Forever (h.s.)

Chapter 25

Chapter 25: New and Old and Better

I woke up earlier than my body wanted to to the streaming of sunlight through the living room window. Harry's cologne hit my nose instantly and a smile spread across my face. I turned in his arms and was face to face with Harry's pouty pink lips and long eyelashes rested on his cheeks. He let out a soft breath and nuzzled his face into the pillow. His hands were slid carefully around my waist, holding me tight even in sleep. I started at him for a full ten minutes, the sun rising past the window and into the sky, before Harry awoke.
"Sarahhhh," he murmured, smiling lightly as his eyelashes fluttered open. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. He kissed me back sleepily, letting me do all the work but whimpering when I pulled away.
"I've got to go see my mum before she goes to the airport today, you know that right?" I said, attempting to rise from the chair. Harry moaned indignantly, pulling me back into him. I giggled and managed to pry his arms off of my waist. "Angel, hey." Harry grinned and let me up.
"Yes I remember," he said then, sitting up and ruffling his curls. Shoop shoop whoosh. "But I'm not letting you out of my sight today for long, okay?" I looked back at him, biting my lip. "I missed you," he told me. I nodded, running a hand through his hair on my way upstairs. I'd missed him too.
When I came back downstairs, Harry was at the counter with messy curls and a chocolate chip cookie.
"Nice breakfast," I told him with a grin, standing on my tiptoes and taking a bite of the treat in his hand. He rolled his eyes at me, grinning cheekily. I checked the time and told him we needed to go. He pouted and tried to kiss me, but I moved away.
"The sooner I get all my stuff here, the sooner I'll never leave," I scolded him gently. He nodded sheepishly and grabbed his keys from the table, following me out the door in a rumpled t shirt and sweatpants.
Harry was humming to himself as we drove through the quiet London streets, a song I didn't recognize.
"What're you singing?" I asked him. He looked at me confusedly as if he hadn't known he was singing at all, then grinned.
"Oh, it's just a little something we've been working on for the official tour and first album," he replied causally. I turned towards him excitedly.
"Sing it for me??"
Harry smiled shyly at me. "I don't wanna." I nudged his arm and he bit his lip. "Lovely, don't make me do it."
"Make you?" I scoffed. "Like I could make you do anything." He looked at me with his chin tilted up disbelievingly. I smirked. It was true, there were plenty of things I could do to get Harry on my side. After a silence, in which both of us were maybe imagining those things, he spoke again.
"There's a demo on my phone. Listen to that if you must."
I pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. I knew his password by heart, it was my birthday. He'd changed it the day he found out, he told me. I tapped into his music and found a folder called "1D demos". Before Harry even had time to try and convince me not to play it, a rough guitar solo was hooked up to the Bluetooth and playing through the car.
"I think I'm gonna lose my mind, something deep inside me, I can't give up, I think I'm gonna lose my mind, I roll and I roll 'til I'm out of luck, yeah, I roll and I roll 'til I'm out of luck...." Harry's shy passionate little voice filled my ears and I felt my stomach erupt with butterflies as it always did with his singing. I grinned through another verse before the chorus broke out, cheerful and adoring, just like the boys. "'Cause nobody knows you, baby, the way I do, and nobody loves you, baby, the way I do, (it's been so long, it's been so long) maybe you're fireproof, 'cause nobody saves me, baby, the way you do."
"Harry it's beautiful," I said, turning it down and leaning over to kiss his soft neck. He smiled proudly, dimples deep in his cheeks.
"Thanks," he said simply, his accent heavy and adorable. Just then we pulled into the driveway and I was forced to get out, leave the beautiful song and scent of Harry's cologne and head inside.
"Bubby! You're home!"
"Mum, enough with the nickname," I groaned, letting her give me a hug but grinning still. She laughed and let me go, giving Harry a genuine smile. "So," I asked her, "how long until you go to the airport?"
"About an hour," she told me. I pouted. As happy as I was to live with Harry, not seeing my mum for months wasn't going to be easy. "I'm just glad I'll get to see you, bub-I mean honey."
"Me too, mum." I laughed.
We spent the next fifty minutes talking about school and Grammy and just how much I was going to miss her, and when she told us it was time to call a cab, I didn't want her to go.
"Bye, mummy," I whimpered, hugging her tight. "Text me every day, okay?" She nodded, holding back a motherly tear, and dragged her huge suitcase out the door.
I was a little down for the next hour or so, trudging around the house gathering clothes and toiletries and pillowcases. Harry sat patiently on my floor, looking through old photo albums and positively dying with laughter at pictures of me as a baby and on to a seven your old doing jazz hands on a slip and slide. As I passed through my room at one point, he grabbed my ankle and stopped me.
