Trendsetter (book 2) - H.S

Chapter 16: Fine Line.

A/N: another chapter with a song from the album, you know what that means(;

HARRY'S POV:

    I wake up, but not to my alarm. This is the third time I've found myself waking up throughout the night. She's not tangled to me this time, but turned in my direction, curled up, peacefully sleeping. I haven't slept because of a single thought running through my mind. Every since meeting her I've noticed that spreading her open, touching her, holding her is the only way to get through to her. I kissed her last night... I placed her on the counter, and kissed her, then I got into the tub with her, holding her soft skin, and she mumbled the words forever helplessly. If I hadn't done what I had done before I don't think she would have said the words, but there's still something I don't know, something she's keeping from me. It shouldn't bother me, that she's more comfortable after being physical, but it does. Spreading her open is the only way of knowing her.
    If she could price her emotions I'd buy every single one, spilling every truth she had. I'm devoted to her, but there's times where everything she's doing makes me hate this, hate the way that she is when I know she's not opening up to me. I don't hate her though, and I'm not going to say anything, I'm going to leave it alone because if I push we'll end up fighting and I don't want to fight her, or end up sleeping without her like I did for so long. It brings me back to the times when I was without her, trying my best to pretend she wasn't here, like she wasn't in my head, and I'd go out... I'd drink, and then I'd get to thinking of her, every single time. It never failed. She's two things at once though, every move she makes contradicts and it's so confusing to me, but still so perfect. She tests my patience, and I know there's things I'll never know about her, but I want to know everything .. She's the sunshine... Golden, I've told her that, and I want that...to focus on the emotion behind the two of us, but she's a temptress, and I always fold into her, whatever she wants, whenever she wants it.
    I'm sure I'll shake all of this, or at least I'll try to, but it keeps replaying in my head... Spreading her open is the only way of knowing her. A song lyric maybe? It wouldn't work though, there's no motivation behind it. I look down to her from where I am, turned onto my side. She's soft as she sleeps, her lashes just brushing her cheeks slightly, like a kiss. I know I need to leave in a little bit, so I reach forward, not able to help myself. She's so beautiful, I want to touch her skin, feel her under my fingertips to make sure she's real, that this is real, and not some twisted dream. My fingers touch her face softly, and her eyes move open. She looks to me, and her smile is soft. She moves to me, getting herself in the same position she was in last night. Her head under my chin, softly pressed to my chest. Her hands are folded together on my chest as well, and my hands are holding her to me.
    "Goodmorning." She whispers, and just her voice breaks me into a smile, and I sometimes forget I'm allowed to show my emotions now. Sometimes I find myself forcing my smile away quickly, but then remembering how we are now.
    "You're really cold love." I notice the feeling of her fingers, they feel like ice.
    "That's what happens when I don't cuddle up to you when I'm sleeping." She makes some excuse, both of us knowing it has to do with the fact that she really just keeps it freezing in this room.
    "You're so dramatic." I smile. "Are you ready for tomorrow? Both our families together?" I ask, and I feel her head shake back and forth.
    "I'm not ready. It's going to be hell, and your mom is going to think I was raised by psychopaths, not to mention the fact that she hasn't seen me since the last show on tour, and she knows me now as the girl who broke your heart." She pushes herself away from me, getting out of the bed. Her bare back faces me as she walks, and bends to the floor, taking my shirt between her fingers, and putting it over her body, and then walking around the bed, moving to my side.
    "My mum and sister, actually liked you... Get back here." I take her hand, and pull her back to the bed, but she lifts her self off, and moves over my lap, stradling my hips, and looking down to me.
    "Keyword in that sentence was LIKED... Meaning past tense, meaning not anymore." I cover my face, and sigh, letting my hands fall as I look back to her.
    "Not true. They just want me to be happy El, and I am... You can't fault my mum, my sister, or my friends for being cautious for me, they saw everything that happened." I tell her, knowing if it wasn't for me that this relationship wouldn't have ended in the first place, and if it wasn't for her we wouldn't be where we are right now.
    "I didn't even think about your friends... God, Kid hates me already, and I don't even want to know about the others in the band, Jeffrey, oh my god Jeffrey probably wishes I stayed in Milan doesn't he?" She runs her hands through her hair, stressing herself out, but I take her wrists, bringing them back down to my chest.
