earned it [h.s.]

58.

pretend i'm a lawyer for this x

Genevieve.

"Just... hold it a little more straight." Harry murmured, his hands right above my elbows as I angled the cue a little differently. My lip was between my teeth, my one eye pinched close as I leaned over the pool table.

Harry breathed into my neck from behind, his hands slowly leaving me as he gathered my hair to hold it behind my back and out of the way, "Go ahead, baby. Take your shot."

"You two make me vomit." Jeff complained and I chuckled softly before taking my shot, slamming the stick into the white ball which hit the dark blue one. It was headed straight towards the corner and I held my breath until it bounced and landed somewhere in the middle.

I pouted and Harry squeezed my hip, "'S fine. You did good."

"I'm making us lose." I grumbled and he took the stick from my hand with a teasing smirk, "Yeah, you are."

"You should teach me better."

Harry smiled, cupping my chin to press a chaste kiss to my lips. Jeff gagged some more and Harry flipped him off while walking around the table as Mitch was taking his shot. I joined Sarah at the table, sipping some of Harry's beer as I watched him.

He walked around the table with an intense look in his eyes, his brows in a furrow and his eyes zeroing in on the position of the billiard balls on the table. He pinched his bottom lip and I found myself hardly hearing whatever Sarah was talking about. I didn't even blink, my eyes glued to him and the way his shirt – Jeff's shirt – hugged his torso when he leaned forward and confidently took his shot. And scoring.

"Fuck, you guys are killing us here." Sarah complained, finishing her drink before stumbling off of the barstool. Even though it was warm outside on this September evening, Sarah insisted on wearing her Doctor Marten's with a dress. Harry complimented her and then later told me how much inspiration she took from my wardrobe.

It made me blush, honestly, thinking of how Sarah maybe liked what I wore and went for a similar style. I, for once, did wear something that covered my ass. I wore my Levi's again with a white cropped top which showed an inch of my tummy whenever I bent over to take the shot.

We needed this. A night like tonight.

Hanging out at a bar and not talking about it. About Blair, about the divorce, about court. Diane was against it, said we had to prepare and that we were being childish, but we didn't care. We needed this.

They tried to talk it out, it didn't work. They met with a mediator, it didn't work.

A trial was the final option, and it started tomorrow.

My tummy had been in knots for nights in a row now. It basically had been since we got the witness list and it turned out Blair put some very questionable people on there.

Carrie.

My parents.

Seeing their names on that piece of paper made me vomit. Luckily, Diane could pull some strings. We could prove my father's abuse and he wasn't allowed to testify. But my mother was. I hadn't seen either of them since our last church visit and even though I felt so free without their presence looming over me, I had a feeling they wouldn't just leave it like that.

This was their shot, to ruin me. To ruin Harry and in turn ruin me. They wanted to hurt me, make me pay for my sins, make me do penance. And their way of doing that – if not through church – was by making me unhappy.

Harry had consoled me greatly after that night, and he rocked me to sleep on the couch as I clung to him tightly. Sleeping apart from him had been hard, but we braved through. We kept telling ourselves it was too early to live together, but we both knew we mainly lived apart now because Diane had asked us to. We had an excuse. After the trial, that excuse would vanish and I knew Harry would live with me, albeit unofficially until we'd one day get a place of our own.