Higher Feeling

seeing red

"The last time I found you out here, I thought I'd ruined our chance."

The sound of Harry's voice pulled me out of my day dream. I'd been thinking of the last time I had the time to read a book on my favourite banana lounge, soaking up the little sun England offered up. It had been close to 12 months ago and I'd walked away from Harry. Now, my actions made me cringe. I didn't regret standing up for myself, and fighting for my self-control, but I hated the dramatics. The instinct to run, and not listen.

"It was warm enough to be in a bikini." I sighed. I liked the cold but endless days of grey could dampen anyone's mood.

"Mm," Harry hummed, coming up behind me and draping his arms around my shoulders. "I remember it well."

"Perv," I muttered. I wriggled out of Harry's grasp. "I'm going to miss this place, you know. It's the first place I got to design and live in."

"Onto bigger and better things, baby."

I peered over Harry's shoulder, past the tree and to the back door. Gen was standing there watching us. "You are sure Gen doesn't know?"

"There is nothing tying me to the overseas shell corporation that is renting the property to Genevieve. She won't go looking for the name on the deed."

Nadia and I still paid rent on the Finsbury Park maisonette we'd shared with Gen for the last few years. We hadn't moved all our things out despite living with the men in our lives since before Christmas. The London property market for renters was horrendous. Over priced, over crowded, and definitely not set up to help a make-up artist come hairdresser come magazine contributor looking to live alone for the first time in her life.

After months of Gen searching, and Nadia and I both begging for Gen to move in to a property owned by William or Harry, I'd gone to Harry. He found a property that was almost exactly what Gen wanted, gave the current tenant notice and set up for Gen's real estate agent to contact her about a new flat on his books. Three weeks later, everybody was happy and Gen still had her pride. We were all officially moving out.

Finsbury Park would no longer be ours and letting go was proving to be more painful than I anticipated.

The memories we shared in the house would always be with us but sometimes, memories feel more real in the place they happened in. I never went back to Don's house for that very reason. My memory of those years was vivid enough already.

"Sasha? Nadia wants to know if you're taking the lamp from the sitting room."

"Oh, she's getting that lamp over my dead body!" Harry laughed beside me. He swot my backside.

"You better get back inside, Angel. I'll see if William wants a hand taking Nadia's bed apart."

We went back inside, Harry going upstairs while I went to the living room to fight Nadia over the lamp. We spent every daylight hour, and a few hours into the night, to move everything. Harry and William had tried to get us to use professional movers but we'd moved ourselves in, and we were determined to leave the same way. There was something satisfying about it.

The cleaning, however? We let them contract that out. Nobody likes to clean walls with sugar soap or clean tile grout with a toothbrush.

Our day ended at Gen's, starting to unpack and set up the bare essentials. Her bed was put back together in record time and when the fridge was plugged in, Liam and Nadia left to get take-away for dinner while the rest of us started on the living room.

"I think I mislabelled some boxes."

We were standing in the living room of Gen's new flat. Harry and I turned our heads in Gen's direction. She moved on from the box she just opened and onto the next. "Oh, yep. Definitely did."