Bloom

April

There are many benefits of having a millionaire for a boyfriend, and one of them is the massive fucking house with top shelf appliances, Netflix, cleaning service, and a bed straight from heaven. I hadn’t worn trousers in three days, my skin was soft and smooth from the expensive lotion I’d found in Harry’s bathroom cabinet, and there was enough espresso in the pantry to last a lifetime. The only thing that could’ve made these two weeks before classes and tour and everything else better was if Harry wasn’t stuck in rehearsals and meetings all the goddamn time. I had no idea how much planning actually went into a world tour, but apparently it was a lot, and that meant I was left to wander around Harry’s house and watch all of Friends just because I had nothing else to do.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. I’d also been looking into summer research opportunities and internships, doing preliminary studying for exams in June, and brushing up on my baking skills.

Jillian showed up one afternoon while Harry was filming some intro video for the tour (he sent me a photo of himself in scuba gear), armed with junk food and home spa treatments, and said we were having a ladies day. She took two steps into the house, saw my shoes littering the foyer and my two coats hung in the closet, right in there with all of Harry’s things, and raised her eyebrows. Her expression didn’t falter as we went further inside, passing the dishes crowded around the sink and the coffee machine mid-brew, and the excess of yogurt containers lying around. I didn’t know if she was waiting to comment, or if she was going to — for once in her life — stay silent about something, but that was answered when we arrived in the living room, where I’d spent most of the last few days.

I’d collected most of the pillows in the house on the sofa, along with several blankets, and there were books and notes and rulers and pencils scattered across the coffee table, coffee rings decorating almost every visible page. I didn’t realize how bad it looked until she was standing there next to me, eyebrows all the way up by her hairline and her lips parted.

“Maybe I should’ve made you leave the house instead of coming here,” she said. “Care to explain why you’ve been living like a recluse?”

“I’m not a recluse,” I objected, dropping onto the mass of pillows and hauling one into my lap. It was my soft, squishy shield against Jillian’s verbal wrath. “Harry lives here too.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” She glanced around. “I was worried about you hiding after lunch the other day, but I wasn’t expecting this.”

I didn’t dare Google my name or Harry’s. I didn’t want to know what the world thought about us having lunch and getting into the same car afterwards. Harry hadn’t mentioned anything, so I’d just assumed there was nothing too worrisome. Jillian’s face hinted otherwise.

“How is this any different from my normal behaviour?”

Jillian considered this. “Fair point. But I’m still worried about you. Living at Harry’s like this — it’s like your life revolves around him.”

That hit me hard. I held onto the pillow tighter, reminding myself that this time it was different, that my life wasn’t being dictated by somebody else. But what did me holing myself up in Harry’s house say? I’d never thought about it as anything other than there being nice stuff here, and I wouldn’t have to commute between Astor and Hampstead all the time. We wanted to spend time together before he left. This took out the middle man, as it were.

“It doesn’t—“ I faltered over my words, not sure how I was supposed to explain it to her. “It’s not like that. I’m just staying here. He’s leaving soon and it’s not like anyone’s asked to hang out, except for you. Silas has Nick, Matt and Penny are spending all this time together, I don’t know anybody else.”

“That’s it. We’re going out.” Jillian stood up and marched back toward the door. I scrambled after her, sliding along the hardwood in my socks.

“Where?” I asked dumbly as she flung my denim jacket at me. At least I’d had the forethought to put on a pair of leggings this morning.

“Oxford Street. The Natural History Museum. Fucking Greenwich. I don’t care.”

I had to go back to Harry’s room to get my phone, and threw it along with my keys and wallet into my purse and met her back at the door. She’d texted Silas and asked if he was round at Nick’s, which he was, and it had been decided that the five of us — Tatiana was the surprise fifth member, as Silas was making a conscious effort to spend more time with his sister — were going to go for a walk in Primrose Hill.

