stepbrother!harry - in which Harry and you meet six months before your parents are married and there’s immediate sexual tension that neither of you have the power to resist but things are tricky and quite messy
Mint Chocolate Chip (Completed Series)
in which the attractive older man that frequents the ice cream shop you work at has been making dark plans for you and when he finally gets you where he wants you, you’re easier to break than he imagined - dark!Harry content
The Con Artist (Completed Series)
detective!harry x criminal!reader
You're a wanted criminal and when Harry Styles, the detective on the case, finally catches up to you he finds it difficult to resist your charms.
Forgive Me, Father (Completed Series)
soft dom priest!harry x subby!reader
Harry is a priest with a dark secret but he's got a big heart and he's looking for someone special to share it with. When Y/n confesses her sins, he thinks she might just be the one.
The Arrangement (Completed Series)
sugardaddy dom!harry x subby!reader
Based on this request - Harry's wife proposes that he find a mistress to meet his needs in the bedroom as she is no longer willing. His wife has 2 rules: The first is that he finds a professional, and the second is that no feelings are to be involved. But both of those rules are thrown out the window when he meets Y/n.
A Good Boy (Completed Series)
stepson!harry x stepmom!reader (both adults)
Harry's got the hots for his young stepmom and she's pretty fond of him too.But they're both trying really hard to be good.Loosely based on this ask.
A Balancing Act (Completed Series)
this fic is commissioned by @cinnamonone (thank you!! xoxo): Y/n is a successful artist with a good head on her shoulders and Harry is a famous popstar in therapy. Navigating a relationship with someone as famous and adored as Harry isn't an easy task but Harry is desperate to make it work once and for all. famous!harry x plus size!reader
Just For Tonight (Completed Series)
this fic is anon commissioned (thank you!! xoxo): Harry spots an angel in the crowd and he can't keep his eyes off of her. And, as if by some cosmic pull, he can't help but ask her backstage. But it's only going to be just for tonight. Or is it? famous!harry x reader
The Unicorn (Completed Series)
Based on this & this. 3 part very mini-series. You nanny for the Styles, but Harry and his wife would like to offer you another position. Everyone gets more than they bargained for. dad!harry x nanny!reader
Can We Start Over ? (Completed Series)
this 5 part series is commissioned by @justfattiethings (thank you!! xoxo): From the first day you and Harry meet, your relationship is beyond complicated. A one night stand leads to hurt feelings and then a job opportunity that you simply can't pass up is offered. But can you handle working for a man like him? enemies to lovers
Ex-Boyfriend's Dad!Harry (completed)
Harry's your ex-boyfriend's hot dad. But it gets more complicated than just that.
Harry's your ex-boyfriend's hot dad. But it gets more complicated than just that.
It's Good to Be King | mean king!harry
Harry, a handsome, but ill-mannered new king, bound by tradition, must select a queen, and against all expectations, he chooses Y/n, a street beggar. Now, Y/n finds herself caught between the gilded cage of royalty and the cold, harsh simplicity of her past, navigating a court shocked by her presence and a king who revels in the scandal of it all.
The Amateur | ceo!sugar!daddy!harry x burlesque!dancer!yn
Y/n leaves behind her old life for a new one and lands a job as a burlesque dancer in Las Vegas. Things get off to a rocky start, but a handsome stranger offers her something that might just help her out.
hi all, here is the long-awaited masterlist! please note, my work is NOT for minors or larries. if you are either, please do not interact. as always, likes, reblogs, replies and asks are always appreciated. if you have any requests, please drop them here - i might not always get to them, but i do try my best! if you would like to be added to my taglist, please follow instructions here.
you can support me here! (please do not feel obligated to, this is just if ur comfortable enough <3)
happy reading! x
SERIES:
Casual 1 | 2 | 3 (completed)
fratboy!harry x unistudent!y/n - content: angst, smut.
Preview:
As it turned out, her text, which she thought was very chill and laid back, actually came off as way too strong when she reread it the next morning (heyy handsoke, u shud cum ov3r) but apparently Harry thought that made her even more attractive. "Endearing" was the exact word that he used later that week.
Instead of replying, he called her and made her giggle and blush over the phone, though if the poor girl was being honest, that only made her horny—she would usually get this way when she was anything but sober.
Within the next few minutes, he was at her apartment, and Y/N was on her knees, mouth stuffed, and drool dripping off of her chin as he prompted her to take him deeper into her throat.
Too sweet 1 | 2 | 3 (completed)
gang!harry x icecreamshopworker!y/n - content: fluff, angst.
Preview:
“How did he know I was here? Was he following me? How did you know I was here?” She took a step back, like she was frightened by Harry.
“I was just grabbing something to eat, I promise. Purely coincidental. But I’m pretty sure that that prick has had his eyes on you for a while now.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god.”
Harry looked down to see her breathing hard, her eyes getting glassy. He had to figure out a way to keep her calm and in check so as to not attract any unwanted attention. His hand on her waist tightened, attempting to ground her. “Hey, look at me. You’re okay, Y/N. I’ve got you.”
The salt on your skin 1 | 2 | 3 (ongoing)
bestfriendsdad!harry x yn - content: age gap, smut.
Preview:
Ella stepped aside, “Dad, this is Y/N, Y/N, this is my dad.”
Y/N stuck her hand out to greet him, trying to mask her shock and fake some confidence. It was then that she noticed that not only was he handsome, but he was decorated with tattoos which covered most of his arms and some parts of his legs. Judging by the ink that peeked out from his top, she knew there was probably more that she couldn’t see at the moment. Unfortunately for her, this only made him sexier.
His hand was huge compared to hers and also surprisingly warm. “Lovely to meet you, Y/N.” He gave her a polite, cordial smile. “You too, Mr. Styles.”
“Please, call me Harry.”
Yes, Mr Styles 1 | 2 | 3 (ongoing)
ceo!harry x pa!y/n - content: slight age gap, smut, fluff, angst.
Preview:
Stood by his desk was a girl— a very pretty one, in fact. Big, round eyes looked at him, resembling a deer, and a plush mouth was left agape as she eyed him up and down. She was wearing a sweet ensemble; a pretty pastel blue dress that fell just past mid-thigh and had a tiny slit on it. Her hair was swept back over her neck, tamed and neat.
He lingered his gaze on her as she straightened up from where she was bent over his desk and cleared her throat, “hi, Mr. Styles, it’s nice to finally meet you,” she extended a hand for him to shake, “I’m Y/N. Your new assistant.” The slight rise and fall of her chest gave her nerves away but her eye-contact never faltered. Her hand was warm and soft when he took it, and only then did the last-minute text from Mitch come back to him.
By the way, you’ve got a new assistant starting this week. Be nice to her.
This was her. Of course. He gave her a firm handshake, “Harry.”
Favorite boy 1 | 2 (ongoing)
best friends to lovers!harry x y/n - content: smut, fluff, angst.
Preview:
She moved her head back, trying to create some space between the pair, “what are you doing Harry.” The sound she makes is an odd one— one that she doesn’t make often and it’s desperate and needy, akin to a weepy whine. His fingers finally loosened enough for her to break free and she quickly moved her face away from his where it seems like it was magnetically pulling her closer and closer.
Harry didn’t say anything for a while and Y/N found herself frozen in her spot, still right on his lap. “What’s going on here, hmm?” He said, glancing down.
Y/N followed his gaze, confused at first and it took her a moment to realise what he was insinuating. His fingers grazed her hips. “What’s got you all squirmy on my lap?”
He was still staring right into her eyes, making her go crazy with the stolen glances at her lips with every passing second. Meanwhile Y/N’s chest heaved and she unintentionally shuffles again, “fuck, Y/N.” Harry’s voice was deep and groan-y, vibrating through her body when his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “I’m not squirmy, Harry shut up.”
ONE-SHOTS:
I had a few, got drunk on you
barsinger!harry x plussize!y/n - content: smut, public sex.
Preview:
She couldn’t believe what was happening— couldn’t believe how incredibly hot the sight before her was as he gently took her sticky hand and brought it up to his face. Y/N’s mouth and eyes were left agape while he slowly licked the thin droplets of fruity alcohol from the side of her index finger, before engulfing the tip of it in his mouth.
His eyes never faltered from hers, lips suckling softly at the skin and teeth barely clamping down before letting go. There was not a single thought in her head. Her underwear was unbearably soaked as rushes of butterflies flitted about her stomach, and if she had not shut her mouth, surely there would have been drool dripping down the side of it, akin to the current state of her thighs. Her lungs were devoid of any full breaths.
“What ar—”
“Come to the back with me.”
Six words.
Temporary fix
bffsexbf!harry x y/n - content: smut.
Preview:
“I didn’t do anything wrong, I was being civil until you started fucking accusing me of shit out of nowhere!”
She scoffed. “Wow, I cannot believe you. I don’t know if you act this way on purpose or you really can’t tell what the fuck is wrong with your brain.”
“Can you have a normal conversation with me without insulting me for a fucking second?”
His voice was getting louder and he was right in front of her, staring down angrily at her annoyed face. She could tell his jaw was tense and the sight was almost hot which was even more annoying. “I don’t want to have any conversation with you. I think I have made that pretty fucking cle—“
“—Will you shut the fuck up and listen to me!”
“Make me!”
Woman
jamaica!harry x crewperson!y/n - content: angst, smut.
Preview:
It was a gentle press at first—she could taste the strawberry chapstick he wore, and it made the kiss more sticky as he pulled back just to pluck her bottom lip with his thumb. Like an instinct, Y/N’s mouth pliantly fell open, letting him lick against her; deep and almost romantic in the way he held her face, like he didn’t ever want to let go. There were needy sounds exchanged betwee the two—a wet gasp for air; a groan which travelled from her hair down to her toes.
Before she knew it she was climbing his lap and the kiss got heated. Y/N didn’t know how long they remained like that; pressed against one another as they madeout sloppily, but she remembered how she felt when she finally pulled back to breathe. Her lips were tingly but it was the good kind.
Her hands were knotted in his freshly cut hair and he looked at her like she was the stars and the moon and the whole solar system at once.
Complicated freak
otralhh!harry x niallbestie!y/n - content: smut.
Preview:
“I was curious to meet you,” Harry began.
“Why?” She inquired.
“Niall talks about you enough,” He finished his drink.
“Does he?”
“Constantly,” He set the glass down, and Y/N laid a throw blanket on Niall’s body, biting back a smile as a certain fondness for her slumbering best friend washed over her.
“Hope I didn't disappoint.”
Harry looked at her for a second. “Not even close.”
Bloodsucker
vampire!lawyer!harry x lawclerk!y/n - content: smut, angst.
Preview:
When and how he caught her so fast was beyond her comprehension. He was on the other side of the room, at least ten paces away from where she stood; how could he register the fact that she was about to fall, make it to her side, and catch her within that half a second was messing with her brain in more ways than one. But Y/N struggled to focus on that when her life practically flashed before her eyes. She was too caught up in regulating her nervous system and accepting the fact that she didn’t, in fact, perish in the office library/filing room.
Before she could help it, her untrustworthy mouth began moving, “Oh my god, I almost broke my neck and died,” Her brows raised further, “I almost died—” She cried, digging her fingers into his top.
“Hey, you’re okay. You’re not hurt,” Mr. Styles spoke in a delicate tone she’d never ever heard from him, akin to a gentle autumn breeze or the first fall of snow after a terrific spring. She continued to stare into his eyes as her words gradually withered on her tongue. She was almost in a trance-like state when she followed the way his pupils began to expand and contract rhythmically in sync with her racing heart.
Specks of gold and blue against pools of green swirled together into one spectacular shade for which Y/N had no words to describe. She felt captivated in a way she’s never been before, as if his gaze was holding her hostage. Her limbs felt frozen but she didn’t fight it, letting this unusual sense of comfort wash over her with no restrain. Surprisingly enough it worked, and with each coo and reassurance that left his lips, Y/N felt her own nerves settle, “You’re okay,” He said one last time, his hands loosening.
