iv.

“Oi, are you even listening to me?”

Y/N was listening. . .or at least, she had been listening when Harry first meandered his way to her desk. Whenever he needed a second from the computer he typically came over to her now, slid his bum onto the clean side of her work area, and chats with her for a little while. If she’s working on something -- depending on what it might be -- he’ll either silently watch her scratch and scribble on her tablet until she creates what she would deem presentable, or demand her attention for at least five minutes (which turned to ten, which turned to twenty). Sometimes he’ll knead at the knots in her shoulders, grumbling something about her working too hard for the shit that they pay, other times he’ll inquire if she wants a drink or a snack.

So today had been no different when he ambled his way to her and popped his bum on the acrylic desk with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs locked at the ankles. He wore a mint colored cardigan today, that billowed around his arms and body, a shirt with Yogi the Bear on the front, and jeans rolled up to his ankle, “Hey, pay attention to me for a second. . .” is how he started, and Y/N had been listening. He’d told her about a project -- a shelf, or something -- and she was watching his face, and then watching his eyes, then watching his mouth. She watched as his lips formed and shaped around the words, and how his tongue licked them wet when they dried out from speaking. Actually, she’d been so caught up in it she almost spilled her favorite kiwi apple drink down the front of her shirt (which would have really made her miserable).

Y/N had been doing that a lot lately; getting distracted by his mouth had become a daily occurrence, if not hourly, ever since they had kissed.

And she really hadn’t realized she wasn’t listening, until Harry had brought it up himself. Now she feels red hot embarrassment zipping through her vessels as she tips her head down shamefully, “I -- I’m sorry, I got distracted a little.”

Harry regards her inquisitively, but shrugged his shoulders and decided to let it go instead (one of her favored attributes of Harry, just as Malene does -- they know when to pry with her and they know when to leave it be), “I was telling you about the shelf I bought. I thought it came assembled but it’s in about a billion different pieces with 90 different screw types, so I’m sending it back.”

“Don’t bother sending it back,” Malene chimes in, sliding away from her desk, her tablet wobbling where she had it balanced on her thighs, “Just have Gustave-Eiffel here come around and build it. I reckon in a separate life she was an architect or summat, she’s way too good at putting shite like that together.” Her hand clapped down on the back of Y/N’s chair and swiveled her back and forth.

Brows raised, Harry uncrossed his arms and laid his palm down flat against the desk, “Is that so? And why have you been hiding these secret architecture abilities, Brat?”

With a scrunched nose, Y/N shook her head, “She’s exaggerating, I’m not very good at it. I only read the directions and assemble it how they say.”

“And decrypting those directions is the hardest bit! That’s what always fucks me over,” Harry flicks her shoulder, “What’s your hourly fee, hm? I’m inviting you over, your expertise is needed.” He brushes a stray strand of hair from his forehead, trying to mold it back into the direction he had originally gelled his hair in this morning. This happens often, where a particular curl near the front of Harry’s head completely disregards the style that he’s attempting. Y/N thinks that it is very cute -- she secretly referred to it as his rogue curl, but she hasn’t bothered to tell him that.

She shook her head again, “There is no fee, I don’t mind helping. I like putting furniture together.”

“More and more each day, you remind me of an alien,” Malene slings her arm around Y/N’s neck, her tablet wobbles and drops out of her lap but Harry moves quickly in catching it, while Malene is busy pushing her cheek against Y/N’s, “A cute wittle’ alien who is horribly clumsy yet surprisingly efficient in architectural matters. Y’know, Harry, she helped me build this intricate coffee table -- it had taken me a full day to put it together and I did it fucking wrong to start. She noticed it was wobbly, took it down and redid it perfectly in all but two hours,” her body warms from the praise, and she shies away from the way Harry is looking at her -- she couldn’t decipher what it meant, but she did know that ever since they kissed, he’d been doing a lot more of it lately, “I’d say her fee is a free meal. Am I right?”

Y/N began to protest, “I don’t need a --”

“Free meal it is then,” Harry grins, pushing his thighs from where they’d laid on the edge of her desk as he checks his wrist for the time, “I’ll do a free two meals, I reckon this shelf is going to be awful -- it’s around noon, let’s get lunch,” he held out his hand for her to grab, while Malene scooted back to her side and when Y/N’s palm stroked against his she tried to ignore how much she liked holding it -- even like this, just for a few seconds, “Malene, do you want anything while we’re out?”

“Oooh, my senses say I need a caramel latte to get through this design before I barge into Marcel’s office and push him out the window.” She sighed, rebalancing her tablet on only the left thigh now as she stretched her arms out with a groan (her lack of consideration for the thing used to make Y/N panic on the daily, but now she’s so used to it, she barely registers the danger), “I swear he gives me the hardest shit -- a beef company that doesn’t want cows in their logo? What kind of shit is that?”

Harry leads her off their floor and toward the elevator, keeping up idle chatter about the different directions Malene could potentially go with such a difficult task for a logo until they step into the empty elevator. As soon as the doors slid shut, he turned to face her, arms recrossed over his chest, “So what’s with you, hm?”

Her brows pinch inward, “What?”

“Don’t act innocent with me, Brat,” he unearthed his hand from where it’d been nestled between his arm and chest, “You keep getting distracted when I’m talking but you’re staring right at me, so I’m not sure where you’re drifting off too. Plus, you haven’t done that with Malene once. . .or anyone else for that matter, which has led me to a few conclusions.” Y/N’s heart began to race as she realized what he was talking about -- of course Harry had noticed, he has always been incredibly perceptive and it isn’t like Y/N’s particularly sly with her staring. She guesses somewhere in her head she had just hoped he would pass it off as just a coincidence, or something unimportant. Which, she guesses was stupid because Harry rarely ever treated anything she was involved in as insignificant.

Harry continues, raising one finger, “Either you haven’t been sleeping well, and my sweet, gorgeous face has melatonin like qualities that are wearing you out,” he held up another finger as the elevator shutters to a stop, “I’ve become so incredibly boring that you can’t stand to listen to me drone on without zoning out --”

“That’s not it,” she shook her head, the doors slid open and Y/N is the first to step out but she’s got her gaze trained on Harry, “You are never boring, I think you have. . .I think all of your thoughts are very good thoughts with a lot of substance to them.”

Her response must take him back some as she watches his brows raise, and she thinks she may have seen the hint of something rosy and pink on his cheeks (he blushes a lot, Y/N found, which she wouldn’t expect from Harry if she’s honest but she thinks that certain compliments make him shy). Before Harry could comment on what she said, and before Y/N could mindlessly bring up how pink his face had grown, Y/N slams into something, or someone rather. It had been a long time since she’d had a run-in with a sturdy body, but when she tilts her face up to look at who she bumped into she is halfway surprised to see it wasn’t Marcel in a rush.

“Whoa, are you alright Miss?” No, for some reason or another she’s staring at Christopher, who has a hand on either side of her bicep, and once he realizes who she is his mouth drops open slightly but he’s smiling just a little, “Oh, no shit! Do you work here?” Y/N is so startled that her brain won’t formulate words; she only stares at him dumbly and nods her head before his gaze flickers behind her, “You too? Well, it’s a little reunion!”

“Are you working here?” On the surface, Harry’s words don’t sound spiteful, only curious, but the way his hands fit around Y/N’s hips and give her a small tug backward so she was off of Christopher -- speaks wonders how irritated he is. For a moment this made it so she had to lean against him to stay upright, but she eventually regains her footing. It feels very similar to how he would deal with Marcel bumping into her and how he always appeared to be more irritated than she ever was.

Christopher shook his head, “No -- well, I mean, maybe? They need a manager at the cafe down here, so I’m not in one of the hotshot office jobs like you lot seem to be,” he grinned, “I’m here for the interview. Wish me luck, ‘cos I’m really fucking nervous.”

“Good luck,” Y/N nodded her head, smiling gently, “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Yeah.” Harry sounded like he’d rather spit than wish him any sort of luck, “See you then.”

Raising his hand, Christopher waves lightheartedly like he couldn’t sense the tension Harry had been oozing from every orifice and pore and skipped off toward the cafe. Harry loops his fingers around Y/N’s wrist, her cardigan scrunches up above his hand so he touches her bare skin -- she wonders if he can feel her pulse drumming against his hand -- and he tugs her toward the doors. “Fucking hell,” he grumbled as they walked through the revolving glass, shaking his head, “He’s a fucking pest! How does he keep popping the hell up?”

“That’s a. . .that’s a crazy coincidence,” she tries desperately to keep up with him as he directs them toward the parking garage, and Harry is moving as fast as his legs will carry him, practically dragging Y/N along, “I -- oh!” She almost trips over a lift on the sidewalk, “I wonder if he’ll get the job.”

“With my bleeding luck, he’ll end up taking Marcel’s job and be around us 24/7,” he rolled his eyes, digging his keys out of his pocket with a small shake of his head, “Of all the places to come find a job -- did he do it to spite me?”

They only slow down when Harry’s car comes into view, the sleek black steel something that had now grown familiar to her -- it was rare she ever transported herself to work now; Harry had thoroughly convinced her that in the long run, this was good for the environment, even though she was taking the bus most of the time, or walking if she really needed to. Harry presses the key fab and unlocks the doors, but he walks her around to the passenger side and yanks it open for her, holding it still as she climbed into the car, “I know you dislike him,” Y/N began just as Harry shut the door, holding his finger up to her as he goes to the driver’s seat and nods as his silent way of encouraging her to keep going, “But I’m sure it won’t be so horrible. The worst of it might be we see him when we get lunch down there.”

“Yeah, and he’ll fall over the counter and into your arms every chance he gets.”

A snort leaves her as she reaches around to buckle herself, “You’re very silly sometimes,” Y/N told him, and as she turns to face him, Harry is already looking at her. He hadn’t put the key in the ignition yet, nor had he buckled, in favor of sitting nearly sideways in his seat to face her more directly, “He seemed decent today like he wasn’t looking to stir any trouble. If anything he seemed happy that he would know people in the --”

“You’ve been staring at my lips a lot.”

Y/N paused, the sentence she’d been saying withers away in her throat, “What?”

“Before that fucker bumped into us, that was going to be my third point was that you weren’t zoning out on my face in particular, but you were getting distracted by my lips.” A puckish smile replaces the grumpy look that had been pulling at his features because of Christopher, and Y/N feels her heart stutter over a beat -- so he’d noticed? Or, well, technically she could try to deny it but she thinks the fish-like way she’s opening and closing her mouth was proof enough that he’d hit the nail on the head, “Ahh, so that’s it. Are they that plump and luscious?”

She’s mortified but she tries not to let it show so plainly on her face, “That’s not --” she began, but what could she say? Y/N was so bad at lying, there was no hope that he’d believe her. And if she lied and he caught her in the lie or showed any inkling of an idea that he didn’t believe her, then she thinks she might start crying. So instead of responding her shoulders slump and her gaze shifts over to the side, unable to look him in the eye anymore as she dug for the right words to explain herself. When she doesn’t find them, she settles for a pitiful and slightly pathetic murmured apology, “I’m sorry.”

“What? No --” The tone of his voice had shifted from the taunting lilt he’d held previous, now struck with dismay as he turned even further in his seat. One of his hands rested on the steering wheel while the other reached out to her, his fingers dance along the skin beneath her chin before he pinched it between his thumb and pointer, so he could direct her to look at him, “Hey, Sweetheart I was only teasing, yeah? You can stare at my mouth all you want.”

“I’m not staring!” She rushes to say, “I just -- sometimes I just think about when we. . .in the hotel, and then I get distracted is all. I don’t mean for it to look like I’m not listening.”

Harry chuckled softly, “It’s okay, really, I don’t mind! I’ve been thinking about that kiss too, yeah? Did you. . .well, I was actually going to ask eventually — I wanted to know if you’d like to do it again? I didn’t know if you wanted to practice more or if you’d just like to. . .do it. You said let’s do it often but we haven’t really talked about it since.”

Y/N sighed, her shoulders managing to sink further, “It’s because I’m shy,” she groused to him, “And I get nervous. It’s my least favorite trait about myself and sometimes I wish I could be more like you and Malene, with how easily you can talk about stuff and bring things up.”

“Ah, don’t say things like that,” he stroked her jaw tenderly and made goosebumps pimple down her body, “Being shy is just a part of you and that’s okay. If the world was full of me and Malene’s, it’d be a loud, confusing shit show. You’re perfect the way you are.”

The words make her feel sheepish which she doesn’t think was his intent, but was the aftermath of it anyway. Only she doesn’t get a chance to let him know that that he had successfully made her feel shyer than she’d started because Harry is closer than she’d anticipated when she looks back up, “Could I --” he began, his fingers still pet gently at her jaw, “Do you want to do it again?”

“I feel closest with you,” she began to explain again, “And I -- I know I’ve said it before, you are my first best friend, so I want to be as close as we can be. If close friends can kiss all the time then I think I’d like to do it frequently, but I’m just nervous about not being very good still. Last time,” she reached up, carefully looping her fingers around his wrist but not to pull him away from her face -- she thinks she wants to keep him close to her as she continued on her tangent, “We had both been drinking, and so you might have thought I was better than I actually am, but the truth is --”

Y/N was going to tell him that it had been her first kiss without even thinking about it; looking into Harry’s eyes had always felt like something was pulling at her head, coaxing the truth from her mouth despite her fighting against it. It was frustrating, and part of the reason why she had to evade looking directly into them if she had something she didn’t necessarily want to say, but he wouldn’t deviate contact today. How would he react to knowing he was her first kiss? Would he be irritated that she didn’t tell him? Would he get weird and think that she was just trying to trick him into being her first? How would Y/N explain to him effectively that she really wasn’t trying to be sneaky, she was just embarrassed by the fact nobody had wanted to kiss her up until that point?

Her words are cut short by the gentle press of Harry’s lips to her own. They are as soft as she remembers them being and he’s as careful with her as he was the first time. It’s just a simple kiss; their mouths pushed together, slightly longer than a peck, but it still makes Y/N’s heart hammer wildly. How had she handled making out with him? Maybe she’d had more liquid courage than she originally thought because she knew that if Harry licked at her mouth right now, she’d probably burst into a billion pieces.

In reality, it only lasts a few seconds, but when he’s parting from her, Y/N could have sworn they’d been like that for hours. He looks contemplative for a moment, before he gives an assertive nod of his head, “Yep, still good,” he pats her cheek fondly before turning to face the windshield and starting up the car, “You overthink things, y’know that?”

