Whatever Chains (Sequel to Where Your Heart is - A Harry Styles fanfiction)

Part Forty: Something good and right and real.

I open my mouth to say that it's nothing important, but Jasper gets ahead of me and tells him about this stupid night club his boyfriend is opening tomorrow night, and how they want me to go so we can celebrate my turning twenty one years old.

"It does sound fun, love." He tilts his head sideways, pursing his lips.

"Have you met me?" I ask him, outraged and obviously rhetorical. "Does clubbing sound like something I would find even remotely entertaining? No way. I rather stay home to be honest."

Jasper goes at it again; doing that same lame speech he gave me earlier about the importance of the rite passage that is getting wasted, in his own nonsensical words, under the protection of the law.

"Yeah... we do that when we turn eighteen, though." I point out, once again, this time with complacency. "Been there, done that."

Both of them burst into a synchronized, obnoxiously loud fit of laughter, which I witness with my hands on my hips and in disapproving silence.

"You're just too cute." Harry snickers, then takes a deep breath to calm himself down and his face becomes quite serious all of a sudden. "Now seriously... I hate that I can't be there with you today, but I would hate it a little less if I knew you won't be spending your birthday alone and in your pajamas."

And that face he makes, ladies and gentlemen, should be plastered in every dictionary next to the term Emotional Blackmail.

"I hate you, Styles."

Harry shrugs sheepishly and Jasper squeals with excitement. As for me, I just let myself fall in the chair in front of the computer and I stare at it in defeat.

"I hate you, too." He claps back, and then I hear a voice at the other end that sounds like it's coming from a speaker. I don't quite catch what it says, but Harry seems to be nervous about it. "Okay, good! I have to go now..."

I frown and try to focus on his surroundings, although there's nothing much to see other than a giant window and a blue sky at the other side of the glass.

"I thought you just woke up. Where are you?"

I don't have much time to make further questions, or to figure out what's going on, and after he gives me a rushed explanation about having to get ready for a yet another press round, he says goodbye with a kiss and a luv ya and then the screen goes black.

"What the hell was that?" I slam the computer shut, more confused than anything, and I turn around to look a Jasper.

"It's a busy one that man of yours." He replies waving his hand in the air, like there was nothing weird about how Harry just behaved. "I'm gonna let Jack know that you're game for tomorrow and when I get back, we are popping that babe up!"

And he storms out of the room, leaving me with a melting candle and a cold dripping bottle creating a ring mark on my desk.

I've tried calling him back a few times last night after he hung up, and all day long today. But there was no reaching him. And maybe it's just me, but Jasper has been acting really strange and sneaky since this morning.

If something like this had happened last year, I would have been freaking out and probably jumping to conclusions that would made me moody and irrational.