Blue

As our final week together progressed, I noticed a slight change in Harry’s demeanor. He wasn’t as goofy as he’d been before; I’d catch him staring at me in the evenings while we relaxed in front of the television or were sprawled out on the bed after sex. I could see the love in his eyes, but there was something else. He looked so sad—like he dreaded it coming to an end—but he kept smiling anyway. He always smiled for me.

On Thursday morning, we dragged ourselves out of the house and out to pick up enough groceries to last until Harry flew to Osaka on Sunday. I’d borrowed one of his black shirts and stuffed the front into the waistband of my favorite shorts—coincidentally, also my shortest shorts—and was busy tucking my blue hair up into a black beanie, when he glanced at me. “I don’t want you to leave Saturday.”

One of his hands was on my thigh, the other clutching on to the steering wheel of his Range Rover so tightly that his knuckles were tipped in white. I saw his Adam’s apple dip in his throat; he must have swallowed hard. Taking a deep breath, he mumbled, “I don’t want you to leave at all, actually.”

“Me either. It’s going to blow having to get back to work and, eventually, class. My regular life is just that: regular. Back to studying, eating ramen noodles, and being up to my elbows in paint and clay.” I tucked the final visible strand of hair into the hat. This was us being on the DL: my hair hidden and him wearing big sunglasses and his hair pulled back in a bun. We weren’t fooling anyone, obviously, but maybe it’d give us a running start.

“How much of your classes did you miss because of me?”

“Last week was spring break, so that’s no big deal. This week was nothing special, just final reviews and shit before finals in two weeks.” I traced his long fingers with the tips of mine; the way his fingers reached up to caress mine sent shivers of delight through my lower abdomen. “Then no class until the end of August. Yaaaaaaay.”

“Two weeks and then you’re done?”

“Yup, thank God. This has been a dull, stupid semester. I’ve been finishing up some left over core classes I hadn’t bothered with until this point: philosophy, rhetoric, my science elective. Then I actually have two interesting classes on art. But, yeah, overall this is one semester that I’m fairly sure I won’t use anything I’ve learned as part of my career. I can tell you a lot about Plato, though.”

He was quiet for several minutes. I didn’t blame him, because just mentioning Plato was enough to make me want to fall asleep. In those moments of silence, I left my eyes drift down to his skinny legs, the way his knees popped out from the tears in the black jean material. I didn’t want to be “that” girl whose life ended when she was away from her boyfriend. I managed to exist quite well before we hooked up and the world wasn’t going to end because he would be in Japan and I would be in Philadelphia. I mean, it would be my own personal hell. But we’d talked about this; I knew going into it that he wasn’t always going to be there. He had a career. Places to be. Shows to do. I didn’t want to make him feel worse by being clingy or sobbing or throwing a fit. He’d said he loved my spirit and my independent nature. I couldn’t let him see how much I hurt.

But I did. And it hurt me all the way to my core.

He took a deep breath. “Would you fly out to Japan to be with me?”

“Fuck yeah I would.” I smiled at him. “I’d row a boat to Japan to be with you.”

“Because, ehm, I was thinking. I mean, you could…maybe after you’re done with school, maybe you’d let me fly you out to stay with me for a few weeks. Osaka, Tokyo, Singapore, Bangkok; I mean, you could stay as long as you want.”

“That would be phenomenal.” I leaned over and touched my cheek to his shoulder. “Because…I’m really going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, baby girl. More than you know.” He pulled the car into the parking lot of possibly the most glamorous grocery store I’d ever seen in my life. Seriously? Was everything in Los Angeles hip and chic and weird, inappropriate colors?

Yes, obviously.

He laced his fingers around mine as we strolled into the store together. “You can be in charge of the list, lovely, and I’ll push the cart. We need what, food for two and a half days…and I need to get a few things for when I’m back home in a couple months. Toilet paper, paper towels, bottles of water…mundane stuff.”