Y/N sighed again, “I know,” she murmured, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he pulled out of the space, “But these luscious beauties aren’t free, even for besties, so that means you aren’t getting out of helping me with this shelf. You’re free tomorrow night?”

What else would I be doing? “Yes,” she responded, “I’ve never been to your place before.”

“Really?” He sounded shocked before he cleared his throat, “Aish, well, I guess that makes sense since Aggie had been living there. She’s really taking her sweet time moving all her shit out, but -- well, for the most part, she’s rarely ever there if she’s not picking up a thing or two, so she shouldn’t give us much trouble.”

“I’m excited,” she smiled to herself because when she thought about it, the thought of going to Harry’s place was thrilling. She wondered what it would look like -- if it would be mostly his stuff now or if Aggie’s presence still lingered in the decorations, in the scent or the feeling, Y/N wonders what his bed is like. . .she wonders if it’s big and comfy. If she could crawl into it, burrow her nose in the fabric, and stay there for hours on hours. How nice would that be? Maybe she and Harry could cuddle? They hadn’t done that since she was on her period and she would love to. . .if friends could kiss, they could surely cuddle, right?

Harry pulled them into the lot for a crepe place that Y/N had mentioned wanting to try a few days ago, and he either remembered or had wanted to try this as well. Either way, her chest is warm.

“Well, I’m excited that you’re excited. Guess I’ll have to clean up nicely for you.”

. . .

“She did what?”

“Transformed into a serpent, coiled around the bell he was hiding beneath, breathed fire onto it and it melted the bell and him,” Y/N explained as she sat with her legs spread outward while Harry handed bag by bag of screws and brackets to her. She flipped through the instruction book, thumbing through the pages as she sorts out the separate pieces, “It’s a Japanese folktale that my cousin told me when I was five I think.”

Harry’s flat is nothing extravagant, but that’s what makes it so nice, Y/N thinks. It feels warmer than she would have imagined it to -- vaguely does Y/N recall Malene mentioning that all men are insane and leave their walls blank and barren. The rooms feel cold, their couches are most likely leather or a torn to shit fabric, they may have beer bottles lining some part of their walls or a sports team flag of some sort. Maybe the TV is on an entertainment center if you’re lucky, if not it’s just pushed off in the corner on the ground with a sound bar that makes things way too loud for no reason other than to be a nuisance to their neighbors.

Now Y/N had faith that Harry wouldn’t have a shit show like that, but she was still worried that he’d let it convert into a bachelor pad in the absence of Aggie.

However, her fears were not justified; she stepped inside to a cinnamon apple scent that made her salivate, he had a carpet that rolled out on the hardwood of a small foyer, dark blue in color with intricate purple designs woven into the threads. There’s a circular mirror on one side of the hall with a star-burst border and on the wall adjacent, what could either be painting on the wall or a decal of the moon is large and pretty, almost shimmering in the entry light that Harry flicks off just as soon as he closed the door behind her.

She’d only seen the living room thus far, but from what she did see it wasn’t as scary as she had originally imagined it might be. Blueberry, who had made the trip as well, seemed to like it a lot too (but she thinks Blueberry would like anything as long as it has to do with Harry). His telly was on an entertainment stand, but it was a fancy one made of wood stained a cherry red with doors that slide open and closed by a crystal-like knob. A coffee table is pushed out of the way, to give them more room on the carpeted floor for them to put the shelf together. There was only room enough for a sofa, but he had a large one, a dusky sectional with an ottoman that could slide in and out of place, making it big enough to lay down on -- maybe not stretch out, but curl up. Right now the ottoman was pressed off to the side, right next to a cat tree (she had gotten excited and inquired if he had a kitty, but he explained it was for Aggie’s sister’s cat that used to come to stay with them for a few weeks at a time). The wall behind the couch has another mural-like piece, whether it be actual paint on the wall or a very nice decal, it was mountains and cherry blossom trees. Y/N thinks it’s beautiful but she doesn’t have time to ask about it, because Harry reappears from the kitchen with a box that’s nearly as tall as he is.

“Five,” Harry plopped down across from her, handing her a water bottle and stretching out his legs to match her own, “Now what reason would they have to tell you that when you were five? To make you scared of snakes or summat?”

Y/N shook her head, “The opposite actually,” she reached forward for the bar that’s marked A and motions for Harry to help her grab bar F, holding them perpendicular to each other where they could be fit together with a screw, “She told me that story so that I’d be nice to every snake! Um. . .at the time I thought it was because any snake could be a scorned woman looking to be murderous and she didn’t want me to be melted, but really I think she just wanted me to be kind to snakes. They used to scare me when I was little.”

“Well, that’s certainly one way to do it,” he hands her the Allen wrench, and Y/N double checks that she’s grabbed the right screw before fitting it into place, “That’s interesting though. You don’t really strike me as someone who is afraid of anything, even when you were little.”

Y/N scrunched up her nose, “I’m afraid of lots of things,” she told him, “I don’t like spiders.”

A gasp tore from his throat, “But you wouldn’t let me or Blueberry kill the one in your bathroom!”

It was true -- a few Fridays ago there had been a spider the size of a coin scurrying around on the wall beside her medicine cabinet. She gave a pitiful squeal when she saw it, prompting Harry and Blueberry to scramble over themselves trying to get to her. However, when Harry stumbled into the bathroom, saw what she’d been staring at, and started to grab for a wad of tissue paper, Y/N stopped him by grabbing his wrist, “No! Don’t kill him!”

Y/N grabs for another screw and fixes bar G on bar A in a way similar to F, “Well just because I’m afraid of something, doesn’t mean I deserve to kill it. Besides, he was probably just in my flat killing other bugs that I didn’t like, so really he’d been doing me a favor for however long. It wouldn’t have been fair.”

“Y’know, Malene might be right about you being an alien,” he murmured, “Or an Angel. . .or you were birthed from the soil in a forest somewhere like a woodland nymph -- I’m not sure. Just find it hard to believe you’re human, you’re too special.”

Sheepishly, Y/N disagreed, “You’re silly. There’s nothing special about me, I just feel guilty about killing things.”

“That’s a good attribute to have, all things considered,” Harry’s hand found her ankle, his fingers curled around it tenderly, “You are suspiciously good at this; are you sure you didn’t write the directions yourself?”

A huffed laugh came through her nose, “Maybe you and Malene aren’t exercising your brains as much as your bodies.”

“Listen here you little brat --” Harry began playfully, though the sound of a key being fit into the lock stalls his words and his brows dip as he leaned backward so he could get a view down the hall. The door opened, Y/N couldn’t see who came in but she could see Harry’s reaction to it and it went from annoyed to confusion in around three seconds, “What?” Was his response and Y/N held back visibly cringing from the terse greeting, while Blueberry barked once at the intruders.

“I was coming around to get my candles and he was outside trying to figure out the callbox,” a woman’s voice explained, and it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that someone who would have a key to the flat and get such an irritated reaction from Harry was Aggie -- but still, it’s confirmed when she steps through the threshold. With her though, she has Niall, who had eyes swimming with liquor and a dopey, sad smile on his mouth that stretched a bit bigger when their eyes met, “I let him up -- he said he tried to call.”

Harry moved to a stand while Y/N sat wordlessly on the floor, busying her hands with the shelf so that she wouldn’t just be staring at them -- it felt less awkward that way, despite Y/N’s heart racing. Aggie was even prettier up close, so much so that Y/N was finding it incredibly difficult to look at her face. She hoped that didn’t make her appear rude -- when Aggie’s gaze flickered over to her Y/N smiled gently and nodded her head and Aggie lifted her hand in a halfhearted wave. It made Y/N wonder if she thought she was more than Harry’s friend. . .if that upset her at all, despite the fact that she cheated. Would she want Harry back? Or, well, I guess the real question would be if Harry would take her back after doing something like that. Y/N couldn’t imagine that he would but she also had a feeling deep in her belly that people who were gorgeous by societal standards could get away with a lot in life. Maybe Harry could look past that since she was so beautiful?

The thoughts. . .these twisted, murky tendrils of wonder make her feel icky, for lack of a better word. Y/N knew Harry was not that shallow nor insincere, so why would she even question something like that? And why was it making her feel like such utter shit?

Aggie goes off to find her candles (at least that’s what Y/N assumes) while Harry placed his hands on his hips, resembling a parent scolding their child when he looked Niall up and down, “Now what’s this then? You usually don’t make drunken drop-ins.”

“What, I can’t come around and see my girl Y/N when I want to?” There’s a stumble in his step as he made his way toward her, dropping down to the empty space at her left and stretching out his arm on the couch cushions behind them.

This was a Niall she had never been privy to; a little sloppy and messy, and she was half unsure how to deal with it until she remembered what Harry was like when he was drunk the first time she met him. It was best to be direct, and Y/N found that in her time with Harry, she was more nosy than she had originally thought. Plus, whatever the reason Niall has shown up drunk at the door may be able to get her mind off the gross feeling slithering through her veins because of how pretty Aggie is, and how Y/N felt quite lackluster in comparison.

So, instead of letting it slide and encouraging the conversation to move on as she might usually — Y/N tries her hand at being a doting, inquiry-driven friend as she continues to fit the pieces together.

“Hi Niall,” she greeted him, maintaining an unaffected face despite the scent of liquor and smoke oozing from every pore; her nose twitched, and she switched to breathing through her mouth, “Did you argue with your lady friend?” She utilizes the nickname he’d given the girl that he’d told her about -- before and between fights, she and Niall have a lot of time to chatter and chat. He had briefly mentioned a girl he saw often but he had never given her a name. . .Y/N wonders if it makes any developing feelings he has too real if he shares her name with people. If you share someone’s name with another person, they are real then. . .not just a background character fluttering in and out of the screen, they’ve got a place in the opening credits of the film.

“Lady friend?” Harry repeated, brows further knitted, “I haven’t heard of a lady friend.”

Niall stuck his tongue out at Harry, puffed his cheeks, and made a spitting sound, “Tha’s ‘cos you’re no good at idle chit chat, like Y/N here,” he claps his hand down on her shoulder and squeezes, “I swear this one has some truth serum in her eyes, I feel like I’m spilling my guts every time she’s around, yeah? But maybe it just works on me, since you never tell her --”

“Okay! For fuck sake, so you had a lady friend, does she have anything to do with this right here?” Harry cuts him off, lowering down to his knees to sit back across from them.

Y/N turned to look at Niall and found him facing his lap, a small smile on his mouth that didn’t reach his eyes. Apart from anger, this was the most emotion Y/N thinks she’s ever seen on his face. There was conflict there, strewn on his features; a mixture of self-pity, sadness, and a self-deprecating grin that made her heart sink for him. From what she could remember, they had been doing well with. . .well, whatever they were doing. He hadn’t gone into specifics but Y/N had imagined some friends with benefits type ordeal that one of them would probably get their heart way too invested in. That’s how it always goes in the movies at least, and Y/N thinks that there is probably some truth to them.

But this is not the face of someone whose love life is going swimmingly and Y/N had a feeling that’s what he was doing here. Still, she doesn’t feel comfortable enough to interrogate him staring directly into his face so she continues to slot together pieces of the shelf and attempts to inquire carefully, gently -- she spoke to him like her words were caressing porcelain, but with enough bite, he couldn’t wiggle out of the explanation, “If you would like to speak about it, then we can. If you’d like to ignore it, we can do that too. Though I believe the latter is cowardly and will make you feel worse in the end, I understand the desire to say nothing at all.”

Niall’s eyes bore into the side of her head for a moment, and after Y/N finishes placing screw D into its place, she lets her gaze find him. Once their pupils lock, Niall gives a gentle giggle and shakes his head again, “See,” he looked over to Harry, “Told you, this one’s laced with truth serum or summat. Well. . .” he slouched back against the couch, the friction of his jeans against the carpet is a smooth sliding sound as he gets comfortable, “It’s a bit embarrassing, honestly, but I’m drunk enough that I can say it. You won't laugh at me right?”

“We won’t laugh,” Y/N says at the same time Harry responds ‘I won’t make any promises. She looked over to him with a small frown and he shrugged his shoulders, “I promise.”

“You’re too sweet for this fucker, did ya know that?” Niall reached out and grabbed for the bag of screws beside his knee that she’d been leaning forward for, pressing it against her palm, “So, the girl I’ve been seeing, yeah? We normally just. . .dunno’ fuck around a bit every now and then, but lately we’ve been seeing each other loads more. And it hasn’t just been fucking like we -- she’s been suggesting going out to eat, seeing movies and shite, which I thought was just normal. Or -- at first, I thought it was weird because we don’t usually do that, but we’re friends, that’s shite that friends do too, right?” Y/N nods, more so to encourage him to speak than she was agreeing with him -- Y/N just found out that friends could kiss like a week ago, so she really wasn’t one to say what friends could and couldn’t do -- but he continues nonetheless, “I didn’t realize that. . .I barely understand my own feelings, let alone someone else’s! How was I supposed to know she had feelings for me? And I didn’t -- she didn’t tell me until tonight when she caught me out with another bird. Now I’m. . .well, now I feel like a massive pile of shite. It’s awful.”

Y/N chewed through his words, considering each carefully before crafting her response, “Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Mmhm.” He gave a sharp nod.

“Have you ever seen her with someone else?”

Niall shook his head.

“Did she laugh a lot at your jokes even if they were not very funny?”

He nodded this time.

“While you guys were out together, did it seem like the date went on for too long?”

“Um, yeah a bit -- it would start out as one thing, and then we would just. . .stay out. She would find different things to do. Once we went riding on those -- you know them bikes, where two people have to pedal?”

Y/N nodded -- she did know those bikes, actually, she had just been telling Harry the other day how cool it would be to ride one, “And when you showed her things you liked, did she make an effort to either purchase, try, watch or listen to those things?”

“Yeah, she did that too.”

Y/N hummed lowly, eyeballing the shelf as she compared the finished piece she had to the completed picture. It was an odd shelf Harry had chosen -- a cherry wood that was quite pretty, but how the shelves fit together was stylistically crooked and complex. The more she stared at it, the more it looked familiar to her but she just couldn’t place where she might have seen it. They were slanted and uneven, but somehow they looked purposeful. Y/N wondered where he would put it.

“I think you’re clueless.”

