Status: new story
These Four Walls
Chapter 2
May 2, 2014
“You snore when you’re jetlagged.”
Harry scowled, dragging his palm over his face, grumbling under his breath. Even though his hair was greasy, slicked to the pillow from a long night, and dark circles were visible under his eyes, he still managed to give me butterflies. One of my favorite things about being with Harry was waking up next to him. It never got old.
Especially because now it didn’t happen very often.
“At least I don’t drool,” he mumbled, turning onto his stomach before slamming his face into my floral patterned pillow. “Next time, don’t sleep so close to me. It’s like I’m drowning in a pool.”
My jaw dropped as I pretended to be offended, pulling the blanket further over my clad chest. “I’d rather drown than get caught in an avalanche. Doesn’t your throat hurt in the morning?”
I couldn’t see his face, but I noticed his shoulders shaking when he chuckled. “Shut up.”
I smiled, releasing a yawn before sitting up to throw my legs over the side of the bed. Standing up was harder than I thought it would be, but I’d never admit to Harry about being sore. His ego was big enough already.
While I was pulling an outfit out of my dresser--jean shorts and a yellow, floral tank top--something caught my attention from on top of the tall, mostly empty bookshelf.
“Harry, is that my bra?” I asked, pointing to the awkwardly misplaced item while still trying my best to cover myself up.
He propped himself onto his elbows, lifting his head up drowsily. His gaze followed my finger, before a cheeky grin slipped through his lips. “Well would you look at that. That’s a new one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Get it down, please.”
“I’ll get right on that,” he sighed, shoving his arms under the blankets, then immediately flopping back down on the mattress.
I decided to choose my battles and pretend he didn’t just ignore me. Something about Harry was that he was incredibly lazy. I think people tended to misconstrue their perception of him because of all the pictures of him out and about. There was no doubting he liked to go out and have a good time. Unfortunately, it was the getting him out of the house part that was a bit difficult.
After taking a hot shower, getting dressed, blow drying my hair, putting on makeup, and forcing myself to brew up some coffee, I poured Harry a mug before carrying it into my room. I knew he preferred tea, but since I couldn’t stand the taste, I didn’t buy any. My face fell when I saw him still sound asleep, but I perked up a little when I looked up at the shelf and my purple, polkadotted bra was nowhere in sight.
“Here,” I started, pushing on his shoulder after sitting down next to him. “Drink this, it’ll wake you up.”
He winced, taking in a sharp breath of air. “But I don’t want to wake up.”
“I know. I want you to wake up. It’s almost…” I trailed off, looking over at Harry’s phone and pressing the unlock button. I frowned, realizing it wasn’t very late. “Noon.”
After staring at me blankly for a few seconds, Harry reached over my lap and grabbed his phone off the bedside table. “You liar, it’s only half past ten.”
“Can you just wake up?” I pleaded. “After you shower and get dressed, you can take me out for birthday brunch. I’ve been looking forward to it.” I sat his cup of coffee on the table.
He sighed, rolling over on his back before plucking at the corners of his eyes. “Your birthday was yesterday.”
“Harry,” I drawled.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he chuckled, sitting up and looking at me with a smile. “Of course I’ll take you out for your birthday. Don’t worry, baby doll.”
A smile crept onto my face before I leaned in to kiss him, dodging the fact he hadn’t brushed his teeth. I didn’t care, though. If he could only eat onions and radishes everyday for the rest of his life, I’d still kiss him whenever I got the chance.
I held his lips to mine for just a second longer before he pulled away, resting our foreheads together with our noses barely touching.
“Is that a wrinkle?” He asked, pulling his head back and scrunching his eyebrows together. “You know what they say about crow’s feet--”
“Who’s the liar now, Harold?” I giggled. “We’re the same age, but you’re still the old man.”
A barreling laugh flowed from his lungs as he pulled me into his bare chest. “God, I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now get up.”
I kissed him quickly two more times before making sure he got himself into the bathroom to take a shower. I couldn’t trust that he’d do it on his own when I went into the living room. After making myself comfortable on the couch, I watched an episode of Supernatural--enjoying myself some Jensen Ackles--before Harry emerged from the bathroom, a gust of mist following in his wake.
