After resting up from our surfing adventures, we were all corralled into the same large suite which had become our makeshift living room. We knew we were expecting a date card, but we hadn't a clue as to whether it was a one-on-one or a two-on-one. Honestly, I was glad I had my chance yesterday, because today's surfing adventures took a lot out of me. I was quite certain my body would be much more toned by the time this was all over.

When the date card arrived, Jordin retrieved it and read it aloud. Her face positively beamed when she read her own name. "Jordin, Hey angel, let's follow the sun and see where it takes us." 

We all cheered for her, knowing she was quite excited. Harry arrived, greeted us all, as he always did, and they left quickly. 

"So what are the rest of us going to do tonight?" Jamie asked. "Let's party!" 

"We did that last night," I chuckled. "I still have a slight hangover."

"Let's just get some booze and watch chick flicks or something," Victoria suggested. 

"How about this?" I said. "Let's go down and sit in the hot tub because my muscles are screaming. We'll take advantage of the poolside service and get a little head start on getting tanked. Then we can come back up here and watch sappy movies.

That seemed to fit everyone's liking. The hot tub was a god-send for my tired body. I think everyone else had similar aches. We also took advantage of the enormous, oval-shaped pool, which was a rather sensational creation, with 1.2 million glass tiles embedded into the bottom, creating a stunning orchid. It would have been a shame to not take a dip, at least.

We swam and hot-tubbed until we realized we were sufficiently drunk to no longer function safely around water. We stumbled and tumbled upstairs, to my suite of all places, and ordered pizza as it sounded rather good for our drunken munchies.

While most everyone changed out of their wet swimsuits - in their own rooms, mind you - Brittany and Jamie somehow decided it would be okay to strip off their suits in my room. Period. And it never occurred to them to put anything on in their place.

"Oh my fuck!" I yelled upon seeing Brittany laying across my bed au naturel. "Get off my bed!" 

"What?" She asked, standing up and sitting down in a chair. "I'm not dirty. The chlorine in those pools kills everything."

"But you're naked," I emphasized.

"Yeah? So is Jamie. You could get naked too, I wouldn't care," she laughed. 

"Ew," I cringed. 

"Just for the record, dear Harper," Jamie chimed in, "Harry is well-known for his fondness for walking around in the nude. You might want to give it a try."

"What?!" I laughed, still trying to avert my eyes from the two women in my suite wearing only their birthday suits. 

Just then, Victoria knocked, having taken longer in her room than everyone else. I opened the door just enough to let her in and then slammed it again. She took one look at the nudists and said, "Oh, dear god! What the hell is going on here?" 

"I was just telling Harper that it's a known fact that Harry likes to be naked," Jamie said. 

"It's true," Ariana pitched in. 

"Okaaayy," Victoria said. "But neither one of you is Harry." 

"We're just practicing in case we marry him. You know, for naked days at home," Brittany said and then laughed like a friggin' maniac.

Jamie turned on the TV and did a web search, revealing two photos where Harry was nude. The first was a picture where he was sitting with his cousins, watching TV, supposedly  without clothes on, but since he was strategically seated, nothing was actually visible. "See?" She said. "His friends didn't care if he was naked around them!" But another was a shot of him in dim lighting, buck naked with only his back side showing. He had a cute tush, but I wasn't going to say that out loud for everyone to hear.  

Brittany pitched in. "When they were on the X-Factor, he walked around the house in the nude all the time." 

"Whatever," I sighed. "You guys just better not puke in my room," I warned them. "And NO nudity! At least wrap a towel around yourselves so we don't have to see your boobs and...other parts."

"You're such prudes," Jamie said, getting a towel from my bathroom.

"How exactly do you think you're going to get back to your room in just a towel?" Lucy asked in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Walk," Brittany answered and then laughed crazily again.

"Well, good luck with that. I just hope you don't run into anyone else on the way."

"Psshh, how will they know I haven't got a swimsuit on underneath?" Brittany asked. 

"Well, I know it right now," Lucy cringed. "Close your legs." 

We broke down laughing. We also dared Brittany to answer the door when the pizza was delivered, which she did without hesitation. Luckily, she chose to keep the towel on or we might have gotten kicked out of the nicest hotel we had ever been in.

I was thankful that the conversation steered clear of Harry, after the discussion about his love for nudity, of course. I still needed a distraction from thinking about him. And about his nude parts.