“Huh?” Niall gaped and Y/N turned to face him, her face slightly turned in a frown as she began to scold him.

“I think she’s been very clear about her feelings towards you,” she explained to him, taking her hand away from the shelf so that she could read his expressions and gauge if she were being too rough with him in a sensitive state, “And you were too dense to read between the lines. It’s okay though, not everyone is good at that -- I’m not very good at it either. Harry says I’m super oblivious and I still don’t even know why. But, from the sound of it, you are just silly,” she rests her palms on his shoulders, encouraging him to turn and face her, “I have very little experience in dating -- all my confessions were just boys and girls teasing me and making jokes, but I’ve listened to a lot of Malene’s very dramatic life, and I’m quiet enough that nobody considers what they’re sharing around me, so I’ve heard their stories too. That’s why I know if she didn’t tell you to go fuck yourself and never talk to her again, you still have a chance. So instead of getting pissy drunk and feeling sorry for yourself, you should have gotten ahold of your feelings, and figured out what to say to her!” She took one hand off his shoulder, and pointed her finger at him, “If you like her, great, tell her as much and see where it goes. If you only see her as a friend, that’s okay, tell her as much and see where it goes. Either way, you’ll get an answer and figure things out.” Y/N turned to look at Harry, “Right?”

Harry regards them fondly as he nodded, “Right,” he agreed, “She’s right, this one -- you should listen to her.”

Niall slouches his shoulders, “You are right,” he presses his hand to the floor, and began to stand, “I’ll go and --”

“No, you aren’t,” Y/N grabs his wrist and pulls him back to his bum, “You’re still drunk. She deserves to hear your feelings from a sober mouth.”

“Gosh, why’re you so smart, huh?” He slung his arm around her throat, dragging her into a loose hug and she pats his back, “If Harry wasn’t hogging you all the time, I’d keep you in my pocket.”

. . .

At some point, Aggie slips from the room with a few boxers and declines help when offered (begrudgingly) by Harry, and leaves the flat with a small nod of her head as a farewell. Niall eventually passes out on the couch around the time they had finished the shelf with Blueberry snoozing on his belly, and Harry strokes her ego as he praises her for being able to put it together. They had already taken a small break in between building it to eat, and by the time it was complete Harry had proclaimed it too late to take her home. He promised to take her to her flat the following morning early enough that she could still get dressed and ready for work. And since Blueberry was already with her, she really had no excuse to refuse his suggestion. . .though, she really didn’t want to refuse it. If Y/N stayed the night here, then maybe she would get to see his room. How fun would that be? Come to think of it, Y/N doesn’t think she’s ever been in a guy’s room before.

“I’d have taken the couch and given you the bed if not for Niall being stereotypically Irish,” he said, his voice a low murmur, “But I can make a pallet on the ground to sleep so we don’t have to share if you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Y/N responded easily, following close behind him as he wraps his fingers around the knob and twists the brass, “I think I’d be fine sharing a bed with you. If we can kiss, we can share a bed can’t we?”

Harry huffs a laugh through his nose, shrugging his shoulders, “Well, you’ve got a point there, don’t you?”

His room is. . .good -- great, even.

Not in its aesthetics, or in how he decorated in particular -- really, Y/N was just pleased to find he had art and photos on the wall as opposed to bland white paint. It was tidy, yet lived in, and obvious that it had been Harry’s place to start out with and Aggie had just integrated herself inside of it, at least Y/N thought so. Everything in the room, from what it was, what pattern it held, or how it was arranged -- was very Harry-esque to her. The only remnants she thinks are left of Aggie or a few boxers held up in the corner of the room, stacked on top of one another, and having noticeably been shifted around (Y/N guesses in her pursuit of the candles).

The bed looks cozy; maybe not as cozy as her bed, but there are plenty of pillows and blankets she could imagine burrowing beneath. If something weren’t nagging at her mind, she would have immediately dove in, secured her spot beside the wall, and got snuggled before he could even blink.

But something was nagging at the back of her mind. It had been ever since Aggie had shown up, but she had been so distracted by Niall that she didn’t have a lot of time to reflect on the feelings. In retrospect, she probably should take a moment to sort through her thoughts and the blight that had stained her mood momentarily. Aggie was objectively gorgeous, there was no way around that, and Y/N felt lacking in comparison. But why would she feel lacking? It wasn’t as if she and Aggie were competing for anything — it wasn’t even like Y/N was the girlfriend following Aggie, so it made no sense to feel like this.

Y/N was struggling to make sense of the feeling and it is difficult to understand why suddenly, she wanted to kiss him so badly. Really, she should have gone to the bathroom to sort herself out, collect her thoughts, and come back to him with something meaningful to say but she doesn’t. No, instead, she turned to face Harry from where he was digging around in his drawers, and her mouth moved before her brain could catch up with her, “Could we practice?”

“Hm?” Harry pulled out a shirt from his dresser, pivoting to toss it to her, “Change into this, Sweetheart, it’ll be more comfortable to sleep in.”

“Oh,” Y/N caught the shirt, holding it closer to herself, “Thank you. I’ll go change.”

“Aish, don’t worry about it Babe, I’ll just turn around,” he responded, turning back to face the wall, “Now what were you saying?”

She felt shy now to ask as she reached up to pull her top over her head and pluck her bra off, and tugged his shirt on. The fabric was soft, and when she looked down at the front of it, she saw that it was a powder blue sports team tee -- she wasn’t sure what team, or what sport, but it was worn and well-loved. She reaches up to the button of her pants, popping them open and wiggling them down her thighs, off her calves, and from her ankles. Y/N gathered her clothes and began to fold them, “I asked -- I was wondering if we could practice again, how we did.”

Harry gasps, though an impish smirk graces his face as he turns to face her, and the closer she looks at him, she recognizes he’s only feigning his shock, “With Niall in the next room? Y/N, I didn’t know you were so naughty —“

“I wasn’t —“ her cheeks heated up as she shook her head, “It’s not naughty! I wasn’t talking about anything filthy, I was just…I wanted to —“

“I’m only kidding, Sweetheart,” Harry peels his top off over his head, revealing the smooth, milky, inked skin beneath it — he’d scolded himself for being so pale recently (he’s usually tanner this far into warmer weather, he had told her) but Y/N thought he was just fine, “You want to kiss? Well, you did me a favor with this shelf, so I owe you don’t I? But you know,” he crawls into the bed, sat atop of the covers on the side closest to his nightstand, and pats his thighs for her — it was very much like their night in the hotel — Y/N cautiously makes her way into his lap, conscious of her bare thighs touching his, “You don’t have to ask to kiss me. We can just kiss whenever.”

“Really?” She fixed herself, shuffling so that her bum wasn’t sitting on his crotch -- she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, “I wouldn’t want to. . .without your consent, you know? I wouldn’t want to just kiss you.”

Harry’s hands found their place on her body, framing her hips like he was keeping her steady. Their positions are so similar to what they had been the first time, only Y/N lacks the liquid strength that had been swimming through her body at that point. Now she was filled with jittery nerves that made it hard for her to focus on anything else but the feeling of his skin, where their bodies meet and the way her heart thumps against her sternum. His thumb began to stroke where it lay, almost like he could sense the worry thrumming through her, “Well, I’m giving you my consent right now. Unless I state otherwise, you can kiss me, however, whenever, and wherever you want. . .within reason. Don’t go planting one on me in the office, I think that would probably be looked down on.”

Y/N nodded her head, “You too!” She rushes to say, before cringing at herself for seeming so eager -- was it normal to feel this eager to kiss your friend? She didn’t know, and if it wasn’t, then Harry sure didn’t bring it up, “You can -- whenever you want, you can kiss me too. Just as you said.”

“Perfect, then,” one of Harry’s hands left her hip and came to caress her cheek, stroking down to her neck and pulling her toward him by the nape, “C’mere, Sweetheart.”

It feels right to kiss Harry. Y/N finds that every time their lips meet, every moment they weren’t spending like this is unusual and out of place. His mouth is always so soft and gentle with her; his tongue is always warm and wet as he flickers it against her lips. Y/N opens up for him easily, feeling her jittery bones ease away as her nerves evanesce from her. Their tongues smooth together, lull around each other, it is slow and easy, and calm -- she understood why people kiss. It makes so much sense to her now. . .if every kiss felt like this, then she thinks she would have been going around kissing everyone had she the constitution for it.

But why had nobody told her it felt this nice? Everyone had agreed in a general sense that kissing could be fun, but she’d never been told the feelings that flood your body. Butterflies flutter through her belly, wings tickling her insides and making her shiver, snakes of giddiness weave through her bones and vessels leaving trails of golden contentment, frogs lay eggs that dot her skin as goosebumps when his fingers stroke along the tender flesh of her thighs. Y/N’s whole being is alit with something spectacular and she isn’t sure how she’s meant to contain it when it feels so good. When she feels so good.

Harry raises his knees like he was trying to get comfortable and Y/N slips down closer to him. The movement makes her gasp, and they part for a moment; she tries not to pay attention to the way her lower belly burns with interest when she watches him lick his lips, “Sorry,” he murmured, “I thought it would be easier for you to be a little closer. Didn’t know if you were comfortable leaning forward like that.”

“Oh,” she replied, nodding her head and scooting even closer, hoping she wasn’t putting his legs to sleep, “I can -- I didn’t know if you wanted me that close, so I tried to stay a little further back. I don’t mind being like this, it just surprised me.”

He nodded, then took another grip on her hips and pulled her even nearer. Where she was seated now, they were groin to groin; it was quite intimate. There were but two thin layers separating the both of them, and if they peeled those away -- if she had more courage to ask to see him. . .to really see him like that. . .then she would have. Y/N was still so intrigued by all of this; all the heavy petting she wasn’t permitted during her teenage years and all the experimenting that she’d missed out on because of it. Falling into her lap now, like this, with her best friend -- it was nice but she still felt so skittish.

Harry pulls her attention back to him when he meets her mouth again, only this time he sinks his teeth into her bottom lip. Y/N whines then, a pitiful little mewl at the static-y pain that accompanied it when he tugs slightly, and noise leaves Harry’s throat. It makes her head twirl and spin -- was that a moan? Had Harry just moaned because of her? Or was he trying to say something? The latter seemed more reasonable, wouldn’t it? She’d think so. . .there was nothing moan-worthy about kissing an awkward novice who whines over the simplest things.

Then she realizes her nails had been digging into his biceps, where she’d unintentionally taken a hold of his arms in too tight of a grip. She understood now that the sound he made was probably one of pain, and loosened her grip on him, before carefully withdrawing, “You’re finished?” Harry inquires as Y/N wipes at her lips with her knuckle.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she uttered and Harry’s brows furrowed.

“Huh? How did you hurt me?”

Y/N tilted her head just slightly, “My fingernails were in your arms,” she told him, taking ahold of his right bicep and pulling it out to show him, pointing at where there were indentions of her nail had been left, circling around them, “I thought that’s why you grunted, so I was apologizing.”

Realization flushed over his face visibly as he looked at his arm, then his gaze fluttered back to her and he began to shake his head, “Do you know how adorable you manage to be? It’s almost hard to believe.” His fingers slid to her sides, he tickled her up and down her torso, finding her armpits, then the crook of her neck. Y/N is squirming on his lap, giggling and shaking her head, pleading with him to stop -- Y/N doesn’t know when he found out she was ticklish but she hates how easily he’s finding her spots. And there was nowhere for her to go, she just rustled back and forth on his lap, wiggling closer and closer to him despite her attempt to shimmy off him.

“S-stop!” She laughed, trying to catch his hands as they found different spots to torment on her body, “That tickles -- that -- hey!”

“Shh, you need to be quiet, we’ve got a sleepy Irishman on the couch!” He said in a hushed voice, though his fingers didn't stop, “Y/N, you’re being too loud -- you need to be quiet, baby.”

She bites back a squeal, finally grabbing hold of his wrists, “Then you have to stop tickling me!”

“But I don’t want to,” he pouted, “You’re making such cute little noises.”

Y/N ignores how this spurs something like arousal deep in her belly for her psyche’s sake, as her chest heaves with each breath she’s trying to catch, “You’re mean,” Y/N sighs, curling forward and letting her head rest on his chest — was this okay? It felt like the right thing to do, and when Harry doesn’t push her off, she figures it must feel okay for him too, “I’m gonna tickle you when you least expect it.”

“I look forward to it,” he teased, his hands falling from her sides when she crawled out of his lap, finding her spot beside him as she worked to peel the covers out for her to get beneath, “Y’know, don’t worry about cuddling tonight, yeah? You can use me as a big teddy bear if you want.”

She pauses, her knees making small hills in the blankets since they are bent. Had he noticed her teddy bear at the hotel? Y/N had thought she had been so careful! How frustrating — was he teasing her? She knew it was weird to still cling onto stuffed animals to sleep at night but she just feels more comfortable hugging on something — it made her feel safe.

“Ah, you know I’m keen on being a little spoon, is the thing and I love a good cuddle. This would be more for me than you — I’m a selfish sleeper.”

“Oh,” her shoulders sank in relief; whether he was being honest or stretching the truth to spare her the fact that he knew she slept with a stuffed animal like a child — he didn’t bring it up and she’s thankful, “I can…I can be big spoon, sure,” she relaxed her legs, watching as the covers fell with them, “I’ve never cuddled with anyone before, so I don’t know if I’ll be any good.”

It takes a lot for her to not physically grimace at herself again. No matter what, it always feels like she’s unintentionally making herself seem like the most pathetic person on this planet. She’s never had a best friend, she’s never kissed anyone, she’s never cuddled — what else could she say that would have him pity her? She didn’t want him to pity her…she just wanted Harry to like her, was all.

But what if he only hung out with her…what if he only did all this stuff because he felt sorry for her?

“That’s okay,” he says without missing a beat, “I’ll show you the ropes.”

As Y/N drifts to sleep that night, she remembers where she’d seen the shelf Harry purchased.

She’d shown it to him a few weeks ago.

. . .

This is paradise, Harry is certain of it.

It had taken a little while of shuffling and wriggling, but when Y/N finally settled, Harry couldn’t stop smiling. She wrapped her body around him like a koala, but still managed to keep him as the little spoon. They both faced each other but Harry’s head was tucked against her chest, while one of Y/N’s arms was wrapped around his shoulders and the other was stretched out, her bicep beneath his head. Her left leg was curled over his hip while the right was lying between both of his. He could feel every breath she breathed and heard every thump of her heart. Harry was entirely encircled in her being, and he recognizes that he’s never been so comforted and happy.

