Bloom

November

“Mom, for the billionth time, I’m not going to call Dad.”

“Why not? I would be good for you, honey. For both of you.”

I was already uncomfortable with the fact that my parents had been in contact for the last two years, and I’d only found out about just before I left New York. And even then, it was because I walked in on her talking to him over the phone about my decision to study abroad. There was no way I was going to just call up the person who’d been nothing but a photograph and two cards a year (one on my birthday, one on Christmas) for my entire life.

“Because I don’t even know him!” I exclaimed, falling back on my bed. Because of the time difference, my conversations with Mom usually took place either really early in the morning (well, like nine, which I considered very early) or late at night. I’d been woken by her call on this particular morning, and had yet to get out of bed.

“The fact that you are living in the same country is the perfect reason to get to know your father, Imogen Rose,” Mom said. I imagined her standing in our tiny kitchen, her favourite mug with the chipped rim clutched in one hand while she frowned at the opposite wall. We’d painted them yellow before I left. Every few months, Mom and I changed something about the apartment, whether it was the colour of the walls or the way the furniture was organized in a certain room. When I was fifteen, we went to Ikea and bought a bunch of frames for her paintings, which now hung about the apartment instead of being stacked in the corner of her makeshift studio (i.e., half of the living room).

“Fine, I don’t want to know him. And don’t pull the whole middle name on me, Mom, you know it hasn’t worked since I was eight.”

She clicked her tongue. “Imogen, honey, I know that if you just give him a chance that you wouldn’t regret it. You two are so alike. I don’t want you to go on knowing that you had the opportunity to have a relationship with your father and you refused to seize it.”

The whole similarity thing was something my mother had been saying for years. I’d always known that she and I weren’t very alike, because my affinity for numbers and her skill with a paintbrush obviously weren’t connected. I knew that my dad was a professor at the University of Manchester in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, and that he was just as analytical and fascinated by the same things as I was.

“I’ll think about it,” I said begrudgingly.

“Thank you, honey,” she sighed, obviously relieved I wasn’t going to fight her on this. “Now that we’ve got that over with, how are you? Anything interesting happen?“

I had a minor war flashback to (nearly) breaking Harry Styles’s iPhone — although I’d decided that if it had broken, it would be his fault, since he didn’t even have a case for the damned thing. I mean, I had the same phone and if I could be bothered to shell out £18 on a case with a cat wearing sunglasses on it then surely Harry Styles could too (preferably one that didn’t have a cat wearing sunglasses).

But I knew that Mom was really asking me if I was still hanging out with Nick Grimshaw, because she didn’t approve of our friendship. It had nothing to do with his character, but I imagined she’d find him quite tiresome, but was entirely centred around his choice of hairstyle. Mom had been adamantly opposed to quiffs since a favourite student in one of her art classes showed up with one and decided soon afterward he was going to stop painting and become a spoken word artist.

“Went to a birthday party on Saturday. I saw Florence Welch, which was amazing. But I also walked into Harry Styles, which definitely wasn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of that last one,” she said, and I groaned. Mom was supposed to be uncool and not understand my pop culture references. Then again, One Direction could arguably be considered common knowledge. “Sings in that band, the one Beckett’s little sister likes.”

My entire body tensed up. “Yeah, that one,” I managed to say, once my heart rate had gone back to normal.

“Have you spoken to Beckett, honey? I thought you two ended on a good note, but he showed up at the door asking for a way to contact you. I gave him your number, you must have forgotten to do it before you left. He seemed very distraught, Imogen, I hope nothing’s wrong.”

That explained the frequent calls, texts, and voicemails I’d been receiving lately. “I don’t really want to talk to him, Mom,” I said, keeping my voice level. “Fresh start, remember?”

“Oh, I know, honey, I just thought that you two would keep in touch. He was so charming, and—“

“I’m not getting back together with him,” I said quickly. “Fresh start. Clean slate.”

Mom sighed. “Tabula rasa, I know. Sorry if I’ve upset you, it wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s fine,” I said, feeling more tired than I had when her call woke me up fifteen minutes ago. “I’m gonna go back to sleep, okay?

