The Reinvention of Harry Styles

Molly’s head was buzzing with thoughts as she and Harry flew back to London that weekend. She still had yet to give him an answer, and that created a bit of awkwardness between them. On top of that, she was keeping Daisy’s secret, even though she really wanted to talk about it with someone and make sure she had done the right thing.

When their plane touched down in London, Molly realized there was really only one person she could talk to about her situation with Harry: his sister, her “best friend.” It wasn’t ideal to talk about guy issues with the guy’s sister, but she couldn’t go to any of her friends with this conundrum, and no one else really knew about their fake relationship.

Luckily for her, Gemma was willing to help her out, and agreed to come over for lunch while Harry was out. Due to the time difference, Molly was just waking up when Gemma arrived, and didn’t even bother changing out of her pajamas. Luckily Gemma had brought coffee, because Molly needed it after their long flight. Once she’d consumed enough caffeine for her brain to work properly, she sat down with Gemma in the living room to talk about her Harry issue.

“As you know, Harry and I are pretending to date for...reasons I can’t even remember anymore. But, the fake relationship is for the benefit of his management, so as far as Jeff and the rest of his team are concerned, we’ve been dating since April. And of course, Harry had to complicate it more by actually having feelings for me, and this week he asked me out.” Molly glanced up at Gemma to make sure she was following her story.

“Leave it to Harry to complicate things,” she smiled. “So, I’m guessing you’re wondering if you should turn him down or not?”

Molly nodded. “Exactly. Either way, it’s going to make things awkward, I think. If I turn him down, I think he’ll eventually get over it, but things won’t be the same. On the other hand, if I say yes, I think it could be pretty awesome. When I was 16 I would have killed for the chance to be Harry Styles’ girlfriend. Yet, if we broke up, it would probably have to be the end of...the fake relationship, too.”

Gemma nodded, taking this all in. “Okay, I see how both sides could cause issues. Of course, he’s my little brother and I don’t want him to get his heart broken. I hate to ask this, but-”

“Yes. We’ve had sex, so that’s not a factor in this decision. We decided having a ‘friends with benefits’ kind of relationship would benefit both of us. If that were a factor, yes, oh my god yes I wouldn't hesitate.”

Gemma closed her eyes for a moment. “That’s not what I was going to ask, but thank you. I meant, I hate to ask this - because it should be an obvious factor - but how do you feel about him? Do you want to date him?”

“Oh.” Molly was quiet for a moment and sipped on her coffee. “It’s hard for me to say. Sometimes I have a hard time separating the real Harry from the guy I obsessed over in high school and college, and wrote fanfiction about. The more I’ve gotten to know him, the more I realized they are quite different, yet sometimes they overlap - like a venn diagram. I have been trying so hard not to fall in love with him this past month, because I know it would just complicate things, and I don’t know how to stop resisting that. I keep looking for reasons to not like him, to the point where I assumed he’d knocked up a mutual friend of ours.”

Gemma nearly spat out her coffee. “What? Why would you think that?”

“Well, uh,” Molly tried to work out a way to explain this without giving away Daisy’s secret. “This friend of ours told me recently that she was pregnant, rather, um, unexpectedly-”

“Sorry, I have to interrupt, but this friend of yours isn’t actually you, and you’re just saying it’s a ‘friend’ to avoid an embarrassing situation?” Gemma asked, indicating air quotes around ‘friend.’

“Oh god no; I hope not, at least.” Molly paused. “No, definitely not me, we’re always safe.” Gemma seemed to visibly relax at her reassurance.

“Okay. Because you could tell me that, you know, right?” Gemma asked, and Molly nodded.

“Of course. But, back to my friend. The way she talked about the guy she’d slept with made me think it was Harry, and I jumped to conclusions and immediately assumed he’d slept with her, even though I had asked him about it a while ago, he said he hadn’t. It’s like my brain was so used to finding faults in him that it took something that actually had nothing to do with either of us and turned it against him.” Molly sighed. “Even if I could get past that and stop nitpicking him, I think it has been my ability to find the negativity that’s enabled me to help him fix his career, if that makes sense.”

