I awoke in the morning to an exasperated sigh and the tapping of a shoe on the ground.  Confusion washed over me briefly before I registered the warmth of Harry’s back pressed into mine, his arm wound securely around my waist.  We must have fallen asleep without realizing; both of us were still fully clothed, cuddled together on top of his covers with nothing but each other to keep warm, which was more than enough. 

My eyes peeled open slowly, scared what I was about to find.  Anne stood in Harry’s room, hands clasped in front of her as she observed us, her expression different from the angry one I had expected.  Her face was set in a thoughtful expression, mouth twisted to the side and eyebrows pulled down as she eyed us curiously.  I dug my elbow into Harry’s ribs, waking him abruptly.

“Ow,” he grumbled into my ear before nuzzling his face into my neck.

“Harry,” I warned, my voice slightly tense causing him to open his eyes and see his mother standing there.  He jumped away, pulling his arms from around me and holding them in the air innocently.  He rolled away from me but casually pulled the covers over his lap, surely covering the solid bulge I had felt at my back when we had first woken up. 

“Mom what are you doing?” he asked, his deep voice filled with gravel from sleep. 

“Well I was just going to tell you I’m going to work but I see you have a visitor,” she said, her tone surprisingly amused for discovering me sleeping over.  I blushed as I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest and hugging my arms around them.

“I’m sorry, Anne, I honestly didn’t mean to sleep over,” I said honestly.  The last thing I remembered was kissing Harry and cuddling into him before I must have fallen asleep. 

She pursed her lips together and thought.  “It’s alright,” she finally said.  “I’m glad to see you both have all your clothes on,” she added, causing blood to rush to my face in embarrassment.  She laughed good-naturedly. 

“Oh my god, mom,” Harry grumbled, bringing his hand to his face to hide his blush.  “Stop.”

She just shrugged and smiled at us.  “And I know it’s not the first time.  You two aren’t as sly as you think,” she said, winking at us before leaving the room abruptly, leaving us both to sizzle in our embarrassment.

“You’re mother is going to give me a heart attack one of these days,” I said, letting a small giggle out as I leaned back into his chest.  He laughed gently and wrapped his arms around my torso, kissing my shoulder as he held me to his chest. 

“Me, too,” he said.  “I’m surprised how well she took that.”

“Helps that we weren’t naked,” I laughed, tilting my head to the side and kissing his jaw. 

“Definitely.”

“Are you busy today?” I asked him.

“Nope, why?”

“Will you help me with my application for school?” I knew he would be much better at that sort of thing that I would be.

“You haven’t done that yet?” he asked in surprise.  My heart jumped nervously in my chest. 

“No, I’ve been putting it off ‘cause I didn’t wanna think about going somewhere without you.  It’s not too late, is it?” Panic rushed through me, suddenly terrified I had missed the deadline and wouldn’t be able to go with Harry.

“No, but you should get it sent in the next few days to be safe,” he said, running his fingers soothingly down my side as he felt me tense up. 

“Okay,” I agreed.  He squeezed me one more time before he released me and climbed off the bed, crossing the room to his desk and opening his laptop. 

“What are you doing?” I asked as he sat down on the desk chair. 

“I’m gonna print you an application.  We can just get it over with,” he said.  I stood and walked to him, weaving my arms around his neck from behind and resting my chin on the top of his head as I watched him pull up our future university and print off the application.  My lips tilted down to kiss his crown before releasing him, accepting the papers he handed to me.  There were quite a few of them and it looked pretty intimidating. 

“Do you want breakfast?” he asked, his stomach rumbling as if on cue. 

“Yes,” I said, happy to put off the scary application a bit longer.  He nodded before leaving the room and leading me down to the kitchen.  I sat at the counter to watch him work, not even bothering attempting to help.  I knew I would just get in his way. 

“What do you want?  Eggs, toast, pancakes?” he offered, leaning his hands on the counter across from me as he grinned.

“Hmm…. Eggs.  And pancakes,” I requested, tilting my chin up as I smiled at him, my own personal chef.  He clapped his hands together and started toward the fridge.

“You got it, baby,” he said cheerily.  “Good choice on not helping, by the way.”

“Hey,” I laughed.  He shot me a cheeky grin over his shoulder, poking his tongue out of his mouth playfully.  “You wouldn’t want me to help anyway.”

