Again, I'm so very sorry for taking so long to update -if anyone is still reading...-. The good news is that the story is already finished, AND the sequel started, so there's not too much time of waiting ahead of us XD.

I just recently noticed I had update the same chapter twice -really sorry for that-, so I fixed that problem now. Go and read the REAL chapter 15. And I'll uptade chapter 17 in an hour or so to make it up. Hopefully someone else apart of those two great girls would still read this? -Odd's crossing her fingers here-

Love!

XVI

"Hello." I said smiling when I finally could find my voice. James smirked.

"Did I wow you?" He wondered, dragging me toward the sofa he was occupying. Tom, Maggie, Danny and Harry were sitting there, with bottles of water, Red Bull, blueberry juice and some trays of food in the table in the middle. The idiotic brunette smirked at me and I was really tempted to hit her. Seriously.

"Oh, yes. I can barely walk!" I replied with a smirk. I was more than nervous. Seriously. I wanted to run away. It was the worst possible situation ever. I mean, I didn't have a clue of what relation with Harry was yet, and I was now in between him and James.

I think I blushed when he put an arm around my waist in a slightly-more-than-friendly gesture.

"Here, then. Let me help you." James joked. Stupid as I am, I couldn't help but glancing for an instant toward Harry, just to see him flinching, and glaring at me. I couldn't be blame for thinking he was gay, seriously.

"Thanks." I laughed, but it sounded too stiff. James and I sat on the sofa he was occupying before I'd arrived, side by side. I felt all eyes on me, all the attention focused on me, and I felt guilty. And I wasn't sure why I was feeling guilty, or over who.

"I was just explaining why exactly I couldn't be here before." James said with his cutest smile.

"Yeah! You didn't finish!" Maggie, the great Maggie, added, amused and delighted. I wasn't sure of what, but I thanked her for offering a distraction for my deranged mind. I needed sounds around me to think more clearly and stop freaking out.

"The cast for Loserville is decided!" James exclaimed, excited as a little child in Christmas. It was hard not to feel just as happy as him, really. Even when I was seriously contemplating the idea of just bloody jumping out the window.

Harry's eyes had the ability to do that.

"That's amazing!" Danny exclaimed delighted. He winked surreptitiously at me. "I didn't know the play was so on its track!"

"It is. It's like watching a baby grow." James said and laughed immediately after saying that, shaking back and forth, touching my leg with his. It made me smiled; he was like a little child sometimes.

What Fletch had just said appeared in my mind like a voice amplified by the IMAX of my mind. He was sure James could be the lust of the equation, and I wondered if that was something I could get to know.

I observed him critically, tilting my head to a side and ignoring the rest of the excited conversation. I could go on and on about his looks –amazing looks- but I was trying to focus on something. Not sure what kind of something, maybe something that could make a clear decision for me, or something that screamed… anything.

Instead, what I got was a very real feeling of something hitting the side of my forehead.

It took me almost two seconds to realized that it wasn't a very real feeling but a very real piece of cookie thrown in my direction by Harry. I looked at him a little dazed and he just frowned and glared at me.

"Sorry?" I muttered, confused. Had I been staring so much at James that I had zoned out of the whole world? I was supposed to be able of paying attention to a lot of things, but maybe I really wasn't?

Thank god, no one was really paying attention to me, and Maggie put all her force in driving the conversation so it would continue despites my awkwardness and Harry's staring. Even James, who at first had looked at me with a worried smile, turned back to talk about his beloved Loserville: The Musical.

I tried to pay attention, but it was a futile try. My brain kept doing what it shouldn't and compared both Harry and James, confusing me more. But I couldn't stop myself. Did I mention I'm a little masochist already?

James' excitement was so big, that even when I was concentrating on my confusing mind ways, I had to participate in the conversation somehow. I wanted to please him because I felt guilty, but that I only realized it when he whispered softly after a short pause that he had missed me. It made me feel like a major bitch.

And right then and there I decided I needed to come clean.

But strangely enough, the only scenario I was afraid of was Harry's. I knew I had to tell him that I had dated James, and I was more than bloody scared for having to do so. Explaining to James didn't feel half as dangerous.

However, I wasn't given much time to keep over-thinking things too much, because Fletch and Mike appeared again to tell the boys we were about to be heading toward the arena. I was saved by the bell.

Somewhat.

Because as soon as everyone leaved to change, I as left alone with Harry and James.

I'm doomed.

Oh, fuck, I'm going to die.

James smiled widely. "Playing Belfast. This is when you know you did it." He joked, touching my knee softly, absent-mindedly. "Aren't you going to get ready? We'll wait here. I have to…"

"Yeah, James. But I need something of Tallulah, so I'm taking her with me." Harry kind of snapped. Oh, fuck. I need to RUN! "Ok?" He added, softer this time.

James shrugged. "Ok. Then I'll be waiting here. Alone…" He sighed dramatically, and then laughed.

Harry didn't wait for anything else, and dragged me toward my room.

When he locked the door, I just knew I was doomed to hell.

…The window is open… It should be less painful, right?

"What was that?" He demanded to know. I flinched at the sound of his voice.

"What was what? James was just talking about the musical… Aren't you excited? It's so cool to have a musical out of your…" My voiced drifted off as I talked, feeling his eyes boring holes trough my head. "No?"

"No. Tallulah, you were staring." He demanded, furious.

"Well, yeah… He's James Bourne!" I exclaimed, desperate to found a way out. At least for now. Come on! Why should I receive his hate now when I could delay it?! I'm a pro at procrastinating. It's one of my many gifts. Like my long legs.

