Chapter 1: Kegs and Confessions
The basement air is so thick with sweat and spilled beer I can almost chew it. My hand slips on the railing, sticky with something I don’t want to identify, as Aria yanks me down the last few steps into the Sigma Chi pit. The bass is a physical thing, a second heartbeat thudding against my ribs.
“Stop looking like you’re being led to a firing squad,” Aria shouts over the noise, her nose ring glinting under the spinning neon light. She’s in her element here, a punk-rock fairy in a thrifted lace top.
“I’d prefer the firing squad,” I mutter, but it’s lost in the roar. Bodies are everywhere, a tangled, grinding mass. The floor is a sticky vinyl mosaic of crushed cans and bottle caps. It smells like stale cigarettes, cheap whiskey, and beneath it all, the faint, sharp tang of metal—like someone bled here once and no one ever really cleaned it up.
Aria vanishes into the swarm, leaving me wedged between a wobbly ping-pong table and a wall of shouting guys doing shots. I’m just trying to breathe, to find a pocket of air that doesn’t taste like regret, when I feel it—a crawl of awareness up my spine.
I look across the room.
And there he is.
Harry.
Shirtless under a backwards black cap, red Solo cup dangling from his fingers. He’s taller, his shoulders broader than the boy I knew, all taut muscle and tan skin glistening under the strobe. But it’s the same unruly dark curls escaping the cap, the same slash of a mouth. He’s laughing at something Niall is yelling in his ear, but his whole body goes still a second later. His head turns.
Those bright green eyes find me. They widen.
It’s like the volume gets punched down. The music muffles, the crowd blurs. For three heartbeats, it’s just us staring at each other across a sea of drunk strangers and ten years of silence.
Then he’s moving. He abandons his friends, his cup, weaving through the bodies with a single-minded focus that sends a jolt straight to my stomach. I’m paralyzed. My heart is a frantic bird slamming against my ribs.
He stops a foot away. Up close, he’s more. More real, more intense. The charming grin is gone. His expression is raw, open, almost pained.
“Nikki,” he says, and just my name in his voice—deeper now, rougher—unlocks a flood of memory. Treehouses. Pinky promises. His hand, scabbed and boyish, holding mine tight the day the moving truck pulled away.
“Harry.”
“Your hair,” he says, like it’s the most important thing in the world. He reaches out, almost touches a curl that’s fallen over my shoulder, blue bleeding into violet. Lets his hand drop. “It’s… you.”
“It’s hair.”
“It’s you.” He shakes his head, runs a hand over his mouth. “Jesus. What are you doing here?”
“Aria. She said it would be ‘character building.’” I’m trying for casual, but my voice is thin, tight.
He laughs, but it’s short, strained. “Right. Character building.” He shifts closer. The heat coming off his skin is overwhelming. He smells like clean sweat and the crisp, expensive scent of his cologne, utterly out of place in this funk. “I looked for you. Freshman year. I asked around. No one knew a Nikki Martinez.”
“I go by Nicola at school.” It’s a stupid, defensive thing to say. A wall I built the day I left our street.
“Nicola,” he repeats, testing it. He doesn’t like it. “You moved to Portland.”
“Yeah.”
“I hate Portland.”
A startled laugh escapes me. “You’ve never been to Portland.”
“I know. I still hate it.” His smile is fleeting, then gone. His gaze is tracing my face, reading the years written there. “You left, and you just… disappeared. You promised you’d write.”
The old hurt, childish and profound, flares in my chest. “You promised you’d call. You got my number. You never called.”
He flinches. “My mom threw out the paper I wrote it on. She was… cleaning. I called your old house for a month. Some old man finally yelled at me to stop.”
I didn’t know that. The piece of my heart that’s been calloused over for a decade cracks a little. The noise of the party surges back in—a girl shrieking with laughter, the thump of a bass drop.
“Harry!” Liam materializes beside us, clapping a hand on Harry’s shoulder. His warm brown eyes dart between us, noticing everything. “We’re doing keg stands out back. You in?” He nods at me, polite. “Hey. Liam.”
“Nikki,” I say.
“Nikki,” Liam repeats, and I see the recognition click. His eyes widen slightly. He looks at Harry. “Oh. That Nikki.” He gives Harry’s shoulder a squeeze, a silent communication between friends. “Forget the keg. Do what you need to do, man.” He melts back into the crowd.