“I honestly hope Vi did the shopping when she got back to Philly.” I fished a pen out of my purse and crossed off his carefully penned ‘kale’ on the paper. “The grocery store down from our apartment is chaos. I hate it. I hate trying a place to park, shuffling through the aisles, standing in line for half an hour. Ugh, I’m so ridiculously lazy.”

He laughed, tucking his hand in my back pocket. “You have energy in other ways. Other…wonderful, ways.”

“Well, you know.” I nudged him with my hip. “I have stores of energy designated to sex with you.”

“If I wasn’t going to be away so long, I’d buy protein enhanced everything to keep up with you.” He tossed a bag of baby carrots into the cart and then picked through a display of broccoli. “I’m going to make you dinner tomorrow night. I’m cutting back on refined sugars, so you’ll have to be dessert.”

“Dirty boy.”

“Only for you, gorgeous.”

We wandered through the aisles, making our way through his list, when I got the feeling someone was watching us. I tried to look casual, staring at a wall of pop tart boxes, and then knocked a box to the floor. As I leaned over to pick it up, I glanced at the woman pushing the cart behind us. She, too, looked like she was trying to be casual: holding her phone out on top of her purse, like she was scrolling through her Twitter feed or something. She wasn’t. I could tell she was taking pictures of Harry.

Gross. He couldn’t even grocery shop without someone bothering him. I could see why he got frustrated. Who wants to be photographed debating which brand of toilet paper they want to buy? Why did I feel like sometimes I was the only one who felt like he was just a normal guy? He wasn’t a god, he was just a 21 year-old-guy who picked his nose, whose feet smelled like butt after he took off his leather boots, and who giggled, literally giggled, every time he burped. Or farted. Or did both, and dubbed it as a ‘good utilization of time.’

I set my pop tarts in the cart. “S’mores. Breakfast of champions.”

“Get a couple more boxes and keep them at my place. I mean, you’ll come back when I do.” He slid his hand around my waist and pulled me against him. “We start recording our new record in May. I have the whole month off. That’s huge.”

“You won’t make me breakfast in bed?”

“This coming from the girl who slept with the pop tart box beside the bed, so we didn’t have to move in the morning.”

I grinned at him, then grabbed a few more boxes of pop tarts and dumped them in the cart. “You do realize this is basically a box of refined sugar, right?”

“You can fuck me afterwards and help me burn off the extra calories.” He pushed the cart forward. “I see that girl, too. I told you—this always happens.”

“That’s shitty. Grocery shopping is bad enough when it’s done without an audience. Like, what if you wanted to buy me tampons or something?”

“I wouldn’t have any idea in the least to know where to begin with that. Growing up with a sister, I just kept out of her way those days.”

“Yeah, it’s awkward. We can just pretend it doesn’t exist.” I giggled. “I don’t get mean—although, there’s plenty to get mean out, when your uterus is ripping you to shreds—I just get really cold and eat Nutella out of the jar.”

“Can I lick Nutella off you?”

I pretended to think about it, tapping my index finger to my chin. “Ummmmmmm……yes. Yes you can.”

After he’d picked out the rest of his groceries—including the biggest sized jar of Nutella in the store—we strolled to the checkout line. The lines were long, as apparently everyone decided a drizzly day was the perfect day to run out and get groceries, and he reached around me, resting his hand on my hip. “This was a fast two weeks.”

“I know, right?” I sighed. “It seems like just yesterday I was arguing with Susanna about not wanting to be in her wedding. I’m glad I ended up agreeing, though. Extremely glad.”

Harry laced his fingers around mine and squeezed my hand. “I am, too. You have no idea how long it’s been since I smiled this much.”

I rested my head against his arm for a minute, just inhaling the knee weakening scent of his cologne, and stared idly at the magazine rack beside us. I straightened with a start. “Oh my god.”

I snatched the magazine off the rack: it was US Weekly; the entire left side was taken up by a crystal clear picture of me and Harry, walking hand in hand outside of The Nice Guy. We were looking at each other and laughing. My hair looked bluer than normal, probably due to the camera flash, and whatever we’d said, whatever we were doing, we looked insanely happy. I had absolutely no recollection whatsoever of someone taking our picture.