"You didn't stare at me." Harry muttered. I couldn't help but smiled at him as I reached for his shoulders and pushed myself closer to him. He pouted slightly.

My head was doing a mental happy-dance-over-the-tables to his amazingly offer of an excuse. I leaned toward him, just a breath away of his lips. "Because if I do that… I wouldn't be able to do this…" I whispered, and I kissed his lips.

The kiss became passionate and profound and deep and full of a meaning I couldn't understand within instants, and we were abruptly interrupted by the phone of my room ringing. It took us some seconds to listen to it, and when we did, I reached to it and picked it up, answering dazed as hell.

"Allo?"

"Get your and Harry's asses out of your room NOW." Mike's voice screamed trough the phone, making me drop it out of surprise.

"Fuck." I muttered, picking it up, elbowing Harry, who was laughing at me. Idiot. "We're going, we're going." I muttered, turning to the idiot. "We have to go now." With no more words, I grabbed my Jansport and a leather jacket by Armani Exchange, and then I pushed Harry toward the door. He let me do that, but now I think it only was because he, unlike myself, did remember the door was locked. I almost hit my face against it trying to open it.

"You're going to stay, right?" He asked, pressed against my back, pushing me against the door. I felt shivers down my spine and the temptation to turned around and forget about the show completely was ginormous. Harry grabbed my arms, caressing them slowly up and down with the tip of his fingers. The bastard…

I nodded. "Yeah, Harry. I'll stay."

"James likes you." He blurted out.

Fuck.

I couldn't face that now, could I?

So I did what I was best at. No, not run. Yet.

I turned around and kissed him softly, sweetly, on the lips. "We're going to be late and Mike and Fletch are going to kill us as painfully and mercilessly as they can think of." I stated, opening the door behind my back.

Harry pouted at me, a sight too cute to ignore. "Fine. Just leave me without my kiss of good luck. You are ashamed of me, I know it." He joked as he let me pushed him out of my room.

I blushed, and I felt… scared. Those words had a deeper meaning than it was obvious, and I was afraid that if he offered the word girlfriend again, I was going to ruin everything again. I didn't want him to hate me; I liked it very much as things were then.

Thanks god, he didn't push the matter, and we walked away quietly, joking about something Tom had said the last night and Danny's reaction to Maggie's cooking abilities. The hallway was empty, except for a frowning Mike that openly glared at us when he saw us.

"Finally. I don't mind at all that you're having good luck wild, animal, passionate sex, but you have to be punctual, stupid!" He said, hitting my head with the back of his hand. When Harry laughed, he turned to him. "And you don't laugh!" He ordered.

"Hey! Why did you hit me and not him?" I pouted. It was really unfair.

"Because you work for me and I work for him. See how this works?" Mike smirked, standing up of his place in the sofa and going to the elevator. Harry and I follow him, but the drummer grabbed my wrist softly to drag me to him and whisper in my ear.

"See? You're not even working for me." He said in his deep, husky, sexy voice. I shivered at his tone and his breath in my neck, but had to pretend I was cold at Mike's curious look.

"Oh, well." Mike said, shrugging, not really buying my excuse. "The rest took the van to the venue. We're going in my rent car."

*·*·*·*·*·*·*

I didn't leave, but not because I didn't want to, but because I had promised it to Harry. I wanted to yell "I HAVE MY PERIOD!" and then ran away. Far away.

James was next to me, trying to make conversation, and take me out of my mental reverie and paranoia, but I kept answering in monosyllables, because I couldn't focus. My mind was like a roller-coaster, spinning madly around, back and forth, up and down, and then some strategically chosen twists.

Want to know why?

Because Harry had kissed me in front of Mike.

Now, don't you start with the fact that he KNEW because I told him.

That wasn't what really mattered. No.

The fact that Harry kissed me in front of Mike meant purely that he was comfortable with letting people know of our…. Whatever we had.

And that meant that sooner or later he was going to want to explain what we were.

And even when I had decided that talking was the best way to stop my confusing mind of being so confusing, that didn't mean I was able to confront reality so early.

That and the fact that his kiss me had my mind working wrong. I didn't even understand myself, so don't just blame it on me. Really, is like my world was turned into a huge…

"Tallulah,"

I stopped short when I felt the hand on my shoulders that had been there probably a long time ago, seeing as the boys were already a quarter of the show down. I looked up to find James smirking face.

"I've been calling you for the last minutes, and you were gone a whole half an hour." He said at the edge of laughing. I blushed hotly and smiled.

"Sorry. I was kind of… out of there."

"You don't like my presence, I know." This time he did laugh. "Is something wrong?" James asked a little while later, leaving his hands where he had let them before. And that was too much. I felt guilty, and… I wasn't even sure at whom.

"I slept with Harry."

I'm stupid.

James looked confused, mostly. But his eyes shined a peculiar shade of blue. Sadish blue. "Ok?"

"More than once." I added, avoiding his glance.

How many probabilities I have for the Earth to suck me in and never let me go RIGHT NOW?

"… Oh…." James said softly. "…Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't know."

It was as if I was on autopilot, not really controlling what I said.

"Oh… Ok?"

"I really like you." I added as an afterthought. And just in case you're wondering, I am stupid. Really stupid. Majorly stupid.

"I really like you too." James admitted, moving me by my shoulders so I was looking at him again. "But?"

I sighed. "But I really like him too. I'm sorry. I didn't mean this to happen and I'm feeling like shit. I'm a bitch. I shouldn't have-…"

I couldn't continue my speech.

James Bourne was kissing me as if his life depended on it.

James Bourne was bloody fucking kissing me as if his life fucking depended on it.