BLURBS:
Be a good girl
Harry’s feeling needy on tour, and Y/N’s got a bratty, trouble-making mouth - contents: smut.
The princess and the knight
Y/N is a princess, and Harry is her shy, personal knight.
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈 — 𝐖𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 — the one where a prophecy is spoken and an alliance is agreed.
𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 | 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 13k
𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: welcome to foretold! this has definitely become a passion project of mine over the last few days (especially since I wrote practically all of this yesterday) and thanks to a push by some of you lot I decided to post it today! The other parts are coming, but I just don't know quite when yet! this is a viking/omegaverse au so there is a lot of norse terminology used. I might make a foretold dictionary of sorts but until then, ask me if you need any clarification! As always, please enjoy and let me know what you think!
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language, mature themes, abo dynamics, norse language, discussion of sexism, arranged marriages, and a very sexy viking alpha Jarl Harry.
Twenty years earlier, there was a day that knew no darkness.
The people of Sólheimr watched the sun cling stubbornly to the sky long after it should have disappeared behind the mountains. Hour after hour it remained, bathing the settlement in an endless golden light. Some said Sól herself had paused her chariot. Others whispered that the Norns had stayed at the turning of the world.
Sólheimr was the northernmost settlement of the kingdom, where sometimes the sun would linger above the horizon for days at a time. The old women claimed the land was blessed by Sól herself. The warriors insisted it merely bred stubborn people. Only the seers smiled, because they knew every prophecy had to begin somewhere.
Despite the ranging sun from the outside, no one in Sólheimr. The settlement waited, plagued with the thoughts of what was unfolding inside the longhouse. They’d seen the healer enter the longhouse before the morning meal, and she had not left since. That only meant one thing, and they were waiting with bated breath for the announcement to ring.
Despite what was occurring in the backrooms of the longhouse, nobody would ever expect anything was amiss. The settlements greatest warriors, sitting with their Jarl were drinking, and laughing, celebrating the forever sun that beamed above them.
They ignored the restless livestock, the fact that the ravens that circled did not settle, or that the dogs refused to sleep. Horses refused their water, the fish abandoned the fjord and the sheep stood motionless, all facing north. The sea glittered gold even though it should be midnight, and the breeze in the air stood still, as though it knew something was amiss.
“The Norns are weaving,” the oldest woman said quietly, “No one disturbs the weave.”
Despite the changing air outside of the longhouse, the chatter and laughter from the main hall, the atmosphere darkened the further back a person was to explore. Behind the wooden door covered in cloth, to keep both heat in and sound out, laid upon a bed of furs, tunics and other familiar items laid a mother, deep within the labour that would bring her second blood into the world.
It had been a full day, a full twenty-four hour period at which Sól had not rested and neither had the Lady of Sólheimr. Whispered had spread amongst the settlement that no child or mother has ever survived labouring for such a time before, and it was unlikely either would survive.
Fatigued and breathless from the pain of such labour, the healer had sworn to not leave the Lady’s side. With a damp cloth in her hand, she dabbed the sweat that had collected upon her brow.
“Freyja, who taught seiðr to Gods and mortals,” she whispered, scarcely louder than the crackling fire, “If this child bears your touch, let your hand be gentle. Do not take the mother to claim the daughter.” With shaking hands, the healer tied a red woollen thread around Lady Sólheimr’s wrist, “…if this child truly bares your touch, Lady Freyja, grant us the strength to recieve your gift.”
On the other side of the bed, old Eira knelt with Lady Sólheimr’s trembling hand clasped between her own weathered fingers. Despite the cries and groans from the labouring Lady, Eira’s eyes never left the fire.
“Frigg Allmother,” she whispered, pressing her thumb gently against Lady Sólheimr’s hand, “Wrap your cloak around this house. Keep death from its doorway. Bring mother and child safely through this night.”
Outside of the birthing room, having slipped away from the rest of his warriors, Jarl Leif stood motionless. His hands, calloused from years of gripping sword and shield, curled helplessly at his sides.
“Lady Eir,” he whispered into the endless daylight, “Your hands are steadier than mine have ever been. Where mine cannot protect her… let yours.”
These prayers rose from the longhouse that day. One sought a mother’s life, the other begged for a child’s safe arrival and one pleaded for healing beyond mortal hands. Whether or not the goddesses listened was something only the Norns knew.
Another scream tore through the longhouse — raw, desperate, unlike any that had come before. The healer and Eira, side by side, knew that it was time. They both knew that the moment had come. The next breath taken in that room would belong to either the child… or to the mother for the last time. Both worked tirelessly to keep Lady Sólheimr comfortable despite the day’s work she had already given to this labour. Another groan, a scream and then… A cry.
At that exact moment, as the wail from the child filled the birth room to the absolute brink, the endless sun seemed to draw closer. It’s warmth settled over the room life a blessing, washing across stone, timber and skin alike. Outside, every raven that had circled above Sólheimr settled at once upon the roof of the longhouse.
“She’s here,” the healer whispered, grabbing clean cloth and linen to wrap the babe in.
“Look…” Eira motioned to the child, who’s wails had quietened and eyes had opened, “She sees.”
A silence filled the room from the women, the only sound being the light pants from Lady Sólheimr in the background.
“Oh,” the healer murmured after a second, “The sun has not left us.”
A light smile crossed over Eira’s face, “Then neither has the favour of the gods.”
In the hours after the babe’s birth, where the news had spread around the settlement that Lord and Lady Sólheimr had safely delivered a girl, the settlers began to call her Sólbarn. The Child of the Sun. On the morning after her birth, the sun finally yielded to the horizon, as though it believed its duty had been fulfilled.
The settlement celebrated the new birth, with horns of mead raised to the gods and a lamb roasting over the fire. They sang songs, left gifts upon the old stone altar in thanks to Freyja. The Lady Sólheimr was weak though, exhaustion having set into her bones from the hours she had spent labouring.
Despite the every pain that Lady Sólheimr had endured, it all felt worth bearing when that tiny hand curled around her finger. Even more so when the door to the birthing room opened, and in walked the Völva. Every birth received a blessing of sorts, but the Völva’s presence indicated that there was some godly work amongst them.
The settlement’s Völva was old, dressed in a long cloak made of fox fur. Bone necklaces layered across her chest, yellowed with age, each carved with runes too worn to read. With every step she took, her wooden staff carved with ancient runes tapped against the stone floor, silencing those who were still in the room. Even the babe, not even a mere hour old stayed silent as the older woman comes near.
The Völva dropped down to her knees, beside the bed where the babe still rested in her mother’s arms. Her bony hand reaches out from beneath her cloak to the babe, and she lightly touches the furrowed brow of her tiny forehead. Both of her eyes settle on the babe, even though one eye remained clouded, pale as winter ice. The other watched the babe with unnerving clarity.
Without taking her eyes off the babe, she spoke in a voice that no longer sounded entirely like her own, “A wolf crowned beneath winter skies… will bind divided shores. Beside him shall stand the summer-born… bearing neither sword… nor surrender.”
The silence returns, the Völva rose and she turned. Her staff struck the stone once more, and then she was gone. No one spoke, and outside the celebration continued as though nothing had changed. Inside the birthing room, no one dared to disturb the silence she had left behind.
Then, Jarl Leif turned to his wife, “What does it mean?”
Without taking her eyes off the babe, his wife shrugged, “It is not for us to know.”
The words that the Völva had spoken were never mentioned again. Not because it had been forgotten, but because no one in Sólheimr believed it could be understood before its appointed time. Eleven winters passed before the Norns tugged once more upon the thread they had woven that midsummer’s day.
Lady Sólheimr had noticed before her daughter had. She had noticed the way that her child was glazed with fatigue despite the fact that she slept reasonable hours at night. However, the sleep wasn’t peaceful. Every night she wandered the same endless forest. Snow drifted silently between black pines whilst wolves howled somewhere beyond the trees. Fire lucked at the trunks until the woodland glowed amber against the white, yet the flames never reached her. YN woke shaking, sweat dripping across her entire body.
The wolves, the tress and the snow didn’t bother her. They did not cause the racing in her hear, and the sweat from her brow. What unsettled her were the impossible green eyes that always found her. She never saw the face they belonged to. Only the certainty that whoever watched her… already knew her.
The most subtle change was that of her scent. It wasn’t a perfumed fragranced, light and full of the scent of flowers. No, it was stronger. It was a change that came from deep within her, and manifested itself into warm honey, pine resin, heather, the sea salt after sunlight. No two people ever carried the same scent.
Then came the mark. It spreads from just below her ear to the top of her arm, it spread in slow, curling lines, each rune revealing itself as though inked by impossible hands. Within the looking glass, it almost looked as though it resembled the sun, interwoven with the mark of Freyja. It grows over several days, and breathes underneath her skin.
When she had shown the growing mark to her mother, frightened by what such a mark meant — Lady Sólheimr hadn’t gasped. She hadn’t called for the healer. She had simply smiled — small, knowing and tinged with a sadness.
“Come,” she said softly, bringing her daughter to her side and beginning to run her fingers through her daughters hair, “The thread has reached its first knot.”
“Something is wrong with me,” YN had whispered back to her mother, tears collecting in her waterline.
“No,” Lady Sólheimr smiles sadly at her daughter, brushing the hair away from her face, “Something ancient has finally awakened.”
“Mother… I do not understand what you mean,” YN all but whined, the tears freely flowing down her cheeks.
“My daughter… you were born carrying seiðr in your blood,” her mother explains, brushing the tears away, “Every full moon carries the possibility of Freyja’s Fire. Sometimes she passes us by. Sometimes she lays her hand upon us. No woman knows which moon will be hers until it rises.”
YN chokes slightly at her mother’s words, “What will happen to me?”
“It is not something to fear, my child,” Lady Sólheimr comforts, “No Seiðr-blood walks through the fire alone. You will be overwhelmed, dreams will haunt your mind louder than those you have already experienced. Your body will become unbearable to touch, but we can help.”
“Mother…” YN cries once more, “Is it only me?”
“No, no it is not,” Lady Sólheimr pulls YN to her chest, “There are many that experience Freyja’s fire. And, there are many that experience the Hunt.”
“The Hunt?” YN questions, “What is that?”
“Whilst you are Seiðr-blooded, there are some who are Úlfr-blooded. They are said to carry the spark of the Allfather’s wildness. They experience their Hunt as you experience Freyja’s fire.”
YN looks up at her mother, “They are the same?”
“No, my child, they are very different,” Lady Sólheimr smiles, “But, you might find the Úlfr-blood that can help you. Some walk beside another all their lives, and some never do… The gods may have already woven another thread beside yours. Whether they are tied together… is for the hearts that carry them to decide.”
YN allows her mother’s words to settle in the room, the new information which she had been given causing a dull ache to appear within her skull. Then, her mother calls for her attention again.
“My daughter… the sun waited a full day for you to be born,” Lady Sólheimr rests her hand on YN’s mark, “Do you truly think the gods had finished with you then?”
“That is for the gods to decide, mother.”
“That it is,” The Lady sighs once again, and she was quiet for a long moment. Her thumb continued its slow circles across YN’s mark, as though she could smooth away the weight of what she was about to say, “I prayed I would never have to tell you this so soon.”
“What is it?” YN questions, brows furrowed.
“On the day you were born, the Völva came to the bedside,” Lady Sólheimr explains, shuddering slightly at the memory, “She spoke a prophecy to you, one that is tied to you and only you. She said, ‘A wolf crowned beneath winter skies will bind divided shores. Beside him shall stand the summer-born… bearing neither sword… nor surrender.’”
“A wolf?” YN exhales an awkward laugh, “Does that mean I’ll marry a hunter?”
Her mother smiles, “Perhaps.”
“Or someone who smells?”
Lady Sólhemir bellows a laugh, “That is not for you to decide, my child. The gods may have already woven that thread.”
YN nods, a small and sad smile crossing her lips, “Will it hurt?”
