Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)

Chapter 27

Charlotte was right, getting out of London clears his head immediately. At least until Zayn texts when his train is pulling out of Oxford and texts again as he’s getting off at Kingham. Harry ignores him and after a few hours, Zayn resorts to calling, leaving a string of voicemails that are so desperate Harry has to hide his phone in a drawer in case he gives in to the urge to call him back.

That’s how the week goes, his lazy days of reading books and walking Alfie on the village green punctuated by the skip of his heart each time Harry checks the drawer to see if Zayn has called. He shouldn’t, he knows. He should give his phone to the housekeeper, Anna, ask her to hide it, but he’d be lying if he said that it didn’t make his heart sing when he saw that he had another voicemail, the sound of Zayn’s voice – quick and weak – echoing the sound Harry’s heart makes when he hears it.

Perhaps it would help if there were something to do in Kingham, but the village is tiny with just one shop and one pub where Alfie does indeed have his own pillow. It kind of reminds him of home, though, the way that people say hello when they pass him in the street and dote over their gardens. Not that he has a home any more, the house he grew up in now home to another family who probably fight with the back door when it’s too hot and get a Chinese every Saturday night from Fortune City. But every time he passes the Christmas tree in the middle of the green, he can’t help but think of it, of their tree with the awful ornaments he and his sister made as kids that his mother insists they put on it every year. The Santa he made from a spent toilet roll when he was five and Gemma’s angel that always takes pride of place on the top of the tree even though most of the glitter has come off. He knows that his mother took them with her to Limoges and pictures the tree in the corner of her big living room that looks out onto nothing but green. Green and green and green. He wonders if she’s bought a wreath yet. Every year she buys a fresh one so when Harry sees them hanging outside the shop, their tartan ribbons fluttering in the breeze, he can’t help but buy one for Charlotte’s house, Anna utterly bewildered when she walks into the hall to find him hanging it on the front door.

So Harry blames it on nostalgia, that moment of weakness, nostalgia and too much mulled wine, everyone at the pub making as much fuss over him as Alfie. A writer! they say every time he tells them what he does and when their eyes light up, it makes his chest swell with pride, which he hasn’t felt for a very long time. So perhaps that’s why he answers his phone that night, because he’s starting to feel like Harry again – the Harry who had nothing to be ashamed of – his pulse skipping at the thought of what Zayn’s going to say. That he’s sorry. That he loves him. That he’ll do anything. But Zayn doesn’t say a word and Harry just sits there, listening to him breathing and the lazy beat of the song Zayn’s listening to, before he hangs up. So when he calls again the next night, Harry almost doesn’t answer, but it’s 3 a.m. and he can’t sleep, either.

‘Are you going to say anything?’ Harry asks, the music louder tonight. Closer. He’s in a club, Harry realises when he hears a sudden cheer, and he can’t help but think of the night they met, a hand to his chest as he remembers the way Zayn looked at Harry when he told him that they had a friend in common.

‘Are you coming back?’ Zayn says at last, his voice slow and sad.

Harry closes his eyes. ‘Maybe.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Before,’ Harry holds his breath when Zayn hesitates, sure that his heart will stop if he says it, but he says, ‘Christmas?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Where are you?’