Drunk brain strikes again.

“Holy fuck.” I scanned the headline. Who is Harry Styles mystery girl?

Harry chuckled. “Do you want me to buy it for you?”

“This is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You look sexy as hell.” He took the magazine out of my hands and flipped to the article. “Look, this is the one my mum was talking about. You can’t tell that’s even us.”

“That one’s definitely us.” I stared at the picture of us walking from a frozen yogurt store back to his car. “Oh, fuck, Hazza I’m sorry.”

“I’m buying it.” He tucked it in the cart. “We can read the article and see what we’re up to, according to the press.”

Ew, felt gross, like a slimy coat of grit was all over me—just like the nasty ball of hair that Vi and I always cleaned out of the drain in our apartment bathroom. His time with me was special and it kind of felt like strangers had stomped on that time and made it their own. Not cool.

####

Once we were home and all the groceries put away, Harry stripped down to his gray briefs and proceeded to unbutton and unzip my shorts. “Upstairs or downstairs?”

“Wait, in reference to what?” I let my shorts slide down my legs to the floor, then kicked them aside. “Sexual or not? Because, if I had to guess, I’d pick sexual because we’re almost naked.”

“It’s always sexual with us.”

“Well…..okay, yeah. Good point.”

“I just want to lay in bed with you and talk. And, look at you and pretend time will stop.” He leaned over and kissed me, sliding his hands up under my shirt and pressing them flat against my back. “And then…whatever happens, happens. Besides, we can read that article.”

I rolled my eyes and pressed my body against him. “You and that article. I actually feel really bad because that’s the one thing you were trying to avoid. And I don’t even remember it happening.”

“We were drunk.” He eased my shirt over my head and then pressed his hands to my breasts, cupping them and kneading them with his fingertips. “It’s a good thing we recorded that video of us having sex, or else we would have forgotten about that.”

I giggled. “Hazza.”

“It was hot.” He scooped me up and carried me towards the staircase, snagging the magazine off the counter as we passed it. He carried me all the way upstairs (thank God he had a wider staircase than average, or else my feet would have skidded up the wall) and into his bedroom, setting me down on the bed. “Okay, baby girl. Who is Harry Styles mystery girl?”

We snuggled down under the covers and Harry pulled me into his arms, flipping the magazine open to the article. He cleared his throat dramatically. “Does Harry Styles have a new girlfriend? The One Direction heartthrob has recently been seen around Los Angeles with a tattooed, blue haired mystery girl. Sources close to the singer reveal that he’s ‘completely smitten’ with her and that the two have been holed up in his LA home for nearly two weeks.” Harry glanced up from the magazine. “I’d love to know who these sources are that go blabbing to the press all the time. I’d like to give them a hard kick right in the bollocks.”

“The moniker Blue Haired Mystery Girl makes me feel like a nemesis on Carmen Sandiago.” I tucked my head down on his chest, listening to the sound of his beating heat and idly trailing my fingertips over the butterfly tattoo on his chest. “Did you have Carmen Sandiago in Cheshire? You know, Where in the world is Carmen San-diego?”

“No, but you’re adorable.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “Harry was first seen with her outside of Lure nightclub, where they and the other members of One Direction partied until the early morning hours. The fuzzy photographs of them entering the club show his arm tucked around her waist, but by the end of the night, the two left separately. Sources state the blue haired beauty met up with him later that evening at his LA compound and, since then, they’ve been inseparable. But, the question remains: who is she? Representatives for the singer are tight lipped and even sources aren’t sure of her exact name. US Weekly obtained an exclusive report from a 1D Fan who saw her at the group’s appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show: “She was sitting with Sophia Smith (Liam’s longtime girlfriend) in the audience and Harry kept smiling at her from onstage. You could tell he was totally (sic) into her.” A source from the venue—speaking under the condition of anonymity—reports her first name is, possibly, Clementine. It seems unlikely to us. One thing’s for sure, whenever Harry’s with her, he’s smiling—and we’ve missed that smile.”

