The Maiden in Winter // Harry Styles Series #4

TWENTY THREE

~H~

(text from Harry to Mitch)

I think it's going to happen. I feel like I'm sixteen again. Should've cleaned the pipes...

(text from Mitch)

Lol - don't be a one pump chump

(text from Harry)

Thanks for the vote of confidence

(text from Mitch)

Any time, brother. Have fun

***

~A~

I left my bag in the car and had to run back out to catch George before he left. Harry was sitting on the sofa texting when I came back inside.

"Caroline?" Oh, shit, that sounded snarky.

"Alex Griffin, are you jealous?"

I sat beside him. "Maybe. I know her, Harry. She's rich and glamorous and beautiful, and obviously she was something important to you."

"So were a number of women. Rich and glamorous and beautiful and something important to me." He sounded so nonchalant. I didn't like it.

"That's not helping."

"Important doesn't always mean good, you know." There was an edge to his voice I'd never heard before.

"I know. I've heard all your music. I've read the magazine covers. I see you choosing isolation. I know you've been hurt, that you're hurting. What I don't know is why me? I'm not rich or glamorous or beautiful. I'm just plain me."

He stood and walked around the room once, hand raking his hair back from his face. I could feel the tension building inside of him until he stopped and slammed both hands on the back of a chair, making me jump.

"Stop saying that! Stop saying you're plain, that you're not beautiful. I don't care if you're rich or glamorous, that doesn't matter. But you are beautiful, Alex. You fucking glow with it, and I don't know how I know it, but I know it's real." He looked at me then, something like desperation in his eyes. "It has to be real."

He sat down hard next to me, dropping his head in his hands.

"Alex, there's so much you don't know."

"Tell me."

***

I've seen men cry. Dad cried until he had no more tears when Mom died. Andy cried until he could hardly speak when his first boyfriend broke his heart. Ed cried, quietly and steadily, through Dad and Suzi's memorial service.

I've never seen a man cry like Harry cried that night.

That bitch Olivia had done a number on him. She had lured him in, wound him up, wrung him out, and left him. She had watched him fall in love with her, with her children, all the time knowing it would never last. His description of the last time he saw Daisy and Otis left me crushed; I could only imagine what it had done to him. To them.

I don't toss the word around lightly, but I hated her.

And I wasn't jealous of Caroline anymore. I was grateful for her.

She had saved him. She hadn't fixed him, but she had saved him.

But she had a career, commitments she couldn't ignore. She stopped traveling with him after Slane, came back for Reggio Emilia, but flew out that night.

And then came the crash.

"Mum thought I was going to die. I wouldn't eat. Wouldn't talk. Wouldn't bathe. Thank god for Leigh."