Easy A+

Chapter 195

Tell me what you want and you got it, love

— Harry Styles, Cinema

. . . .

"For fuck's sake!"

I'm changing one-year-old Sophie when I hear those obscenities being yelled from the bedroom. Hand-in-hand, we slowly walk up to the doorway of mine and Harry's bedroom. I peak my head in first, seeing him sitting at the desk crammed in the far corner.

"Everything okay?" I ask him.

Sophie sprints right up to her father and he wastes no time scooping her up to cuddle her close to his chest. She has the biggest smile on her face making grabby hands towards her favorite person. Whatever tension in him melted away after our youngest child ran up to him.

These two have the sweetest bond. He loves all three of his children more than anything, but Sophie and he have a special connection that's beautiful to see. Every day when Harry comes home or leaves to go to work, she's standing at our front window waiting for him. Whoever's home with her, usually Anne will tell her that her dad should be home soon and she'll magnetize right to the window to wait for him. We ended up keeping a stool there for her.

These kids are everything to us.

Harry holds a stress ball down in front of his daughter and she takes it, observes it, then throws it to the floor, watching it roll under the bed. While I bend down to get it, she's already moved on when Harry whispers to her and moves her arms around to clap.

Looking back at me, he starts talking, "It's too fu—it's too cramped in this house. We have no space to put anything. Our bedroom is barely functional from all this stuff that would be in an office. The living room is a disaster from all of our books we have on that ugly-ass shelf," he groans and leans back in the chair. "There's just too much stuff in this house."

He's not wrong. There are stacks of folders, binders, papers, and random shit, all around the computer desk in our room. Books are shoved under the desk, often falling over from their stack if one of the kids, George, or even us knocks into them. That's the most irritating part about everything—the clutter. We haven't enjoyed our space in a long time. We've tried to reorganize, get rid of shit, or store it away, but nothing really helps in the long run.

"Yeah, you're right."

His complaints fade away the longer Sophie is with him. Leaving the chaos of that corner, he lies back on the bed, lifts her in the air, and makes plane sounds with his mouth. Her pigtails bounce around on the top of her head, her dark curls waving under the ceiling fan. While I'm putting away laundry in our cramped dresser and even more crowded closet, Max storms into the room, pushing the door open and hitting me in the back. Taking note of me standing behind the door he just assaulted me with, his beautiful eyes light up and he wraps his arms around my legs.

"Max, you hurt your mum. Tell her you're sorry," Harry scolds him.

"I'm sorry, Mummy."

"It's okay, buddy. Did you have a good time with your big sister?"

"Yeah! We went to the park!" He tells us despite knowing a play-by-play of their day together from Lilly sending us pictures of them together and him enjoying his day out.

"What did you do there?" His dad asks and Max pulls himself up onto the bed after stepping on the stool we keep for him.

Max goes on for minutes of every detail of his day out with Lilly. From getting lunch together, including everything he ate, to every piece of play equipment at the park, to seeing a dog that looked like George, and when they fed the birds by the pond.