Harry felt embarrassed to be jealous of a bear in that hotel room, but he understood now that his feelings were justified. How could he not be fuckIng envious of a stuffed animal when this is what it experienced each night? He almost wanted to steal it from her, tuck it away somewhere she wouldn’t be able to find him — then she would need him to cuddle every time she slept.

And tonight, while they were kissing. . .Harry is fucking breathless thinking about it. There was something much more earnest about this kiss; she was more grabby than he thinks she even realized, and her hips -- she’d been rocking against him, and he doesn’t think she noticed that either. Her mouth was warm, her movements were eager. . .it was so good. If not for the chance to cuddle her, he may have snuck off to have a guilty handy in the bathroom, one hand clutching onto the sink while the other was fixed around his cock. Shiver after shiver rattling through him at how good it would feel, especially with the memory of their kiss, especially when she’d managed to work his cock sensitive and needy by unintentionally rolling against him.

But he couldn’t; the opportunity to be little spoon -- to be wrapped up in her arms like a teddy -- he couldn’t pass that up. So he willed his erection away, buried himself against her body, and allowed himself to melt.

God, he thought to himself, What has she done to him?

. . .

Harry wakes Y/N up the next morning with a kiss to the mouth and a soft, sleepy smile.

“You want breakfast?”

. . .

Y/N and Harry kiss often.

She still has trouble initiating them herself, however, Harry has no problem doing it himself. Actually, if nobody is looking, chances are Harry is moments from planting one on her. From small, brief little pecks to him licking into her mouth and against her tongue; she doesn’t mind it. She likes them both very much.

Sometimes he’ll catch her in the elevator right before lunch, he’ll dip in and press his mouth against hers until they shutter to a stop and the doors are moments from opening. Other times he’ll do it just before they part ways, where he goes to the locker room to get ready and she goes out to stand beside Niall (who met with his friends with benefits, and decided to take things slowly by starting over entirely) -- those are usually just quick pushes of their lips together accompanied by a, “See you out there, Sweetheart.” While he has fewer scratches and scrapes than he did before, when he does have something for her to patch up or bandage, he’ll pucker out his lips very fish-like until she notices and meets his mouth.

Y/N thinks they may have surpassed what is entirely normal for a friendship -- she wasn’t so dense that she didn’t recognize they kissed a lot more than what could be considered typical. If it were then everyone would be kissing everywhere constantly. No, it wasn’t exactly normal, but their relationship wasn’t technically very normal either, and that was okay. It was okay to have things that were just specific to them, and if kissing every day, a few times a day, was something distinct and special for them then that was okay. Y/N didn’t mind it and he didn’t mind it.

Still, she had to check herself more often than she had to before. Reminding the bunny-like beat of her heart that this was platonic and not something to write sonnets over. Of course, Y/N doesn’t know Harry’s inner thoughts or feelings if he does not express them to her outright, but she doesn’t think he sees her in a romantic light at all. When he’s been with people like Aggie. . .like the girls that she’d seen when she shamefully scrolled to older posts on his socials. . .he had a type that he went after. A beautiful type, that Y/N just didn’t really feel like she fit at all.

Plus, Harry didn’t really strike her as someone who appreciated being alone for too long. He was rough and hardened while he boxed, sure, but otherwise, he had about as much resolve as a stuffed animal; he thrived off attention and physical contact, whether that be her curling her fingers through his hair, letting him slump his entire body weight onto her on the couch when they were sat watching the telly, or pressing his lips to hers while they were chest to chest, tummy to tummy, thigh to thigh -- Harry liked it. Y/N liked it too, but Harry treated it as if he broke attention down like glucose into energy and that’s how he functioned in his day-to-day life.

Y/N doesn’t mind it though. She’s used to being convenient -- a place marker for something better. . .someone better.

Just because she didn’t mind it, didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. If she thought about it for too long it cut through her like knives; it worms through her body, slicing at the tender bits of her feelings. The way it made her feel heavy like she was dragging herself through mud, was akin to the way she felt when the weight of how pretty Aggie was finally rested on her shoulders after getting a closer look of her in person (and not panicked glances in a cafe when she thought she was actively cheating). Because of this, Y/N didn’t like to think for too long, so she wouldn’t. She’d bury the thoughts down deep in her gut and focus on something else instead, like how soft Harry’s hands always felt when they brought her closer to him, taking her by the waist. Or how they’d made a habit of sleeping in the same space more often now because cuddling felt good and they both mutually benefited from it. Harry got to be little spoon, and Y/N felt safe with her arms wrapped around him.

But she tries to get over it. She’s used to it, isn’t she?

She’s just used to it.

“Helloooooo,” Harry drags her from the thought pool she’d begun drowning in, popping up in front of her face, “Missus, where’s your head at, hm?”

Harry had won another fight; did it quick and easy, but Y/N’s brain had been light-years away. Only vaguely does she recall him dancing around the mat, dodging and hitting, perfectly executing the “combos” Niall’s always trying to explain to her but she just could not fully grasp. The man was burly and easily had some weight on Harry but that rarely seemed to matter when it came down to the nitty-gritty of it. They were only fighting for around eight or so minutes tops, and while Harry didn’t knock him out, when he hit the ground he signaled that he was done with the fight.

She’d been watching closely but she just wasn’t there, exactly, and she hoped Harry would ignore the fact when she loosens up the muscles in her face to smile at him. She pops the water bottle between her thighs and grabs for his glove, “You did really well,” she spoke gently, just loud enough for him to hear her, and gives a good tug after peeling the velcro off, “It still amazes me how efficient you are in winning.”

Instead of immediately grabbing for his water bottle like he usually does, he leans forward and knocks their foreheads together, like a cat bumping against their owner (he does this because his hand gets sweaty in his gloves, so, rarely, he’ll immediately touch her after a match), “S’cos I have my good luck charm with me,” he murmured, “Even though her head is dancing around somewhere else. Where were you, little one?”

The nickname in itself was nothing particularly spectacular, but it was the tone in his voice that really did her in. As he pulls back from her, her face feels hot -- her whole body is warm, actually, and she’s struggling to ignore the way her skin raises with goosebumps after his free hand (clean from sweat) meets her elbow. He cradles it in his palm, then slides up her tricep, his fingers dipped beneath the shirt she’s wearing and he squeezes gently, “I was just thinking,” she responded, clearing her throat, “Just lost in thought, is all. Malene has that logo due next week, so I wonder if she’s figured out an alternative for cows yet.”

A low hum reverberates through Harry when he squints at her, finally reaching for the water bottle fixed between her legs, “I reckon you’re only ever supposed to think about me and how cool I am when we’re together. Getting lost in your thoughts -- unless it is about how darling I am in the ring -- is prohibited, quite frankly.”

Y/N scowls, “You’re obnoxious,” she tilted her face away from him, “I don’t know how anyone deals with you.”

“Well, considering you deal with me the most, I think that’s a question to ask yourself.” His hand slid from her upper arm, down to her wrist, “C’mon then, I’ve got something to tell you.”

As always, she goes with him easily wherever he pulls her, not questioning when he dodges the locker room and instead takes her to the same area he’d whined about her caressing Christopher’s cheek before. Only this time when the door swings shut, instead of being greeted with Harry’s pouty face, Y/N is pressed up against the wall, and her mouth is met with Harry’s in a little under five seconds. A startled noise drags from her throat but is muted by his lips, tender and sweet against her own. The hand he’d been guiding her by moving from her wrist so their fingers slot together, and he holds them up by her head. Y/N wonders if she’ll ever get used to those — the way her body is overcome by profound excitement. Several emotions take their turns prying at her, peeling off her clothes and leaving her bare and vulnerable to their whims; she’s happy because she’s kissing him, she’s nervous if she’s doing it right, her lower belly burns at the movement of his tongue, her mind swims with something like envy that there were people who got to experience this before her.

For the most part, Harry keeps this kiss brief and gentle — the only time he really goes in for something longer and deeper is when they’re at each other’s flats. Y/N thinks he does that for her benefit, considering that after a kiss like that she needs a moment to ground herself back into reality. He’s teased her once that his kisses were magic and one of their abilities was mind-clearing…she thinks maybe that’s why he’s kissing her now.

Bee stings of giddiness poke through her body when he pulls away, but he dots kisses down her arm, starting from her shoulder and pecking to her wrist, then her fingertips., “Aish,” he murmured gently, “Now you’re paying attention to me. Do I have to kiss you every time I want you to concentrate on me?”

Y/N is breathless, her fingers twitching in his hold as his eyes flickered off the light hanging above them; she wondered if he knew his irises resembled aventurine crystals. Two gems that could work her open just by gazing in her direction. “You’re obnoxious,” she repeats, and he only smiles wide at her, “I want a milkshake tonight. Can we get one, please?”

“Hmm, I’ll consider it if you say the following --,” he clears his throat, “I, Y/N, believe that Harry is not only the best boxer in the world but the hottest, most intelligent man alive. Furthermore, he is the best kisser I’ve ever had and he is my favorite.”

She watches him as he continues to pepper kisses on her hand, “You’re silly,” she tells him, “You know I think all those things already, you don’t have to bribe me into saying them.”

“If you don’t stop saying cute shite like that, I’ll have no choice but to fall in love with you.” Harry voices it like it might be a warning; a threat of some kind that was supposed to steer her away from making comments like that, but if anything, it only spurs her. She wishes that was the reality of the situation.

Wait, what? Why would she. . .why would she want that? God, her head always feels like such a mess lately -- Harry is her best friend, and the closest she’s ever been with someone, but she shouldn’t allow that to skew her perception of what this was. And she wouldn’t want to ruin this friendship over a muddled mind with garbled feelings that she couldn’t even possibly begin to sort through. This is why friends with benefits don't work, she finally understood that. If Y/N was this confused over a few kisses, cuddles, and his perpetually flirty attitude, she couldn’t imagine how she would even sort through sex.

Or maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe everything would suddenly click and make sense for her if they did -- shit, how was she supposed to know? It wasn’t like she had anything to compare this to, other than Malene who is not giving her free kisses, or Niall who isn’t pouting at her to be the little spoon or the multitude of acquaintances she’d gathered because nobody in her past had been willing enough to seek something deeper. None of those situations even closely resembled this thing that they had. . .this thing that was just for them.

She should talk to him about it, shouldn’t she? But what if he gets weirded out? Harry has never seemed to question himself in hindsight -- he acted as he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted, with very little consideration toward the consequences. On top of that, he was charismatic and knew how to manipulate the situation so that it was in his best interest. Honestly, if Harry didn’t give a fuck all about being the split UI/UX designer they had him as in the office, or really hadn’t felt impassioned by illegal, money-making fistfights -- he’d make for a good, seedy politician. One that you really didn’t know if he was working with you in mind or himself, but he had a bright smile and cracked jokes at lighthearted press conferences so you didn’t really care (as long as he wasn’t doing anything too heinous behind the scenes).

What she was getting at, was that she was worried if Harry saw she was thinking too deeply about this arrangement -- deeper than he was even thinking about it -- would he stop it altogether? No more kisses, no more cuddles? Yeah, Y/N had existed well in life without them but now that she’s experienced it, she’s having a hard time at even the idea of letting go. They were something she looked forward to.

And to think, all of this started because she was a little too nosy one night.

“Oi,” Harry’s fingers slipped back around her wrist and squeezed, “I’m not g’na ask again Sweetheart, what’s got you all in your head?”

“Nothing, it’s just,” she dismissed him at first with a shake of her head, avoiding eye contact only for a second so that she didn’t spill every thought, crafting up another reason she could have been lost in her head, “I was actually just wondering why those blokes stopped picking on you. Remember the ones that -- that would corner you and whatnot? Like next to the trash can.”

“Oh, them?” Harry begins to walk, leading her toward the locker room through the door he usually enters at the beginning of the night, “They tried it around -- well, the night you found me that was maybe the first or second time? They caught me off guard ‘cos I’d been drinking, so they thought it was a fair fight. The next few times they caught me I was more than ready to fuck them up, and I had started walking out with Alfred in case I need another person on hand since they liked to group up in pairs,” he stops them at his locker, and Y/N hovers near the bench, swallowing thickly as she gets a look at the damp skin stretched taught over his muscles -- sometimes she felt guilty for ogling him, but she tried to brush that guilt away the best she could.

She was a shy virgin but not self-denying; it was normal to appreciate the attractive aspects of someone, even if they were your friend. So the muscles that ripple and bulge, and the spots where he’s still squishy and soft -- the way she’s certain he could break her hand if he squeezed it between his thighs, but he’d giggle and twist away if she touched the tender skin of his plushy hips and soft tummy. Y/N thinks Harry may be her ideal body type, that she hadn’t known existed until she’d seen him shirtless the very first time.

“Plus,” he continued, and Y/N forced herself to look away from his chest, “I wasn’t lying when I said you’re my lucky charm for two reasons: I fight better with you around, which makes me seem much more vicious, and fewer blokes want to try their hand in a one-on-one or even two to three-on-one, and, nobody really seems to bother me when you’re around. Say what you want about the brute bastards, at least they’re gentlemen.”

“That’s good,” she nodded her head, more to herself than him, “That kinda. . .I was always a little worried that they were lurking around or something.”

That wasn’t far off -- it was something that she’d considered and it frightened her greatly. The thing was, Y/N had never liked the thought or idea of Harry getting hurt in any way, but the more time they spend together, the less she thought she could deal with maintaining a relaxed demeanor about it. The mere mention of him possibly getting ambushed again fills her with worry and panic. Not that she didn’t believe he could take care of it himself, which he has proven time and time again, she knew he was well equipped. That didn’t mean she could stomach the idea, however.

“Right, I almost forgot!” He clapped his hands together, and when Y/N allowed herself to look back over to him instead of checking out the peeling paint on the lockers, she finds he’s pulled on his sweatpants and a loose fitted top (he would shower later on at her place, she guesses), “You aren’t busy tomorrow morning, are you?”

Y/N shook her head, “Apart from. . .I need to pick up some more food from the store for Blueberry, but otherwise, I’m free. Why?”

“Good, I’m spending the night tonight --”

“You always spend the night.”

