Damn This Wild Young Heart.

From: Lola Knox
To: Harry Styles
Subject: Finals Suck and I’m Not Going to Make it to 2014
12/03/13 11:23 AM
Finals suck. Berkeley sucks. Everyone sucks. The library is crowded and people have no concept that it is supposed to be a place of learning so like, no you shouldn’t have your super loud fucking conversation right next to me I am trying to memorize the progression of Monet’s work.

The lights are up on the trees around town, so that makes me happy, but besides that I am just the stressed outline of a girl. Why did I decide to go to college in the first place it sucks I am sad and stressed and ALSO did I tell you that they decided to stop stocking the peanut butter Twix in the vending machine in the Laundromat like seriously WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS THIS???

I think I’m going to be dead by the end of this week, let alone make it through December. If I die, you can have my books. Treat them well. Stroke their spines every once in a while.

Other interesting things: the girls in the suite across the hall bought This Is Us and have watched it three times since Friday and they have very loud conversations about who has a better ass and it’s very very funny. Two of them vote Louis, one votes Niall, and then one votes you. Obviously I’m a bit biased, but it seems pretty obvious who has the best ass in the band – Louis. They really need to keep their volume down though because it’s hard to memorize chemistry compounds when I keep thinking I hear you and get all freaking excited.

What’s up with your international pop star bad self? Also, did you really leave a club with Alexa Chung? Because that girl is FABULOUS I am very jealous.

I need to do laundry because I only have one semi-clean pair of jeans left but I’m boycotting the Laundromat in protest of the lack of peanut butter Twix. That’s my way of sticking it to the man.

Miss you. Hope everyone is doing well across the pond. (I felt really stupid typing that but I’m too lazy to erase it.) Did I mention that I miss you? Because I do. I could use a serious cuddle right now.

Xxx

From: Harry Styles
To: Lola Knox
Re: Finals Suck and…
12/03/13 12:04 PM
You’re too smart to not go to college, that’s why you’re there. I’m sorry that everyone sucks but you can handle three days.

Don’t worry, I’m writing Berkeley a very strongly worded letter about their lack of peanut butter Twix. They should be ashamed of themselves. No wonder students are dropping out of school left and right, they can’t even get their proper snacks.

Stroke their spines? Really Lols? Finals have really done you in, haven’t they?

Things are calm here. We’ve been doing a bunch of press because of the album, but I don’t mind it much. I’m actually kind of bored. It’s strange, not constantly having something to do. Grimmy’s already sick of me and threatened to put me to work because I’m at the studio so often. (He says ‘hi’ by the way. I’m at the studio right now.) He did rope me into hosting a few more shows with him but if it means exposing London to some good music, I don’t mind.

My mum and Gemma and Robin are great. Gemma’s really happy at her job.

I am APPALLED that you think Louis has a better butt than me. Maybe you did not properly grope this arse last time, but it is full and perky and it should be treated as such.

I’ll tell Alexa you think so. (And we shared a cab, but we didn’t go to the same place. I know you’re not asking, but I’m just clearing my good name...)

No one needs pants. I’d much rather prefer it if you walked around naked all the time. Except I don’t want anyone else to see you naked. Okay, so come here and walk around naked. Then you won’t have to do laundry.

Do you have any plans when you’re done with finals? Because if you don’t…you should come to London. I’m bored and I have free time and then we can have a right cuddle on every soft surface in my house. Or more than cuddle…whatever. ;) Please? Because I miss you too. Probably even more than you miss me. You’ll love London. I went to the Tate Modern Gallery last week and it was great. It might even be better than the MoMA.

Please come?

xxxx (count them, that’s one more than you gave me so you need to come to London and personally deliver another kiss)

From: Lola Knox
To: Harry Styles
Re: Finals…
12/03/13 12:23 PM
Nothing beats the MoMA your argument is invalid you can stop while you’re ahead.

