Flame // hs

six

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Harry was pretty sure #1 on the list of best friend rules was not to fall in love with them.

He had failed. Failed massively and horrible and it was overtaking his brain. Watching Ember as she sat across from him at the coffee shop, he felt his heart hammer in his chest as he observed her. Her back was facing the window, illuminating her from behind and giving her an angelic glow from behind. Her reading glasses kept falling and her annoyed huff made him smile, his own attempt at studying abandoned as he chose instead to sip his coffee, fold the wrapper of his straw as small as he could and stare at Ember.

It was one of his new favorite pastimes. Watching her closely, observing her doing seemingly mundane tasks and becoming obsessed with the way she made them interesting. He had to admit he had never felt obsessive over a human before, really the opposite. Harry tended to run the other way as soon as he got too close to people because he liked to beat them to the punch. After some shit he had gone through he learned to leave first and didn't want to see someone else walking away from him. Ember, though? He was allowing himself to get closer and closer to her. Enough he had opened up his heart.

"Can feel you staring." She smiled, a phrase all too familiar to her lips now. "What could possibly be so interesting about me studying? Or do I have something on my face?" Her eyes still didn't leave her paper, though.

"You're just a pretty girl." He hummed, taking the coffee to his lips. "You do a cute thing with your nose when you don't get something. A little scrunch. And then you rub your eyebrow and smooth the hair out of your face. Did you know that?" This was definitely showing his ass as being obsessive but he didn't mind. Seeing her freeze and duck her head down so he couldn't see her flustered was a reward.

"You're a dork. I didn't know that, no." Her hand reached for her drink, taking a measured sip before placing it back down on the orange plate with a soft 'clink' of ceramic. "Then again, I study. I'm not watching myself stress over memorizing these definitions." Her words were lighthearted but he could see the stress come back on her face as his eyes fell to the pastel highlighters uncapped next to her. Something Harry never understood doing because she was bound to dry this set out.

"M'sorry, love. Didn't mean to distract you." Harry wanted her to let him accompany her to study again. The last thing he wanted was another stretch of time without her and he had to prove himself today that he could keep his hands to himself- but she hasn't said anything about eyes. That was impossible to keep away, so he wouldn't even attempt that.

"It's okay, it isn't just you. I'm frustrated with it." She sighed, pushing her glasses back up on her face. "You're behaving for once." The smile returned to the lips Harry loved so much,  causing the cotton candy feeling to rise back in his stomach. He had done that. Gotten that smile from her. He wanted to do that more and more.

He went to say something back but he was rudely interrupted.

"Ember?" A voice startled them both, Harry looking up to see a somewhat familiar face. He knew of the guy, someone on the lacrosse team and a bit obnoxious at parties, he wasn't quite sure what he was doing coming up to them- let alone Ember- but he didn't have a good feeling about it.

"Hey, Tyler." She greeted him with a polite smile.
It was one Harry knew to be reserved for casual friends, not the same ones he got, but he still felt a bit annoyed. The guy was interrupting the little time he got with her today. She was leaving after to go back to her place for another study group.

"Hey! I can't wait for study group later. It's really cool that you guys are nice enough to help out. Thanks for letting me join. I've never understood material so easily. You're especially good at explaining things." The guy hadn't stopped staring at Ember, not even taking a glance at Harry. It pissed him the fuck off.