“--so that we can get up super early tomorrow morning. Which means we’re strictly cuddles-only tonight, little lady, don’t get handsy with me.”

Y/N frowns, “I’m not the one who gets handsy,” she reminded him, “You’re always the one touching all over me! And I’m supposed to be big spoon anyway, so I don’t get it.”

“Gosh, how can you criticize a guy for his sleeping habits?” He pulled his gym bag over his shoulder, “You’re so grumpy t’night, I reckon you need to go to bed early,” he pinches her side, “Don’t worry, after I shower, we’ll hit the sack.”

“It won’t be the only sack hit if you don’t stop teasing me,” she grumbled, and maybe he was right -- she hadn’t slept very well the night before, and her brain constantly and desperately searching for answers regarding her feelings and their relationship wears her thin.

Feigning his offense, he gasps loudly -- theatrically -- and pushes the door open for her, leading back out into the hallway, “You are such a sneaky little brat, y’know that? All sweet and gentle to everyone but me -- one of these days you’re gonna hurt my feelings, and I’m going to cry, and then what are you gonna do, huh? You’ll feel pretty damn bad, won’t you?”

She doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t need to -- he knows she’s only teasing, even if it was coming from a slightly grumpy place.

So Y/N rips a page from Harry’s book and gives a fleeting nudge to his shoulder with her head.

. . .

Harry hadn’t been kidding. After their milkshakes and Harry’s shower, he stood at the doorway that connected her living room to the hall leading to her bedroom, with his hand outstretched and a stern look on his face, “I know you’re a party animal, but it’s time for sleep.”

Once they crawled into bed, Harry waited patiently for her to get situated before he wraps his arms around her waist and lays his head on her chest, a contented sigh leaving his mouth while Blueberry situated himself at the foot of the bed.

“I can’t believe we only just started doing this,” he murmured, “This is lovely.”

As Y/N wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and once again hooked her leg over his hip, she agreed wholeheartedly.

. . .

On clear, cloudless, sunny mornings, light gleams through Y/N’s windows in a way very similar to the beginning shot of a film. It was bright. . .too bright, because her curtains were quite thin (Blueberry had accidentally yanked down her older, more expensive curtains and she couldn’t be arsed to spend more than twenty on curtains again) and allowed all of the sun to pour in through the glass, peering through the blinds. Dust floats around in the rays that cast beams across her room, and for some reason, it reminds her of being little. Opening her eyes on summer mornings to the sound of a distant lawnmower and birds chirping greetings to the world as it woke up for the day.

Sometimes, if she’s lucky, she’ll get that little burst of energy that had accompanied being little and the excitement that overwhelmed her at the prospect of playing outside. Yeah, she was a lonely kid, but at least she didn’t need a friend to go on a slide, and she could make herself move on a swing just fine. Maybe it would have been fun to have someone to ride their bike beside her, but she could do that alone too -- she was happy enough when she was little and hadn’t even realized how lonely she’d been until she grew up some. At least she didn’t know it at the time. . .Y/N’s thankful that a young her was naive to the joys of friendship, or she would have been really sad.

And when she got older, she remembers wishing she would have had a best friend to grow up with. Maybe a neighbor around her age or someone she could have met at the park down the road -- then she could have at least kind of clung onto them through school, pushing her luck until university at the very least. It was hard to make friends the older you get, so to have someone who was sort of built-in from the start probably would have been beneficial. Hell, maybe they would have even gone to the same university!

Though, she can’t say she is all too hung up on the fact it didn’t happen, because even without the built-in neighbor buddy, Y/N found a best friend eventually. One who currently is grousing every time she attempts to wiggle out of his arms, only tightening himself around her like the tentacles of an octopus suctioning to her skin. Y/N remembers them shuffling around because she always wakes up a little bit several times throughout the night and they were consistently in a different position -- but somehow Harry manages to end up just as he started, with his arms wrapped around her waist. She wonders if it’s just cozy for him there.

“You’re the one who said we have to wake up early,” Y/N yawns around the sentence, stretching out her legs and her arms, “It’s 7.”

“That’s too early,” he grumbled, “More sleep.”

Y/N’s hand rests in his hair, where she had absentmindedly began combing her fingers, feeling as the soft strands glide between them, “You’re a sloth,” she murmured, and while his arms tighten around her waist, he pokes his head up, pouty face framed by the blanket. His eyes are puffy and his face is rosier in the mornings, Y/N had found -- he was cute as a cherub even with his brows furrowed.

“Don’t be so nice to cuddle with if you don’t want me to stay in bed all morning,” it sounded somewhere between him scolding her and him whining, as he blinked at her, the pads of his fingers dip into the warm skin of her back -- where her shirt had rumpled up while they slept, “Especially when you’re playing with my hair.”

“Sorry,” her apology held little weight to it, as she continued to massage his scalp, “You can go back to sleep.”

Harry huffed, carefully untangling himself from her body and pushing up so he was sitting beside her, “Well, I’m up now. Can’t sleep if I know you’re awake. We gotta get up anyway, so we can really utilize this thing to the fullest.”

Y/N followed suit, rising in bed and stretching out her back by crawling forward with her hands while her legs were crossed, “What thing?” She inquired while he pressed a hand to her back, helping ease her further down, her muscles loosening.

“I can’t tell you that! It’s a surprise.”

Harry, who had admitted to her on more than one occasion he was awful at keeping surprises, managed to hold his tongue until they arrived. Before they could even leave, Harry showered first, then told Y/N to take her time getting ready because he had to run to the store and do something in the kitchen that she wasn’t allowed to see yet, so she listened to him. Her usual showers were a little under ten minutes if anything, but today she stretched it as far as she could until the nozzle was spitting out lukewarm water that was colder than it was hot. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and spent a little extra time picking out an outfit (though she trashed most of her ideas immediately and chose something she felt comfortable in). She even cleaned out her purse, which was severely needed.

By the time she was finished, Harry popped his head into her room and said it was time to go, but she was under strict orders not to peek in the trunk (though she isn’t sure why she would). And when they drove half an hour to the place Harry had decided on, it took her just a few seconds for the pieces to click together in her head. Just as soon as she sees the double-seated bikes, bright red with a basket on the very first one.

Her mouth fell open as she shifted to sit up straighter in the passenger seat, “Did you -- did you really?”

Harry grins, “That’s not even the best of it,” he clicked his seat belt off and motions for her to follow him out of the car. They wrap around the back to the trunk, and when he pops it open, he reveals a picnic basket, “We’re g’na have a picnic too! How cute is that?”

It was cute. . .really cute. So cute, actually, that Y/N -- overwhelmed by her emotions -- feels tears dot at the corner of her eyes. How did Harry expect her heart not to sing out for him, when he did things like this? When he remembered things that she wanted to go do and went out of his way to make sure it happened? Sometimes, Y/N wonders if he did all this because he knew that he was her first best friend. If it was out of genuine want or boundless pity that he felt for her.

Either or, Y/N didn’t really care right then. She was happy and grateful that Harry had come into her life, even under the odd circumstances they were in. So she is quick to drag him into a hug, and a startled noise leaves his throat she thinks because he’s unused to her displaying affection first.

“Thank you,” Y/N smiled as she drew back, “I’m so happy!”

Harry’s gaze gets soft, “Good,” he responded, “That’s all I want.”

It was really fun -- it turned out there was a science to riding with two people pedaling but they quickly figured it out, so only ten minutes of their two-hour time allotted was devoted to figuring out the mechanics of it. The area they were in seemed to be a park, minus the playset (apart from some swings over on the far right side) with a trail that disappeared and reappeared beyond the trees. There were several different routes to follow, all of which are lined with bushes spotted in flowers and lush green grass. Everything is full, buzzing with life -- it’s all so green too, is the thing, and the sky was so gorgeous, vibrant and blue. . .or, well, it was for a time at least.

Large grey clouds weighed heavy with rain and the baritone rumble of thunder that starts distantly but sounds to be getting closer and closer -- was a threat to their picnic. Harry had seemed more torn up about it than she was, frowning and huffing, “The weather said jack shit about a storm!” He shook his head, “Dammit.”

“It’s okay,” Y/N spoke from behind him, feeling the burn of her muscles as they stretch and pull for the first time like this since she was younger -- she couldn’t remember the last time she had ridden a bike, and honestly, she was surprised she even knew what to do to ride in the first place still, “We can still have the picnic! We can just have a. . .um, an inside picnic. I used to do those all the time, ‘cos the big kids outside would steal my animal crackers so I would lay a blanket down and eat in the living room while my parents were at work. I remember it being fun, and I think it’d be even better with you.”

Her words soothed the dip in his forehead at the very least, replaced with a different look that she couldn’t really describe, “Would you still be happy if we had it in the living room?” Y/N nodded, and even added a smile to show him she really didn’t mind -- rain happened sometimes, and she wasn’t angry about it. If she couldn’t sit and enjoy the flowers while they had their picnic, then at the very least she would know that the plants were being fed. Hopefully, the wind wouldn’t be so fierce it disrupted them.

“Okay,” Harry unzips the jacket he’d worn, pulling the fabric off his arms before slinging it around her shoulders and tugging the hood over her head -- her heart raced, “Then let’s do the living room. I’ll let Blueberry have some of my bread, ‘cos pack mates share.”

The breeze picked up and rain soon followed but they’d been tucked safely in his car by then, and by the time they made it back to Y/N’s flat, the storm had grown a little fiercer but nothing too awful. It was definitely better that they were inside rather than trying to wait it out beneath the thin veil of tree leaves somewhere. Plus, Y/N thinks that she and Harry could do anything, anywhere, and she would find the same amount of joy in it. As long as she was with him, she really didn’t mind. She hoped the same was true for him.

A blanket covered in pink cows wearing aprons was what Harry had chosen for their picnic, and Y/N thinks it's the cutest blanket she’s ever seen. He fanned it out after they shoved her coffee table to the side of her living room, then made her wait patiently for him to set it up how he had imagined it in his head. While he did that, Y/N took it upon herself to find a video of nature-like sounds that would have been similar to the park they’d been in and played it on the TV. When he heard the first few bird chirps, he looked up from where he’d been positioning the fruits and smiled so brightly, it made her heart race again, “You’re so smart,” his praise makes her feel fluttery, but that’s normal. . .everything he does makes her feel fluttery nowadays.

(Blueberry was a good boy, who sat with a wagging tail and watched them both carefully, with a look in his eye that might suggest he knew something that they didn't. She’d always teased him for having such human-like eyes, but sometimes she contemplated mind uploading and the possibility that she’d found and adopted a failed Russian experiment.)

Harry handmade the sandwiches and sliced the fruits, which was why he had told her she wasn’t allowed in the kitchen earlier on. He had playfully called it a labor of love and snorted something about being an average, everyday housewife, but Y/N was too busy being overrun by her feelings. To think that he had not only found a place where they could do something that she wanted to do, but he’d set up a secret picnic, constructed the food (the fruits, the sandwiches, two little salads, and an alternative sandwich in case she didn’t like the one he typically made for himself), and had even bought the kiwi apple juice she liked so much -- which she hadn’t known that he knew was her favorite, until he presented it to her with a grin, “You’re favorite drink.”

All of that, plus after they ate, he produced her with the brown paper bag that she had recognized from when they had gone shopping together after the petting zoo. Y/N tilted her head, “What is this?” She’d inquired.

“Well, you’d know if you opened it.” He pressed it closer to her, and Y/N picked it up carefully. She unrolled the top of the bag and pulled out whatever was tucked inside of it. Once she carefully peeled the tissue paper away, it revealed a carefully folded shirt with a piglet sitting in what appeared to be a strawberry milkshake, and the pig managed to look just like the one that had been toddling back and forth between her and Harry’s lap, with the same spots and everything. This was the cutest thing she’d ever seen, she’s certain of it, “Can you believe the luck I had? I saw it before you could and bought it real quick while you were distracted. It looked just like the pig that was snuggling with you and you love milkshakes -- I had been meaning to give it to you when we got back, but I kept forgetting it at my flat. Then when you were actually at my flat, Niall distracted me so -- wait, hold on, why are you crying?”

Y/N had probably been on the brink of crying for a while by that point, but realizing that he had bought this for her, made big fat teardrops streak down her cheeks. With the hand she isn’t using to cradle the shirt, she wiped at her face, she took in a big shaky breath, but ended up hiccuping over her words anyway, “You’re so nice to me,” she hated how her voice sounded, and how her lips wobble, “You do so many nice things for me, and I -- I don’t know what to do. I feel like I don’t do enough for you.”

It was something that had been dancing around the back of her head for a while. There used to be an even trade-off; she kept his secrets and tended to his wounds when he needed it, and in return, he would buy her a meal and drive her to and from work. But the more time they spent together, the more Harry was doing for her, the more he was taking her places and setting things up -- it made her feel like a shit friend. He was doing his best, to be the best and do things for her, and what was she doing in return? How could she call him her best friend, when she did dick all to deserve that title?

“I’ve never been this close to someone before,” she sniffled, partly wanting to crawl beneath a rock and stay there -- why was she crying? What was it about Harry that got her so emotional? “So I don’t. . .I’m unsure how to be a proper best friend, but you’re -- you’re really good at it. I’ll try harder from now on, I promise.”

Harry puffs a disbelieving laugh, “Oh, Sweetheart,” he sighed, moving their food out of the way and crawling closer to her, stroking away the tears that fell despite her attempts to ward them away, “You do so much for me that you don’t even realize. You keep my secrets for me, you patch me up when I get hurt, you play with my hair and listen to me prattle on and on for hours about nothing. You let me stay the night when I want,” he scoots even closer, sliding his hand behind the nape of her neck and pulling her toward him. She dips her face in his shoulder, nestling against him while he strokes down her back, “You make me laugh, and you make it so that I never feel alone. You answer my calls no matter what hour, you help me out when I need it. . .don’t you get it? You’re already the best I could have asked for, so don’t give me that shite about being a “proper bestie” when you already are, Brat.”

He pulls her back so he can look at her face, “Understand?” She nodded, eyes fluttering closed when the pad of his thumb strokes at her brows until she relaxes them, “Good. Now we’re going to cuddle and nap through the rest of this storm, alright? And I don’t wanna hear another peep from you about not being the best friend there is.”

. . .

During their nap, Harry is big spoon for the first time.

He can’t decide which he likes more, being big spoon or little, but what he knows now for certain is that as long as he’s got his arms around Y/N in some way, he dreams sweetly.

