Wild (sequel to Deep) - Zarry AU

Breeze

Harry had grown to like LA. Granted, they didn't do chips the way he wanted them and he always felt like an alcoholic if he had more than two drinks of an evening - but there was something about the way the morning sun seemed to stop on its way up and hover over the hills and the hazy gold light seemed to turn everything a soft pastel and make the people just... glow. And there was something just so ridiculous and outrageous about the square mile or two around Sunset with its old-Hollywood vibe and its vintage-theme-park glamour. Yes, Harry smiled a lot in LA.

He had friends there now, too. Not just women either. Although truth be told, Nick for one didn't believe that Harry's new-found friendships with older, famous LA Types like Rande Gerber and Rod Stewart had anything to do with their having things in common.

"In other words....you want to fuck their wives," Nick had said, after Harry had given him a long and serious explanation over Skype of what it was he liked about hanging with these Hollywood stalwarts.

Harry had tilted his head to one side and rolled his eyes ceiling-wards. "That's... that's... just..."

Nick laughed. "What, Harry? It's just... what, Harry?" he said, grinning.

"That's just what you would say, isn't it?" Harry said, in between licking the edge of his roll-up. He was sat on his bed in a Chateau Marmont villa, one leg bent up in front of him, the heel of his cowboy boot rucking the 400-thread-count sheet. Nick was in London.

"Ahem. I – well- I don't think I'm stretching the bounds of possibility too much with that statement, am I?" Nick smiled.

Harry was silent, wondering, as he sometimes did, whether Nick was actually flirting with him. But he could never exactly tell. One thing was for sure, Nick didn't mention Harry's previous dalliances with men any more. He seemed to have accepted that all that was in the past. Just as Harry had.

The call from Simon came at 3 in the afternoon. Which Harry figured meant it was eleven at night back in Britain. Harry was valet-parking his car at a restaurant just south of Malibu when the call came through. He wasn't sure why, but he felt he had to walk away from the restaurant, up a curving light-and-shade sidewalk to where cars without roofs were sweeping past on the highway.

"Si!" he shouted into the receiver, a grin stretching across his face.

"Yeah. Don't – umm... I - Harry – "

Harry looked down as he strolled along the sidewalk until he was standing in sunlight, pushing his aviators back up his nose. "Can you hear me?" he said.

"Harry – I can hear you, yes," Simon said. Harry noticed that Simon's voice was slower than usual. If that were possible.

"Harry – are you with someone right now? Or are you alone?"

"Erm..." Harry looked around. "Well, I'm about as alone as I ever am. In LA I mean."

"Ok – look. Stop a minute and make sure no one can hear what we're saying."

Harry did as he was told, looking around again in case the usual paps that tailed him were close enough to overhear.

"Harry, someone has a tape."

Harry looked down again; then back at the road where the paps might be.

"Ok. Go on."

"Of you. A tape of you... and... well. It's ...look, let's just say it's incriminating... and-"

" Incriminating??" Harry stopped. Law-breaking had never been his scene.

"- wait, I don't mean it's incriminating as in, you're doing something illegal... I mean... The Sun newspaper called and -"

"Ok," Harry exhaled quietly. "That kind of tape. Tabloid scum. What do they want?"

"This one's different, Harry."

Harry didn't know why, but the tone of Simon's voice when he said this made him stop in his tracks.

Different.

Silence. Harry was unmoving, staring straight ahead, towards the hills - the slopes of which were laced with burgeoning, pink bougainvillea blossom...