The Timeline [h.s.]

70.

June 23rd, 2018:

Claire woke up before everyone else in the room.

Which meant that she got about 4 hours of total sleep, perhaps.

During the night, both her and Harry had managed to stay on their respective sides of the bed, although, when she turned her head to his side, her hair rustling against the expensive sheets, tangling on the back of her head, she saw that he had drifted closer. His head was hunched to the very edge of the pillow, his nose poking out of the white canva behind him.

She took that moment to observe him, in the quiet of the morning, as the sunlight of the early hours of the morning - for she knew it couldn't have been later than 8, and that was if she had been lucky with her sleeping time - painted light shadows in the crooks of his face.

It was unfair, she thought, just how beautiful he was, even as he slept. His eyelashes were long, longer than hers, and they fanned the very top of his cheekbones. His skin was so smooth, which was very surprising, after the incredibly wild night he had had, drinking straight tequila as if it was water. He should've been pale and distraught, and instead he looked like he had been partaking in a sleeping beauty competition.

Was Claire attracted to him, still?

How could she not? He was, by far, one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. That she would ever see. She had given up on trying to deny it, by then.

But attraction was anything she could let herself feel.

Now, in the quiet of the morning, and after the absolutely insane three days they had spent together - starting from after the night he had come clean about his relationship with Camille - Claire was finally starting to draw rational conclusions about everything that had happened. What her mind had conjured, what she had dreamed and imagined, what she had felt, the high of being so close to him....

And if there was a thing that was abundantly clear, it definitely was that she needed to keep herself in chek. She couldn't allow herself to wander so far from what she had decided. The previous night had been proof of that.

Things between her and Harry had finally started to feel normal, and there her mind and her body were, trying to make things messy again. She couldn't let it happen, she was too afraid of the consequences.

There was, however, Harry's behavior to account for. The things he had done, some of them, had felt a little too much, even for someone who was as touchy and affectionate as he was. The song he had chosen, the things he had said when he had been on the brink of sleep.... Things that could easily be attributed to being drunk out of his mind, coming down from the high of two sold out nights at MSG, for sure.

Things that, still, managed to make Claire's heart beat a tad bit faster.

Things that were, in the end, very dangerous for her. That could open doors she wasn't ready to open again, maybe never.

In the end, as Harry had said - and Claire didn't really know if she had been supposed to hear that, or if he had been speaking to himself more than anything - they seemed to share the same sentiment.

It wasn't as it had been between them, but it was okay, as long as they were together.

Contorted? Kinda. But it was okay by her. Acceptable. She had made her peace with it.

The previous days, the moments she had lived, they were just some little derailments in the road of their newfound friendship. Something that could never happen again. Claire would make sure of it, even if it meant squashing some baby feelings here and there. All she'd need to think about was the mess that had ensued when they had dabbled in places where they had no business sticking their nose in, and she'd get a scare for life.