Kiwi | Harry Styles

Seventy-Two

A/N - Sorry it's so late everyone. I'll have the next part up ASAP!

Harry

I pulled off my boxing gloves and dropped them on a heap on the floor, my chest heaving and my body coated in sweat.

"Jesus, who pissed you off tonight, H?" Will asked as he sat down the sparring pads carefully. I felt calmer now I'd worked of some of my frustration.

"Fucking Paparazzi! Scared the shit out of Jess earlier, knocked her to the ground too." I pulled the strapping around my hands with my teeth.

"Yeah, I heard about that. Jeffrey says she's okay though, right?" He patted my shoulder.

"So she says." I sighed. I knew it scared her though. We'd got separated in the scrum, her hand was wrenched from mine and I lost sight of her and when I finally got back to her, she was sat on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. Her palms were so sweaty I struggled to hold on to her and when I hugged her to my body, I could feel her heart racing, her breathing was ragged too. So when she declared to Jeffrey that she was fine, I didn't believe her one bit.

I hurried back to my Dressing Room, hoping I'd find Jess there. The corridor seemed to be packed with people and everywhere I moved somebody else seemed to pop up from nowhere. My entire body stiffened as I heard her yelling from Mitch & Sarah's Dressing Room. "Mitch, you fucking asshole!" My body crashed through the door to find her, Mitch, Sarah and Adam in hysterics. "Harry! Mitch is a bigger cheater than you!" She grinned at me.

"Hey, it's not my fault you made it so obvious that you planted that Exploding Kitten for me. You need to work on your poker face." Mitch chuckled.

"It's true, that's why you came last." Adam teased. The card game had become a firm favourite after only one night on tour.

"Mind if I steal the loser?" I added to the teasing while Jess pouted adorably. Her eyebrows all scrunched together and her cheeks slightly pink.

"Only if you have food, your daughter has me craving carbs. Preferably a massive loaf of bread." She grinned, awkwardly climbing out of her chair.

"I'm starting to think this is just a food baby." Mitch chuckled, and she flipped him off.

"How are you feeling?" I asked once we'd said our goodbyes and headed for food.

"Fine." She said as she hugged herself to my arm while we walked.

"I know the Paps scared you earlier, Jess. You don't have to pretend everything is fine." I sighed.

"I'm not pretending, Harry. It was terrifying, and I'd rather it never happened again but things went about as wrong as they could have gone and I made it out the other side, relatively unscathed. I felt like it was a proper test and when we got separated, I felt like I might lose it but I concentrated on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, just like Andreea told me and I managed to calm down." She kissed my bicep once she'd stopped talking.

"Okay. You're sure you're okay? And you promise you'd tell me if you weren't?" 

"I promise." She said as she drew a little cross over her heart.

"Okay. Good. It's important you don't shut me out, yeah?" I felt the knot in my stomach loosen as she nodded. "Hey, how come you didn't have your camera out front last night?"

"Oh - I - uhm... I must have forgotten it." 

"Jess?"

"Okay fine. I uh, I didn't want Hélène to feel like I was stepping on her toes or something. I mean I don't know what she thinks about me being here, I just don't want her to think that my role here is anything other than your girlfriend. I have to admit, I'm feeling a little jealous that she's getting to photograph you." She explained as she piled four slices of Cheese Pizza on her plate. I added a slice of Veggie pizza for me and we sat down at a table. I felt a little stupid for not realising there might be some awkwardness between them.