"Could you make it out to H? And maybe sign it Angel, please?" 

I didn't have to look up to see who the voice belonged to. The sound of it was embedded in my brain and written on my bones.

The book signing was my last. And it was the end of the day. I was ashamed to say that I had taken to just looking at the book and doing the signing, before summoning a smile and 'thank you' with a brief glance as my reader walked away. But, I was tired, it had been a long day, a long 2.5 years since I'd heard his voice, other than recorded.

I'd been traveling around a bit with the book, my parents' love story with heaping amounts of drama and a better first husband for my mom thrown in. A fictionalized story of their lives.

I'd been so surprised when it got published, and become a tiny bestseller in Australia and England. My publisher had sights set on the States as well. Traveling around a much smaller version of the world and being the principal terrier trotted out at the dog and pony shows was exhausting. It would be a lie to say that I didn't think about Harry and have a new empathy for him and how tired he must have been. I only had to sit and sign something, share a smile and a few words. Harry and the boys went through full days of press, two hours of jumping around like idiots on a stage where I knew at least Harry really tried to connect with the fans, and then sometimes wrote all night or recorded. It made me feel guiltier for the selfish moments I had when we were on tour and for how much I craved his call. He probably didn't want to see anybody on his off time. Even me. I had a new found sympathy.

I was totally willing to see no one after a night at the bookstore. I liked talking about my characters, especially because they were essentially my parents, but I was a pretty classic introvert and going back to the hotels to quiet was lovely. It didn't always happen, because sometimes Kara was with me. But Kara was always allowed to invade my bubble of one.

If she could intrude on my solitude and I'd be happier for it, why couldn't I on Harry's?

That thought was almost three years cold. Maybe nearly six. But he was right out of my eyeline, and I was afraid to look up at him, like looking at an eclipse. It was a once in a lifetime type of thing, but you have to be properly prepared. At this signing at a independent bookstore in north London, he was the last thing I was expecting. I didn't have filtered glasses or anything.

I'm sure he came late, and waited for the crowd to die down on purpose. He seemed to be the last person in line. Maybe he just saw the placard for my appearance and decided to pop round. I vaguely remember the house we had made a very brief love nest being nearby. But I didn't know London well, and we had spent more time in LA. It's not like we went out much. We rarely left the bedroom to catch up on sleep and other things when we made it to a place he's endeavored to call home.

Harry was still just out of my eyeline, but I could see he was wearing track pants and a white t-shirt. I wondered if he came from the gym, but I couldn't see his feet. I knew he used to go to the gym a lot from the late night stalks I still indulged in. It was safe to say I wasn't over it, losing him, or him not giving us a second chance. Well, we may have been on our ninth life, like the cat that wandered round, the bookstore in Paris I'd loved. 

He hadn't come.

And I didn't know where to go. I had waited for what felt like forever in my little room in Jamaica. I waited a whole year before I decided he wasn't coming. If I had thought it had hurt to run from him, I once again found a new empathy for him when I waited for him to come to me. If he had written the album as bait that I did not take and he had waited seven months to see me only to have a non-reaction than an angry one, his apparent lack of interest or impression for the book I had written him felt like I had mounted an expedition to lure our Nessie and she just liked The Loch better than anything I had to offer.My offering had been me, all of my words, and our story, and my heart.

He hadn't wanted it.

That had been an extremely painful realization. I was at a butcher shop picking up a meal for a school picnic to bid me farewell before I left Jamaica, gave up really, and watched the apprentice to the butcher grind some meat. I could relate.

But, if I had gained anything from the heartbreak, I hoped that it was understanding. For Harry, whose songs I now devoured voraciously, were full of heartbreak. I also hoped I had more for those around me, that that grind through the wheels had rung out most of my innate selfishness. I hoped.

Truth was, though he hadn't come, and I had left my post, I was still a lighthouse on a lonely island. The island was me, and once again I was a turtle, carrying my home on my back.

I may have never left Jamaica if my mum hadn't begged, she even pulled the cancer card. So I moved home. The year I spent chronicling, then aggrandizing my parent's love story was one of the best of my life, despite the torch I was insistent on carrying high.

Now, this light of mine still burns, but I'd placed it lower down as I've lost hope.

