She's a Rebel, She's a Saint

The trees, people, and store fronts passed by in a blur as I sped to my usual modeling office with Harry in the passenger seat of my car and an Ed Sheeran song blaring through the speakers. Harry leaned his body forwards and lowered the music, making a pout form on my face the second Wake Me Up decreased in volume.

“Harold,” I began in a mothering tone as I leaned forward and put the volume back where it previously was before he changed it, “We’ve already discussed this. You can change or lower the volume of any song except for-”

“-I know, I know,” he began with a roll of his green eyes, “I can mess with any song except for Wake Me Up. Why do you like that song so much anyway?”

I shrugged my shoulders as I put it from the beginning again just to bother Harry who often got jealous of my strange infatuation for Ed Sheeran.

“I don’t know. It’s just my favorite song. Well, this one and Kiss Me are my two favorite songs of all time.” I told him, watching from the corner of my eye as he nodded his head thoughtfully.

“Where are we going exactly?”

“To the fantastic modeling agency I work at to pick up my check and tell them that we’re going to head to your mom’s house for the rest of the week.”

“I actually wanted to talk to you about that…” he began, trailing off slightly at the end of his sentence as if he was struggling to find the right words to say to me.

“What is it?” I asked as I pulled into the parking lot of the agency and looked at him once the car was fully parked.

“Well it would appear that the news of us being engaged spread rather quickly and now my entire family knows about it.”

“Ugh, I already don’t like where this is going.” I grumbled as I ran a hand through my hair.

“So my mom and step dad might have planned a small, simple family reunion in Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?” I questioned with a chuckle in my tone that brought a smile to his face, clearly happy that I was not mad or freaking out like he expected, “I’ve got to hand it to your mother, she works fast.”

“So, will you go with me?” he asked, looking more like a seventh grader asking his crush to his first big dance than like an eighteen year old asking his ‘fiancée’ about a trip to Hawaii.

“Of course I’ll go.” I said with a roll of my eyes, getting out of the car and walking into the building with him right next to me.

I walked up to the main desk and cleared my throat to get the attention of the new brunette secretary that had recently come to work here, someone I had yet to meet since I rarely came in to work lately. She looked up from the laptop in front of her with a startled expression on her freckled face, her eyes widening when she noticed who I was and her jaw dropping when she saw Harry behind me just a few steps away.

“Y-you’re Ashley Lopez. I didn’t know you worked here.” she stuttered out.

“I need my check.” I said with a smile, watching as she nodded her head before turning to look in the large file cabinet behind her desk.

After a few more seconds of searching, she pulled out a white envelope and handed it to me with a smile etched on her face.

“You need to sign here so that we have record of you picking up your check.” she said, most likely repeating something that they had told her to say word for word as she pushed a clipboard and a black pen towards me.

I quickly signed my name onto the white paper that had my name typed onto the top of it after putting the white envelope away in the purse that Harry recently bought me, noticing that the secretary’s dark brown eyes were glued onto the large diamond engagement ring that was resting on my ring finger. I handed it back to her a second later, a surprised smile appearing on her face when she saw my signature.

“You have a really pretty signature.” she commented, bringing a smile to my face.

“Thank you-” I began only to be cut off by Harry’s accented voice.

“-Her signature is beautiful, it’s too bad that soon she’s going to have to get used to signing a completely different last name.” he said, making me roll my eyes.

The secretary blushed slightly as Harry and I walked away from the desk. Instead of going straight out of the door, Harry’s fingers laced with mine and he led me towards the stairwell.

“Ugh, Harry, what are you doing?” I asked, a little upset at myself thanks to the fact that I was allowing him to drag me along to wherever he was planning on going.

“I’ve always wanted to walk around and explore this place. Haven’t you?” he asked me, making me let out a girlish giggle at Harry’s childish behavior.

“I’ve always wanted to go to the roof and see what everything looks like from up there.”

A cheeky smile came onto his face and I instantly regretted my words the second that his hand gripped onto my wrist and I was forced to run up the next twenty three flights of stairs with him just a step in front of me.

“Jesus Christ and his favorite apostle Peter,” I began to exclaim once we reached the rooftop, “I think I just lost twelve pounds.”

“It wasn’t that bad.” he said with a roll of his eyes, sitting down on the crowd and gesturing for me to sit down right next to him.

“How can you say it wasn’t that bad?!” I exclaimed as I dropped myself down and sat next to him, rubbing my hands over my legs, “My legs are killing me.”

“Well,” Harry began as he pulled my legs into his lap and began to rub them himself, “we did just walk up about fifteen flights of stairs.”