I mean, I don’t have any specific plans. Lemme see how much I have on my credit card and if they have any flight deals and I’ll get back to you? London sounds fun, even if the Tate pales in comparison to the MoMA.

From: Harry Styles
To: Lola Knox
Re:
12/03/13 1:12 PM
You haven’t been to both of them. I have so I win.
I booked you a flight. I forwarded the e-mail information. It’s an overnight and it leaves the day after you’re done with finals. It’s a one way because I’m kidnapping you and you’re never coming home. Now go ace your finals and make the next four days go by faster.

xxxxx (that’s five kisses now you’re really falling behind)


Harry’s house was surprisingly nondescript. The surrounding area was super swanky and we had to drive through two different security gates before the cab driver pulled up to the side of his house, but his house was all sleek white lines and neatly trimmed grass.

“’Lo?” Harry’s voice was gravelly, presumably because he’d been asleep seconds prior to when he answered.

“Come open your door.” I demanded as the cab driver pulled my suitcase from the trunk and set it beside me.

“You’re here?”

“No, I just want you to stand outside and wait for me.” I kept the phone pressed between my shoulder and my ear as I fumbled through my pockets for the newly exchanged pound notes.

I was pulling out two crisp ten pound notes when Harry come bounding through his security gate, hair sticking up in tufts around his head. He was passing the cab driver a bundle of bills before I’d even managed to get the phone from between my shoulder to hang up. I sighed deeply, before shoving both my phone and my money back into my pocket.

“You didn’t have to pay him for me.” I told him when the cab driver drove away, shouldering my weekender farther up on my arm before following him into his house, my suitcase already rolling behind him.

“Yes I did.” The security gate clunked shut loudly behind us, the harsh sound jolting in the midmorning silence. London in December was colder than San Francisco, but equally as gray, all thick clouds of fog and cold. “You weren’t even going to give him a proper tip. Service like that gets your security codes posted on the Internet. I’ve managed to go this long without any intrusions and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you.”

“You’re exasperating.”

“So I’ve heard.”

The inside of Harry’s house looked much like the outside, white walls and sleek, expensive furniture, but lived in. Unopened mail sat on the table in the foyer and there was a pile of shoes by the door. He parked my suitcase at the bottom of his stairs before turning to me, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“How was the flight?” He asked, before reaching over and grabbing the handle of my bag off of my shoulder.

“Long.” I shrugged my sweater off, laying it across the top of my suitcase by his stairs.

“Did you sleep at all?” He neatly arranged my carry on and my purse on his stairs.

“Not really. I can’t sleep on planes.” I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip, all of the sudden hit that I was standing in the middle of Harry’s foyer, in the middle of Harry’s home country, after a ten hour flight and three days of planning. We hadn’t seen each other since September, when he had a break before the touring in Australia started. He’d fit in surprisingly well at Berkeley, looking like another messy-haired hipster as we flitted from place to place.

I hadn’t planned on coming to visit in December, figuring that I would see him sometime in the new year, but One Direction had the holidays off and when he asked a few days ago, eager with the prospect of showing me around his side of the world, I couldn’t exactly say no, so now here I was, standing in front of Harry a little before eight on a cold Wednesday morning.

We kept in pretty continuous contact. He wasn’t as awful at corresponding as he’d had me believe. We video chatted every couple of weeks, called on occasion, and texted regularly, but mostly, we e-mailed. Long, sprawling letters full of stupid jokes and incredibly boring descriptions of each other’s day -he would go on and on about the amazing crowds and the stupid tour pranks and whatever cute thing Lux had done that day and I would reciprocate with distressed retellings of all of my course work and the gossip from the halls and attached pictures of my favorite pieces in the MoMA that week. It was nice, telling someone all of the stupid, insignificant details about my day. Sometimes when I was in the middle of crying over art history timelines and papers to be written, my e-mail would ding and everything was okay for a moment. I didn’t know if my bad jokes and poor e-mailing grammar had the same effect on Harry, but I liked to think that they did.

