‹ Prequel: Le Chat Noir

Retrouvailles

the in-between

It was a rare full day (and night) off for me. But since I wasn’t working, Nick was seizing the opportunity to get me to come over to his house for dinner. This didn’t mean he was going to cook for me, but rather he’d sit back and sip wine while shouting the recipe at me and criticizing my lacklustre cooking skills. I’d spent the last three days working non-stop, so I got home from The Black Cat at three in the morning and immediately went to sleep. I was woken in the early evening by Nick’s call, instructing me to get on the Tube and commute to his house immediately.

So I fastened my tangled hair into a bun and dabbed foundation beneath my eyes to conceal the dark circles there, making the split-second decision to line my eyes with kohl before I slid on my wellies and headed out the door. With Nick Grimshaw, there was always a seventy-five percent chance that whatever he was planning would morph into a party. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the clique would be there too, and as I left the building I wondered if I should text Harry about it.

Nick sent me another message when I was on the Tube, declaring that I was taking too long. According to him, if I moved in with Harry it would make hanging out a lot easier. I couldn’t decide if living within walking distance of Nick was a good or bad thing. Within seconds of the text I received another, telling me that Harry was going to eat all of the ingredients if I didn’t arrive in the next ten minutes.

Twelve minutes later, I knocked on the door to Nick’s house. I could hear his dog barking, and a moment after that Nick was yanking open the door. “Zola darling!” he exclaimed, pulling me in for a hug. I was totally acclimatized to the lack of heating in my own flat so just standing in the foyer of Nick’s house was like being in a sauna. I hung up my coat and tugged off my jumper, leaving me in a pair of leggings and a loose striped shirt.

The only other people there were Harry and Pixie. Harry smiled when I appeared behind Nick, and pressed a chaste kiss to my temple. “I called you this morning,” he murmured. “Guess you were asleep.”

“I slept all day,” I replied.

Harry had agreed to give me time to think about his proposition, and true to his word, he hadn’t brought up living together since asking me a few days ago. Nick wasn’t so patient, and despite the fact that I’d had a breakdown over coffee he kept on pushing me to accept Harry’s offer.

“Are you ready to make curry?”

“Curry? Seriously, Grimshaw?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Harry, who’d been twirling a stray curl that had falling from my bun around one of his long fingers, let out a low chuckle.

“I’ve already done all the prep work,” Nick said, motioning to the array of vegetables and spices lining the counter. “All that’s left is to cook it.”

“And you’d better get on with it, because I’m starving,” said Pixie, leaning against the counter with a glass of wine in her hand. She glanced at me. “He refused to start cooking until you got here. Something about learning how to cook in a proper kitchen.”

I fixed Nick with a scowl, but he merely shrugged and grabbed a pot. “Let’s cook, Zo.”

Cooking with Nick and Harry (and Pixie, after she got bored with just watching us) was just as infuriating as I’d imagined. They spent most of the time bickering about the proper temperature and which ingredients should go in first, and then what amount of water was supposed to go in with the rice for it to cook evenly.

I was fed up after twenty minutes of them failing to cooperate. Cooking may have not been my strong point, but I’d eaten enough curry in my lifetime to know how it should taste. And my dad made a fair curry himself, so I decided to follow his recipe with a few changes according to the ingredients Nick had.

“You lot get out,” I instructed, pointing to the doorway.

“This is my kitchen,” Nick protested.

“I say we listen to her, mate,” advised Harry, shooting a dimpled smile in my direction. I raised a challenging eyebrow at Nick, and his shoulders slumped.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, allowing Harry to drag him out of the kitchen. But once the telly had been switched on and Nick and Pixie were arguing over what to watch, Harry was back in the kitchen and lifting himself onto the counter.

“You too,” I said, glancing at him over my shoulder.

Harry raised his hands in defence. “I promise to stay over here. I just like it when you’re like this; all focused and stuff.”

While I dropped ingredients into the pot methodically and tasted it every few minutes to make sure I wasn’t adding too much of anything, I was acutely aware of Harry’s constant gaze. In the half an hour it took for me to prepare the curry and cook the rice I was certain that his eyes hadn’t left my figure once, whether they were focused on my hands or the back of my head or my hips. I glanced back at him a few times, too, just to see if he was still watching me, and he met my gaze every time.