“How hard is it for you to turn on the fan in there?” I scolded him as came towards me fully dressed. “I’m sick of you always fogging up my mirror. I know you practice your signature on it.”
Harry rolled his eyes, plopping down on the other side of the couch. Almost on cue, my phone started vibrating in my pocket. As I fumbled to get it out, Harry snatched the remote from my lap, searching through pages upon pages of movies on Netflix.
“Hey, mommy!” I answered excitedly while Harry gave me a funny look.
“Hi sweetie. I wanted to apologize for not making it to your surprise party last night. Sawyer invited your dad and I, but Nana was having another bad night so we stopped by the home.”
I situated myself, sitting criss cross applesauce. The nursing home always left a bad taste in my mouth. “It’s okay, I totally understand. If I would’ve known about Nana I would’ve came with you. How is she?”
She didn’t hesitate in answering, which was something I liked about my mother. She always cut right to the chase. “Better this morning. She said it was hard to hold her head up and the nurses said she got into an argument with her roommate. I don’t know, like I said, just a bad night.”
I frowned, listening to her sigh. “Everything is gonna be okay, mom.”
Harry sent me a worried look from the corner of his eye. I noticed he was only pretending to keep himself distracted and was now trying to listen to my phone conversation.
“I know, Ava. Yeah, I know.” She sighed again, probably recollecting her thoughts. “Let’s talk about happy things okay? How was your birthday yesterday? Did you have fun?”
My eyes flashed to meet Harry’s electrifying green ones and I couldn’t help but smile shyly. The surprise party was great and I was so thankful, but having my boyfriend surprise me in private by showing up at my flat, that was more than I could have ever asked for. “Harry’s here.”
“Oh, he is?” She squealed, almost more excited about it than I was. “That boy has perfect timing, doesn’t he? Now I don’t feel so bad about not being with you yesterday. I’ll let you go then, sweetie. Tell Harry he’s the best. I love you both, see you soon.”
“Bye, love you,” I said, hanging up and squishing my phone back into my pocket.
When I looked at Harry, he was wearing a pathetic, pompous smirk on his face. I knew he had heard every word my mother spoke.
“I’m the best,” he praised himself.
I forced a laugh, looking down at my feet and picking at my toenail. Goosebumps erupted on my skin as Harry rubbed his palm over my thigh, squeezing gently.
“Is everything alright with your Nan?” He asked sincerely, but I avoided looking at him.
“Mhm,” I nodded my head. “It’s all good.”
He probably knew that wasn’t the one hundred percent truth, but I was thankful he didn’t say another word about it. Instead, he picked himself off the couch and grabbed my wrist, pulling me to my feet along with him.
“Brunch still sound good?” He asked, walking us through my kitchen towards the door. “I know! We should eat at that place you took me to last time.”
I scoffed. “That’s very vague, Harry.”
He slipped on his shoes and readjusted his grey beanie. “Come on. The one with all the pie.”
“Oh, that’s Bakers Square. Sure, they serve breakfast.” I said, digging through my bin of shoes before deciding on minty colored sandals. “I didn’t know you liked it that much.”
“I think my stomach was just relieved you weren’t taking it to a Chinese restaurant for the billionth time. Tastes good going in, feels bad coming out. Compared to that, pie was like eating a refreshing salad.”
Slipping my purse onto my shoulders, I grabbed my keys off the counter and returned to Harry who was now holding the door open. He reached for my hand and I effortlessly interlocked our fingers, letting him lead me down the hall and into the elevator.
***
“So with the Four Square Breakfast platter, can you order four of the same thing or do they all have to be different?” Harry asked the waiter with large, curious eyes and the menu gripped firmly in his hand.
The restaurant was a lot busier than the last time I took Harry here. We even had to wait twenty-five minutes to be seated. I offered to go somewhere else to eat but Harry was too smitten by the Free Pie Fridays sign on the window to even consider leaving. We were seated towards the middle of the building and I couldn’t help but feel eyes burning into the back of my head, but I tried my best to ignore them, focusing my attention on the young, brunette waitress making eyes at my boyfriend.
