(No Control - 22. Gotta Be You)

I stare at the tweet once it's sent, and my heart is pounding. What the fuck have I just done?

I feel lightheaded from my recklessness. I can't stop smiling. Will she DM me?

I put my phone down on the bed beside me and lay back on my pillows, my arms resting on my chest. I stare up at the ceiling.

Nothing happens.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this is sort of an anti climax.

Climax. Hmm... that leads my thoughts back to Jess and I feel a twitch in my pants as I imagine her sitting astride me in my bedroom on Friday night, her hands cupping my face and my fingers stroking her...

My phone suddenly buzzes on the bed and my blood runs cold. Oh my God is it her? Someone is ringing me....

I grab my phone, my heart in my mouth.

Oh. It's just Louis.

"Hi Lou," I say.

"Hi," he responds. He sounds glum.

"How are you?" I ask.

"Shit," he replies. "Me and El are over."

I sit bolt upright in the bed, everything else suddenly forgotten.

"Oh my God," I say. "What happened?"

"Just wasn't working out," he says. "We've grown apart. It's been nearly four years y'know."

"I know," I nod. "Shit, man - are you alright?"

"Yeah. No. I don't fucking know. I can't get my head around it."

"Was it mutual?"

"Yeah, it's been brewing a while. I think we'd both been thinking it, but someone just needed to say it. It was horrible. She was in fucking tears the whole time. She's my best friend, y'know. It hurts, seeing her like that." His voice is wavering.

"Fuck, I'm sorry," I mutter. I don't really know what to say.

"Thanks," he mutters back.

"When...?" I ask.

"Yesterday night."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"You wanna talk about it?" I offer, but I know his answer even before it leaves his mouth.

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks though, pal."

"No worries. You know where I am though, yeah?"

"Yeah, sweet. Anyway, enough about that shit. Niall said you fucked some fitty at the weekend? Why am I only just hearing about this now?"

I laugh. "I'm surprised you haven't seen it on Twitter. It went viral. Some pap was waiting outside my house the next morning and caught us."

"He caught you fucking?!" Louis squeals.

"NO! Fuck, no. Don't be stupid. You'd have heard about it by now if that had happened."

Louis laughs. "So she was hot then? Nice rack, yeah?"

"Jess? She's beautiful," I answer, ignoring Louis's second question. "Karen went fucking ape though. She bollocked me for like ten minutes over it."

"Why? Who cares? You're single."

"I had no security," I tell him. "And, er, I took her back to mine. And I followed her on Twitter. And I put my number in her phone."

There is a silence on the other end of the phone. "No fucking way," Louis finally says. "You need a fucking crash course in chill. What the fuck do you mean, you followed her on Twitter?"

"Just that," I tell him. "She tweeted me earlier today."

"Woah, are you serious?"

"Yeah, it was only a 'thanks for the follow' tweet, though. I dunno if she's interested."

"You don't know if she's interested?" Louis repeats slowly. "Did you fuck it up or something?"

I love how he has such faith in me, really.

Then again, he's witnessed first hand my hopeless attempts at chatting up girls. He has every right to have no faith.

"No, I just... it's a long story. She's a fan - "

"You banged a fan?" Louis interrupts. "This just gets better. Let me get comfy, hold on." I hear a rustling, then a scuffle. "Right, I'm good. Tell me everything."

I chuckle softly, and find myself spilling my guts to Louis, starting from the moment I saw Jess at the house party, right up to kissing her goodbye outside her flat. I tell him about Best Song Ever and Little White Lies. I tell him about the Twitter follow, putting my number in her phone without telling her, and the Sugarscape article. He interrupts every few sentences with crude comments, and I am careful not to go into too much detail about the rude stuff, but I give him a brief overview, which of course he loves. Louis is even dirtier than Niall.

"So what's your next move?" he asks.

"Well, actually I tweeted a picture just now. I spilt my drink on my shirt, so I posted it on Twitter. It's aimed at her."

