her or not?”

Harry contemplates the thought over again. The possibilities of the outcome are endless, but his answer is a definite yes. He’s just scared of what might happen between them. Meanwhile, as Harry continues to lose himself in his thoughts, Zayn grabs his phone without any of the other’s knowledge. He quickly types in the message Harry is hesitant to send and sends it.

“Okay, it’s sent. Now you don’t have to think about it,” Zayn smiles, gets up, and walks away. Harry hurries to pick up his phone that Zayn left for him on the couch and reads the message, jaw dropping at how Zayn just did what Harry has been contemplating since this morning when the band brought it up.

The rest of the band reads over his shoulders as Harry’s eyes repeatedly scan the message, silently praising Zayn and cheering. Harry doesn’t know what to say. He’s happy that the message is sent and out of the way, but he’s mad at Zayn for just going behind his back like that. Mostly, Harry is just scared again, waiting with his knees held to him in a corner as he waits patiently for a reply.

~

Buzz-buzz…

Darren tries to scoot out of her place in James’ arms, but he pulls her back. “Don’t leave me,” he pouts. She giggles and pecks his lips before exiting his arms anyway. Picking up her phone, she sees the new kik notification and slides it open.

JustYourNormalGuy: hi. I know this may sound a little forward but maybe meet up for lunch or something sometime this week? I completely understand if you don’t. I just really want to meet you…

Darren’s cheeks flush as she reads the message. Her thumbs hover over the keyboard, doing a little dance, as she tries to figure out what to say. She bites her lip out of nervousness and gasps when the phone is ripped from her grasp.

“James!”

“What is this? Who’s… JustYourNormalGuy? What the actual fuck, Darren?” he shouts furiously, scrolling through all of the messages and conversations shared between her and Harry. She leans over and furiously takes her phone back from her boyfriend who is now raging. “Well?”

“He’s just a friend. Other than that, it’s none of your business,” she spits at him.

James rolls his eyes and snaps back, “Just a friend? Then why does he ever so badly want to meet you? Do you even know the guy? Are- are you cheating on me?”

Darren’s eyes bulge out of her head. “What?! Of course I’m not. You know that I only love you. Harry is just a friend. Don’t you trust me?”

James sighs, “I do trust you. I’m sorry.” Darren looks down at her fingers, nodding in acceptance of his apology. She looks at the time on her phone before locking the screen, deciding that she will respond to Harry later.

“It’s getting late. I should go…” she announces and starts to collect her things. James does nothing to stop her.

~

Harry walks into the board room, sunglasses hanging low on his face and buttons on his shirt done wrong. He throws his jacket carelessly onto the back of a chair and sits down, resting his head on the table in front of him.

“Woah. Who messed with your cereal this morning?” Niall asks, lifting Harry’s head up by his curls and looking into his eyes with bags under them.

Harry groans and smacks Niall’s hands away from his precious curls before running his own finger through them. He had been tossing and turning all night, waiting for a response that never came. Now, he’s completely exhausted from the sleep he was deprived of, but he can only blame himself – and Zayn for sending it in the first place.

Simon and Paul walk into the boardroom. Following them are the teams of personal stylists, tech, and other important people that are a part of the One Direction tour team. For the most of the meeting, everyone is just discussing what needs to be done before the boys start this mini tour off, but the boys’ interest is at its lowest, resorting in a who-can-achieve-the-highest-score-on-flappy-bird contest and a now sleeping Harry.

Harry is head down on the table, resting on his forearms. He sleeps heavily, catching up on the energy he needs to complete this day. In this state, the other lads start to mess with Harry to take a break of frustration from the silly game that stretches their thumb muscles. Together, they draw on his face that his visible and tie his hair in little sections using rubber bands. When they finish their masterpiece, Niall takes a picture and tweets it. The other lads are in silent hysterics, trying hard not to laugh at what they did.

“Boys!” Simon snaps to get their attention. He glares as the four boys turn their heads and sit back in their chairs obediently. Niall nudges Harry in his side. Harry groans in return, lifting his head up and sitting up. The four boys boom in laughter, no longer able to keep it in. Harry looks at them questionably before looking at his reflection in his phone.

“What have you done to me!” he screams in shock. He starts to pull out the rubber bands, hurting his sensitive scalp in the process. Then, he wipes off all the pen marks he can until Simon clears throat.

“Ahem. Right then. I believe that is all for today. You’re all free to go, except for you five,” Simon announces to the room. One by one, people collect their things and file out. When the room is clear, Simon shuts the door, leaving just him and Paul to talk to the band.

Paul speaks first. “It’s great to see that you are all getting along, but we need you to pay attention to these meetings regarding you. All of the people who were in here came to make you successful. It would be great if you could just show us that you want this, but if you don’t care, then all of these people are wasting their time.”

