Sunshine | H. S.

7

Harry looks so peaceful. His long curls draped around his head and falling onto the pillow, his arm resting on my stomach, my fingers playing with his. Our breathing is still returning to a normal pace and he smiles at me softly.

I can instantly feel my brain shrinking back to a giddy teenager. Great.

"Are you free right now? Or do you have plans?" he smirks, and I frown. Is he joking? If so, his humor is terrible. "What? It's half past nine on a monday night, of course I don't have plans" I respond, pinching my brows together and he smiles at me.

"That was my way of asking if you want me to leave now" he clarifies, but the tone of his voice doesn't match the confident, almost cocky expression on his face. He sounds hopeful, and kind of shy.

Why would he act shy after what just happened?

And do I want him to leave? Or do I want to spend time with him? This whole friends with benefits thing is new to me and apparently I suck at it, this is way too complicated for me.

But since the running theme for today seems to be not letting my crippling anxiety and deeply rooted fear of commitment make my decisions for me I go with my instinct. In my case, my guts are tangled with nerves right now.

"I don't want you to leave" I mumble, trying to avoid eye contact with Harry so I don't chicken out and tell him to go. Clearly distance didn't prevent us from fucking again, so that method has proven to be useless now. "You can spend the night, you know, just if you want." I let the shy invitation leave my mouth before I can consciously stop myself and feel my cheeks burning red immediately.

I seriously have to get that under control, he has me blushing like a schoolgirl and I'm a grown woman, damn it.

"I would love to spend the night here, Sophie" he smiles at me, letting his dimples show. He lays his hand on my jaw softly and makes me look at him instead of my fidgeting fingers. Then he places a light peck on my lips and gets up.

After asking me where my bathroom is and me pointing at the door leading to it he walks in and I get up too. I put on one of my sleeping shirts and some silky shorts to go to the kitchen. While I wait for the water to boil my mind wanders and I inevitably remember what happened not too long in my bedroom. I hate talking about my feelings, even with Nat, and I would literally trust that bitch with my life.

Something about opening up just scares the hell out of me. I used to be sensitive and open, perfectly capable of talking about my feelings or being vulnerable.

But when your trust gets shattered one too many times the walls you started building after the first time you got hurt just get impenetrable eventually. I honestly felt like I was past that point. It felt like my heart had actually turned to stone. After Nathan I basically became a one and done kind of girl.

Until those annoying yet clearly irresistible green eyes put me under their spell and now I'm here, making tea while a boy is in my bedroom. After we had sex. But that's not the part that makes me uneasy. It's how I felt during our conversation. I felt understood. I was scared to open up about something and instead of shutting me down Harry listened, understood and offered a solution to what was troubling me.

That just feels completely foreign. I'm not used to someone I sleep with caring about my feelings. I'm not used to caring about the feelings of the person I sleep with either. I guess that's different now too.

I grab my cup of tea and walk back into my bedroom after turning off the lights in the rest of the flat. I know Nat won't do it. She smiled at me knowingly when I told her that Harry was coming over and said that she would stay in her room.