Smoke & Mirrors • Zarry

30. That's it for now

It was a bit arduous for Zayn to write this message for Harry on the card along with that particular sunflower arrangement, and his hand may have been shaking slightly as he held the sharpie marker and wrote it out right after Enzo left, zeroing in on the fact that this Enzo guy had just referred to Harry as the most beautiful man in the world, but damn, he wasn't wrong.

Everything about Harry was dazzling, gorgeous, and Zayn knew it, so why wouldn't Enzo feel this way, too? Zayn had no idea who this guy was or what his relationship with Harry consisted of, but as he peered down at the XO he had just written at the bottom corner he felt his stomach twist slightly, because if in fact the ever so handsome, model-esque Enzo was Harry's boyfriend, then Zayn's visions of Harry moving on with someone new in Los Angeles would be turn out to be justified, and he wasn't just crazy. That's exactly what he predicted would happen, and if it turned out to be true, then Zayn wouldn't be the least bit surprised by it, to be honest. But he couldn't help but still feel a sting of pain in his heart.

After Zayn had closed up shop fifteen minutes earlier than he normally would, he climbed into his gold BMW and jammed the key in the ignition, switching on his GPS system so that he could find Harry's street. He tried his best to tune out his jitters and nervous thoughts with some light rock on the radio, but with every passing minute Zayn could feel his heart thump in his throat. This is not how he imagined seeing Harry for the first time, not by a long shot. He never envisioned showing up to Harry's place with a ginormous vase of flowers for him, but they were from someone else instead.

Zayn nearly laughed out loud up at the universe because this surely had to be a sick joke that the Gods above were playing on him. More than anything in that moment Zayn wished that he had hired a delivery person so that he wouldn't have to hand them to Harry himself, and he almost contemplated just leaving them on his doorstep, ringing the doorbell and running away like a little kid playing a prank would do, but he knew he couldn't because that wasn't professional and this was his job now.

The bass boomed from inside his car with every mile that he drove and Zayn couldn't even distinguish the difference between the music and his heartbeat anymore as he took a right onto Vasanta Way. His brown eyes gazed upon the rows of ornate looking homes, many of them large and lavish, and he felt that lump in his throat again as the number starting climbing higher and higher, passed two hundred, passed three hundred, and within a few seconds he saw Harry's home, number 325 coming up on the left.

It was stunning, he noted, architecturally different from all the rest on the street and it stood out in both style and design, which was quite Harry. It was much bigger than Zayn's quaint cabin, two stories and porcelain white in color with this soft, wood panelling in the front and a large, bay window to compliment it. His place was slightly tucked away behind this long driveway as well, with several palm trees and shrubs, flowers, and a stone wall along his driveway parallel to the stone steps that lead up his door, which were lit up with soft lights along a stone walkway.

Zayn hesitated on the street at first, too nervous to even move his car in any direction and decided not to pull into his driveway last minute, so he just parked along the street and just sat there for a short while, taking several deep breaths.

Every time he pictured seeing Harry it was so random and romantic or a cliché meet-cute, like running into Harry on the street or at a coffee shop and it was unnerving for Zayn to even be in this situation in the first place, so much to the point where he almost felt himself get stomach sick at the thought of Harry opening up his door, probably looking more handsome than ever as this big shot movie star, and just staring back at some ordinary florist that he used to know once, who used to be cool and dangerous and exciting, a guy who used to be the big fish in a small pond back in London, and now Zayn felt insecure all over again like he still wasn't ever going to be good enough for him.