“Come here,” Harry says, his voice low. It’s not a request. He takes my wrist—his fingers are warm, firm—and leads me away from the main crush, around the keg, into a dimmer, quieter hallway lined with dented lockers. It’s a dead end. The music is a dull throb here.
He doesn’t let go of my wrist. His thumb strokes the inside, a slow, absent motion that fires every nerve ending I have.
“I have to tell you something,” he says. He’s crowding me, his body a wall between me and the rest of the world. His green eyes are dark, serious. “It’s going to sound insane.”
“Okay.”
“I never stopped thinking about you. Not once. And not just, like, fond childhood memories.” He licks his lips, pushes on. “I mean about the last day. You were crying. You had that stupid pink band-aid on your knee from where you fell off your bike. I wanted to kiss you. I was twelve years old and I wanted to kiss you so bad it made my chest hurt. I didn’t. I’ve regretted it every single day since.”
The air leaves my lungs. The confession hangs between us, huge and fragile. All my carefully built defenses, my insistence that it was just a childhood thing, crumble to dust.
“Harry…” I whisper.
“No, wait. Let me finish. I’ve dated. I’ve… fucked around. Everyone thinks I’ve got it figured out. I don’t. None of it ever stuck because none of it was you. Seeing you tonight… it’s like someone switched the lights back on.” His free hand comes up to cup my jaw. His touch is tentative, reverent. “Tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me you felt it, too. Back then. Tell me you feel it now.”
I can’t speak. I just nod, a tiny, desperate movement. A sound escapes me, half-sob, half-sigh.
That’s all the confirmation he needs.
His mouth crashes down on mine.
It’s not a gentle reunion kiss. It’s a decade of longing unleashed. It’s hungry and messy and perfect. His lips are soft but insistent, his tongue sliding against mine, tasting of beer and Harry. A whimper builds in my throat. My hands fly up, tangling in his hair, knocking his cap off. He groans, the vibration humming through my mouth into my bones. His body presses me back against the cold lockers, his hips pinning mine. I can feel him, hard and hot against my stomach, even through our jeans.
The world narrows to this: his mouth, his hands sliding down to grip my waist, the rough texture of his jeans against my thighs, the frantic, wet sound of our kissing. He breaks away to trail burning kisses down my jaw, my neck, nipping at the sensitive skin where my shoulder meets my throat.
“You have no idea,” he rasps against my collarbone, his breath scalding. “No fucking idea what you do to me.”
One of his hands slides under the hem of my top, his palm rough and warm as it skates up my ribs. His thumb brushes the underside of my breast and I arch into him with a sharp gasp.
“Harry… someone could…”
“Fuck them,” he growls, finding my mouth again. His other hand drops to the button of my jeans. “Tell me to stop. Please, Nikki, fucking tell me to stop or I swear to God I’m going to take you right here against these lockers.”
I should tell him to stop. This is too fast, too much. We’re in a frat house basement hallway. But his words, his confession, have lit a fuse inside me that’s been damp for ten years. The need is a tidal wave, dragging me under.
“Don’t stop,” I breathe into his mouth.
The button pops open. His hand slides into my jeans, past the edge of my panties. His fingers are there, touching me, and I’m already so wet for him. A low, broken moan tears from my throat. He swallows it with a kiss.
“You’re so wet,” he murmurs, his voice thick with awe and desire. “For me? All for me?”
“Yes.” It’s a plea.
He pushes a finger inside me, slowly, his eyes locked on mine. The stretch, the fullness, is exquisite. My head falls back against the locker with a dull thud. He watches my face as he begins to move his finger, a slow, torturous in-and-out. His thumb finds my clit, circling with a pressure that makes my knees buckle.
“I dreamed about this,” he says, his lips against my ear. “About how you’d feel. How you’d sound. You sound fucking perfect.”
He adds a second finger. The stretch burns, just for a second, before it melts into a deep, aching pleasure. His pace quickens. The heel of his hand grinds against me with every thrust. The coarse fabric of his jeans rubs my bare thigh. The smell of us, of sweat and arousal, mixes with the stale basement air. It’s crude, it’s raw, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever felt.
My orgasm builds fast, a coil tightening low in my belly. My cries are muffled against his shoulder. My fingers claw at his back.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he coaxes, his voice gritty. “Let go. Come for me. I want to feel it.”
His words are the trigger. The coil snaps. Pleasure detonates through me, white-hot and shattering. I convulse around his fingers, my body bowing against his, a raw, ragged cry ripped from my throat. He holds me through it, his fingers working me gently until the last tremor subsides, until I’m limp and shaking against him.
