habits of my heart (h.s.)

eight

The next morning, I woke up before my alarm did, from a nightmare where I had ended up going home with Gordon last night. I clutched my pillow to my chest tightly, suddenly thankful that I was lying in my bedroom instead of an unfamiliar one. I wondered if Gordon had a sign that said 'investment banker' outside his house. That would be fitting, since it seemed like he had to let everyone know that he was one.

When I walked into the kitchen, I was expecting for no one else to be awake, but to my surprise, Harry was standing in front of the toaster, headphones in his ears. I watched from the hallway as he bobbed his head to the music, and I had to clap my hand over my mouth when he did some sort of weird tap dance to grab the butter from the fridge.

Unfortunately, that was right about the time when he noticed me standing there, and he immediately straightened his back. "Jesus, Alyson," he swore, as his cheeks began to grow red. "You can't just sneak up on a person like that."

"How was I sneaking up on you?" I asked him. "I didn't, like, jump on you or anything. I was just trying to get some breakfast."

He hesitated for a minute before asking, "So, how long have you been standing there?"

I grinned. "Oh, long enough to see you tap dancing. I forgot, are you an English teacher or a dance teacher?"

Harry blushed. "Fuck off."

"Hey, Shirley Temple, you shouldn't be using words like that."

He shook his head at me. "You're worse than Niall, I swear to God."

"You were literally tap dancing, Harry. You're pretty much asking for it!" I giggled.

He waved his knife at me menacingly. "Hey, quit making fun of me."

"Oh my God!" I shrieked, laughing even harder. "Stop threatening me!"

"Are you kidding me?" he rolled his eyes. "It's literally plastic. You're such a drama queen."

I stared at him solemnly. "Plastic's horrible for the environment, Harry. You just killed, like, ten polar bears."

This time, it was his turn to burst into laughter. "I don't think that's how it works."

"No, no, I read somewhere that plastic waste caused these polar bears to grow two testicles!" I protested.

He frowned. "Shouldn't they already have two testicles?"

"Sorry, sorry, I meant two sets of testicles." When I noticed the dubious expression on his face, I defended, "Someone shared it on Facebook! It was some petition thing."

His lips were twitching. "And did you sign this petition? To protect polar bear testicles?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, biting my tongue to keep myself from laughing. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did."

Harry nodded. "Wow. I'm proud of you."

I shrugged. "Just doing my part."

At that, he burst into laughter--as in, loud, belly deep laughter. I couldn't keep myself from giggling right along with him, and we continued to just stand there, laughing, until his bread popped out of the toaster. I watched as he began to spread his butter, and a moment later, I asked, "So, why are you awake anyway? Are you usually up this early?"

Harry sat down at the island and nodded his head. "Yeah. I try and run every morning on the weekend. I like getting a head start so then I can come home, shower, and finish my grading."

"Wow, that would be a great YouTube video," I mused. "My weekend morning routine. I bet you'd have, like, hundreds of thousands of views."

He smiled. "Why so many? Am I doing anything particularly interesting in this video?"