Bad Friend

28. Last

This is part of a double update! Make sure you read 27 first. Enjoy!

I was wandering the halls of Harry's house. His house. I could hardly believe it.

I didn't have a lot of time to explore last night because he was kind of the only thing on my mind, but now that I was awake and he was taking care of a few things before we went out, I took the opportunity to explore. To my surprise, everything in his house was kind of dark—gray curtains and walls, dark cabinets and kitchen appliances, even the wood floors were a bleak dark brown. It was weird to think that this was Harry's house. The Harry I knew was so lively, full of color, practically radiant. The house I was in looked like something a sad poet would live in. Looking around at the few personal touches he had downstairs, I wondered what made him pick a house that was so...somber. His bedroom was a little better and had more framed posters and pictures of his family and a bookshelf filled with records and novels, but the rest of the house looked like it belonged to someone else. No wonder he preferred to spend the last couple of months with me. My apartment was small, but at least there was proof of life within it. Harry's place was a real estate catalog.

Curiously, I pulled one of the few picture frames from the mantle above the fireplace in his living room. It was one of those collage frames, each picture from what appeared to be someone's wedding, his mother's, I assumed. I'd never met Harry's mom before, but I could see the resemblance between him and the woman in the white gown. He looked cute in his suit and smiling brightly next to his mother and other members of his family.

It occurred to me then that while I knew so much about Harry—how he took his coffee, his favorite Golden Girl, whether he thought water was wet or not, which side of the bed he liked to sleep on, the reason why he had a tiny, almost imperceptible scar on his chin—there was still a lot that I didn't know about him, and probably just as much that he didn't know about me. But instead of being afraid of that fact, I was just filled with the urge to ask him all sorts of questions until we knew absolutely everything there was to know about each other. That's progress, right?

I was still studying the pictures in my hands when the front door to his house unlocked. In came Emily, a tray with two to–go cups of coffee in her hand and a large tote over her shoulder. "Harry? I brought your usual. There's a couple of things Jeff asked me to—Oh, it's you."

Emily didn't look all that pleased to see me, and to be honest, the feeling was mutual. Earlier this morning, I told Harry not to worry about his assistant's rude behavior last night because I was mature and could fight my own battles. I also wanted to give Emily the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe she'd had a bad day or something, but by the sour look on her face, it was clear that she had a problem with me. Luckily for her, I was still riding on a high from this morning's activities with Harry, so I plastered a smile on my face and ignored the slight bite in her tone.

"Good morning, Emily. Did you enjoy the party last night?"

I could tell from her onceover that she was looking for evidence of Harry and me hooking up, but anything incriminating was hidden by the hoodie I borrowed from Harry. I was originally going to wear a sweater with the plaid pants I packed, but one look at my neck and I was rifling through Harry's closet for something that would cover it. I had a sizable hickey near my jaw that was kind of tricky, but I did what I could with concealer, putting the hood over my head, and using my hair to cover the rest. I was actually pretty impressed with my work.

"Yeah. It was a lot of fun," she said, that scrutinizing look that seemed reserved for me on her face. "Shame you and Harry had to leave so early. Everybody was wondering where he went."

Shrugging, I said, "I wasn't feeling well, and since San Diego is kind of a long drive, he offered me his guest room."

"I'm surprised you're still here. You said you work at a store or something?"