    "No... I talked to Jeffrey, and Kid and my mum, and Anthony, and everyone before we got back together, asking for advice, and their opinions. They all vouched for us, saying you helped me, and that I obviously helped you too, seeing how much you have changed. Before they thought it wasn't good, but that's because it was different." I tell her, keeping her hands between mine, though I spouted a small lie about my mom knowing.. she'll know soon enough.
    "It's a fine line." She tells me, and it rings in my ears.
    "What? Say that again..." I encourage her, and she tilts her head.
    "It's a fine line..." She repeats, questioning my behavior.
    "What is?" I ask, and she sits back on me, looking down.
    "We are a fine line? Or we will be a fine line, the line between good and bad, we'll be that line, it's right in the middle keeping it healthy, and balanced... That's what I want us to be." My muse, she proves it yet again, spewing her thoughts, only making it the easiest task to write another song. Fine Line... We will be that line, we practically already are, and this album is about her, this album is about us, we are the Fine Line.
    "Can I use that?" I ask her without even thinking about it.
    "Um, sure?" She tilts her head, and I sit up, causing her to fall from my lap, and back on the bed. My hands finds my chin, holding it, and rubbing it in thought as I hear and envision the lyrics in my own mind. Put a price on emotions.... Looking for something to buy.... We'll be a fine line... we'll be alright... "Harry what the hell is going on in your mind?" She sits on her knees, and looks to me.
    "A song.... Quite possibly the name of the entire album." I stand up quickly, dressing as quickly as I can. She watches me from the bed, and I walk to her side, taking her face between my hands, and pulling her to me. "Genius, that's what you are. Pure Genius." I kiss her quick, and back away, pulling a different shirt over my body, seeing as she's wearing mine that I brought here yesterday.
    "Thank you? I'm still confused as to what's going on." She laughs, and I turn to her.
    "You started talking and that was it, you just did something. El, you inspire without even knowing you're doing it. I need to go get Gem, and my mum from the airport but I'll be sure to keep in touch, but I have to go to the studio today. I have to write this down now, get this all worked out." I tell her, pulling my shoes on, and she's stood up now, searching for pants I'm guessing, but I reach for the door. "I love you." I kiss her, and she stands there, watching me walk out the door. "Thank you! My muse!" I call after her, only speaking truth, and she smiles.
    "I'm seeing you tonight right?" She asks me, and I nod.
    "Good morning Suzie. Good morning Garrison! Merry Christmas Eve, I'll see you tomorrow morning!" I wave to both of them, and then I'm out the door, and straight to my car. I hop in, and know that if I actually went to get Gemma, and my mum from the airport I'd get swarmed. They should be landing any minute now, and they'll be to my place in an hour if I had to guess but that's the least of my worries right now. I need to get to the studio, because it's all coming together now.  I go straight for the studio, and then I realize absolutely no one is going to be there so there would be no point, so I head for my house instead, knowing I've got everything I could need there.
    After around an hour of scribbling lyrics, and writing out chords, and ideas my door opens, and I scramble to put everything in a pile together. El is a genius... Fine Line, that's my album, honestly... it's our album at this point.  I hear a loud clamour in the front room, and I get up, and go towards it, seeing my mum and sister stumbling into my home.
    "There you are, I'm not doing this again! Next Christmas is at home." My mum tells me, and I smile, walking over to her, and putting an arm around her shoulders, bringing her into a hug.
    "Deal, but you can live in my second home for now." I wave my arm around.
    "I lived here when you were in the band, and it was enough for a lifetime." Gemma protests, and I hug her too.
    "How was the flight?" I ask both of them, taking each suitcase in hand, and walking it with me, though I know they'll be brought to the guest rooms.
    "Tiring, and-" My mum starts.
    "Absolutely boring." Gemma finishes, and I smile to both of them, dropping the luggage by the dining room table, and walking into my living room.
    "Well we won't be doing much until tomorrow so you've got nothing to worry about." I smile at them, and know it's time to drop the bomb that is El Montgomery soon... It's not that I didn't want them to know, I just wanted to make sure it was real, and actually happening before I said anything. It's as real as it's going to get now, but I still don't know how exactly I'm going to tell them.
    "What's this?" My mum walks around the couch, and picks up the music, and the lyrics, and Gemma follows.
    "A song, for my new album... You know I've been writing it." I tell her, sitting next to her on the couch.