“Okay. Love you, honey.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

Since I didn’t have class until three, I figured sleeping was the perfect way to spend the rest of this rainy Tuesday morning. I set an alarm on my phone and turned on the ‘do not disturb’ function, then buried beneath the covers.

Only three hours had passed before someone started banging on my door like there was a fire. Realistically, it was probably Silas looking for somewhere to nap in between classes or for me to have lunch with him. Silas knew plenty of people at university, but didn't consider that many of them friends. Apparently I was the easiest to get along with (aside from Matt, but they saw enough of each other at their shared apartment) and so Silas came to find me at least three times a week for "bonding" time. I was entirely convinced he'd memorized my schedule. 

As I'd expected, Silas was standing in the hall looking ten shades of nervous. He took in my appearance — smudged eyeliner, dark hair a tangled mess, and only underwear and a haphazardly buttoned flannel adorning my frame — and groaned. 

"You aren't ready yet?" He demanded, stampeding into my room and throwing open my wardrobe. Silas flung a pair of jeans at me and they hit me square in the chest before dropping to the floor. “Do you ever wear trousers?”

“I was in bed,” I defended. I shut the door and picked up the jeans, pulling them on and fastening the button, then placed my hands on my hips.

“Yesterday you weren’t wearing any when I came by, and it was five o’clock.”

“Whatever. And what am I supposed to be ready for, anyway?” I asked. "Are we going somewhere?”

"Brunch," Silas replied gruffly. His eyes surveyed my chest in an entirely objective manner. "Are you wearing a bra?" 

With furrowed brows I went and checked my phone, only to see a text from Nick insisting my presence at his favourite brunch restaurant (it was French and absolutely amazing). There were also about eight from Silas, all of which I ignored. 

“Fine, but you don’t get to choose what shirt I’m wearing.”

Silas raised an eyebrow. “As long as it doesn’t have any siracha stains on it, I’m not complaining.”

“That was one time,” I stressed, shoving his lanky frame away from my wardrobe. Silas busied himself with flipping through a notebook on my desk while I rummaged through my clothes for something suitable to wear. Although I didn’t doubt that Nick would be wearing some ratty t-shirt and a wrinkled button-down, I at least wanted to look presentable in front of the attractive French waiters.

I stripped off my flannel and put on a bra, then glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Silas wasn’t mucking up my notes. Instead, I found him staring at my side with interest. My eyes darted down to the lines inked there, and I brushed my fingertips over the tattoo self-consciously.

“What?”

“Nothing, just didn’t know you had a tattoo,” Silas replied with a shrug. “What is it?”

“Leo — the, uh, constellation. It’s my sign.”

Silas snorted. “That is so fucking you to have a bloody constellation tattoo. I bet you have a pi symbol too.”

“Come on, I’m not that much of a nerd,” I said. But Silas just smirked, so I huffed and turned back to my wardrobe.

I’d only looked through about three items when Silas whined, so I grabbed the next piece of fabric and tugged it over my head. It was a cream sweater, and the sleeves had stretched beyond my fingertips so I cuffed them to my wrists. Silas at least let me wash my face and remove the smudged eyeliner, but made a lot of impatient noises as I applied thin dark lines above my lashes.

“Okay, okay, we can go now,” I said, rolling my eyes. Silas grinned and made a comment about how I wasn’t wearing black for once, then skipped happily out the door with me just behind him.

Café Augustin was definitely the most hipster French restaurant ever, which was why Nick liked it so much. It was one huge space: half-restaurant, half-coffee shop. Upon entry you could either go to the sleek white bar where they served some of the best coffee I’d ever tasted — and I was from New York — or stand at the host’s podium and wait to be seated in the restaurant side. The coffee shop side had communal seating, but the restaurant was made up of individual tables that could be pushed together to accommodate varying group sizes. Bare light fixtures hung from the ceiling and there was abstract art hanging everywhere, and the whole place was really just waiting to get converted into an Urban Outfitters.

I spotted Nick immediately, seated at a table along the exposed brick wall. Silas was making a beeline for him, and I quickened my pace to keep up with his long strides. Only when we’d gotten within fifteen feet of the table was I able to recognize the curls poking out from beneath the bright blue beanie of the person sitting across from Nick.