. . .

“I think you like, like him.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I was gonna say love, but I thought that might scare you,” Marlene folds the thin paper wrapped around her turkey melt back, “But yeah, you guys definitely like each other. You didn’t know?”

Harry had fallen behind in one of his projects that had a 4PM due time and Malene had miraculously been completely caught up, so while Harry ate his lunch at his computer (he’d whined about it for an hour) she and Malene went down to the cafe to eat. Y/N hadn’t even been the one to bring it up, Malene had wondered aloud how she and Harry were doing, and Y/N told her that Harry was very sweet and they were getting closer. In a very Malene-like way, she managed to poke and prod just the right amount until Y/N was describing their trips together, how much he dislikes Christopher (who she’d been keeping an eye out for the past week now), their recent cuddling (though she holds out on the kisses. . .she didn’t want to spread all of their business), and how she was unsure of her feelings. The way her heart races and her brain feels foggy, and how he makes her all teary-eyed in good ways.

They were things that Y/N would have felt embarrassed to admit to anyone but Malene, who had once gone in-depth about several different accounts of anal (all of which resulted in a mess). And Malene’s response was just that -- she liked, liked him?

“No, I didn’t -- I mean, I considered that I might like him,” she punched her fork through a sliced strawberry from the fruit salad she’d been eating, “But I squashed it because I figured -- well, I didn’t think he could like me like that. He was with someone very pretty before me, so I feel a little inadequate I guess.”

Malene hums, chewing slowly, thoughtfully before she shook her head, “Nah, listen -- whoever he was with and whatever they looked like, that doesn’t mean much of anything. Give him some credit, he’s not that big of a prick, and not to mention, you’re gorgeous.”

“She is gorgeous, but why are we discussing that?” A familiar voice nearly makes Y/N jump out of her skin, and when she turns her head to the side she finds Christopher in the cafe uniform -- a black polo with the logo on the left breast pocket, and an apron tied loosely around his waist. He makes no effort to hide the scratches on his arms, nor the cut near his brow. It looks like he’d gotten in a fight on the way here.

“Oh!” Her eyes widened, “You got the job?”

“I sure did,” he poked at the name tag, tapping happily, and setting his elbow on the table and looking between the two, “Last Thursday was my first official day, and it's been going well. Do you guys want my discount?”

“Oh, no it’s --”

“Of course we would,” Malene agreed, wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

Christopher put his thumb up, “Perfect, I can do that. What were we talking about before I came up? I caught the tail end of it but it seemed interesting.”

“Nothing really --”

“Y/N and Harry, like, like each other, and she just found out.” She answered, reaching into the bag of crisps and pulling out two.

“You just found out?” Christopher leaned up against the table more so.

Her brows furrowed, “You knew?”

“Well, duh I knew. Not every day you’re threatened for finding someone cute. I only kept flirting because I like fucking with him a little — he’s like, scary good at letting his emotions take over but somehow staying completely composed. He doesn’t hold back when he’s pissed and I prefer that than someone taking it easy ‘cos I’m newer. It’s why he beats my ass so efficiently, it’s very interesting. And he’s just a good fighter all around too, if he didn’t hate my guts I’d ask him to train me.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Plus the way he talks about you…how he hovers and touches you. I mean if I was doing all that, you could bet your ass I’m head over heels.”

Malene agreed, “Yeah, the way he sounds, you’d reckon you’d hung each and every single star for him. I remember a little earlier on, he was asking all these questions about you but not in a weird prick kinda way -- just asking what kind of things you liked, what foods were your favorite other than milkshakes. Little stuff, like he wanted to surprise you with it.”

“Yeah, not to mention he told me to stay the fuck away from you after he beat my ass the first time. And the daggers he shot at me when I fell in your lap that one time -- phew,” he whistles, “I thought he was going to grab me by the ankles and throw me around. After that first night, he had Alfred spread around that you weren’t to be messed with either -- not chatting you up at bars and whatnot, that you were his girl.”

Again, Malene made some murmurs of agreement, “I think I caught him threatening Marcel a while back too after you had your talk with him. Honestly, once he realized what happened made you cry, I think he was ready to risk his job and teach Marcel a thing or two about taking a hit. Oh, oh, oh, and there was that time he asked me about what to get you for your period. Damn, he’s really into you, isn’t he?”

“He is. I’ve only met with you lot, like three times in total, and even I had that figured out.”

Y/N’s brain is working at a hundred kilometers a second, chugging like a train on overdrive clicking over the tracks. What the hell? How was she. . .how had she not realized? Were they blowing smoke up her ass or was she really that dense that she hadn’t realized her feelings? Or even realized her own fully? It would -- it would make sense. Was there any other way to explain it other than the two of them liking each other more than friends? Nothing had made more sense to Y/N more than her having feelings for him, she thinks. . .her feeling inadequate in comparison to Aggie, the way she feels cuddled against him, kissing him, talking to him, the way she feels just being with him. How her heart races -- it is unlike anything she’d experienced before. What happens in her mind and body when she even thinks about Harry, made whatever little bit of infatuation she had for Marcel seem like frivolous puppy love, and at the time she used to think she was in love with him!

But this. . .this was so different.

This was new and exciting.

You’re so oblivious, d’ya know that?

This was almost too much. . .it was --

“Oi,” Harry’s voice might not have made her jump as badly, if not for the fact it’d been accompanied by his hand on her shoulder, “I have to finish something up once, and I’m not invited to this little get-together?”

Christopher grinned, “Hey man,” he turned to face Malene, “It was nice to meet you,” and he turned back to face Y/N, “Always a pleasure, Babe. Think about what we discussed.” He parted with a wink, patted his hand on the table, and made his way back behind the counter. Before Y/N could process that he had fled, she felt Harry squeeze her.

“Can I steal her for a minute, Malene?”

Malene raises her hands, “By all means, you can have her for the rest of lunch. I need to piss and try and convince myself that turkey melt was worth being bloated the rest of the day.”

Harry urges Y/N off her chair, taking her by the wrist, and tugs her to follow after him. The place where his fingers touch her skin sparkles; the feeling of what shimmering lights might be. He seemed irritated -- she knows that seeing her with Christopher was probably irritating as is, but Christopher’s remark and his wink probably helped very little.

She didn’t bother questioning him when he shoved the door to the stairs open. The mouth of the steps was directly in front of them, but Harry pulled her around to the space beneath them, where the sun from the windows didn’t touch and cast shadows. There were a few boxes here and a stray broom, but neither seemed to matter when she’s being pressed against the wall, “What the hell did he want?” Harry grumbles, but he pushes his lips to her before she could answer -- just a peck, just for a second -- “Hm? A bloody fucking leech.”

“Nothing,” she began, “He was just --” he cuts her off with another kiss, this one is a little longer, a little more earnest, and he takes her face in his palm. He’s nibbling at her bottom lip carefully, plucking and pulling, and Y/N really didn’t know if he wanted an answer or not. . .he certainly wasn’t giving her enough time to answer, “Um -- I was --” He smooths over her mouth again, and she feels his tongue slide against her lips. Y/N opens up for him as she always does, heart thumping against her chest, mind swirling and spinning. How could she even begin to sort out what she’d just discussed when Harry was crowding her space like this. When his hand slides from her cheek to the nape of her neck, and his knee slips between her thighs to press himself even closer. She wonders if he can feel her heart pounding, or if he could hear the way her blood was rushing through her vessels. Y/N certainly could -- actually, she was very hyper-aware of every sensation right now, it was on the verge of stressing her out.

But then she focuses on his mouth again. On the gentle nip and pull, the glide of his tongue against her own, how he tastes like the berries from the smoothie he’d been drinking. How warm he was. . .if this was a kiss because he, liked her and not just because they were friends. The more she thinks about it, how could it make sense that he was kissing her like this just to kiss. There was no reason for him to need to kiss her right now; he had to go out of his way to take her here, to push her up against the wall, to ask what Christopher wanted only to smother her lips with his own.

He had to be jealous right? He disliked Christopher, sure, but to do this. . .it felt very similar to how she had dealt with seeing Aggie. How she felt afterward, and how all she wanted to do was to practice kissing with him again. She’d been feeling jealous then, right? And that’s what Harry had been feeling right then? How had she never considered this before?

“Pay attention to me,” he nips particularly hard at her bottom lip this time, dragging her from her reverie but suckles over it like an apology, “What’s going on, hm? Why was he bothering you?”

“He and Malene just. . .just helped me realize something, I think,” she explained, chest heaving while she tried to catch her breath.

“Don’t leave me out,” he whined, “What’d you realize?”

She couldn’t say it here -- she felt like it would be better if she waited until they got home, at the very least, so she held her tongue and shook her head, “I promise I’ll tell you later,” she held her pinky up to him, “I can’t. . .I just can’t do it right now. I’m a little embarrassed.”

Harry eyes her doubtfully for a few seconds like he’d been doing a scan and could see right through her before he links his pinky with her own.

“You better, Brat,” he responded and ducked back in for another kiss.

. . .

Y/N wanted to throw herself through a window.

The reason was simple: after her discussion with Malene and Christopher, Y/N had spent the whole rest of the day deciding how she would bring it up tonight. She’s usually not one to immediately confront things -- she likes to let the dust settle and typically waits for her mind to clear up before she says or does much of anything -- but something was stopping her this time. If Y/N didn’t get a better grasp of their relationship before the night was through she thinks she would worry, and question, and spin herself right into a mind swamp of confusion and questions and feelings of inadequacy.

So, in her head, she tried several different ways on how to bring it up. Not only that, she brought up about forty different versions of how the conversation would go, and in all the “bad-endings” she tried to figure out how to tell Harry that she understood she was a convenient friend option for things like cuddles and kissing and sleepovers, but how he was treating her was giving her the wrong idea. That maybe they should stop the kisses, and throttle back on the cuddles because Y/N thought she could do them as just friendly things, but they were getting her far too attached to him.

But with these scenarios, she always found a scapegoat for where they could comfortably stay in each other’s lives. The excuses she could make on both of their behalves if Y/N is coming completely out of left field, and their friendship had only ever been one that had always lacked romance of any kind. She would tell him that she just grew up lonely -- she was still learning to differentiate between different types of love but she could do that in time. No matter how pathetic it made her sound, it was better than the alternative of her admitting she had feelings and Harry feeling uncomfortable so they end this all together. That would break her heart. . .shatter it maybe. She would like to keep their dynamic at least to some degree, no matter the outcome of this.

All that time, effort, and energy she was pouring into figuring the proper way to spit this out, and she didn’t even utilize any of the techniques she thought up.

No, instead, he sat down beside her on the couch with a water bottle clutched in his hand and she said, “I think I like you,” without giving herself a chance to even form a proper thought. Her whole body flushes with heat, shame bubbling up in her insides as she swallowed thickly, “I mean --” her heart had already been beating quickly, but feeling Harry’s gaze burn fixed holes against her skin, she thinks it may be thumping at a pace she hadn’t ever reached, “I meant that, that’s what. . .that’s what Christopher and Malene were helping me with. I think, I’m pretty sure that I may have feelings for you that stretch beyond -- beyond friendship, but --” she tries desperately to read his face, but she can’t read anything -- the nerves are beginning to make her sweat, “But if you don’t like me that way, that’s okay! I understand that we are only friends, and on top of that we only became friends for convenience purposes but --”

“Excuse me?” Harry finally cut her off, his face pinched in somewhat of a frown; this is what she had feared -- he was probably disgusted with her, wasn’t he? For allowing herself to feel this way, and for blowing their friendship into something that it wasn’t. It wouldn’t surprise her if he chewed her out -- that was one of the scenarios she’d thought out prior, and she’d already decided she would take the scolding quietly and apologize frequently.

“I know, I’m sorry --” she started, but Harry was quick to cut her off. Was he really that angry with her?

“What the hell do you mean we became friends out of convenience?”

Oh? That’s what he was angry about?

Y/N brushed a few strands of hair from her face, forcing her voice not to shake — it’s not that she was scared of him, she was just frightened of the outcome. If Harry didn’t want to be her friend anymore she wouldn’t know what to do, “I — well, because I knew about the boxing and stuff? And so it was easy to see me and fix up your wounds because I live right down the road and then you didn’t have to…didn’t have to go home and fight with Aggie, so you stayed here. I thought it was one of those where like — like it was just convenient to be friends with me right? Like when you’re best friends with your neighbor?”

“I’m best friends with you because you’re you, Y/N, not because of that. What kind of shite —“ he shook his head, wiping at his face, “I clearly wasn’t showing you how much I liked you enough. I apologize for that.”

Confusion drips through her insides, “Wait, why are you apologizing? If I — if I was misinterpreting then that was my fault! I’m just…I’m just used to my friendships kind of being like that.”

“I’m apologizing because I wasn’t showing you how much I cared about you then,” he had already been turned to face her on the couch, but he physically lifts his body so he can turn to face her more directly, “You mean much more to me than someone who is just nearby and knows my shit,” his hands find her, he dances his fingers in the gaps between hers, “You’re my friend -- my best friend -- and I thought I was being very, very obvious with my feelings and intentions, but I was doing a shite job. I just wanted you to be able to figure it out yourself without me coming right out to say it.”

“It’s not your fault,” she shook her head, moving to stand on her knees only so she could get closer to him, wobbling back and forth from leg to leg, until Harry was coaxing her into the cradle of his lap, “I’m. . .I understand why you call me oblivious all the time,” she shivered as the hand not holding hers, moves toward her hip, pressing the fabric of her shirt out of the way while he skimming up the bare skin of her side, “But why didn’t you just tell me, if you knew? I just -- I just realized it today, you know?”

Harry huffed a laugh, “Because you’re much braver than I am,” his hand slides back down to her hip, “I’m a shy bloke, Sweetheart,” he’s closer now -- Y/N hadn’t realized how close he had been to her until she felt his breath cascade across her lips, “I like you,” he said it, just above a whisper, “It’s not a think, it’s a know. I know I like you, and I have for a very long time.”

