Through The Dark || Harry Styles

15. LUCY

LUCY

I hate that I'm relieved she's gone.

The room feels less crowded without Sarah Cavanah in it. Her striking presence something that I'm sure not only I feel. She is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and by the reaction she had to me, also one of the nicest.

The tumbling in my stomach intensifies, when I think about Harry telling her, but not Preston, about Jake. He must like her.

I can see her and Harry together so clearly that it scares me. They just look good together.

Like a modern-day James Dean and Audrey Hepburn.

It's selfish, I know, but I don't ever want to see her with him.

"What were you two laughing about?" My James Dean asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Turns out Preston is pretty funny," I say trying to shake off the guilt of Harry clearly dismissing Audrey Hepburn to hang out with us.

Preston takes a theatrical bow. "Here all night, folks."

"He was telling me about how you were chasing around that miniature pig last week," I can barely get the words out of my mouth without them being broken by my own laughter and the image of Harry running around trying to catch the little animal.

Harry cackles into the air and his smile lights up his face.

It's nice to see him out with friends. When it was just Jake and me, Harry was so awful to be around. Sulky and sullen, closed off and nothing like the Harry I see here today.

"Oh my god, that little fucker! Took me half an hour to grab him!" he exclaims.

"You should have seen it, Lucy, he was falling all over the place, diving to try and capture him but he was so quick. Harry just started squealing back at him in the end!" Preston bellows.

I wipe a tear from my eye and try to catch my breath as Preston gets called to another group of colleagues and they all start laughing at whatever he says. Clearly, he's the workplace comedian.

Harry's arm snakes beneath my blazer and hooks around my waist, pulling me into him with residual amusement on his face but also something else.

Protectiveness? Possessiveness? Jealousy?

Surely not.

"So, you were laughing at me, huh?"

"Well, it was pretty funny. Nothing like that ever happens in the coffee trade," I grin leaning into him and, against better judgement, rest a hand on his shoulder.

His eyes soften and my heart rushes.

"Are you hungry?" he asks, his mouth too close to mine.

"Starving."

"There's a place around the corner, let's get outta here before Preston ropes us into something else."

--

The burger joint Harry chose is cosy, the type of place that has been here a hundred years and if the walls could talk, I'm sure they would have a million stories to tell. Dark leather booths surround the perimeter and we have positioned ourselves on opposite sides of one in the back corner.

"Don't even think about eating that with a knife and fork," Harry predicts my actions and makes the waitress smile as she places down his veggie burger and a cheeseburger that is easily the size of my head.

"I was just going to cut it in half," I lie and the look he gives me tells me he knows it.

Harry squirts ketchup all over the top of his burger and takes a mammoth bite, my own insecurities about trying to eat this without making a mess flying out the window.