He slowly withdraws his hand. Brings his fingers to his mouth, his eyes never leaving mine, and sucks them clean. The obscenity of the gesture sends a fresh, sharp bolt of desire through my spent body.
“Mine,” he says, simple and possessive.
He refastens my jeans with surprisingly steady hands, then takes my hand. “We’re leaving. My room’s upstairs.”
I can’t form words. I just nod, letting him lead me back through the pounding chaos, up the stairs, past blurred faces. Liam sees us go. He gives Harry a solemn, almost sad nod, like he knows this changes everything.
Harry’s room is a typical frat boy mess—rumpled sheets, soccer gear on the floor, textbooks piled on a desk. He locks the door. The relative quiet is deafening.
Then his hands are on me again, turning me, pushing my top up and over my head. His breath hitches as he sees my lace bra. He unhooks it, lets it fall. His gaze is worshipful, hungry.
“So beautiful,” he whispers, before his mouth closes over my nipple. He sucks hard, laving it with his tongue, and the sensation goes straight to my core, reigniting the embers there. I fumble with his belt, his button, his zipper, pushing his jeans and boxers down over his hips. He springs free, thick and hard and flushed. I wrap my hand around him, and he lets out a choked groan, his hips jerking.
“Nikki… I won’t last…”
“I don’t care,” I say, guiding him to me. “I need you. Now.”
He lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist, and carries me to the bed. He lays me down, follows me over, bracing himself above me. The head of his cock nudges against me, slick with my arousal. He pushes in, just an inch, and we both gasp. It’s a stretch, a burning fullness that’s so much more than his fingers.
“Look at me,” he demands.
I open my eyes. His face is strained, a vein throbbing in his temple. He’s holding himself back, trembling with the effort.
“This isn’t just sex,” he says, each word weighted. “You understand? This is me claiming what’s always been mine. What I’ve always been yours.”
He drives home.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. He’s deep, so deep, filling me utterly. For a moment, we’re frozen, joined, eyes locked. The feeling is unbearable. It’s pleasure, it’s pain, it’s homecoming and heartbreak all at once.
Then he moves.
He sets a punishing pace from the start, each thrust slamming the bed into the wall. There’s no finesse, no careful rhythm. It’s raw need. The slap of skin, his ragged breaths, my helpless cries—it’s the only soundtrack. He crushes his mouth to mine, swallowing my sounds. One of his hands grips my hip hard enough to bruise, holding me in place for his thrusts. The other tangles in my hair.
“I can’t… fuck… I can’t get deep enough,” he grunts, his forehead damp against mine. He flips us over without slipping out, so I’m straddling him. “You take it. Take all of me.”
I rise on my knees, then sink down, sheathing him completely. The new angle is devastating. I ride him, my head thrown back, my breasts bouncing, my curls sticking to my sweaty skin. He watches, his eyes blazing, hands gripping my thighs.
“That’s it,” he pants. “Ride me. Use me. God, you’re a fucking vision.”
His thumbs dig into my hips, guiding me, urging me faster, harder. The building pressure is different this time, deeper, coiling in my womb. My movements become jerky, desperate.
“Harry, I’m gonna…”
“Come,” he snarls. “Come on my cock. Let me feel you come.”
His command is what sends me over. My inner muscles clamp down around him in rhythmic, tightening waves. I scream, my body arching, shattering. He shouts my name, a raw, broken sound, and his hips piston up off the bed, driving into me as his own release hits. I feel the hot, deep pulse of him inside me, again and again, until he’s spent, until we’re both collapsed in a heap of trembling, sweat-slick limbs.
Silence, broken only by our ragged breathing. He’s still inside me. I can’t move. My face is buried in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of sex and him.
Slowly, gently, he softens and slips out. He pulls me against him, wraps the comforter around us. His heart hammers against my ear.
He presses a kiss to my temple. “I love you, Nikki Martinez,” he whispers into my hair, his voice thick with sleep and emotion. “I never stopped.”
The words should bring comfort. They should be the happy ending. But as I lie there in the dark, his arms like a vice around me, all I feel is a cold, creeping dread. This is too big. This is too much. He’s handed me his heart, raw and untouched, after a single night.
And I have no idea what to do with it, or how to protect my own, which is suddenly, terrifyingly, an open wound again.