“It will,” YN’s mother nods, “Sometimes. The greatest gifts the gods give us are rarely carried without weight. Fire burns, little sun. That does not make it evil.”
YN leaned into her mother’s embrace, listening to the familiar rhythm of her heartbeat. She wanted to believe every word. She wanted to believe the dreams would fade, that the mark would stop growing, that the gods had simply made a mistake.
But somewhere deep beneath the warmth of her mother’s arms, she already knew that they hadn’t.
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑, 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐆𝐎
The first snow always silenced Hrafnvík. Not completely. Axes still split wood, children still chased one another through drifts, and ravens argued from rooftops. But every sound felt swallowed by snow until only the wind remained.
In the centre of Hrafnvík, under the watchful eye of Jarl Björn, was his son. The heir to the settlement, now eighteen years old and training to be a sworn warrior just as his father was.
Yet, there was something different about the son. No one watching him train would have guessed he carried a single doubt. His shoulders had broadened years ago. His hands had long since hardened into those of a warrior. He could outfight men twice his age. Yet every victory reminded him of the one battle he had never won.
As Harry fought side by side with an older warrior from his father’s generation, he heard the man say, “Still waiting?”
Harry just shrugs, sword still clutched tightly in his hands, “Seems so.”
From the side, another warrior snorts, “Perhaps Odin found a better heir”
Harry’s grip around his sword hardened, his movements sharpening. He could handle their jabs, he had a tough skin after all but he could not help that his mind still did wander. Every man in his father’s bloodline had presented before sixteen winters. His grandfather. His uncles. His cousins. Björn himself. Harry had watched every one of them wear the wolf proudly, and yet at eighteen — Harry still waited.
Once the training had stopped, and the warriors had gone to rest in the longhouse and feast on whatever was roasting above the fire and drink mead until they could no longer stand, Harry chose to stay outside.
Wrapped in furs, he dropped down on the dock, looking out at the frosted fjord in front of him. Then, the groan of wood behind him alerts him to the presence of another, his father, who came to sit beside his son.
Neither spoke. The frozen fjord stretched endlessly before them, silver beneath the rising moon. Somewhere out on the ice, a raven called out before falling quiet again. Harry had spent eighteen winters trying to understand the gods. Tonight, they remained as silent as ever.
Then, finally, Harry says quietly, “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
Jarl Björn does not answer immediately, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Snow drifted across the frozen dock, and only then did he answer, “I think you have spent too long believing the gods work by our calendars.”
“But, father,” Harry tries again, frustration evident in his voice, “Everyone my age…”
Jarl Björn shakes his head, “Everyone else’s isn’t yours.”
“They’re starting to doubt me, father, diminishing me as heir to your seat.”
“The warriors always talk,” Björn brushes off his sons worry, “Warriors have talked since the first man picked up an axe.”
Then, quieter, Harry says, “Even you must wonder.”
Jarl Björn finally turns to his son, “No… I wonder what it is that Odin is waiting for.”
Harry nodded. He wanted to believe his father, truly he did. Yet, as he looked towards the full moon hanging over Hrafnvík, all he could think was that eighteen winters felt an awfully long time for a god to keep someone waiting.
Winter deepened, the snow buried the fields until even the old stone markers disappeared beneath the white. The sea froze a little more with each passing dawn. Harry stopped counting the moons and then… the blizzard came.
The ravens stopped flying and instead they lined the rooftops of Hrafnvík, unmoving for hours at a time. Wolves howled so close to the settlement that mothers called their children indoors hours before dusk. Horses refused their feed. Harry’s hounds — dogs that had slept beside him since they were pups — whimpered whenever he approached before retreating with their tails tucked low.
Everything feels too warm, as though the fire was resting right above his skin. His sleep is plagued by something inexplicable. Sunlight, a blazing sun over long roaring fields, causing a warmth stronger than anything Harry had ever felt. There is a girl in the fields, running barefoot through the long grass, sunlight caught in her hair. Every time she laughed, the warmth around him grew stronger. A sound so golden to his ears that he wants to see her, and yet every night before she turns around — Harry wakes.
Harry woke gasping. Snow coated the window outside his bed, frost climbed the timber walls and yet sweat soaked through every layer he wore. His teeth grit in frustration — who was she? Why did she feel familiar? Why did waking without seeing her leave his chest aching?
Everything hurts inside of him. He can hear every sound for miles, the axes striking wood outside caused him to flinch every time. The children laughing hundreds of feet away made him wince. The crackle of the fire sounded like thunder. His ears screech from the pain, his own heartbeat even becoming deafening.
But there is something else that throbs in pain. His tunic felt too tight, too heavy on his skin that he had no other option but to pull it away from his body. From the tip of his shoulder, all the way across his chest a mark had appeared. It was a dark knotwork, and its centre a wolf, interwoven with Odin’s knot. It rose and fell with every breath he took, as though it had always been part of him and was only now remembering how to wake.
Harry cannot help but to stare at it, whispering, “Finally…”
Harry dressed as he always did. He buckled his axe to his belt and walked to the training yard. He greeted the same warriors with the same nod he had given every morning since he was old enough to hold a sword. He pretended his body wasn’t burning from the inside out.
Yesterday the warriors had laughed, today they simply watched. They exchange a glance when Harry begins to spar with Erik, his father’s captain of the guard. Erik had trained Harry since he was ten winters old, and he had never lost in that time. Normally, it would take every morsel of strength in Harry’s body to defeat Erik. Today, it takes seconds. Harry disarms him effortlessly, causing the entire yard to fall silent.
Harry stared at his own hands. He hadn’t meant to move like that, and he wasn’t entirely sure he had chosen to.
Then, just to the side of him he hears an old warrior’s laughter. This time it wasn’t a mocking laugh, it was proud, “It seems the wolf has teeth.”
The entire group laughs, but Harry doesn’t. Instead, his eyes find his father. Björn is standing just at the edge of the training grounds, but he is not smiling. He’s simply watching.
Björn then simply inclines his head towards the longhouse, “Go to your mother.”
Harry obeyed his father without question. He always had. He left his axe where it had fallen and crossed the training yard, every pair of eyes following him. No one called after him. No one laughed. The only sound was the crunch of snow beneath his leather boots.
His mother was already waiting. The herbs were already laid out beside the fire, hot water steamed gently from a waiting bowl. Fresh linen had been folded with careful hands. Astrid had prepared everything before dawn.
Neither of them spoke. Harry simply watched as his mother crossed the room, every step seemed slower than the last. With a shaking hand Astrid reaches for his shoulder, moving his woollen tunic aside to see the mark. When she does, her eyes flutter shut.
Then she exhales a laugh, a singular one before it turns into a cry.
Harry’s chest begins to heave, his hands reaching out to grasp her elbows, “Mother?”
Astrid wipes her face, and offers her son a smile, “Forgive me, son… it is only I have waited eighteen winters to see this.”
After a second, Harry finally asks his mother, “Why so long?”
Astrid grasps her sons cheeks in her palms, “Because Odin asks different things of different sons.”
“Everyone thought…” Harry trails off with the shake of his head.
Astrid interrupts him, “I know what they thought.”
Harry’s gaze drifts away from her, “Maybe they were right.”
Astrid pulls him right back, her hands firm on his cheeks as she makes her son look at her, “Never speak of yourself that way again… Do you hear me?” Harry nods his head, as Astrid shakes hers, “Say it.”
Harry swallowed hard. He hadn’t realised how desperately he had needed someone to tell him that, “Yes, Mother,” and only then does she finally let him go.
“Come,” Astrid motions to the bench beside table, “We have much to discuss.”
“What more is there to discuss?” Harry asks, dropping down and extending his legs in front of him with a sigh.
“Much, my son,” Astrid’s eyes are pointed directly at him, “There is more you need to know now that the gods have chosen it to be your time.”
Harry nods, waiting with a bated breath to hear what his mother had to say. Astrid turned back to the table. She dipped a strip of clean linen into the steaming water, wringing it carefully between her hands before laying it across her lap. Only then did she speak.
“Men fear the Hunt because they mistake strength for fury,” Her words are strong as she speaks, “The wolf does not bare its teeth at every passing shadow.”
Harry frowned, “Then what is it?”
Astrid smile, “An instinct. To protect. To endure. To survive. Some men surrender to it… some master it… A Jarl must do the latter.”
Harry quietly asks, “Will it always hurt?”
“Sometimes…” Astrid smiled sadly as she dipped the cloth back into the steaming water, “The broadest shoulders often carry the heaviest shields.”
The linen cloth, now soaked in warm water, was pressed gently against the knotwork, his mother soothing the heat that emanated from the mark.
Harry says quietly, “What… what if I can’t?”
Astrid sighs, continuing to rub the cloth over the mark, “One day every child in Hrafnvík will sleep because you decide they are safe. Every harvest. Every battle. Every winter. Every funeral. The people will breathe because you choose.”
“That is too much,” Harry inhales a shaky breath and whispers, “I only want to make Father proud.”
Astrid smiles sadly, offering a soothing hand on Harry’s shoulder, “That stopped being enough the day you were born.”
Harry watched as something shifted across his mother’s face. Her hands, which had moved so steadily only moments before, became still. The damp linen slipped from her fingers into her lap. She looked suddenly older.
“There is,” Astrid closed her eyes for a second before exhaling a deep breath, “There is something your father and I were forbidden to tell you… until now.”
Harry blinks, “There is more?”
Astrid almost laughs, her smile unapologetic, “Much more.”
“The day you were born, a Völva visited your father and I,” Astrid explains after a beat, “She… she told us something. I have not spoken these words since the day the Völva left our hall. She said… ‘A wolf crowned beneath winter skies will bind divided shores. Beside him shall stand the summer-born… bearing neither sword… nor surrender.’
Harry stared into the fire. The crackling of the logs suddenly seemed impossibly loud. A wolf crowned beneath winter skies. Summer-born. Divided shores. None of it made sense and yet, somehow, all of it felt strangely familiar. He is quiet for long enough that Astrid begins to worry.
Then, he says, “You are speaking of my wife before I’ve even earned Father’s axe?”
Astrid shakes her head and answers softly, “I am speaking of fate.”
Harry immediately answers, “They are not the same thing.”
“No,” Astrid agrees, “They are not…” She reached and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, “Fate may weave your thread but only you can decide whether or not you honour it.”
Harry lets out a slow breath his head tilting backwards as he thinks. Then, with a small, almost helpless smile, “What if she hates me?”
Astrid laughs through the tears that have collected in her eyes, “Then you’ll have bigger problems than Odin.”
A startled laugh escaped Harry before he could stop it. It felt good. Normal. For the first time since waking, the weight pressing against his chest eased.
As Harry steps outside the longhouse, the snow had finally stopped settling over Hrafnvík. Instead, the moon hangs over the settlement like a dark blanket. His eyes drift towards the dark sea, and without even knowing, far beyond the horizon, in a kingdom he has never seen, a girl dreams of green eyes in a burning forest.
He doesn’t know her name. She doesn’t know his. But, for the first time in eighteen winters, the thread between them has begun to pull.
𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑
Winter came and went five times.
Harry moved with an ease he had lacked five winters earlier. The uncertainty that had once clung to him had long since disappeared. In the last five years he has grown into the Hunt, it no longer overwhelms him. He had learned to carry the Hunt quietly. The gods still tested him, but he simply no longer let the world watch.
His shoulders are broader, and his wolf knotwork has spread slightly across his shoulder. His hair is longer, but it is still braided down his back.
Hrafnvík woke around him. It was early in the morning, before many others have rose, but everyone who is already awake greets him. Whether that be old warriors who fought alongside his father, or small children running up to play. Everybody talks, no just because he is to be the Jarl, but because Harry listens to them, and he welcomes every conversation with open arms.
A small child tugs on his sleeve, “Harry!”
Harry crouches immediately, the little boy proudly shows him a carved wooden wolf. Harry pretends to inspect it like it’s the finest weapon ever made. He weighs the carved wolf dramatically, turning it over in his hand.