“Are you going to give me a proper greeting now?” He finally asked.

I let out a breathy laugh (relief) and wasted no time in barreling into him, wrapping my arms around his middle as I folded into his chest. Harry reciprocated easily, arms folding around me as he pulled me close. I tucked my face into the crook of his neck, breathing in the faded smell of his body wash mixed with his fabric softener, gentle lilacs mixed with something decidedly musky. Harry was all warm, soft limbs and soothing chuckles as his fingers drew lazy circles along my spine. There was a distinct hardness to his chest and abs, his muscles apparently more defined since the last time I’d seen him without a shirt.

“I missed you.” He murmured into my ear, breath washing down my neck and coaxing out a shiver.

“Missed you too.” I mumbled back, lips brushing against the sensitive skin of his neck.

Harry pulled away slowly, keeping his arms tightly encircled around my waist as he peered down at me. “Is that it?” He mused, eyebrow raised as his eyes zeroed in on my lips.

“I dunno.” I shrugged. “What kind of greeting are you looking for exactly?”

He didn’t even bother giving that an answer, just ducked his head down and captured my lips with his. I’d probably spent a cumulative couple of hours kissing Harry and I never got over the way my entire being seemed to jolt awake when we touched. He pressed gentle kisses to my mouth, taking delicate sips from my lips as one hand reached up to cradle my jaw. I responded easily, melting into him as I moved my mouth against his. It was hello and I’ve missed you and I’m really glad you’re here all wrapped up into the way our mouths moved against each other, each flutter of his fingertips making my entire body sing.

One second Harry was placing butterfly kisses against my lips and then the next his hands were already slipping underneath my t-shirt, warmth trailing up my spine as he started up the stairs.

“Room.” I breathed against his lips, my own reaching hands finding the waistband of his sweatpants and tucking underneath.

He only pressed his mouth harder against mine and dragged me up the stairs.


“Your house has too many damn stairs.” I breathed into Harry’s chest much later, curled against him as his fingers ran through my hair. I was practically purring.

Harry chuckled, my body moving with the vibrations of his laughter. “I’ll have an elevator installed in the spring.”

“Please and thank you.” I moved my head to press a kiss against his chest. “Also, muscles much?”

“What?”

I nudged my head against his abdomen. “You’re all muscle-y. When did that happen?”

“Was I a string bean before?”

“No,” I rolled my eyes. “But now you’re all hard planes and biceps galore.”

“Are you complaining?”

I let out a contemplative hum. “No,” I decided. “I quite like it. Remind me to send your trainer a Christmas card.”

“Oi!” Harry protested. “I’m the one who did all the work!”

I ignored him, twisting around in our embrace until I was right next to him, our faces only inches apart. I pressed a kiss to his mouth, before moving to pepper them along his jaw and the space underneath his ear, sucking and nibbling my way down his neck.

Harry’s grip around my waist tightened and he groaned. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Maybe I’m just trying to test your endurance.” I teased, but moved my lips from his pulse point anyway.

“I need to tell you something.” I admitted. “And I figure now’s the best time to do it, because you’re perfectly agreeable. I just don’t know how you’re going to react.”

Instantly, Harry stiffened, his eyebrows pulling together as he slightly pulled away from me. “What is it?” He asked gruffly.

“Can I just preface it by saying that you really shouldn’t freak out or have a reason to be upset at all, because it’s not even like, about you. Really, it’s not. It was a personal decision and something that I’ve been deciding for a while and--,”

“Lola.” Harry practically grunted, interrupting me mid-ramble and fixing me with a look. “Just spit it out.”

I inhaled deeply, trying to gauge how he would react by the hard look on his face. If this was how he took my warning, he probably wasn’t going to take my news incredibly lightly. I’d been avoiding telling him since November, when I first found out, because I couldn’t handle his silence if he reacted badly. At least this way, face to face, I would know how he took the news first hand.

