Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

39ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                        39ᵀᴴ CHAPTER 

        "I desire the things which will destroy me in the end"

Harry bustles into the café with a huge smile in place and shrugging off some excessive layers of clothing, discarding his gloves as he walks through the counter and into the kitchen, carrying the bags full of groceries whose obligation was Harry’s this week.

Elisha watches as he goes by still with the darts in hands, trying uselessly to aim on the centre of the target and get it right. When he comes back, she feels him pressing against her back and resting his chin on her shoulder, tilting his head slightly to nose at her scarf until there’s enough free space for him to place cold lips and a warm kiss nonetheless to the skin.

She’s already smiling by the time he raises one of his hands and holds hers gently, lifting it up and making all movements for her as he aims and guides the dart to the right direction.

He whispers a ‘let go’ softly into her ear, and so Leesh untangles her fingers from the dart so it lands perfectly on the black circle. She doesn’t turn to kiss Harry, but she wants it terribly, so she just smiles and presses further into him when he kisses her on the cheek.

“Better,” he mumbles once he pulls away, and this time Elisha laughs out loud at him.

“Why, thank you, expert.” She says as he swirls her in his arms until they are face to face. The air gets knocked out of her lungs when she looks at him, just there and so, so close. His eyes are bright green as if he’s literally just woken up – even though she knows he hasn’t – and his lips are cherry pink, almost as if he’s put on lip-gloss.

She laughs at the thought.

Harry frowns cutely and Leesha smoothes it off with a gentle finger. “What’s so funny?” he questions, quietly, no need to be loud when there’s barely enough distance between them; no one else in the room to make any other noise.

“Nothing,” she states, trying to avoid looking pointedly at his mouth. “Just- you’re… Beautiful.”

Harry grimaces at that, pulling away slightly. He doesn’t go much far, though, because soon Leesh is tugging at his shirt and pulling him in, standing on her tiptoes to eskimo kiss him.

He gives in not a second later, closing his eyes and breathing out forcefully, kissing her properly. It is slow and calm but it takes barely a second, before he’s pulling back and lifting his hand to brush at Elisha’s hair. She notices some black stains at the sides of his palm and holds his hand to inspect them better.

“I take it you were drawing, then?” she questions, Harry only nods.

They spend a while in silence and then he detaches himself from her body, reaching out for his gloves and sliding them back on. “Gotta go to the carwash now, pretend there’s something to do, but…”

Leesh walks to behind the counter and plops down on the chair, swivelling around just for the sake of it before stopping abruptly to grab something she’s dropped. “But?”

Harry shrugs like he wants nothing at all. “Want to take you somewhere tonight, up for it?”

She momentarily thinks of maybe asking where, but he probably won’t give away the answer even if she begs for it, so she simply nods and only questions him about the time. He smiles knowingly and shrugs again, with that smirk plastered to his face and something that sounds suspiciously like ‘I’ll just knock at your door’.