The moth I wished to draw is just out of sight and I've been staring at his track pants for a full minute while my mind ran through yesterday to today.
What if I look up and he's not really there. The oasis just over the rise a mirage.

I lifted my eyes and his were like a crystalline pool in the light and I drank him in. I'd tracked him, watched the movie and caught up on the things I'd missed, so I knew his hair was not the princely or rocker length it had gotten to between the chapters in our own book, but it was curling around his ears and had a touch of that boyish charm that made him so compelling. Long enough to shove back off his forehead, but not long enough to need a wrap. It may have been perfect. He looked perfect to me.

I'd been staring for what was way more than a comfortable length of time, but politeness would be a death knell here, if I needed to act in a socially condoned way with the love of my life, then every bit of our intimacy, our history, might as well have been gone, like I'd hit delete instead of send on that email.

"Harry?" I stuttered out, finally finding my voice.

"Hi Melly," he said sotto voce and the shell I'd built inside me around my feelings for him to protect myself, cracked. I hoped it had been closed long enough to make a pearl.

"What are you doing here?" I gasped and looked around him for security for as long as I could keep my magnetized eyes off him.

"This is my local, as it were. Saw your picture outside for the signing this morning when I was headed back from the gym and, well, my feet just found their way here, really." He shrugged like this was no big deal. Like we hadn't last seen each other outside my parents house with tears clouding both our eyes and I hadn't written him over 100,000 of words to win him back.

And yet, all I found to say was, "You have a local bookstore? I always thought that was more a term for a bar."

He cocked his head to the side, "Melody, am I more likely to have a local bookstore or a bar?"

"I dunno really." The part I left unsaid was that I didn't really know him anymore. But, I knew him enough to know the answer was bookstore. It wasn't like he could make a habit of any pub or club without being hounded or written about in the tabloids.

"Yeah, you do." He gave me a boyish grin and his dimple pressed into me. "Would you sign my book?" He gestured to the hardback I still had opened to the first page.

"Yeah, who do you really want me to make it out to?" I glanced up from where I'd put Sharpie to the book cover.

"You could please make it out to H." He pointed to the page and bit his lip and I was confused. I bit my lip in an entirely different attitude and stared at the page, then the finger he was pointing with. The peace ring, the one I still wore, was snuggled up against his knuckle and I looked up at him wildly. He smiled just a bit shyly, mostly he looked like the cheeky 19 year old who was flirting with me while I was trying to figure out how to flirt with him.

"Harry?" I asked.

"Sign the book, Angel." He motioned and gave my jaw a tiny caress with his finger. Then looked behind him. "Looks like your line cleared out?" And I felt not a little bit of pride that there had been a line. "Your parent's story is a good one."

"You read it?" I drew my neck back like a chicken in an all together unflattering way.

"Yeah, soon as I saw the poster, bought it and spent my day reading your writing." That was a curious way to phrase it. "Since you seem done for the day, can we go for a walk? Have you eaten?"

My stomach gave a little lurch at the mention of food, and though I knew that the bookstore had furnished me a salad, I really couldn't even think about eating it in the back room or at my little hotel near the airport. Not when the other option was to be near him. Even in this friendly slightly awkward space we were occupying.

"Um, yeah, let me just let my handler know." I was trying not to move as quickly as my inclination wanted to. I was afraid I would fall.

He giggled. "I can't I tell you what a thrill it is to me that you have a handler today instead of me."

I grinned at him, but the distraction and shared laugh was not good for my cool. The chair that my sweater was over the back of fell with a clatter when I tried to pull the white cotton free. And it ripped the sleeve a bit too. "Phffft." I looked at it and put it on the table before going to pick up the chair. Harry put his hand over mine while he helped me right it and gave the back of my palm a squeeze before we sat it down together.

"I'll be right back." I said as I went, with my sweater in my hand as checking to see if I could still wear it. I had felt underdressed for the chilly day when I had come in earlier. I was going to be shivering and try to cover it on our walk. Maybe I could convince Harry to pop into the pub on the corner instead.

"Hey, I wanted to thank you so much for all of your help today. You were lovely." I said to Ethan, the university student who was assigned to help me by the book shop owner.

"Yeah, course. You as well." He put a hand on my forearm before I turned away. "Listen, I've gotten you some dinner, but I know a really lovely little place round the corner. Would you want to get a bite with me?"I looked at him for a minute to make sure I was reading the situation right. His lips were tight and he was smiling, but he looked nervous, his other hand was clutching his pocket.

Ethan was a lovely boy, younger than my 26 years, with fluffy, dirty blonde hair, a tall frame, and a kind face with glasses and scruff. He even had green eyes. Had he asked earlier I would have said yes.

"Um, that would have been so nice. But, an old friend has unexpectedly turned up, and I'm going to get something with him." Ethan's expression fell a little, especially when I got to the pronoun.

"I didn't know you had any friends in London. Thought it sounded miserable to spend the night in a hotel room." He explained with a shrug.

"Yeah, I wasn't sure we could get together." Ever again. Not after he left me 'on read' in Jamaica, figuratively.

"He surprised me!"

"Well, I'm glad you won't be alone and I'm gonna read your book." I think he said it to be polite, and we had an awkward moment where we waved to one another and said a final goodbye.

My mind had wandered to Harry. Had he read my other book? He said he read this one. Did her read ours? Was it not enough? Had I hurt him too much? What was he doing here now? My mind was whirring when I made it out to Harry, he'd pulled a beanie on and seemed to have lost a layer under the jacket.

"Here, Melly." He held a sweatshirt out to me. "I noticed you ripped your jumper, it's cold outside. Know it doesn't match,though, sorry." he trailed off and I took the sweatshirt and immediately pulled it over my head. It was like wrapping him around me with the smell and warmth. I noticed it had his name on the breast and I couldn't help but smile.

"How's it look?" I smoothed it over my hips. It was oversized and fluffy.

"Like it was made for you." He nodded his head and pushed a finger into the letter 'y'. "Ready?"

"Yes, let's go. We walking or driving?" I pulled my hair out of the jumper and was finger combing it down my back a bit. I glanced up to a familiar look of distraction on his face. I tucked my chin and tried to hide my grin.

"I walked, but we can go to my place if you'd like to drive." He fiddled with his hands as I arranged myself at his side and finally shoved them into his trackies.

"Is it far?"

  "My house? Or the restaurant?" He gestured with his head and we made our way to the door.

"Wherever you are taking me." I shrugged. I think I was playing it like smooth jazz, cool and unaffected, but I felt like the strings on a bass. His every word plucked at me and made me vibrate with excitement. His voice and smell surrounded me and I was willing to go anywhere he chose as long as he kept giving me dimples and awkward extended looks.

"I actually wanted to take you someplace nearby. But I thought we could get food to go and eat it there. Is that ok?" He was nervous.

"Just want to hang out with you. Anywhere is fine." I walked near him and decided to be honest. I'd wasted a lot of time and ruined a lot of things not saying what I meant. I tried not to do it anymore.

Harry nodded and our shoulders rubbed as we walked and I could feel it through my heavy sweatshirt, it felt brand new, and the large shearling coat he wore too. I was always hyper aware of him, but this was akin to early days in hotel rooms, before I had named my feelings or hoped for his. I felt like I was on that tightrope with him again. He seemed to be on one as well with how he was pinching his bottom lip.

"Kebab ok? He gestured to a street stand, out early for the post-work crowd.

"Yeah, it's fine." I buried my hands in the front of the hoodie and stood next to him as he ordered for us.

"Two, mixed, extra tomatoes please." Harry ordered and then looked to my pleased face with a grin. "You still like them right?"

"Yeah, some things don't change."

His lips thinned then and I wondered what I had said wrong. He paid in cash and I realized I hadn't even offered.

"What do I owe you?" I asked trying to take my bundle as he held both in one hand and put the bottles of water he got in his pockets.

Harry's neck wrench and narrowed eyes were immediate. "I asked you out, it's my shout."

He asked me out. It thrilled me so, that I just dreamily walked near him while he led me just a touch ahead of me.

We climbed a pretty hill and it gave a lovely view of the cute neighborhood we'd crossed and he found a bench that seemed familiar to him. He sat down and I loved seeing him outside, in his own space. He looked cozy. 'Like a boyfriend' sounded in my head.

Just not mine anymore.

"What's it?" He noticed my minute face fall.