I doled out four portions of curry and Harry and I carried them into the other room. Nick insisted that we had to sit at the table, because Harry was probably going to get curry on the furniture if we didn’t. It was Nick’s reaction I was most eager to see, and kept my eyes trained on him before I took a bite from my own bowl.

“You should have told me you could cook curry because I would have picked something else,” he said, immediately after swallowing. “Honestly, Zo, the whole point was for you to expand your horizons.”

I snorted, holding back a smile. “Are you still on a mission to find me a hobby?”

“It’s my primary goal in life, love.”

“How do I not know about this?” Harry asked to nobody in particular, hunching forward. “I would be way better than Grim at finding you a hobby.”

“Your hobbies include chewing gum and buying scarves that cost three hundred quid just so you can put them over your bloody curls, so I don’t think you’d be all that helpful,” I said, and Nick laughed loudly.

“She has a point,” he agreed. Harry scowled at both of us, but it lasted about half a second before he was back to grinning.

When we finished our meal, I told Nick to do the washing up, but he just made Harry do it. And since Harry was too polite to say no, he was hunched over the sink scrubbing out the pot five minutes later. Both Nick and Pixie were furiously texting people and Nick informed me that it had been his plan all along to have a “little get together” tonight. Since Nick didn’t have parties at his all too often — he usually got somebody else to host so they’d be the ones cleaning up in the morning — it was a massive deal.

People started to arrive at half nine. Harry and I had been curled up on the couch watching in amusement as Nick and Pixie prepared the house by puling out the alcohol (bought that morning by Harry) and arranging it on the kitchen counter, then removing any breakable items from places where they’d fall and smash on the floor, and finally doing a quick sweep of the floor.

House parties were a completely different atmosphere to pubs. Especially ones where everyone seemed to know everyone else, and they were completely comfortable with each other. There was a ridiculous amount of Instagramming occurring in the kitchen, and I made sure to duck out of any photos while I grabbed two beers from the fridge. When I returned to the couch, Harry had Nick’s dog in his lap and seemed to be having a conversation with the furred creature.

“I’ve been tasked with making sure this one doesn’t get stepped on,” Harry explained as I dropped down next to him. “And we’re having a marvellous time.”

Alexa came and found us, perching on the edge of the coffee table while she chatted with Harry and scratched Puppy’s ears. I’d resorted to watching the house guests get progressively more drunk and loose-lipped, their raucous laughter and inside jokes drifting toward me in waves. Somebody had put on music and a few people were actually dancing, but most of the guests were too busy talking to notice.

Everyone wanted to talk to Harry. The flow of people varied, but there was always somebody new pausing at the couch to strike up a conversation. I started to think Harry didn’t even notice me sitting silently next to him while he spoke to his friends, but then he lifted an arm and draped it over my shoulders mid-sentence. The movement was effortless and natural, and he continued speaking without missing a beat.

Then I caught the gaze of a girl I didn’t recognize, standing several feet away, as her expression went from lustful to furious. She spun around and nearly walked straight into the couple behind her before disappearing around the corner.

Even if I was sitting next to him, it was assumed that we weren’t a couple. Harry had to prove that we were together with some gesture, because people just didn’t understand that the two of us could possibly be dating. Was moving in together just his way of proving to everyone that our relationship wasn’t a joke?

“I need some air,” I muttered, slipping out from Harry’s arm and heading for the balcony. It was cold outside, but the frigid air was a relief compared to Nick’s sweltering house. Before I could shut the balcony door, though, Puppy trotted out and blinked up at me, tail wagging madly.

I sipped my beer and sighed, keeping my back to the buzzing party going on inside. I would’ve been much happier had Nick decided that the four of us watching a movie would be the evening’s events.

The music and voices suddenly got louder and somebody else stepped out onto the balcony, and were muted seconds later as the door slid shut. Two long arms looped around me and clasped over my stomach, and I was enveloped in warmth as Harry pressed his body against my back.

“Alright?” he murmured, breath tickling my neck. He pressed a kiss below my ear and tightened his arms around my middle.

“Fine,” I replied immediately, not even thinking about my response. It was a knee-jerk reaction to just say everything was fine because explaining that it wasn’t was much more difficult.

