Perfect Teeth

I’ve always thought that there was something magical about bathtubs. Maybe it’s the sense of relief they give, the promise of being able to soak away the remnants of a bad day, or maybe it’s just a strange interior design obsession with the shape of them, but there’s something about bathtubs that gives me fuzzy tingles of happiness when I see a particularly welcoming one.

The bathtub in Harry’s friend’s condo (he’d told me which friend, he really had, but I was tired from traveling and his voice was so soothing I was zoning out) was perfect. If perfection ever could exist, this bathtub was it. With the simple, modern, curved design, the steel finishing for the faucet, the placement in the middle of the bathroom, directly in front of a window that overlooked the entirety of Beverly Hills, it was the bathtub equivalent of heaven.

I’d gone into the bathroom with the intent to pee and brush my teeth, still half dazed from the long flight and the car ride from LAX to the house tucked into Beverly Hills, but the second I flicked on the light, took a glimpse at the shining, white tub in front of me, the decision to take a bath was made.

The thought of going downstairs to tell Harry the new change in plans (he’d been mumbling something about going out to dinner when he’d pulled up earlier, I think) was too exhausting, so I texted him as I started in on the laborious task that was sitting down and peeing.

bathtub perfect. bath stat

What about dinner? I thought we were going out?

not leaving this house until i’ve sat in that thing

preferably naked

preferably with bubbles and jets

also u r invited

I am?

That changes everything.

How does pizza sound?

pineapple?

Done.
It’ll probably take a while for the pizza. You’re not waiting for me, are you?

it’s gonna take at least ten minutes for me to get the energy to actually get off the toilet first

and then make the perfect bath

so i’ll b here for a while

Are you peeing right now?

...idk maybe

Multitasking at it’s finest. Even if I am literally downstairs from you.

look i am TIRED

that was the longest flight of my life

the pod things are nice but they still don’t block out squirming toddlers

Pizza’s ordered. Be up in half.
(Hopefully you’ll be naked by then…)

is this sexting?

I don’t think so? That’s more graphic, isn’t it?

oh ok just checking

wasn’t sure if i was supposed to like send nudes back or something

OH?

that was a joke don’t even start

…

IS THAT

HARRY

HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THAT ANGLE

ARE YOU JUST WALKING AROUND WITH IT OUT

CHRIST



By the time Harry actually made it up the stairs, pizza box in hand, the water was well past my knees, and Harry was completely naked.

“You really are just walking around with it out.” I remarked, eyes opened in hazy squints as I glanced at him, then at the pizza box in his hand. Something stirred inside of me, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of his naked genitialia or the promise of pineapple pizza. (Maybe both, probably the pizza.)

“I put on pants to open the door.” He said. “It’s too hot to wear anything.”

He wasn’t wrong. Even for December in California, Los Angeles was going through an unnecessary heat wave. The parka that I’d had to wear to the airport was shed and shoved by the door the second we’d gotten into the house, presumably not to be seen for the rest of the trip. It wasn’t ideal bath taking weather, but the air conditioning in the house was blasting, and it was too perfect of a tub to not.

“You should really consider joining a nudist colony.” I said, just as Harry grabbed the round ottoman by the counter (because having an ottoman in a bathroom was a usual thing?) and dragged it to the tub, opening the pizza box and setting it on top. I was staring at his butt the entire time. Through squinted eyes, it looked a lot like an apple. “You’d probably enjoy it.”

“Or we can make our own nudist colony,” Harry suggested, gingerly swinging his leg over the high side of the tub and stepping inside. It was a really high ledge. I was glad Harry wasn’t there when I’d gotten in, because I had to almost catapult myself over the side, limbs flailing. “New house rules: we must be naked at all times. Instated immediately.”

“That just sounds so dangerous. Like what if you’re trying to make tea or something and accidentally spill boiling water on yourself, but instead of having the protection of a shirt or pants, you spill it all over your dick and lose feeling in it for life? Like wouldn’t that suck?”

Harry looked horrified. “Why would you even bring that up? I’m never gonna be able to make tea again. What if that happened? Like what about peeing? Or SEX?”

