Chapter 2: The Coffee Shop Confrontation
The bell above the door chimed as I pushed into the coffee shop, and I felt every pair of eyes in the booth hit me at once. The whole crew was there, crammed into the corner booth like it was the only seat in the house. Liam and Spencer pressed together on one side, Hanna perched on Niall's lap, Aria half-tangled with Louis, Emily tucked under Zayn's arm. And there, dead center, sat Harry.
His curls were a mess, the kind of messy that meant he'd slept hard and hadn't bothered to fix it. He wore that tight smile, the one he used when he was trying too hard to look relaxed. He raised a hand and waved me over like last night never happened.
My chest clenched so hard I thought my ribs might crack.
I walked over, my boots heavy on the worn floorboards. The smell of roasted coffee sat thick in the air, and the espresso machine hissed in the background like it was mocking me. Liam slid out to let me into the booth, and I ended up across from Harry, a scarred wooden table between us.
"Hey, babe," he said, and the word hit me like a slap.
"Hey." My voice came out flat. Dead.
Hanna opened her mouth to say something, probably a joke about how I looked like shit, but Spencer shot her a look that shut her down. The silence stretched, ugly and uncomfortable. Niall cleared his throat. Louis studied the sugar dispenser like it held the secrets of the universe.
And Harry. Harry looked everywhere but at me.
I caught the flicker in his green eyes before he dropped them to his coffee cup. Guilt. Plain as day. The kind that crawls into a person's face when they know they've done something wrong and haven't figured out how to lie about it yet.
"You look tired," he said, still not meeting my eyes. "Didn't you sleep?"
I stared at him. The question hung between us, and I felt something hot and sharp building in my chest, right behind my ribs. All night I'd laid in bed, clutching his pillow, calling his phone until it went straight to voicemail. All night I'd replayed every word Louis had texted me, picking it apart for lies. And here he was, sitting in front of me, asking if I'd slept like he hadn't been the reason I couldn't close my eyes.
"Fell asleep early, did you?" I asked.
The table went still. Liam's hand froze halfway to his mug. Niall's smile slipped clean off his face.
Harry's jaw tightened. "I was tired. Crashed as soon as I got back to the house."
"Funny." I leaned forward, my voice dropping low. "I called you seven times. Straight to voicemail every single one. Your phone never goes to voicemail."
Aria shifted in her seat, exchanging a quick look with Louis. I saw it. I saw the silent conversation passing between them, and I knew in my gut that everyone at this table knew something I didn't.
"Battery died," Harry said, but his voice cracked on the last word.
"Really? Because Louis texted me at midnight saying you crashed. That's a pretty specific thing to know if you were out cold."
Louis cleared his throat. "I, uh, checked on him when I got in."
I turned to face him, and I watched the color drain from his cheeks. "You checked on him. That's sweet. And he was just passed out, sleeping like a baby, right?"
"Yeah," Louis said, but he couldn't hold my stare.
The coffee shop felt too small. Too hot. I could feel my pulse in my throat, thick and pounding, and the words were building up inside me, demanding to come out. But I wasn't going to lose it here. Not in front of everyone. Not with his friends circling around him like defenders on a soccer field.
I grabbed my purse and slid out of the booth.
"Nikki, wait." Harry's hand shot out, catching my wrist. His fingers were warm, familiar, and for a split second I wanted to believe him. Wanted to sink back into that booth and let him convince me I was being paranoid.
But I saw the guilt in his eyes. And I couldn't unsee it.
"Don't," I said, pulling my arm free. "Just don't."
I walked out without looking back, the bell chiming over my head as the door swung shut behind me, and I heard the scrape of his chair as he went to follow.
The cold air hit my face the second I stepped outside, and I let it bite into my skin. Behind me, the coffee shop door swung open, and I heard Harry's boots on the pavement, quick and urgent.
"Nikki. Nikki, wait."