When we got to the park, I spotted Nick and Silas walking hand in hand with Puppy trotting along on a lead, Tatiana a step behind them on her phone. She almost smiled when we came up to them, tucking her phone into the pocket of her sleek leather jacket. “Hello, my lovelies!” Nick cried, smiling widely behind his sunglasses. “You’re looking a bit peaky there, Imogen. When was the last time you were outside?”

I glared at him.

But Nick’s grin turned wicked. “Spending a bit too much time with dear Harold, I think. Soon you’ll have your very own section in the Daily Mail.”

This time, all of us — even Tatiana — glared. Nick sighed, apologized for going a step too far, and we moved on. I found myself between Tatiana and Jillian, the latter had her arm linked with mine like she was worried I’d run off and hide in the shadows of the big trees. I knew people recognized Nick wherever he went, especially when he wore three different prints at once.

“Um, how are you?” I asked Tatiana, because I could feel the awkwardness growing between us and I wanted to stomp down on it before it became unbearable.

“Fine,” she answered, and for a second I was worried that would be the end of it. “You?”

“I’m good.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“I like your jacket,” she said.

If it weren’t for Jillian’s iron grip on my arm, I probably would’ve fallen over. “Are you serious?” I blinked at her, not quite believing the compliment. She raised an eyebrow at me, then nodded. “Finally. I have been waiting for so long for someone to agree that this is a great jacket.”

“Is it vintage?”

I nodded. “Flea market in Brooklyn.”

Tatiana appraised the jacket again. “You know, sometimes I wish I had the guts to wear stuff like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t act like you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. I frowned, not understanding. “You wear H&M when you go out and you have that ridiculous grey coat and still manage to make it look cool. While the rest of us are spending hundreds of pounds on t-shirts, you find one in a bargain bin and it’s just the same as ours. You don’t give a shit about what anyone else is wearing, or if they’re looking at you.”

“I absolutely give a shit,” I said. “I just don’t see the point in wasting your money on stuff that doesn’t matter in the end, and that usually wins over in the looking cool department. And besides, if the people you care about are judging you based on how much your shirt costs, maybe you shouldn’t be hanging out with them.”

On my other side, Jillian snorted. “Oh, babe, you’re still so new to this world.”

Tatiana’s face told me she thought the same. “But don’t let it change you, yeah? The rest of us are lost causes.”

“Does that make me a collector of lost causes?” Nick asked, looking at us over his shoulder.

“We’re all friends with Silas, not you,” Jillian retorted. I grinned.

Silas looked horrified. “I’m not a collector. That’s creepy.”

“Never said it wasn’t.”

“I am serious, though,” Tatiana continued, once Nick and Silas had gone back to their own conversation. “I think you’re good for all of us. I know you and I don’t hang out much, but I can see it in the others. Harry especially. As hard as it is to say this, Darcy was keeping him from getting better. She was probably making him worse.”

Out of all the people I expected to pay attention to — not to mention willingly bring up in conversation when one of her best friends had been sleeping with him — Harry and his wellbeing, Tatiana was not one of them. She’d even admitted to her friend’s bad influence in the process, which surprised me even more. Tatiana had never seemed like the type to betray one of her own.

But maybe Darcy wasn’t part of that group and we were, only we hadn’t seen it.

“He’s a miserable fucker anyway,” Jillian added. “Imo’s only slightly brightened his spirits.”

I rolled my eyes, elbowing her in the side. “Gee, thanks.”

“I’ve got your back, babe.”

Silas and Nick stopped at the edge of the park. “Shall we go ‘round again?” Nick asked.

Before anyone could answer, there was a gasp from somewhere behind me. I saw Nick shift into Grimmy, his face arranging itself into a friendly smile as he handed Puppy’s leash to Silas, prepared for the inevitable string of selfies.

“You’re Grimmy!” said one of the girls. They were only a few years younger than Jillian and I, dressed in ripped jeans and grubby flannels, band t-shirts peeking out from between the mismatched buttons.

“I am indeed,” Nick answered.

“Could we get a picture?”