    "What's the inspiration? This is depressing." Gemma looks at the sheet, and I steal it away from her.
    "A girl." I tell them blankly, afraid of the reaction I'm going to get.
    "A gi- Wait..." My mum takes the music back from my hands, and scans over it again. "Harry... Don't tell me-" She starts, and I take it away once more.
    "Yes, her... She actually gave me the idea this morning, when we were together, like we have been every morning..." I tell both of them, and Gemma shrugs but my mum sighs.
    "You're going to get hurt.." She warns me, and I shake my head.
    "It's not the same mum. None of this is the same. We're together now, actually together, and we're both happy... I'm happy with her." I confess to her, and she gives an unimpressed look, but it melts away soon after.
    "I'm not going to protest. You're a grown man, you can make your own decisions, even if I think they won't end well. If you're happy I'm happy." She tells me, and I knew this was going to be her response in the end.
    "I liked her, I don't care if you're still with her." Gemma tells me, and I knew she wouldn't care.
    "Well great because she's coming over tonight, and we're going to her place for Christmas tomorrow because her mum and dad are in town." I speak quickly, getting it all out in the air.
    "Can her mum cook?" My mum asks, raising an eyebrow, and I shrug.
    "She can, but that doesn't mean it's food that you're used to, or food that you'll enjoy... You can help, it'll be the best family christmas, right?" I ask, and Gemma shrugs once again, not caring. My mum sighs once again.
    "The things I do for my kids." She mumbles, and stands up. "I think it's time for me to take a rest, wake me when you're girlfriend is on the way so I can look decent alright?" She asks, and I nod, staying in the living room with my sister. My mum walks back up, and Gemma looks over the back of the couch at me.
    "Alright now that she's gone, you can tell me what really happened between you and the girl, and you can warn me if this entire album is going to make me depressed." Gemma speaks openly, and I'm not surprised. She's always been very blunt with how she feels.
    "What do you want to know?" I ask, taking a seat again next to my sister.
    "If it was really as bad as mum said it was." She tells me, and I nod my head.
    "I was pretty bad... We both were. You met her during tour when we weren't together, but we kind of were... It was complicated, more complicated than even mum knows. She went through a lot, and it was hard for her to let herself be human, and enjoy things, and just live. It was hard for me to love myself, and to accept myself the way that she did with herself. We were both struggling, but she didn't know how to handle it, and in the end I had enough. She said she was going to Milan for work right as soon as the two of us decided to be together finally, and-" I intended on continuing but Gemma has other ideas.
    "This is like one of mums soaps... Let me guess you got mad at her for pursuing her dreams because you wanted her all to yourself, and you threw a fit about it, and she left?" Gemma asks, and I roll my eyes at her.
    "Something like that... I didn't necessarily care that she was going to Milan, I cared that she lied about it the entire tour... I only found out because I saw an article, and by that time she only had a few days before she was supposed to move so it felt pointless to me..." I tell her honestly.
    "Alright so you broke it off, and then what?" She asks, and I sigh.
    "She left, she moved to Milan and I didn't speak to her. I was hurt, I was really hurt because I thought all these things, and had all these ideas of what we could be together, what we could do but they were gone and it was my fault. She wanted to stay together, even in Milan but I said no. I ignored her calls, mostly because I didn't want her to feel the same thing I was feeling. I fell into a dark place... I also didn't want to know how good she was doing in another country. I also couldn't admit that I was sorry because she was just as much to blame as I was in my head." I spill everything, and Gemma shakes her head.
    "You're an arrogant son of a bitch aren't you? Can't apologize... That's the dumbest thing I think I've ever heard, anyways keep going, I feel like it's starting to get juicy." She urges on, and though my sister can be a pest sometimes, I really have missed her, and our talks like this.
    "Well I was wanting to call, but then she kept posting pictures of this man... his name was Milo. She always posted him, they went to cafe's, and places around Milan. He was an artist, his parents had an art gallery, and he ran it part time from what I could tell... It was a lot to process for me, knowing that she was ready to be in a relationship, that she wanted what she had with him but with me at one point, and it was my fault that it wasn't a thing. So I made a mistake in that area." I drift off, and Gemma smirks.
    "The tabloid model that mum and I saw... not very sly of you little brother." She jokes, and I roll my eyes once more, pushing on.