Then he says, “Such a fine carving.”
The little boy beams a smile, delighted by the fact he received such a response fom the future Jarl.
“The western nets won’t last another storm,” An older woman stopped him on his journey to the training ground, “The rope is not strong enough.”
“I’ll speak to the rope-makers before midday,” Harry nods, “I promise.”
The smoke drifted over the rooftops, salt danced in the wind. Harry’s dogs danced through the feet of people lingering in front of him, the snow crunching beneath his boots. The Ravens followed him from rooftop to rooftop, already ready to surround him for whatever the day held.
And that was training with his father — as always.
As Harry reached the training ground, he catches sight his father from across the land. Björn lifts his hand up to welcome his son, and Harry returns it with a smile. Then he raises his own hand.
Harry watches as his father’s smile falters, and his fingers twitch. His knees give way and without even thinking Harry runs. Harry had never reached his father too late before. By the time he did reach him, Björn’s eyes were already fixed upon the pale winter sky. Harry pressed trembling fingers against his father’s neck and felt nothing. This was it, the Norns had finally cut the thread.
Björn is prepared by his family. No servants are in the room, just Astrid and Harry. They wash him, taking away the grime and grit so his body is clean when it leaves his place. Harry carefully washes the dirt from Björn’s hands, noticing the scars, old burns and cracked knuckles. These hands had taught Harry so much. How to hold an axe, how to fish, how to braid rope and later his hair and finally how to shake another man’s hand.
Harry quietly says to his father, ‘You forgot to teach me this.”
Astrid turns to look at her son and shakes her head, “No… he taught you every day.”
Harry watches as his mother braids Björn’s hair one final time, and brushes his beard. Harry tries to fasten his fathers cloak, but he struggles with his clasp due to how his hands continue shaking.
“Let me,” Astrid places her hands upon Harry’s, stilling his movements.
Astrid quietly finishes dressing Björn, and once she is done, he is ready to be carried to his ship.
A frost covers the hull, the ship sitting still as it finishes being prepared to send off the settlements once true leader. Frost sprinkled across the wood, it swaying lightly as the light wind rocked it. Pine branches were laid beneath Björn’s body, his axe placed across his chest and his sword at his side. Harry places his father’s drinking horn beside him as the ravens begin to circle overhead.
The whole fjord is completely still as the whole settlement gathers in silence. One by one, warriors step forward to swear something to their leader. Each is something different, but each manage to say at least one thing.
“I swear my axe to Hrafnvík,” from a young warrior.
“I swear your grandchildren will never know hunger while I still cast a net,” from an old fisherman.
Then, from a solemn mother, “I swear my daughters will remember your name.”
When it is Harry’s turn to speak, he opens his mouth and yet nothing comes out.
Nothing until, “I will try.”
Astrid places her hand on her son’s shoulder, squeezing slightly in comfort before brushing past him to say her own goodbyes. She simply leans down and leaves a kiss on Björn’s forehead, uttering the words, “Sleep well, my love.”
As the ship sails away, and the flaming arrow is shot to engulf the entire ship in roaring flames, nobody celebrates. Nobody cheers. The only sound is the deep slow drums from behind. They watch as the flames move up the wood until they catch the sail, burning bright in the reflection of everyone’s eyes.
One by one, the people of Hrafnvík drifted away. The fishermen returned to their boats. Mothers gathered sleeping children into their arms. Warriors disappeared towards the longhouse. Soon, only footprints remained in the snow. Astrid places a hand on Harry’s cheek before following. Eventually the drums stop, one final beat echoed across the fjord until only Harry remained. He watches until the last ember disappears within the mist.
As the ravens leave, and the fjord settles once again, Harry walks alone into Björn’s empty hall. His father’s chair still sits there, and yet his axe has gone. Harry had sat beside that chair all his life. He had never realised how enormous it truly was. He reaches out and runs his finger lightly against the carved armrest.
Then quietly, to no one but himself, he says, “I don’t know how.”
The fire burns lower in the corner, the moonlight shadows start to dance across the floor and the wind whistles beneath the door. He remembers being just a boy, having all but six years, and his father had lifted him up into that chair after he’d sprinted in through the door. Harry had laughed and laughed at the fact that his feet couldn’t reach the floor. His feet would reach now, but he couldn’t do it. Harry never moves, he just stays so soundly still.
Harry sits there until the next morning. Just with himself and in the silence. He keeps still and unwavering. He doesn’t sit upon the chair, but instead in front of it. He couldn’t bring himself to touch it further than running his fingers along the carving in the woods. But, as the light begins to seep over the longhouse, he realises that there is already a queue of people waiting to be let in.
They all come to him with their problems, the things they need his help with. Border disputes between farmers, food shortages amongst the families, widows asking for help in protecting their children. He starts to realise that life doesn’t stop just because Björn died. They had all lost their Jarl, but Harry had lost his father. Another Jarl could be chosen, but there would never be another Björn.
Astrid places a strong hand on her son’s shoulder, “Go.”
“What if I say the wrong thing?”
Astrid answers with a light hand to his cheek, “Then tomorrow you’ll say something wiser,” then, after a beat or so, she adds quietly, “That is how Jarls are made.”
Before he leaves to open the door of the longhouse and invite the settlers in, he takes one last look at his father’s chair. He would have to sit upon it one day, but today was not that day.
Becoming Jarl to a fully fledged settlement came with both its great surprises and its great downfalls as well. It had been a month since Harry became Jarl when Ragnar Einarsson arrived in Hrafnvík. He came without an army, without threats, without raised voices. He came smiling.
Harry had known Ragnar Einarsson for most of his life. His father had never called him an enemy, but neither had he ever trusted him. He did not show up when defences were down, or the men were away on a raid. He fronted himself as an ally. Harry assumed he was in his early forties, broad, just like Harry’s father had been, and spoke beautifully for a Jarl. He fought beautifully as well. His true strength wasn’t his axe — it was that people believed he would use it. ******but Harry knew better than to believe that strength solved everything. That hadn’t been the way his father ruled, and that wasn’t going to be the way he ruled.
Jarl Ragnar never said things in a way which would openly insult Harry. Instead, he would make comments that only Harry would find unsettling.
He would say things like, “Björn would have acted already,” or, “Young men mistake patience for wisdom.”
Harry wasn’t his father, and he knew that, but maybe there was something in Jarl Ragnar’s words. Maybe the reason his father had been such a great Jarl was because he acted with the strength sometimes. Harry hated that the words stayed with long after Ragnar had gone. He wanted to dismiss them. Instead, he found himself wondering what Björn would have done.
And for the first time since becoming Jarl… Harry did not know.
Spring came slowly to Hrafnvík. Snow still clung to the mountains peaks, but the rivers had begun to break free from their icy prisons. Water ran beneath the thawing earth, and the first seabirds had returned to the fjord.
It was one of those mornings that the messengers from Sólheimr arrived.
Harry sword struck against Erik’s with a sharp crack that echoed across the year. another blow, then another.
Erik smiled, “Again.”
Before they could do it again, the messengers announced their presence to the training ring.
“We bring words from the Jarl Leif of Sólheimr,” they explain, watching as Harry attaches his sword to his belt again, “We have traveled far to deliver this news to you.”
“Then you shall deliver it,” Harry motions towards the longhouse, and he follows the messengers inside. With his hand still resting upon his sword, he stands whilst he encourages them to sit, “You’ve travelled far. Sit. Warm yourselves.”
“Jarl Lief is proposing an alliance,” They explain, “Trade is becoming dangerous, other Jarls are becoming restless at the prospect. If Hrafnvík and Sólheimr were to unite… nobody would dare to attack either.”
Harry hums, nodding his head a few times, “What does Jarl Leif ask of me?”
“Marriage,” The messenger explains, “Marriage between you and Jarl Leif’s only daughter — Lady YN. With this agreement between our two Jarldoms, nobody would dare to touch us.”
Harry listens quietly. He never interrupts what they were saying, but listens fully to the words which were being spoken.
Then, he asks one question, “Has Lady YN agreed?”
The room falls silent, as though nobody had an answer. Harry’s jaw tightened, his thumb tapped once against the pommel of his sword. The room suddenly felt much smaller.
“Then I will not answer until she does,” Harry inclines his head politely, “You have travelled far. Rest tonight… Tomorrow you may carry my answer back to Jarl Leif.”
Then he walks, straight to his room at the back of the longhouse.
Across the fjord, as the sun began to set on another glorious spring day in Sólheimr, YN had just learnt of the news herself. Her mother and father were sat in their thrones, each of them peering at the girl as she listened to their words.
“You shall marry Jarl Harry to form the alliance between the two Jarldoms,” her father explains, “It will promote peace between us, and show an united front to all of the other Jarls in the realm.”
YN falls silent. Everyone in the room expects her to just willingly obey, and yet Lady Sólheimr knows she won’t. She can see the way her daughters eye twinkles as she begins to speak.
“And what is it that Jarl Harry wants?”
The hall fell silent. One of Jarl Leif’s advisers shifted uncomfortably. Another looked at the floor. Leif stared at his daughter for a long moment.
The Völva, who had been standing near the back of the hall simply smiles at the girls response. Then, without missing a beat, she whispers, “The Norns are rarely so patient.”
Jarl Harry arrives in Sólheimr a month or so later. He travels lightly, not with the hundreds of men one expects but with only five, only those that are the most trusted to him. As the spring of Hrafnvík changes into that of Sólheimr, Harry is shocked by the difference between the two landscapes.
The snow melts until it is no longer there, the rivers break free and birds sing freely into the air. The first grass shoots were already there, where Hrafnvík wouldn’t see theirs for weeks yet. Harry had never seen so much green. Streams rushed beneath birch trees. Wildflowers spilled across hillsides. The air smelt of damp earth rather than salt and pine. Even the light felt different. The sun blared, sending a heat across Harry and his men that was only reserved for a few days in the Midsummer of their settlement.
How could anybody ever want to leave this place?
Harry arrives at Jarl Leif’s longhouse before sunset. They are immediately welcomed in and told to sit down, drink mead from the horns they had been given and feast well. They do just that, whilst the Jarl and Lady sit across from them. Everybody eats together, and even the servants laugh with warriors. He notices how Jarl Leif speaks to fishermen by name. His father had done that, so long ago.
Then, when Harry’s belly is full and his legs are slightly rested — YN appears.
Dressed in a dark brown tunic, synched at her waist by a small string of beads, she walks straight over to him. Harry had imagined the daughter of Sólheimr a hundred different ways during the journey north. Gentle, reserved maybe, beautiful. He had imagined almost everything, but he had not imagined this. He had expected grace, silence from a woman who was arranged to a man she had not yet met. Instead, she drops a map on the table in front of him and points her finger to an open strip of sea.
The men around him continue speaking, having not yet noticed her presence. Not until she starts to speak.
“If that pass closes in winter,” Harry looks at her, she’s already halfway through solving a problem nobody else noticed, “Those supplies never reach the coast.”
That is when the room stops. Harry can’t help but just blink at her, at the way she speaks so intently about things other shy away from. Then she realises that she’s interrupted something, and attempts to shy herself away. Harry just raises an eyebrow. The woman standing in front of him wasn’t some weak bride that he had assumed from the prophecy, she was a woman who understood logic, who understood people — she isn’t just pretending to.
YN had expected a prince.
She had expected someone who commanded the room and made the others lay at his feet. What she had not expected, and what she assumed he thought she had not seen was the way he acted for himself. When he realised there was not a seat left for him, he carried his own chair. He talks to every of their settlement as though he has all the time in the world for them.
She instantly feels bad for interrupting whatever they had been talking about whilst feasting.
“I apologise, Jarl Harry,” She takes a step back, “I may have come across a little too strongly there. Forgive me… I interrupted your feast.”
She turns and begins to walk away. He watches as she walks to the entrance of the longhouse and slips out into the spring night air. He then excuses himself, standing up whilst the conversation continues. He follows her outside the longhouse, down the path that brings them to the sea.
