a/n: hey y'all
i just wanted to say to any of my new readers: first of all, hello. i love you. congrats for reading this far. feel free to introduce yourself in the comments so we can be buddies!
second of all, updates don't usually take this long, i'm just â¨unmotivatedâ¨. but this chapter was supposed to be 3x as long as it currently is, but i decided to split it up so i could get more updates up. strategy yall.
anyways love y'all...enjoyð¥²
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I woke up this morning with a stomach ache.
At first, as one naturally does, my first thought was that the pasta I made for dinner upset my stomach. Which worried me for Harry, who had set out for a jog a little less than 10 minutes ago. But then I remembered what today was, and the whole reason I was up well before I normally wake on my own.
I remembered that this morning Harry and I would be driving up to Anne's house to spend a few days with her. I was excited about going on a road trip with Harry, but then he told me that her place wasn't too far from his. 45 minutes with good traffic, he said. That honestly made me a little sad because I enjoy being in the car, when I'm not the one driving, of course.
But I'm still counting it as a road trip.
Harry told me to get a head start on my packing since we both decided we wanted to be lazy last night and push packing off until the morning time. I assumed he would just pack when he got back from his jog and we would leave right after. I'm sure he's expecting me to be close to done, if not completely packed when he returns. So that's exactly what I was planning to do.
But as I fold up the only dress I brought to California, which turned into London, I thought about what Jess said. She told me, if it were her meeting Harry's parents, she would wear a sundress. But it's winter, and I'm not much of a winter-dress-wearer.
I'm in my pajamas, still unsure what I was going to wear today. I'll just ask Harry when he gets home.
Instinctively, as the thought of Harry's name enters my mind, I look over at my phone, and my head traces back to last night.
I made the final decision of blocking Noah after having him blow up my phone with countless texts yet again. I of course tried to remind him that I wasn't interested, but then he just went on and on about how a few of his friends are in town and how he wanted to see me again. "Over coffee or something," were his exact words. And I tried to kindly remind him, once again, I am with someone and that it would be kind of rude of me to go out on a date with someone else. But he didn't take that very well, going so far as to call me a "self-centered bitch". So I simply said goodbye and blocked him. And if he gets a new phone again, which I find highly unlikely, then I will take the extra step to get a new number myself.
But in all honesty, throughout his recent obsessive behavior, I've felt worse for Harry than I have for myself. Not only is he getting increasingly worried about my safety, but I feel that the situation is putting me in a bad mood and distracting me from spending time with him. And the last thing I want is to be visiting Anne with him and be somewhere else mentally.
So with that being said, I shake off any and every thought containing Noah, deciding to finish packing instead. I turn around before making my way into the en suite connected to Harry's bedroom. There I get my toothbrush and hairbrush, everyday things I took out of my suitcase. Harry gave me a drawer in his bathroom to put my things in and told me to let him know if I needed more space...but I felt like it would be a little weird if I put my pads and tampons under his sinkâwhich I brought so nothing like what happened in Anguilla would occur again.
After packing for some more time, I was almost finished and heard the front door alarm beep, signaling Harry had returned from his jog. My stomach still tingles with nerves, the stay with Anne approaching quicker and quicker by the minute.
The sound of footsteps ascending the stairs fills the silent house. I turn to face the door, waiting patiently to see Harry walk through. After all, even with all the security surrounding the house, it's still a bit scary being home alone in Harry's house. The upstairs, the downstairs, and all the different rooms on both levels, along with all the scary movies I've seen in my lifetime...fucking terrifying. Call me paranoid all you want, but it's scary.
Alas, the door that was once open only ajar pushes open, revealing a red-nosed Harry. He wore a black beanie, covered halfway by a black hoodie with the words "Fullstop Management" printed in white across the front. He also wore black Nike joggers and held bright red running shoes in his hands.
As he enters the room, he's pulling his earbuds out of his ears. He tilts his head up to smile at me, which I respond to with a smile of my own. He sets his shoes by the door, probably planning to put them away later.
"How was your run?" I ask as he walks around the large bed, unplugging his headphones from his iPhone before setting it down on his nightstand.
"Really good, actually," he says with a nod. "It was a bit chilly outside, but it wasn't too cold."
I give him a small nod before sitting down on the edge of the bed I stood near. I let out a sigh, mostly just because the silence in the room was killing me.
"What's wrong?" Harry asks, walking around the bed to my side.
"Nothing's wrong." I shake my head. "Why do you think something's wrong?"
He takes a seat next to me. "You just seem tense. Are you nervous?"
"Is it that obvious?" I ask, letting out a form of an awkward laugh.
"There's no need to be," he assures me, shaking his head vigorously as he wraps an arm around my shoulder.
Given the fact that he just returned from a run, I kind of expected him to smell gross and sweaty. But he didn't...he smelled like clean laundry and men's deodorant. So I lean into his hug, resting my head near his collarbone.
"I can promise you my mother doesn't bite," he says and I laugh, lifting my head up.
"I just want her to like me," I say, looking down.
"There is no doubt in my mind that she will like you," he says, tightening his arms grip around my shoulders. After a moment of hugging me in silence, he speaks up again. "So, have you finished packing?"
