Just keep breathing

Chapter 45

Katie's Perspective

Don't know how you taste when there's
Smoke in your perfume
So chew me up and spit me out
Nothing left to lose

I don't want your sympathy
But you don't know what you do to me
Oh, Anna!
Every time I see your face
There's only so much I can take
Oh Anna

The sound of Harry's voice fills my ears as I enter the living room to find him sat cross-legged on the floor, guitar in hand. Playing an uptempo song I haven't heard before...

"Working on something new?" I ask, taking a seat on the sofa

"Na, we wrote this in Jamaica. Actually, it didn't make the album, but I'm debating performing it at the arena shows, what do you think? We need to add a few tracks. The shows are gonna be longer." He replies, continuing to strum away on his guitar.

Sometimes I'm not even sure if he's aware he's still playing, it is like his hands have a mind of their own.

"It sounds great to me! But should I be concerned you're singing a song with another woman's name in it... again?" I tease him.

"Har har, no reason for jealousy love, it's just the name that fits well with the melody that's all."

"Ahh, so not a repeat of Carolina then?"

I used to love that song before I met Harry and found out more about the story behind the lyrics, kind of took the shine off it for me as now every time Harry sings it I picture him with another woman.

Townes, the woman Harry thought was so amazing that he wrote a song about her after just one date, but who turned him down for a second. Clearly, she's not as bright as he makes out she is in the lyrics I think to myself and stifle a giggle.

He puts his guitar on the floor and makes his way over to the side of the sofa, shuffling along on his knees, once he reaches me he rests a long-fingered hand on each of my thighs and gives me one of his very sincere, very intense stares, for a moment I lose track of my thoughts, getting lost in those beautiful eyes. The power he has over me is quite scary at times.

"Baby, everyone writes from experience, I can't write anything other than what I know," He says in a soothing voice.

"I know, I know, I'm only teasing you," I reply reaching up to run my fingers through his hair, it's getting longer again, a few stray curls are starting to form at the ends.

"Do me a favour though, and don't try and put my name in any of your songs. Nothing rhymes with Katie."

"Hmm I could shorten it though... lots of things rhyme with Kate... Mate? Late? Ate? ... Skate?" Harry laughs back at me.

"Yes, Hate, weight, and grate do too! So you can write me a lovely song about how much you dislike me and how fat I am AFTER we split up." I tease him.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," He says, his face falling into a frown and his eyebrows knitting together, the skin between them puckering adorably. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm not going anywhere?"

"Until I believe you? Another few thousand at least!" I say back smiling at him, trying to lighten the mood.

I don't want to upset him, or open up an intense conversation, but I can't help that I find it hard to believe that someone like him is going to be happy with me long term.

It's ten days into the new year and Harry and I have been happily hidden away in his LA mansion for nearly two weeks now, in just a couple of days, I will have to head home to dreary, cold London and leave him behind. He has some prep to do for the new tour and won't be coming back to the UK until just before his birthday at the beginning of February.