‘Breathe in, breathe out… Breathe in, breathe out…’ Darren repeats mentally to her self-conscious. Her breath hitches as Finn pulls up to her work place. Work isn’t so much of a deal; it’s what may, or may not, go down on this particular workday that she is afraid of.

Darren hasn’t been messaging Harry since Zoella came over Monday, but Harry hasn’t stopped. He’s been trying to make plans; asking when, asking where, but Darren doesn’t know what to say. She feels like everything around her is rushing too fast, and it’s making her head spin in circles.

She thanks Finn for driving her before shutting the door and carrying herself with crutches through the doors. She heads over to the back where Jim and Ryan are setting up her equipment and greets them. They run through the leg conversation as she assures them that she’ll be fine to work on it, but they insist that she at least sits as she does so.

Once everything is set up, Darren puts the simple black mask over her face. She gives Ryan the signal and he nods back, flipping the switch to light up the open sign in the window. Slowly, customers start to file in. Usual’s greet Darren by her stage name and sign up on the sheet in front of her.

Darren slumps back in her chair, taking a gulp of her water and letting loose. She’s trying not to worry about how the events will play out tonight, but that doesn’t mean she’s not keeping her eyes open and slacking off on the job. She keeps the flow going and waits on the edge of her seat for the person that she’s expecting to finally walk in.

~

Harry pulls into the parking lot next to what he identifies to be Niall’s car. He hurries to get out of his car, locking it behind him, and walks swiftly inside the building where the other boys are already waiting with the pizza just arriving at their table. He smiles fondly at the other boys, greeting them quietly, and sliding into the booth next to Liam.

“You’re just in time, Harry!” Louis exclaims first, sliding a plate with pizza over to Harry. Harry smiles and digs in, only to burn the top of his mouth.

“Ouch, hot!” he says, fanning his hands to get cool air to the burn. The other lads laugh at his foolish mistake and take note to blow before taking a bite. After Harry recovers, he wipes his mouth to rid of excess sauce. “Where’s the DJ?”

Niall, mouth full of pizza, answers, “Went to the bathroom. Might take a while with that thing on ‘er leg.”

Harry gives a questioning look but shrugs off the confusion to eat more of his pizza. The group makes small talk before getting interrupted by the DJ announcing that she is back and getting karaoke night flowing again. Her voice, however, is notably shaky, hinting nervousness. Still, no one questions it and cheers as the next drunk heads up to sing.

“This is for my ex… I damn hate you right now,” the girl slurs, singing the lyrics to a song that no one could make out even if they knew it.

Harry laughs at the captions the other guys were putting on this performance, looking around at the same time. His eyes pause on the red cast situated under the table next to the stage. ‘Red it is’ he remembers Darren telling him when he told her to get something unnatural for her cast.

Harry shakes all thoughts of Darren away. When he stops, his eyes focus on the DJ herself, eyes trailing up to her face covered by the thin, black mask. He notices that the mask has a cut out for lips and two holes where the nose is. As he continues to trail his eyes upward, he sees the two eyeholes cut out, and the eyes behind the mask are staring straight at him, surrounded by the sea of black.

He stares back until she must have realized he sees her and turns her head away, just in time to announce the next singer. Harry clears his throat and turns back to the table, listening in on the conversation going on.

“I’m going to sign up to sing. Who wants to be my partner?” Niall asks in a singsong voice. The boys shake their heads and look away from their blonde friend. Niall pouts. “Aw, come on. Harold?”

“Um…” Harry trails off. Niall gives him the pouty lip, persuading his friend to cave in. “Fine, but I have to agree on the song.” Niall cheers and skips over to sign up, leaving Harry to walk behind him. When Harry catches up to Niall, Niall is already talking up a storm with the DJ.

Harry puts his arm around Niall’s shoulder, asking him what song he has in mind. Niall looks over to Harry, but instead of telling him what song he has in mind, he introduces him to The Raccoon. Harry politely shakes her hand and joins in on the conversation as Niall peruses the directory.

“So back to our earlier conversation, you’re telling me that ya don’t like our band?” Niall asks her with a look of slight shock. “Look at this face though.” He pinches Harry’s cheek. “How can ya not like this face?”

She merely laughs the two when Harry pushes Niall’s hand away and shakes her head. “You can hardly call yourself a band. Teenage girl music isn’t quite my style, even if older people than myself, even people that I know, adore you.”

Niall frowns at the girl, but Harry’s ears are perking, eager to hear more of the girl’s somewhat familiar opinion. “So you hate us?” He asks the question pouting as if to play the part of the sad boy band member.

He notices as her eyes get wide, but then get smaller with a mischievous glint. “It’s not that I hate you guys, I just don’t like you… that much anyway. Your music is just… not my kind of music.”

Harry does a one over to clean his teeth with his tongue, clicking it when he opens his mouth to speak again. “Interesting…”

Niall cuts back into the conversation, finally having found a song for them to sing. Harry shakes his head no, though he is fond of the song Niall chose. He just wants a little more time to figure out if this is who he assumes she is. Anyone could have said what she answered, but with her tone of voice, he can swear it’s her – Darren.

“So what happened to your leg?” Harry asks, knowing that this question will either be the yes or the no to his curiosity.

Harry swears the girl is smirking behind through the thin plastic of the black mask when she answers, “I fell off my roof.”

