ISN'T SHE LOVELY | hs

7 | GETTING STARTED

| HARRY |
Thursday 11th August, 2022

"You know you didn't have to say 'knock knock' after I'd already opened the door to you, right?"

Mickayla's at my house again, alone and with an invite this time. The girl is soaked through, the heavens having well and truly opened, and I immediately feel awful. I should have driven over to her place and picked her up with the weather being what it is, but I ended up stuck with a work emergency. Again.

She wears a yellow raincoat with the hood up, water dripping from it and onto the laminate flooring of my hallway, and black Dr. Marten boots that have also left footprints behind after she bounded across the threshold like a baby deer to get out of the downpour.

I don't care about the mess. Not one bit. In fact, I like the marks that she's already made on my home after being inside of it for all of a few seconds. I'll be sad to see it dry up.

Mickayla pulls down the hood of her jacket before shimmying it off, passing it along with her tote into my outstretched hand waiting to hang them up for her while smirking at me, "Who pissed in your cereal this morning, Jagger? I thought we established how much I love that word."

A smile cracks onto my face, my scowl that's been present since waking up disappearing, "Sorry, love. Didn't have cereal. Didn't have any breakfast at all, actually."

"That explains the grumpy 'tude." Micki winks up at me, now crouched down and unlacing her boots. I swallow hard at the angle she's positioned in, shaking off the thoughts to walk to the cupboard and hang her coat and bag up, "It's not like you to skip brekkie, H."

"Unfortunately I skipped all of my morning routine. No breakfast. No gym. You're lucky I had time for a shower." I sigh, spinning to face her and watching as she walks towards me with her boots in hand. I take them from her and put them into an empty spot next to my shoes. I can't help but smile at that, her stuff next to my stuff looks so right, but turn around to find her frowning, "My phone ringing was my alarm clock. No Peace Piece to wake me up, but Ariza telling me that the audio files from Cillian's last recording session have completely disappeared."

Micki's frown deepens, a cute little crease having now popped up between her brows as she folds her arms, "Damn. Dude couldn't have waited until you'd had a cuppa to drop that bombshell?"

"Perks of being the boss." I laugh dryly, nodding my head for her to follow me, "C'mon. I'm finally gonna make myself something to eat, which means you're eating too."

The smell of jasmine, peonies and paint fills the corridor we now walk through, another impression Mickayla is making in my home. They're scents heightened by the rain and ones I've found myself deeply missing the last two weeks.

I left her flat the last time I saw her smelling the same way. Being around Mickayla and all of her things in such close proximity must have transferred the fragrance. It made me smile like a madman when I arrived home and learned that she'd, in a way, followed me back to my place. If it wasn't unhygienic to not shower and keep her scent on me forever, I wouldn't have let a drop of water or soap touch me ever again. They're such comforting smells.

The grin ached my face for twelve more hours: from the moment I realised, all through the night as I slept, and it even followed me into the next morning. It disappeared not long after I arrived at the studio in the afternoon, though, with the first of many work emergencies to come soon happening. They're the very and only reasons that I've been kept away from Micki this past fortnight.

For the first time since being in one another's lives, we haven't done our weekly Sunday hang-outs due to the hassle that I've endured at work. We missed our swim and the planned Dirty Dancing reenactment because on the Saturday before, the day I woke up with a cheesy grin, Dana had a meltdown.