“Right. What Paul is trying to say is that you need to take your jobs more seriously. I could still drop you from my label as easy as you were signed. You would be breaking the hearts of many fans, however, and I don’t think you want that to happen, would you?” Simon adds on.

A chorus of “no” and “of course not” comes from the band. Some of them even add in how much they would be devastated to be dropped from their recording contract. Simon just nods, leaving them with a warning to be more serious, and allows them to go.

Even with the whole speech by Simon and Paul, the lads continue to harass and tease Harry about the transformation they gave him. Paul rolls his eyes at them as he drives away from the building to drop them all of at home.

~

ThatInvisibleGirl: so I saw an interesting picture today…

Darren sends the text to Harry, decidedly ignoring his message from the other night and thinking back to this morning when Caspar came over to cheer her up. He came up with this idea to show her embarrassing pictures of people Darren specifically like, mainly celebrities, and Harry happened to be one of them.

She laughs, remembering how he had a flower inked to grow just above his eyebrow and tens of rubber bands tied into his hair. To her, Harry had looked like some sort of cross breed character created by Dr. Seuss and Edgar Allen Poe, a fun yet scary looking character at that.

JustYourNormalGuy: who showed you it?
ThatInvisibleGirl: just a friend of mine. He was trying to cheer me up by showing me pictures of people I don’t specifically like. sorry
JustYourNormalGuy: I was catching up on sleep and they did that to me:( but you like me now… right?
ThatInvisibleGirl: sure I do… jk bestie ;D who is they?
JustYourNormalGuy: my band mates. I love them, but sometimes I just want to rip their heads off.

“Tell me about it…” Darren mumbles and sends her reply.

“Tell you about what?” someone intrudes, walking into her room. Darren looks up from her phone screen to see a face she isn’t expecting, but is still ecstatic to see here. She throws her phone down to wave and smile at the girl with ombre blondish-brown hair.

“Where’ve you been Zoe? How is Zalfie?” Darren jokes, sitting upright and scooting over so Zoella can sit next to her on her bed. Zoe flops down beside Darren so that she is laying flat on her back. She has a Cheshire cat smile that fills the room as she shows Darren her hand. Darren gasps. “No way! Is this real?” Darren grabs Zoe’s hand and stares at the rock on her ring finger, turning it over and over again to look at it in different angles. Zoe just nods, causing Darren to squeal with excitement.

“He proposed this morning. It was… perfect,” she sighs in content and averts her eyes to the ring as well. She then continues, “He had asked me to look over at his video before he uploaded it. I thought it was the one from when they were filming with your brothers and Marcus the other day, but…”

“Come on Zoe; don’t leave me hanging! What happened next?” Darren urges, eager to hear how her OTP became engaged. She scoots closer to Zoella, eyes twinkling with curiosity.

“It was an edit of pictures and videos and countless screenshots of long night text messages throughout our relationship. At the end, he was on the screen telling me to turn around, so I did. He was on one knee, and I think you can fill in the rest.”

Darren opens her mouth to respond, but no clear words come out. She’s half screaming in a low volume and half speaking gibberish about her excitement level. Darren’s rant is cut off by the vibrating buzz of her phone signaling a new message from Harry.

She picks up her phone and slides the screen open to respond, but Zoe snatches the device from her. Darren makes some fail attempts in retrieving her phone, but is pushed back by Zoella’s hand free hand. She huffs in defeat as her friend reads over the content displayed on Darren’s screen.

“Who is this?” Zoe finally asks, still scrolling through Darren’s feed. Darren mentally counts down as she watches Zoe keep scrolling up and reading. “You’re messaging Harry through kik? When did this happen?” Her voice is loud and in shock, but Darren just shrugs.

“Almost two weeks ago, I think? Why do you ask?” she wonders, skeptically looking at Zoe as she demandingly starts typing out words on the keyboard. “What are you doing?” Darren suddenly shouts in worry of what Zoella might be saying.

Zoella shakes her off and pushes Darren away, continuing to type out her message before hitting send. She waits a few seconds for a response and smiles when the reply comes in, laughing as well. Darren furrows her eyebrows but doesn’t speak, watching intently as Zoe replies to whatever Harry had responded.

“If you were wondering,” Zoella finally speaks up, “this really is Harry Styles - don't ask how I know, I just do - and he told me to ask you to meet him for lunch sometime… I told him you would.” Zoella smiles innocently at Darren, trying to act as if she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“You what?!?!”

Notes

Thank you to everyone who commented and everyone else who reads this! I decided that I'll try to update a few times in my busy schedule just for you guys as long as I get a few comments for each update :D

What do you think about James?
Should Darren and Harry meet soon?
If they met in the next chapter, would that be too soon?

comment. rate. subscribe. ~A

PS: Anyone else play Flappy Bird? If so, what is your high score? I'm at like… 80 and I'm not sure how I got there because I've literally thrown my phone across the room a gazillion times. Thank God for life proof.