Sweet Tooth [HS]

THREE

Later.

It was late now. The slow summer sun had suddenly disappeared, dipping low behind the horizon, leaving Max and Harry alone underneath the warm darkness of the night.

They sat on the two small chairs she had on her balcony, her feet on top of his lap as they quietly smoked roll up cigarettes and took lingering sips of the last of Max's red wine. The only sound was the hum of their breaths and Harry's fingertips running up and down the soles of her feet.

Max watched him as he slouched back in his chair, cigarette lodged between his teeth and big hands, slow hands padding against her skin.

He was beautiful, really. Everything about him, about this. This moment; the sticky sweaty summer heat and the wine haze that made the cars and the people and all the lights below her feel like another place altogether. This moment watching the way his eyelashes cast long, dark shadows on the tops of his cheeks and the smooth, secret feel of his inner thigh where the bare sole of her foot rested. This moment where his breaths just melted into the air around her, hanging there; quivering; echoing between particles of his exhale, her inhale.

Max had forgotten how when she looked at him, she sort of forgot how to breathe. Sort of forgot how to think. Because how could things make sense when Harry Styles could exist beside her? How could things make sense when he was so beautiful?

Yes, he was all sweat and sex and heartbreak; a pretty boy whose face was plastered on magazine covers and adverts for the new fucking Dior cologne. A boy who didn't have time for anything or anyone apart from the success he was swimming, slowly sinking in.

But, yet, Harry was so gentle too. So kind, so soft around the edges. He was a boy made out of his mum's old CDs, bones and body parts cut out from second hand jeans and torn from the pages of books he read under the covers when he was young. It was in these moments that had long since become few and far between, that Max remembered Harry Styles was the boy she once knew. Who despite the fame and the money and this new shiny life in front of him, stayed sort of the same. Stayed human. Stayed sitting on Max's balcony as he had done for years, smoking his roll up cigarettes and finishing the last of her favourite wine.

"I know you're staring Maxie."

Max blinked, shaking her head slightly, and Harry grinned. All white teeth and pink lips and dimples.

"You're too pretty," she whispered. Unable to
stop herself.

It was the fucking wine.

"I'm pretty?"

She felt her lips curl up into a smile as he stared straight at her. Max could see stars in his eyes, little white reflections within deep green that made him look like magic.

"You know you are."

Harry hummed, taking a long drag on his cigarette, "I wish I could stay here."

"You do?"

He nodded. "I like being home. I like knowing places."

Max cocked her head to the side, "You still call this home?" She narrowed her eyes, "I thought you've got a house in LA now."

Although the last thing Max wanted was to sound like she cared, she couldn't help the sudden confusion nor the sudden thud of her heart as it fell deep into the pit of her stomach. She never really knew what was going on in Harry's life anymore- he certainly never bothered to let her know and Max had realised a long time ago that there was no point in asking. But, from what she had gathered, Harry was making quite a home for himself out in LA. Living the dream, she supposed. It didn't register for a second that there could be any chance he would want to stay, because why would he? There was nothing left for him here anymore.

"Are you keeping tabs on me Maxie?" Harry grinned.

"No."

"Yes you are," he leaned forwards and drunkenly reached across to pinch her cheeks. She said nothing, just swatted his hands away as he laughed.

"I'm honoured," he said.

She rolled her eyes at him. "You should be."

"You just admitted it."

"No-"

"Yes, Max. You did."

"I didn't. You put words in my mouth."

"Oh sure I did," Harry laughed, almost beaming, and took another long toke on his cigarette, keeping his eyes locked on her. She held her breath as he blew his out, watching him as he watched her through the grey fog of cigarette smoke slowly escaping between the gaps of his teeth.

He didn't flinch. Just stared, maybe only for a second, but it was long enough for Max to remember it. To lay in bed alone the night after and wonder and wonder, for hours, what was going through his head.

What are you thinking, Harry?

She was about to do something, about to look straight into his magic eyes and say something, anything, but he looked away.

He turned away.

"I wish I could stay," Harry repeated, looking far off into the distance now, and Max felt the conversation suddenly turn bitter. She tasted something sour in her mouth.

He was about to tell her he was leaving. She knew him well enough to know his tone, the mock-regret and sort of awkward goodbye where she didn't know what to do with her hands and whether or not she should kiss him.

It was always horrible. Always hard. She wondered briefly how long she would get with him this time. He had only stayed for a week the last time he was home, before he had to catch a flight to Tokyo and dissappear again for four months.

She silently prayed she might get him for a little bit longer this time, but Max knew that wasn't a part of the rules.

After all, the thing just was, that Harry never lasted long. Here today, gone tomorrow. It seemed he lasted as long as a breath, less than a blink. If she looked away for too long, she'd miss him.

The last few years, he just walked in and out of her life with no notice and no warning, and she hated how she just let him. Just let him turn up at her door with his pretty face and his slow hands, just so that she'd get to have him all to herself for what seemed like seconds, like a moment, before he left as easy as he came. Leaving Max with just the smell of his cologne and the indent on her pillow as the only evidence that he was ever hers at all.

"I miss you when you go away."

"I leave tomorrow morning."

And Max felt that. Felt the way her heart slowed down and sped up simultaneously.

"Tomorrow morning?"

Harry looked at her. Felt like he was looking right through her. Digging between the gaps in her skull and sorting through the secrets she kept tucked away there.

"Do you want me to stay?"

Yes.

Yes, Max did.

But she wouldn't, couldn't ever tell him that.

She knew what she was getting herself into years ago. A famous rockstar couldn't put his life on hold for her, and she didn't even want him to.

Not really.

"You have to go."

He nodded.

"I do."

***

Merry Chrysler❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Hope u enjoyed ahhh!!! Xxx - R