Louis gives a low whistle. "Dude, you are sailing close to the wind aren't you? Does anyone at Modest know?"

"Are you taking the piss? Of course they don't. Don't say anything!" I plead, suddenly panicked.

"As if you've just said that," Louis reprimands me.

"Yeah, sorry," I mutter. "Anyway, if Jess doesn't respond to this tweet I'm giving up. I can't work her out at all. I don't know if she's interested or not."

"Bet you don't. Give up, I mean. You're well into her."

"No, this is definitely it," I say, shaking my head even though he can't see me.

"We'll see," Louis says, smugly. "What are you going to do if she texts you?"

"Ask her out on a date," I say, without missing a beat.

"Fucking hell - seriously?"

I hadn't decided I was going to ask her until I said it out loud just then to Louis, but as soon as the words left my lips I knew they were true. I have been obsessing over Jess since the moment I met her. I need to see her again.

"Seriously," I tell him. "She's amazing. I can't explain it. If she's interested, I am too."

"Did she give great head or something?"

"Louuiiiiss," I groan. "Don't talk about her like that."

"Sorry mate," Louis laughs. "But did she?"

"No - I mean, I didn't let her. She started to, but it was too fucking good. I had to stop her before... well, anyway. She's hot, that's all you need to know."

Louis is now laughing delightedly. "Good for you, mate. It's about time you moved on from Nadine. Pleased for you."

"Yeah, well, let's not get carried away," I remind him. "She might not even text me yet."

"Course she fucking will."

"Mmm, we'll see." I'm not confident. "You spoken to Zayn?" I ask, changing the subject.

"No, I tried calling him on Monday but he didn't answer, and he hasn't responded to my text either."

"Odd," I muse.

"Yeah I know. I hope he's alright. I've been a bit worried about him lately."

"So have I," I admit. "He's cool though. He'll be fine."

"Yeah." Louis doesn't sound convinced. Neither am I, if I'm honest.

"We sound like a pair of girls, gossiping like this," I realise.

"I was thinking that before," Louis says. "So tell me Harriet," he begins, in his pretend chipmunk voice, "which is your favourite member of One Direction?"

"Definitely Niall," I squeak back, in my best impression of a girl. "I just love blondes. What about you, Louise?"

"I'm a Liam girl," Louis chirps. "He knows how to treat a girl right."

I hope Gemma can't hear me now.

~~~~~~~~

I'm disappointed the next morning when I wake up to see that Jess hasn't texted me, DM'd me or tweeted me. To be perfectly honest I wasn't expecting a tweet - she seems so discreet that I don't think she'd do anything publicly to draw attention to herself. Don't ask me why I think this, I just do. It's just a vibe I got from her.

My tweet has over 40,000 retweets, and almost as many favourites. I wonder if one of these is hers? I'm going to have to stalk her profile and check. I am such a loser it's untrue.

I tap onto her profile and can see straight away that the last thing she tweeted was her follow-thanks to me. She must have seen my tweet by now, surely? She's obviously just not interested. Damn.

I sigh, and tap onto her Favourites tab, but I have pretty much given up hope.

OH MY FUCKING GOD SHE FAVOURITED MY TWEET.

I sit bolt upright in bed and stare at my phone. My tweet is there, in her favourites. She favourited it. She fucking favourited it.

YESSSSSSS!

Oh fuck, this means I have to ask her out.

Do I? Technically, favouriting my tweet is not a response. It's a breezy, non-committal nod of acknowledgement. How is she still managing to play it cool?

Honestly, this girl.

I don't know what to do.

I glance at the clock. It's just before 9am. Tommo's getting a wake up call.

I dial him and wait while it rings. He picks up on the 7th ring.

"Why the fuck are you ringing me in the middle of the night?" he moans.

"Jess favourited my tweet. Now I have to ask her out. What do I do?"

"For fuck's sake," Louis moans again. "Have some fucking chill."

"I have chill. I've had chill all week. And now I've left it too late to do anything because we fly out tomorrow."

"So ask her out tonight then, and get your arse down to London if she says yes."

"OK," I say. "OK, you're right. I will."

"Bye," Louis mumbles and I hang up.

I lay in bed staring at my phone. My mind has gone blank. It takes me nearly twenty minutes to come up with:

To: @jessie_braddy: Heyyy... how you doin? x

Kisses, or not?

Fuck it. Yes. Send.

Right, from now on I am going to be cool. Play it cool. Breezy. I'm going for breezy.

