Blue

Apparently, the trip to Singapore was by way of London.

Previously unbeknownst to me, Harry had nine days off before he had to be in Asia for back to back to back to back shows. It wasn’t “knownst” to me (so to speak), in fact, until nearly halfway through the flight, shortly after he’d fucked me in the back of the private jet. Hot damn, Mile High Club.

He yanked his jeans up and fumbled with his belt. “So, Laney baby.”

“So, Hazza.” I re-adjusted my bra beneath my low cut white shirt, trying to wrangle my boobs back into my pushup bra. Harry had us on our own plane, so we were alone (other than the flight attendants, but they never came back unless called). Still, there was something insanely hot about clumsy, panicked, half-dressed sex on a plane.

“I was thinking while we’re in London, we could go to the National Gallery.” He shrugged his button down shirt over his shoulders and, without buttoning it, ran his fingers through his hair almost like he was trying to settle down his curls. “And….”

“And? I mean, despite knowing for less than five minutes that we’re on our way to London, honestly the only thing I really want to do is go to the Gallery. And shop on Carnaby Street.” I raised my eyebrow quizzically. “What did you have in mind?”

“Sexual intercourse with you in my house. And…uh…dinner with my mum.”

Ehhhhhhh…….

“Are you sure?” I blurted out the words before I actually had time to think about them. After-sex brain or something guess, I don’t know. “I mean, do you think your mom can handle me? With you?”

He scooped up my hands in his and kissed my knuckles, dragging his lower lip across the top of my hand. “What do you mean, handle you? You’re gorgeous.”

“I pierced my face. And my hips.” I tried to make the eye contact with him emphatically, like somehow a slight widening of my eyes would show how serious I was. “I’m not the kind of girl people expect you to date.”

“Laney.”

“No, really, they want you to be with Taylor Swift. Sweet and soft and girly.” I leaned back, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I’m…Laney Lee. Rebel. Hard. Dirty.”

He leaned over and pulled me into his arms, crushing his lips to mine. “Yeah. But sexy, beautiful, gorgeous, sexy. Do I have to go on?”

“Yes.”

He pulled me against him, trailing his fingertip across the top of my breasts. “I love you, baby girl. I want my mum and sister to meet you because…you’re everything to me. Besides. She wants to have us over. She wants to get to know you. I don’t blame her….you are so….mmm, baby, I can’t even begin to describe you.”

I pressed my forehead to his, idly trailing my fingertip along the tattoos on his arm. “What did you tell her about me, Hazza? Be honest.”

There was no hesitation. “I told her you were beautiful. Sweet…funny…kind hearted….and absolutely the girl of my dreams.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I told her you’re the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

My face got hot as my cheeks turned red. “Hazza.”

“It’s true.” He shrugged, trailing his hand up my waist to my breasts. “You are my everything. I’m not afraid to say that to anyone, Laney, especially not my mummy. Or my sister. We’ll just go for dinner and then, if you’re miserable, I’ll take you home and make you cum at least five times. And if you have a delightful time…well…I’ll do the same.”

I giggled. “I don’t even know what to wear to your mother’s house. That’s like, intimidating. That’s your mom. The number one woman in your life.”

“Nope. You’re the number one woman in my life.” He tilted my chin up and pressed his lips to mine. “And no matter what happens, even if you two hate each other, you are my girl.”

My cheeks burned; I nuzzled my cheek against his. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, Laney baby.” He pressed his lips to mine softly and then pulled away, lifting his hand to my face. He cradled my face, drawing it towards him so he could look into my eyes. “That’s not my Laney talking, though. You’re not the girl who cares what other people think.”

“Your mom is different. She’s like, the pinnacle of importance.”

“Not my mum. Have you been on Twitter and those sites?” he cocked his eyebrow upward. “I told you they’re no good. Laney.”

I tore my gaze from his. Well, yeah, I looked. Who couldn’t? Even when you’re rebellious and weird and fighting with every ounce of your being to go against the flow, you wonder what people say. And what they had to say about me was, for the majority, bad. “Um….”

“Laney.” He pressed his hand to my other cheeks, holding my face so gently, it felt like he was afraid I’d break. His thumbs caressed my cheekbones. “Baby girl, don’t let them get to you. I see it too and it fucking pisses me off. They don’t own me, sweet girl…you’re mine. Their rumors and hate and all that shit? It’s not going to change how I feel about you. This relationship is us. Just us.”