“You can’t have any multiples,” she giggled. “You just have to pick one from each list.”
“What if I get scrambled eggs and easy-over eggs? Does that count as a multiple?”
The waitress laughed again, nodding her head so fast her ponytail danced all over the place. As much as I couldn’t deny the jealousy that bubbled in my stomach whenever we went out, I couldn’t contain my smile from how passionate Harry was at ordering food.
“That’s still a multiple.”
“That’s bullocks,” he grumbled and I lightly kicked his shin under the table as a warning. His slang wasn’t so bad in the states, but I was around him enough to know when he was actually cursing and upset.
He continued to stare at the menu, like if he stared hard enough, his options would change. “I’ll just have the Rise and Shine. Over easy. English Muffin.”
“Okay, thank you,” the waitress said, stealing his menu and looking over at me. “And what can I get for you?”
I smiled, pointing to the picture. “The Bakers Scrambler. It looks delicious.”
Harry stole a peek at the menu when I held it out for the waitress to take. His face scrunched up. “There’s mushrooms in that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re point?”
***
By the time our meals came, Harry was on his fourth glass of raspberry tea whereas I hardly made a dent in my large apple juice. He wasted no time in stabbing into his eggs with a fork, his eyes lighting up with hunger as the yolk oozed over his plate.
“The Bakers Square franchise should really consider branching out to other countries. I could get used to this.” He stated after taking a few bites.
When we finished eating, the waitress returned with our bill and Harry’s free pie. We came to the decision that I would pay for this meal and he would pay for dinner tonight, but not without Harry putting up a fight. He always insisted on paying for everything, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I didn’t want money to be a huge deal, despite knowing it easily could be.
I opened my phone for the first time since the call from my mom, after settling into the driver’s seat and fastening my seatbelt. I had four miss calls from my boss and immediately my mood fell. I didn’t want to deal with any work related issues today. Whatever it was could wait. Effortlessly, I chucked my phone into my purse.
Before pulling out of the parking lot, I gave Harry one last glance as he finished buckling up. He attempted a large bite of his favorite key lime pie, before his teeth scraped the empty fork and the pie slipped onto his lap.
“You snore when you’re jetlagged.”
Harry scowled, dragging his palm over his face, grumbling under his breath. Even though his hair was greasy, slicked to the pillow from a long night, and dark circles were visible under his eyes, he still managed to give me butterflies. One of my favorite things about being with Harry was waking up next to him. It never got old.
Especially because now it didn’t happen very often.
“At least I don’t drool,” he mumbled, turning onto his stomach before slamming his face into my floral patterned pillow. “Next time, don’t sleep so close to me. It’s like I’m drowning in a pool.”
My jaw dropped as I pretended to be offended, pulling the blanket further over my clad chest. “I’d rather drown than get caught in an avalanche. Doesn’t your throat hurt in the morning?”
I couldn’t see his face, but I noticed his shoulders shaking when he chuckled. “Shut up.”
I smiled, releasing a yawn before sitting up to throw my legs over the side of the bed. Standing up was harder than I thought it would be, but I’d never admit to Harry about being sore. His ego was big enough already.
While I was pulling an outfit out of my dresser--jean shorts and a yellow, floral tank top--something caught my attention from on top of the tall, mostly empty bookshelf.
“Harry, is that my bra?” I asked, pointing to the awkwardly misplaced item while still trying my best to cover myself up.
He propped himself onto his elbows, lifting his head up drowsily. His gaze followed my finger, before a cheeky grin slipped through his lips. “Well would you look at that. That’s a new one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Get it down, please.”
“I’ll get right on that,” he sighed, shoving his arms under the blankets, then immediately flopping back down on the mattress.
I decided to choose my battles and pretend he didn’t just ignore me. Something about Harry was that he was incredibly lazy. I think people tended to misconstrue their perception of him because of all the pictures of him out and about. There was no doubting he liked to go out and have a good time. Unfortunately, it was the getting him out of the house part that was a bit difficult.
After taking a hot shower, getting dressed, blow drying my hair, putting on makeup, and forcing myself to brew up some coffee, I poured Harry a mug before carrying it into my room. I knew he preferred tea, but since I couldn’t stand the taste, I didn’t buy any. My face fell when I saw him still sound asleep, but I perked up a little when I looked up at the shelf and my purple, polkadotted bra was nowhere in sight.