“I’m moving to London.” I finally blurted out, trying to keep my voice even as I eyed him warily. “Only for a term, maybe two, but I want you to know that this isn’t about you. My decision to study abroad here has nothing to do with you being here, so I don’t want you to feel pressured into like, a relationship or something just because distance won’t be much of an issue anymore. I’ve been planning to study abroad this year, hopefully in Italy, but the program was full and the London program is just as brilliant and--,”

“Shut up for a second, yeah?” Harry interrupted, leaning back as he ran a hand through his hair. He did this when he was nervous sometimes, or agitated, and that only made my nerves worse. I had debated telling him so many different times, but I was too much of a chicken. I didn’t want to ruin whatever this was between us, because it was working. Yes, sometimes the distance sucked, and yes, some nights all I wanted desperately was a cuddle from Harry, but the e-mails and the contact and the jokes, they were enough. He had grown a spot as one of my best friends, the strongest friendship besides Dakota, and I didn’t want to ruin that just because we were finally going to be on the same continent.

“So you’re coming to school here then?” He finally asked, eyebrows looking slightly less furrowed as he talked. He hadn’t pulled away any further and I took that as a good sign.

I nodded. “I start in January.”

“Where are you staying?”

I nibbled a bit on my lip and shrugged my shoulders. “Haven’t figured that much out yet. I get an allowance for rent, but I need to find a place. It’s on my list to do this week, actually.”

“When’d you find out about this?” I couldn’t figure out the look on Harry’s face as he stared down at me, something not quite good but not quite bad. He looked almost indecisive.

I heaved a sigh, looking away from his as I answered. “A few weeks ago.”

He closed his eyes, running his hand along the side of his face.

“Are you mad?”

“Yes,” Harry answered and I winced. “But I’m not mad at you, you daft girl. I’m mad because you thought I would get upset about eliminating the five thousand miles between us.”

“I didn’t want you to feel pressured.” I said, studying his face for any signs of anger or panic. “Things are good between us right now and I want it to stay that way.”

“Lola,” Harry started very seriously, looking at me with an intense glint in his eye. “Things are going to be good between us wherever we are.”

“You’re sure you’re not mad about this?”

Harry rolled his eyes at me, his shoulders relaxing as he leaned forward and pulled me to him. I obliged, snuggling right up against his chest, even if I was still slightly wary. I wanted him to be happy, but I also didn’t want him to feel pressured.

He pressed a kiss to the curve of my neck. “I thought you were going to tell me you had a boyfriend or something. This is much better. On a scale of one to ten, I’m at about a negative eleven.”

“Does that mean you’re happy?” My words were breathy, catching in my throat as Harry successfully moved down to sponge kisses along my spine, lips moving delicately from the top of my neck to the dimples above my butt. I shivered in delight as his hands caressed my skin, fingers smoothing over my hips as his lips moved against the small of my back.

“Very happy.” Harry murmured against my hip, nipping at the skin with his teeth, before running over the patch with his tongue. I groaned.

“So you don’t feel pressured?” I clarified, even if the words sounded more like contented sighs than anything else. I wasn’t going to let this conversation drop without complete faith that Harry wasn’t internally freaking out and already hatching his escape route.

Harry heaved a sigh and sat up, giving me a look of exasperation as he moved to hover over me. I let out a noise at the sudden lack of contact, staring at him expectantly. “Lola, I’m not mad and I don’t feel pressured. Okay? So can you just drop it and let me have my way with you already?”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” I conceded, reaching up and pecking him on the mouth for good measure.

“Positive.” He replied, moving against me to deepen the kiss, before sliding down to put his mouth to good use along my collarbones. “Now I can finally show you the Tate.”

“It still doesn’t beat the MoMA.” I arched my back into him as his lips pressed against the swell of my breast.

“How would you know? You’ve never been to both.”

I opened my mouth to protest, ready to name off an innumerable about of reasons why the MoMA was superior (the main one being that it was my favorite place ever and the Tate wasn’t, obviously) but in typical Harry action, he distracted me with his lips.