Close Quarters / hs

Stay Another Day

He has a birthmark on his right shoulder blade. It's small, shaped, ironically, like a heart. Sideways, which you suppose only adds to the irony.

"Think that just makes it a spade or summat," he quipped drowsily, bringing your linked fingers to his lips.

You leaned forward from where you'd collapsed minutes before, spooning Harry now as your pulses slowed and breathing settled. "A spade's a spade," you shot back. "This looks way more like a heart."

"Can't very well see it, can I?" You could hear the lazy grin without seeing his face.

"No one has mentioned it to you before?"

"That I have a heart on my shoulder? No." He paused, yawned. "No spades either, for that matter."

You found that hard to believe, staring at it, but settled for brushing your lips over it and then down along his inked skin.

He practically purred his content, wiggling impossibly closer and tucking his head under your chin. "Guess it's all in how you look at it, hmm?"

You hummed a little in response before slipping back into the warm, sleepy silence, and had almost drifted off completely when you felt his hand slide down the outside of your bare thigh.

He asked about the scar behind your knee, the one you'd gotten as a kid, burning your leg on one of those old metal death trap slides. You laughed a little about it now before fading back into that cloudy, contemplative world between awake and asleep.

It seemed you'd both been intent on memorizing every inch of one another's skin, filing away each mark and curve during this final night together.

You'd had a similar goodbye once before, at the very start of summer, but this time was also...something different entirely. Because you were different entirely.

This intensity - it was something you hadn't been ready to do last time. Despite having touched him everywhere during those early weeks together, it still felt fragile. For all his taut muscles and sinewy limbs that could toss you over his shoulder and onto the bed with ease, in spite of the way he would crash into you, your bodies pulsing with a need that seemed almost primal, it still felt like something you should handle with care.

"It" was something you never in a million years expected - falling for Harry Styles. Granted, you never in a million years expected to be nine months into a global pandemic either. But here you were, spooned close, legs tangled in the sheets, one last night before he went home.

Home - London - a place he'd spent a total of six weeks this entire year. You were thrilled for him, that he'd get to spend time with his family and whatever friends he'd manage to see within the confines of the lockdown. You knew how deeply he missed them; this time apart was different from the usual working and touring. None of it was in his control. It wasn't lost on you that you'd spent more time together than with anyone else this year for exactly that reason.

And that was the paradox of your relationship, wasn't it? You were either together constantly or half a world apart.

The last few days had been an inevitable countdown of hours ticking away until he walked onto that plane and out of your life for...who knew how long.

48 hours. You woke up to him pressed tightly against you, just returned from his last, late night on set. Breath hot in your ear, a hint of spearmint gum and the tequila from a final toast, as he whispered how much he wanted you.

36 hours. You went back and forth between final preparation for the work presentation you were giving on Friday and a marathon of favorite holiday movies. Christmas Vacation (yours) It's a Wonderful Life (his) and Love, Actually (runner up for both of you) mixed with a bit of rum in your eggnog had you both giggling and groping each other like teenagers.