My most logical response was, “You’d have to switch to anal.”

Harry’s eyes only widened and he sputtered out a laugh. “Jesus, what are you on?”

My eyes closed and I leaned my head back to the tub. “Lack of sleep.” I shrugged. “Weird time zone changes. I’m uninhibited and free. Now,” I stretched my hand out towards him, palm open. “Pizza me.”

Harry chuckled but obliged, handing me a slice of pineapple pizza before taking one for himself. I kept my eyes open long enough to make sure that I wasn’t about to slop greasy pizza into a perfect bubble bath, before guiding the slice into my mouth.

Harry sunk down deeper into the bath as he ate, legs stretching out so his toes were brushing along the outside of my thighs.

We were both two slices of pizza in before we even started saying anything. “Do you just want to stay in tonight?” He asked.

It was half past seven in the evening and nothing sounded as good as staying in, crawling into bed, and sleeping for a solid ten hours. But Harry was the type that liked to go out and do things. Every time he was in LA he was solidly busy, jetting off to event after event, lunch with friends and meetings with songwriters, and I didn’t want to interrupt that just because I’d had an exhausting few days and sleep sounded like the safest haven I could find.

“We can go out if you want.” I said. “I know you probably have plans.”

Harry shrugged. “Nothing solid until tomorrow. We can just stay in and relax if you want.”

“You sure?”

“Ez,” Harry murmured. “Just tell me what you want to do and we’ll do it.”

I finished chewing the last bite of crust from my slice of pizza and wiped the side of my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’d like to stay in,” I finally said, still feeling like I was interrupting Harry’s agenda, but unable to ignore the deep exhaustion that was setting in. Traveling was exhausting. Traveling with paparazzi and fans following you was even more so. “Just for tonight.”

“Alright.” He nodded, and then grabbed another slice of pizza, tongue poking out to grab a piece of pineapple that was falling off the edge. “Sorted.”

“Thanks.” I sent him a full, gap-toothed grin.

“This vacation is for us, y’know,” Harry pointed out as he chewed, food shoved to the side of his mouth. “You have a say.”

“It’s your trip, you just invited me.”

Harry prodded me with his foot. “As part of your gift, so shh. Don’t speak.”

I snarled my lip at him, wiping the pizza grease off on one of the hand towels by the floor, before shuffling further down into the tub, stretching out my legs and propping them up on Harry’s thighs.

“This bathtub is magical,” I murmured out. “A gift from the heavens, carved from the hands of Zeus himself, I never want to leave.”

“It is pretty nice.” Harry hummed, and then he finished off his fourth slice of pizza and considered himself satisfied, wiping off his hands, before also scooting down in the tub opposite me, entwining our legs closer together.

“Nice is an understatement.”

“You have a thing for bathtubs.”

“I like baths. They’re relaxing.”

“You’re sitting in a pool of your own dirt.”

“Yeah, but with bubbles. And candles. And music. And showers are exhausting because you have to stand.”

“Standing.” Harry made a sound in the back of his throat. “How awful.”

“Thank you.” I sniffed. “Exactly my point.”

He chuckled and I let out a little giggle, the warm water massaging out the aches in my muscles and calming me down. I could see LA and mountains and the ocean right outside of the window, the warm glow of dusk as the sun settled down and the city’s lights started to flicker on. I hadn’t been in LA in months, since August, and the last time I was here, I knew Harry in the way that you know celebrities and public figures, but not in the way that I knew him now.

Now I knew what he tasted like. The way he groaned into my mouth when he was happy. The birthmarks on his back and chest and the noise he made when something was really, really funny.

I have known boys intimately. Held entire lexicons of people in my chest, but no one has settled so deep into my lungs as Harry. It was like every time I inhaled I chipped off parts of him to keep, until the inside of me was nothing without him, like our particles were all mixed up and it was hard to distinguish which parts of me were me and which parts of me were actually him. He was everywhere.

And in August, he was everywhere, but nowhere just the same.

“Y’know, the last time we were in a bathtub together I think I asked you to come to LA.” Harry recalled, just as one of his hands reached for my leg, large fingers massaging the back of my calf.