In true Grimshaw fashion, Nick leapt up as we approached and hugged Silas briefly before throwing his arms around me and practically shouting my name. A few people glanced over, but I was too accustomed to Nick’s behaviour by now to be embarrassed. “I didn’t think you were coming!”

Apparently Harry Styles didn’t either. Once Nick had pranced back to his seat (leaving me next to Harry, to my absolute horror) I noticed the frown on Harry’s face that was apparently reserved just for me. I wanted to reach out and smooth the crease between his eyebrows, but kept my hands glued to my sides.

My rucksack made a loud thud when I dropped it onto the sandblasted hardwood floor and sat down, making Silas grin knowingly. The other two just looked confused, and probably hadn’t realized that it was just a bag that caused a miniature earthquake. I glanced at Harry while removing my coat, but he’d taken to staring into his coffee cup like it held the answers to the universe. Sometimes I thought that coffee did too.

“Oh, shit, you two do know each other, don’t you?” Nick asked suddenly. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could feel the tension radiating between Harry and I all the way on his side of the table. “Alexa’s party. Don’t tell me you didn’t actually get introduced?”

“Um,” Harry spit out, tongue darting across his pink lips. “Not, like, officially.”

Silas, who’d heard about my first encounter with Harry through Jillian, snorted. I scowled at him. But if I wanted to get through this brunch — which I did, because I really wanted crêpes — I’d need to at least try and avoid being a total dork in front of Harry. Again.

“What does officially mean?” I asked, and Harry finally looked up at me. He was still frowning, but it was a start. “Do we have to, like, shake hands? Should I curtsey?”

Both Nick and Silas were grinning foolishly, but Harry had yet to crack a smile. Had I known he had absolutely no sense of humour then maybe I would’ve taken a different route, but it was my default response, and now I was stuck with it.

“I’m Imogen, by the way. In case you didn’t hear Grimshaw screech my name earlier.”

“I did not screech,” Nick said indignantly. I raised an eyebrow at him, and his scowl shifted into a smirk.

“You did a bit,” I replied.

Harry had yet to say anything directly to me, and the waiter appeared with coffee and to take our orders. I knew I wanted crêpes, but Silas hadn’t actually looked at the menu yet and ordered the first thing he saw — Eggs Florentine. After Nick assured him that the Hollandaise sauce at Café Augustin was impeccable, he seemed at ease with his decision. Both Nick and Harry ordered waffles, but Nick got his with wild berries and yogurt and Harry got bananas and whipped cream.

When with Nick Grimshaw, there was never more than a few minutes of silence. I think being a radio presenter made it necessary for him to be talking at least seventy-five percent of the time, even outside work. But the only person actually paying attention was Silas, since Harry had gone back to a silent conversation with his coffee and I was too busying trying to remember whether or not I’d grabbed my Mechanics notebook in the haste to leave my room (no thanks to Silas).

Once I checked my bag and saw that the notebook was there, I tried listening in on Nick and Silas’s conversation, but they were back to talking about Hollandaise sauce again. With a surreptitious glance at Harry, I figured there was no harm in trying to initiate a conversation.

“I like your boots,” I said, since it was the first thing that popped into my head. They were dark brown and suede, the fabric at the heels and toes darker and worn down.

Harry, who probably wasn’t expecting me to talk to him, swivelled his head around to blink at me in surprise. “Uh, thanks.”

For somebody whose job was to sing in front of people and sound at least sort of eloquent in public and in interviews, he was terrible at speaking. He took an eternity to get one word out, and his voice reminded me of molasses with all it’s viscosity. Even I was better at talking than him, and I was constantly reminding myself not to call everyone ‘dude.’

Then, and I couldn’t say which one of us was more surprised, Harry actually spoke to me of his own volition. Or maybe it was just politeness after receiving a compliment, but I was going to stick to the former. “I like your rucksack.”

“It’s probably the most expensive thing I own,” I admitted, eager to continue the conversation. Harry kept his eyes on me the entire time, the muscles in his jaw twitching every now and then. “I’m super cheap when it comes to buying stuff. Most of my clothes are second hand or from inexpensive stores, but I saw that bag and I couldn’t help myself. It’s the only thing aside from those hardcore backpacks for, like, hiking and stuff that can actually carry all my shit.”

