harry and mia blurb. 1.8k. as always, happy reading! based on this message ... from 2021
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The thud of Harry’s duffel bag dropping onto the floor forces Mia out of her daydreams. She stops staring at him – even though it’s well within her right to as someone so intimately occupied with him – and smiles up at the newest arrival. He’s just stepped out of the bathroom, a hoodie and sweats on, dragging the bag to the end of her bed frame so it’s no longer a tripping hazard.
Harry’s hair is tied into a bun at the back of his head, but the strands he couldn’t avoid getting wet in the shower frame his face in cute ringlets. Harry loops his work bag over the back of her desk chair and then falls onto her twin XL bed with a grunt. Face first.
The bed is so small, not just compared to all six feet of Harry, that his arms naturally fall into her lap. He adjusts himself then, wrapping his arms around her waist, shuffling closer to bury his face against her hip. It’s easy to fall back into the rhythm of having Harry in her space, no matter how startling it is to see him only every few months. The excitement doesn’t go away totally, but it dissipates into comfort. Evolves.
Harry sighs deeply. Mia relieves his hair of the tight bun, and then his sigh turns into a very tired hum.
“Long flight?” Mia whispers. She walks her fingers down his neck and shoulders, pressing the backs of her knuckles into the hard flesh at the top of his spine. Harry groans and drops his shoulders.
“Worked the entire flight. I wanted to sleep,” Harry mutters. He lifts his head up and then flips over, staring at her upside down from where his head rests now in her lap. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Mia says softly, smoothing her thumbs over his forehead. “You should get some rest.”
Harry blinks. “No, I’m good. I’ll sleep at the hotel.” With yet another sound that he can’t seem to keep inside of him, he sits up and turns around, wrapping his right arm around her torso. “Come here.”
Mia happily lets him tug her towards him. His kiss is soft, always just a little bit hesitant when they meet after so long. His free hand cups her jaw, fingers curling into her own damp hair. When he pulls back, Mia swears there’s a hint of a smile on his face. The rest of him, though, still looks tired. Even his blinks are slow.
“You can take my bed, sir,” Mia whispers, leaning in for another kiss. What she really wants to do is kiss him until she’s lost all reason, but she just feels so bad about how tired he looks. “It’s small but it’ll do the job.”
Harry drops his forehead to Mia’s shoulder. She thinks he kisses her collarbone, but she’s not too sure. The kiss is clumsy and not well positioned. Mia throws her arms around his big shoulders and goes back to knuckling at the stiff muscle, smiling when Harry shivers and spreads his large hands over her back.
“Fine,” he decides. Or maybe his body decides. “Just for half an hour.”
“Okay.” She goes to pull away. “I’ve an assignment I’ve been procrastinating anyways.”
Harry’s arms tighten. “No, sleep with me.”
It’s not a question. But it’s not an order either. Mia knows exactly how to tell the difference in tone when the statement from Harry comes as a command versus a suggestion versus – albeit rare – a joke. Right now, it’s a suggestion. He picks his head up and looks at her with his beautiful red rimmed green eyes and his pouty, tired mouth, and his red cheeks, and –
And Mia can’t say no to him.
“Yeah, all right,” she whispers, swallowing.
Harry scoots back and pulls the duvet away. Before he buries himself into the bed, he tugs his hoodie off, giving Mia a breathtaking view of the smattering of tattoos on his arms and chest. She stops herself for a total of seven seconds before her hands are wandering over his flesh, as if it’s the first time she’s seeing them. Harry doesn’t mind, nor does he pull away. His eyes are closed, hair smushed under his cheek on her pillow. He’s taken the side closest to the wall, but even though he makes himself small, there’s so much of him. To accommodate the lack of space, Mia slinks into the warm bed and huddles close to him.
“Your roommate?” Harry murmurs against Mia’s hair. It’s a bit awkward. There’s a bit of maneuvering, and Mia ends up with her back to his chest. Still, his knees end up at her thighs and he has nowhere to put his other arm except under the pillow. It’ll fall asleep soon and cause discomfort, but Harry seems too tired to care.
“Studying in the library. Then she’s staying at her boyfriend’s dorm.”
“Did you tell her I’d be here?”
“I told her I’d have a guest.”
“Mm.” Harry’s hand slides over Mia’s skin when he snakes under her shirt. She clenches her stomach to prevent laughing out loud or jabbing her elbow into his stomach. “An hour okay? Set an alarm or something.”
“Okay,” Mia says.
She will not.
Maybe Harry will be upset with her when he ends up sleeping for a lot longer, but there’s no way a man can function like this. It’s simply not healthy. And it digs into their time together, but if Mia’s totally honest, she’s fine with just this. She’s missed Harry so much. It’s nice to be close to him, to feel his warmth against her back, his heavy arm over her waist. His presence is good for her.
