When Harry Met Luna

“It’s something to do with that Derek kid, isn’t it?”

I’m sorry.

Did I hear that right?

Did he just say my ex-boyfriend’s name out loud?

Was I imagining things?

My feet stopped kicking the cabinet behind them as I gawked at Harry. My mouth literally couldn’t be wider with shock. It was practically hitting the floor. He watched me with a gentle expression.

After what felt like forever, I managed to speak again. I shook my head quickly and closed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, how do you-I don’t-did you just say Derek?”

“Ah, you don’t remember.” He said, nodding. “When I slept over last weekend, right before you fell asleep, you talked about Derek.”

Humiliation struck me right in the gut when he said it, with a side of discomfort. There were a lot of things I could say about Derek, especially when I’m drunk. There’s no such thing as a filter on this mouth when alcohols involved.

“What did I say?” I felt nervous, less so about Harry standing in my kitchen but more so about how much he knows about my previous relationship.

I could see Harry was looking a little uncomfortable talking about it now, but I felt no remorse because after all, he was the one who brought it up. “You called him a douche for er, cheating on you.”

It felt different when you heard someone else say out loud. It felt like Harry was just confirming it, that it was true all along and that I hadn’t imagined it.

I could hear Kathleen Kelly arguing with Joe Fox in the background. The surround sound in the living room was so clear and immaculate, it felt like the characters from the movie were in the room. I tried to ignore it, since I felt like I was almost on the verge of tears.

Luckily for me, I’ve been practicing the art of lying over the past month, to both myself and others so why would this situation be any different?

I hopped off the countertop and ran a hand through my fringe which was now threatening to cover my left eye. “Yeah, well I’m over it. Trust me.”

He looked like he was about to say something else, like he truly wasn’t buying any of the gripe that was coming out of my mouth until I cut him off with the good ol’ medieval technique of changing the subject. “Wait a minute. How did you even get up here?”

Even though I had every intention of changing the subject, the thought only dawned on me now. You needed the password to get up to the penthouse floor and that’s after even getting through security at the front. When you have visitors at this building, the security usually call up to the penthouse first before letting them through.

Harry smirked, shrugging innocently while he talked. “The security guard downstairs may or may not have a twelve year old daughter who loves a bit of this.” He motioned to himself.

“Wow, the perks of being you.” I pushed his shoulder playfully, making him smile and fall back slightly. I don’t know why I felt the need to shove him aggressively all the time. I think it was my way of dealing with sexual frustration. Thats embarrassing. “Pretty ballsy of you to come over here on the whim. What if my dad was home?”

“You know, I did think about that and came to the conclusion that your dad can’t dislike me forever.”

“Oh yeah?” I laughed at his certainty. He clearly wasn’t familiar with my father’s expertise in hating people for an unnecessarily long period of time. “How so?”

“Because I’m a pretty swell guy, Luna, you know that.” Harry grinned now turning slightly to get a better look at the kitchen. He eventually pushed himself away from the other counter and started walking around the island. “So are you gonna give me a proper tour of this place or what? You kinda rushed me out last time I was here.”

Harry apparently was back to himself now that he saw my explanation of ignoring him to be reasonable. Even though I didn’t really give an explanation. I dodged it discreetly, without him realizing. I still felt uneasy about how blase he was bringing up Derek. I still wasn’t sure if I should be angry or not that he brought it up to begin with. Was that something you were suppose to get angry over? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t feel that angry. I just felt weird about it. And uneasy.

Especially since, ya know, I was beginning to think said friend was exponentially more hotter than my ex-boyfriend.

Yeah, I said it.

I agreed to showing him the penthouse, now that we got that weird conversation of Derek out of the way. In a way I felt relieved he didn’t say anything else about it. So I started the grand tour of my dad’s glorified bachelor pad. We walked through the hallway and I guided him in the direction of the indoor swimming pool, the personal cinema - “WHAT” Harry shrieked, walking around the leather recliners - and gym that was typically never used, save for Beth. I’ve heard her in there a couple of times before heading off to work in the mornings.


Once we left the gym after Harry attempted to work the weird pilates machine which then led me to throw a huge purple fitness ball at his face, we were finally standing in front of the double doors to my favorite room in the whole place.

The piano room.

“Just so you know, fart breath,” I grinned when I caught the look of horror on his face when he realized what I called him. “I don’t just show this room to anyone. Seriously, not even my dad’s fiance is allowed in here. So you better consider yourself somethin’ special.”

I placed my hands on the door knobs, paused for effect and finally opened both doors, revealing my playroom.

Harry whistled, walking in and looking around. “Not gonna lie, Luna, you scared me for a second. I thought this was going to be like the red room from Fifty Shades of Grey.”

It took me a second to realize he was referring to an erotic romance novel that involved sadism/masochism and then even another second to also realize he actually read an erotic romance novel.

“Harry.” I started laughing because I thought that was both surprising and unsurprising that him, of all people, read that book. “Shut up.”

I heard him chuckle under his breath as he walked along the tall bookcase that held my extended Vinyl collection. He lifted his hand and began leafing through the Vinyls. “Quite the collection here, Luna.” He pulled out the Some Girls by The Rolling Stones vinyl and gaped at it. “First edition? Fuck me!”

