The Collection- Harry Styles

{baby honey} iii: One Desire

Four years, in theory, sounds like a long time. But in her head, Jolie has replayed every bit of it several times over the last few months. Maybe, truthfully, the last year.

She remembers all of it. The first time they met, the hours they spent holed up in Harry's hotel room gorging on candy and salted snap peas before the inevitable happened. She remembers the subsequent week of candied dates every day. How nervous he'd been asking her to be his girlfriend and how sure she'd been saying yes.

Jolie had looked into Harry's eyes and seen forever.

The saying was true: love found you when you stopped looking for it.

Four years played in her head like a two hour movie on repeat. This time brought on by a bottle of Absolut that left her hand numb and a Youtube playlist of all their shared interviews over the years. The times they'd surprised fans by performing together at one another's concerts. A long swipe through her phone of all their pictures because she didn't have the gumption to delete them.

What was the point when she was confident- hopeful- that one day they'd find their way back to each other?

He plagues her mind and her heart like a disease. Every thought clouded by his presence and every pump of blood through her veins in his honor. The rhythm of her heart is his name. She doesn't know when precisely she became so affected by him. Maybe in that first week of honeymoon bliss when only they existed and the world had fallen away. Maybe even the first night in the way his cheeks rosed when he asked her if she wanted to join him for a drink in his hotel room. How he blushed the next morning when asking how she liked her eggs. Each day when he said he had a surprise for her and greeted her with a colored array of flowers because she refused to tell him her favorite.

The butterflies that decorated the conservatory, thousands of rainbow wings fluttering and brushing against her shoulders and cheeks, landing on her outstretched arms. The echo of his laugh and the beautiful marigold-stained viceroy butterfly that landed on the tip of his nose. He stuttered when he asked her to be his girlfriend.

She remembers finding all his blushing and the way he tripped over his words so strange because he didn't seem the type to be unsure of himself. He quickly proved her wrong.

She remembers how steady-footed, almost serene, he had been when he asked her to marry him.

The apartment, for once, was unusually quiet. No sound of Mako yapping when she stepped through the door. No TV playing or music scratching on the turntable.

"Harry? Are you here?" It was late, but she knew there was still a possibility he had Mako out for a walk. She tossed her jacket on the hook and kicked off the uncomfortable sandals.

"Bedroom!"

If he was laying naked on the bed waiting for her again, she swore she'd pull out the Polaroid and snap a few photos before jumping his bones.

It had been a little over a week since they'd spent any real time together. Both hustling between interviews and studio time and meetings and whatever else the universe had conjured up to keep them away from one another. And really, the past week has just been another in a long line of months, their schedules never quite lining up. Especially since their last tours. Both on the road at the same time, in wildly different places. They'd hardly talked, communication sparse between their gapped time zones. She'd only managed to stay sane thanks to modern technology. Facetime sex was a godsend. She distinctly remembered the few and far between times Jeff and Lydia had managed to allow them a few days' break to meet up. A small collection of days spent holed up in a hotel room in Milan or Houston, Prague, London for a quick pop in with his family.