Black Sheep

I awoke the next morning, feeling very sore indeed, and if it wasn’t for the strong arms that were holding me captive, I would have stretched and slumped my way to the shower. But something stopped me, I actually enjoyed lying here in Harry’s arms, and his soft murmuring snore sent me back off to sleep.

My eyes fluttered open to notice that I was alone. I sat up in bed and stretched, and my eye caught the red haired prince sat on my terrace, talking on his phone and smoking. I wrapped myself up in my duvet and headed into the living room, looking for my bag that I’d discarded somewhere, then I found it, with my shoes, blazer and dress, neatly folded and placed on my coffee table. I picked the pile up and headed back into my bedroom to put some underwear on. I then pulled an old t shirt and leggings on over the top and headed out onto the terrace for a cigarette.
“What’re you doing out here on your lonesome?” I smiled as he looked up from his phone with a blank expression.
“Nothing, just waiting for you to get up,”
“You say that like I’m lazy”
“Well you are, it’s already half nine,” I sat by him, lighting my ciggy.
“That’s early for me!” I sighed as I puffed out a cloud of smoke. We both sat outside in a content silence.
“You know I really enjoyed last night,” Harry eventually sighed,
“I did too,” I smiled leaning against him,
“I know I just threw it at you, but I’m glad I did. I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest; at one point you looked like a rabbit caught in headlights,” he chuckled to himself, making me bounce next to him.
“I always look like that, haven’t you noticed?” I joked
“I’ve noticed you always look beautiful,” I looked up at him, to see his cheesy grin. I kissed him on the cheek then sat back cross-legged, taking another drag of my cigarette. The content silence fell again.
“You know I’m not surprised we didn’t meet before,”
“What do you mean?” I said watching intently, slowly puffing on my ciggy.
“Well with my reputation and your reputation, and your favourite clubs and my favourite clubs, it’s a wonder we didn’t drunkenly bump into each other,”
“Maybe we did, but didn’t realise,” I said thoughtfully, stubbing out, and leaning back into him. The soft June breeze made the plants on the terrace gently wave, and make me shiver, for June it was terribly cold. Harry put his arm around me and pulled me closer. I looked up to see him smiling at me. I didn’t know what this was, or where this was going, but I was loving it.

*****

June passed slowly into July and we had become inseparable; when we weren’t together we were texting or calling each other. The interview itself had been finished and the final thing left to do was to fly over to Lesotho and actually see what the past two months was all about. I had a list of a million and one things left to do, and packing was at the bottom of the list. Slowly but surely the list shortened, until there were only three things left to do:
1. Vaccinations
2. Collect paperwork
3. Pack
And today was the last days of my vaccinations, as I’d already had some done earlier in the year, but let’s just say I’m not the biggest fan of hospitals or needles. I walked in the sun around to the doctors’ surgery, just around the corner from the apartment, while texting Harry, which in central London is an accomplishment in itself. We’d arranged to go out for lunch after my appointment, which I thought was the best consolation for having your arms attacked by some estranged nurse. I pushed the heavy door open and headed to sign in on the touch screen. I sighed as I sat down, disgusted at the whole atmosphere, it was meant to seem homely, but failed and felt cold and empty instead, even though people were walking in and out of the door with the most joyful expressions. I sat and waited until the nurse called me in, and even then, things didn’t get any cheerier. I sat on the other chair in her room, and she asked me to confirm my name and date of birth. I then rolled my sleeve up and it started, as soon as one injection had finished, she pulled it out and started with the next one until all eight injections were done. I was in agony to say the least.
“I hope you have a nice trip Miss Broad,” she said curtly as I exited the room. As soon as the heat from outside hit me I felt ill, so I called Harry on the way back to the apartment.
“Hi love, what’s up,” he said down the phone, and I could hear the scratching of a pen on a desk
“I think I might have to take a rain check on today’s lunch” I sighed as I opened the flat door, shivering at the cold from inside.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“I just feel really ill, from my injections,”
“I should’ve known, I was sick after mine too.” After that we stayed on the phone for at least an hour, until he was told he had another call, so we left and by this time he’d turned my afternoon around, just by being there.