Their lips meet -- Y/N is unsure who was the one to actually complete the space between them, but she hardly thinks it matters now. This kiss is much like their others, but just a little different -- it was as urgent as the one in the stairwell, with how Harry nibbles and bites and suckles, and the way he flitters his silky tongue into her mouth, and how he goes about tasting her. It was more honest now, there was no lingering wonder if other friends did this. Maybe they did, or maybe they didn’t, all Y/N knew for sure as she dug her fingers over the breast of his cotton shirt, is that they were more than friends. This feeling wasn’t just a friendly feeling. It was something more. . .something greater. Something Y/N never thought she ever had hope in feeling. Not when she was always standing idly by while everyone else’s relationships (platonic or otherwise) progressed and furthered, and she was stuck restarting each year.

Harry tastes and smells like warmth feels, and being in his arms felt safer than even being in her own flat. Every silly cliche made sense to her a little more than it had in the past -- how couldn’t they, when her heart was beating like this? At a hummingbird’s rate?

They are like this for a while, cuddled against each other, tongues stroking and feeling breathless. Harry is the one who stopped them to breathe, but Y/N just wants to go back in and kiss him again as she stared at him. His cheeks were flushed, his lips were bitten red and slicked with spit, parted as he sucked in little gulps of air that he’d been neglecting in favor of kissing her. When he dips back in, he finds his way to her throat as he fixes kisses around the tender, sensitive skin beneath her ear.

The sensation of his tongue against her skin is different -- a small shiver brings goosebumps up her chest as the tip of his tongue traces a little circle before his teeth scrape against it. She was bracing herself for a bite that seemed to never come, as he sponged more kisses along her throat. Using two of his fingers, he pulls the collar of her shirt over revealing the slope of her neck where he kisses some more, curls his tongue over it, suckles at it -- the skin grows more and more sensitive beneath his diligent mouth. Right up to the point that he finally sinks his teeth into her; not deep enough to draw blood, but enough to drag a gasp from her lungs, and the fingers she had buried in his shirt hold tighter.

Harry hums against her (or moans, she isn’t sure) before a soft chuckle leaves him while he soothes over the stinging bite with his tongue, “Sorry, baby,” he murmured, “I made it somewhere you can hide though, yeah? Just wanted to see,” his thumb touches against the spot, and Y/N jolts as he strokes over it, “Just wanted to see what this would look like on you.”

Y/N sought out his lips again, pushing together and giving no preamble before invading his mouth. This time around it was slightly more insistent, more to her fault than Harry’s. The overwhelming need to be close in every way imaginable had always overrun her during kisses like these, but this was the first time she felt she could act on it in some way. Instead of waiting for Harry to raise his knees and slide her down further into his lap, she wiggles closer herself, and she’s met with something that makes her pull away so quickly there are small strings of spit clinging their mouths together.

She looks down between them and could make out the shape of Harry’s prick in his trousers. The pants were already pretty tight around him as is, but with the additional girth they seemed to be near popping the button if he didn’t relieve the pressure soon, “Sorry,” he wipes at her mouth with his thumb, “I’m usually like this when we kiss, and typically I can kinda -- I focus really hard to push it off until I can deal with it, but sometimes I have more trouble.”

“Usually?” She repeated, her fingers twitching and a little droplet in her lower belly began to spread, growing, spreading, like the sprinkle before a heavy rain.

Harry nodded, “You always work me up,” he rests his hands on her thighs, and uses his hips to shift to a more comfortable position for him -- Y/N’s eyes don’t leave the bulge in his pants. It’s really hard to when she’s so intrigued, “We don’t have to do anything about it today though, baby, if you just wanna kiss.”

Did Y/N just want to kiss? She wanted to kiss, yeah, but she doesn’t think that’s all she wanted to do, not when -- for the first time of her knowing and realizing it, someone was aroused because of her. Harry was excited. . .she had made him like this, right? Y/N never understood why in stories or movies one person would tease their significant other until they got to this point, but she thinks she gets it now. This feeling is different but good different. New, but a good new. Odd, but a good odd.

“Can I see?” Her voice is low once she finally meets his gaze again, and finds that he’s been watching her curiously, “I think I’d like to.”

“You think or you know?” Harry’s fingers dig into her thighs, grape-sized indentions with just a little bite of his nails.

Y/N nodded, “I know I want to,” she responds -- she hates how virginal she feels; how demure and nonerotic the words sound out of her own mouth -- but Harry doesn’t seem to mind much at all. He nods his head too like he’s agreeing with her that she wants to see, and his nimble fingers pop open the button. A soft sigh left his mouth, like even that little bit of pressure relieved made a difference to him, even more so when he drags the zipper undone and takes a slow, deep breath.

It was difficult to decide where to rest her eyes. She wanted to be watching him when he pulled it out so she could see right away, but Harry’s face kept beckoning her attention. The way his bottom lip is tucked just slightly between his teeth and he noticeably digs it in a little deeper every time he touches himself even if it’s just a little -- makes her light-headed. She only realizes that he’s reached into his trousers and beneath his boxers when he lets go of his lip, and his mouth is dropped open some, his lashes flutter as he clears his throat and takes himself out as much as he could in their position.

The head and a little bit of the shaft were all that was visible to her, while the rest was still covered by his boxers. Y/N wasn’t sure what qualified as big, but she’s certain Harry matched the ticket -- he looked thick too like her hand would just barely be able to wrap around it. The pubic hair was scant beneath him like he had just shaved relatively recently but they had grown long enough they wouldn’t be pokey. His tip is wet, glistening beneath the lights of her living room and it was flushed a really pretty red that matched the color of his mouth after they’d been kissing for a while when they were all sensitive and swollen.

Harry is just pretty all over, she’s finding out.

Her fingers carefully touch the space where the waistband of his boxers stretched over him, so she wasn’t touching him directly but close to the skin that she wonders if he can feel the warmth of her fingertips. Y/N certainly could feel the heat around them, the area covered with so much vasculature, and all the blood that had rushed here to make him hard. She felt it twitch beneath her hand, and she couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled out of her mouth, “It’s cute,” she murmured, dragging the pad of her finger down his shaft until her fingers meet the teeth of his zipper, “S’really big too, but I think. . .I think this part of you is pretty too.”

Harry takes her by the wrist, pulling her fingers away from his boxers and bringing them to his mouth. Much like the hallway at the club, he pecks kisses around her hand, on each of her knuckles, then her nails, but instead of stopping there and peppering them down her wrist, he took a finger into his mouth. Slow and steady, he wets one digit at first, then two, then three, slipping them into his mouth and soaking them with his tongue until he decides he is satisfied.

At first, she’s confused why he could be doing this -- it was erotic and made her own center twitch with interest, but she didn’t understand his purpose. Not until he worked to move his boxers down just a little at first, and when Y/N raised on her knees so her weight wasn’t pressing down on his thighs, he raised his hips and scooted both his trousers and boxers down better. This way she saw all of him, even his balls, that sat full at the base.

She gets it then, lowering her fingers wet from his spit down to his prick. Y/N skates her fingers along the shaft, getting a feel for it, mesmerized by the way she can feel him throb and twitch. The skin was warm and smooth, and toward the head it was sticky -- she was curious about the taste but didn’t want to give away that she was experimenting. Harry would probably want her to wrap her fingers around him right? She’d seen it and read it enough times to get that much, she could just only hope she would do it in a way pleasurable for him.

Her fingers curl around the base, and she keeps her fist loose enough that she wasn’t squeezing but tight enough that he could feel her there, and slowly pulls upward. Harry moans, low and deep, her blood buzzes in response, and her face burns, “Just like that,” his voice cuts through the wet sounds of her hand, while she continues going up and down around him, intrigued by the way liquid builds up at the head, dripping down the side.

One of his hands rests on her thigh again, while the other simultaneously holds his shirt up and rests on his belly. The muscles there are taut -- she thinks if she dug her finger into one of them, it’d barely make a dent; and it was only after the first few strokes that his hips hump up into her hand. The action startles her, she tightens her grip around him on accident but not so much that it hurt him. He moans again, louder this time, “fuck,” he murmured, “You’re doing so well, baby, you’re making me feel so good.”

A frenzy of unadulterated want tramples through her body; she wanted him to make more of those sounds. She wanted him to say more to her -- to tell her she’s doing it right. She sped her hand up just a little, and with her free hand, she used her finger to trace over the ruddy head. The action makes Harry inhale sharply, his thighs twitch and he grabs for her both of her wrists. Y/N’s worried that she might have hurt him, but he chuckles, “Hell, you almost made me cum,” he smiled, and Y/N felt the tension that had quickly risen in her shoulders release, “Don’t wanna cum yet though, I wanna make you feel good. Can I?”

Y/N is feeling a lot of things swarming through her body. A conglomerate of nerves and desires that are fighting and charging at one another with ferocious intent. On one hand, she’s anxious -- worried about doing this for the first time, messing something up, not being pretty enough between her legs. If it got far enough that he went inside of her, she worried about the stretch of it, the burn of it -- if it would hurt. She worried about him finding out that she was a virgin too before they could get that far. . .she didn’t want him to stop them just because of that. And it felt embarrassing to admit, though she knew that it wasn’t. . .she just didn’t know.

But on the other hand, she was teeming with want all over. She wanted Harry -- she wanted to feel him kiss and touch every centimeter of her body, and she wanted him to feel good nestled between her thighs. Y/N thought maybe the stretch and burn of him sliding inside of her would be worth it if she could see that blissed-out face Harry makes when he feels nice. He would be gentle with her, she knew that -- Harry was always so gentle, and if she got scared, she knew he would stop for her. Knew that, above all, her safety and comfort is something Harry always prioritized so that aspect of it didn’t worry her at all.

That had won out, which was precisely why she was now lying naked beneath the covers of her bed. Y/N had told him it was because it was cold in her flat, but the real reason was that the sky outside was still relatively bright so there would be no hiding from him. Not that she wanted to, and not that it was entirely fair considering she wanted to ogle him without clothes on -- she just wasn’t used to that level of naked inspection. Harry would be the first person to see her bare, and that made her nervous.

At first, Harry had gone along with it and let her pull the covers over her body while he stripped down. He wiggled out of his trousers the rest of the way and tugged his shirt off over the top of his head, revealing every bit of his skin unashamed, as stark naked as the day he was born. Y/N traces over the milky skin, the ink, how toned and soft he was, and his prick bobbing, framed by the laurels on his waist as he walked. It was when he crawled into the bed that he curled his fingers around the blankets, “Listen,” he began, “I know you’re a shy little thing, and I don’ know what prick made you feel like you might need to cover up your body, but I’m not allowing it.” He began to slowly peel away the blankets, “I want to see you, Sweet girl, every inch of this beautiful body, okay?”

In his very, Harry way of doing it, he makes her feel good, and warm, and safe.

She’s happy that she chose to do this with him.

. . .

Harry is a fucking wreck.

He isn’t sure the last time he’s felt like this -- he doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this, really. Every other relationship and the feelings that were accompanied by it felt like a joke in comparison to what he felt when he was with Y/N. And the emotions that flooded him were enormous, all-encompassing, and not in the least bit scary like he thought they might be. Y/N liked him back, and she understood his feelings for her. There was no hinting around it anymore, though he would barely call what he was doing hinting, so much as borderline exposing his feelings for her every day. It was out in the open, and she returned the feelings. She liked him too!

He would have been content with just a kiss, honestly, and though he hadn’t had a handle on his prick, he would have ignored his aching hard-on in favor of snuggling and kissing her the rest of the night. But she wanted to -- she was so shy, and so sweet, looking at him with such a bashful gaze asking to see him. What was he going to do, tell her no? Of course not! Hell, he’s certain if Y/N said she wanted to lop his balls off, he’d probably let her at that point. If she wanted the world after that, then he’d get her it -- anything at all -- anything for her.

So he was already hard, but Y/N interacting with him only made him harder -- the type of stiff where if he pressed himself down by the crown, he’d just bob back up and slap his abdomen if he let go. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this aroused, and just like his feelings, he really isn’t sure if he’s ever been. Was this what it was like to do it with someone you cared so wholly for? How the hell had he been missing out on this?

Harry didn’t want her to be too shy -- he would understand her nerves because she’s just a bashful person in general, but he wanted her to know that she was safe with him. He wanted her to express what she wanted and to feel every single bit of pleasure that he was able to give her. That’s why he knew if he stripped down bare it might be easier for her to be naked with him. Harry wanted to see her body, sure, but he wanted her to know that she could be comfortable with him -- that this wasn’t embarrassing, that this was beautiful. To be so vulnerable with someone in this way was amazing.

He thinks it must have been a while since she’s been like this with anyone because every kiss, stroke, and caress to her body makes her twitch and gasp and spurs goosebumps all over. She was just a sensitive little thing, with eyes full of so much but pouring out with want, and that sweet gaze she gets when they cuddle. He doesn’t know what it means, but he hopes it is something like endearment.

There is a little trouble in him restraining himself and all the filth that spews from his mouth, but he really can’t help it. Not when he bites around her nipple and her fingers curl up in his hair, or when his hands slide down her sides toward her hips and she wraps her legs loosely around him. Y/N was incredibly responsive, and Harry had to note it, just like had to note every other sinful thought crossing his mind, “God, your whole body is just gagging for it, isn’t it Angel?” he murmured on his way down her belly, sponging kiss after to wet kiss against her skin, appreciating the way the muscles twitch and jump, as he spread her thighs out far for him, “You just want this pussy played with, but she hasn’t gotten any attention, has she?”

Harry wonders how she manages to be gorgeous all over, as he kisses her mound then takes a moment to himself. He flattens the palms of his hands against the back of her thighs, pushing up so her knees are just lateral to her chest. Harry can practically feel the heat from her cheeks, and the little squeal she makes before squirming is enough to make his cock twitch, “What’s wrong, baby? You feeling shy?”

“Yes,” she whines, and he can feel himself dripping in response to it, “Don’t just -- don’t just stare, it’s embarrassing!”

“Mm, I don’t think so,” he sighed, biting back a smile when he watched her quiver beneath the heat of his breath, “I think this is such a pretty pussy, I’d show it off if I wasn’t so damn possessive.” He leans in, mouths a kiss over the spot where her thigh and labia meet, “This is just for me though, isn’t it? You won’t ever need anyone else looking at her beside me.”

She nodded, “Please,” the crack and quiver in her voice are enough to make him ravenous, he thinks -- he’d been teasing them both, really, but at least toward the beginning he’d been touched on and stroked to the point of nearly cumming. Y/N hadn’t gotten any attention paid where she wanted it most, and he was hell pressed to fix that.

