Drowning in Sight of Land

I'm trying to write this as accurately as I can. I want to represent us in the brightest, most truthful light, but you see, I'm biased. I know how this story ends.
It would be reaching to call what Harry and I had a passionate love affair at first, though he would often romanticize it as such in his daydreams and endless journal entries. In reality, it was something that happened sometimes, and then didn't happen even more often. This is until our world was turned upside down.
It started as a conversation in a small patch of sun out the back door of an Australian stadium. I was sitting against the cinderblock wall, legs splayed out wide, apron still around my bent neck, taking in the warmth of the afternoon. He watched me for longer than he probably should have, but my eyes were closed and according to him I didn't seem to notice or care. He's told me the story a million times. I'd worked with catering for months. We'd seen each other nearly every day, but something about that scene made him want to break our quiet orbit around one another. And so he did. He talked to me every chance he got after that.
I fell for his dumb jokes and rambling stories and he fell for my willingness to accept him however he was that day. That being said, we weren't a great match. I kept his secrets but offered very little of myself. A regret I still hold to this day. For Harry, I think my lukewarm manner was only manageable in small doses. When he would sneak into the kitchen to ask about my day, I would recite it like a schedule, light on details, almost standoffish.
I think he understood it. He's usually a listener himself. He certainly couldn't fault me for it. On my end, it was mostly a comfort thing. There was always this very real extra presence that floated around with Harry. An anxiety inducing elephant standing just inches from the two of us when we spoke. No matter how solitary we actually were, I never felt truly alone with him. His little book glued to his hand, cataloging his every thought, bodyguards looming at every threshold he crossed, cameras, people, noise everywhere he went. It just wasn't my scene.
It was because of this that the first few times he invited me to his hotel room I declined with feeble excuses. It was a headache, then lack of sleep, then more desperate justifications like needing to call and check up on my dog and brother. It finally came to a head when I slipped up and told him that my hotel room had bored me to literal tears the night before, to which he, of course, ask me again to come around to his.
"If you're so bored, you can always come to my room tonight." He stated dully, sneaking a few stray blueberries from the counter and popping them into his mouth. "Mine's boring too, but we can play a game or something."
"A game!" I laughed, rolling my eyes dramatically. "What, hide the pickle? No thanks."
He feigned insult. "I would never." A coy smile played out on his face. "I was thinking more of a board game, cards maybe, darts, Russian roulette, whatever. I don't care."
"You that bored too?" I said sympathetically, seriously considering his offer.
"I am, I really am." He sounded downright pitiful.
"Alright then." I gave in. "I'll come around later. But you better not try anything!"
And he didn't. He really didn't. It became an on again, off again ritual. We'd watch shows in languages we didn't speak, dubbing over the actors with our own dialogue. We'd try to throw popcorn into each other's mouths from unreachable distances. We'd practice ostensibly impossible yoga poses on the floor, falling into a pile of limbs and almost always nearly breaking something of value. Gradually, as two single people with even a little attraction tend to do, we began sitting closer and closer to one another, carefully, awkwardly, neither of us seemingly wanting to be the first to take the plunge. Until one sticky, foggy night, after a few too many mojitos on the balcony, I opened an absolute floodgate on him.
"I like you, Harry." I stated bluntly, lolling my head back onto the chair and looking straight at him.
He sat upright and looked back at me suspiciously. "Like me how exactly?"
"Romantically, I suppose." My voice was soft, just above a whisper, but sure. "What I meant to say is that I think about you all of the time. I think about being with you."
He remained quiet. This wasn't exactly how I thought it would go. I wasn't sure what I'd expected, but my candor was off-putting even to myself.
"Well say something!" I laughed. "Say, yes, Malu, I like you too. Or no, Malu, I'm not into you. Please go away."
"Definitely not the second one!" He finally answered. "Don't go away."
"I don't know." I sat forward too, setting my drink down on the table between us and rubbing my knees. "I just felt like maybe you liked me too. I maybe got my signals crossed. It's not a big deal."
