We MaDe It

32.

"At that moment Anders walked around the back table and came to stop in full clear view..my breath hitches. He's clean shaven..skin kissed with a golden tan....A few strands of his dark blonde hair falls in his eye-line....a few seconds later his eyes lift to meet mine. The air holds in my lungs...our gazes locked across the crowded room..my heart flutters..seconds tick past, the flutter becomes a thump. I watch fixated as his eyes seem to darken.."

"How does one sees another's eyes darken from a distance except for lust?" Harry paused to ask himself in a quiet voice. His eyes were closed.

He was reading a book, well, listening to an audio book, Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Toon. He belonged to a book club now thanks to his mom Anne dragging him there. She complained they don't spend enough time together and therefore need a shared hobby. In months it would be ten years since Gemma's death and it was hitting his mom hard.

He thinks she's worried about him dying as well and trying to create as much quality memories with him as possible.

Harry was done with chemo and felt much better, the doctors are happy with his scans. He was in the clear.
All was fine except for one snag. The intensive cycles of chemo given to him in a bid to aggressively destroy the cancer cells in his body left him with heightened sense of smell. The downside of that, being bombarded with all sorts of smells all at once which then causes terrible nausea. He now takes meds to control that.

He can say he finally understands what Zayn was going through when the latter would complain about morning sickness that lasts all day. And thanks to Zayn's recommendation, he's also since learned ice cold lemonade with lime slices work wonders to curb sickness.

He touched his belly, scratching the skin around the bandaging on his wound gently. He's been warned off travelling abroad until that's properly healed. It would seem being in the clear did not cancel being high risk of developing infection.

Not being able to travel abroad was a blow cause that coincided with summer school break. He'd planned to surprise Zayn and their children with a trip to Italy to celebrate his remission. Those plans were cancelled.

While he was disappointed, the kids were happy to not be at school to cause a fuss about where they were spending their summer holidays.

Luckily the UK weather turned up. And today, was the hottest day in years. It was 1pm, and the temperature was soaring at 40° degrees. It was inevitable when everyone descended to the pool. Zayn and the kids, minus Leo who was with Brooklyn's parents, were playing water polo, along Niall and Sebastian.

Harry couldn't participate for obvious reasons.

Loud laughter and screeching made him open his eyes.
He glanced at them splashing about in the water, eyes instinctively wandered to Zayn. He breathed in taking Zayn's beauty. His beautiful husband had a wide smile on his face, his golden skin glistening wet and glowing.

The sunscreen Zayn plastered on himself as well as the kids was perhaps responsible for the glow. Harry felt Zayn is always glowing. More so lately. Ageing looked good on him.

Harry smiled his glance shifting to Alfie. The wee lad was piggyback riding on Zayn's shoulders, holding on to him firmly as he giggled uncontrollably. And Harry wondered what got the boy in that state and followed Alfie's gaze, it lead to Mason who was pouting whilst talking animatedly carrying a ball in his hand.

He guessed Mason got hit by the ball in the face by Alfie most likely as everyone was looking at the little boy who he was going to miss terribly when Niall goes to Ireland in a week's time. Time flies by quickly.