“Actually, it was twenty three,” I said, making him look at me with a cocked eyebrow, “I was counting. I thought I was about to die.”

He chuckled slightly and turned his attention back to massaging my sore legs, something that I found incredibly interesting to watch as his large hands rubbed away at my short legs.

“What time is it?” he asked, making me take my gaze away from the pink friendship bracelet that Sophia gave him yesterday morning while they were playing in the snow.

I turned to my purse and fished for my phone, taking it out to see that it was still pretty early in the afternoon.

“It’s only twelve thirty.” I told him.

“It’s kind of weird that no one has tried to call or text us yet, we’ve been up here for almost an hour.”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion when I realized that he was right and I looked at my phone again, seeing the small red ‘x’ in the upper right corner.

“There’s no reception up here.” I said, my voice trailing off slightly at the end.

“This must be the only place in London with no cell reception.” he said standing up and holding a hand out to me to help me up as well.

Once I was settled on my own two feet, we slowly walked to the stairwell and I groaned when I remembered how many flights of stairs there were.

“There is an elevator.” Harry said, referring to the silver sliding doors just a few steps away from us.

“But, you know I have a phobia of elevators.”

“You’ll be with me. I would never let anything happen to you.” he said, reaching a hand out towards me and waiting for me to grab it so that he could lead me to the elevator.

After taking a deep breath I placed my hand in his and he pulled me into his chest, pressing a comforting kiss to my forehead before leading me to the silver doors.

“Harry,” I began after he pressed the button and we were waiting for the elevator to come up to us, “Do you think I'm weird?”

Harry chuckled and shook his head.

“Why would you even ask me that?” he asked me with a smile on his face, trying his hardest to continue the conversation and distract me from the fact that in less than a minute I would be in an elevator for the first time in years.

“You don’t want to know.”

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked you.” he said with a roll of his eyes, making me bite my lip as I tried to think of a good way to tell him what was on my mind.

“When Daniel found out that I had a fear of elevators, he called me weird…” I explained, trailing off at the end because I was unsure of his reaction and the elevator had finally gotten to us.

Harry quickly pulled me into the elevator before I could change my mind and my arms instantly wrapped around his waist with my face buried in his sculpted chest. Harry let out a small sigh and wrapped his arms around my body as well, smoothening out my hair with his hand.

“You deserve so much better than Daniel, Ashley.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him, my voice muffled since my face was still pressed against him as the elevator music that was surrounding the two us did little to calm my nerves.

“I mean you deserve someone who thinks you’re limited edition, not weird.”

“Ugh, that was corny even for you,” I began in between small bursts of laughter as I slowly pulled away from his chest and looked up into his green eyes, “But thank you.”

He shot me another smile as the elevator doors opened and I turned to look at the open doors in shock with my jaw dropped open.

“Oh my god, I went in an elevator and I’m still alive!” I exclaimed happily, reaching up on the tips of my toes to place a kiss to Harry’s cheek before I rushed out of the elevator with him hot on my heels.

“What did you expect?” his deep voice began as he wrapped his arms around me from behind, placing a kiss on the top of my head as quite a few people around us acted as paparazzi, “Did you think that a bear was going to barge in and eat you for breakfast?”

“It was definitely a possibility.” I said as he literally made me spin out of his hold as if we were waltzing.

He chuckled and we continued to walk towards my expensive car hand in hand, completely aware that the paparazzi was currently catching our every moment and they were studying every last display of affection. Once Harry and I were safely in my car, he leaned closer to me.

“Should we freak out that paparazzi a little bit more?” he asked me quietly, knowing that one of them might be able to hear our conversation depending on how close they were to us.

“If you want to kiss me you don’t have to ask, Hazz.” I said with a playful roll of my eyes.

“What makes you think I want to kiss you?” he teased.

“Oh Harry, you always want to kiss me.” I said in the same teasing tone, placing a hand on the back of his neck and pulling his lips towards mine in a passionate kiss that he happily returned.

“Well, I guess you were right.” Harry said when we pulled away from each other, making me roll my blue eyes at his words.

“Do you think they’ve had their fill yet?” I asked him.

Harry smirked and shook his head at my words, moving towards me and placing a hand on the back of my neck like I had done to him as he pulled me to his lips for us to meet in yet another passionate kiss.

“I don’t care if they’ve had their fill,” he began after he pulled away from me slightly with his lips brushing against mine with each word that left his mouth, “I haven’t had mine yet.”

My eyes widened as Harry closed his eyes and gave me a real kiss that was widely different from the other kisses we had shared. His lips worked feverishly against mine in an attempt to earn a reaction out of me and eventually, I gave in.