I nodded. I could feel the tears pricking the back of my eyes; he was so soft spoken and sweet. How could the media constantly make him out to be some kind of man-whore or player? He was so sensitive and kind hearted. How did I become this lucky girl? How did he pick me, out of all the girls he could have had? And he could have had anyone he wanted—I’d known that since the moment I met him.

“I love everything about you, baby girl.” He leaned forward, pressing his soft lips to the studs in my cheeks. “These.”

He dipped his head down to my hips, kissing the studs near my bone, and dragging his lower lips across the flesh above my panties. “And these.”

And then, up to the phoenix tattoo stretching across my abdomen. “And I adore all your ink—“ In one, swift movement he pulled me into his arms and pressed his mouth to mine.

There are times in life, when a kiss literally takes your breath away. The first time he kissed me, for example, or when he kissed me at the airport when I got to Japan. Harry’s kisses were always passionate, but kisses like this—kisses so intense; so soft and tender yet at the same time full of something so deep—made me feel like time stopped. It wasn’t a kiss of lust or even a kiss of plain old love. This was a kiss from his soul, from that brief pause in between heartbeats. This was the definition of how he felt: a wordless act; a connection between us.

When the kiss ended, he kept my head close to his. “I adore everything about you, Laney. Blue hair, tattoos, piercings, everything. That’s what makes you my Laney. My blue girl.”

I didn’t know what to say to that; I just smiled at him. Our eyes were transfixed on each other, the passion and desire between us so thick it felt like a third person in the room. Nothing needed to be said. We both just knew. He could tell me a million times that he loved me, but the look in his eyes? It said it all.

He snagged his cellphone off the floor where he’d dropped it before scooping me up and laying me down on the lounge in the back of the jet. Leaning over, he focused the camera at our feet, snapped a picture, and then pulled me back into his arms. I watched as he pulled up his Twitter feed and posted the picture: my tattooed feet on top of his brown suede boots. He posted it along with the caption:

I’m blue da ba dee da ba die

He looked satisfied with this. I must have looked confused, as he said, “Eiffel 65? Come on, even a girl who hates pop has to know the song ‘I’m Blue’. You have blue hair.” “

If you’re going for romance, Hazza, that’s possibly the least romantic song you could pick.”

He laughed. “I absolutely do not take Twitter seriously. Besides, there’s no way I can limit how much I love you to only 160 letters.”

****

After the plane landed in London, Harry and I walked through the airport hand in hand. He’d slung his black leather bag over his shoulder and was pulling my wheeled bag behind him. Without looking, I knew people were staring at us.

A high pitched female voice yelled from somewhere to my left, “Hi Harry!!”

He leaned his head close to mine, brushing his lips against my temple. “I feel it’s only fair to tell you the airport portion is always the worst part of the trip.”

“I should have worn more comfortable shoes.”

“Mmm, but I love your legs when you wear heels.” He paused for a minute and then smiled broadly at me. “Actually, I love your legs when you don’t wear heels. And when you’re barefoot. Sexy girl.”

For a moment, I forgot about the people staring at us and touched my finger to his dimple, smiling back at him. “I bet you didn’t bring any underpants with you. I’m willing to put money down on it.”

“I never wear pants when you’re around, baby girl. Trousers and skin.”

“And the trousers are rare.” “Exactly.”

We both started laughing. He led me through the airport and towards the exit; his pace slowed briefly as a redheaded woman in a black suit jacket, white shirt, and navy blue pants (ew, and brown loafers, no, honey, not with that jacket) approached us. She smiled. “Mr. Styles? I’m Susan Lain, director of public affairs here at Heathrow. We’re glad to have you back in London!”

“Thank you.” He smiled politely at her, his grip tightening on my hand. “That’s very kind.”

“We have a car waiting for you outside,” she gestured with her hand, gripped around a walkie-talkie, towards the doors leading outside, “and with the amount of fans outside, we’re going to send a few of our security agents out there with you. For your safety as well as the fans, of course.”

“Absolutely.”