YN had not meant to leave the longhouse so abruptly. She had only meant to step outside for long enough for the heat in her face to fade, long enough for the men inside to return to their conversation without glancing towards her as though she had disturbed something sacred. The evening air had cooled as they feasted. It moved in softly from the sea, lifting the loose strands of her hair around her face and pressing the fabric of her tunic against her arms. Below the path, waves struck gently against the rocks, their rhythm almost enough to settle her.
Almost.
She folded her arms across herself and stared out towards the water. She heard the scrape of boots over earth behind her, slow and measured, before they stopped beside her. Not too close, but close enough that she knew he was there.
“You left your map behind,” Harry said.
YN looked down at the empty space beneath her arm and closed her eyes briefly. “So I did.”
“I considered bringing it.”
“And yet you did not.”
“I thought you throwing it down in front of me had already provided enough entertainment for one evening.”
YN turned to him then. There was no offence in his expression. If anything, the corner of his mouth had lifted slightly.
He was taller than she had expected, though perhaps that was because the stories had always made him sound larger than any real man could be. The wolf of Hrafnvík. Odin-marked. A warrior who had bested men twice his age before he had seen twenty winters.
The man standing at her side did not look like a story. He looked tired in the way men became when too many people expected too much from them. His braid rested heavily between his shoulders, threaded with small beads of dark iron. At the edge of his collar, the first black curve of his knotwork disappeared beneath the fabric.
YN looked away before he caught her staring, though she could not explain why the mark felt familiar. Something beneath her own skin stirred faintly, a low warmth gathering near the mark at her hip before disappearing so quickly she almost dismissed it.
“I did not mean to embarrass you,” she said.
“You didn’t.”
“I interrupted you.”
“You corrected a mistake.”
“Those two are not always different things.”
Harry looked towards the longhouse. Through the open shutters, warm light spilled into the evening. The voices inside had resumed, rising and falling with the occasional burst of laughter.
“No,” he said, looking down. “I suppose they aren’t.”
YN waited for him to say more, but he did not. Most men rushed to fill silence, particularly men with titles. They treated quiet as something to be conquered before anyone else could claim it.
Harry appeared content to let it remain.
“You disagree with your father,” he said eventually.
YN glanced at him. “Often.”
That earned her a low laugh. It was softer than she expected. Not mocking. Not polished for a hall full of watching men.
“You still let him speak first.”
“He is the Jarl.”
“That was not my question.”
YN tilted her head. “No… it wasn’t.”
Harry turned slightly towards her, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. “Why do you let him speak first?”
“Because people hear men before they hear the truth.”
Harry’s eyebrows rose. The answer seemed to catch him off guard, though not in the way it usually caught men. There was no tightening of his mouth, no warning that she had pushed too far.
Instead, his smile deepened. “And what truth would you have spoken?”
YN looked back towards the sea. “That alliances built only on fear never survive the winter.”
The amusement left his face, not because he was insulted but because he was listening. Really listening to her. YN had spent much of her life learning the difference.
The knotwork across his shoulder tightened with a dull pulse beneath his tunic. Harry ignored it. The mark had reacted to battle, danger and dreams before. Never to a woman speaking across a quiet stretch of sea.
“Fear can stop men from attacking,” Harry said.
“It can make them wait.”
“Sometimes waiting is enough.”
“Until they decide it isn’t.”
Harry considered that. The wind carried the scent of salt between them. Then, the scent of crushed herbs and something faintly sweet found him, as though lifted directly from her skin.
“And yet your father proposed this alliance because other Jarls are afraid.”
“My father proposed it because other Jarls are ambitious.”
“And there is a difference?”
“There is always a difference.”
Harry’s gaze remained on her. He was not studying her face, but her answer. She quickly found that she preferred that.
“What do you believe they want?”
“Land. Trade. Reputation. The things men always convince themselves they deserve.”
“And which worries you most?”
“All of them.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the most honest one.”
Harry smiled again. “You do that often.”
“Do what?”
“Answer without answering.”
YN’s mouth twitched. “I was going to accuse you of the same thing.”
“You’ve hardly asked me anything.”
“I have not yet decided whether you would answer.”
“Ask.”
The word was immediate. YN turned fully towards him.
“What do you want from this alliance?”
Harry’s expression shifted, only slightly. He had expected a question about land, warriors or what duties he imagined a wife would perform in Hrafnvík. Not that.
“I want my people to survive the winters ahead.”
“That is what your people want.”
“That is also what I want.”
“And for yourself?”
Harry looked away. The light from the sinking sun caught across the edge of his profile, turning the brown of his hair almost gold.
A sad smile crossed his lips. “I haven’t had the luxury of deciding that for some time.”
The answer should have frustrated her. Instead, it made something within her settle. She understood that feeling too well.
“You asked whether I agreed,” she said.
His eyes returned to hers. “The messengers told you?”
“My father did.”
“And?”
“I asked what you wanted.”
For the first time since he had followed her outside, Harry looked genuinely surprised. The air seemed to still between them. Warmth gathered beneath YN’s ribs as the knotwork over Harry’s shoulder gave one slow, deliberate pulse.
Neither spoke of it.
“You did?”
YN nodded.
“And what did your father say?”
“That it was not my concern.”
Harry’s jaw tightened. “And what did you say?”
“That it was if he intended for me to marry you.”
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
“I fail to see what is so amusing.”
“Nothing.”
“You laughed.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I think my father would have liked you.”
The words seemed to leave him before he had time to decide whether he wanted them spoken. His smile faded as he looked towards the sea.
YN knew enough of Hrafnvík to know what had happened to Jarl Björn. Every settlement did. News of a Jarl’s death travelled faster than merchants and lingered longer than winter.
“I am sorry,” she said.
Harry’s shoulders stiffened. “You did not know him.”
“No.”
“Then you do not have to say it.”
“I know. I am still sorry.”
The hardness around his mouth eased. “He would have argued with you.”
“My father does that already.”
“He would have enjoyed it.”
“Then I wish I had met him.”
Harry looked down at the earth beneath his boots. “He liked people who made him think. Even more when they annoyed him.”
“I presume you annoyed him often?”
“Constantly.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“Do you?”
“You seem very obedient.”
Harry turned back to her with such open disbelief that YN could not stop the laugh that rose from her. It surprised them both, and his expression softened.
“I was beginning to wonder whether you knew how to laugh without first deciding whether it was wise.”
YN’s amusement vanished, and Harry noticed immediately.
“I did not mean—”
“You are not wrong.” She turned towards the water again. “There are people who wait for me to say the wrong thing. It is easier not to give them the satisfaction.”
“Your father?”
“Sometimes.”
“The other Jarls?”
“Often.”
“And me?”
“I have not decided yet.”
He accepted that with a nod.
For a while, YN thought he might allow the subject to end. Instead, he said, “Then perhaps we should decide what we are to one another before they decide for us.”
“That sounds dangerously close to sense.”
“I am told I suffer from it occasionally.”
“By whom?”
“My mother. Usually when she is disappointed in me.”
YN’s mouth twitched. “And what are we to one another?”
“At present?”
“At present.”
“Two people whose fathers—or, in my case, whose father’s council—believe marriage will solve problems that existed long before either of us were born.”
“That is not especially encouraging.”
“It was not intended to be.”
Below them, a wave broke against the rocks with enough force to send a fine spray into the air.
“Do you wish to refuse?” Harry asked.
YN hesitated. “I do not know.”
He did not react, and she found herself grateful for that.
“If I refuse, my father will search for another alliance. Perhaps one less favourable. Perhaps one with a man who would not think to ask whether I agreed.”
Harry’s jaw tightened. “That is not a reason to marry me.”
“No. But it is a reason I cannot dismiss the proposal simply because I dislike how it was placed before me.”
“And if there were no other Jarls? No trade routes, no restless borders, no settlements watching to see whether Sólheimr and Hrafnvík stand together?” He looked at her. “What would you choose?”
The question settled between them. YN had expected him to ask whether she would choose him. Instead, he asked what she would choose.
Somewhere beneath her tunic, her mark warmed as though a hand had been placed over it.
“My own household,” she said eventually. “A place at my father’s council that was not granted only when the men had finished speaking. The freedom to travel beyond Sólheimr without someone deciding it meant I was searching for a husband.”
Harry listened without interruption. One of the ravens circling the longhouse settled on the roof, its claws scraping softly over the timber.
“And you?” she asked.
Harry looked towards the horizon. “A quiet winter.”
YN waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she frowned.
For the briefest instant, she smelled pine smoke where there was only salt air. Snow seemed to gather at the edges of her vision, white against darkness, and she heard the distant call of a wolf.
YN blinked and Sólheimr returned.
“That is all?”
“You asked what I would choose.”
“A quiet winter is not a life.”
“No,” Harry said. “But it would be a beginning.”
There was something in his answer that made her look at him more closely. He did not say victory. He did not say a wife, sons or a legacy worthy of his father.
Only rest.
“You are truly tired.”
Harry’s expression changed. It was small, almost imperceptible, but YN saw it—the brief tightening around his eyes, the flicker of surprise that she had noticed.
“I have had little reason not to be.”
“Ragnar?”
His gaze sharpened. “Among other things.”
Harry looked towards the longhouse. “They will be waiting for an answer.”
“They have waited this long.”
“My men have not. They believe I followed you to either apologise or prevent a diplomatic war.”
“And which are you doing?”
“I have not decided.”
YN gave him a pointed look.
“You dislike when I borrow your answers,” Harry said.
“I dislike when you improve them.”
His smile became more visible, but it disappeared when the longhouse door opened in the distance. One of Leif’s guards stepped outside, glanced towards them and immediately pretended to examine the sky.
“We should return,” YN said.
“We should.”
Neither moved.
Harry lowered his voice. “What do you want to tell them?”
YN looked at him. “You are asking me?”
“It concerns you.”
“That has not stopped anyone else.”
“I am not anyone else.”
The answer was not boastful. He said it simply, as though it were a distinction he intended to prove rather than one she was required to accept.
“I do not want to accept tonight,” YN said.
“Nor do I.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You do not?”
“I do not make agreements before I understand their cost.”
“And what cost do you expect from me?”
“I do not know yet.”
“That is not a flattering answer.”
“It is an honest one.”
YN recognised her own words and gave him a narrow look. Harry had the decency to appear only slightly pleased with himself.
“What would you need to know?”
“Whether you could live in Hrafnvík.”
“The cold does not frighten me.”
“I did not ask about the cold.”
That silenced her.
“Hrafnvík is not Sólheimr,” Harry continued. “The winters are longer. The land gives less willingly. People are slow to trust anyone who was not born among them, and some will see a woman from the north before they see whatever else you are.”
“And what is it you think I am?”
“I have known you for less than an evening.”
“That has not stopped you forming opinions.”
“No,” he admitted. “It has not.”
He looked directly at her. “I think you are accustomed to being underestimated. I think you have learned to use it when it suits you, and resent it when it does not. I think you speak more boldly when you are frightened because you would rather be called difficult than afraid.”
YN’s breath caught. Harry seemed to realise, perhaps too late, how much he had said.
“You have known me for less than an evening,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“And you believe you have understood all of that?”
“No.”
“Then what do you believe?”
“That I would like the chance to discover whether I am wrong.”
The words were gentle, but to YN they were far more dangerous because of it. She turned towards the sea before he could read too much in her face. Heat unfurled low in her stomach—not desire, not yet, but something older and far less easily dismissed.
“What would you require from a wife?” she asked.
Harry’s posture stilled.
“That sounds like a question you have been waiting to ask.”
“It is a question every woman in my position must ask.”
“And how many women are in your position?”
“Enough that men should have learned to answer it.”
Harry let out a slow breath. “Honesty.”
“That is a convenient answer.”
“It is still true.”
“What else?”
“Someone who will tell me when I am wrong.”
“That appears likely.”
“I had noticed.”
YN ignored that. “Would she sit on your council?”