“I know, I definitely don’t,” he laughed. 

Twenty minutes later, Harry put a heaping plate of breakfast in front of me.  My eyes widened as I took in the massive amount of food.  It looked delicious, but it was way too much for me to eat.

“Harry I can’t eat this all,” I said, raising my eyebrows at him.  He shrugged.

“Eat what you want,” he said casually, grabbing his own plate that was even fuller than mine and sitting down next to me. 

After fifteen more minutes, Harry had cleared his plate and I had given up on mine, barely finishing half of what he had given me.  I was so full it almost hurt to sit down.  Harry, on the other hand, hand taken to leaning his shoulder into me, picking his way through the remains of my plate with his fork. 

“How are you still hungry?” I laughed, shocked by his enormous appetite.  He shrugged.

“I’m a boy, Joey,” he said simply. 

“Ah yes, and someday, you’ll be a man, my sweet Harry,” I teased, grinning at him and nudging him with my shoulder.

“I am a man,” he said, deepening his voice even more and puffing out his chest. 

“Mmhmm,” I hummed, appeasing him and ducking my head to kiss his shoulder.  “My man.”

“The manliest of all men,” he corrected, taking another bite before scooping up both of our plates and carrying them to the sink.  I rolled my eyes playfully.

“Of course, Harry.” I couldn’t help but giggle.  While our tone was playful and sarcastic, he really was quickly becoming a man.  His features had sharpened quite a bit over the few months we had been together, and his body was firming up even more than it had been before. 

More than physically, though, he was a man in every aspect.  Mentally and emotionally, he acted like a man in every aspect.  It was hard to believe he was only a teenager at times because he was so mature.  Most of the time, anyway.  Sometimes he was silly and playful.  He was the perfect combination of each of my favorite attributes, and I couldn’t love him more if I tried. 

“Application time?” he asked.  He dried his hands on a towel after washing our plates, moving behind me to kiss the top of my head and sit at the table.  I got up from my place at the counter and followed him, sitting next to him and pulling the papers I had left there toward me. 

The first page didn’t look too bad- it mostly consisted of my name, address, phone number, and emergency contacts.  Harry watched me patiently as I filled it out, his chin resting on his wide palm.  After finishing that, I flipped to the second page, which asked for my academic information.  I wrote down my GPA and test scores, which were better than one might have thought, considering my previous group of friends and their obvious lack of interest in academics. 

I caught Harry’s impressed eyebrow raise when he saw the numbers and tried not to smirk.  He clearly hadn’t been expecting them to be so high but hadn’t said anything so he didn’t insult me and admit he thought so.  After filling in all the classes I was currently taking, I finished the second page and flipped to the third.

“This isn’t too bad,” I commented, flitting my eyes up to Harry’s.  He smiled gently at me.

“Yeah, you should be fine.”

“Didn’t think I was so smart, huh?” I teased, cocking an eyebrow at him and letting him know I’d caught the surprised look.

“I know you’re smart,” he defended. “I was just surprised by your grades.  You didn’t strike me as the type to really care about school before.”

I shrugged.  “You wouldn’t be wrong about Haley and them but I dunno, I always wanted to do well in school,” I admitted.  “I mean nowhere as much as you, but still,” I laughed.  He grinned widely, proud of his nerdy habits. 

I returned his smile before turning my attention back to the third page, which requested a series of short answers responding to questions about my strengths, weaknesses, and activities.  I frowned.  What were my strengths?  None immediately came to mind and I felt anxious.  Activities made me nervous, too.  I hadn’t exactly been involved in things in school and had essentially nothing to put down for that.  Most of my activities in high school were certainly not appropriate to put down on a college application, such as partying, for example. 

Harry saw me frowning at the paper, his eyes studying my face as I chewed my lip.  Seeing my dilemma, he reached his hand out to gently brush it along my forearm.

“You have a lot of conviction,” he said quietly.  I blinked. 

“What?”

“Conviction.  That’s one of your strengths,” he offered.  I didn’t say anything as I considered his word choice, not exactly sure what he meant.  “Joey, I’ve never seen someone stand up for what they believe in and follow through so strongly as you.”