I glanced at the picture of us in front of the yogurt store: we did look happy. I mean, I knew we were happy. I knew he made me happy. It was just….really weird seeing it in a magazine. I was nobody. Why the fuck was I on a magazine cover? Especially just because I was sleeping with Harry Styles? “Well, it’s eerily right on par. I mean, other than we didn’t leave Lure separately. But I have blue hair. And I do have tattoos.”

“And I am completely smitten with you.” He tossed the magazine to the floor and then rolled me onto my back, pinning me in place with his hip. “There’s things I want to say to you before you leave. I don’t want to have to tell you goodbye.”

I reached up and cupped my hand on his cheek. “My grandfather used to say that we only say goodbye to people we plan on seeing again. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Promise me something.”

“Anything, Hazza.”

“Promise me that you’ll wait for me. I am so in love with you, Laney, and if I didn’t have to…do what I do, I’d never leave your side. Stay away from social media because once they know who you are, they’re never going to leave you alone. I hope…um…that it won’t scare you off.” His eyes were so wide; I could read the love and terror as he spoke, his hand trailing across my collarbone. He nuzzled his face against mine. “We can make this work.”

“I know we will.” I smiled at him and pulled his face to mine, kissing him tenderly. “I’d wait months to see you again, Hazza. I swear. These past two weeks have been incredible. You are so down to earth and sweet and good to me. You’re the best lover I’ve ever had, honestly, and I feel like we’re more than just that. I feel like you’re my best friend. Being away from you is going to make me feel like something is missing from my soul.”

“I’ve waited twenty-one years for you, baby girl, so you’d think I’d be able to wait two weeks to be with you again.” His lips were tantalizingly close to mine. “But it’s going to tear me apart.”

“It’ll go by fast. You’ll be busy, I’ll be studying for finals and doing laundry and blasting my eardrums out with Avenge Sevenfold. And, inevitably, I’ll be trying to keep Vi’s nose out of my business. It’s like when we had Uterus Watch: 2014 when we swore the girl across the hall was pregnant but we didn’t really want to ask in case she was just getting fat…” I paused, the smirk of Harry’s face enough to make me giggle. “Look, it goes without saying I’m weird. That story is just a friendly little reminder that I have way, way too much spare time on my hands at school.”

Harry brushed my hair back from my face; his gaze was so piercing that it was like he was memorizing ever feature. “How does someone like you not have a boyfriend?”

“Well, truth be told I have a boyfriend. This kid from the UK, with big green eyes and out of control curly hair.”

He beamed. “I mean prior to me.”

“I dated, but most of the guys were just hookups or flings. I was somewhat serious with this Navy guy last year, but apparently he had the proverbial ‘girl in every port’ and I caught him cheating on me. And when I say caught, I mean as in literally. He was fucking some girl on the tailgate of his truck in the campus parking lot.” I shrugged. “Lesson learned, I guess. Anyway, I work hard with school to keep my grades up and I work hard at my job because it’s my passion. What about you? Same question.”

“It’s complicated. Girls want to have sex with me, but they don’t want to put up with my schedule or the media or the rumors. It’s not easy.” He dipped his head down and kissed the side of my mouth. “That’s why I’m so afraid that I’ll lose you.”

“You won’t. I’m tenacious.” I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. “And I’m in love with you. I’m like a cocker spaniel; I’m sassy and insanely loyal. You’ll leave me first.”

He kissed me deeply, sliding his hand down my waist and nudging my legs apart with his knee. “Absolutely not. I’m all yours, Laney. Two weeks of you is not enough for me—and two weeks without you will bring me to my knees.”

He crushed his mouth to mine, lowering himself down on top of me and wrapping his arms around me. I could talk a big game, but as much as I was going to miss spur of the moment sex, I was going to miss the man more.

Less than 48 hours to go.

Notes