Bad Friend

12- Lovers

happy harryween!!

"Harry?" I called out as Cher and I stepped into the apartment.

His head popped up from where he was bending down behind the kitchen counter, a small smile on his face when he saw me. I was floored by how quickly my body reacted to him—I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth with the barest flash of his dimple, my heart squeezing at the mere thought of him being here with me. Like always, I assumed that time apart would make my feelings for him magically go away, and like always, I was proven horribly wrong. My feelings for Harry never disappeared, in fact, if the kiss we shared in my work room was any indication, I would say my feelings had only tripled in the last two years.

Even so, my heart—though excited to see Harry—still felt battered and bruised. My dad's death weighed heavily on my shoulders like a wet blanket, and I feared that a relationship with Harry, with his fame and the possibility that we might not work out, would only hurt me more.

"Hey," he said, standing up from his crouching position and wiping his hands on a dish towel. It was then that I realized my apartment smelled of spices and there was something sizzling on the stove.

I took Cher off her leash and watched as Harry's smile dropped for a moment when she trotted further into the apartment. Smiling faintly, I set my stuff down.

Huskies were a protective breed by nature, it was one of the first things I learned when I started taking Cher to training school. My husky puppy was no different, staying close to me at the dog park and growling at anyone who got a little too close for her liking. I liked that about her, though; Cher acted as a buffer between me and the rest of the world when I was at my lowest, and I knew that the people she did like meant that they were good people. She hadn't taken to Harry yet, but I knew it was because she wasn't a huge fan of having someone else sleeping in the apartment. Cher would come around eventually, but I'd be lying if I said the way she made Harry nervous wasn't a little entertaining to watch.

I whistled, giving her the command to go lie down, then walked into the kitchen. Now that I was closer, I could see all of Harry's work up close. He had an array of vegetables in a pan, and a sauce that smelled delicious in another. Looking over at where he was standing by the kitchen island, I saw that he was cutting up more vegetables for a salad.

"You didn't have to make dinner," I told him, opening up the fridge to grab a beer, only to find it completely stocked. "Or buy a month's worth of groceries."

"Oh, but I did," Harry replied, the sound of his knife slicing through a carrot coming to a halt. "You didn't have any food."

"I eat out a lot."

"For every meal?"

I shrugged. "I can't cook."

"Oh, G," Harry sighed dramatically. "I might have to extend my stay, just to make sure you don't starve."

Laughing a little, I rooted around the kitchen and pulled out forks and knives to set the small dining table that had been here since I was maybe nine. I helped Harry carry plates and bowls over, suddenly feeling very hungry. I never meant to, but sometimes I let my work get the best of me and skipped a meal or two. I kept snacks in my workroom to eat while I was between sessions, but I often forgot about those too. The only time it I really ever noticed was when I'd be getting dressed and my jeans were a bit loose, or I'd see how pronounced my collarbones were in the mirror after I got out of the shower. I would tell myself I would remember to eat, but then I'd get consumed by my work and the cycle started all over again.

There was just so much to do. If I wasn't giving someone a tattoo, I was drawing up a sketch a client had requested, and if I wasn't doing that, I was going over the shop's finances and making sure everyone who worked there got paid on time. I used to do the shop's social media pages too, but when I hired Lena, she volunteered to take over. I never realized how much work went into keeping a business from closing. Dad never talked to me about that side of the shop, but when I started looking through his books, I saw that everything was relatively up to date; it was all on paper, but it was organized and well managed. Moving everything from paper files to online ones was another task that lay ahead of me, but I saved that for another time, I had enough on my plate as it was.