~~~~~~~~

It's nearly lunchtime and she hasn't DM'd me back.

I've packed my stuff, ready to go back to London either today or tomorrow, depending on whether I get Jess to agree to go out with me tonight. That's if she even responds to my message.

I'm sitting in the kitchen and Mum is making bacon sandwiches.

"You seem on edge, love," she says, but it is more like a question than a statement.

I sigh. "Yeah, a bit. Remember the girl from Friday?" I blush at this.

"Jess? Yes, I remember."

"I sent her a message through Twitter this morning, but she hasn't replied yet."

"Oh, I see." Mum's eyebrows are raised and she is smiling at me. "What happened to seeing how you feel?"

"I want to see her again," I say. "I've been thinking about her all week. I know this is going to cause uproar with management but I'll take the risk."

"And Nadine?"

"I haven't heard from Nadine in weeks," I say. "And I'm OK with that."

"I'm glad," she smiles. "But just remember about what I said about not jumping in feet first with this one. Take things slowly. If she's worth it, she'll be patient."

"I haven't even asked her on a date yet," I protest.

"Are you going to?" Mum asks.

"If she replies," I mutter, looking at my phone. It's now nearly quarter past 12.

"Maybe she's at work?" Mum suggests.

"Or maybe she's not interested," I grumble.

Mum hands me a plate with my bacon sandwiches on, and a bottle of brown sauce. I flick the cap open, flip the bottle upside down and my phone beeps.

It's a fucking Twitter DM. Oh my God.

My hand is on autopilot, and before I know what I'm doing I'm squirting brown sauce in a circle on my phone screen.

"Fuck!" I shout, pushing my chair back and standing up. My sandwich sits on the plate, next to my phone, taunting me.

"Harry!" Mum scolds. "What's got into you with all the swearing?!"

"Sorry," I apologise hastily as she hands me a wipe and I begin smearing brown sauce everywhere.

"Give it here!" she says, with more than a hint of exasperation, and she expertly cleans the mess off my phone in a way only mums can.

I take it back from her gratefully and sit back down at the table. I open the DM, my stomach fluttering.

From: @jessie_braddy: Did you just say that in a Joey Tribbiani voice? x

Oh my God, she loves Friends. This is awesome. But oh God, no, I didn't mean it to sound like that. I re-read my tweet in Joey's voice - Heyyy, how you doin...

Oh bollocks.

Oh well, this could actually be funny. I quickly type a response back.

To: @jessie_braddy: Lol no! Not deliberately. But now I'm reading it back in that voice... x

I take a bite of my sandwich and wait for her reply. It comes a minute later.

From: @jessie_braddy: Haha. I'm fine thanks, to answer your question. How are you? x

Nice. She's asking me a question. So far so good.

To: @jessie_braddy: Good thanks. Been hanging out with family, it's been great. What you up to? x

I'm being breezy. I can do breezy.

OK it's been like ten minutes and she hasn't replied. Fuck.

I'm halfway through my second sandwich when my phone lights up again.

From: @jessie_braddy: Just having lunch. Been snowed under these past couple of days at work so I'm playing catch up today. What about you? x

I'm going for it. I'm gonna ask her. Bite the bullet, as they say.

To: @jessie_braddy: Also having lunch. Are you busy tonight? x

Argh. This is painful, waiting for a response.

Please don't be busy, Jess.