“Oh shit, for 1D Day, yeah.” I thought back to the memory. “I couldn’t because of work stuff.”

“I was so disappointed.” Harry admitted.

“You played it off well.”

“Yeah because then we were having sex and I wasn’t disappointed anymore.” I lifted my free foot to splash him, but Harry didn’t even squirm, just grinned cheekily and kept on massaging my leg.

“That feels so long ago.”

“It was only a few months.”

“I know. But everything’s changed, hasn’t it? With us? And stuff.”

“Some things.” Harry brushed a strand of hair from his eyes, sweeping the hair up and back. “We’re still here, aren't we?”

We were, but it was different. Or at least for me, it felt different. “Back then we were Harry and Ezra. Now we’re an ‘us’. Which sounds cheesy, but just roll with me here.”

“We were an ‘us’ then too.” Harry said, shaking his head to further prove his point. “We’ve been an us since the day you shared your milkshake with me.”

It was weird to think about, that I’d been giving parts of myself to him since the very beginning. Shared milkshakes at the little university diner felt like eons ago. We were completely different people now.

“Maybe.” I allowed, wetting my lips. “But the rest of the world doesn’t know that we’re an us yet. Which is good. I think.”

Harry shifted up in the tub, now looking more alert as another wet hand found it’s way into his ever-flattening fringe, dampening the strands. My calf fell back in place over his legs. “You don’t think we should tell them? Sometime?” His voice was strained.

“No,” I breathed out immediately, as the thought of letting the rest of the world in made me tense. The fallout from that - it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. Even just glimpses of imagining it made me feel like I was on the verge of breaking out in stress hives. “I mean, not yet.” I amended, at the strange look of disappointment and - something else I wasn’t sure how to place - on Harry’s face. I needed him to know that it wasn’t because of him, but that felt mostly like a lie, so I rerouted. “I need some time before that.”

“Because of this weekend?” He guessed.

“Kinda.” I admitted. “This weekend was...weird.”

Harry shrunk into the tub, and then, because he couldn’t seem to handle the separation anymore, his hands reached for my calves again and he was pulling me across the tub, body moving through the water until I was situated comfortably on his lap, bum resting on his thighs.

“I’m sorry about that.” He whispered, all of the carefree joy of pineapple pizza and silly bubbles forgotten. “Again. I’m sorry again.”

“You can stop apologizing. I know that you mean it.” My fingers ghosted along the side of his toros.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make it less bad,” He promised, and the severity and sincerity in his voice made my head snap up, looking him straight in the face. “Whatever happens, I’m gonna try.”

“I know you will. You always try.” I tried to soothe him with my words, with my fingers, already shaking my head at myself for turning what could’ve been a playful night in the bath into something deeper, contemplating the next steps of our relationship. I was so sick of thinking about it.

Harry spoke quietly, voice barely above a whisper, but it was so deep it almost crackled. “You can tell me if it starts being too much.”

“I…” I inhaled sharply, and there were things I wanted to say, maybe, but they were too much. Everything was too much. “I get overwhelmed. And then I get scared. That you’re gonna freak out.”

I was underselling it.

It was more than getting overwhelmed - or it was more complicated than being overwhelmed and then scared. It was like dread and confusion and terror and panic all wound into something, but I wasn’t going to tell Harry that. Not yet. Not when he was stroking my legs and looking like the world was going to fall out from underneath him if he couldn’t convince me that he was trying.

Harry looked perplexed, brow furrowed, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth as he stared at me, eyes scanning the length of my face. “I just wanna do this right. And I don’t know what that means right now, but I’m trying.”

“I know.” I courageously leaned up to press a kiss to his chest, right underneath one of the birds, and kept my body huddled close to his. “That’s all we can do.”

It was a comfort to him, but mostly a comfort to me.

Finally, Harry shook his head, as if that could banish all of the other thoughts, before smiling hopefully.

“Can we just have an incredible next few days?” He asked. “We’re in LA. The weather is gorgeous. You’re here. I want to enjoy this. Even with people everywhere, I want to enjoy this.”

I nodded into his chest. “Can we get milkshakes tomorrow?”

