Rachel’s P.O.V.

It was later that evening when I finally trudged over to Harry’s place to see Louis. I had spent all day thinking about Delia’s accusations. Although they had nothing to do with the fact that she slept with my boyfriend, they weren’t entirely untrue. I had spent the months after my breakup with Louis, placing the entire blame on him, but that wasn’t completely fair. As Delia had pointed out, I had spent a lot of my time with Ashton when I was still with Louis, doing things that weren’t necessarily what ‘just friends’ would do.

I took a deep breath as I knocked the door, unsure of exactly what to say. Either way, I had to see Louis before things got awkward, I hated leaving fights to stew. He had taken off too quickly earlier for me to say anything, and considering I still had no idea what to say to him, it was probably for the best.

Before I had anymore time to worry, the door swung open, revealing Harry.

“Hey Rach, what’s up?” he immediately stepped back, letting me walk in past him.

“Is Louis here? I need to talk to him,” I explained, glancing around quickly. Louis was nowhere to be seen, but the boys had separate rooms this year in their apartment, so there was a chance he was here.

“Nah, he went for a run, he’s been gone for a while though so he should be back soon,” He replied. “Everything okay?” he added.

I shrugged. “Of course, nothing major,” I told him, casually, although I felt a fluttering in my stomach. I hated people being mad at me, and knowing there was a chance that Louis was upset with me made me feel nervous.

Harry and I chatted for a while, before deciding to watch an episode of Brooklyn 99 while waiting for Louis. After an entire episode, Louis finally returned, covered in sweat and looking exhausted. I couldn’t help but look him up and down quickly. There was no denying Louis was a very attractive man, but seeing him here, in football shorts and a tank top, his muscles on display, it was hard not to stare a little.

“Geez man, where did you run to, France? You’ve been gone like two hours!” Harry exclaimed, upon seeing Louis’ appearance.

Louis rolled his eyes in response, before looking at me.

“Rachel, hey,” he nodded his greeting.

“Louis, I–“

“I gotta get a shower,” he cut me off quickly, immediately heading for his room.

I groaned as he closed the door behind him, granted, he definitely did need a shower, but he didn’t have to be so short about his response. Guess I was waiting for his shower to be finished.

“Okay, I’ll ask again, what’s up?” Harry narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not hooking up with him again, are you?” he added suspiciously.

I groaned again, this time blushing slightly at Harry’s blunt question.

“No, we’re not hooking up. And we were never ‘hooking up’ by the way, anyways, we were..” I trailed off, unsure of how to finish the sentence. I felt my cheeks heat up again in embarrassment. “We were..” I tried again, at Harry’s expectant look. “I don’t know,” I finished eventually, wanting the conversation to end.

“So, what’s going on then?” he asked again.

“I had this weird run in with Louis and Delia earlier, and I feel like it’s left us in a weird place,” I admitted, not going into detail too much.

“You talked to Delia?” Harry’s curiosity had turned to concern.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. It was weird seeing her again, but it felt kind of good to clear the air a little. I hadn’t spoken to her at all since it happened, and venting was nice,” I told him, honestly, a small smile playing at my lips.

He grinned.

“I’m glad. Are you still missing him?” He asked, softly.

“I don’t know, I guess I do a bit. I mean I definitely don’t want him back, after what he did, but its hard not to miss him sometimes. Especially here. I mean, he was one of my best friends, long before he was my boyfriend and it’s weird to just suddenly not have him in my life at all,” I admitted, being more honest with him than I had been in a while.

He covered my hand with his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

He seemed to sense that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so we continued watching Brooklyn 99 for a bit, until Louis returned from his room.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” Harry announced as soon as Louis realised I was still there, disappearing into his room before either of us could say anything.

“Rachel-“

“We need to talk,” I cut him off quickly, determined to keep him in the room this time.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed, sitting in Harry’s vacated space on the couch. He smelt good from the shower, and I nearly pointed it out before realising that might make things more awkward.

“I’m sorry for walking off like that earlier, it was totally out of line,” Louis began before I even had a chance to say anything. “What Delia said, I don’t even know if any of it is true, she’s not exactly the most reliable source. And even if it is, I have no right to be angry at all, I slept with Eleanor, I messed up our relationship, and I know that. I know that it was my fault, I don’t know, I guess it just kind of upset me a bit,” he rambled off quickly.

