Meet Me in the Hallway (HS AU)

twelve.

Harry had returned to his computer to continue his work while I laid on the floor stretching my back. I hadn't heard from Will yet this week so my phone was quite dry but I wasn't complaining about the time to myself. My arms fell to my sides from their position above my head, my phone was shoved in my hoodie's front pocket. My eyes fluttered shut and I exhaled deeply.

My ear rested on the floor to my left and slowly opened my eyes only to see Harry's quickly glancing back down to his screen and not at me. My gaze rested on him a little longer though, I had never really looked at him before unless I was yelling at him. He had a spot just below his lip on the left side and his lips were rather pink with a prominent cupids bow. A light stubble covered his jaw and upper lip, his jaw was defined but not overly obvious that it looked fake. His eyelashes were long, thick and framed his emerald eyes perfectly.

Ew, did I just say that. I shook my head to rid it of those observations and sat up. I headed over to the tin of white paint and decided to touch up the sills and frames so I could say that the room itself was finished and I only had to complete the furniture and decorate the walls. I opened a new small brush to get into the small crevices and began fixing the parts visible to seven year olds.

After meticulously inspecting every window from all angles, the white was touched up and the building interior was finally finished. Then a loud grumble erupted from my stomach. It was a good thing I had packed a rather large lunch because I was starving. The paint was placed back in the collection and my bag was being unzipped quicker than I could comprehend.

"Oh, fuck me!" I tipped my head back to look at the roof before pushing my bag off the table and onto the floor.

"Pretty sure there are strict rules against that, but I appreciate the thought."

"No, shut up. I left my lunch at home." I groaned. Turns out, there is something that could ruin my good mood today.

My heel dug into the carpet below me as I spun around, "You know what, it's fine. I don't need food today. I'm going to pump out this painting." Making my way over to the pile of supplies, the roll of sandpaper caught my eye. I ripped off a substantial sized piece and looked around for the block I had bought with it.

"I am going to get myself lunch from the takeaway down the road, as long as you don't make a mess in my car, you can come." I kept my eyes glued to the pile, still seeking out the sanding block.

"It's fine, I'll just do some more work and have an early dinner." My eyes spotted the yellow block in a plastic wrapper and I exhaled in victory. Unwrapping the block and disposing the plastic, I turned to the room filled with a total of 12 table tops needing to be sanded before I could paint them. The decision to work from front to back was made quickly when I remembered Harry was sitting in the back corner, I made my way over to the first table and started sanding vigorously. I was so focused on the tabletop and the rumble in my stomach I couldn't even make out the words he was speaking.

Breathe, Josephine.

The sanding paper was the perfect texture to rid the tabletops of their horrible texture rather quickly, or maybe it was the amount of pressure I was unintentionally pushing on it. My actions were stopped when a hand grabbed my wrist, my eyes moved rapidly from the table, to the hand gripping my wrist, to the sanding block, to the table, to the skin on skin contact, to the green eyes of the culprit and back to the long slender fingers around my wrist.

He didn't let go. He wasn't letting go. He was still holding a tight grip on my wrist as my eyes remained glued to it.

"Did you hear what I said?" He sounded impatient, maybe he'd been speaking to me for a while while I had zoned out. I blinked a few times before slowly trailing my eyes up his arm to finally meet his eyes again.