“Zola,” Harry sighed. Stupid curly-headed boyfriend had his stupid concern.

“Not here.”

“Then let’s go.”

“We can’t just leave,” I protested, as Harry drew away from me. He grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together, dragging me to the balcony door.

“Well you obviously don’t want to be here, so we’re going to,” he said, his voice laced with annoyance.

I sighed. “Harry.”

He stopped with one hand reaching toward the door, then turned around and faced me. A frown had settled on his lips and there was a crease between his eyebrows, a clear sign that he was both frustrated and thinking too much.

“These are your friends, and you hardly get to see them. I can handle getting home on my own, so you stay and have a little fun. Just don’t drink too much, yeah?”

It took him ages to make up his mind, but Harry eventually nodded. He opened the door and we made our way through the house, stopping a few times to greet people. At the front door I put on my jumper and Harry helped me into my coat, his eyes scanning my face as he held onto the lapels. Then, with a quick movement, he pulled out a set of keys from his pocket and placed them in my palm.

“Stay at mine,” he insisted.

Before I could reply, Nick appeared at Harry’s shoulder with a frown on his face. “You two are leaving already?”

“Just me,” I said, pocketing Harry’s keys. He looked visibly relieved that I hadn’t shoved them back at him.

“You’re no fun,” Nick lamented, pecking me on the cheek. “I hope you’re going to your future house instead of that sodding closet you call a flat.”

I glared while Harry caught his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, his green eyes flicking between me and Nick. “Not now, Nick,” Harry said, his hand falling to his side.

“Fine, fine,” Nick sighed, waving his hands in the air. “Say your goodbyes now because Pixie’s pouring a round of shots.”

“Stay out of trouble,” I told Harry before pulling his head down to meet mine. His reply was lost against my mouth, and he quickly placed a hand on my lower back to pull our bodies together.

“I make no promises,” he said when we finally pulled away from each other. I frowned, not appreciating the joke. “Relax, Zola, I’m not that much of an idiot.”

“Just because you say it a lot doesn’t make it true,” I said, and he smiled.

“Get out of here before I change my mind about letting you leave without me.”

Since I’d spent the entire day sleeping — which I was still confused by, after my recent troubles with getting more than a few hours each night — I wasn’t the least bit tired when I punched in the code at Harry’s gate and strode up to his front door. As I unlocked the door and stepped inside, I wondered what it would be like to call this massive house my home.

Harry’s house wasn’t a foreign place to me, since I spent a fair amount of time within its walls, but actually living here was different. All of my thoughts about moving in with Harry had been focused around how other people would react to it that I hadn’t really considered how I would feel.

My first task after taking off my wellies and coat was to put on the kettle. Since Harry had been home for two weeks now the kitchen actually looked like somebody lived here, with a few empty mugs by the sink and food in the fridge that wasn’t expired. Harry wasn’t a terrible cook, but he was usually too lazy to make anything other than a sandwich or order takeaway. I leaned against the counter and surveyed Harry’s kitchen, with in all it’s shiny, expensive glory. I thought about my cramped kitchen at home and it didn’t even compare to this; the marble countertop alone probably cost more than all my appliances combined.

When I’d dropped a teabag into a mug and filled it with hot water, I continued my self-guided tour through Harry’s house. In each room I stopped to think about whether or not I could see myself in the space on a daily basis. I sat in front of the flatscreen and decided that I could definitely get used to it, but Harry’s furniture looked right out of a catalogue. I could hardly see my mismatched pillows and throws, let alone Gran’s armchair, in Harry’s living room.

I popped in all the guest rooms and bathrooms and other rooms whose use was unknown to me, then arrived at Harry’s room. His bed was a dream, much more comfortable than my own. Combining Harry’s minimalist layout with my cluttered space back home was a little difficult to imagine, but maybe it would look different if I actually brought over some of my things. I sat in his room for a long time, sipping my tea periodically. I focused solely on what living in this house would be like for me and Harry, and not on what other people would say. Even if he was proving a point, Harry had still asked me to move in with him. And I would be lying if I said that I was completely against the idea, because being around Harry made me happy, and living with him would mean that we would spend more time together.