Harry is out within seconds. His breathing evens before Mia actually gets comfortable.
Stupid man, Mia thinks. He overworks himself too much.
–
Later, when two and a half hours have gone by and Mia’s working on her assignment on her desk, she peeks over at him. He’s still fast asleep and hasn’t moved since he first laid down, arms where they would be if Mia was still cuddled up against him. But it’s eight p.m. now and though Harry needs the sleep, he won’t be able to rest again if he goes back to the hotel. It’ll start an annoying cycle of sleeping at the wrong hours.
He looks beautiful tucked into her ridiculously small bed. All pale skin and dark tattoos. Dark hair. She’s so happy she gets to see him in his most vulnerable state.
Mia stands and shuffles closer. In her heart, she doesn’t want to wake him up. She leans on the mattress on her knees and carefully shakes him. “Hey. Sir, wake up.”
It takes a while to get him to give her a grunt, but when he does, he glances outside sharply and sighs at the dark night. His eyelashes stick together and there’s an imprint of her pillow’s folded edge right under his left eye.
“Amelia…”
“I know. You said to wake you up, but you looked so tired. I couldn't.”
He smells like sleep, like warmth. Mia carefully lowers herself onto him, straddling his hips, balancing herself out with hands rested on his lower stomach. Harry blinks at her a few times and then lazily looks over at his phone. The bright light illuminates his face so she has a perfect view of his furrowed eyebrows. He drops the phone back onto the bed.
“Don’t you feel so much better?” Mia whispers.
Harry’s fingers slide under her shirt again, holding her down. “Mhm.”
“You can stay the night, you know?”
Harry shakes his head. “Can’t.”
“You can. It’s my room and I say you can.”
It requires a fair amount of effort, but soon Harry’s sitting up, bleary eyed, rubbing his palms against his eyes. “I can’t,” he says, dropping his hands. “What time is your class tomorrow?”
“11.”
“And it’s done at–?”
“I have two classes. I’ll be done by 3.”
“I’ll pick you up at 3:45. We’ll eat in.”
He goes to move, but Mia’s hands stop him, holding him down. “Sir, you need to rest. I mean it.”
Harry’s eyebrows raise, a clear sign that he’s trying to be in charge, but the attempt melts away with his low energy. He puts his hands over hers and leans in for a quick kiss. No arguments after. He rolls her over and then heads to the bathroom to freshen up.
When he returns, she’s still sitting in her bed with her legs criss crossed, staring up at him. Before he goes to grab his bag, he leans down and kisses her hard, fingers curled around her jaw. She eagerly responds, dragging him back down by the collar so that he has to lean his weight on the mattress with a hand splayed on her headboard.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Harry’s promise is firm and resolute.He kisses her again. Pulls away. Thinks for a moment, and then kisses her once more. “It’s so very good to see you, Amelia.”
Butterflies erupt everywhere in her body. She follows his lips with her own, crawling closer when he goes to move away. “Come on. Please stay, sir.” She pouts. “You can take my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor or even my roommate’s bed.” Neither of them are her first choice, but whatever.
Harry’s answer is a quick shake of his head. “Thank you,” he murmurs, thumbing over her mouth. “But, honestly, Amelia, the issue isn’t that.” A quick upwards turn of his lips and then – “My back will kill me tomorrow if I sleep in your bed overnight.”
Mia gapes at him as he moves to grab his work bag. “You’re such an elitist!” she whisper-shouts. “My twin XL bed wasn’t cheap! I paid for it in my room and board fees!”
Harry hums with a bigger smile on his face. “Tomorrow, 3:45. I’m going to be at your door, got it?”
“If you hate my mattress so much, why don’t you buy me a new one!”
“We’re going to my hotel and we’re going to have dinner–” he says slowly.
“And why don’t you complain to the college while you’re at it!”
“And we’ll open a bottle of wine and maybe take a bath, have dessert–” Harry comes closer, a fire in his tired eyes.
“You have no right to complain considering you just hogged my blankets for two freaking hours!”
“--and I’m finally, finally,” Harry murmurs, reaching for her jaw to shut her mouth, “going to show you how much I fucking missed you.”
Mia stops. She puts down the pillow she grabbed in her frustration to hurl at him. “Oh. Okay.”
“Okay?” Harry says, amused, searching her face.
“Uh huh.”
“Good.” Harry drops his hand and lays an innocent kiss to her cheek. It seems like a reward. “Now.” He goes for the door. “Tomorrow. I’ll see you.”
“Um.”
“Goodnight.”
Mia sits there and blinks.
“Wait!” She scrambles off the bed, running to the door. “You can’t just say that and leave! Hey!” The door shuts behind Harry, but she can hear him quietly laughing. “You can’t just leave now!”