Gemma was quiet for a moment, so Molly looked up at her. “I guess that’s a risk you’re going to have to take.”

Molly raised her eyebrow. “You mean I should go for it?”

Gemma shrugged. “Well, it’s up to you, but you’ve put enough thought into it to show you really care. I like you; you’re the kind of person he needs, yet this isn’t just about him. As a friend, I have to remind you to put yourself first and consider what you really want. I’m sure you know the consequences of dating him and what his fans will say if they find out. Yet, I know first hand how sweet and kind he is to people he cares about. When he does fall for someone, he falls hard and fast, though it usually doesn’t end pretty.”

Molly was sure she knew who Gemma was talking about and nodded. “That’s not very encouraging.”

“I think you might be the exception to that last part. From what I know about you, I think you already knew that about him and probably factored it into your pros and cons list. I think you guys could balance each other out nicely, and probably last longer than his previous relationships.”

Molly considered this as she inspected the outside of her coffee cup. “You’re right,” she nodded. “Maybe that’s why we make such a convincing fake couple, because we compliment each other so well.”

“Yes,” Gemma pointed. “That is the point I was trying to make.”

Molly leaned back in her seat. “I think I need something stronger than coffee to figure this out.”

Gemma stood up. “I’d love to get a drink with you, but I have to meet my boyfriend in half an hour. Let me know how it goes!”

“I will, and thank you for the coffee,” Molly gave her a hug goodbye and fell back onto the couch once she’d left. She glanced to the right at the liquor cabinet and got up. “Maybe I’ll just have a drink on my own, then.”

Several drinks later, Molly found herself in the kitchen baking cupcakes and dancing to her favorite One Direction songs, still wearing her pajamas. By the time she got to their last album, she was decorating the cupcakes with pink and green icing. She shoved the green icing into a ziplock bag and cut off the corner, since Harry didn’t have the equipment for piping frosting.

‘We’ll have to fix that’ Molly thought, and started making a mental list of all the things Harry needed in his kitchen. ‘If I Could Fly’ came on and she froze, frosting in hand. Molly sat down at the counter in front of the cupcakes and absently started piping the frosting on the the cupcakes. She thought hard about what Gemma had said, and mentally went over her pros and cons list again. Molly was so deep in thought, that she didn’t hear Harry come home.

Harry had stayed out later than he needed to that afternoon. He wasn’t necessarily avoiding Molly, but he wanted to give her space to think. As impatient as he was to get an answer from her, he wanted to make sure she’d thought it through. Yet with each day that passed, Harry became more and more concerned that she was just trying to come up with a way to let him down nicely.

Harry met with Jeff that afternoon to discuss the upcoming tour, which started in just a month. It was a bit surreal to him doing it all on his own this time around, and throughout the whole meeting he’d wished Molly had been there with him. She would know the right questions to ask about the logistics of the tour and promotion. As their meeting concluded, Jeff informed Harry that Daisy would not be coming on tour with him.

“Really?” He was surprised. He knew Daisy was on the fence about that, but he thought she’d eventually come around.

Jeff nodded. “She said something had come up and had to go home. It’s nothing personal; I think she said something about a family health issue or something.”

Harry couldn’t help but take it personally, since he thought they’d had some kind of connection and yet she couldn’t even tell him in person that she was leaving? He tried to brush it off, assuming he was on edge for other reasons, but couldn't help but feel a little hurt. He went out for a drink with a friend afterward, something he usually did not do, and stayed out later than intended.

When he got home that evening, he certainly did not expect to hear One Direction blasting in his kitchen. When the song changed as he was coming inside, he paused and stood in the doorway to the kitchen, quietly watching Molly as he replayed the look on her face when he’d sang this song for her. It was not the look he had been hoping for, yet, what was he really expecting? It wasn’t realistic that she’d instantly say yes and fall into his arms, and they’d live happily ever after. Harry knew that, yet he had still hoped for something more.