I furrowed my eyebrows as I thought.  The only thing that came to mind when he said that was…

“Yeah but that’s with you,” I said, blushing slightly.  There was nothing I cared more about in this world than him, so what he said was technically true but I couldn’t exactly put that down on an application.  He shrugged.

“Sure you can, it doesn’t say where you apply it,” he said smoothly.  “You could apply that to school if you really wanted to.  It’s all about how you word it,” he said, winking.  I still didn’t fully believe him, but I stored it in my mind for later. 

“What else?”

“Determined.  Kind.  Patient.  Strong willed.  Loving.  Selfless. Take your pick,” he said, smiling softly at me.  Did he really think I was all of those things?

“You think too highly of me,” I said quietly. 

“No, I just see you for who you are,” he replied, shaking his head.

“You’re bias.”

“Because I love you?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t change who you are.  I’m just lucky enough to see it everyday,” he answered easily, shrugging and grinning at me as if it were a simple fact rather than his opinion.  His smile reflected on my face.

“Thank you, Harry.”

“No worries, love,” he said lightly.  “Write it down, now.”

He nodded at my paper, instructing me to fill out the rest.  The weakness aspect I found much easier, even though I avoided putting my biggest weakness down: Harry.  I didn’t think that was the kind of weakness they meant.

When I reached the activities area, I sighed.  There was no way Harry could help me with this part because they wanted solid, concrete activities.  I put my pen down and pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. 

“I have no activities,” I grumbled.  Harry leaned across the table to look at the paper.

“You have a job,” he offered.

“Yeah, that I work at like once a month,” I said sarcastically and let my head fall into my hands, resting my chin on my palms as I frowned at him.  He twisted his lips to the side in thought but couldn’t come up with anything.

“See, even you can’t find something,” I said in exasperation.  Anxiety pinched at my features, deepening my frown and pulling my eyebrows together as I put my face into my palms.  “I’m screwed.”

“Heyyy,” Harry said soothingly.  His chair creaked lightly as he stood up and moved behind me, his large hands landing on my shoulders and kneading lightly.  “Don’t do that, it’ll be fine.”

“No, I have nothing to put down,” I said stubbornly, my voice muffled by my hands.  I felt his lips land on the back of my neck as he shushed me gently, his fingers still molding against my shoulders.

“You’ll be fine.  Lots of people don’t have any activities.  You can at least put your job,” he soothed.  I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes before sitting up straight and leaning back into the chair.  Harry slid his arms down my chest from my shoulders, bending down to hug me from behind.

“You sure?” I asked.

“Positive,” he replied before kissing my cheek.  “But we can finish this later.  You need to relax a bit, Jo.”

I perked up a bit, the mention of relaxing and the way his hands had just felt on me making me feel better already.  His fingers tickled at the hem of my shirt as he hung over my shoulders and pressed his lips into my neck again. 

“Hmm, what did you have in mind?” I asked, leaning into his grip and closing my eyes as his lips continued to tickle down my neck. 

“I’ve got an idea,” he said lowly.  He pressed one last kiss to my shoulder before unwrapping himself from me.  I twisted in my seat to watch him walk around to my side before he pulled me up with him.  He grabbed both of my hands in each of his and walked backward, pulling me with him with a slight smirk on his face.  I didn’t say anything as I smiled at him softly and let him pull me after him.  He turned around when we reached the stairs but kept his grip on one of my hands as he led me up them.

I was surprised when he walked past the door to his room; I had been expecting him to pull me there and into his bed.  When he led me further down the hall into his own bathroom, I grinned widely, catching onto his plan. 

“I think you need a relaxing bath, babe,” he said as he tugged me into the room, closing and locking the door behind us.  I smiled and bit my lip as he pulled me into his chest and wound his arms around my lower back.

“Only if you’re planning on joining me,” I said mischievously, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“Well of course, love.”

**

So someone on twitter a few days ago said the boys' new song 'Strong' reminds them of this and I just loved that so much that I had to share with you all :) 

Thanks for reading and for almost 90,000 reads!! That's incredible. And thank you to everyone who has been reading my second book, 'Resolution'! It was updated last night if you'd like to read and haven't yet; it's pretttty dirty, I must warn you ;) Please vote/comment if you liked this chapter, love you! :)