Harry’s heart skips a beat, and the next thing he knows, is that he is smiling from ear to ear. “Good thing that bush was there to break your fall – for the most part anyway.”

~

Harry watches as they leave, one by one saying their goodbyes. He waits until they’ve all gone out of the parking lot and driven away from the now closed Pizzareality. After double checking to be sure that they’re all gone, he stops his path to his car and goes back to lean against the wall of the restaurant.

He smiles to himself, thinking, ‘It really is her… Who would’ve known?’ He still can’t believe that she’s been so close to him for the past Wednesdays that he’s been arriving here with the boys. Even though he walked out the first time, he’s glad he came back to give this place a second chance and welcomed back the old tradition. In fact, Darren is doing such a good job at distracting him from thinking about Leanna that he didn’t even think about her before walking in just last week.

The crazy smiling man leaning against the wall doesn’t stand alone for more than two minutes before the person he’s waiting for walks out. She almost walks past him, but Harry puts his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Hello,” he says. There’s a drop in his voice etching with disappointment when he sees her face. The black plastic still covers her face, but where the mouth is cut out, he can see her slightly smile before turning to face the street. Harry stands next to her.

“I expected this to be a little less… awkward,” Darren finally says checking left and right then looking back to her phone as if she’s expecting someone. She repeats this process several times.

Harry laughs a little at her strange behavior. “It might be if you would take that mask off your face, and stop looking at the road or your phone to look at me.”

Darren looks up, studying his face for a second before sliding her phone into the front pocket of her coat. Balancing her armpits on her crutches, she then pulls her hair back with one hand, slowly sliding off the mask from her face. As she does so, she drops her hair and bows her head down to search for pocket space for her mask. When she finishes she looks back at Harry who looks at her with an unknown expression. She spreads her arms out cautiously and eyes herself before looking back at him as if to say, ‘Well? Whaddaya think?’ When he doesn’t respond she just laughs and starts poking his face. Still, he doesn’t move.

He’s taking in her look, finally seeing the girl behind the messenger app. He mentally records every detail about her as if this is the one and only time he’ll ever see her. Everything from the color of her bright brown eyes to her dark red hair gets stored in memory at the back of his head. Even the freckles on her face are taken note of – every last one of them.

Annoyed, Darren flicks the dazed man in front of her square in the nose, snapping him out of his creeper phase. He lets out a quiet ‘ow’ and rubs his nose to try and relieve the pain. She crosses her arms and turns her back to him.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I’m just kind of in shock,” Harry reasons. “I mean… It’s actually… you – you’re right here and…”

“It’s okay,” Darren says with her back still to him. “I get it. I’m kind of in shock, too, but not as much because I already knew what your face looks like, and I kind of already knew that this would happen tonight… I heard you came here every Wednesday.” She continues to look down the streets.

Harry sighs in relief. “Are you looking for someone?”

Darren nods, “Yeah, my brother was supposed to be here by now, but as you can see, he isn’t.” Her phone quacks, signaling a text message. She opens it and groans when she reads it. She puts her phone back in her pocket and turns back to Harry. “So… got a car?”

~

“You know, this is not at all how I expected us to meet,” Harry says after Darren directs him to take another right turn.

“Were you expecting rainbows and butterflies and an instant connection?” Darren asks sarcastically. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t how really meeting Internet friends works. This meet up – or whatever you want to call it – went way better than I expected.”

Harry rolls his eyes, “And how, exactly, did you expect this to go down?”

Darren smiles darkly, “I was expecting the worst – naturally. We meet and then – BAM! – World War III!”

Harry glances over at Darren a few times before bursting out in laughter. Darren reciprocates his laughter filling the awkwardness in the car. Harry uses one hand to wipe tears from his eyes from laughing to hard when they both calm down from Darren’s presumption to their meet up.

“That’s me,” Darren announces when her house comes into view. Harry rolls into the driveway and pulls the key out of ignition. Darren collects her things while Harry gets out and walks to the other side to help her out. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry smiles taking her hand and helping her balance while she gets her crutches. She shuts the car door and allows Harry to walk up to her door. “If it isn’t much trouble, maybe I could get your real number? Or maybe you can at least message me back because you’re quite terrible at replying to my messages and so we can do something soon?”

Darren shrugs and takes out her black sharpie that she always keeps on hand, writing her number on the inside of Harry’s forearm. When finished she puts her sharpie back in her pocket. She says goodbye to him before opening the door to the house and walking inside, closing the door behind her.

Harry also says goodbye, walking back to his car. He pulls out of her driveway with a smile on his face, heading to his own flat now. At a red light, he looks down at his arm, noticing a note next to her number.

Call text me soon so we can maybe start to be less awkward around each other –D

Notes

And so they meet! I wasn't really expecting to jump into things this fast with the whole… meeting thing, but I really need to speed up this story because I have plenty ideas. However, if you think its still too rushed, don't be afraid to tell me (I'm quite unsure but didn't feel like rewriting).

Are you happy that they met already?
Was the way you expected them to meet better?
What about James (Darren's boyfriend)?
Do you ship them or no (trust me, it's my own controversy with two completely opposed sides)?

Girl Scout cookies come in tomorrow and we start booth selling next Friday, so I'll try to update somewhere in my soon-to-be hectic schedule so long as a few of you lovely readers comment and tell me what you think. Thanks for almost having 80 subs!

~A

PS: this is what Darren looks like: