Meet Me In The Hallway

Homecoming

"Come on, Angel! Open them up. Let me see those baby blue eyes, baby." I could hear the chuckle he was suppressing at his 'joke.'

I was playing a game where I was still sleeping although Harry knew the minute my breathing had changed and pounced.

"Melly, I can tell you are awake. And my mum made me baked French toast. Baked! Baby! They are like pudding for breakfast, and I really want to eat them, but I can't leave without you." He was lying beside me, our fronts facing each other. I'd woken up in the night to him sprawled all over me once. I'd woken up to him a second time sleepily searching for my skin. His lips had fitted below my ear and he had gently kissed me. The kisses had deepened to a suck and then he was roving over the back of my neck and the shoulders completely uncovered by my tank top. When he gripped the loose bun I had my hair in and pressed hot lips to my panting mouth, I'd given in.

I hadn't let him touch me before bed in his mum's house, not the way he wanted to.

The meeting had gone well and we had got on immediately. Anne told me her favorite book was 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' and I'd told her I'd actually brought it on tour, because it was my favorite too and we had been off.

"It's odd that both of us identify so intensely with a girl from a totally different time and place than both of us." I'd wondered aloud.

"Maybe it just means that we both are empathetic and see beauty everywhere!" She surmised and squeezed my shoulders.

Gemma had told me all about her new position with Lush and since cosmetics was ostensibly my job, we had lots in common too. We were gushing about shampoo bars and k beauty products before she mentioned a haircut she wanted. Within minutes we had phones in hand showing each other ideas and then she was pulling my braid out and playing with my hair.

Harry had sat on the couch with his step dad and talked quietly and looked over often, totally pleased with the giggles he was hearing.

Before he left for stage, he had come over to hug me close. I stiffened for just a second until I melted against him like a ice lolly on a beach sidewalk. "Mum likes you!" He sounded happy and relieved and I wondered if he had been hiding his own nerves at this clash of emotional titans in his life, but pretending to be chill to alleviate my nerves. "We can stay there tonight, not the hotel?"

I realized then, that he was gonna go back with me, if things didn't go smoothly. I swallowed the butterflies in my throat so they were back at home in my belly for this boy and nodded.

When we left the arena, I rode with the family, squashed between Harry and Gemma with his hand playing with my fingers on my thigh. It was the most touching I'd tried to allow in his mother's house. It was mostly a losing battle with Mr. Octopus but his arm across my shoulder and his heart on my sleeve seemed to be ok.

His mother had kissed both of his cheeks and one of mine when she sent us up to bed, not a word indicating she expected me to sleep anywhere but with her son. I'd been gathering my things to change in the bathroom when he had smoothed his hands up my back and kissed the skin just below my occipital notch. It was his favorite part of my neck he had told me one night. "I like that my nose presses deeper in your hair. It always smells lovely." He'd said, and I'd swooned. He caught me.

That night he started there with an agenda. "Can we pick up where we left off at the hotel?" His hands were on the hem of my dress and he was shimmying it up. My neck was rolling around to the beat his lips had set, but I still had some wits about me.

"No, H! I've gotta go change!" I'd thrust the t-shirt and shorts in my hands up knocking one of his paws off my hip where he had ridden my dress up.