I hadn't said much to Ariana today, not that I was necessarily avoiding her, but I didn't make an attempt, nor did she. Maybe she saw Harry kissing me, too. Either way, it was all right for us to be building friendships with the other women, and she didn't seem lost in the process. I just hoped we would still be friends after this.

Late night found us still hanging out in my suite, thankfully with Brittany and Jamie clothed in pajamas, and all of us playing drunken truth or dare. 

First we all took some time to write down questions and dares and put them into two separate baskets. That way we wouldn't have to think of something on the spot. Then I turned to Brittany, who happened to be on my right, and asked, "Brittany, truth or dare?" I mentally pleaded with her, please don't say dare, because I knew she would probably do just about anything she was dared to do.

"Dare!" She announced proudly. 

I reached into the dare basket, opened the paper and read it. "Oh, great. I think we've already seen enough of this for one night. Can I choose a different one?" 

"What does it say?" The others urged. 

"I dare you to do a strip tease on the coffee table," I muttered and then I added, for all of our sanity, "ONLY to your underwear! Please!"

Of course, Brittany complied more than willingly, and she stayed true to the "only to your underwear" command, but since she wasn't wearing a bra, we still got an eyeful. Good lord, I hoped I could get drunk enough after this to forget what her boobs looked like.

When she finished, Victoria asked, "Do you do that for a living? Because that looked pretty professional."

Brittany's jaw dropped. "I should be offended," she said. "But I'm not. And no, I'm a news reporter. Should I try that the next time I'm doing the news?" 

"Yes," we all laughed, but I hoped she wouldn't take us seriously. While most people had enough sense not to do such a thing, I wouldn't put it past Brittany.

Brittany turned to Lucy and posed the truth or dare question. Lucy chose truth, so Brittany pulled out a piece of paper and read, "Have you ever had a one-night stand?" 

Lucy turned about three different shades of red and said, "Next question, please." 

"Well, that answers the question right there, doesn't it?" Brittany teased. "Care to elaborate?" 

"No," Lucy said firmly. "But for the record, it was one time, and I deeply regret it. So, moving on." She turned to Victoria, who chose a dare. Lucy pulled out a paper and laughed while she read, "Get some dental floss and floss the teeth of the person sitting to your right." 

Victoria gagged and said, "Pass," but of course, we wouldn't let her. I got some floss from my bag and gave it to her. She turned to Jamie, who was next to her, and flossed about three of Jamie's teeth, all the while proclaiming, "Your breath is rancid!" But it was all in good fun, so I don't think Jamie was offended. 

"Ugh, I could never be a dental hygienist," Victoria said, her face looking a little pale as she rushed to the sink to scrub her hands.

"You know what, though?" I remembered. "I think Jordin is a dental hygienist. Too bad she wasn't here. She could have flossed all of us." 

"That sounds kind of kinky," Brittany laughed. 

"Everything sounds kinky to you!" I shouted back, laughing.

Finally, Jamie turned and asked Ariana whether she wanted truth or dare. Ariana chose truth, so Jamie read her the question. "How many sex partners have you had?" 

Brittany and I knew the answer. Ariana blushed and quietly said, "Zero. I'm still a virgin." 

"What!?" The other women cried in unison. And then Jamie asked, "Why???"

"I don't know," Ariana shrugged. "I guess I've never been close enough with someone before. Besides, I'm only 23. I've got time." 

"Not much time if Harry chooses you," Jamie answered. "And girl, you'd better be doing some stretching or something because he is huge."

"How the hell would you know that?" I said in humorous disgust.

"It's another well-known fact among One Direction fans," Brittany said, nodding. "We showed you evidence that he likes to go naked. Well, early on, Harry also 'leaked' a photo of himself naked in the shower," she said, making air quotes. "And he's quite well-endowed. Ed Sheeran confirmed that the picture was really Harry. Ed even said, and I quote, 'he's packin' heat.' If you don't believe me, Google it. It's all over the internet." 

Jamie started searching the web again for Nude Harry Styles, but I vehemently objected. "No! I don't actually want to see it. At least not right now, with five other women. Why are we talking about the size of his penis anyway?" I asked, hiding my face in my hands. I was mortified, both for myself and for Harry. 

"We just want Ariana to know what she's in for," Jamie said casually. She had no cruel intentions but her words slapped me in the face. As if Ariana and Harry were a done deal. 

Luckily, Ariana spoke up, "I'm not really comfortable talking about this. Let's change the subject, shall we?" Okay, I knew there was a reason I loved her. She had some sense of boundaries, at least. Although I couldn't truthfully say that the latest revelation about Harry didn't catch my interest at least a tiny bit.