I close my eyes. The ghost of his touch is still on my skin, the smell of him in my lungs. And I know, with a certainty that chills me to the bone, that nothing will ever be simple again.
The silence after is heavier than the noise. It presses down on my chest. Harry’s breathing evens out into sleep, his arm a dead weight across my ribs. His body is a furnace against my back.
I stare at the crack of light under his door. My mind is a riot.
His words—I love you—echo in the hollowed-out space he just filled with his body. They feel like a brand. A claim. My skin is still buzzing, sensitive, aching in the best way. Between my legs is a tender, wet reminder of how completely he took me. I can still feel the ghost of him moving inside me, the sharp bite of his fingers on my hips. It was everything I never let myself imagine. It was brutal and perfect and terrifying.
Because he meant it. Every word. He’s been carrying this torch for a decade, and in one night, he’s tried to set us both on fire with it.
I need to move. To think.
Carefully, I peel his arm away. He makes a soft, protesting sound in his sleep but doesn’t wake. I slide out from the tangle of sheets and comforter. The floor is cold under my bare feet. My clothes are scattered like casualties—my top by the door, my bra hanging off the desk lamp. I find my jeans, pull them on. The denim is rough against my sensitive skin. I don’t put my top back on. I find his discarded Sigma Chi t-shirt, soft from years of washes, and pull it over my head. It smells like him, that same cologne and sweat, and it wraps me in a scent that now feels dangerously familiar.
I need air. I need to be someone else for five minutes. Nicola, maybe. Not the girl who just got ruined and rebuilt in a frat boy’s bed.
I unlock the door, slip into the hallway. The house is quieter now, the party downstairs a dull, distant throb. A few stragglers are passed out on couches. I navigate around them, up another flight of stairs, and find a door leading out onto a flat, gravel-strewn rooftop.
The night air is a shock, crisp and clean after the basement’s soup. I breathe it in, leaning against the rusty railing. The campus sprawls below, dotted with lights.
“Couldn’t sleep either?”
The voice comes from the shadows near the rooftop access door. I jump, my hand flying to my chest. A figure steps into the dim light from a distant security lamp. It’s Zayn. He’s leaning against the brick wall, a sketchbook in one hand, a cigarette in the other. His dark eyes watch me, unreadable.
“Jesus. You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He takes a drag. “Figured you’d show up here. Or Harry would. He usually does after a big game. Or a big… night.” His gaze flicks over me, over the too-big t-shirt. He knows. Of course he knows.
I wrap my arms around myself. “It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?” He flicks ash. “He’s a good guy, Harry. Better than the rest of us act like. Has a bigger heart than he knows what to do with.” He looks at me directly. “He doesn’t give it away lightly.”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
“Didn’t you?” He shrugs, a graceful movement. “Maybe not. But you’re here. And he’s in there, probably dreaming about you. That makes it your problem now, too.”
His bluntness is jarring. It strips away the post-sex haze, forces reality back in. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means he’s all in. You just ripped open a wound he’s been nursing since he was a kid. If you’re not planning to stick around and help it heal, you should walk away right now. Before he wakes up.” He stubs out his cigarette. “It would be kinder.”
Anger flares, hot and sudden. “You don’t know anything about me or what I plan to do.”
“I know you left once.” His voice is quiet. “He never got over it. Just a friendly observation from the guy who has to share a wall with his moping.”
He picks up his sketchbook and walks toward the door. As he passes, I see the open page. It’s a rough, beautiful sketch of two figures entwined. It’s us. From the hallway. The lines are frantic, passionate. My head thrown back, his mouth on my neck. It’s obscene and stunning.
“You drew that?”
“I draw what I see.” He pauses at the door. “Be careful with him, Nikki. Or don’t. But decide.”
He leaves me alone on the rooftop, chilled to the bone.
Zayn’s words circle in my head like vultures. Kinder. Moping. All in.
I’m not a cruel person. The thought of hurting Harry… it makes my stomach turn. But the weight of what he wants, of what he thinks this is, feels like being buried alive.
The door bangs open again. It’s Harry, hair wild, eyes frantic with sleep-washed panic. He’s pulled on a pair of low-slung sweatpants, nothing else. His chest rises and falls fast.
“There you are,” he breathes, the tension leaving his shoulders. “I woke up and you were gone. I thought…” He shakes his head, runs a hand through his curls.
“You thought I ran.”
“Yeah.” He walks toward me, stops a few feet away. The green of his eyes is muted in the dark. “Did you?”