Harry smiled, and even though it was mostly likely in response to my rambling and not the actual content of what I was saying, I felt something reminiscent of an adrenaline rush. It’s amazing how much a smile can change somebody’s face, making even the air around them a little bit lighter. He’d spent almost every second in my presence either looking very uncomfortable or paying me no attention, but this little glimpse at his real personality was enough to make me want to see it more.

Our food arrived a few minutes later, and I could feel the tension between Harry and I diminishing with every word or glance exchanged. I kept the subject strictly away from Astrophysics, but I was delighted to find that Harry had been to New York on several occasions and had payed enough attention to his surroundings to carry a conversation about it.

“Brooklyn,” he mused, as though tasting the way the word sounded crossing his lips. I’d never admit it, but I’d never liked the word more. Harry carefully cut his waffles into sections before loading on the bananas and whipped cream and shovelling a forkful into his mouth. “I’ve been on the Brooklyn Bridge, if that counts.”

“You get half points,” I informed him. “Next time you’re there I recommend the Flea.”

“Flea?”

“Flea market. Basically a bunch of tents selling all this great stuff, from vintage clothing to some really awesome food. There’s lots of antiques too, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

Nick, who had apparently been listening in, couldn’t help but put in his two cents. “I bet you’re a hardcore antiquer, Imogen.”

“My mom is,” I said, popping a strawberry into my mouth. “She likes finding really ostentatious frames for her art.”

Silas snorted. Ever since I’d told him and the others that my mom was an art teacher, they still laughed every time I brought it up. It was a bit weird that I had an artist for a mother, but my dad was an engineering professor so I liked to think it evened out. I realized that this was also the first time Nick was hearing about my mother’s painting, which explained the look of disbelief on his face.

“Your mother is a painter?” he asked. Silas nodded enthusiastically, stifling another giggle.

I rolled my eyes. “Where do you think I got my fashion sense from?”

“Touché,” Nick replied with a nod. “You are the embodiment of the starving artist trope.”

“Except with zero artistic ability,” Silas added. Nick grinned at him, and I could see the blush rise up Silas’s neck.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said with a wave of my hand. “At least I’m going to have a career when I get out of university.”

“That’s low, Imogen, even for you,” Silas said with narrowed eyes.

I smiled innocently. “Sorry. I do make fun of your degree a bit much, don’t I?”

“I say I’m better prepared than Jillian. Philosophy. Ha!” Silas scoffed.

By the end of brunch, I’d managed to get a few more sentences out of Harry. He still frowned eighty percent of the time, but I didn’t expect him to just suddenly act like I was his best friend. I had class in just over an hour, and Silas needed to speak with one of his professors, so we settled on heading to campus together.

“Paps,” Nick muttered, nodding toward the restaurant entrance. Surely enough, there were at least a dozen men stationed on the sidewalk holding cameras.

Harry sighed, casting the rest of the table an apologetic look. “Sorry about this,” he said. “If you want to avoid getting labeled as my new girlfriend, you and Silas should probably leave separately.”

“And I was really looking forward to getting blinded by camera flashes,” I replied with a dramatic sigh, attempting to lighten the mood.

But Harry didn’t smile. “I haven’t got control over it,” he said, the irritation rumbling in his voice. “D’you think I like it when they show up everywhere and make assumptions about my life? Not everything is a joke.”

I swallowed, quickly averting my eyes from Harry’s face. I fumbled with my wallet, ignoring Silas’s searching gaze and Nick’s frown, pulling out the correct change. “I guess I’ll just go then,” I said, glancing once at Silas to make sure he was still coming with me.

Once he’d counted out his money, I’d already donned my coat and rucksack. I bounced on the balls of my feet, looking everywhere but at Harry. And here I’d thought I’d been making progress, only to say exactly the wrong thing and get sent back to square one. Maybe next time I’d be lucky enough to at least know ahead of time if he was just going to show up wherever I was. That way I could get used to thinking first before I opened my mouth or, God forbid, watch where I was going to avoid walking straight into him again.