Chapter Text
Prompt: 'Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?'
It’s only about fifteen minutes into the conversation with the guy seated at the table next to him that the thought occurs to Zayn, but it’s the sort of thought that he kind of can’t escape. He’s already learned that the guy—Harry—is living in London, works at Radio 1, knows the bride because her best friend’s cousin’s boyfriend once went to coffee with his sister (which apparently makes them best friends). He’d learned at first sight that Harry has sinful lips and bright eyes and strong shoulders and hair Zayn wants to pull. He’d learned about five minutes in that Harry is what’s going to make this tolerable.
It wasn’t that Zayn hadn’t wanted to come. He hadn’t, particularly, but that was more because he hated big events like this than anything. He’d wanted to see the wedding, see two of his friends say their vows to each other. He was not, as Louis’s claimed, ‘a pretentious cynic who can afford to be too cool for love because he’s hot enough to get laid anyway’. He just…finds it easier not to date. And taking someone to a wedding is a big deal if you’re not already dating, even if Louis claims it’s pathetic not to have a date to a wedding.
Which, normally, would just be their banter. But Harry is fit, and charming, and lovely, and he’s smiling at Zayn like he’s not just interested in his face, and,
“Sorry, this is weird, but I have to check—” Zayn blurts out, when Harry pauses after a story about the bakery he worked in when he was a teenager, “But are you a prostitute?”
It’s—not at all how Zayn had meant to ask, if he even had planned to ask at all, but maybe he’d had too much champagne or maybe he’d noticed the tattoos showing through Harry’s thin shirt in the hot lights and it had driven him momentarily brain dead He’ll tell Louis this story and never have to date again, after Louis stops laughing at him.
But Harry’s not running away. He just tilts his head consideringly, like he actually has to think about the answer. Zayn’s not sure what it says about either of them that he finds it endearing. “No,” he says, slowly. “Not that there’d be anything wrond with it if I was, but no, I’m not.”
“Okay.” Shit. Now Zayn’s ruined this just because his stupid brain won’t shut off. “Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?” he suggests hopefully.
He can’t get that lucky. Harry shakes his head. “Why’d you think I was?” His lips are pressed together like he’s doing a bad job at holding back a smile. “Is it the shirt?”
“No! I mean, like, it’s just, my mate was saying I shouldn’t go alone to this, and he’d absolutely get a prostitute to pretend to be my date if he’d thought about it, and then you were, like, here and all…” Zayn trails off before he can dig himself into a deeper hole. He can probably get away with never talking again. It sounds like a generally good idea.
“So you think anyone who shows interest in you is a prostitute?” Harry asks. His lips are still twitching. “Think that’s a problem, ‘cause I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re kind of gorgeous.”
“I know that.” He does, and there’s no point in false modesty. “But, like, you’ve also been talking to me? And still aren’t running away even when I’m being, well…” he waves a hand as if to take in the train wreck that is this conversation. “So I had to like, check.”
“You’re still talking to me too,” Harry points out. He leans forward, covers the hand of Zayn’s that’s resting on the table with his own. “Are you a prostitute? You’re certainly pretty enough to be.”
Zayn laughs. He can’t help it. Maybe he won’t tell Louis about this. “Nah,” he says, and throws caution to the wind. He flips his hand over, so their palms are touching, and leans forward too, so he can whisper in Harry’s ear. “Doesn’t mean I’m not yours for the night.”
Harry grins, pleased and syrup-slow. “Yeah?”
Zayn feels drunk, on champagne and weddings and Harry’s smile. “Yeah.”