“If she understood what was being discussed.”
Her head turned sharply towards him, but Harry met her gaze without flinching.
“I would give no one a place merely because they shared my bed or my name,” he said. “But I would not deny it to someone because she was a woman.”
“And if your council objected?”
“They often object.”
“What then?”
“I decide whether they are wise or merely loud.”
YN could not help the smile that crossed her face. The final band of sunlight rested across the water between them, as though the day itself refused to disappear before their answer had been given.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You smiled.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I think my mother would like you.”
It was his turn to be caught off guard.
“She has little patience for loud men,” YN continued.
“Then perhaps I should avoid speaking when we return.”
“She would find that suspicious.”
“What do you suggest?”
YN glanced towards the longhouse. Warm light spilled through the shutters, and shadows passed within. Her parents were waiting. His men were waiting. Half the hall was likely already inventing reasons for their absence.
“We tell them we have not refused,” she said. “But neither have we agreed.”
Harry nodded. “We ask for time.”
“How much?”
“Two moons.”
“That is scarcely enough.”
“It is enough to decide whether this alliance deserves to exist.”
YN considered him, then nodded. “Two moons.”
Somewhere beyond the cliffs, the first evening star appeared. Above the darkening sea, the moon waited pale and unfinished. Its light caught against the beads at YN’s waist and the iron woven into Harry’s braid, binding them for one fleeting moment in the same silver glow.
As they came to their agreement, neither noticed the old woman standing near the edge of the trees. Fox fur hung from her shoulders, bone beads shifting softly against one another as the wind moved through the branches.
Her eyes followed Harry and YN as they walked back towards the longhouse. Behind them, their shadows stretched across the path, his dark against the light, hers edged in the dying gold of the sun.
For one moment, the two shapes touched before their bodies did.
Then, the Völva smiled.
“At last.”
Above her, a raven took flight.
𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑
It took three nights for Sólheimr to return to normal after the visit from the Jarl of Hrafnvík.
The excitement surrounding their visit, and the consequential plans to form an alliance between the two settlements had faded into nothing but a whisper. The town assumes that marriage negotiations are already underway, that their Jarl and his wife are working endlessly to make sure that their daughter in marriage under the most favourable terms possible.
YN throws herself into work.
By day, she’s helping to tally the grain stores, making sure everything in present and correct. She’s answering questions for weary fishermen about how they are to navigate the springs tides. Beside her father, she’s looking over trade routes and trying ever so hard to not correct her father’s advisers when they offer something foolishly wrong.
By night, she’s trying very hard not to think of the man who might become her husband.
It took three evenings for the moon to linger above the sea before darkness had fully settled, pale enough to be mistaken for daylight.
Sitting in the crowded longhouse, listening to the settlement boast around her, YN feels all of a sudden too warm, but she shakes it off thinking it might just be the heat from the fire. Then the broth she was eating tasted bitter and stale, the room felt too busy and noisy. The wool of her tunic scratched against her skin so that she wanted to crawl out of it. The laughter around her became unbearably loud, every conversation pressing pressing against her until she could no longer separate one voice from another.
But, she does not panic, and instead turns to her mother with the words sitting in her eyes.
The warmth spread slowly beneath her skin, familiar enough now that she no longer mistook it for fever.
Lady Sólheimr does not miss what her daughter is trying to convey. She simply excuses herself, stands from the table and presses her hand against her daughter’s shoulder, “Come with me.”
YN nods and stands, dropping her voice so only her mother can hear, “It’s tonight.”
Her mother nods, “It would seem as though Lady Freyja has remembered you.”
They go deep into the longhouse, to the small room that had sheltered the women of their family through every Freyja’s Fire for longer than YN had ever known. YN would be spending the next few nights here, and the room had been prepared for that.
Lady Sólheimr orders YN out of her tunic, and into a thin cotton shift that would be cool enough to withstand the events that were to occur. Her mother moves around the room as she changes with ease of long practice, making sure the bench was adorned with fresh furs, bowls of cold water were in reach of the bed. She prepares honey dissolved in warm milk to keep YN’s energy for the coming hours. Lavender, juniper and mugwort burn in the room to both calm YN and temper the scent at which she will soon give. Her mother lays protective runes in chalk around the bed. The room seemed quieter than the rest of the longhouse, as though the thick timber walls kept the outside world from intruding.
Whilst this is happening, YN stares at the small carving of Freyja that had been placed beside the fire. The face of the little carving had been worn smooth by countless hands before hers.
“YN,” Her mother taps the edge of the bed, “Come sit for me.”
YN does as is asked, dropping down lightly on the furs next to her mother. Her mother turns her, so that the carving of Freyja in her eye-line and begins to braid her daughter’s hair.
As Lady Sólheimr works on the first braid, she says quietly, “The fire cannot be stopped,” then, during the second braid, “Only carried.”
YN exhales a sigh once her mother had finished the braids and turns to her. Her mother’s hands press softly to her cheeks, before her thumb raises to press against her forehead.
“May Lady Freyja carry you safely through the fire.”
YN quietly replies, her eyes fluttering shut, “And bring me back.”
The door shuts with a quiet thud as her mother slips through it, with the promise that she would return before dawn to check on her.
YN drops down on the furs with a weary sigh. Everything felt too much for her. The light cotton of the shift pressed to harshly into her naked skin, especially the area on her hip where her rune laid. As the fire flowed through her body, causing sweat to glisten and every nerve to stand on its edge, YN could only whither.
The room was so still, and yet YN could not stop moving. Every time she shifted, the light fabric brushed against her nipples which had pebbled from the fire, clung to her thighs which had dampened in familiarity.
No position remained comfortable for more than a heartbeat before the warmth beneath her skin demanded another movement. The room itself remained perfectly still, yet her body refused to follow its example.
She drew in a slow breath, searching for the familiar comfort of lavender and juniper. Instead… she found something else. Pine. Cold air. Smoke. Iron. YN froze.
The scents her mother had left burning had not disappeared, but they had been eclipsed by something impossible. Her pulse stumbled. Every instinct sharpened at once as though the world itself had suddenly narrowed in a single breath.
Her fingers curled into the furs beneath her, “No…” the whisper barely left her lips.
At some point, surrounded by the musky smell that she had not wished for, YN succumbed to sleep. Yet, as always, the fire found her there. It was the same forest as before. The same towering pines swallowed by shadow. The same silence that had haunted her for years.
She heard footsteps, slow and measured. Leather boots pressed into the snow, made to withstand the harshest winters. A broad figure emerged between the trees, shoulders draped in thick furs, a dark braid falling to the middle of his back. Beneath the open collar of his tunic, the black knotwork of a wolf stretched across his bare chest.
He stopped. For years, this had always been the moment that she woke. Before she could see his face, before she could know. Not this time. This time the figure turned, and it was Harry. Those impossible green eyes met hers once more, no longer hidden by dream or distance, but fixed upon her with quiet certainty.
He took a single step towards her, then another. He lifted his hand slowly, fingers reaching for hers. Only a breath remained between them. Then — YN jolted awake.
YN is shaking when she wakes. Not because of the fire, no, but because of those eyes. Because she knows those eyes. All she could think was that she had met him, she had seen those eyes in real life, of course he has green eyes. She had only met one man with eyes that colour. Then she shakes herself off, her dreams had borrowed his face, that’s all. Freyja had used him to fuel her fire and confuse YN even more than she was.
It had to mean nothing.
But as she laid there, chest heaving and sweat glittering beneath the moonlight, YN realised that the scent hadn’t disappeared. The pine was still there, demanding to be smelt like a stolen whisper. Her pulse stumbled. That scent did not belong in Sólheimr.
The door opened quietly.
Lady Sólheimr stepped inside carrying a fresh bowl of water, her eyes immediately finding her daughter. Loose strands had escaped YN’s brain and clung to her damp skin. The shift she had been given hours before now clung to her just as stubbornly.
A mother noticed such things. A mother cared for none of them.
Instead she asked only one question, “The dreams?”
YN nodded, taking a sharp breath as another tremor pass through her.
“They have changed.”
“No,” YN is quick to immediately reply.
Lady Sólheimr regarded her for a long moment. She did not argue. She did not press for an explanation. She crossed the room instead and placed a gently kiss against YN’s forehead, in the very place she had blessed only hours before.
“The gods rarely repeat themselves, my daughter.”
𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑
Harry returns to Sólheimr, just as he said he would, two moons later.
He arrives with few men, five instead of fifty. YN counted them without meaning to. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five men spoke far louder than fifty ever could.
YN is lined up next her father and mother as he arrives, watching as the Jarl of Hrafnvík greeted his family with the upmost respect. When he reaches YN, he does not smile.
Instead, he drops his head and offers her, “Lady YN.”
And YN, without a smile on her lips replies, “Jarl Harry.”
They all move into the longhouse, just a small group of Sólheimr’s esteemed councilman and those that Harry had ventured with.
The long table that usually hosted feasts had been stripped bare. Maps weighted down with polished stones stretched from one end to the other. Fishing tallies scratched into thin ash boards lay stacked beside bundles of trade records. Clay cups were filled and refilled with ale as servants slipped quietly around the edges of the room. Nobody laughed now. The warmth of supper had given way to the colder business of ruling.
Harry watches as YN is not sent away, and in fact takes a seat next to her father. She’s slightly back from the rest of the table, but there nonetheless. Nobody looked surprised that she remained.
The conversation began immediately, “The eastern shoals are emptying earlier every year.”
“Then we sail further!”
“Further means longer voyages.”
Then, beneath the silence YN says, “Or we stop taking the smaller fish,” the eyes in the room fall to her, so she continued calmly, “Leave them one more season. The shoals recover. Next spring we catch twice as many.”
Someone scoffs from down the table, “You’ll tell the sea what to do?”
YN stays calm under the elders pressure, and instead says, “No… but I know what happens when we take everything before its had a chance to grow.”
Harry watches her for a second before saying, “Lady YN is right,” everyone turns to him, “We’ve done the same in Hrafnvík. One harsh winter emptied half of our waters. We lost far more by taking too much then we ever did by waiting.”
Any topic that came before her, YN seemingly had an answer to. But, instead of arguing with loudness and fistfuls of anger, she waited. She waited until everyone else had already spoken, she never raised her voice or embarrassed anyone. Her suggestions were merely practical.
By the time they had moved onto trade, Harry found himself pressing two fingers against his temple. Councils, he had decided long ago, were more exhausting than battle.
“Hrafnvík iron costs too much!”
“That is because we smelt through the winter,” He responds, his finger pressed against his temple, “Wood is scarce.”
“Then lower the price.”
“So fewer families eat?” His voice snaps slightly in response.
“Then don’t lower the price,” Harry looks at her, willing her to continued, “Trade something else. Your settlement has more iron than ours, but Sólheimr has wood. No settlement has everything.”
Harry looked at her for a long moment, she had reached the same conclusion he had without even speaking to him. He could not help it, the corners of his lips lifted with the realisation.
As the council moves on to boarder disputes, YN has crossed her arms over her chest, seemingly overtaken by boredom at the sudden talk of violence in the room.
“The men from Norðvik crossed our markers.”
“We must retaliate!”
Harry shakes his head, “How many?”
“Three.”
“Hunters?”
The old warrior hesitates before saying, “…Yes.”
Harry replies, “They were following deer.’
“Not starting a war,” YN finishes for him.
The discussion carries on around them, but at this point, Jarl Leif of Sólheimr is not listening anymore. He’s watching his daughter and the man she is to wed. Every time YN spoke, Harry listened. Every time Harry answered, YN watched him instead of preparing her own reply. Neither noticed they were doing it. She isn’t challenging him, or plaguing him — they just listen. He had expected compromise, and yet he had found agreement.
The Jarl finds his wife’s eye from across the table. Lady Sólhemir follows his gaze and immediately begins to smile to herself, just a small one, but one that said everything it needed to.
Once the bickering had been put to rest, Jarl Leif decides it is now time for his action to be called. He clears his throat and looks first at Harry, and then across to his daughter.
