Harry Who?

Harry Gets Another Tattoo

I watched from the audience of the Late Late Show as Harry got a small tattoo on his arm after losing tattoo roulette and I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach I couldn’t ignore. ‘If he’s willing to get a tattoo on television because he lost some game on a talk show...perhaps those crossed hockey sticks he got for me wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it was’. I hoped it wasn’t real, that maybe they were just pretending to give him a tattoo, and it would wash off after the show.

I slipped backstage to the dressing rooms after they finished playing and waited for Harry. He must have stayed behind to talk to James for a bit, because he was not with Louis, Liam, and Niall when they returned. They said hi to me, and I didn’t want to bother them, so I just complimented them on their performance.

“Thanks,” Louis answered and sat down next to me, while the other two were busy talking to someone. “You look a little down; maybe feeling left out? I know we’ve been pretty busy this week, filming stuff for the show. This is usually why I leave my girl at home when we’re on tour.” He scrunched his mouth into an apologetic half smile and I nodded.

“Yeah, a little. But trust me, this is more exciting than what I would have been doing,” I replied.

“The bookstore, right?” He guessed, and I nodded. “My girl liked that bear I bought there, by the way.”

“It was leftover from Valentine’s Day,” I laughed, and turned to face him, my smile disappearing. “Was that real? The tattoo?”

He nodded. “Yeah, Harry actually volunteered to get it when James brought up the idea to us.”

“Did he?” It’s not that I didn’t believe him, I just didn’t exactly want to.

“Yeah, though I wouldn’t have minded getting it done; I have enough dumb tattoos, what’s one more, right?” He laughed, but saw I wasn’t smiling anymore.

“So getting a tattoo is that trivial to him,” I said quietly, and before Louis had a chance to answer, Harry entered.

“Just keep that bandage on for a couple days so it doesn’t get infected,” someone said to him as he entered the room.

“I know, I know, this isn’t my first tat,” he said back to them before turning his attention to me. “Ellie! That was mad, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was,” I replied, in less of a joking tone than he had used.

“James invited us over for dinner, shall we?” He asked me. It’s funny how he exuded charm and buoyancy after a performance, like it was some kind of high, but it was contagious and intoxicating. It erased any negativity and made me feel unnaturally happy and calm.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “that would be great!”

At dinner they talked about the show, including the dodge-ball, carpool karaoke, and tattoo roulette.

“It really was kind of Harry to take one for the team,” James stated, and his wife agreed.

“I’m not sure you’d look good with ‘One Direction’ tattooed on your stomach,” she laughed.

Harry shrugged. “I have enough tattoos, what’s one more?”

“Yeah, just one more meaningless, permanent mark on your body,” I remarked as I refilled my wine glass.

“You can get it removed if you want, I wouldn’t be offended,” James said to Harry.

“No, I like it. I like you and your show, and it’s a cute little tattoo.” Harry smiled. As much as I normally liked that smile, it irked me beyond reason to see it right now.

“Ellie, Harry tells us you play hockey?” James’ wife asked, sensing I was a bit tense. Luckily changing the subject got my mind of Harry’s apparently flippant attitude toward tattoos.

By the end of the night I was feeling a little more relaxed, whether it was all the wine or they way Harry kept slowly inching himself closer to me, as if we needed to occupy the same space, until we were practically on top of each other.

The next morning we untangled ourselves from each other long enough to eat breakfast. After a cup of coffee, my mind started working again and I remembered what had bothered me most about that tattoo Harry got last night.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what made you change your mind?” I bit my lip nervously as I watched his reaction.

“What do you mean?” He asked. “Changed my mind about what?”

I swallowed. I hated bringing up stuff like this. “Us. The way we left things in New York, I thought maybe that was it. You said you didn’t know how we could be together.”

He was quiet for a moment, but had a sad and thoughtful look in his eyes. “I regret that I had to say that, because I never wanted to break up with you, Ell, you mean a lot to me. But, my future is a little up in the air right now, and I didn’t want to drag you into something I wasn’t sure about myself.”

“So, you’ve figured out your future?” I asked.

He shook his head and smiled. “No; I have no idea what I’ll be doing after our tour ends. Not exactly, at least. But, I had a few days off when we were touring Great Britain this month so I went home and saw my family. I talked with my mom, and told her all about you; I told her how you played hockey, and you worked in a bookstore and gave me ‘Anne of Green Gables’. I told her how much I missed you, and didn’t know if I could see you again.” He was quiet, then he smiled and laughed to himself. “You know what she said? It’s cliche, but she said, ‘If you love her, you’ll make it work’.”

He smiled at me so calmly, those green eyes filling me with some crazy cocktail of emotions, but I only heard one thing and it made my ears ring. “So you’re making it work?”

He nodded and kept smiling.

“And that means,” I swallowed again, even though my mouth felt dry. “You love me?” It was a statement more than a question, but I watched him closely.

He smiled even more warmly and put his hand on mine. “Yeah, I do, Ellie, I love you.” He laughed and those dimples came out, stopping my fluttering heart. “I just didn’t know how to say it, or if I should say it yet, but, you got me. I love you.”

I tried to catch my breath and form the words, but I couldn’t. I leaned into him and buried my face in his chest. “I love you too, Harry,” I finally choked, and wrapped my arms tightly around him. “Maybe that’s why I was so upset about that tattoo, because I was worried you didn’t love me back?”

He looked confused. “The tattoo I got for you?”

I shook my head and ran my hand over the bandage on his arm. “No, the one you got last night. It made me think that the tattoo you got for my was meaningless, or that it didn’t mean what I thought it meant.”

He hung his head as what I was saying hit him, but raised it to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ve gotten tattoos for various reasons, some I can’t remember, some because I’d had a bit too much to drink, but others because I really cared about someone and I wanted to remember them. And this one here,” he pulled down his shorts so we could see the whole tattoo on his hip. “This one means more than all the rest of them combined.”

I smiled back at him and ran my finger along the inked hockey sticks on his hip. “So it’s kind of like a diary.”

“Yeah, kind of. Except everyone can see it, and it hurts much more than writing in a diary,” he smiled.

“Tell me about some of your other tattoos. What are their stories?” I asked, and Harry took off his shirt and began narrating what each mark meant. He was right, some were really dumb, but others had a very sweet story behind them. By the end I felt stupid for ever worrying about it.
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If you haven’t seen that episode of Late Late, here’s the clip with tattoo roulette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5EGWLWqThI

Niall is so adorably nervous!