After that, we mostly talked about ourselves, our lives, our jobs, our past. I was kind of surprised that it had taken some of us this long to open up about who we really were. It was as if, once we entered the realm of The World's Most Eligible Bachelor, we left our true selves at the door and became only the best imaginary version of ourselves, the one we wanted to present to Harry. I hoped that he had seen enough of the real me to know who I really was. 

I remember asking Lucy what she did for a living - she was an ultrasound tech - and Brittany had told me she was a news reporter during the first limo ride. It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what Ariana did for a living. So I asked her, and her answer blew me out of the water. 

"I'm a veterinarian," she said, smiling proudly. 

"As in a doctor of veterinary medicine?" I asked in shock. "But you're only 23." 

"Okay, not entirely true. I'm a vet tech, but I'm going to vet school after this." 

I also found out that Victoria was a personal trainer, which explained her fantastic body, and I already knew that Jamie was a self-proclaimed "student of life," i.e. a party animal. 

We talked about our lives, our childhoods. Jamie reminded us that she had relatives in England, not far from where Harry grew up. Despite her parents' support of her One Direction fetish, they would never pay for a plane ticket so she could "visit her relatives." Lucy grew up literally on the beach in Australia, not far from Melbourne. She said her house was only about a hundred yards from the water, which explained why she knew how to handle a surfboard so well. Victoria informed us that she had six siblings, and Brittany told us she was raised by her father since her mother had died when she was around ten.

"My mom left when I was ten," I volunteered. I looked at Brittany and said, "I'm sure it was awful to lose your mom. I almost wish my mom had died instead of walking out on us."

An uncomfortable silence followed, so I explained further. "I don't mean I want her dead, but I think it would have been easier to grieve and have some closure. For seventeen years now, I've been wondering where she is and why she left. My dad and I eventually accepted that she was gone for good. But we just never had that sense of finality, we never had a real good-bye." I looked around, wondering if anyone was following me. "I'm sorry, I probably sound really heartless. I know it's got to be devastating to lose a parent." An unexpected lump rose in my throat. "But you knew she loved you, right?" I asked Brittany, and she nodded, on the verge of tears herself. "The difference is that I know for a fact my mom didn't love me. After she left, I kept trying to remember her saying she loved me, but I couldn't ever remember he saying it." Then I stood up and went to the bathroom, not wanting anyone to see me crying more than I had already. 

Once I had sufficiently collected myself, everyone was cleaning up and getting ready to leave. 

"I sure know how to kill a party, don't I?" I said, trying to laugh it off.

"No, it's not that," Victoria said, and the rest came to me as well. "That really sucked, what your mom did. But we're all realizing how late it is, too, so we'd better get some sleep before tomorrow. Trying to keep up with Mr. Wonderful is no small task. Man, he must run on Energizer batteries or something."

I smiled gratefully at all of them and said good-night.

As I fell into my bed, I thought about my mom. I didn't revisit the details very often, but I lingered on them more tonight than I had in a while. My mother abandoned us. She rejected us. She had a perfectly good family and she walked out, in essence saying, "You're not good enough," and worse, "I never loved you." That experience was obviously pivotal for me, and it shaped who I am, in both good and bad ways. The good thing that came from it was that I buried myself in school and extracurricular activities, and now in my career. I learned to be self-focused, self-reliant, and if I wanted something, I knew that no one else was going to get it for me - I had to do the work myself. I basically stopped relying on anyone else, except my dad, of course. I still needed him then and I still need him now. And he needed me, too. I rely on Allegra, too, but not to the same extent. Other than that, I've not had many close friendships and only a few romantic relationships, and I think that's because I couldn't bring myself to trust others enough to believe they wouldn't hurt me. Dad and Allegra had proven themselves over time, but I never really gave anyone else the chance. 

And now, here I was, giving my heart to someone who seemed to want it, but at the same time, he couldn't promise me his own heart. A feeling of deep fear and dread came over me, thinking I couldn't survive being rejected again, not by someone I cared about so deeply. 

I wanted to talk to Harry, but I already knew that there was only so much he could say. As much as I wanted him to come out and say, "It's you, Harper. It's always been you," he couldn't do that until the final episode. But at the end, it might not be my name he was saying.

_____

Sorry for the heavy stuff. But I can't imagine this is really easy for any of them, especially as the number of women keeps getting smaller.

On a happier note, WMEB is #124 in fanfiction. If you're enjoying the story, would you share it with your readers and friends? Thanks so much! <3