“Here,” I started, pushing on his shoulder after sitting down next to him. “Drink this, it’ll wake you up.”
He winced, taking in a sharp breath of air. “But I don’t want to wake up.”
“I know. I want you to wake up. It’s almost…” I trailed off, looking over at Harry’s phone and pressing the unlock button. I frowned, realizing it wasn’t very late. “Noon.”
After staring at me blankly for a few seconds, Harry reached over my lap and grabbed his phone off the bedside table. “You liar, it’s only half past ten.”
“Can you just wake up?” I pleaded. “After you shower and get dressed, you can take me out for birthday brunch. I’ve been looking forward to it.” I sat his cup of coffee on the table.
He sighed, rolling over on his back before plucking at the corners of his eyes. “Your birthday was yesterday.”
“Harry,” I drawled.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he chuckled, sitting up and looking at me with a smile. “Of course I’ll take you out for your birthday. Don’t worry, baby doll.”
A smile crept onto my face before I leaned in to kiss him, dodging the fact he hadn’t brushed his teeth. I didn’t care, though. If he could only eat onions and radishes everyday for the rest of his life, I’d still kiss him whenever I got the chance.
I held his lips to mine for just a second longer before he pulled away, resting our foreheads together with our noses barely touching.
“Is that a wrinkle?” He asked, pulling his head back and scrunching his eyebrows together. “You know what they say about crow’s feet--”
“Who’s the liar now, Harold?” I giggled. “We’re the same age, but you’re still the old man.”
A barreling laugh flowed from his lungs as he pulled me into his bare chest. “God, I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now get up.”
I kissed him quickly two more times before making sure he got himself into the bathroom to take a shower. I couldn’t trust that he’d do it on his own when I went into the living room. After making myself comfortable on the couch, I watched an episode of Supernatural--enjoying myself some Jensen Ackles--before Harry emerged from the bathroom, a gust of mist following in his wake.
“How hard is it for you to turn on the fan in there?” I scolded him as came towards me fully dressed. “I’m sick of you always fogging up my mirror. I know you practice your signature on it.”
Harry rolled his eyes, plopping down on the other side of the couch. Almost on cue, my phone started vibrating in my pocket. As I fumbled to get it out, Harry snatched the remote from my lap, searching through pages upon pages of movies on Netflix.
“Hey, mommy!” I answered excitedly while Harry gave me a funny look.
“Hi sweetie. I wanted to apologize for not making it to your surprise party last night. Sawyer invited your dad and I, but Nana was having another bad night so we stopped by the home.”
I situated myself, sitting criss cross applesauce. The nursing home always left a bad taste in my mouth. “It’s okay, I totally understand. If I would’ve known about Nana I would’ve came with you. How is she?”
She didn’t hesitate in answering, which was something I liked about my mother. She always cut right to the chase. “Better this morning. She said it was hard to hold her head up and the nurses said she got into an argument with her roommate. I don’t know, like I said, just a bad night.”
I frowned, listening to her sigh. “Everything is gonna be okay, mom.”
Harry sent me a worried look from the corner of his eye. I noticed he was only pretending to keep himself distracted and was now trying to listen to my phone conversation.
“I know, Ava. Yeah, I know.” She sighed again, probably recollecting her thoughts. “Let’s talk about happy things okay? How was your birthday yesterday? Did you have fun?”
My eyes flashed to meet Harry’s electrifying green ones and I couldn’t help but smile shyly. The surprise party was great and I was so thankful, but having my boyfriend surprise me in private by showing up at my flat, that was more than I could have ever asked for. “Harry’s here.”
“Oh, he is?” She squealed, almost more excited about it than I was. “That boy has perfect timing, doesn’t he? Now I don’t feel so bad about not being with you yesterday. I’ll let you go then, sweetie. Tell Harry he’s the best. I love you both, see you soon.”
“Bye, love you,” I said, hanging up and squishing my phone back into my pocket.