"Isn't this you and Fiona?" He asked, pointing to a picture of two little girls in tutus and scarves in the living room of my old house in maine. I nodded, smiling lightly. I stared at it for a minute, then decided to join Harry cross legged on the rug. He grinned and pulled me into his lap, kissing me right behind my ear and resting the album on my thighs.
"Wasn't I cute?" I joked, pointing to me as a toddler in the ugliest pink ruffled jumper I'd ever seen.
"You're still cute," he murmured softly into my hair, but I could feel him smiling at the outfit too. His words made my cheeks flush, and I leaned back into Harry's torso. He held me right against him and seemed to read my mind.
"I know you're gonna miss your mum, love, but it'll go by quick, I promise," he said. I reached up to ruffle his soft curls in thanks. I knew he was right; between him, the boys, and school, I would have plenty to do.
"Thanks, angel," I murmured, dragging my hand out of his hair and going to stand up. I pulled him to his feet, then continued. "Wanna help me pack?" Harry nodded, smiling at me. I kissed his dimple and dragged everything I'd need towards the middle of the room.
An hour later, everything was packed down to the last fuzzy sock, and Harry was collapsed on my bed pretending to be asleep. "Harry! Get up!" I whined, pulling on his arm to no avail. "Angel, come on! I have a present for you." He opened his eyes curiously, bright and green like always. He sat up expectantly and I left the room, knowing he would follow. By the time we reached the door he started to grow suspicious.
"What have you got for me?" I smiled sassily at him and handed harry his keys.
"Nothing," I said airily. "I lied. Let's go." He groaned but I saw him smile as he carried one of my suitcases out the door after me.
When we arrived home, it was nearly six o'clock, and I was starved. But of course my self-diagnosed OCD told me that i had to unpack and get everything in place before a single other thing could be done. So I spent the next hour and a half making Harry's room our room. It made me feel older than sixteen (almost seventeen) and was a little premature in my head. I may have been sentimental for too long because Harry soon came in, leaned on the doorframe, and whined,
"I'm hungry, lovely, feed me."
"Feed yourself, you baby," I told him teasingly and he grinned; but the smile was soon replaced by a serious expression when he spoke again.
"Seriously. I'm living off of air right now. Let's go get a pizza, you can finish that later." I knew he was right and I was twice as hungry, so I pulled on my sweater and followed him out of our room. OUR room.
Harry held my hand as we walked down the silent grey street towards the pizzeria on the corner. It was simple, sweet, and his hands were as soft and warm as I remembered, but a burning passion in my heart kept reminding me that I hadn't felt those hands on my skin in a long time. I smiled to myself.
We went out, had a pizza, and all the time as Harry's bright eyes watched me from across the table I couldn't stop telling himself how much I loved him. His silky, cocoa curls that drove him crazy when I touched them. His smooth skin, that went from his perfect cheeks down to his torso. His eyes, the way I could tell what he was feeling from a glance into their deep rich greenness. The pizza was half gone but I wasn't hungry anymore.
"Let's go," I said suddenly, making Harry stop mid sentence and look up.
"But..." He gestured to the pizza, then seemed to notice something in my eyes and paused. "Oh. Oh, okay, okay..." He fumbled to drop a few dollars on the table and followed me out the door without a second thought and a lustful expression. His long fingers grasped mine the second the pizzeria's door closed behind us. An energy hung in the air between us, making my heart beat faster. Harry's hand squirmed restlessly in mine, and every time I looked up at him his eyes were locked on me, bright and fiery. I liked how just something as simple as looking at him could make me so fluttery.
When we arrived home, Harry had me against the wall before I could even kick off my converse. I slipped the shoes off and nudged them aside on my tiptoes, meanwhile digging my fingers into the back of his neck as his lips pressed to mine. His hands slipped up to touch my ribs and my skin burned where his fingers touched me. Harry's helpless moans of my name warmed my cheeks as I stumbled into him and thrust my hands into his curls. Silky soft and twice as effective as I remembered.
Harry slid his hands down my back and lifted my legs up around his waist, I held on tight and used the leverage to kiss him harder. He stumbled distractedly to the couch and lay me down gently, sliding on top of me without so much as taking his lips off of mine. My mind was a clouded with the feel of Harry's lips and the smell of his cologne but it wouldn't stop thinking things like forever and always and it only made me tug on his curls and get even more lost in him because right then, it was true and all I needed to know.
Chills went up my spine as he ran his hands from my knees to my hips, his thumbs dragging along the skin of my stomach. It was slower now, but no less passionate.
After what felt like a lifetime of tender kisses and warm breaths, Harry put his hands on both sides of my head and lifted his torso off me. I stared up at him with awe as his curls fell in front of wild eyes, chest heaving with each breath. I reached up and gently brushed the little peak of curls that hung over his forehead and he grinned.