“You don’t need to apologise, Louis. I’ve been blaming you, this whole time, for our break up, and it was definitely because of the whole Eleanor thing to a certain extent, but you wouldn’t have slept with her if I had’ve went after you that night, instead of making sure that Ashton was okay,” I replied.

“Rachel, me cheating on you wasn’t your fault-“

“No, I know that. I’m just saying that Delia’s right. I mean, I didn’t cheat on you, I promise, but honestly, I wasn’t all that much better than you. That fight between you and Ashton. Looking back, I should’ve taken your side. I mean, he was blatantly flirting with me, in front of you, it makes sense that you’d be angry. And along with that, I hung out with Ashton like all the time, and even when he admitted that he liked me and kissed me-“

“He kissed you?”

I nodded, dropping my gaze as I continued.

“I told him about you, but I still kept spending time with him, blowing you off to hang out with him, I mean I slept in his bed, knowing well how he felt about me. Honestly, I was a terrible girlfriend to you, Lou. And I’m really sorry about that,” I apologised, meeting his eye again.

There was a few seconds of silence, before he nodded, biting his lip.

“I accept your apology. And I’m really sorry too. I fucked up, big time. Sleeping with Eleanor was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. I was just so angry and it was so ridiculous of me. I’m really sorry that I hurt you, I never wanted to do that,” he told me earnestly.

I smiled at him.

“I’ve already forgiven you for that,” I reminded him.

He nodded.

“Then there’s nothing for me to forgive you for,” he responded, causing my smile to widen. I couldn’t resist leaning across to hug him, which he immediately responded to, his arms wrapping around me quickly, pulling me closer to him.

“I’m so glad we got his cleared up, I hate when things are weird with us,” I admitted softly, my chin resting on his shoulder.

He didn’t get a chance to respond as a loud groan caused us both to pull apart, to see Harry standing just outside his bedroom door, covering his eyes with his hands.

“You said you weren’t hooking up again!” he whined, and again I felt my cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

“Shut up!” I chastised him, while Louis just laughed at him.

“Have you two made up?” He asked, taking his hands away from his face. “I’m sick of waiting in my room, I’m starving,” he announced.

“Ooh, I can make us some dinner!” I suggested.

Harry made a face at my offer, immediately shutting it down.

The fact that Louis and I had cleared the air had made me feel a lot better than I had earlier, and I ended up having a really good evening with the two guys. Harry even let Louis and I help a little with cooking dinner, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster, but was fun all the same. When eventually, I decided to go home, Louis offered to walk me. Harry gave him a weird look, but decided not to say anything.

“We should join a cooking class!” I exclaimed, as we talked about what a mess we both were in the kitchen. “Imagine how fun that would be,” I added.

“We could get matching chef hats,” he laughed, causing me to giggle loudly, as we came closer to my door.

“Hey, thanks for walking me home, Louis,” I turned to face him once we were at the door. He just smiled in response.

“I had a really good evening, thanks for being so cool about all the Ashton stuff,” I shoved my key card in the lock as I thanked him. “Talk to you tomorrow?” I asked, leaning on the door to open my room.

“Sure, I’ll –“ Louis began, before cutting off abruptly, his eyes focusing on something behind me, in my room. I turned quickly to see what he was looking at and gasped.

“Ashton,” My voice came out hoarse, as I quickly looked around for Skylar.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed at me, her expression apologetic.

Ashton met my eye, smiling cautiously.

“Hey Rach,”.

Notes

Okay so this chapter is pretty long (I think?) so please do let me know what you think of it, if you've read it, I would really appreciate it!
This one took me quite a while to write so I'd love to hear your opinions on it.
So what do you think?
Will Rachel forgive Ashton? Should she? Does she still love him?
Will she start falling for Louis again? Would he make her happier than Ashton did?
Will Delia manage to get Ashton to commit to her? Will Rachel forgive her?

Do let us know what you think in the comments below. Only takes a minute to let us know if you're still interested or not.

Much love xox