“There is one final matter before tonight’s council ends,” Jarl Lief rested both of his hands upon the table, the conversations died immediately and even the servants stopped moving, “One that concerns every sould gathered in this hall. It concerns the future of Sólheimr.”
Harry and YN are ushered into a backroom to talk, leaving the councilmen, her mother and father still at the long table. YN leans against one of the side tables, her arms crossed against her chest whilst Harry stands in the centre of the room, patiently waiting. Neither of them spoke immediately. Beyond the timber walls came only the muffled rumble of the council continuing without them.
“Have you decided?” he asked.
YN immediately raised a brow, “Have you?”
“Yes,” The word is short and it is final and it causes YN to inhale a sharp breath, “For my people.”
YN nods, “For mine too.”
Harry takes a light step towards her, “I cannot promise that you will be happy in Hrafnvík… but I can promise that you will always be heard.”
Shock washes across YN’s face, “That is more than many women receive.”
“It should not be.”
The room felt strangely still. Outside, the ravens stopped calling. Even the wind seemed to catch against the walls of the longhouse. Heat stirred beneath the rune upon YN’s hip. Harry shifted almost imperceptibly. Pine. Honey. Smoke. Summer fields. For one impossible heartbeat the scents entwined before both of them instinctively stepped back. Neither acknowledged what had happened.
When they return back to the long table, everyone is waiting.
Jarl Leif commands, “Have you reached a decision?”
Harry does not answer immediately, instead he looks at YN. With her eyes firmly placed on his, she nods.
Only then does Harry speak, “Hrafnvík accepts.”
Jarl Leif nods before turning to his daughter, “And Sólheimr?”
YN steps forward, only slightly, “So do I.”
“Excellent!” Jarl Leif immediately springs from his seat, “Harry, tell me that you please have something for the betrothal?”
Harry nods, reaching into the pouch attached to his belt and pulls out an ancestral arm ring, carved in gold with the Hrafnvík motif of a raven on each end. He holds it out to YN in her palm, and carefully she accepts it. Before she puts it on, she holds it in her hand, inspecting it carefully. The gold had been worn smooth where generations of Hrafnvík rules had carried it before him.
“Two moons ago we were strangers,” Harry whispers to her, beneath the celebration that had started in the room.
“We still are,” YN responds quickly.
Harry exhales a laugh and raises his eyebrows, “Perhaps… I’d like that to change.”
Carefully, YN takes the band and slots it around her arm, over her dress, signalling the betrothal to everyone, “So would I.”
Once Harry had ridden away, her journey to Hrafnvík feeling much closer than it had before, the Völva came. She joined YN staring out at the sea for a while.
“The hardest threads to weave,” she begins, “Are the ones that we believe chose themselves.”
YN frowns and the völva only smiles, reaching out to touch YN’s arm ring once, “The Norns have never woven straight lines.”
𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Fem!Omega Reader x Alpha!Harry | 𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 0k
In the far north, where the sea meets ice and the gods still walk unseen, a child is born beneath an impossible sun. Branded by ancient seiðr, haunted by dreams that are not her own, and bound to a prophecy whispered before she could even speak. YN has always known her life would never truly belong to her. Across the water, Harry has been raised to rule, to fight, and to become the wolf his people expect. Their marriage is meant to unite two settlements. Instead, it awakens something far older. In a world where fate is sacred, love is dangerous, and the gods never speak without demanding something in return, YN and Harry must decide whether prophecy is something that can be changed...or merely survived.
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈 — Woven (... coming 25th July 2026)
... more chapters to be announced...
𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐒: 𝟏. This story contains adult themes and language, such as sexual scenes. If you are uncomfortable with any of those, please do not read. 𝟐. This is what I have dubbed my passion project, and I read a single book and inspired this! 𝟑. This is an omegaverse story but I have changed certain elements to fit in with more norse terminology, i.e. omega = seiðr-blood, alpha = úlfr-blood. 𝟒. This is very different than what I normally write and focuses a lot on the world building, and the norse/omegaverse terminology and ideas. 𝟓. If the is not for you I will not be offended but if this is something you might be interested in, please give it a read! 𝟔. The main thing, as always, is please enjoy my passion project! I really have loved writing and researching this!
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆: This story contains explicit language, sexual content, norse/omegaverse terminology and a very, very sexy viking alpha Jarl Harry with a braid!
Please let me know what you think of 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 HERE!
Rule number one: do not fall in love with your boss.
Rule number two: do not forget rule number one.
Rule number three: when he looks at you like that, pretend it doesn't mean anything.
Summary: When you land a job as the personal assistant to Harry Styles, the calm, charismatic CEO of Fine Line Enterprises, you quickly learn the role is much more than managing a calendar. From early morning calls to last minute flights and being the gatekeeper to one of the busiest men in the industry, your lite becomes completely intertwined with his.
The drive to Mia’s takes about fifteen minutes. The city quiets down around you, streets thinning out. Harry drives. You and Mia talk without any filter or regard for the person sitting in the front seat, which has always been true and is especially true after two bottles of wine.
“Can I ask you something,” Mia says, turning to you with that specific expression she gets when she’s about to say something she knows she probably shouldn’t.
“No,” you say.
“Do you think you’ll get dicked down when you get home,” she says.
You choke on absolutely nothing.
“Mia,” you say, in a voice that comes out several pitches higher than intended.
“It’s a genuine question,” she says, completely serious. “I’m asking as your best friend. For closure.”
You are very aware of Harry in the front seat. The car is not large. He can hear everything. His expression in the rearview mirror has gone completely still and you know with absolute certainty he is listening to every single word.
“I don’t know,” you say, in what you hope is a quiet voice.
“Hopefully though,” Mia says.
“Hopefully,” you say, before you can stop yourself, and then immediately cover your face with your hands because you cannot believe you just said that out loud in this car.
Mia looks triumphant.
Harry says nothing.
His ears are slightly pink though. You can see it even in the dark. That is somehow both mortifying and deeply satisfying at the same time.
“I hate you,” you tell Mia.
“No you don’t,” she says cheerfully.
“No I don’t,” you agree.
Mia leans her head on your shoulder, heavy and warm after all that wine.
“This is the best Tuesday I’ve had in months,” she says.
“It’s the wine,” you say.
“It’s him,” she says, not quietly enough, nodding toward the front seat.
“Mia.”
“What? I’m just saying.” She straightens up slightly and looks at the mirror. “You’re very good for her. I hope you know that.”
Harry glances up at the mirror briefly. “I’m glad to hear it,” he says.
“I mean it,” Mia says, with the earnestness that only comes out after the second bottle. “She smiles differently now. Has done for weeks. I noticed before she told me anything.”
“Mia,” you say.
“It’s a compliment,” she says. “To both of you. You’re welcome.”
You look at the ceiling and say nothing because there is nothing useful to say and also because she’s right and arguing with Mia when she’s right and tipsy has never once gone anywhere productive.
The car pulls up outside her building a few minutes later. She gathers herself, coat and bag and the general organised chaos of Mia leaving any space, then stops and looks at Harry in the mirror.
“Thank you for the lift,” she says. “You really didn’t have to.”
“I know,” he says.
“You’re a good one,” she tells him, simply and directly. “Just so you know.”
Harry looks at her in the mirror for a second.
“Thank you Mia,” he says, and his voice is genuinely warm.
She looks at you with an expression that contains approximately forty seven things she is choosing not to say out loud, which for Mia is an enormous amount of restraint and you appreciate it deeply.
She leans over and hugs you properly, arms tight, mouth close to your ear.
“I love him,” she whispers. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“I won’t,” you say.
“He’s a good one,” she says again, quieter. “Don’t mess it up.”
“Go home Mia,” you say.
She pulls back grinning, opens the door, gets out, and just before she closes it she leans back in and looks at Harry one more time.
“She talks about you all the time,” she says. “Just so you know.”
“Mia,” you say.
“Goodnight,” she says cheerfully, and closes the door.
You watch her disappear through the entrance of her building and sit there for a second in the sudden quiet. The silence of a space that had Mia in it thirty seconds ago and now doesn’t.
Harry looks at you in the mirror.
“Come sit up front,” he says.
You open the door and get out into the cool night air and get back in the passenger seat. It feels different up here. Closer. He pulls away from the curb and you sit there with your bag in your lap and him beside you.
“She’s wonderful,” he says, after a moment.
“She’s a nightmare,” you say.
“She’s wonderful,” he says again, like the two things are not mutually exclusive, which they are not.
You look at him sideways. One hand on the wheel, relaxed, completely at ease.
“She told me to tell you she thinks you’re wonderful too,” you say. “But she made me promise not to say that.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he says.
You smile and look back at the city and think about Mia whispering I love him in your ear and think that you understand completely.
He reaches across and finds your hand on the centre console. His thumb moves slowly across your knuckles. You sit there with the quiet of it, the night outside, thinking about the restaurant and the sourdough man and the millionaire’s phone and his ears going pink in the mirror.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, eyes still on the road.
You look at him. “Yeah?”
He glances at you sideways, just briefly.
“Hopefully,” he says.
You laugh properly, drop your head back against the seat, stare at the ceiling. Mia is absolutely insufferable. You are going to tell her so tomorrow morning. She is going to be completely delighted about it.
After a while he says, “It was a surprise. Running into you tonight.”
“Good surprise or bad surprise,” you say.
“Good,” he says, without any hesitation. “Obviously good.” He pauses. “Next time you’re both drinking, call me.”
You look at him. “To come and find us?”
“To drive you home,” he says. “I don’t like the idea of you getting the tube at that hour. Or getting into a car with someone you don’t know.”
“Harry you really don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to,” he says. “Call me anyway.”
You look at him for a moment. At the easy certainty of it. The decisiveness that sits underneath everything he says.
“Okay,” you say.
“Okay,” he says.
His thumb moves across the back of your hand. The city continues past and you sit there thinking that Mia is going to absolutely lose her mind when you tell her about this in the morning.
You’re sitting there half watching the streets when you start to notice them.
Not your streets.
His.
The buildings shifting into the quiet of his neighbourhood, the wider roads, the rows of townhouses with their warm lit windows. You look out and then back at him. He’s just driving. Completely at ease. Like he hasn’t done anything worth commenting on.
“Are we going to yours?” you say.
He glances at you. “Unless you want to go to yours.”
You think about your apartment. The empty bed. The ceiling fan. The quiet that has started to feel slightly too still since you began spending so much time somewhere else.
“No,” you say. Then again, quieter. “No. I want to go to yours.”
He nods once, eyes back on the road.
“Okay,” he says.
Just okay. No elaboration. No I was hoping you’d say that. Just okay, settled, like of course, like where else, like this is just how Tuesday nights end now.
Something sits quietly in your chest that you stopped trying to name about two weeks ago.
Oscar is going to be very pleased to see you.
He pulls up outside and cuts the engine and you both sit there for a second in the quiet of a car that has just stopped, the city muffled around you, distant.
You look up at the house.
The light above the green door is on. It’s always on when he comes home. Some kind of timer he set a long time ago and never changed. You’ve noticed it every single time you’ve pulled up outside. It always does the same thing to you, makes the place look like somewhere that is waiting for you specifically.
He gets out and comes around to your side and opens the door. You step out into the night air. He locks the car and you walk up the steps together, his hand finding the small of your back as he reaches past you to get his keys.
Inside the hallway is warm.
Oscar appears before the door is even fully closed, trotting out from wherever he was, ears flopping, tail moving, with the energy of a dog who has been waiting and considers the wait to have been entirely unreasonable.
He reaches you first.
You crouch down immediately.
“Hi sweet boy,” you say, in the voice you have completely stopped being embarrassed about. “Hi. Were you waiting for us. Were you waiting.”
Oscar presses his small head into your palm and closes his eyes with the expression of someone whose evening has just significantly improved.
“He was fine,” Harry says from behind you.
“He was not fine,” you say. “Look at him.”
