Ignite.

Monday morning was cold. This, of course, may have been due to the fact that I was quite alone in a large bed and most definitely naked. Right, uhm. Guess we’ll just cut straight to the point, yeah? Harry and I had sex when we got back from Atlantic City. Now, I know what you’re thinking. He says he loves me and I immediately jump in the sheets with him? I know. It wasn’t exactly planned, to be honest. We got back to his apartment and we were talking about things, about us, and then it just sort of happened.

And look what I have to show for it. I was cold, alone, and sore. Brilliant. So I pulled myself out of his bed, immediately finding my underwear discarded on his floor and slipping them on. Somewhat ironically, his Queen baseball tee was sitting at the top of my bag, therefore it was what I pulled on before padding toward the kitchen, where I was hoping Harry would be. And what luck, there he was in all his naked glory, standing at the stove. I apparently couldn’t stop the gasp from leaving my lips and I soon had Harry’s full attention as he whipped around to look at me, smirk ever present on his lips. I couldn’t fight the small blush that I felt rising up my cheeks, but c’mon. I wasn’t used to men just walking around naked.

“Christ,” I finally choked out, and that was all it took for Harry to burst out laughing.

“What’s wrong, babe?” he chortled with a small shake of his head before turning back to whatever he was cooking.

“I just- you’re naked!”

“We have sex and then you freak out over me being naked? I think you’ve got that a little backwards. Also, you’re not supposed to be awake! I was gonna bring you breakfast in bed,” he whined, stamping his foot a little, prompting a small giggle from me.

“I could go back to bed if you’d like?” I offered sweetly from the doorway.

“Yes, please. I’ll be in in just a few minutes.” So with that, I scurried back to the bedroom, making a quick stop to brush my teeth before burrowing back under the covers and feigning sleep. Not a minute later, Harry was waltzing into the room, murmuring quietly for me to wake up. So after making a show of yawning and stretching, I sat up and was greeted with a tray full of food and a small kiss. Then, because I’m sure he could still sense my slight discomfort, Harry pulled on a pair of sweatpants before crawling in next to me and taking some food for himself.

—

We had just about finished when Harry gave me this sort of hard look and I was left to give him a rather confused one in return.

“What’s up?” I asked quietly, not really sure where he was about to go with it.

“How are you feeling?” he asked somewhat carefully, and I even let out a small laugh.

“I’m fantastic, Harry. Why?”

“I mean, are you-?” And then I got it.

“Oh, uhm, I mean- yeah, a little.”

“‘m sorry,” he mumbled with a small frown.

“Hey, no, it’s- it’s okay. I mean, it’s supposed to- from what I’ve heard. It’s fine.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Were we seriously talking about my vagina?

“I really want to kiss you,” he stated, this cute little contemplative look on his face as his eyes danced from my own to my lips.

“Well, I don’t really think you need to ask.” And then the tray was immediately off my lap and onto the floor before Harry’s body was practically on top of me as his lips came crashing to meet mine.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he got out in between kisses and in response I just pulled him closer, because of course I was wearing his shirt. I loved that shirt and he knew it. So we kissed for a while, but all too soon his phone was ringing from his bedside table. With a groan, he detached himself from me and rolled over, snatching the phone up. And then a smaller groan was leaving his lips.

“What’s wrong? Who is it?”

“It’s, erm- it’s Allie.” Right. Because of course Allie would be calling in the middle of a heated moment. “I should- it might be an emergency, she doesn’t usually call.” So I sort of nodded, telling him it was fine. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he rushed out, leaving a quick kiss on my cheek before answering. “Hello?”

“Hey, stud! How are you?” I heard her call down the line. Christ, she was chipper.

“I’m good, yeah. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to see how you were doing after the whole Jude thing this weekend. She was being a little obnoxious about the whole thing, if you-” Thanks, Allie.

“No, we’re actually- we’re good. We talked things out and everything’s good.”

“Oh. Well, that’s great! I’m glad everything worked out then. Hey, listen. I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch in a bit? I feel like I hardly got to see you this weekend, plus with all that bullshit with Jude-” I stopped listening after that, feeling the smallest traces of tears prick at the back of my eyes. It kind of stung how quickly she thought I was the worst person ever after she’d been nothing but nice to me. I couldn’t ignore the worried glances Harry was throwing me and he definitely knew I’d heard what she said.

