becoming {h.s} | {b2}

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

— CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN —

june, year three.

"I know you have a weird aversion to me spending money on you—"

"True."

"Let me speak," he insists, stopping in the middle of his stride to chastise me. Of course, when he stops, I falter, too. With his hands over my eyes, I am reliant on him to lead the way for me. It's not a long walk. We'd hardly even left the house before he was covering my eyes and taking me through the backyard. Or, so I assumed. The grass only ever grew taller, tickling against my ankles as the ground became plush beneath my feet. His instructions were sporadic and soft, occasionally warning me of a root that would thwart me, or of some other natural disaster waiting to happen.

A surprise, he maintained for the past several days whenever speaking in regards to my birthday. Harsh and ardent, he remained committed to keeping the nature of his plans a surprise and a secret from me. "Okay, okay, sorry." I back down, smiling in spite of myself as he begins walking us again.

"So, I decided that I would make the best of what we already have."

All at once, his hands lift from my eyes and I find us in something of a hidden little forrest area. We're positioned right in that middle of a small clearing in the midst of a blanket of trees. The grass is full beneath our feet, raised well above our ankles. Tall and green, everything around us is lush and beautiful in the most inexpressible way, leaving me wondering only how I'd never been here before. There are mountains around us and if we look up, I can see the looming clouds beginning to shroud the sky.

"Harry," I gasp, sighing his name with the serenity instilled in me from this moment alone. There's a blanket that he's laid out right in the grass, covered with a little basket of food, a bottle of my favorite pink wine propped up in a tin bucket of ice. There's a bouquet of orange and salmon colored dahlias sitting right there waiting for me. Everything about this moment is perfect; it couldn't be better if he had tried. "This is amazing, thank you."

In this moment, there is something so inherently romantic. Staged isn't quite the right word, but there is something about the way that everything is in its exact perfect place leaves me wondering exactly how long my best friend was out here fretting about this; how long he had thought about what he would bring and how he would organize everything.

Romantic is the best way to put it. Another gaze around the set up—the blanket, the food, the wine—tells me all that I need to know. Nothing has been said between us, regrettably. Fitzy reported back in to me that after a bit of prying, Harry was willing to share with him that we had slept together. The cherry on it all was that after no prodding at all, Harry revealed that he didn't regret it. That was all that Harry was willing to indulge. So I waited. I waited and I waited for him to come up and say something to me like I suspected that he would. Yet the time never came. A couple of weeks passed and I've all but put it to the back of my mind, finding a way to be comfortable in never finding out what could have been.

But then, we land here.

We land in our backyard in the most romantic birthday picnic and I'm confused because he's looking at me like it means nothing, but everything around me is telling me that it means something. For the first time in my life, I can't read him and it's driving me insane. Not knowing what he is thinking or what his intentions are is going to send me to an early grave, I swear.

"I didn't buy a single thing." He informs me proudly as he helps me over onto the blanket. We both quickly fall into a seated position, each of us claiming our own side of the blanket as he begins to open his makeshift picnic basket.