Dangerous Woman

8:

At nine sharp, Harry piled all of our bags into his car and drove us into town. Begrudgingly— he followed me through the mall with a permanent frown etched into his forehead and low grumbles would tumble through his parted lips anytime I would lead us into a new store.

His patience ran very thin the whole morning so I did try to speed through everything I wanted to see. While we were in the Gucci store I caught him eyeing down a pair of white sneakers with a little embroidered snake on each shoe, however because he's stubborn and would never admit that he's benefited from this trip he walks away from them and stands by the front of the shop.

As I'm paying for my Sylvie boots I ask the other worker at the checkout to go out back and grab me a pair of the white sneakers in a size ten. I'm not sure if they'll even be, Harry's size but I have my fingers crossed.

"Thank you for choosing Gucci, have a lovely rest of your day." I smile at the middle aged woman and pick up my two bags before spinning on my heel.

Harry is still standing in the same spot with his unamused glare focused straight ahead of him. I catch him by surprise as I link my empty hand with his upper arm and tug him through the mall. We make it back to the car in under fifteen minutes with one final stop for Froyo, which surprisingly H doesn't complain about and grabs himself a cup of chocolate and vanilla yoghurt.

"That was the longest two hours of my life." I roll my eyes at him and plug in my seat belt.

"Oh stop complaining, I could drag you back in there for another two." Harry scoffs and roars the car to life but I stop him from pulling out of the parking space by pulling the hand break back up.

"Valancia, what the fuc–" I place my index finger over his lips to shush him and reach into the backseat with my other arm. "What are you–" He narrows his eyes at me for interrupting him again but I brush it off with a wide smile.

"I got you something." I hold the handles in both of my hands and extend the black labeled bag out to a now very confused harry.

Cautiously he takes the bag from me and sets it down on his lap. I can't help my growing excitement as he slowly pushes aside the layers of tissue paper. After what feels like a life time, he pulls out the white shoe box and his frown deepens.

"Valancia.." He flickers his eyes between mine and the box, warningly draging out my name.

"I saw you looking at them and I knew you wouldn't get them yourself because you'd hate to deal with how smug I'd be." He closes his eyes and inhales before sighing deeply.

I watch him rake his fingers through his hair and I find myself wanting to flatten it back out. Stuck in my daydream, I miss him nodding his head to himself but his raspy voice catches my attention once again.

"I suppose I should probably say thank you then, huh." I bounce up and down in my seat and gesture to the box in his hands.

"Put them on." Harry smirks at my over enthusiasm but doesn't fight against my request.

Seeing him trying on his new shoes makes me too impatient to wait for my own, so I reach into the back seat once more and grab my own bag. The smell of new leather fills my senses and I'm immediately reminded of the chairs in my dads office back home.

I can't deny the little pang of hurt that flushes through my veins when I think of my family. I more or less dropped off the face of their earth and no one has tried to contact me. The feeling then grows when I remember overhearing, Harry talking on the phone this morning.

His mother had called and he sounded so calm and at peace. I stood beside the bathroom door and listened as he filled her in on what he's been doing. He had said that he wasn't sure when he'd be home but that he was driving safely and loved her very much.