The mob of fans and paparazzi outside was insane. The pulsated and writhed outside of the front of the airport like some kind of…writhing, pulsating mass that wanted to tear into Harry Styles. I glanced up at him. He didn’t look particular fazed, more annoyed than anything, and his brow furrowed. He didn’t have to say anything because I knew what he was thinking: he hated this. He hated the intrusion. He was tired from the show the night before; we were both tired from the flight and having stayed up waaaay too late trying to get everything packed and ready. He just wanted to go home and take a shower.

And first, he had to run the gauntlet.

One of the security guards took the luggage from him and the other pushed through the front door to lead us out. I looked around wildly. Two security guards? They sent two security guards to keep him from getting violated by, like, five thousand screaming girls? Jesus.

Harry kissed my forehead and pulled me close to him. “Just hold onto my hand and follow me, baby girl. I’ve got you.”

I wasn’t sure the correct response to that kind of drama was, so I just nodded and flashed him what I hoped looked like a confident, unconcerned smile. No big deal. Just a mob of girls who hate me.

And then we were off. I couldn’t see anything in front of me, other than the pattern on Harry’s shirt and the twist of his arm as he held on to my hand. It reminded me somewhat of childhood adventures running around department stores. Ben and I used to hide in the long racks of women’s dresses and squeeze through the fabric, pretending we were squeezing through a wardrobe and into Narnia.

Only this wasn’t soft fabric—this was girl’s arms clutching cell phones, reaching out to take his picture or to touch him. The dull roar around was a cacophony of screams, wails, shrieks of his name; with the occasional “Harry! Look this way!” or “Harry! How’s the tour going without Zayn?” or everybody’s favorite “Harry! Tell us your girlfriend’s name! She is your girlfriend, right?” from the paparazzi. The girls, for their part, only occasionally hissed, “stupid cunt” and “fucking bitch” a few times in my direction and no one spit or threw anything at me, so that seemed pretty good.

So, it has come to this.

Harry’s grip on my hand was firm, his long fingers laced around mine. I kept my head up and my eyes fixed on his curls; I wasn’t going to let these girls intimidate me. They weren’t going to make me feel bad because of my relationship with Harry. I didn’t need anyone’s permission to date him (listen up Mom and Vi) and I honestly didn’t care what anyone thought about us. The only thing I cared about was how Harry felt about me—and I knew, without a doubt, he was crazy about me.

Twinkle, twinkle little snitch, mind your business nosey bitch. I stepped on my stiletto heel a little too wobbly, throwing myself off balance. What’s up, karma?

Reaching out with my free hand, I grabbed onto Harry’s arm to steady myself. He turned slightly, raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes. “Are you okay, baby girl?”

“Just clumsy.”

A girl relatively close to us picked that precise moment to lunge forward and thrust her face in Harry’s direction (haha, makes me laugh every time). She yelled, “She’s a slut, Harry, dump her!”

Awesomesauce.

Harry bristled, but didn’t respond. Instead, he tugged me forward and slid me around him, protectively wrapping his arm around my waist. He guided me directly to the open door of a black….some type of car, and waited while I crawled into the backseat. As soon as I was in the car he was behind me, slamming the door shut.

He exhaled deeply, draping his arm across my shoulders. “Shit.”

“That was a rare, cinematic treat.” I slid down in my seat; he did the same and kissed me. “They hate me because we’re sleeping together. It’s a burden I’m willing to carry, Hazza. Fo sho.”

He chuckled and pulled me against him. “Sweet girl, I hope you always stay this positive and calm around this. I can’t fucking stand what they say about you.”

“I’m a scrappy kid.”

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He trailed his hand up to my face and cradled my cheek. “I’m addicted to you.”

I arched my back, propelling myself upward so I could kiss him. “I love you, Hazza.”

“I love you, baby girl.” I snuggled against him, resting my head against his chest. It was reasonably easy to shrug off the hate and disdain from the fans—most of the time, anyway—but I was going to meet his mother. And his sister. And if they couldn’t handle me, what then? Family was so important to Harry….and if his mother and sister hated me…..

Sure, it was easy for him to say I was his girl and that wouldn’t change his feelings. But what if it did? It was nervousness, paranoia that shouldn’t bother me or even make me hesitate.

But it did.

And not only that, but it scared me to death.

Notes