𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐙𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓! | harry styles

𝐗𝐕

I wake up to seven missed calls. My heart leaps.

Two my father, five Lydia.

My heart plummets. And my ulcer soars.

I'm a prick, plain and simple, once again. She's probably calling hospitals. I've never stayed out all night. I've had 'late meetings' and I've snuck out when she's been deep asleep, but this is blatantly me not coming home without a word. She has to know by now.

I find I don't care much. I check my email from my phone and have nothing except junk.

Today's the day. Homecoming, the scouts, Evelyn perched on the back of a pickup truck decked out in the dress I helped her pick out.

Checking the fridge I see I have one beer and one frozen Hot Pocket. I snap the cap off the beer and go back to bed.

Propping my head up on Evelyn's pillow, I suck from the bottle and lay there, my thoughts erratic and unable to get in line. The window shows a beautiful fall day, the game tonight should be perfect.

I snort loudly to the empty, dank room and sip some more. My eyes drift closed, and I try to not think. To not wallow. To not obsess.

Success is mine for a bit, while I'm concentrating on not forming thoughts, but red lips and dramatic eyes swim in and out of my vision, trails of love and sex and beauty following her face like the flowy fabric Lydia picked out to hang from the chandeliers.

She was always beautiful. I just didn't see it at first.

Summer football camp, she volunteered for school credit to be my assistant for the sweaty month of August, coaching 8-10 year old boys how to throw, catch, tackle.

Memories of her throaty voice encouraging them on fill my head, the old me of then thinking nothing of the young girl trying to make her college applications plump.

She was funny, sarcastic, dry... older in mind than the kids I taught. Her ponytail would stick to her neck, the little hairs curling at the dampness as she threw herself into playing with these kids. I remember noticing that - but not. It's clear now, but then, I didn't really see it.

The kids adored her. There was something about her; she could make the shyest kid the loudest and the most obnoxious the one to follow intently.

My eyes open, looking out at the blue sky through the window in front of me, crisp and clear weather. Football weather, and I'm back on that field from just a few months ago.

She reminded me of why I didn't despise doing what I do. Did. The joy, the freshness, the enthusiasm she instilled in those kids was like new air.

She instilled it in me too.

It started where I'd wake up each morning, excited to spend time with her. It still wasn't sexual, wasn't love, it was just not what I was used to, wasn't something someone else planned for me.

It was mine. It was a few hours a day where I didn't think. I just was.

I'd joke and laugh with her, she was easy to talk to, easy to be with because there was no pressure. She didn't want anything from me. Didn't expect anything from me.

My dick gets hard, remembering the day it changed.

There was an injury, blood and grass on skin. I patched her up, my hands washing the dirt and grime from her knee. I can't remember what she said, but I'll never forget the look she gave me when I reached my hand out to help her up.

It was a look I hadn't gotten in years. It was lust, desire, it was someone seeing me.

Not as a coach or as the high school sweetheart. Not part of the 'perfect couple'. I laugh bitterly, thinking about 'the perfect couple'.