Always

Chapter 51

As always with Harry, a mysterious amount of time had passed before we were able to tear ourselves away from each other.  We were stood on his front porch, arms in various positions of embrace when he pulled his lips away from mine to give me a glowing smile that I couldn’t help but return.

“Want to come in?” he asked softly, knowing I wouldn’t want to go home and be alone after everything that had happened.

“Yes,” I said without hesitating, smiling in appreciation.

“My mom and sister are here and we were about to play a game,” he said, blushing slightly.  “I know that doesn’t sound cool but… would you want to join?” He bit his lip as he studied my face for my reaction. 

“That actually sounds perfect,” I said, meaning it.  This was exactly the kind of distraction I needed, plus it gave me the opportunity to get to know his family better.  I barely had time to feel nervous before he grinned wider and pressed a kiss to my cheek.  He pulled on my hand, which he had clasped in his, and tugged me inside.

Once in the entryway, he turned to face me and give me a reassuring smile.  He stepped a bit closer and rubbed his thumbs under my eyes, wiping away whatever make up had surely smudged during my crying. 

“Thank you,” I said softly, looking up at him as he smiled gently at me.

“Sure thing, babe.” He kissed me gently on the forehead before taking my hand again and pulling me into the living room, where I saw a card table had been set up.  Set up on the table were several boxes for board games, a plate of cookies, and several glasses holding beverages.  Apparently this was a thing in his house, because they looked up expectantly when we entered.

“Joey!” Anne sang upon seeing me trailing behind Harry.  I hoped my smile looked genuine as I greeted her.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy to see her, because I was, I was just emotionally drained.  I hoped this would help. 

“Hi, Anne, how are you?”

“Lovely, dear, how are you?” It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know if Harry had told his mom or not about my family’s predicament.  I couldn’t decide what I hoped he had done.  Glancing at him quickly, I found him watching me, a soft smile playing on his lips. 

“I’m fine,” I said vaguely.  No need to go into details, because if I was honest, I was perfect and exceptionally happy yet devastatingly sad all at the same time, for two completely different reasons.  In this moment, though, I was wonderful, because I was with Harry. 

“I hope I’m not intruding,” I added, grinning sheepishly at the two women in the room.  Gemma was smiling softly at me, similar to the way Harry was at this exact moment. 

“Oh, of course not!  You’re always welcome here,” Anne said sweetly, causing the grin on my face to grow. 

“Okay, thank you.” Harry squeezed my hand and pulled me toward the square table, offering me the seat next to Gemma and across from his mom. 

“So, we were just deciding what to play when Harry got up,” Gemma informed me.  “So now you get to help us pick!”

I smiled at her before examining the selection of games on the table.  I wasn’t surprised to see that I didn’t know how to play any of them; my family wasn’t big into board games.  Or, really, spending time together in general.  I felt a little embarrassed at this revelation.

“I don’t know how to play any,” I told her, nibbling on my lip.

Her head cocked slightly to the side in surprise before she recovered herself.  “That’s fine! We can teach you any of them,” she said sweetly.  She was much nicer to me this time than when we had first met; I supposed seeing that I was still with Harry and hadn’t done anything treacherous to him reassured her that I was sincere in this.