Beyond Compare (h.e.s)

part ten

Ok. Big update. Sorry for the wait.

o0o

For the first time in my life, I am up before my alarm. My entire body is at attention, and my brain is like my CD player was the summer I was thirteen. I played only one song on repeat until it drove my father so crazy, he slept at work, just to avoid me and Justin Beiber.

Harry comes home today!

I get out of bed and brush my teeth. Harry comes home today! I put on my clothes. Harry comes home today! I drink my first cup of coffee and the volume goes way up. HARRY COMES HOME TODAY!

By the time I get to work, it's barely ten a.m. and I am already exhausted from the strenuous task of being happy in the morning. But it doesn't matter because (and I feel like the whole office should sing it with me), Harry comes home today! Now that the cat is out of the bag and my foot is out of my mouth, it's pretty much general office knowledge that Harry and I are together. By eleven, just as the monotony of the day is setting in, everyone knows that Harry comes home today!

It's just a few minutes later that I receive a text from him.

You remember when you were studying for your GREs?

I make a face and reply, Ugh yeah. The exam was two days before Christmas.

That was the year we all went to Vegas to celebrate, right? he asks.

I smile at the memory. We all spent Christmas Day with our families before flying out Vegas that night. Carter got so drunk he fell into the fountain at the Bellagio and is now banned from ever returning there. Brayden, on a bet from an inebriated Amber and Harry, walked into Caesar's on the hour, every hour one day, asking

"You probably get asked this a lot, but did Caesar really live here?" until he got banned from there.

I write back, Yes! That was such an amazing trip. Pretty sure it's the only thing that got me through studying.

A few seconds later, he texts me back.

Exactly. You feel like Christmas to me.

As if I needed to be any more enamored. If I could figure out how to bottle this feeling, I'd give it to all the saddest people in the world, like the people who don't win reality television dating shows. Or maybe the ones who do.

About an hour later, even though it feels like time has stopped, just as I'm really about to lose my mind—I'm talking 'sneaking around the office and setting all the clocks two hours ahead' crazy—Harry calls me, almost as if he senses this. We chat a bit until I am calm and feel like time may actually be moving again.

"So… yeah. Like I said, 10:00pm. Delta." For all his smoothness, it's hilarious how obvious it is that he wants me to come get him at the airport. I decide that I do want to do something, but not just that. I don't want to do anything that he would expect.

When we hang up, I wrack my brain, trying to come up with a great welcome back for him. Lots of incredibly stupid ideas come to mind, like singing telegrams or skywriting because apparently, I think I'm living in a romantic comedy where stuff like that is cute. Actually, scratch that, I don't even find stuff like that cute in movies.