Suddenly a phone was being thrust at me (I happened to be the closest one standing to the girls) and Nick was standing between them, arms over their shoulders. I took a few pictures, then the tallest of the three had a revelation.

“You’re dating Harry Styles!”

I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know that Silas, Jillian, and Tatiana, standing a few feet away, were suddenly paying attention. People wanting photos with Nick was old news. People recognizing me had been happening for a little while, but it was still shocking every time.

“Um,” I stammered, quickly handing the phone back to the red-haired girl and thrusting my hands into my pockets. “That’s um, not really—“

“Friendship is often misinterpreted these days,” Nick sighed dramatically. “Isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, relieved that he’d jumped in.

“Didn’t Harry and Sasha Blackwell split up when he went on tour last time?” the tall girl asked. Who exactly she’d directed the question to, I wasn’t sure. My heart was racing and my hands were curled into fists in my pockets, the fact that they were carrying on with this conversation while we were still standing here was astonishing.

“They did, yeah,” said the third girl.

“Are you worried it’s going to happen to you?” the tall one asked me.

“Come on, we’ve got to get back,” Nick interrupted, before I could start stumbling over my words and accidentally say something true. “Lovely meeting you girls. Have a nice day.”

The red head waved, but the other two regarded me with curious expressions until we’d crossed the street. Jillian latched herself onto my side again, Tatiana looked sympathetic as she scrolled through Twitter on her phone, and Silas walked ahead with the dog while Nick fell into step next to Jillian and I.

“All right there, girl?”

“Fine.”

“You know you’ve got nothing to be worried about, right?” he asked. I glanced over, something in my expression giving away that I was really very worried, even if I didn’t want to be. “Harry wouldn’t let your relationship fall apart because of a few thousand miles. Not after everything you went through to get to this stage.”

He was right, and we both knew it, but I was going to worry anyway, even without teenage girls pointing it out to me in the park on an unseasonably warm Tuesday afternoon. I was going to worry because that’s what happens when you think too much. It was in my nature, and I was still learning to accept it.

“I’m not going to let go of him that easily either,” I said.

We all ended up going to Nick’s, and suddenly Pixie and Alexa were coming over and Nick was planning what to make for dinner, and I found myself sitting in the living room next to Silas wondering how I’d gotten here.

“Right,” Nick said, striding into the living room. “I’ve just texted Harry to pick up some stuff from the supermarket on his way here. Silas had to go and eat all the bacon this morning, and now I can’t make carbonara.”

“How was I supposed to know we were having people over!” Silas cried, glaring accusingly at his boyfriend.

Nick’s grin was smug. “We?”

Silas immediately started blushing, as he tried (and failed) to hide behind me. “Er, I only meant…like, how I was here this morning…”

“Oh leave him alone,” Jillian said, coming up behind him and slapping him on the arm. Nick yelped, scowled at Jillian, then stomped back into the kitchen.

Next to me, Silas sighed. “I guess I’d better go and sort that out. Otherwise he’ll be too grumpy to cook.”

“He was the one being annoying in the first place!” I exclaimed. “The oldest one here and he still manages to be the most immature.”

“He has to make up for the maturity and cynicism we’ve developed in our young age,” Silas replied dryly, before standing up and going to “sort out” his boyfriend.

“You look exhausted,” Jillian observed from the armchair across from me.

At her comment, I let out a yawn and stretched out on the suddenly much more welcoming and cozy couch, letting my eyes flutter shut. “That walk was the most exercise I’ve had in a week.”

“Ah, yes, another side affect to you becoming a hermit. If you don’t get regular exercise and spend more time outside, you’re going to get fat.”

“Okay, first of all, you don’t have to be so rude about it,” I began, tilting my head to the side so I could stare her down. “And second, I’ve gotten along perfectly well my entire life not exercising.”

“That’s only because you forget to eat.”

“Then what’s changed?”

“Uh, maybe that Harry's got a fully stocked kitchen?”

I snorted. “Harry’s kitchen is a wasteland where food goes to die. Why do you think he eats out so much?”

“But he’s got all those fancy appliances!”