I kept walking. My shoulder blades tensed with every step, but I didn't slow down. The building for my lit class loomed at the edge of the quad, and I pointed myself at it like a compass needle.
"Nikki, please. Just give me two minutes." He caught up, falling into step beside me, his hand reaching for my elbow. I shook him off.
"You had all night to give me an explanation, Harry. All night I called you. Seven times."
"I know. I fucked up." His voice was raw, stripped of the smooth charm he'd tried to put on at the booth. "I should have texted you myself. I should have told you what happened."
"What happened?" I stopped dead, spinning to face him. "That's the thing, Harry. I still don't know. Louis told me you crashed. That's it. That's the whole lie I got served, and I was supposed to swallow it whole."
He opened his mouth, and for a second, I thought he was going to tell me the truth. Something flickered in his green eyes, a war I could practically see him fighting with himself. But then his jaw set, and whatever he'd been about to say died on his tongue.
"Can we talk later? Tonight? I promise, I'll explain everything."
"You promise," I repeated, the words tasting like ash. "Right. Because your promises have been so reliable lately."
I turned and walked into the building, leaving him standing on the quad with his hands shoved in his pockets.
The lit classroom was half-empty, the early morning crowd sparse. Professor Reyes stood at the front, arms crossed, a stack of papers in one hand. She raised an eyebrow when I slid into my usual seat near the window, but she didn't say anything. She knew better.
My backpack hit the floor with a dull thud. I pulled out my notebook, uncapped a pen, and stared at the blank page. The words of the poem we were supposed to discuss floated through my head, something about love and betrayal and the moment you realize the person you trusted was never who they claimed to be.
It was all too close. Every fucking line of it.
"Nikki." Professor Reyes's voice cut through my thoughts. "Care to share your take on the second stanza?"
I blinked at her. I hadn't even processed the question. My brain was still stuck on Harry's face in the quad, the way his eyes had darted away from mine.
"The second stanza," I repeated, buying myself time.
"Mm. The speaker's shift in tone. From devotion to doubt." She tilted her head, watching me like she could see right through my skull. "Seemed relevant to your mood, given how hard you're glaring at the page."
A few students laughed. I forced a smile and looked down at the poem. The lines blurred together, but I grabbed at the first thread that made sense.
"The shift isn't sudden. It's the accumulation." I traced the text with my finger, finding the words. "The speaker lists all the times they were given empty promises. Declarations of love that never matched up with action. So by the time the doubt sets in, it's not paranoia. It's evidence."
Professor Reyes nodded slowly, something like approval in her expression. "Good. That's the core of it. Trust doesn't break in one moment. It erodes slowly, one small betrayal at a time, until the weight of it becomes too much."
I felt that weight settle back on my chest, heavy as stone.
Class ended, and I packed my bag in a haze. The other students filed out, chatting about brunch and study groups, and I let them go. Grabbed my phone. No new messages. No missed calls. Harry hadn't reached out since I left him on the quad.
I sat there, alone in the empty classroom, the fluorescent lights humming above me. And I knew, deep in my gut, that tonight would decide everything. He said he'd explain. Fine. I'd give him one chance to tell me the truth, and if he lied again, I was done letting him treat my heart like a spare tire he could swap out whenever it was convenient.
I sat in that empty classroom until the hum of the fluorescent lights felt like it was drilling into my skull. Then I stood, swung my bag over my shoulder, and walked out the back door of the building. The quad was busy now, students crisscrossing between classes, and nobody looked twice at me. Good. I didn't want to be seen.
I had one question burning a hole in my chest, and I was done waiting for Harry's version of events. He wanted tonight? I wasn't giving him that luxury. I pointed myself toward the frat house and started walking.
The house sat at the edge of campus, a big white Colonial with a wraparound porch and a faded Greek letter banner hanging crooked over the door. Beer pong tables littered the front lawn, still scattered with red cups from the weekend. I'd been here a dozen times, always with Harry's arm around my shoulder, always laughing at something stupid someone said. Now the porch stairs felt like they were leading somewhere I didn't want to go.