“Of course we can get milkshakes tomorrow. And there’s a grilled cheese place you would like. And have you had Mexican food? Because we need Mexican food.”

The way Harry said the word “Mexican” made me grin, giggling against his chest as I wrapped myself more comfortably around him, the water sloshing between us.

“I would also like to go to the Santa Monica pier. Maybe do a touch of shopping.”

“LA has great vintage.” Harry’s face lit up excitedly. “I got a great striped shirt here a few months ago.”

“You sound so hip and cool,” I teased. “Did you drink a kale smoothie after? Do some yoga in your new vintage flannels?”

“Don’t mock me.” Harry pouted.

“But it’s fun!”

“I think we spend at least half of our relationship with you just teasing me relentlessly.”

“You do it back.”

“I’m not nearly as cruel.”

“You have your moments. For example, while you excelled in the bringing of the pineapple pizza, there are no breadsticks.” I raised an eyebrow, challenging him to beat that. It was true. There were no breadsticks. That was an act of cruelty in itself.

Harry only raised an eyebrow back, if questioning my judgement to doubt him. “What kind of man do you think I am? I am nothing if not thorough. Remember the last time we were in a bathtub for evidence.”

“What does that even mean?” I sputtered, flustered at the reminder of the last time we’d had a bath together. It was a good day, even if it was exhausting, and I was actively trying to stop the flustered blush from staining my cheeks.

“It means that there’s an entire package of garlic and parmesan breadsticks waiting downstairs.”

My face lit up, and then sunk back down to a pout. “Why downstairs though? That’s so faaaaar.”

Harry grinned. “I needed incentive to get you out of the tub.”

“No, never.” I shook my head again. “I’m setting up camp and never leaving.”

“But what about the milkshakes?”

“You can be my personal little errand boy and bring me milkshakes and breadsticks and in exchange I’ll let you touch The Little Boob that Could.”

“That’s all I’m worth to you? Milkshakes and garlic breadsticks?”

“Those are like two of my favorite things.”

“Hmm.” Harry hummed. “True. I’ll keep that in mind. Counter offer to come. Now are you actually going to bathe in the tub or are you just gonna sit here?”

I made a noise against his chest.

He laughed, and then reached around me for something, before slowly lowering me into the water to wet my hair.



If you took away the paparazzi and the occasional hoards of fans and the security guards and the endless speculation of what we were doing in LA and why we were doing it, LA was perfect. Harry was perfect. Even George and Steven, the security guards Harry had enlisted to loiter with us through LA, laughed at my jokes in the car and kept their respectable distance, making sure that we made it through the majority of the days unharmed.

The first two days in LA actually went relatively smoothly. If we got up early in the morning, timed things right, and took back roads and entrances to places, we escaped most of the media frenzy. Harry was a surprisingly skilled LA driver, very James Bond-esque one night after dinner as he merged and swerved and turned to escape a particularly persistent paparazzi car, and the second night we had dinner at one of his friend’s houses, deep in the hills and valleys of Los Angeles.

We had milkshakes. A lot of them. Milk wasn’t the best milkshake I’d ever had, but it was pretty damn close, and then there was grilled cheese and funnel cake at Santa Monica pier and as many Jalisco mango sodas as Harry could possibly guzzle down. We walked along the pier lazily, ducking among the crowds, and I made Harry stop with me to get churros.

We resumed our walk slowly, wax paper and large cinnamon sugar pastries in our hands, and Harry was talking about the ocean, about how the Pacific was warmer than the Atlantic, but not quite as mighty, when I interrupted him.

“Y’know,” I started, holding my churro out in front of me, tilting my head to the side and squinting. “If you squint a little bit, it kinda looks like your dick.”

Harry stopped walking, face stunned as he turned to me, and then his mouth dropped in outrage and he started sputtering, “I - no - heeeeeeeeey.”

“Tilt your head to the left and like, squint a little.” I instructed. “It’s true.”

“What the hell? No - there is WIDTH missing!” Harry grumbled, forever offended by any swipes at his anatomy.