“Please?” He mocked her whine, placing his voice a few octaves higher and pouting his lip, “Poor baby. You want it so badly, don’t you? Do you promise to be a good girl for me, if I let you have my tongue? D’ya know what being a good girl means in this context?” She shook her head, he stroked her thighs, “It means you’re gonna cum just from my tongue.”

Harry is sure she gets the point, and he couldn’t be arsed to wait any longer. Harry takes one long lick from her fluttering hole to her sensitive, swollen clit, feeling as her lips part around him, feeling like warm satin. He buries his face against her, stroking his tongue up and down, immersing himself. The taste is heady; as intoxicating and dangerous as a fruity cocktail that masks the flavor of the alcohol. He goes from pressing her thighs up, to wrapping his arms around them and holding them split apart while he feasts on her.

The noises leaving her are sweet, demure whimper-y moans; the sound of her trying to hold them back is what’s really lewd. Soft hiccups, and muffled mewls. He can feel her throb beneath his tongue and he’s more than delighted. If he pops off for a breath, strings of spit and her juices connect his reddened mouth, “Does this feel good?”

“Yes,” she breathed out, rolling her hips up toward his lips and he chuckles warmly, “Sorry, I just --”

“I know, you just really wanna cum,” he finished for her, and she nodded, “I’ll get you there, sweet girl.”

Harry does. He laps at her like a starved man and suckles on her clit until her thighs start trying to squeeze around his head. Every little sound is absolutely precious, Harry wishes he could record them and play them on repeat, especially the noise that leaves her when he slides his tongue inside of her and loops it around in circles. Her hips buck, her heels dig into his upper back, and she’s digging her fingers into the blankets beside her body. Harry slides his fingers against hers -- he wants to hold her hand and wants her to squeeze his fingers tightly so he can feel in more ways just how good she’s feeling because of him.

Her other hand he guides into his hair, and even amid ecstasy she’s so gentle, “You can tug,” he murmurs against her, and the vibrations of his words make her hold on a little tighter but not by much.

“Don’t wanna hurt you,” she rasped, and how precious of her to treat him like glass when she was the one who needed to be treated tenderly. Harry splits her lips open, keeping them apart while he lulled and lapped directly over her clit, tracing tight little circles until he feels her tighten up all over, her thighs begin to tremble, “Harry, I think. . .I think I’m going to.”

The warning is precious, Harry fixes his lips back over her clit and sucks hard, and feels as she breaks apart above him. This time when she moans it’s unrestrained, wanton, and shameless. Harry keeps his eyes open so he can watch her, see how she tilts her chin up and shows off the stretch of her neck, the way her back raises off the mattress just for a second before she falls back and rocks her hips against his mouth. Despite how her body spasms with her orgasm, she’s still mindful of the fingers twisted up in his hair, and he thinks it is so adorable, he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Harry teases and kisses at her clit after she rides the high of it until she’s too sensitive and is attempting to push away from his mouth, “Too much,” she says weakly, so allows her just a brief moment to rest.

“There we go, you’re such a good girl. I bet that felt really good,” he reaches up toward her lips as she nods, panting, stroking against them with his index and middle finger, “Get them wet for me.”

Everything about her is cautious and timid, like a doe being approached by a human with their hand outstretched. She’s tentative with her tongue, how she licks up, down, and around his digits before finally pulling them into her mouth and sucking on them wetly. Harry watched her nurse at his fingers, even keeping his eyes trained on her while he leaned down and pushed kisses along her hips and lower belly. He let her take her time, even while his prick throbbed impatiently, wanting nothing more than to slide inside of her.

Y/N opens her mouth wide, her tongue no longer moving against his fingers so he understood she was finished, “Fucking hell, you’re so good for me,” he purred, lowering his fingers back to her cunt, circling both at her hole until he slowly dipped in. She inhaled deeply -- Harry’s fingers weren’t monstrous, but they were considerably thick, so he knew the stretch of them could take some getting used to (at least he’d been told as much, and the few times he’s tried fingering himself he could say from personal experience that they were pretty girthy). That’s why Harry never wastes time in searching for the spongy bump inside of her that would tear away any thoughts of the small burning sensation of the stretch.

Harry knows he’s found it when she gasps again, only this time it is cut off by a moan, and her thighs split open wide for him. Her face is blissed out and beautiful, lidded eyes staring at him with furrowed brows, almost like she’s worried he’ll stop making her feel good -- like any second he could take it away. Maybe he would if he was in the mood to, but right now he wasn’t -- right now, he wanted to get her nice and open for him.

If there’s another thing Harry’s picked up in his time being sexually active, is that stimulating the clit from the inside and the outside is something short of a gold mine move. This is precisely why he sloppily sucks over his fingers not buried in her stroking carefully at her spot and takes them to her lips. With his index and ring finger, he spreads her open and uses his middle finger to gently tap over the swollen button. Y/N cries out, her thighs try to squeeze shut but Harry stops one of them with his elbow, “Keep those legs spread for me, Angel,” he orders, “I know you feel good, but you gotta listen to me okay?”

“‘Kay,” she whimpered, and god, Harry truly had the resolve of a saint for not rocking his hips against the mattress and cumming right there. Her pussy drools around his fingers, pulsating and clenching every time he taps on her. He scaled up from only his middle finger, switching out from his index holding her open to the thumb of the hand inside of her, so he could use two fingers to slap over her clit. Every so often he’ll run his fingers in small circles just to feel her squeeze around him -- it was useful when he began to stretch her out as well. Widening and spreading his fingers, starting to corkscrew the two inside of her in and out, stopping to pet at the special spot inside of her again and again.

Eventually, he works up to three fingers and he’s pulling her into his mouth again, sucking at her clit until she’s soaking him again, cumming on his fingers, and quickly from the addition of his tongue. He takes this moment to stretch her a little bit more -- everyone is always much more pliable after they’ve cum a few times, and the same goes for the precious girl above him.

“I want,” she grabs at him, pulling and tugging, “I want you, please. I want you to feel good too.”

“Watching you like this makes me feel really good,” he tells her, sliding his fingers out of her, enthralled by the way her juices cling to him.

“No,” she pouts, shaking her head, “I want you inside of me.”

Harry grinned, overwhelmingly pleased -- the plan had been to ask if she wanted him to fuck her properly and act accordingly whatever her response, but to have her volunteer the information herself was nice too, “Will it make you happy?” Harry inquires his favorite question for her as of late.

“Yes, it would make me really happy.” She responds.

“Good,” he petted her thighs, “That’s all I want.”

It only takes him a moment to fish out a condom from his wallet, and he ripped open the foil then stroked it down onto himself. His cock had been neglected for a little while and was definitely more sensitive than he had started out, maybe even harder. Still, no matter how badly he wanted, he bent back down to kiss her. They hadn’t for a little while since he’d been down between her legs, and the kiss tastes a whole lot like her in all ways imaginable. He took a hold of himself by the shaft and thuds the head against her clit a few times, before stroking up and down her slit. The action makes her pant into his mouth, so he parts from her lips and pushes a kiss to her cheek, “All you have to do is tell me to stop, Sweet girl, for any reason and I will, no questions asked, other than me asking if you’re alright” he explained to her, “Understand?”

“Yes,” she nodded, “Thank you, Harry, I...I really, really like you.”

Harry’s heart swells in his chest, even more so when she locks her arms around his neck.

“I really, really like you too.” He replied, and he pressed their lips back together as he slowly sinks his cock into her. So slow that it was almost painful, but he holds himself back from bucking forward or jolting his hips in any way. Even with him stretching her, she was a tight little thing and he didn’t want to take any chance that he might hurt her. She mewls sweetly against his mouth as Harry bottoms out to the hilt and he pauses. Stays there, gives her hole a chance to accommodate him as it pulses and stretches around his size.

“You can move,” Y/N replied after a while, “Slow, but. . .but I think it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt like I thought it would.”

She’s so sweet, Harry thinks to himself, that maybe he is the biggest she’s ever had and it strokes his ego in just the right way. Harry is careful, gentle, at first doing small little rolls of his hips that gradually grew bigger and bigger. Never had he been so grateful for the head of his prick, than when it nudges against her g-spot the first time, and she moans, her legs loop tighter around him, and he finds her bucking up into him like she’s trying to get him deeper. “That’s it,” kisses her again, taking her arms from around his neck only so he could hold her hands again, holding them at either side of her head, “That’s a good girl, open up for me.”

The longer he’s inside of her, the easier the glide is, but she’s still so unbelievably tight he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He can’t help the groaning and whining leaving his throat, especially not when it feels like this, “You’re sucking me in, baby,” he tries desperately to focus on the pace that he had set, the steady rhythm of thud, thud, thud, as his balls swat against her bum, “Are you feeling good?”

“Yes,” Harry notices the tears building at the corner of her eyes as she nods, “Yes, yes, yes, it is really good, I’m so happy.”

God, Harry is filled with so much love and endearment in his heart he doesn’t know what to fucking do. He bends back down to kiss her again, swiping away at the tears before they have a chance to spill, “These are good tears?” She nodded, so he pushed more kisses to her cheeks, “I’m happy too, Sweetheart.”

He holds onto her hips, pulling her down onto his prick. Every nudge of the head to her g-spot makes her moan, and each moan she has makes him throb. It’s almost too much; everything feels too good. His fingers dig into the soft skin, while Y/N grips his biceps and holds on tightly. He can’t keep his eyes off her.

Harry strokes down the front of her body, finding her clit and rubbing against it in quick little circles that have her squeezing tightly around him. The pace he sets starts to falter the closer he gets to cumming, so he goes even faster along her clit, and Y/N presses up into him, “I’m g’na cum,” she pulls him down, snuggling into her throat, “I’m g’na cum, I think.”

“Do it, baby, please,” he whimpers, moments from his own release, but he refuses to cum without her, “Please cum all over my cock, I’m begging.”

She listens -- she always listens so well, and she’s spasming and cumming around him, throwing him straight into his own orgasm as he snaps his hips into her, tugs out, and peels the condom off. He jerks himself through it, shockwaves ripple in trails of heat, a rope unwoven and snapped as his muscles relax; static fizzles in his vessels as he watches his cum paint her belly in thick spurts and stripes. His heart hammers in his heaving chest as he finishes off, still running his fingers over her clit, making sure he’d worked her through her orgasm as well.

Harry, in a move heedless to the cum on her belly, flops down on top of her. Y/N laughs breathlessly beneath him, “Hey,” she presses at him, but there’s no real strength behind it, “You’re too heavy!”

“Sorry, Sweetheart, I’m worn right out!” He teased her, snuggling into her, and while the spread of his cum between them wasn’t the best feeling, he paid no mind to it in favor of holding onto her tighter, “Who told you to be so adorable, hm? I don’t think I ever wanna leave the bed.”

Y/N threads her fingers through his hair, stroking at the scalp, sending sparkling shivers down his spine, “Thank you,” she said after a little while of quiet, Harry thumbing gently at her hip, “I really liked that. I had been nervous, ‘cos everyone says your first time is supposed to be really rough but that was good.”

Harry burrowed even closer to, “Good,” he murmured at first, before the weight of her words actually settled in his head, “Wait a minute, what? What do you mean first?” He pushes himself up from where he’d been stretched atop of her, his brows dipping in.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I -- I was embarrassed to admit it, but I don’t feel so embarrassed now. You were my first kiss too.”

Several things float through Harry’s mind at once, shock that he was her first for both. . .shock that he hadn’t realized it. Now that he thinks about it, it would make sense with how she responded to him -- how she would ask to practice kissing, how intrigued she seemed to see his cock, hell, even when she would hear him moan while they kissed and think it was in pain rather than pleasure. And if he goes even deeper, Y/N is such a shy little thing -- maybe it was egotistical of him but he couldn’t imagine her with anybody but himself.

Overall, he’s happy. He’s happy to be her first, though when it comes down to it, that doesn’t really matter. He’s not happy because it gives him some claim over her, he’s happy because he knew that he had made it a good experience for her. That’s all he wanted, was to give her good things. To make her happy.

“Aish,” he wipes his hands off on the sheets, before taking her face between his palms, “You are just something else, aren’t you?” For the thousandth time, he presses another kiss to her mouth.

Harry is incredibly happy.

And to think, he partially has Christopher to thank for that?

How absurd.

. . .

Not much changes now that they know the other’s feelings, which manages to make Y/N feel more like an idiot. They still cuddle all the time, they kiss all the time, they go out to eat, they spend time together, she goes to his fights -- everything that they were doing. . .had they been dating this whole damn time? She really was damn oblivious!

The only thing that has really changed at all is now after his fights before he takes a drink of his water he pecks her lips with a million kisses and thanks her for being his good luck charm. Blueberry has always been his little dog-son, so that’s the same too, but now he’s taken to calling himself a doggy dad and splitting the cost of his food (which Y/N wouldn’t allow, if not for him just buying the food anyway and refusing to accept any money for it). And now Harry’s much more willing to walk around cock out, and encourages frequent baths together despite them not fitting inside either of their tubs and it always ends up being a wet mess after the fact.

That, and the fact she isn’t spending all her time in the world stressing out over her feelings and his feelings.

She’s happy. She’s really, really happy.

“Hellooooooooooo,” Harry is mere centimeters from her face, squinting his eyes, “What did I say about paying attention to things that aren’t me?”

Y/N scrunches her nose, “But I was thinking about you, doesn’t that count?” They were out grocery shopping because all of Y/N’s food disappears much quicker since Harry is there almost every night, and he complains about the number of snack foods she gets as opposed to real meals. He told her that he was actually a very good cook if he had the ingredients for it, and she told him he could show her.

“I guess I could let that slide,” he skates his fingers along the bottles of spices, stopping at the curry powder and plucking it from the rack, “Depending on what you were thinking about. Was it my beautiful eyes or my massive personality?”

“It was your obnoxious ego,” she teased him and Harry gasped, feigning surprise, turning around to face her.

“Rotten brat,” he murmured, falling back as she pushed the cart forward before he swats against her bum briskly, “You’re lucky you’re so damn cute.”

Y/N smiled, “I was just thinking about how happy I am, is all,” she admitted to him, “And I feel silly, for not realizing it sooner.”

Harry tosses the curry powder in the cart, as he slides his arm around her shoulders, knocking their heads together.

“Don’t feel silly,” he laid his head against hers, “You may be a clueless brat sometimes, but you’re my clueless brat, so it’s okay.”

Y/N is happy.