“Hey, Allie, my mum’s actually on the other line. Let me call you back?”

“Yeah, of course, babe! Just let me know!” And then she was gone. I was blinking rapidly to keep the tears from slipping out as Harry let out a long puff of air.

“Jude-“ he tried as he turned toward me, but I just shook my head lightly.

“It’s fine.” But my voice had gone a little higher and crackly, which immediately gave me away. Before I could protest, he was pulling me into him and my head fell to his chest as his arms went around my middle. His head came to rest on top of mine and he just held me for a few long moments.

“She shouldn’t have said that,” he finally murmured, his thumb moving in small circles on my skin.

“I just didn’t realize she hated me.”

“Stop, she doesn’t hate you,” he protested, but I laughed weakly over him.

“Kinda sounds like she thinks I’m horrible. I think…I think she might be into you, Harry.”

“What? No, she’s not-“

“How do you know?”

“Because, she just- she’s not, okay? She’s just protective is all.”

“And a little territorial,” I muttered under my breath, but by the way his grip tightened on me, I knew he’d heard it. After swallowing loudly, he asked in a quiet voice,

“Do you not want me to see her anymore?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make that my decision. I would never tell you that you can’t be friends with someone.”

“But it makes you uncomfortable.”

“A little, yeah.”

“Okay. Then I’ll back off a little with her.”

“You don’t-“

“I’m not losing you. End of discussion.”

—

The following three weeks had been pretty great, if I’m honest. Schoolwork had been surprisingly light, which meant I had more time to spend with Harry and we’d been using a lot of this time for him to teach me how to drive. I felt pretty bad that he was always driving to and from the city all the time for me. And though he was a little uncomfortable with me driving around all by myself at first, the idea was growing on him. I mean, I wasn’t some porcelain doll, y’know? I could handle driving. Another issue that had come up was me getting a job.

“You don’t need a job,” he’d told me when I brought up the idea of working in a boutique near my house. But I wanted a job. I felt horrible constantly taking money from my parents, even though they assured me it was no problem. But I also felt horrible that Harry paid for a lot of what we did. “You know I don’t mind paying for you. It’s how it should be.” But I wanted a job.

So with a little kicking and screaming on his end, I got Harry to come with me to the boutique while I applied. The owner of the shop, Trish, was extremely nice, and once she’d heard my father’s name, it was kind of a done deal.

The only thing that wasn’t so great over those weeks was Allie. I’d been getting some pretty vicious texts from her, completely unwarranted. I mean, I knew she was pissed about the Atlantic City thing, but that felt like ages ago. Plus, where did she get the right to yell at me via text for something that involved Harry and I? I’d chosen to keep the texts from Harry, because I really didn’t want to come between them, but it seemed they were getting worse every time. And apparently she hadn’t mentioned them to him because they’d seen each other a couple times since that phone call and Harry never seemed upset. But I digress.

The showstopper of that three weeks though was, without a doubt, Valentine’s Day.

When I woke up, I found a gorgeous bouquet of roses sitting on my vanity, a small card attached from Harry.

sorry this is terribly cheesy. i’ll see you tonight. xx

So with a small roll of my eyes and a definite blush on my cheeks, I snagged my phone to send a quick text off to Harry.

definitely cheesy, but i liked it.(:

i’m glad. what time are you coming over tonight? x

7:30 as per your request, darling.

brill, can’t wait. make sure to wear a dress. x

And then I forced myself through an obscenely long day of school, filled with Bri telling me all about the lavish restaurant Alex was taking her to later and how excited she was. But then finally, finally, I was back home with way too many hours until I needed to be at Harry’s. So I busied myself with taking a long bath, giving myself a quick mani-pedi, curling my hair into loose waves, doing my makeup just right, and then taking my time getting into my dress.

When seven finally came, I all but ran out of the house with a small goodnight to my parents. Yes, I’d somehow convinced them to let me stay at Harry’s on Valentine’s Day. Perhaps they were finally warming up to the idea of me being with someone. But anywho, I tried to get into the city as quickly as possible, the evening’s traffic was worse than I’d expected. But finally, at around 7:45, I was stepping into the apartment.