I laughed at the deeply offended look on his face, before digging my phone out of my front pocket, opening an app and aiming at my churro. “I’m going to snapchat this to you with the caption ‘dick pic’, just so you know. Just so the score is even.”

Harry side-eyed me, before glaring. “I send you one thing and you don’t let it go - and I didn’t hear you complaining, so--”

I sent him the picture quickly, snorting to myself. “Whatever you say. At least this has cinnamon and sugar and incentive to put my mouth on it.”

Harry looked like he was about to explode, closing his eyes as his phone vibrated in his pocket. To further illustrate my point, I brought the churro up to my lips, taking a huge bite off the end. “Careful now,” I warned as I chewed. “Don’t be mean to me or I’ll deep fry your man parts.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve this,” Harry muttered to himself, shaking his head sadly as we resumed walking, but I could see the hint of a smile trying to take over his face. “Let’s just stick to milkshakes, not pastries.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon like that, laughing and poking fun at each other, before too many people started to notice Harry, a group of middle school girls following us around, and then we ducked back to the car and headed towards some of the vintage clothing shops. We flipped through racks of t-shirts and strange vinyl records, because Harry’s new hobby was collecting obscure records.

“Where are you going to keep them all? You’re pretty much homeless.” I laughed.

“I have a car, thanks.” Harry sniffed. “And I have a home. I don’t know, it’s just weird, because I spend so much time everywhere else, I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“To move in?”

“Yeah. To deal with having to make sure the fridge is empty so nothing rots or be worried that I’m going to get squatters or something.”

“You could get a roommate,” I suggested. “Put an add out on Craigslist or something. ‘Wanted: a roommate who will make sure no food in the fridge goes bad when away. House has garage and pool. Please send applications to hstyles@modest.com.’ I think that’d go over relatively well.”

“Yeah, splendidly.” Harry rolled his eyes, flipping through another stack of record sleeves while I meandered over to the strange jewelry. “I’ll get right on that.”

If I took away everything else, and just kept Harry, and me, and his stupid jokes, and the way they made me laugh, everything was perfect. So I took it all away. I took deep breaths every time we exited a restaurant, trying to calm my heart rate and quell the nerves, and I crossed my fingers that things would go well, and mostly they did.

Harry was careful.

We spent New Years inside. We’d been invited to a party - many parties, probably, as they were all over Los Angeles and the entirety of Southern California, but he suggested staying in before doing anything else. “Drunk drivers,” He’d shivered. “And this way we can ring in the new year however we like.”

He’d punctuated that with a smirk and I didn’t protest at all, preferring the quiet night we spent in, eating take away Thai food on the kitchen floor and spilling champagne everywhere, to anything else we could’ve done.

And things were perfect, existing in our little Los Angeles bubble, where we laughed and we walked and we didn’t hold hands, not quite, but almost. His hand would brush against my back, and I inched closer to him when we walked, arms softly meeting, and it was hard to keep anything but the stupid smile on my face for the entirety of the trip.

Probably, it would’ve been the perfect time to talk to him, something more indepth than the briefness that we touched on that first night in the tub. We could’ve sat down - maybe at the beach, maybe in the tub, maybe on the patio of the amazing house we were staying at - and we could’ve listened to the quiet and the chirping of the birds and laid it all out on the table.

I could’ve brought it up at any time.

And a part of me almost wanted to. Sometimes, like when we were walking down the Santa Monica pier, and Harry was grinning behind his sunglasses, radiating against the vibrant backdrop, lips tilted in a smile as he made another joke, I wanted to be completely honest, so we could always exist like this. He looked so warm, so absolutely breathtaking, that I thought I could say maybe anything I wanted and it wouldn’t have broken the moment.

It was the ‘maybe’ that held me back.

The maybe that held the potential to ruin the shivers of contentment that tingled up my arms as we walked. The maybe that could’ve stopped the warmth on my back and in my veins as I crawled into bed next to Harry at night, who was already plucking at my shoulder straps and flipping them down, his mouth landing on every inch of available skin as we giggled and kissed and had wild, hilarious sex, laughing into each other’s necks as our limbs moved awkwardly every position shift.

