baby love (h.s.)

eight

A few days later, I was sitting in front of my TV, eating cereal, when I got a text from Harry—the text, the one I had been not-so-eagerly anticipating since the last time we'd seen each other.

I told my parents.

What an ominous way to present that information. Was he trying to freak me out even more? My heart was racing as I quickly typed back, And??

It seemed as if he was typing forever, until finally, a message popped up. Can I call you?

"You don't have to ask for permission to call me," I said once I picked up the phone. "You can just do it."

"Well, good morning to you, too," Harry said. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

I rolled my eyes. "Can you just tell me what they said already? Obviously, it's stressing me—and the baby—out."

"Can you at least greet me properly first?" I just knew he was smirking right now. He had to be.

"I'm sorry, are you my schoolteacher?"

I could hear him clucking his tongue through the phone. "We better pray this baby doesn't inherit your attitude issues, huh?"

"Actually, I think we should spend more time praying it doesn't inherit your inability to be anything other than annoying."

"Here's a pro tip," Harry responded smoothly. "Insults are more effective when it doesn't take you a minute to get through them."

I was about to shoot something back at him, but then I realized that was just going to make him drag the news out even more. "Okay, fine. Good morning, Harry. Are you happy now?"

"Very."

I paused, waiting for him to continue, but when a minute had passed and he still hadn't said anything, I exclaimed, "Harry! Answer the question. How did your parents react? If you even told them."

"I told them," he sighed, no longer sounding amused. Oh, God, that couldn't be good for me. "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"Um." There was bad news? I mean, I'd definitely expected it, but these past few days, I'd somehow managed to delude myself into believing that Harry's parents would be on board with the whole idea. That they would love me the second they saw me, rather than perceiving me as a gold digger trapping their son. But clearly, that wasn't going to be the case. "Bad news, I guess."

"It's not really bad news, per se," Harry began. "I mean...okay, so my dad was not too happy. He was basically going on about how it's going to be a media circus when the press gets ahold of it, but, you know, obviously he's exaggerating."

The press. Mum and Noor had suggested they'd be involved—how could they not be? Harry's family was practically royalty in London. His father was a multi-millionaire, his mum was a fashion designer, and from what I could gather, his sister seemed to be following in her footsteps. I was assuming Harry was poised to take over the family business one day, which meant a lot of public appearances, which meant a suitable wife...aka, not me.

Sensing my nerves through my silence, Harry continued, "Look, he's going to come around, okay? You have nothing to worry about when it comes to my father, I promise you."

I didn't believe him, but I didn't want to talk about his dad for any longer. "What about your mum?" I asked, hoping this was going to be the good news.

"Right, so she took it a lot better than I thought," Harry said, to my relief. "She's happy for me, and she said she wants to meet you soon. So, you don't have to stress, okay?"