***

I’m lying on the floor, my knees raised while I pull a piece of chocolate out of wrapper and pop it into my mouth. There’s some program on the television, a movie Harry had said was good, but we’re ignoring it as we pick through various candies and talk. He’s resting beside me and seems to be back on his twenty-questions kick, but I don’t mind and even throw in a few of my own when I get a chance. It’s relaxing, just simply being this way with him is, and I find myself laughing and smiling and gazing over at him far more than I should.

“Did you have a pet while you growing up,” he asks, drawing the sucker from his mouth that he’d snatched up for himself.

I turn my head so I can look at him and offer up a small smile while I swallow my chocolate. “I had a cat, but she died when I was nine.”

He frowns. “That’s too bad. What color was she?”

“White,” I murmur.

Silence, then, as he turns away after surveying my face for a few seconds. I continue to watch him, though, becoming wrapped up in the way his eyes flicker over the TV screen. At this point, I’ve realized that I’m fighting a losing battle with myself. Eventually I’ll have to admit that I like Harry as more than just a kind person who’d taken me in, but I don’t want to and that’s for no reason other than it just doesn’t make since.

I’d been with him for a couple of days and, yes, they’d been great. He’d been a gentleman, always holding doors open for me and respecting my personal space, and the nicest man I’d come into contact with in a long time. However, none of that leads me to believe that any other sane person would have developed feelings for him. I think, maybe, it was the whole hero factor and how it had been such a long time since anyone had acted like they had a care for me, but that makes me feel too weak and so I dust that thought away.

Frustrated, I grumble something under my breath and crumple a tinfoil wrapper in my palm while finally looking away from his pretty face. This seems to draw his attention away from the movie and he nudges me gently with his elbow. When I turn to look at him again, he’s grinning lopsidedly, his green eyes shining.

“What?”

I sigh. “Nothing.”

He looks at me for a moment longer, then is resituating himself so he’s lying on his side with his head propped up in his hand. The grin is gone, but his orbs still glitter amazingly.

“You don’t like to open up, do you?”

I’m caught off guard by his question. My eyebrows furrow and my lips pucker out in a pout and I look down to where my fingers are starting to fumble with each other. No one had ever directly asked me that; many had skirted around it by probing me with hints that they wanted answers for my cutoff ways, but they’d never gotten any and eventually they left me alone like everyone else did.

This was different, though. When I look back up at him, he’s staring at me with a concentrated expression (and he looks incredible) and I know that he probably won’t let me off as easily as the others. Maybe he wouldn’t push too far, but he would make me go a little further than the past few days in which he’d questioned me.

“It’s just easier not to,” I murmur.

“Why?”

“Because you don’t get hurt.” My confession has left my mouth before my brain can catch it. Alarmed when I realize what I've said, my eyes grow bigger again and I blush. “I mean… Uhm…I-“

“-It’s alright,” he interrupts, reaching out his other hand to skim over my upper arm. He offers an easy, comforting smile while keeping his tone smooth and low. “I’m sort of the same way, I guess. People can be real bastards, can’t they? Just makes more sense to keep to yourself.”

Swallowing the hard lump that’s building in my throat, I slowly pull away from his touch and move over so there’s a bit more space resting in between us. I’m a little surprised that he’d just told me why he was reserved, especially as I hadn’t. He was just as closed off as I was, at least with me, anyway, but I saw a piece of his the wall he’d built to keep everyone out crumble with that admittance. It didn’t make me uncomfortable, but the way his skin against mine was making me feel had. The portion he’d ran his long fingers over was tingling with fire now and my heart was beating way too fast.

He doesn’t push me anymore on the subject and quiet falls over us again. While his attention returns back to the movie, I sink further into my thoughts. They’re a jumbled mess now because of him and I’m increasingly becoming frustrated. I even get a little angry because apparently I wasn’t so good at keeping people shut out, as he was currently working his way into my brain and emotions and desires, whether he knew it or not.

I sigh and push pieces of my hair out of my face. My thoughts run wild for a few more seconds, then I try to calm them by focusing on the things going on in the film. That’s when I take notice of the fact that Harry’s humming now. His voice is low and husky and rumbling from within in his chest, causing me to smile a little.

“Will you sing for me?”

He looks over at me with an expression that makes me laugh because it resembles mine from earlier. “I don’t know, Delaney,” he murmurs, frowning.

“Oh, please! I like when you hum, you know. I bet your voice is great.”

Rolling his eyes, he grins, but sighs and I squeal a little. I’d been dying for him to sing for me ever since I’d learned he was in a band, only we hadn’t quite reached the point where it was alright for me to sort of drag him into doing it.

We move our backs up against the coffee table, he clears his throat, sends me one hesitant look, and then begins to purr the lyrics of a song that I don’t recognize. Regardless, though, I’m left in awe. So deep, with a low rumble that flows underneath, his voice makes me swoon. My head lolls to the side and a slow smile spreads over my lips while he croons out pretty words that are made beautiful by his angelic tone. I don’t have any idea what he was so frightened about before because, in this moment, while he was concentrating on the lyrics and drumming his fingers against his thighs, he seemed heavenly.

One or two minutes pass, but I don’t seem to notice. The words are beautiful and he’s beautiful and his voice is magnificent and in the back of my mind I know I should careen myself back a little, but for once, I don’t. I move closer, so I can rest my chin on his shoulder, and flash my grin when he looks down at me. He doesn’t make to move away as I had earlier, but leans even closer to me.

I can feel the vibrations that run through his body as he sings up to the ceiling and try to tap along to the beat he’s got going on his jeans, but fail miserably. It doesn’t matter, though; he’s still singing and it’s marvelous.

When he finishes, it’s on a note that’s low and sweet. I grip his bicep and grin widely as he lets a wide smile of his own melt on his mouth.

“God,” I exclaim. “You were fantastic!” He blushes at my compliment, but I keep going, still holding onto him and leaning my chin on the top of his shoulder. “Harry, I swear I haven’t heard anyone sing as beautifully as that.”

“Thanks,” he whispers, continuing to look down at me.

“No wonder you’re so famous!”

This makes him laugh. He throws his head back and his mouth opens wide as a nice sound bursts out.

“I’m only famous to a bunch of teenage girls, Delaney.”

“That doesn’t matter! People hear your voice, and I guarantee you that there are more than teenage girls out there who think you sing incredibly.”

“If you say so,” he murmurs.

I laugh and squeeze his bicep as he stares down at me with chuckles radiating out of his pretty grin. Moving my head so my cheek is now pressing against the fabric of his t-shirt, I sigh. The thoughts are there again, yelling at me to move away now. But I don’t, once more ignoring them. Maybe his voice had melted a piece of the wall I had up, just like his earlier confession had broken some of his. It’s possible and I think it might be true and I’m not sure if that scares me even more than being so close to him.

“Would you go on a date with me?”

At first I don’t think I hear him right, but the words sink into my brain and I slowly pull my head from his shoulder. My hand keeps its hold on his upper arm, though, and we’re still close enough so that when I pull back to look at him, I can make out the different greens that fleck his eyes.

“A date,” I questioningly whisper.

He nods. “Yea, I mean, only if you want.”

For a second I think, wrapping my head around the idea of going on a proper date with Harry. It seems almost as wonderful as his voice, I find, but I’m still frightened. However, the surge of courage I’d been feeling here lately pushes all those fears away and I find myself nodding.

“Okay,’ I whisper.