"Does it look like it?" I say sarcastically, gesturing to the open and half-full suitcase sitting in the middle of the bed behind our backs. Harry chuckles after turning his head to look behind us. He turns back to me.
"At least you've made some progress," he says optimistically, shrugging. He always seems to look on the bright side, even if he has to search for one. He removed his arm from my shoulders and placed his hands by the sides of his thighs, pushing himself up off the bed. "But I haven't even started yet. So I tell you what...I'm going to go take a quick shower, then when I get out, we can finish packing together. If that'll make it easier for you."
"Sounds good to me." I shrug. Harry begins to walk away, but I quickly reach forward and grab a hold of his hand, gently stopping him from walking away. He turns back around to face me, shooting me a confused look.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I just..." I let out a mixture of a sigh and a laugh, realizing how ridiculous my inner self is. "What are you planning to wear?"
"Why do you wanna know?" He chuckles.
I shrug. "Because I'm going crazy trying to figure out an outfit."
"Just wear what you're wearing." He says with a shrug. The man who has an outfit for literally everything just told me to wear my pajamas...to meet his mother.
"But I wore these to bed," I say, looking down.
Normally I wouldn't mind rewearing my pajamas, don't get me wrong, but to meet Anne? It just seems a little lazy of me. I mean, first impressions are everything, right?
"Hey, you asked for my opinion." He shrugs again.
"Technically I asked what you were going to wear," I corrected him with a smug look on my face. "Which you never told me."
"If you must know," he inhales a breath, "I'm wearing sweats and a hoodie."
"Really?" I furrow my eyebrows.
"Yeah." He nods. "It's my mum, she doesn't care what I wear. And I can promise you she won't care what you show up in either." He paused for a moment, but I didn't continue the conversation, because he looked like he was thinking of what to say next. "If we both show up in sweats, she'll love it."
I look back down at my attire. It wasn't the worst thing I could be wearing, but it wasn't very meet-his-mother material. The large light blue t-shirt I was wearing wasn't exactly the most flattering when paired with the light gray sweatpants (which I paid way too much for when I bought them) I had on.
An idea pops into my head, and I look back up at Harry, a smirk on my face. He stares at me, waiting for me to talk since I'm fairly certain my face made it obvious I had a genius idea.
"Do you have anything I could borrow?" I ask him.
He stares for a second longer, probably processing what I just asked. But then a smirk creeps over his lips, quickly hidden by him wiping his nose with his finger.
"Feel free to look," he tells me, finally removing the beanie from his head. He gestured toward his closet door. "You only really packed for Los Angeles weather, so take anything you want."
A smile crossed my lips, excitement filling my stomach. Going through Harry Styles' closet...a dream.
"I..." he begins to say, stepping closer to me. He places a finger under my chin, tilting my head up, "am getting in the shower." He kisses my lips swiftly. "I won't be too long."
He steps away from me, making his way into the en suite to shower. I found it odd he didn't take any clothes with him, but maybe I'm just so used to doing it myself.
Harry shuts the bathroom door, leaving it open so there was a small crack of light beaming near the door frame. I sit, staring at nothing in particular, dozing off. After a moment, I decide that I should get up and find something to wear.
I walk over to Harry's closet, pushing the door open and flipping on the light. You'd expect his closet to be a ginormous, two-story room filled with everything designer you could ever imagine. But it isn't. It's a good size, but there's only one story and none of his suits are in there. There also aren't as many clothes as you'd think, but he has more in the closet in his L.A. home than he does in here.
I take a look around. I don't want to wear anything too expensive, but he obviously didn't have anything from Walmart in here either. Immediately, my eyes searched for anything in Harry's closet with a hood. After all, we were going for comfort, right?
I step further into the closet, my hand dragging along the sleeves of his clothing as I walk past. I move a few hangers from side to side until I stop upon seeing a familiar hoodie. A grey Treat People With Kindness hoodie; one from Harry's own merchandise store. I had the same one at home in black.
I couldn't help but let out a laugh. Of course, he would wear his own merch.
Figuring he would be the least worried about this hoodie since he has all access to his own merch store and could probably get a replacement easily, I slide the grey hoodie off the black velvet hanger.
I remove my blue shirt and replace it with the hoodie, a new feeling of warmth covering me from my wrists to my shoulders. The hoodie is larger than I'm used to, so it's slightly big on me, but I don't mind all that much...it makes it feel more like Harry's.
I step out of Harry's closet just in time to hear the shower faucet turn off. After a moment he comes out of the bathroom, his hair soaking wet, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, carrying his dirty clothes in his hands. As soon as he enters the room, his eyes snap to meet mine and I suddenly feel self-conscious. That is until he smiles.
"You look amazing," he compliments me and I blush. "Good choice."
"Thank you." I smile back.
He quickly shuffles into his closet, tossing the clothes in his hands into the dirty laundry bin.
"Ready to pack?" He asks me.
"Sure," I say, feeling the nerves returning to the pit of my stomach.
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a/n: also, fuck candace owens. she's a linda.