This Thing Upon Me [Order The eBook] [Harry Styles]

Chapter 51

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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May 2013

My dad traveled with me to the airport before I departed for France where I'd catch up with the other boys who already flew ahead to Paris.

"Not too busy this morning, is it?" he remarked, seated at the small round table across from me.

"Not even a little, thank God," I muttered, gazing out at the sparse crowds over my shoulder. "I haven't had any coffee yet so, uh, that'd be bad if it were."

"Normally you'd already be on your second cup."

"D'you reckon?" I grinned, then relented, "This is true."

"Stayin' out of trouble, H?" he asked me that so often I didn't know how to respond anymore. It was one of those conversation fillers, mixed with a parent's paranoid and obsessive compulsion.

"M'tryin'," I winked, using the dimple to its full effect.

"Ah, that's no good. Not what I like to hear. Be a good lad, then."

"I'm pretty good, c'mon, Dad, admit it. It's Gem who's the problem, if you really think about it. I've never made you wait. Remember how she begged you to fly out to Germany to meet her that one time? Then she didn't even meet you till the next day? You could've took a later flight, y'know. And y'know who she was with that time? A guy." He chuckled and shook his head, taking a swig from his canteen of water. The metal glinted in the piercing overhead lights at the airport Starbucks. It smelled like warm cookies, espresso, and Lysol. We were sat at a table near the back in hopes that I wouldn't be recognized, and had a sweeping view of the chaos at the counter. Someone was shouting at a new barista. They demanded a refund. They stormed off. I kept my hat and glasses on and hunkered over in my seat.

"Gem's an angel if I ever saw one. She wasn't with a guy that time, she was with her professor and their group, you little sh*t-starter. She didn't have time to see anyone on that trip. Got a boyfriend now, though, but that's to be expected. She's a terribly pretty girl."

"Who the hell is he?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he hemmed, a habit I remembered from childhood. "She's my only good looking kid out of you two, anyway."

"True," I busted. 

Later I fiddled with the end of our table, and the paperwork he'd brought along to read while we waited to board. He and I had a habit of talking at the same time and talking over each other, so I always played it cool to make sure he could get a word in. It was rare that we spent time together after the tour started, so I valued every second.