But it also meant that I’d be giving up any and all privacy that I still had with him. I’d disregarded my boundary rules when Harry came along, so he didn’t really know how much trouble I had with letting people in. The prime example of this was Brian, who was the only other person I’d been serious enough with to allow into my life, and now I regretted it because he knew exactly how to get under my skin. And I didn’t think Harry was capable of being cruel like Brian, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that the two of us were going to last forever.

I was bad with trust and pushed everyone away except for Harry. We were hardly perfect and something was bound to tear us apart, but then I remembered our conversation a few days after he’d come home. My whirlwind of thoughts and emotions were more about me than Harry, and he (despite a misunderstanding or two) was probably the best boyfriend I could ask for. And I’d made him promise not to let me push him away.

A question bubbled in my head as I made my way back downstairs to the kitchen only to find that my mobile was ringing. I saw Harry’s name on the screen and swiped along the bottom to answer the call.

“Would you let me in?” he asked before I could get a word in. Then the doorbell rang repeatedly.

I hung up and left both my mug and phone on the counter, then padded over to the door to let Harry in. His cheeks were red and his fingers, when they slipped around my waist, were icy even through the thick material of my jumper.

“Harry,” I began, stepping back to let him kick off his boots and remove his coat.

“Hmm?” he hummed, starting toward the kitchen. By his gait I could tell that he’d had a fair bit to drink, so I wondered if maybe I should hold off with my question. “What is it?”

“Nevermind,” I said, and Harry spun around.

“Just tell me.”

I sighed. “When you asked me to move in with you, was it just your way of showing that you want to be there for me while I’m sorting through stuff?”

He frowned, the crease forming between his eyebrows again. His cheeks were still red and his eyes bright from the alcohol coursing through his veins. “I asked you to move in because I want to live with you.”

“Is that it? There was no other reason?”

“Obviously I want to be here for you. You said that you’d try and push me away, and I should stop it from happening. But I wanted you to move in before I knew that you’ve been stressed.”

Harry usually wasn’t very coherent under the influence; he tended to grab a lot and mumble under his breath. But clearly he hadn’t had as much as the flush in his cheeks suggested. I stepped toward him and wrapped my arms around his middle, burying my face in his chest.

“You’re too damn good for me,” I mumbled against his shirt. The emotions coursing through my body swelled to the point of bursting.

“I’m the world’s most famous fuck-up, Zola. You’re the one who’s too good for me.”

“I wasn’t finished,” I said softly, grasping fistfuls of his shirt and squeezing my eyes shut. Harry swallowed, his hands stilling over my hips. “I’m a good observer for a reason. I think that I see things in other people because I’m a closed book. I don’t tell people things, Harry, and I sure as hell don’t let them into my life as easily as I have with you. We’re like polar opposites when it comes to dealing with other people — you’re this magnetic force who gets along with everyone and I’m stuck on the periphery watching as life goes on right in front of me. And when it’s just the two of us then everything is fine — I’m fine — but when other people get involved the disconnect between us is just so obvious. The looks that we get—“

“I don’t understand,” Harry interrupted, cupping my face in his hands so he could look me in the eye. “Are you actually breaking up with me this time? Because if you are then spare the longwinded explanation about how we’re different people and just get it over with.”

“Harry,” I sighed, my eyes falling shut. “You really need to stop thinking I’m going to break up with you whenever I start talking about us. I’m just trying to explain what’s been going through my head these last few weeks, because I think that telling you is going to lift this weight off my shoulders.”

“Okay,” he replied, his expression softening. “Should we, like, sit down or something?”

“Yeah. Upstairs. Let’s go upstairs.”
♠ ♠ ♠
I wanted to update yesterday, but I got a bit distracted watching Veronica Mars. I got like 2 hours of sleep and had four lectures today, so the fact that I actually finished this today is cool cool cool. (*cheers for self*)

Okay. So. There is one chapter left of this story, and if you read my other active Harry story (Yours to Keep) then you will know that it only has three chapters remaining. If you like my writing and Harry then I've got a story that I've been waiting ages to start posting, and it'll be up sometime later this month. It's called Bloom, and if you've got questions about the OFC/plot/etc then check out

marigoldcafe.tumblr.com

:))))