    "Well I ended up calling her when I was drunk, and she declined my call. She had every reason too though. I was making things up in my head, and assuming things about us, and her, and just throwing myself a pity party pretty much." I start, but get interrupted once again.
    "So this album is going to be depressing from what I'm hearing so far." She sighs out, and I groan.
    "Would you let me finish? Back to what I was saying, I kept in contact with her best friend Anthony. He was on tour as well, and he moved to LA after El and I broke up... He told me she wanted to design my MET Gala outfit, and I was skeptical at first, but then I thought that he wouldn't set us up, he knows what she went through. I flew out to Milan, and she really didn't want to design for me, she had no idea I was coming until an hour before I showed up in her office. So that was it with that, we went to the showroom, and she measured me again, she drew some sketches, and then-" I stop my speech due to hers starting.
    "The two of you jumped each others bones in the office, and got back together?" She asks, and I smirk at her jokes, but continue on.
    "Not exactly. I stayed in her flat that night, and we didn't really talk things out, but she told me how unhappy she had been since moving to Milan, and before you say anything I didn't care that she had a boyfriend, and she apparently didn't either, and that's because he wasn't her boyfriend at all, he was her friend who happened to be in a serious relationship... I was just an idiot who assumed things. Anyways I told her she should move back to New York, and talk to Alessandro about fixing things. Then we went to lunch then next day, made simple conversation and I left." I tell her, and stop talking but she shakes her head, and waves her hand.
    "Don't stop now, I'm all the way invested." She curls her legs up on the couch, and angles herself towards me.
    "She talked to Alessandro, and he offered her a job as head of the showroom here in LA, and she thought it would be a good fit, that way she could be creative, but also stable, she would have people around her she knew, or people closer than Milan. She didn't tell me until she was already in LA, but it was weird. I thought her asking me to lunch in Milan was odd, but then she asked me to dinner in LA, and when we were there things were said, topics brought up, and get this... She asked if we could talk things out, she made the move for that, and if you know El, you know that she doesn't talk about things willingly, never has she ever done that. She was very open, she told me everything, that she still loved me, and it felt good to see her being so open, and without fear." I tell her, and she nods.
    "So then you got back together?" She asks, and I shake my head no.
    "I told her I couldn't jump back in, I was too scared. I didn't want to trust her, to give into it and then be hurt again, and I didn't want to go back to the place I was in when I was hurt, and feeling so low. We continued to hangout, spend time together, but she was always so odd, and our friend Anthony finally told me it was because she felt like I was doing the same thing she did. She knew I had a lot of feelings but was afraid to show them, and it made me realize I was being dumb about it all, so then after a few weeks of that we got back together." I tell my sister, finally finishing the agonizing story. It's almost as if I relived the entire thing in my mind while telling it, and that's something I never want to do.
    "And it's different now?" She asks, and I nod, picturing El, thinking of her face, her body, her mind... my muse.
    "It's like she's not the same person. I mean she's still El, but she's herself now, she's not afraid of that, she doesn't keep the hard shell up anymore, and she's much more beautiful this way, when you can really feel her, and hear her, and see her the way that she is... I'm happy, I'm finally happy." I admit, and it feels like another weight lifts when I speak the words. The happiness isn't due to just El, it's a mixture of a lot of things, but she's one of those in that mix.
    "Alright then alls well. I like her if you like her, or love her or whatever. I'm just glad you're happy." She tells me, and I put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her in for a hug.
    "I'm glad you and mum came here. Christmas isn't Christmas without all of us together." I admit, and we sit in this hug for a few moments before backing away. El will be here soon, and I know she's probably still busy right now, but it's El, and if I know anything about El, she's completely in her head right now, and she's nervous as can be. She shouldn't be though because it's starting to feel like she's just as much my family as the two others inside this house.

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Song: Fine Line by Harry Styles

IM SORRY IT TOOK 6 DAYS!!! I've already started the next chapter so it shouldn't be as long for another update so don't worry your pretty lil heads!!!

Thank you for all the support❤️