The song ended and Molly glanced up at him finally. She looked surprised to see him, but smiled.

“I made cupcakes,” she grinned and stood up.

“I can see that,” Harry came closer to look at them. "They look delicious.”

Molly looked them over before picking one up. “This one’s for you.”

He took the cupcake and was about to take a bite out of it when he realized the green icing on top spelled out the word ‘yes’. He stared at it for a moment before looking back at Molly and she smiled.

“Yes?” He asked and his face lit up into a smile.

Molly nodded. “Yes, Harry, I will be your girlfriend.”

He grinned and set the cupcake down before drawing her into a tight hug. “The way you kept me waiting I thought for sure it was going to be a ‘no’.”

“I wouldn’t bake cupcakes just to say that,” Molly laughed and pulled out of the hug to smile up at him. “It just took a while to wrap my head around this, and I was half expecting you to say you were joking, is that bad?”

“You were, really?” Harry cocked his head to the side and grabbed his cupcake again. “This is delicious, by the way,” he said after taking a bite.

“Thanks, and yeah. This whole thing, since the day I first met you, has been so surreal and strange for me. I kept thinking I’d wake up and realize I was 19 again, and had accidentally fallen asleep looking at my 1D poster again.”

Harry put the cupcake down for a moment and stared at it. “You haven’t drugged me, have you? Given me some kind of love potion? Because you made cupcakes when we first started pretending to date, as well.”

Molly laughed “God no. 19 year old Molly might have done that, if there was such a thing as a love potion. I just thought it would be appropriate if I made cupcakes for the first day we actually started dating, too.”

Harry nodded and picked up his cupcake again. “That’s very sentimental of you, Molls, I didn’t realize you were the mushy type.”

“Oh, I get a nick-name now that we’re dating?” She laughed.

“Do you not like it? Because I can come up with something better. And, we can finally work on that ship name,” he added.

“Oh boy, the ship name. I’d forgotten about that,” Molly sighed.

“I was thinking Harly.”

“Oh, that’s actually pretty good? Like your bike!” Molly added. “Do you still have a motorcycle?”

“Maybe. Why, you want me to take you out for a ride?” Harry smiled. “I thought you didn’t want to be seen together like that?”

“We’d have helmets, of course, no one has to know it’s us,” Molly grinned. “Hey, have you seen that short series about how Harley-Davidson was created? I think it’s called Harley and the Davidsons? I kinda wanted to watch it; that guy from Game of Thrones is in it.”

“I have not seen it. That sounds like the name of a band made up of hipsters who play banjos,” Harry smirked. “And which guy from Game of Thrones? There’re a lot of guys.”

“The hot one that liked Daenerys.”

“You’re still going to have to be more specific…”

“Dario or something, I can’t remember his name. Come on, let’s watch it,” she grabbed his hand hand pulled him toward the living room.

“So, is this like our first real date as a couple? Netflix and chill?” Harry asked as they settled in on the couch.

“That depends on what you consider ‘chill’ to mean, and I’m not sure this is a date,” Molly eyed him.

“You’re wearing your pajamas?” Harry turned to her and inspected her outfit, noticing it for the first time since he’d gotten home.

She shrugged. “I didn’t feel like getting dressed.”

“How about I go put on my pajamas, and we can eat cupcakes and watch Netflix together?” Harry stood up.

“You have pajamas?” Molly raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Yeah...I just don’t wear them very often.” Harry answered bashfully.

“Well, sounds like a perfect date. I knew there was a reason I liked you so much,” Molly teased, and Harry left to get changed.

Molly pleasantly sighed. ‘So far dating Harry is going pretty okay. I think I could get used to this…’

Notes

That Harley Davidson show I mentioned is kind of interesting, but it’s not that great. I only watched it because my friend’s sister was in it : )

These past few chapters have gone quickly, and I can’t believe we’re up to chapter 20 already!!! Thank you for your support, and for reading, voting, and commenting! This story has come much further than I thought it would : D