It was everything I could’ve ever wanted from Harry - the attentiveness, the smile that was on his face when we woke up and when we went to sleep.

It was everything I could’ve wanted at all. If I took everything else away.



“I can’t get this verse right,” Harry exhaled as he sunk into the couch next to me, arms stretching over the back as he reclined into the corner.

I only caught the second half of his sentence, moving my headphones off and pressing the spacebar on my computer to pause the video I was working on (or trying to, at least, as I’d been staring at the screen for a solid 15 minutes, wondering if the premise for the idea was really as lame as I thought it was or if it even mattered anymore), turning my head. ‘What?”

“This verse.” He repeated, shaking his head. “It’s not working, so we’re taking a break. What’re you doing?”

It was our last day in LA and Harry’s songwriting landed us in the home studio of one of his many music producer friends, a plush soundproof room that was in the basement of a sprawling Los Angeles mansion. The couch I was sitting on probably cost more than six months of my flat’s rent, it had electrical outlets built into it, and it warmed your butt at the push of a button. It was a miracle of modern interior design, was what it was.

“Attempting to edit this video.” I answered, then made a face. “Maybe. I don’t know, I haven’t decided if I like it or not yet.”

“What’s it about?” He leaned his head over to look at the screen, but it was paused at an unfortunate screenshot of my face, mouth open and nostrils flared, and while comical, it didn’t give much away.

“It’s just a Film Friday feature. I wanted to do this new thing where I review films on Fridays, because I’m not really vlogging anymore, but I dunno.” I shrugged self consciously. “It’s not like I have anything exceptionally revolutionary to say.”

“I don’t believe that.” Harry’s entire face furrowed in disagreement. “You’re Ezra. You pretty much always have something new and revolutionary to say.”

I scoffed. “I think you are highly overestimating me.”

“Nope, I refuse.” Harry shook his head definitively. “I think you’re underselling yourself.”

“You have to say that. You’re having sex with me.”

“I do not.” Now he had the audacity to look mildly offended. “I value you too much to be disingenuous.”

I sighed in frustration, firmly closing my laptop. “I know, I know, I know. I’m just being stupid because I don’t want to go home.” I pouted. “LA is too nice. The real world needs to go away.”

“But you’re gonna be on the cover of a magazine.” Harry barred his teeth in excitement. “I’m going to buy a hundred copies and just stick them around London so everyone has to read it. I’ll send them out to my family as a belated Christmas gift. I’ll stick them in random mailboxes.”

“Will you put them in the Employee Recommends section at Barnes & Noble? So I know that what we have is real?”

“I will build a tower made out of nothing but copies of this magazine.” He promised. “Or sculpture in the shape of an E. No one will be able to cover a square inch of London without knowing that The Ezra Callil has been on the cover of a magazine.”

I laughed along with him, shaking my head. “I haven’t even read the article. It could be shit.”

“I highly doubt it. Everything that comes out of your mouth is interesting and revolutionary, remember?”

“Potentially, but it’s journalism. They can make anyone look however they want.” I said.

“It’ll be good.” Harry smiled. “And you get to have a fancy release party where they serve awful appetizers, but there’s an open bar.”

“You’ve been to a ton of these things haven’t you? What do I do?” I shifted closer to him, pretzeling my legs and giving him my full attention. He was a welcome distraction from unsuccessful video editing.

“Mingle.” He answered. “Smile at people. It’s just a regular party, but you’re the center of attention.”

“I don’t know if I’m into that.” I wrinkled my nose.

“It’ll be fine.” He reassured, hand snaking over to grab mine, bringing my wrist up to press a kiss to the inside of it.

I had to stop myself from letting an embarrassing sound come out of my mouth, one step underneath swooning. “Will you come with me?”

Harry tilted his head.“I already assumed I was. Boyfriend privileges, yeah?”

I shifted in my seat, pulling my wrist away from Harry’s and tapping my fingertips along my thighs. “I didn’t know if you’d want to. Your life is filled with enough of these stupid press events, I didn’t want to add another when you’re supposed to be off.”

He looked less than impressed by that assumption. “My excitement is paramount, what part of that don’t you understand?”