“I know, it’s unbelievable. He’s totally useless.”

“Who’s totally useless?” Harry asked, sauntering in from the foyer with a plastic bag dangling from his right hand. He was still in his coat, but had taken off his boots, and there was a sizeable rip in the left knee of his black jeans.

“You,” Jillian said, pleased, before I could think of a random name. I glared at her and contemplated throwing the only loose item I had on me, my phone, and then thought better of it.

Harry glanced between us, frown puckering his lips and pulling his eyebrows together, then wandered over to where I was laying and leaned over the side of the couch until his face hovered a few inches above mine, hands and plastic back tucked behind his back.

“D’you think I’m useless?” His voice wasn’t quite a whisper, but sent a shiver down my spine anyway.

“Yes, you are incredibly useless,” I answered. “I mean, you have zero talents other than singing. You can’t even walk in a straight line.”

“That’s what you think, is it?”

I smirked up at him. “Absolutely.”

“No snogging!” Jillian cried.

“Who’s snogging?”

It seemed that inopportune arrival was the theme of the day. Harry groaned, standing up straight and sending me an apologetic look as he escaped to the kitchen, just as Pixie and Alexa burst in. So much for me being the one to run from conflict. Maybe we had been spending too much time together.

They looked between Jillian and I, awaiting explanation. “Harry’s my—“

“I fucking knew it,” Pixie said, before I could finish. I felt a wave of relief, because Pixie had inadvertently stopped me from calling Harry my boyfriend before we’d even discussed labelling the relationship. She looked at Alexa. “You owe me ten quid.”

My jaw hung open in disbelief. “You made a bet on us?”

Alexa rolled her eyes and got out her wallet. “Pixie thinks you two’ve been together for months. I told her you were too smart to be with a guy like him.”

“They weren’t properly together,” Jillian said, as Pixie sat on the arm of the chair she was sprawled across and I sat up so there was room for Alexa on the couch. “So you were right about her being smart. She didn’t commit until she knew he was ready to.”

“When you say it like that, it makes the whole thing sound a lot less painful and confusing. I had no idea what I was doing,” I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain it to them, but maybe it was because things were all okay now, and talking about it was good.

Harry took a few steps into the room from the kitchen. “Is it safe now?”

“Were you listening in?” Alexa asked.

“No, I was getting lectured at by Grim about how unsupportive I am.”

“Useless and unsupportive,” I said, sitting up and shaking my head. “Remind me why I decided to date you?”

Harry frowned, taking off his jacket as he crossed the room to me. He sat on my other side, threw an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in, then pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “I’ve no idea,” he admitted. “But I’m glad you did.”

My heartbeat drowned out the ‘awwwws’ that came from everyone else in the room.

##

“Where are you going? I’ve got the day off and I want to spend all of it in bed,” Harry mumbled, half of his face obscured by a pillow as he blinked blearily at me. It was just after nine o’clock, and I’d gotten a text last night from Penny asking if we could get coffee together this morning. Since I hadn’t heard from her or Matt in a few days, I said yes half out of sheer curiosity.

“Meeting Penny,” I said, wriggling into a pair of jeans and doing the button. I sauntered around the bed and sat down next to Harry, running my fingers through his hair and pushing it away from his forehead. “I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

He hummed, eyes fluttering shut. “D’you have to?”

“Yes, Harry, she’s my friend. And I think she wants to talk about Matt.”

One of Harry’s eyes opened, a smirk spreading across his face. “D’you really think you’re qualified to be giving relationship advice? You don’t know what you’re doing half the time.”

I drew my hand back and slapped his arm with the other one, suddenly offended, even though he had a point. “I don’t know what I’m doing? You’re the one who purposely goes out of your way to not date people, even when you like them.”

“Clearly I didn’t do a very good job.” Harry slid a hand up my thigh and squeezed my hip.

I rolled my eyes. “Clearly. And besides, if it’s about Matt, I think I’m pretty qualified to give advice.”

“You had no idea he was in love with you for almost five months.”