He didn't seem to want to reply. I think we both wanted to keep things just as they were a bit longer, avoid anything even remotely awkward in the future, but he knew he had to. "I do like you too. Romantically."
"Well, then! There's that out there!" Before he could respond I stood up abruptly, stumbling forward ever so slightly, trying to disguise my intoxication. "I'm going for a wee. It's late. I should head back to my room."
Harry waited a moment before following me inside. I lingered in the room before going for my wee, watching him through the glass door. Truthfully, I hadn't really put much thought into how he may have felt about me. All I knew is that I liked him. I did 'think about him all the time' as I had said completely against my will, but he didn't set my heart racing or anything like that. I wanted to see him every day, but I didn't get that needful feeling people always talk about when they're in love, or lust, or whatever.
When I came out of the bathroom he was waiting for me, sitting on the edge of the bed looking down at his socked feet. I reached for my key card and phone.
"Don't go yet." His voice was a bit hoarse from all of our chatter earlier in the night. "Come here."
"I have to go, love." I stated, I left an undertone of sorrow in my voice.
"Let me kiss you. " He looked into my eyes, trying to gage a response. "Lets see how it feels, yeah?"
I reluctantly sat next to him. "Don't do that. Don't kiss me because you feel like you should or tell me you like me because I said it first." My eyes were a bit pink and I know I looked exhausted, half dead at this hour. "Please."
Harry turned to face me, resting his hand on my cheek. His palm felt scorching hot on my cold skin. His face lingered close to my mine. "I don't feel like I should. I want to."
Though I wanted to roll my eyes and shove him off the end of the bed, I gave him a shy smile and he liked it, I suppose. He smiled back and I could see the light all the way in his eyes. I tried to put a name to it, catalogue it, put it in it's proper place in my mind, but I couldn't. I just felt warm.
Once our smiles had begun to fall and enough time passed to make it more than a little weird, he finally gave in and kissed me. It wasn't some wild, ravaging kiss, but it made me feel more of that warmth and I knew I didn't want to stop. Harry clearly didn't want to stop either. I brought my hand to his side and held on to his t shirt. I wanted to feel his skin under my fingertips, but not yet. I was happy right there. We were still in a place we could come back from if we needed to and I wasn't moving out of it for anything.
Our kiss turned into a cuddle, but not much else that night. We fell asleep on top of the duvet with everything but our socks on, my head propped under Harry's chin and our fingers interlocked on his chest. It was nice. Weird, but nice.
We didn't talk about it the next day, or the one after that, but I knew I wanted to kiss him again, finally feeling the tiny pangs of desperation I had been wondering about before. Every time I saw him smile across the room or he snuck into the kitchen to talk to me, I felt that same warmth again. Harry's giddiness was infectious, making even my deadpan self feel a bit chatty around him.
It was just after lunch when we broke our silence on the subject. We had gone outside where the buses were parked to enjoy the fresh air. I took my apron off and laid it on the boiling hot pavement to sit on.
"Can I come by tonight?" I started abruptly, kicking myself internally. " Or you can come by to mine. Or neither if you don't want to. Whatever."
Harry smiled, looking down at the ground and smoothing out the tiny rocks on the asphalt with his hand. "I'd like that. I'll come to your room this time."
"Will you kiss me again?" I kept my voice low, almost a whisper, like I didn't want him to hear, because truthfully I didn't.
He turned his head in my direction, lifting his sunglasses and propping them atop his hair. "Do you want me to? Do you want me to kiss you?"
"God!" I laughed loudly. "Of course I do! I'd like you to more than kiss me you twat!" I shoved at him with my elbow.
Harry shot me a sly grin and chuckled. "Tell me what you'd like me to do and I'll do my best." He slid his hand over to my knee and squeezed lightly. "Within reason. Don't go asking me to piss on you because I wont."
I threw my hands up in sarcastic surprise, letting myself fall back lightly on the ground. "Well then! This wont work at all!"

Notes