ink. (haylor)

xx. worries

a/n:

when was the last time i gave you guys a friday update??

reminder that if you read my oneshots, requests are open and you should go request a oneshot and I'll write it for you and i really wanna know how your brains work.

[Taylor's POV]

The next few months were filled with blissed-out joy. The fake relationship became the realest thing either one of us has experienced. The media attention doesn't seem as suffocating – the two of us glad to be going through the chaos together.

The company collaboration was finalised – construction units began work on Styles Spas in the first twenty hotels and Des publicly announced his retirement and Harry took the reins of the family company. Third quarter projections for the two companies were at all time highs and fall began to spread itself over New York, making the mornings way colder than before.

Harry and I had been learning new things about each other every day. He liked peanut butter on his toast and didn't take sugar or cream in his coffee – he downed it jet black. He liked to watch Downton Abbey in his spare time and he played bass and acoustic guitar, along with the piano.

He liked it when I drew sharpie hearts on his arms and his chest while we were lying in bed, delaying the starts of our days, just for a few minutes with each other. He also joked about getting one of my doodles on his skin inked over permanently and I joked and told him not do be impulsive.

He was spontaneous and passionate and opinionated and complex – he was smart and intense and funny and everything I never knew I wanted.

One morning I'd reached over to his side of the bed – we had been sleeping in the same bed for a long time – and found the spot empty. The bed-sheets were neatly tucked in where he had been and I sat up, still in a sleepy daze.

I spotted his phone next to the bed – if he'd left it here, he must not be very far right?

I unlocked my own phone and found no texts from him informing me of his whereabouts. I thought nothing of his morning absence, even though it felt rather unusual, since we always saw each other before the day began.

Instead, I check my updated calendar and saw that I had a rare, mostly free day today, except for a quick briefing this morning, my schedule was empty. As I wondered if any of my friends were free for lunch today, Harry walked into the room – practically dripping with sweat.

As if the Nikes on his feet didn't give it away, his hair was wet and a glossy coat of sweat covered his whole body. He'd just been for a run.

For the few months we'd been together, Harry had gone running only on one other occasion. Before he was evaluated by the board of directors at his dad's company before he took over, and today.

Harry Styles wasn't rattled by too many things, but something was unnerving him today.

"You went running," I said, as more of an accusation and less of a question.

"Yeah," he exhaled slowly, dabbing a towel at his forehead and pulling off a t-shirt to reveal his chiselled chest with all its muscles flexed. If this had been under any other circumstances, we would have been all over each other at that moment, but clearly both our minds were in other places.

"Anything big happening today?" I tried, nonchalantly, climbing out of bed and heading to the adjoined bathroom, stopping and leaning against the doorway and looking at him knowingly.

"Not really," I raised an eyebrow, "Besides this meeting with the CEO of this company we've been trying to buy out."

Bingo.