Beating For Two

Chapter 27

Saturday, April 16th

Thirty-four weeks and five days

I wound up wandering around the neighbourhood for over an hour, ignoring my aching ankles and sore back and trying to force the spinning emotions in my head to come to a stop. My anger from last night had already disappeared, which led me to become angry at myself for not being able to be angry.

There was at least a big use of the word 'angry'.

I also felt confusion over the conversation between Harry and Anne that I'd overheard that morning because the words that had come out of their months had almost made it seem like... well, like Harry maybe... liked me, but that he was – as Liam and Zayn had tried to tell me more than once – scared. If that was it then... okay, then that would be great. Not that he was scared, of course, but that he liked me. Then again, knowing Harry, there was a quite big possibility he would never admit to it, despite the fact that his mother threatened to kick him out of the house if he didn't put all the cards on the table. There was also a possibility that the whole thing was a joke and that the conversation I'd overheard that morning was just a fragment of my own twisted imagination. Not that that theory made a whole lot of sense, but then again, neither did anything else at the moment, so why not?

With those somewhat disturbing and mind-spinning thoughts in my head, I started walking back towards the house. It took me quite a few minutes to get there and when I did, I stood outside the door with my hand on the handle for at least five minutes, thinking back and forth about things that weren't any more coherent than the dreams about cucumbers and wallpapers that I'd had when I was five. Eventually I rolled my eyes and gave myself a mental slap in the face before I opened the door and stepped inside.

It was a little ridiculous maybe, the way I was so nervous over the fact that I was going to have a simple talk with a guy I'd known for over half a year now. Then again, the talk wasn't going to be easy, it was going to be anything but easy. 'Awkward' was one key-word. 'Long' was another. 'Crucial' was a third, because I'd heard what Anne had said to Harry about this conversation having to include a discussion of what we were going to do with the baby. Was this when we had to make a final decision? Now? I had a pretty strong feeling that this whole thing wouldn't end nicely if that was the case, especially not if Harry was still adamant about keeping the baby because... well, I was still leaning very much towards giving the poor thing up for adoption. The thought gave me a sad lump in my throat, but I forced it back as I headed further into the house to find Harry.

He wasn't in the kitchen, where I found Anne, Connor and Adrian, who were sitting by the table with an assortment of paper-sheets and crayons spread all around them, and he wasn't to be found in the living room either, leading me to believe that he was in his bedroom.

I knocked three times when I'd reached his door and then waited. And waited. And waited. When at least twenty seconds passed by and I hadn't heard a sound, I tried again. Nothing now either. I wrinkled my forehead, feeling a little confused. He wouldn't have gone anywhere, would he? He'd said that he wanted us to talk and I'd told him that I'd be back before it had been too long. I tried knocking once again, but I still got no response. Thinking that he'd may fallen asleep for some reason and that that was the reason why he didn't answer, I opened the door tentatively and stepped inside the room.

Exactly two point five seconds was how long it took me to regret that decision.

It wasn't that what I was seeing in front of me right now wasn't something I'd been fantasising about for a few months, but to accidentally walk in on it when I least expected it was still a little unnerving. He was sitting on the chair in front of his desk, giving me a view of him in profile, his eyes were closed and he had his headphones on. The more unusual part though, was that his pants were unbuttoned, that his boxers were pulled down just a little and that his hand held a firm grip around his very hard and very nice-looking cock. The even more surprising part was that the porn displayed on his laptop-screen was most definitely not something that a straight guy would watch.