Meet Me in the Hallway

I jump, startled by Harry's sudden appearance, "Shit, Harry. You scared me."

"Sorry," Harry says quietly, approaching me in the dimly lit hallway. I can't help but admire the way his suit hugs his waist as he walks towards me. This fucker is slim-thick, and the mere sight of him constantly makes me want to jump him immediately. Literally, how can a simple black suit like that look so good on someone? It simply defies the laws of physics or some other science shit, I just don't understand.

I am distracted from my inner musings about Harry's flawless ass when his face finally comes into view, and I see that he isn't smiling at me like he normally does. He looks to be deep in thought with brows furrowed and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

Hold the fuck up. Did he overhear that conversation?

"Are you okay?" I ask him, placing my hand on his arm as he stands blankly in front of me. Harry doesn't react to my touch at all, nor does he look to be trying to hide whatever emotions may be going through his mind. After several moments of silence, I begin to assume that my fear is correct. I think Harry did hear what his mom was saying to me, which means that Harry and I might really be about to have that conversation.

Harry opens his mouth to reply, but I cut him off, "How much did you hear?"

If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. We might as well not waste each other's time for once.

A small smile cracks the serious expression on Harry's face and he lets out a shaky laugh, "Most of it, I think."

With his confession, I freeze in place and immediately begin to feel my cheeks heat up more than they ever have before. Of course he heard everything. What kind of narrative would this be without an occurrence of inconvenient eavesdropping?

"Hey," Harry smiles reassuringly, momentarily easing my heightened stress levels. "Don't be embarrassed. I, uh, I've actually wanted to talk to you about it for a while. I just didn't know how to bring it up."

To my surprise and relief, when I look into Harry's eyes, I can see that he appears to be just as nervous as I am. His cheeks are flushed and his glittering green eyes can't seem to focus on one thing for more than three seconds. The soft smile on his perfect lips isn't like the one he normally wears; this one is cautious and gives him this look of hopefulness that puts my frantic mind at ease.

While my heart is racing and all I want to hear is what Harry is thinking about right now, I know that this is not the time nor place to have this conversation. We are supposed to be here for Harry's stepdad, and I would hate for him to miss out on the experience because of me. Thus, though it slay me, I must put this conversation off for another time, and knowing Harry, that will mean tonight. I've come to realize that if we actually make plans to do something, officially or unofficially, Harry is excellent at following through with it. Therefore, I have no doubt in my mind that this conversation will happen today even if it's not right now.

Though I don't want to say it, I speak up quietly, "We don't have to talk about this now if you don't want to, Harry. It's your stepdad's birthday party, so–"

"No," Harry says firmly, and I internally praise him for it. "We need to talk about this because it's been driving me crazy for weeks now."

This is really happening right now.

"Let's talk upstairs." Harry takes my hand in his and laces his fingers through mine, the familiar warm roughness of his hand reassuring me that this discussion will not end badly. If Harry is still holding my hand like this and he's nervous, but still happy-looking, then I think I have a pretty good idea of where this is going. Of course, I'm still freaking out, but I think it's more of an excited freak-out than a "I'm dreading this" kind of thing.

Harry leads me past the throng of people and to the upstairs, where we enter a bedroom that looks to be his. Every step has my heart racing, and I find that my legs are having trouble walking with their normal level of certainty. It's these damn shoes again. I swear, there has not been a single instance of wearing heels during which I have not complained, so I really don't even know why I try.

Harry shuts the door behind us and flips the light on before taking a seat on the bed. Hesitantly, I sit down next to him and wait for the conversation that will change everything.

"I don't mean to freak you out," Harry says softly, the usual lightheartedness of his tone returning to him. "I've just never done this kind of thing before, so I'm a little out of my element."

What kind of thing?

Harry shifts his body towards me and sighs deeply, looking down to his hands and twisting his metal ring around his finger. I remember when I first noticed that iron rose on his hand. Initially, it seemed a contradiction to me, but now, I think it fits him perfectly. Harry's a little softy though he tries not to be, and I love that about him.

I pull my eyes away from Harry's hands and look to his somewhat distressed face. Placing my hand over his, I smile at him in assurance, "Me too... I have no idea what I'm doing."

A quiet laugh falls from Harry's lips as he looks into my eyes intently. Though I love when he looks at me like this, I find that in this moment, I'm way too nervous to actually appreciate the beauty of his eyes.

"I'm glad you said that because I don't know if this is how you're supposed to do it, but I'm crazy about you, and I don't want to see anyone else." Harry looks at my urgently, his deep, green eyes frantically searching my face for some kind of evidence of my thoughts. "Is that– is that something you would want? ...to be, you know, like exclusive or whatever?"

Fuuuck YES. Words cannot describe how stupidly excited I am right now, so I'll allow you to just imagine the extent of my happiness yourselves. It's like I just won the fucking lottery and Harry Styles is the prize.

"Are you asking to go steady with me?" I ask Harry teasingly, knowing he lowkey likes it when I use phrases from way before my time. Harry rolls his eyes at my ridiculous use of such outdated terminology and tries to suppress a laugh, but he ends up just smiling like a little boy who has just been promised a trip to Disney World.

"I think you've seen Grease one too many times, but yes, that is essentially my question," he replies, his attitude noticeably less intense than before.

I shrug in attempt to hide that fact that my insides are doing really impressive gymnastics moves, "I guess I'll have to drop all my other boyfriends, but yeah, I'd like that."

With a laugh, Harry nudges my shoulder playfully and tries to frown at my comment but fails miserably, "You're so annoying sometimes, Camryn, but I'm glad I'm yours to annoy."

Suddenly, and without warning, my eyes decide to betray me by beginning the stages of a good cry. I feel my eyes stinging with that pre-cry eye watering business and I think the gravity of what has just happened is finally hitting me.