"You're so pretty," I told him breathlessly, watching as his eyes fluttered closed and his bottom lip tugged between his teeth. He giggled and lowered himself down on powerful forearms to kiss me under the jaw, then pulled back and fell onto the couch beside me.
"I love you," he told me softly, nuzzling his nose into my cheek and kissing it before sitting up.
"Love you back," I told him, playfully tugging on his hair and curling up under his arm as he turned on the TV. Harry nudged my head with his lips and handed me the remote. I chose a romcom and he groaned, but I played with his hair until he sighed, laughed, and fell asleep in my lap.
The next morning Harry and I drove to school together, half asleep and laughing at all the people we saw walking to work. Just as we were pulling into the parking lot, "Live While We're Young" came on the radio and I nearly had a heart attack.
"Listen angel you're famous! Listen!" Harry just blushed, parking quickly and ducking out of the car, but i saw him grinning.
Later on at lunch, I was sitting with a group of acquaintances when I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned.
"Rachel! Hey!"
"Hey Sarah," she said cheerfully, then jerked her head towards a quieter corner where a sweet-looking dirty blond sat smiling at us. "Come sit with us?" I nodded, returning her grin.
"Hi," I said, nodding at the dirty blond.
"I'm Claudia," she said, carefully removing the sticky peanut butter and fluff sandwich from a container. I watched her, then laughed. She looked up at me and laughed sheepishly.
We spent the entire period getting close and making joking conversation, so when the bell rang and Rachel asked me if I wanted to come over after school with her and Claudia, I was all for it.
"See you later, sayruh!" Rachel said, her mouth full of Doritos.
"Sayruh?" I asked, giggling. Rachel swallowed and corrected herself.
"Sarah, I mean, she said, laughing. But it stuck.
That afternoon, I found Rachel's bus only by following Claudia through the crowded parking lot. "Claudia! Wait up!" She turned, grinned, and waited for me to jog up next to her. "So," I asked her, "anyone special in your life?" She smiled and shook her head.
"Not at the moment," she replied good-naturedly.
"You talking about Claudia's love life?" A voice said from behind us. We looked around to see Rachel, grinning as she pushed herself between us. "We all know how that's gonna turn out."
We walked up the bus steps and passed several rowdy freshman as I asked, "how?" Rachel plopped into a seat and cleared her throat.
"I'll never find anyone, yada yada yada, forever alone, blah blah blah, meets her soulmate, bam, married for life."
"That's easy for you to say, dating the hottest Irish guy to ever set foot in England," claudia said indignantly.
"And Ireland," Rachel countered with a smile. "And I'm not the only one." She nodded to me. "Did I tell you that Sarah's practically married to Niall's friend Harry?" Claudia's jaw dropped.
"He's so hot!" She cried, and I laughed.
"I know," I told her sincerely, and she let air out of her nose in a laugh. Then a thought hit me and I grabbed my phone out of my bag. "Speaking of which, I forgot to tell Harry I didn't need a ride home." It rang hardly twice before he picked up.
"Where are you?" He sounded worried.
"Angel, I'm sorry I forgot to call you earlier. I'm going on my friend Rachel's bus this afternoon, okay?"
"Is that Niall's girlfriend?" He asked, and I could hear the smile.
"Mhmm," I replied. Harry laughed.
"Okay lovely. Well I'll see you later, right?"
"Right. Love you."
"Love you too." He hung up. I slid my phone back into my bag and looked up to see two pairs of brown eyes staring at me.
"What?"
"Being at the 'I love you' stage at sixteen, that's insane," claudia said breathlessly. I smiled shyly.
"Almost seventeen, and Harry's different. I know he'd never hurt me." Claudia nodded, but still seemed to be in awe or something because she remained quiet for a while after that. Rachel, however, went on for the rest of the ride about Niall and what he'd said and done and told her, and I knew I barely knew her but for some reason I was so happy for her that I couldn't contain my smile when she told us about Niall's first 'I love you too'. I also didn't know how I could tell that Claudia was feeling left out but I did and leaned over to her and murmured,
"You'll find yours too, I promise." She looked at me and smiled, touching my arm and telling me thanks. For some reason, I knew it was true.
I can't really explain what happened next. Less than a month had passed since I'd met claudia and gotten close to Rachel, but suddenly we were inseparable. We spent every lunch period in the corner laughing and talking and creating yet another inside joke. Every weekend was spent at Harry's house with the boys and my new best friends, watching movies and pizza and sleepovers on the balcony. It all happened so fast, it was like fate was waiting and waiting to put these new lovelies in my life, and now they were stuck.....fast.