“That’s besides the point.”

“It’s exactly the point!”

“I’m gonna be late,” I said, pushing his hand away as I stood up. “You’d better still be here when I get back. If Niall calls—“

“I’ll ignore him,” Harry finished.

I grinned. “Good.”

Downstairs, I put on my shoes and decided against a coat, then texted Penny that I’d be at the cafe in the next fifteen minutes. I yelled a goodbye to Harry and went out, purse bouncing against my hip. Whatever restraining order Harry had here in London was wonderful, since paps weren't allowed to wait outside his house. Depending on the time of day, there was usually a fan or two, but at 9AM on a Thursday you were pretty much guaranteed to be in the clear.

The coffee shop Penny had asked that we meet at was near the British Museum. She wasn’t there when I arrived, so I ordered a cappuccino and snagged a recently vacated window table before the girl mixing soy milk into her coffee could.

After getting my cappuccino from the barista, I returned to the table to see my phone lit up with a text. My mind first went to Penny, but then I saw Harry’s name on the screen.

Why is there yogurt in the fridge? Did you go shopping?

you were supposed to stay in bed until I got back

That doesn’t answer my question.

yes I went shopping. problem?

If you had told me we needed groceries I would have bought them.

You got eggs?

And avocados?

I got a lot of stuff. there was no food in the house.

Tell me next time okay?

sure

Penny’s here gotta go

I still expect you to be waiting in bed

Yes dear.

I grinned and clicked the top button just as Penny sat down across from me, setting a regular coffee on the table. “Hiya,” she greeted, shrugging out of her jacket. “Thanks for this.”

“No problem. What’s up?”

“It’s ah,” Penny hesitated, tucking a strand of hair behind her idea. “Well, it’s about Matt.”

“Okay,” I said, sipping my drink.

“He’s asked me to be his girlfriend.”

“When?”

“A few days ago. I haven’t seen him since.”

I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater and leaned forward. “Well, what did you say?”

She sat back in her chair, looking worried. “I didn’t know what to say! We were watching a film and he just asked me out of nowhere! I mean, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, but I didn’t know if he was looking for anything romantic.”

“Believe me, I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “But Matt’s a great guy, and he likes you a lot. I think you should go for it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, totally.”

She sighed. “He is lovely, isn’t he?”

“The best, honestly. He’ll be really happy if you two are together. He’s probably been freaking out all this time.”

Penny bit her lip, fiddling with her coffee cup but not lifting it to her lips. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“How did it happen with you and Harry? You were friends before, right? Did he just ask you one day?”

I frowned. “Ask me what? On a date?”

“Yeah. On a date, to be his girlfriend…”

“Uh,” I ran a hand through my hair, smiling awkwardly. “It didn’t really happen that easily. We had this casual thing that turned into a relationship.”

“Oh. But he’s your boyfriend now, right?”

“Basically. I wasn’t really ready to call him my boyfriend for a while, there were some other things going on that I had to deal with first. Now…now I don’t really know. We’re definitely together, just without the official labels. I guess in a way it’s easier, what with all the legal stuff I’d have to deal with if we made our relationship official with his PR team.”

Penny grimaced. “Sounds annoying. But I guess you’ll have to do all that eventually, yeah?”

“Hopefully later rather than sooner. If I visit them on tour this summer, it’ll probably have to happen then. Harry says no one gets away with bringing girls on tour except for Niall, and it’s a total mystery how he does it.”

“Irish charm, maybe?” Penny asked.

“That’s gotta be it.”

We spent another hour in the cafe, lamenting about exams next term and what we were doing over the summer. By then Harry had texted me eight times, insisting upon my presence as soon as possible, and eventually I told Penny I had to go. She was going to see Matt, so I wished her luck and we parted ways outside the cafe.

On the Tube ride back up to North London, I pondered what I’d say to Harry when I got to his place. The conversation with Penny had helped me realize what my brain had been doing for the last week already. I wanted to be with Harry, labels and all.

