book club

fourteen || white sheets

This - Ed Sheeran

Explosions - Ellie Goulding

After breakfast, we walk around town. Harry buys me a bag of candy from the corner store, but not without making a plethora of cheesy jokes.

"We should just chill today." He says.

I'm browsing through the records at one of Harry favorite stores in town.

"Yeah, where? The barn?" I reply absently.

"I was thinking my house."

"Easy tiger." I say.

Harry whacks my shoulder with the record case he's holding and laughs.

"Not like that, Lea. We're friends, you know that." He insists.

"Yeah yeah, let's go." I grab his arm and tug him to the truck.

He tosses me the key, laughs at my temporary struggle with the gear shift, and then we're flying through town.

"Where do you live?" I question.

He gives me directions, shitty ones at that, but it would've been inevitable; He's a guy.

We pull in front of a large brick house with a perfectly manicured lawn.

"I'll be damned." I whisper.

Harry rolls his eyes. "My dad's not home, which is good."

My mind instantly goes to the image of a boy, standing at my front door with a bruise around one beautiful eye.

"Hey, you okay?" I ask softly.

His face has turned sour. "Yeah. Fine. Let's go inside." He replies.

I sigh and follow him into the house, watching as he waves off his mother and complaining when he drags me up the wooden stairs. His bedroom door is covered in posters, and I half expect his room to be just as disheveled and dark. But, the moment he opens the door and brings me inside, I'm proved completely wrong. Everything is crisp white. The walls. The dresser in the corner. The unmade duvet and wrinkled sheets. A silver MacBook sits open in the middle of the bed. The floor is littered with clothes and books. An ashtray is full on the coffee ring stained table by his bed. A stack of records on top of the desk under the open window.

"I like your room." I compliment.

Harry kicks his shoes off in the corner and moves to unbuckle his belt.

"Woah, woah," I cover my face with both hands and shove my face against the wall. "What are you doing?"

His laugh rings through the room. "Putting sweats on, Lea. Unless you want me to strip for you." He says.

I can practically hear the smirk in his voice. My fingers part over my eye and I pout at him.

"You could've warned me." I huff.

He plops down on his bed and coaxes me towards him.

"I'm sorry, come here."

I shake my head and sit in his desk chair. "I'll sit here." I reply.

Harry rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to pull the moves on you. Just come here, I'll sit at the edge."

I kick my shoes off and cautiously crawl onto his bed, sitting as far away from him as the small mattress will allow.

"Lea." He warns.

I sigh and scoot closer to him, drinking in his small smile of accomplishment. He tangles his legs with mine and pulls the laptop over our thighs.

"Do you want to watch cat videos?" He raises his eyebrows.

I laugh at him, at how much of a dork he is and then nod.

"Why not?"

Weight. There's a weight on me. My eyes flutter open. Harry's legs are intertwined with mine, his arms around my waist and his head is on my stomach. My fingers seem to have subconsciously tangled themselves in his hair. I know I should wake him up, or push him to the floor but I have never been this close to someone before, not someone like Harry. He stirs and lets out a breath. Gooseflesh appears when his breath meets the bare skin of my stomach where my shirt has ridden up.

Dear lord.

"Harry." I say softly, shaking him.

He sniffles and rolls over, resulting in a loud thump as he is cast overboard, or overbed, onto the carpeted floor. Harry groans and his eyes flutter open, wide with confusion.

"The hell?" He mutters.

I stifle a laugh and sit up. "Morning Sleeping Beauty." I say.

"Let me lay on you again." He whines, tugging himself off the floor and attempting to crush me beneath his gigantic frame. I protest and use my fists to keep him from pinning me to the mattress, but my arms give out and he collapses on top of me.

"Oh my god you're like a mammoth," I groan. "Get off."

He smiles with closed eyes and buries his face in the curve of my neck, his breath tickling my ear. He sticks his tongue out and licks just below my ear, to which I groan and make a gagging sound. Harry's arms snake around my waist and within minutes he is back, sound asleep and breathing against my neck.

I can't help it, I bury my nose into his neck and breath in his intoxicating scent. My lips are pressed against his pulse, not by choice but I also don't take the initiative to move my head.

"Harry?" I say.

He sighs and open his eyes, dark eyelashes fluttering against my cheek.

"Yes, Lea?" He asks in reply.

"What are we?" I question.

He uses his arms to prop himself above me. "Aliens of course. Extraterrestrial beings. Why do you ask?"

I smile and throw a playful punch to his chest. "You know what I mean." I say.

The playful spark in his eyes dull and he becomes funeral procession serious.

"What do you want us to be?" He asks.

I break my gaze from Harry's, trying to escape from underneath him but long fingers reach out and gently brush against my cheek.

"It's okay." He says

I feel exposed inside and out. Anxious as well. This is new to me, fast paced and new.

"Harry, do you like me?" My voice comes out barely over a whisper, and I almost repeat myself, thinking that maybe he didn't hear.

"Yeah, you're okay." He grins.

I know that he's trying to make me more comfortable by adding comedic relief, but I'm nervous and he quickly realizes this.

"I like you. I like you a lot. If I was bold enough, I'd tell you that I love you, but I don't want to scare you away." He says.

My heart rams against my ribcage, I'm almost sure he can hear it battering my chest.

"Your heart is beating so fast," He whispers, moving his weight to one arm so he can press his palm flat to my chest. "It's just me, Lea."

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

"It's just me." He softly chants this in a mantra, dropping his forehead to meet mine.

His lips are dangerously close to mine, they're even touching but he doesn't kiss me.

"Not today." He smiles, laying down next to me and gathering me to his chest.

And then he holds me, and we're a tangle of denim and cotton clad limbs amongst a cloud of white sheets.