as it is || harry styles au

forty

i v o r y

Harry slid into one of the chairs at the counter. "I didn't know you were working tonight."

     It was late. I had only an hour left of my shift, and somewhere in the middle of it, I'd gotten a second wind. I was feeling something between delusional and dead on my feet.

"Where have you been?" I asked. There was a bite to my tone, but I couldn't help it. I'd checked my phone at least a dozen times during my shift and never got a call back. Doubt was creeping its way into my mind. Its claws had been sinking in ever since I entertained the thought back in the car. The thought that Harry's feelings for me were being commandeered by an obligation to protect Jamie and I.

Harry's brow twitched, catching my tone. "Uh...at the shop. Why?"

"The shop?"

"Yeah, I used to work part-time at the tattoo shop down past City Hall. I never told you this?"

My jaw dropped open. "You work at a tattoo shop? Like as a tattoo artist?"

"Well, I don't really anymore. But yeah, I guess once a tattoo artist, always a tattoo artist."

"Hey, darlin'." The voice belonged to a woman sat with her husband at a booth to our left. She gestured to Harry. "Your boy did my sleeve a couple years back. He's a real talent."

Harry grinned, eyes flashing in recognition. "Thanks, Janelle."

Right before my eyes was a part of Harry I'd never met before.

"Ivy." I jolted. Paola touched my arm, spooking me. "You should head home. You don't have any tables, and you've not only done all of your side work, but all of mine, too."

"You sure?" I asked.

I hated leaving a shift early even if it was only an hour. And I hated doing so even more when I'd just taken time off.

"Let me drive us home, Ives," Harry offered.

h a r r y

     Ten minutes later, I pulled into Ivy's apartment complex behind her.

     She was beyond exhausted which was why I'd offered to drive her home. She'd gotten maybe five hours of sleep in the past two days. Tacking on seeing Jake, the lawyer, and working a shift at the diner...it was a miracle she knew the way home.

     Evidently, she'd declined the ride. I didn't fight it. I figured she needed her space.

     "Do we need to pick up Jamie?" I asked as we walked up to her apartment.

     I knew that was part of her usual routine. If she worked a night shift, Dena or I would pick up Jamie from school, then head to Dena's where he'd stay until Ivy picked him up after work.

     She dug through her purse, finding her keys and jamming the right one into the lock. "No. He went to Bobby's after school. Erica will drop him off around seven-thirty."

     "Oh, I didn't know he went to Bobby's."

     "He went to Bobby's."

     Okay...