When I looked at Harry, he was wearing a pathetic, pompous smirk on his face. I knew he had heard every word my mother spoke.
“I’m the best,” he praised himself.
I forced a laugh, looking down at my feet and picking at my toenail. Goosebumps erupted on my skin as Harry rubbed his palm over my thigh, squeezing gently.
“Is everything alright with your Nan?” He asked sincerely, but I avoided looking at him.
“Mhm,” I nodded my head. “It’s all good.”
He probably knew that wasn’t the one hundred percent truth, but I was thankful he didn’t say another word about it. Instead, he picked himself off the couch and grabbed my wrist, pulling me to my feet along with him.
“Brunch still sound good?” He asked, walking us through my kitchen towards the door. “I know! We should eat at that place you took me to last time.”
I scoffed. “That’s very vague, Harry.”
He slipped on his shoes and readjusted his grey beanie. “Come on. The one with all the pie.”
“Oh, that’s Bakers Square. Sure, they serve breakfast.” I said, digging through my bin of shoes before deciding on minty colored sandals. “I didn’t know you liked it that much.”
“I think my stomach was just relieved you weren’t taking it to a Chinese restaurant for the billionth time. Tastes good going in, feels bad coming out. Compared to that, pie was like eating a refreshing salad.”
Slipping my purse onto my shoulders, I grabbed my keys off the counter and returned to Harry who was now holding the door open. He reached for my hand and I effortlessly interlocked our fingers, letting him lead me down the hall and into the elevator.
***
“So with the Four Square Breakfast platter, can you order four of the same thing or do they all have to be different?” Harry asked the waiter with large, curious eyes and the menu gripped firmly in his hand.
The restaurant was a lot busier than the last time I took Harry here. We even had to wait twenty-five minutes to be seated. I offered to go somewhere else to eat but Harry was too smitten by the Free Pie Fridays sign on the window to even consider leaving. We were seated towards the middle of the building and I couldn’t help but feel eyes burning into the back of my head, but I tried my best to ignore them, focusing my attention on the young, brunette waitress making eyes at my boyfriend.
“You can’t have any multiples,” she giggled. “You just have to pick one from each list.”
“What if I get scrambled eggs and easy-over eggs? Does that count as a multiple?”
The waitress laughed again, nodding her head so fast her ponytail danced all over the place. As much as I couldn’t deny the jealousy that bubbled in my stomach whenever we went out, I couldn’t contain my smile from how passionate Harry was at ordering food.
“That’s still a multiple.”
“That’s bullocks,” he grumbled and I lightly kicked his shin under the table as a warning. His slang wasn’t so bad in the states, but I was around him enough to know when he was actually cursing and upset.
He continued to stare at the menu, like if he stared hard enough, his options would change. “I’ll just have the Rise and Shine. Over easy. English Muffin.”
“Okay, thank you,” the waitress said, stealing his menu and looking over at me. “And what can I get for you?”
I smiled, pointing to the picture. “The Bakers Scrambler. It looks delicious.”
Harry stole a peek at the menu when I held it out for the waitress to take. His face scrunched up. “There’s mushrooms in that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re point?”
***
By the time our meals came, Harry was on his fourth glass of raspberry tea whereas I hardly made a dent in my large apple juice. He wasted no time in stabbing into his eggs with a fork, his eyes lighting up with hunger as the yolk oozed over his plate.
“The Bakers Square franchise should really consider branching out to other countries. I could get used to this.” He stated after taking a few bites.
When we finished eating, the waitress returned with our bill and Harry’s free pie. We came to the decision that I would pay for this meal and he would pay for dinner tonight, but not without Harry putting up a fight. He always insisted on paying for everything, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I didn’t want money to be a huge deal, despite knowing it easily could be.
I opened my phone for the first time since the call from my mom, after settling into the driver’s seat and fastening my seatbelt. I had four miss calls from my boss and immediately my mood fell. I didn’t want to deal with any work related issues today. Whatever it was could wait. Effortlessly, I chucked my phone into my purse.
Before pulling out of the parking lot, I gave Harry one last glance as he finished buckling up. He attempted a large bite of his favorite key lime pie, before his teeth scraped the empty fork and the pie slipped onto his lap.