Call Me Hopeless, But Not Romantic; h.styles

Chapter 14

I shivered as I wrapped my hand around the silver door handle. The cold metal of the door knob slowly started leaching the warmth from my hand. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Without thinking any longer, I pulled the door open and slowly started creeping down the stairs one step at a time.

I stopped after finally stepping down off the last stair and looked around. On my left side was a bunch of boxes and miscellaneous tubs labeled with thick black writing; it was obviously just extra storage space. I looked over to my right and saw a long black couch pushed up against a wall which faced a flat-screen TV hanging on the wall parallel.

I peeked around the corner of the staircase and noticed Harry leaning against the dark wood of the head board while sitting on his giant bed. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. With headphones in his ears and an open book held in his hands, he had no clue of my presence. I couldn't make out the cover of the book but by the look on his face I could tell that he was deeply engrossed in the story.

I couldn't help but lose myself in seeing Harry look so content. It was almost unnatural considering the fact that he had always had a scowl present on his face since the day I met him. I stood watching him for a matter of minutes before he must have felt my eyes on him. He looked up and his right eyebrow rose in confusion while his left eye squinted slightly. I felt my eyes widen in shock and my cheeks redden. Before my mind could catch up and process what was happening, I was behind the security of the locked bathroom door.

"What the hell? Addie, is that you? What the fuck? What are you doing in my bathroom," Harry's enraged voice called through the door I was leaning against to steady myself. I could feel the vibrations of his fist pounding on the wood against my back. I slowly inhaled to try to calm myself.

I wasn't doing anything wrong; I was just going to use his shower since he spilled the left over drink on me. But I wondered to myself, why, if I wasn't doing anything wrong, did I feel so off-kilter.

"I'm just going to use your shower and then I'll be gone. All I need is 15 minutes," I said, trying to muster as much strength into my voice as possible. The small quiver in my voice betrayed me and made it sound like I was asking his permission.

"No. No one uses my shower. Go use the upstairs one." His voice was stern but no matter how much my voice betrayed me, I was not going to back down. I'm not sure where my sudden surge of confidence came from, but I unlocked and yanked the door open looking Harry in the eyes.

"Don't be a fucking prick. The rest of the showers are being used. Do you really think that I want to be down here, that I want to be fighting with you? Because I don't. I would much rather be upstairs avoiding you. I don't know what the fuck I did to you but you need to get over it. I'm sorry. If you would be more careful and pay attention to what you're doing, you wouldn't have spilled the drink on me. The absolute least you could do, besides apologize, is let me use your damn shower." My chest was heaving up and down and my face was on fire; I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if smoke started barreling out of my ears.

Yet again, just like every other time I blew up on Harry, he looked surprised to hear all of that come out of me. Chuckling in disbelief that he once again seemed at a loss for words, I closed the door before he had a chance to regain his bearings and hit me with another is his smart ass comments.

I made sure to lock the door again before stripping down and walking over to the shower. I turned the water on full blast and stepped in. The heat washed over my body, working all of the knots out of my tense muscles. This first week had been nothing if not stressful, but the bad part was: it wasn't even because of college or because of my work load; I could handle the work. It was all because of Harry. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I actually cared what he thought and with his attitude the way it was, I could only see it breaking me in the long run.