I knocked. Waited. Knocked again, harder.
Zayn opened the door, shirtless, bleary-eyed, a slice of toast hanging from his mouth. "Nikki. Hey. Uh. Harry's not here."
"Then where is he?"
Zayn chewed his toast, looking everywhere but at me. "He went out. Said he needed to clear his head. I don't know."
"Out where?"
"Didn't say." He shifted his weight, and I caught the lie in his eyes before he even finished speaking. "I think he went to the field, maybe. Or the gym. Somewhere like that."
I stared at him until he cracked. His jaw worked, and he glanced back into the house, nervous.
"Zayn." My voice came out hard. "Tell me the truth."
He swallowed. "He's in his room. He's been locked in there since this morning. Louis tried to talk to him and got shut down."
I pushed past him without asking permission. The living room was wrecked, strewn with video game controllers and empty chip bags. The stairs creaked under my boots. I knew which door was his, a room with a worn soccer cleat glued to the wood.
I didn't knock. I pushed it open.
Harry was on his bed, still in the clothes he'd worn to the coffee shop, phone face-down on the nightstand. He looked up when I walked in, and his face went through a whole war in one second. Surprise, then fear, then something exhausted and raw.
"Nikki. What are you doing here?"
"Answering the question you couldn't." I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. "You're not locked in here because you're tired, Harry. You're hiding in here because you know I'd come."
He sat up slowly, running a hand through his curls. "I was going to tell you tonight. I promise."
"Stop saying you promise." The words came out sharp, and I watched him flinch. "Every time you say it, it means less. So just talk. Where were you last night? Who were you with?"
His mouth opened. Closed. He looked down at his hands, and when he spoke, his voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear it.
"Kendall called me. Around ten. She was wasted at some party, and her ride bailed, and she said she had nowhere to go. So I went and picked her up. I drove her to her apartment, made sure she got in safe, and then I came home. My phone died in the car. That's it."
The words landed in my gut like stones. "And you didn't think to tell me that? You didn't think, hey, Nikki might appreciate me using literally any available phone to say my ex-fling called me in the middle of the night so I ran to her like a puppy?"
"It wasn't like that." He stood up, taking a step toward me. "She was in a bad spot. I was just helping her. I didn't even want to be there. I was thinking about you the whole time."
"Then why didn't you tell me?" My voice cracked, and I hated it. "Why did you have Louis lie for you? Why did you sit in that booth and feed me your little battery-died story like I'm too stupid to notice?"
Harry's jaw tightened. He looked like he was trying to figure out which lie could still save him, and the fact that he was still weighing options told me everything.
"I knew how it would look. I knew you'd think the worst."
"Because you gave me every reason to." I crossed my arms, holding myself together. "You made the same choice, Harry. Kendall needs you, and I get put on hold. You don't even think about me. You just react, and I'm the one who has to pick up the pieces."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" I took a step toward him. "Did you sleep with her?"
"No. I swear to God, Nikki, I did not touch her. She was puking in a bush when I got there. I just wanted to get her home safe."
I searched his face for the lie. His green eyes held mine, steady and clear, and I found nothing but honesty there. That was the worst part. He'd actually done the thing he said. He'd helped her, driven her home, and not touched her. And it was still a betrayal, because he'd chosen to hide it instead of trusting me.
"Then you've used up your last chance." I kept my voice level. "Tonight, I'm going home, and I'm going to think about whether I can be with someone who keeps putting me second. And you're going to stop lying to me."
"Nikki, please."
"Don't." I opened the door. "You wanted to tell me tonight. This is tonight. And you just did. So decide what you actually want, and come to me with the truth for once."
I walked out, down the creaking stairs, past Zayn's guilty face in the living room. The door swung shut behind me, and I stepped into the cold afternoon light, my chest a battlefield I didn't know how to stop fighting in.
I made it back to my dorm on autopilot, the cold night air biting at my skin.