There was still a part of me that was nervous. I was almost entirely sure that Harry would have no objection to us being boyfriend and girlfriend, because they were just silly words to him. But they were also something concrete; two silly little words that made it all real.

A bundle of nerves and a little bit of hope was blooming in my chest when I punched in the code at Harry’s gate and tentatively approached the door, running through situations in my head about all of his possible reactions. But that was the worst thing about Harry; I could never really predict what he’d do. Usually I had everything in my life down to a science, and I could follow through the steps in my head and get the outcome I was looking for. With him, it was like experimentation. Sure, most of the time I was likely to get a frown as a response, but sometimes his face would split open into a grin and he’d kiss me when I was expecting a snarl and him muttering under his breath.

Since I’d told him to be in bed when I got back, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to find him in the kitchen, pouring coffee grounds into the machine. He was clad only in a pair of tiny black boxer-briefs and his hair was a mess, and I was absolutely in love with him.

But that was one thing I definitely wasn’t ready to say.

“Hey,” I said, announcing my presence in the room. I clasped my hands in front of me and slid along the floor in my socked feet until I was behind Harry, and there I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “You’re supposed to be upstairs.”

“I thought you might want coffee,” he replied.

“I was just at a coffee shop.”

“Yeah, but you always want coffee.”

“True.”

Harry finished preparing the pot, then flipped around and slotted his fingers behind my back, at the bottom of my spine. “Hiii,” he hummed, lowering his face to mine and kissing me gently. “Missed you.”

“Yeah, I got that impression from the texts.”

“Was I being too needy? Please tell me if I am. I’ve never been needy before, I think it ruins my reputation with the lads.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What reputation? The one where you’re an asshole?”

Harry frowned. “Y’know how it is.”

“No, I don’t. Please enlighten me why you want to continue giving off a dickhead persona when you are actually a very nice dude. And aren’t ‘the lads’ in favour of you being the good guy for once?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“There you go. Keep on texting me and telling me how much you miss me. And just between us,” I paused, holding back my smile. “I kinda like it.”

Harry kissed me again, propelling us backward until I hit the island in the middle of the kitchen. His hands ran up and down my sides, dragging my sweater along with them, fingertips brushing against bare skin and igniting fire in my veins. Harry mumbled something against my mouth and then he was lifting me off the ground and onto the counter, slotting himself between my legs and pulling me forward by the knees until our torsos were pressed together.

My teeth grazed his lower lip and he let out a low hum, hands tightening against my hips. I had nothing to hang onto with Harry only in his pants, so I traced the lines of his shoulders and chest with my fingers, memorizing feeling of tattooed and clear skin, the dips in his collarbones and the sharp line of his jaw, all places I wouldn’t get to see and touch so often when he went away.

I had to pull away then, Harry’s confused face between my hands and my chest heaving. “I’m ready for you to be my boyfriend now,” I breathed.

Harry’s eyes widened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Why do you look so surprised?”

He rubbed his lips together. “Dunno. Guess there was a part of me that still thought you wouldn’t want to make it official. That you’d leave before we got this far.”

My hands dropped from his face so that I could slap him on the chest. Repeatedly. “You’re an idiot.”

“Compared to you, everyone is,” Harry chuckled.

“Shut up. I’ve been calling you my boyfriend in my head for a few days now, might as well start doing it out loud, right?”

Harry scratched his jaw. “I’ve been calling you my girlfriend in my head for over a month.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He took a moment to think of his answer, eyebrows pulled together in a frown as he did it. “Because you told me you weren’t ready. I’ve never tried to push you into anything you didn’t want to do. I don’t want to be that person, we’ve both got enough of them in our lives, telling us what we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to do. I’m just relieved you decided that you like me enough to keep me around.”

Love you. Love you enough.

“Well, we’ve already established that you’re pretty much useless. But you have a nice house and a nice face, so I think we’ll be at this for a while yet.”

“Oh, thank you, I’m happy to know what really matters to you.”

“Yeah, yeah, just kiss me already.”

So he did.