Petal [h.s.]

Chapter 44

Harry.

Louis, Eleanor and I walked through the familiar gates of the RSP, me hurryingly holding the keys behind my shoulder and clicking the button, making sure the car was locked. It was a beautiful, sunny day as expected, and I pushed the sunglasses that were on my nose into my hair once we entered the building.

The atmosphere was so much lighter now than any other time I had been here.

That had always been in the evenings, to visit Ian. I had never really been here throughout the day. The hallways were busier than I had ever seen them, both kids and parents walking around. We were stopped by the employee that I recognized as Alex, and he asked us to empty our pockets and for Eleanor to show her purse.

He quickly glanced in it, moving some things around to make sure we didn't bring any drugs. Alex then nodded and gestured for us to move along to the garden. I was almost nervous to see Violet in this setting, especially now that one of her colleagues had found out about us.

William had driven her up here about an hour ago, and it was weird to pretend I didn't know her personally, to pretend I didn't love her and that she didn't love me, to pretend we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend. To pretend I hadn't snuggled into her naked body during the morning.

My breath hitched in my throat when my eyes landed on Violet, who was walking around the garden. She was wearing one of her new dresses that she had bought, an orange, floral button-up dress that reached a few inches above her knees and flew around slightly in the breeze.

She was talking to Ian on one of the benches, and his head shot up when he saw the three of us approaching, leaving Violet alone on the bench to hug us. He seemed happy to see us, but I had a hard time focussing on him as my eyes were drawn to her.

Violet got up to her feet and cleared her throat, extending her hand to the three of us in a formal way. The small smile on her lips showed me she found this just as funny as we did. It would never get old, pretending we didn't know one another.

She had her RSP-badge around her neck and one of the portable phones was clipped on the neckline of the dress, dragging it down just enough for my height to give me the advantage to see down her cleavage a bit.

I let out a breath at the thought that I couldn't have my way with her this whole lunch, and that we'd have to be secretive. 

Ian, Louis, Eleanor and I sat down on one of the picnic tables while Violet walked around and showed some other families where to sit.

I recognized some of the kids by now, and shot Nellie a small wave which she returned. Last time I saw her, she was showing me Violet's secret smoking spot. Her hair was red then, whereas it was a dark brown now.

I saw Violet talking to some other people, and she seemed in her element as she hung out with her colleagues. She seemed so comfortable here. I had never seen her around this many people in her natural habitat. I knew she didn't have a bunch of friends, and I knew what her job consisted of, but it was different seeing her actually do it.

Ian snapped his fingers in front of my face to get my attention. "You're almost drooling, Harry. Try to make it not so obvious." He snickered, earning chuckles from Louis and Eleanor while I rolled my eyes and tried to keep my focus on the conversation they were having.

Violet's boss soon clapped his hands, giving a bit of a speech and welcoming us to this family-event thing. Apparently they did this about once a year when the group was doing fine and the weather allowed it. It wasn't a regular thing for this many people to be here at once, since it could get chaotic and it had definitely turned sour more than once in the past.