The way Harry identified himself as mine makes me feel this intense feeling of joy that I don't think I've felt since I went to Europe years ago and saw the Eiffel Tower glittering at sundown. Just like experiencing that picturesque moment in Paris, this moment with Harry feels so surreal and so completely magical that I'm losing my ability to think in coherent thoughts. It just feels like after all these months of me worrying about whether Harry is playing me, I can finally breathe peacefully knowing that Harry wants this thing between us to be real as much as I do.

I blink back those pesky teardrops before they can fall, but Harry seems to notice them anyway.

"Hey, I didn't mean that," he says quietly, the nervous expression returning to his features. Biting down on his bottom lip, he reaches out for me and rest his hand on my knee in an encouraging gesture.

Leave it to Harry to think he is in the wrong no matter the circumstance. When we first met, Harry did put up fights against me and was rather stubborn, but I've noticed that as time as has passed and we have spent more time together, Harry has begun to act a little more carefully around me. There have been instances where Harry has unintentionally said something that offended me, and increasingly during the last month, he has become so quick to apologize and make amends for his offense.

And up until now, I had no idea why such a change had taken place in him. At first I thought he was just trying to be a kinder person, but now, with knowledge of his true feelings for me, I begin to think that the reason for his sensitivity to my feelings is because he really does care about me. My rationale warns me not to make too many assumptions, but I can't help but think that he has been acting this way simply because he doesn't want to lose me. That's a ballsy thought to have, I know, but I just get this feeling that it is true.

"Harry, that's not it. I am annoying," I laugh and his smile reappears. "I'm just really happy right now, and apparently, my eyes think tears are an appropriate response."

At this, Harry perks his head up much like the dog from Up when he sees a squirrel, "Wait, you are?"

"What? Am I happy?" I question, wondering if he could actually be seriously asking me that question. Surely, he sees how infatuated I am with him.

Harry nods slowly and I can't help but giggle at his ignorance, "Harry, of course I'm happy. I've liked you more than I should... and for a long time.  I was worried you might think I'm obsessed with you or something."

Harry's broad smile only widens, deepening those adorable dimples in his soft cheeks, and his genuine laugh fills the space between us with such joy that I find myself smiling harder than I ever have.

"You're so cute when you laugh like that," I tell him, and immediately, I feel my heart rate quicken. I didn't exactly mean to say it out loud, but you know, it's fucking true, so no harm done.

Harry's already reddened cheeks deepen in color and that nervously bashful expression of his continues to present itself on his handsome face. Harry falls silent and a sound from downstairs suddenly reminds me of the party Harry and I are supposed to be attending. I groan internally at the nagging voice in my head telling me that I'm being selfish for keeping Harry away from his family and their friends. It must be done; we have to leave our little bubble sooner or later.

"We should go back downstairs," I say, though it is the absolute last thing I could want to do right now. Harry sighs and nods in agreement, though I think he doesn't want to return to the party either.

Harry confirms this thought as he leans back on the mattress, covering his face with his hands, "I wish we could just stay here."

I stand up from the bed, smoothing my dress and looking down at Harry laying across the bed. The way his arms are stretched above his head makes the fabric of his black dress shirt strain tightly over his lean torso, and I find that I am momentarily starstruck by his attractive physique.

Shut up, brain. You're being distracting again.

Taking a deep breath, I try to focus on the fact that we are supposed to be downstairs, "I do too, but we need to go."

Harry groans frustratedly and I hold my hand out to him, which he takes. I pull him up and step forward, pressing my chest to his and gazing into his pretty eyes.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks, evidently surprised, though clearly not at all displeased.

Sliding my hands to his chest, I smile at him, having not forgotten my extreme happiness that I have attained through the last fifteen minutes with Harry, "I thought I would kiss you before we go downstairs."

Harry smirks at me and rests his hands on my hips, the feeling of which sends that familiar feeling of warmth through my whole body, "what about your lipstick?"

"Fuck my lipstick, I'll redo it afterwards," I say, staring longingly into his enchanting green eyes. At this, Harry wastes no time in leaning down to me and pressing his lips against mine rather firmly. And though there is undoubtedly passion and eagerness to his movements, there is such a gentleness that I find myself melting into his grasp.

Several moments pass before Harry pulls away from me, and when he does, I find myself missing the warm and comforting sensation of his touch. Almost like Harry is reading my mind, he snakes his arm around me, renewing that first sensation only he seems to ignite, and we walk together back downstairs. When we reach the dining room, most of the guests are seated around one of the largest dining room tables I have ever seen.

I catch a glimpse of Anne at the head of the table and upon observing Harry and I's probably ridiculously childish grins, she smiles at me knowingly. At her rather mischievous expression, I begin to wonder if Harry overhearing our conversation was part of her plan all along. Maybe pulling me aside and telling me all those things about Harry like she did was just her way of pushing Harry to do what he wanted but could not do. If so, I applaud her for her scheming. If not, well, I think everything worked out just fine the way it did, and I couldn't be happier. And judging by the look on Harry's face, neither could he.

•••

Aw yay :) this chapter made me happy to write!

Also, look at Harry's fucking torso in that pic I literally gasped aloud when I saw it

On another note, this made me almost piss myself. So I was talking to my dad about the old fanfics I used to write like four years ago, and he was so impressed that one of mine got like 30k reads that he challenged me to write one and see how many reads I could get😂 so he literally gave me a number and said if I hit it, he'd fr pay me cash... mind you, he doesn't know that I have already been doing this thing, I am deceased thank you father😂😂

Thanks for reading, friends! Please vote and comment if you can!
(I hit 2k reads the other day, so just wanted to say a huge thank you!!!)
-kate💖

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