“All of it, jerkface.” I jabbed him in the ribs, before diverting. “Now what part of the verse isn’t working?”

Harry sighed, before launching into a tale of chord progressions and 4/4 time beats, which I successfully tuned out, but I liked watching his mouth move as he talked.



It was always airports. Airports were the worst place in the entire world for paparazzi and fans, and it didn’t make sense to me. For a place so strict on TSA guideline and security codes once inside the building, outside was chaos.

I’d been working on blocking everyone out the entirety of the trip, focusing on Harry and Harry only, but I knew it was going to be bad when the car rounded the bend into LAX and Harry took in a breath, mouth falling open as his hands went up to nervously scratch at the back of his neck.

I closed my eyes and inhaled, holding it in my lungs as the car slowed down and the noise outside got louder.

“There’s a more private entrance,” Harry directed. “Let’s take that.”

“They’re going to get you anywhere you go in, H,” George pointed out. “The paps are everywhere.”

Harry let out an aggravated sigh.

“Where is it easiest to go in?” I asked, snapping my eyes open and sitting up straighter in my seat. “Like, quickest?”

“Side private entrance, but there are still people over there.” George answered. “We can get you in quick, and then come back for your luggage while you guys check in and go through security.”

“I only have a carry on. We might as well just get it over with.”

“Ezra--” Harry started.

“They already know we’re here. We just have to get it over with, right? Just in and out and then we can get on the plane and they can’t touch us there.”

“We’ll be around you the entire time.” George promised. “Just a straight shot through.”

“Okay.” I agreed, steeling myself for this. “Let’s do it.”

“Ez, are you sure?” Harry asked skeptically, before cursing. “We should’ve just gone at separate times, thrown them off--”

“I have to get used to this sometime, don’t I? Let’s just go.”

He raised the hands that we had clasped together, pressing a kiss to the back of my hand, before he exhaled deeply and unbuckled his seatbelt as we pulled up to the curb.

Harry had exits and entrances down to a science. His movements were calculated, the placement of his sunglasses and the muscles in his arm as he pulled the door open, slung his duffle bag over his shoulder, and pointedly kept his head down.

Except now he was waiting for me. George was waiting the second I slid over in the seat, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and grabbing my carry-on bag, holding it tight in one fist as he set his face and started moving forwards.

They were everywhere.

Camera flashes and screaming and clapping and the sound of feet against pavement as they tried to surge forward, to touch him and grab him and hold onto any piece that they could. This was Harry Styles, but he wasn’t a human being to them right now. He was Harry Styles, member of One Direction. He was Harry Styles, dude I’ve reblogged a thousand photos of. Harry Styles, paragon of everything I could ever want in a boy.

“No time for pictures, have a flight to catch,” Steve announced, pulling Harry through the throng of fans, and Harry grinned and apologized and waved, and then his head turned just a fraction, to glance back at me, and they started screaming again.

I’d never heard my name said so many times at once in so many levels. The good thing about them all screaming at once was that it was practically impossible to discern what they were saying. The bad thing was that it was piercing and already forming a headache behind the eyes.

We made it into the airport and through the crowd in less than five minutes under the forceful pushing and prodding of security, into the private entrance and into the private TSA screening room, where the soundproof doors and buildings hushed everything from the outside.

Harry leaned against the wall as George made sure we were alright.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, face tense. “Again.”

I waved him away and turned towards the TSA agent.



“I just got a text from my producer at Tongue in Cheek,” I told Harry, sitting in the private lounge area in LAX as we waited for our flight to be announced. “And there’s a feature they want to put out just as the magazine releases, I guess, but they need me to film for like an hour for it, so would it be possible for you to just drop me off at the studio?”

“You’re gonna go from an eleven hour flight straight to filming?” Harry asked incredulously, concern filling his voice as he knocked his knee into mine. “Aren’t you gonna be dead?”

“I’m gonna try and sleep on the plane.” I had soundproof headphones and a melatonin pill, so my chances higher than normal. “And I’ve been off for like two weeks, this won’t kill me.”