I’d been watching Harry the whole time, noticing how freaking fit he looked in the warm lighting of the room. I only turned on one lamp, and it was sitting right above the piano. The rest of the light was coming in through the windows. Although subtle, the city lights surprisingly added luster in here.

I eventually stopped myself from drooling over Harry and nodded in response to his question. “Perks of being the daughter to a record company’s president, I suppose. I take it you’re a fan then?” I walked over and tugged on his black Rolling Stones t-shirt for emphasis before walking over to the piano stool and sitting down. If I lingered around Harry a second longer, I might have ripped off his shirt altogether.

Instead, I busied myself by cleaning off the little specks of dust from the piano keys. Since slaving away at the internship, I hadn’t really had a chance to play anything. The keys looked more illuminated than usual. I looked up and spotted the gigantic moon, directly above the sunroof. It was so full and astronomical you could almost see the craters on it’s surface if you studied it carefully.

La Luna, the guiding light of my own name. I remember my mom telling me stories of Artemis, goddess of moon. Daughter of Zeus and Leto. She was the baddest bitch in the game, in my opinion. She killed anyone who even so thought about raping her (which, surprisingly, happened a lot. Siprotes was a boy who thought about raping her after seeing her bathing and she immediately turned him into a girl. Amazing.). There was only one god who won her heart and that was Orion, her hunting companion. Unfortunately, he was killed and she never had a chance at love again. Some stories suggest he was killed by a scorpion, others say Artemis killed him herself. I’d like to believe the former since I am, after all, a hopeless romantic. I also like to believe I relate to my counterpart in certain aspects and wish to kill no man in the future.

Unless it was Derek. Then maybe I would consider it.

“Play something.” Harry’s voice ceased my reflection on Artemis immediately. For a second, I almost forgot he was in the room with me. He motioned towards the piano.

“What do you want me to play?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know anything good from the top of my head.”

Harry rounded the couch and sat next to me on the piano stool. He was so close to me now that his bare arm was just lightly touching the surface of my sweater-covered arm. I pretended like it didn’t just completely halt my breathing pattern altogether, with a dash of goosebumps where his arm was touching. He pressed down on a random key and then another. “Don’t believe ya. Go on, play a tune!”

“Alright, fine” I nudged him in the ribs, earning me a combo of a moan and a laugh. “Move over a bit, I can’t reach the keys I’ll need.”

The arm that was once touching mine, moved backwards, now gripping the edge of the stool. I had a funny feeling that it landed right behind my butt and just that thought itself made my hormones explode to an all time high.

I cleared my throat, and wiggled my fingers above the white keys before playing the first couple of notes.

The song that came to mind was Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Consequently enough, I learnt it when I was younger because it was the song they used in the end of You’ve Got Mail, when Kathleen Kelly finds out Joe Fox was the person she had fallen in love with via email. I cried almost every time when that scene would play like a goddamn sissy, but I blamed it on the song they used. When you see a younger Tom Hanks jogging from the other side of the park, greeting Meg Ryan as the man she’s in love with, alongside this song playing in the background? It just kills you.

Of course, I added my own subtle twist to the tune when I played it. I made sure to pick all the good notes, the ones that make me feel a small twinge of excitement when I hear them being used together.

My fingers glided over the keys, almost taking on a life of their own. I could play this tune backwards if I really wanted to. I played it so much when I first learnt it, my piano teacher would get mad when I opted to play it as a warm up before our lesson.

At first, I noticed Harry watching my fingers on the keys when I started playing, but now as I was nearing the end of the song, I could see he was now watching me. He was being so obvious, which in turn was making me anxious. I tried to concentrate on the next couple of notes but it came with great difficulty when I imagined myself stopping mid-tune and kissing him right on the mouth.

Regrettably, I stuck with the stupid tune instead.

When I concluded on the last note, I lifted my fingers nervously from the piano keys and retreated them to my lap.

I could feel my stomach do all kinds of flips and flops when I became aware of the fact that Harry was still watching me. With a smile, might I add. A smile so wide and goddamn adorable that it was making me think about doing unladylike things to him.

“What?” I finally asked. It came out through a nervous laugh, which made me feel even more nervous.

“Nothing.” He shook his head, still smiling. “You looked so in your element when you were playing. I enjoyed seeing it.”

Oh God, we were having another intimate moment like the one on the roof. I could tell because my cheeks were turning pink and Harry wouldn’t look away. There was no way this was happening. It had to be all in my head. It could be that he wasn’t looking to kiss me but for me to say something back or to play another tune or to offer him tea or something.

I wanted to die right there and then because once again, I panicked.

I abruptly stood up and brushed away the non-existent specks of dust off my jeans.

“Right.” I pretended like nothing happened and that whole thing we just experienced didn’t just throw me off entirely. Instead, I walked over to the bookcase and pulled The Rolling Stones vinyl out as well as a couple more. “How do you feel about giving these a listen on my old school vinyl player?”

I figured the most unromantic thing you could do with your friend was listen to some rock n’ roll.

This friendship thing was getting harder.