I shook my head and sat beside him and we ate. Him taking his tomatoes and loading my wrap higher. We sat directly next to each other, in the center of the bench, though there was space on either side. I wanted my thigh pressed along the length of his own. Harry seemed content with the arrangement as well.

We'd been finished and he'd collected the trash for the nearby bin and excused himself to throw it all away. He walked back to me slowly and the tone of his body had changed, like he had placed weight on his shoulders, maybe not like Atlas, but more than was comfortable. I assumed we had moved onto the heartbreaking talk portion of the night.

This time he sat with his hips angled away. It comforted me a little that our knees still touched.

"I wanted to talk to you. It's really all I've thought about since I saw that picture of you on the sandwich board."

"Did you want to talk to me before that?" I found myself asking. I was happy that an image of me stirred him to action and he wanted to talk to me at all. However, there was a small part of me that was that girl left behind, waiting, albeit on a tropical island, where I found myself and started the journey that brought me here. But she was left behind nonetheless.

"I did." I must have looked dubious because he rushed in, "Of course I did Melody. But I just wasn't ready." He exhaled. "When we were in Jamaic--"

"What do you mean we?" I was confused.

"I got your book when I was recording my second album in Jamaica. My mum told me it was fate that we were both there at the same time. But...." He trailed off and his hand edged to the outside of his thigh and his pinky stood out, inching just that closer to my leg. He looked up at me then a little helplessly.

I decided to rescue my damsel in distress. "I liked your second album. It was sharper than your first, edgier."

"Yeah, well I was sharper, on edge." He blew out a breath and squared his jaw again. "I was still really angry at you Melody. Though knowing you didn't get married made me happier than it ought to."

"Me too." I sighed out and placed my hand on my thigh, extending my pinky just a bit. Mine weren't naturally telescopic like his. "I can't believe we were both in Jamaica at the same time." It did seem like fate. Maybe we had missed a chance there. Any other time I would have mourned for that, but right now all I could look to was the road ahead.

"I couldn't either, and then I left and got really busy with work and just," He looked me in the eye then. "I regretted not going to you. But then I didn't really know how to get ahold of you, like, least that's what I told myself and well, um, I guess I wanted to punish you a little for not picking me."

"But I did pick you!" I pointed out. That seemed like an important point

"Not really, you picked yourself." He smiled at me then. "I'm really proud of you for doing that. And look at you, finishing a book tour for your great first novel!"

I felt proud of that too, but it wasn't my primary feeling. "Not really my first." I pointed out and ran my pinky next to his, the tips just touching. "Did you read it Harry?" If he had read it and hadn't come, that stung. But he was here now. Close enough to smell, and to touch. That had to count for something.

He nodded and I saw his Adam's apple bob. "So many times, Melody, over and over Angel. I, just, I just wasn't ready. Then, well I figured it was probably too late."

At that, I hooked my finger over his. "If you thought it was too late, why did you come to the book shop, it's been almost three years H?" We were touching and I was trying to keep myself under control, manage my expectations, but I was like an untethered helium balloon, rising, rising.

"Angel," he leveled me with a stare again. "You wrote me a book and happened to be on the same small island with me, and I wasn't brave enough to go to you. Then, when I'm rarely in London, you happen to be at my favorite book shop round the corner from my house with another beautiful book you've written dedicated to second chances. And fate was giving me a second go. I figured I couldn't tempt it again." He unlatched our pinkies and took my whole hand. "And, well, I wanted to see you, needed to really. I read your words all day and felt so, like close to you. After I finished your parents book, I found my copy of ours. Then I realized I could be really close to you, even touch you maybe. "He raised our hands to his mouth, "and, like, found myself putting on my jacket and grabbing my keys." He smoothed hair that the wind was blowing over my face behind my ear and dimpled at me. "I know it's been years, I do, and that you may be over me--"

"Harry, did you happen to look at what I wrote in your book?" I squeezed his hand I had to stop him before he got talking. We usually didn't say enough words. Tonight, we had too many.

He looked confused by my non sequitur, but let go of my hand to pull the hardback out of the book shop bag. He opened it and read. When he looked up at me, the hope in his eyes matched my own.

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Yeah." 

Inside was the inscription I'd written an hour ago.

H,

'Just let me know, I'll be at the door.'

In the Hallway,

Your Angel