Harry templed his hands underneath his chin, blowing out a gust of air as he thought. “I can just run you by there and then pick up breakfast before picking you up and going home?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Harry nodded. “We’re gonna be starving when we get out.”

“All right.” I grinned at him, and then because the private lounge was almost empty, except for a few businessmen, I reached over to press a kiss to the side of his mouth. “Sorted.”



I slept minimal amounts on the plane, but more than usual. The headphones and the sleeping pill and the little first class pod definitely helped, especially for twelve hours of flying, and when we landed, I only demanded one cup of coffee before heading over to Tongue in Cheek.

Harry’d spent the entire flight thumbing through a nonfiction anthology and watching a few documentaries, but even though he should’ve been tired, he claimed he wasn’t. He even went so far as to demand walking me into the Tongue in Cheek studios, carrying my bag.

“Thank you for escorting me inside,” I nodded my head at Harry as we made it through the Tongue in Cheek doors, into the main shooting studio, where it was relatively empty, save for ZZ, Alfie, and a few more crew members.

“Just wanted to make sure that you made it alright.” Harry grinned. “And I like this place.” He nodded to ZZ, who was eyeing the both of us with interesting, before looking back down at me. “An hour, yeah?”

“Yup.Text you when I’m out.” I vowed, and then, after a quick glance around and only seeing people I felt I could trust, stretched up to press a quick kiss to Harry’s lips. He held it longer, hand sprawling out along the small of my back, holding me there as I melted against him. Too many seconds later, I forced myself to pull away from Harry slowly, even though it hurt to pull out of the carefree LA mindset. If London’s rainy skies and awful December weather wasn’t enough to remind me that I was back home, the leering laughter of everyone in the studio as Harry and I kissed was.

“Don’t go,” he murmured, lips so close they brushed mine.

“I have to,” I laughed, and pressed a hand to his chest to force some distance between us. “It’s a hour of filming, it’s nothing.”

He made a face, but finally obliged as we both pulled away. “I’ll be back in an hour. With breakfast burritos.” With a wave and a twirl of his keys, Harry said goodbye to everyone at the studio and disappeared into the hallway.

“Let’s film something,” I announced, trying to wipe the stupid smile off of my face as Harry left, turning towards ZZ.

Alfie rolled his eyes so hard I thought they were going to leave his head. “Yes, let’s,” He agreed, shaking his head with a small snarl. “Some of us have places to be do today and things to do that don’t revolve around Ezra Callil.”

“Dude,” ZZ warned, butting in and side-eyeing him before I could. “Don’t shit on things. Now let me fix up Ez and we can go.”

I followed ZZ to her makeup chair in front of a mirror and her pile of cosmetics and brushes.

“How’re things?” She asked, before, in our usual ritual, examining my face and frowning, before darting her hand out for a product and a brush. “How was Christmas? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Things are…” I struggled to find the right words, before, in a rush of maybe traveling exhaustion or maybe residual vacation happiness, laughing contentedly. “Things are good. Or, I think they’re going to be. It was shit for a while - and yes, you’re going to hear all about that, you can berate me for not telling you later - but I think, maybe, things are starting to be good.”

ZZ’s smile moved into my view as she started to dot foundation along my face. “Good. You deserve to be happy.”



www.tumblr.com/tagged/hezra

holy fucking shit

do you think someone actually leaked the pictures or it was just management?

well at least now they can stop denying it

so there’s pictures of them kissing that doesn’t prove shit

that’s so awkward tho like someone just posted the pictures on Twitter without saying anything and @ replied harry and ezra with them like is it blackmail??

I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON ANYMORE BUT HEZRA KISSING

where even are they?? like at some studio? is that Tongue in Cheek??

HEZRA FOREVER

she’s so cute like she has to reach up to kiss him and his hand on her back like holding her to him i’m all heart eyes i ship it so hard

god they look fucking awful together it’s horrendous

ezra callil is nowhere near attractive enough for him she looks like a wet rat most of the time harry do better

the piCTURES OH MY GOD FINALLY

ofc pictures of them leaked how cliche smh

and the shit storm starts in 3, 2, 1 my dash is a MESS