“I needed air. It was… a lot.”
He nods, accepting this. He closes the distance, his fingers lightly brushing the sleeve of his own t-shirt on me. The possessiveness in that simple touch sends a shiver through me. “You’re wearing my shirt.”
“It was handy.”
“It looks better on you.” He tugs me gently toward him. I don’t resist. My body betrays me, leaning into his warmth. He rests his chin on top of my head. “Zayn was up here?”
“Briefly.”
“He’s an asshole. A talented asshole, but still.” He sighs, a warm puff against my hair. “Ignore him. Ignore everyone. This is just us. It doesn’t have to be a fucking epic tragedy unless we make it one.”
“You told me you love me,” I whisper into his chest.
“I do.”
“After one night.”
“After ten years,” he corrects softly. “The night was just… confirmation.”
He tilts my chin up. His kiss is different now. Softer. Seeking. It’s a question, not a demand. My lips part under his, and the embers in my belly stir, glow. His hands slide under the t-shirt, spanning my bare waist. His thumbs stroke the sensitive skin just above my hip bones.
“Come back to bed,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Let me just hold you. No pressure.”
But the pressure is already there, in the hard line of him pressed against my stomach, in the way his breathing is already hitching. The kindling is too dry. One spark is all it takes.
My hand slips down, palms him through the soft cotton of his sweatpants. He’s already hard, thick. A rough groan vibrates in his throat.
“Just hold me, huh?” I whisper, squeezing gently.
“You’re a tease, Nikki Martinez.”
“You love me, Harry Styles. You said it.” I work my hand inside the waistband, wrap my fingers around his bare cock. It’s hot, silken steel. A bead of moisture pearls at the tip. I smear it with my thumb.
He curses, his hips bucking into my fist. “Fuck. Okay. Not just holding.”
He turns me, bends me forward over the cold metal railing. The campus lights blur below. He yanks his sweatpants down just enough, pushes the t-shirt up around my waist. His hands are on my ass, spreading me. The night air is cool on my exposed skin.
“You’re sure?” His voice is strained, barely a thread of control left.
In answer, I push back against him, guiding him to my entrance. I’m still wet, slick from before. He sinks in with one long, slow, devastating stroke, filling the aching emptiness.
“God… you’re so tight,” he grunts, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave marks.
He doesn’t wait. He sets a ruthless, driving rhythm. The railing digs into my hips. Each thrust rocks me forward, the metal groaning in protest. This isn’t love-making. This is fucking. Pure, desperate, physical negotiation. It’s him trying to brand himself into me, and me trying to outrun the feeling.
The slap of skin is loud in the quiet night. His breath comes in hot, ragged bursts near my ear. One hand slides around my front, fingers diving between my legs, finding my clit. He circles it with rough, perfect pressure, matching the pounding rhythm of his cock.
“Tell me you feel this,” he demands, his voice gritty. “Tell me you feel how good we are together.”
I can’t speak. Sensation is a white-noise scream in my head. Pleasure coils, tight and urgent. It’s too much. The cold railing, the hot pain-pleasure of his thrusts, the expert flick of his fingers.
“Come on,” he urges, biting my shoulder gently. “Let go. I need to feel you come on my cock. Do it.”
His words, filthy and direct, are the key. My climax shatters through me, violent and silent for a second before a sharp cry tears from my throat. My inner muscles clamp around him, pulsing, milking him. He shouts, a raw sound swallowed by the night, and drives into me one last, deep time. I feel the hot rush of his release, jetting deep inside me.
We stay like that, collapsed over the railing, for a long minute. Connected. Breathing as one ragged animal.
Slowly, he pulls out. A trail of wet heat slides down my thigh. He turns me, pulls me against him, kisses me deeply, tasting of sweat and sex and night.
His forehead rests against mine. “See?” he whispers, his voice wrecked. “Simple.”
But it’s not. As we walk back to his room, his arm tight around me, I know it’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever done. The door to his room is just a door. But crossing that threshold feels like signing a contract I haven’t even read.
He falls asleep instantly, a satisfied exhaustion.
I lie awake, listening to his heart, feeling the phantom ache between my legs.
Kinder. Zayn’s word haunts me.
The sun will be up soon. My friends will be looking for me. Aria will have questions. The real world is out there, waiting.
And I am in Harry Styles’ bed, wearing his shirt, carrying his scent, full of his come.
Nothing is simple. It’s just beginning.