“Honey, I’m home!” I called jokingly into the space before Harry rounded the corner of the kitchen looking dapper in a sweater and dark denim and immediately he was in front of me. His hands came up to cup my face as he placed a deep kiss to my mouth before they moved down to my hips to pull me closer.

“You look incredible,” he breathed as we finally managed to pull apart, and I couldn’t fight the small blush that was touching my cheeks.

“Thank you,” I answered bashfully, my eyes falling to the ground, but he quickly cupped my chin and placed another quick kiss to my lips.

“I’m serious, you look beautiful.”

“Okay, stop,” I giggled, pawing at his chest as my cheeks flamed a color to rival my dress.

“If it’s gonna make you blush like that all night, there’s no way in hell I’m stopping,” he told me with a devilish grin before I let him pull me in again.

Who knows how long we would’ve have stayed in the living room kissing like that, had it not been for smoke detector going off. “Shit,” Harry swore, pulling away from me and practically running to the kitchen. “Could you just wave a pillow in front of it or summat?” he called and I immediately snagged a throw pillow off the couch to silence the device. “Fuck me,” Harry groaned loudly once I had finally gotten the thing to shut up and I quickly made my way to the kitchen.

“What happened, babe?” I called as I moved to open the small window by the sink to let the smoke out.

“I’ve managed to burn the chicken. Of course, when I really wanted tonight to be perfect, this fucking happens.” His hand was near constantly running through his hair as he sort of frowned at the chicken and I quickly wrapped my arms around his waist.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just chicken. I still see perfectly good pasta and garlic bread!” I chirped before placing a small kiss to his shoulder.

“I know, but-“

“Don’t worry about it. It can still be perfect.” He gave a small nod before pulling away from me to go discard the charred chicken and put the pasta in a bowl. While he busied himself with that, I snagged a bottle of white from the fridge and lit the candles that he had put out on the table.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be setting it all up. You weren’t supposed to have to do any of it,” he whined childishly, but I simply rolled my eyes and told him to finish plating everything up. Finally we were both at the table and digging in.

“Harry, this is seriously delicious!”

“Would’ve been better with the chicken,” he muttered darkly and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“But it’s amazing as is, too. Babe, why are you so hell bent on this night being ‘perfect’?” He let out a small sigh before taking a long sip of his wine.

“Well, tonight is the night that I planned to ask you to officially be my girlfriend, and-“

“And you really thought that chicken would be the selling point.”

“Shut up, it’s the principle of the matter! I wanted to make you an incredible meal and everything.”

“Harry, you could’ve gotten me McDonald’s and I would still say yes.”

He scoffed.

“Please, like I’d ever get you McDonald’s on Valentine’s Day.”

“Well then what are you worried about?” And then he finally smiled at me, hooking our ankles under the table. From there on out, conversation flowed smoothly, just like it always did with Harry. He told about new things in the shop and asked about how school was. We talked about the future, like where I saw myself going to college and what I wanted to do. And for once in my life, I didn’t hate the topic. Because when it was with Harry it didn’t feel like an interview or an interrogation. It just felt like he was genuinely interested in what I had to say, and I knew he was.

Then after dinner, we ended up dancing in his living room for about an hour, which I will admit was also incredibly cheesy, but it was really fun. He’d put together a playlist, no surprise, and it just felt like a perfect setting. After dancing came a delicious cake that Harry had made, and after cake came a little more dancing.

“So, like I said earlier, I wanted to ask you to be my girlfriend,” he murmured into my hair as we swayed to whatever song had been playing at the time. “I just- I’m sorry it took me so long to get to it. I mean, Christ, I’ve already told you that I love you yet I can’t ask you to date me? I know I’m rubbish with this relationship stuff, but I really want it with you, Jude. I just want to be yours.” And then, because everything with Harry is a fucking movie, ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ by the Arctic Monkeys began to play, not going unnoticed by either of us. Soft laughs escaped both of us as Harry pressed the side of his face into mine a little. “What timing I’ve got, yeah? But really, would you be my girlfriend, Jude?” And to be honest, he almost sounded scared. So I pulled back, a smug grin on my lips as my hands came up to cup his face.

“That’s a pretty silly question, don’t you think?”

“So that’s a yes-?”

“Of course it’s a yes, you idiot!” I giggled as he grinned down at me.

“But I’m your idiot now.”