“He’s being dramatic,” Harry says.
“He’s expressive,” you say. “Those are different things.”
“They are not different things.”
“They are completely different things.”
Harry crouches down beside you and Oscar immediately transfers his full attention, pressing himself against Harry’s legs with the loyalty of a dog who has a very clear first preference.
“Traitor,” you tell Oscar.
Oscar does not acknowledge this.
Harry looks at you sideways, very close now, and his expression is doing that thing you like, warm and slightly amused, and you are a little bit tipsy and a little bit in love with him and it is very difficult to be appropriately indignant about the dog when he is looking at you like that.
He picks Oscar up, tucks him under one arm, holds his other hand out to you.
You take it.
He pulls you up and you stand there in his hallway in your going out clothes at nearly midnight and he looks at you for a second, just looks at you, and then tilts his head toward the stairs.
“Come on,” he says.
You follow him up.
At the top of the stairs he sets Oscar down and the dog trots off to his bed at the foot of Harry’s with the satisfied air of someone whose work here is done.
Harry turns around.
He looks at you standing there in the low light of the hallway and something in his expression is different from downstairs. Quieter. More specific.
“I’ve been thinking about taking that dress off you since I saw you on the street,” he says.
You look at him.
“That’s why you drove us home,” you say.
“No,” he says. “I drove you home because I didn’t want you in a sketchy car at midnight.” He takes a step toward you. “But I’ve still been thinking about it.”
“Since the street,” you say.
“Since the street,” he confirms.
“That was hours ago,” you say.
“I know,” he says simply.
He reaches out and tucks your hair back from your face, his fingers trailing slowly along your jaw, and you stand there looking up at him thinking about the street corner and him appearing out of nowhere in his dark coat and the whole long evening that came after.
“How long exactly,” you say, a little quieter now.
He looks at you.
“Long enough,” he says.
He reaches for you then, both hands finding your waist, and he walks you slowly backward until your legs meet the bed and he stops and looks at you for just a moment longer, something steady and certain in his expression, and then he kisses you.
He lifts you like it costs him nothing, hands at your waist, and sets you down on the bed and follows you onto it in one smooth motion, his weight settling over you warm and certain.
He pulls back just enough to look at you.
Really look at you.
His hand pushes your hair back from your face slowly, his thumb tracing along your cheekbone, and his expression is so open and unguarded that it makes your chest tight.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says quietly. Not performing it. Just saying it the way he says everything that matters, like a fact he’s been sitting with for a while and has simply decided to say out loud.
You reach up and touch his face and he turns into your hand slightly, his eyes closing for just a second.
“I’m a little obsessed with you,” he murmurs. “I don’t think you fully understand that.”
“Tell me,” you say softly.
He looks at you.
“Every time I see you across a conference table doing your job I have to actively remind myself to pay attention to the meeting,” he says. “And then you walked around that corner tonight in that dress and I nearly forgot my own name.”
You laugh softly at that and he smiles, the real one, and then he leans down and kisses you. Not rushed. Not urgent. Just thorough and focused the way he is about everything that matters to him, his mouth moving against yours like he has all the time in the world and intends to use it.
His hands move over you slowly. He pushes the dress up your thighs and pulls it over your head and tosses it somewhere behind him and then he just looks at you for a second, his chest rising and falling, taking you in like he’s got nowhere else to be.
“God,” he says quietly. “You’re perfect.”
He leans down and presses his mouth to your throat, your collarbone, lower, working his way down your body with slow open mouthed kisses. He takes his time with your breasts, his tongue circling one nipple then the other, his hands sliding over your ribs and your waist and your hips, and you thread your fingers into his hair and stop thinking about anything else entirely.
He keeps going lower.
He presses a kiss to the inside of your ankle and works his way up slowly, his stubble scraping lightly against your skin, his mouth finding the soft skin behind your knee, your inner thigh, and by the time he gets where you need him you’re already trembling and your hands are already in his hair.
He looks up at you from there.
“So beautiful like this,” he says quietly. “All mine.”
His first lick is slow and broad and deliberate and the sound that comes out of you is immediate and embarrassing. He does it again, slower, like he’s tasting you properly, like he wants to learn exactly what you respond to and file it away for later. Then he settles in. His tongue circles your clit in slow tight strokes and his hands hold your hips steady when you try to roll them toward him. He slides two fingers inside you, curling them exactly right, pumping slow and deep while his mouth stays focused and relentless above.
He draws it out.
Every time you get close he eases back just slightly, gentles his tongue, slows his fingers, until you’re saying his name in a voice that doesn’t sound entirely like yours and your thighs are shaking around his shoulders.
“Harry,” you manage. “Please.”
He doesn’t make you ask twice.
He works you harder then, his tongue faster, his fingers deeper, and when he adds a third and curls them just right while his lips close around your clit and suck firmly you come apart completely. It rolls through you in long waves, your back arching off the bed, his name in your mouth over and over, and he holds you through all of it, his mouth gentling but not stopping, drawing every last bit of it out of you until you’re pushing at his shoulders because the sensation is too much.
Only then does he ease back.
He kisses his way back up your body. Your stomach. The curve of your ribs. Your throat. Each place getting its own moment. By the time he reaches your mouth you’re pulling at him and he laughs quietly against your lips, low and warm.
“More?” he says.
“More,” you say. “Now.”
He pulls back and strips off the rest of his clothes and you watch him do it. The tattoos shifting as he moves. The hard line of him, flushed and ready, and the complete ease with which he holds your gaze while you look because he has never once made you feel like you shouldn’t.
He settles back over you, skin to skin this time, and the contact makes you both exhale. He kisses you deep and slow and his hand slides between your thighs again, stroking through how wet you are, his fingers circling your clit in slow strokes until you’re rocking against his hand and pulling at his hips and making sounds that have stopped being quiet.
“Please,” you say again.
“Please what,” he says against your mouth, still stroking, still completely composed, and the absolute calm of him while you’re falling apart is maddening in the best possible way.
“Harry,” you say.
“Tell me,” he says.
“I want you inside me,” you say. “Now. Please.”
He makes a low sound against your throat and then he’s there, pressing into you slow and deep, giving you every inch of him until he’s buried completely and you both go still.
Forehead pressed to yours. Both of you breathing.
“God,” he says quietly. “You feel incredible.”
He starts to move. Deep rolling thrusts that hit exactly right, his hand still between you, his thumb circling your clit as he moves, and the combination of it makes thinking impossible. His mouth finds your throat, your breasts, comes back to your mouth. One hand cups your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone, his eyes on yours between kisses.
“So perfect,” he murmurs. “Feel so perfect around me. So good.”
He shifts the angle slightly and you gasp and his mouth curves against yours.
“There?” he says.
“There,” you confirm, breathlessly, and he does it again, deeper this time, and again, and his thumb presses firmer circles against your clit and the heat builds fast and overwhelming and you dig your nails into his back and he groans low against your ear.
“Let go,” he says quietly. “I’ve got you.”
You do.
It breaks over you hard, clenching tight around him, your whole body arching, and he follows almost immediately, burying himself deep and shuddering, your name in his mouth like something he means completely.
Then it’s quiet.
Really quiet.
He stays where he is for a moment, warm and heavy, both of you catching your breath. Then he presses a kiss to your jaw and eases away and takes care of you quietly and without any announcement, the way he does everything that counts, and then he pulls you into his side and you lie there with your head on his chest and his arm around you and the city light coming through the curtains and Oscar a warm weight at the foot of the bed.
The whole evening settles over you in layers. The restaurant and Mia and the street corner and the car and all of it trailing behind you.
You don’t plan to say it.
It just comes out.
“I love you,” you say quietly, into the dark.
His arm tightens around you immediately.
Neither of you says anything for a moment and the quiet sits between you full rather than empty, not needing anything added to it.
Then his hand comes up and moves slowly through your hair.
“I love you too,” he says. “So much.”
You close your eyes.
“Yeah?” you say softly.
“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is low and certain. “For a while now.”
You lift your head and look at him in the dark, at the outline of his face and the way he’s looking back at you, and you think about the lobby on the day of your interview and the coffee and the calendar and the business trip and the hotel hallway and all the small accumulating moments that led to this exact one.
“I was so nervous to say it,” you admit.
“I know,” he says.
“How did you know.”
“Because you went very quiet right before,” he says. “You always go quiet before you say something that matters.”
You look at him. “I do not.”
“You do,” he says simply. “You’ve done it since your first week. You go quiet and you look at me and then you say the thing.”
You lie there with that for a moment. The fact that he’s been watching you closely enough and long enough to know that about you. The fact that he filed it away somewhere and kept it.
“Were you nervous?” you ask. “When you said it back.”
He considers that for a second, genuinely considers it, and you love that about him, that he doesn’t just give you the easy answer.
“No,” he says. “I’ve known for a while. I was just waiting for you to get there.”
“That’s very annoying,” you say.
“I know,” he says, and you can hear the smile in it.
You put your head back down on his chest and he pulls you closer and you lie there for a while just being in it, in the quiet and the warmth and the feeling of having said the true thing and had it returned without hesitation.
Then he says, “Don’t come in tomorrow.”
You lift your head and look at him. “What?”
“Call out,” he says. “Stay here.”
“Harry,” you say. “That will look incredibly suspicious.”
“You’re my assistant,” he says, completely unbothered. “You catch the same sickness as me. We work in very close proximity.”
You stare at him.
“You’re going to call out too,” you say slowly.
“I’m already sick,” he says. “Very suddenly. Terrible timing, really.”
“You’re the CEO,” you say.
“CEOs get sick,” he says.
“On the same day as their assistant.”
“Happens all the time,” he says.
You look at him for a long moment. At the complete composure of a man who is suggesting you both fake illness to spend the day in bed and sees absolutely nothing unreasonable about this.
“Lucy is going to know,” you say.
“Lucy already knows everything,” he says. “This changes nothing.”
You open your mouth and then close it again because he’s right and you both know it and arguing with him when he’s right has never once gone anywhere useful.
“Okay,” you say finally.
He looks at you. “Okay?”
“Okay,” you say. “We’re sick.”
“Terribly,” he confirms.
You put your head back down on his chest and he pulls you closer and the room settles back into its quiet and outside the city does its night things and Oscar shifts at the foot of the bed and you lie there thinking about tomorrow, about a whole day here, about waking up and not having to go anywhere or be anything except exactly this.
“Harry,” you say after a while.
“Mm,” he says.
“I love you,” you say again, quieter this time, just to say it again, just because you can.
His arm tightens around you.
“I love you too,” he says. “Get some sleep.”
You close your eyes.
And you do.
You wake up slowly.
The room is bright at the edges of the curtains, morning pressing through, and for a second you just lie there letting consciousness arrive at its own pace. The sheets are warm. The pillow smells like him. Oscar is a small dense weight somewhere near your feet.
You open your eyes.
Harry is sitting up against the headboard beside you, laptop open on his knees, glasses on, reading something on the screen with that focused expression he gets when he’s working through something that requires his full attention. He’s in a grey t-shirt, hair slightly pushed back, completely at ease, and the morning light coming through the curtains is hitting him at an angle that is frankly unfair.
You lie there and look at him.
He’s writing an email. You can tell from the movement of his fingers across the keyboard, measured and deliberate. You catch a glimpse of the subject line. Out of office. Something about directing calls to the deputy. His signature already at the bottom.
He is actually doing this.
You press your lips together and go back to looking at him because honestly there is a lot to look at. The line of his jaw. The slight pull of his brow when he’s concentrating. The tattoos on his forearms where his sleeves are pushed up. Familiar now but still doing something to your chest.
He is so pretty.
That is the only word for it. Just pretty. Good to look at and completely unbothered by it.
You’re still looking when he glances down at you.
“What,” he says.
You giggle before you can stop it, pressing your face briefly into the pillow, which does not help at all.
“Nothing,” you say.
He looks at you with that flat expression that means he’s about to be annoying about something.
“What?” he says again.
“Nothing,” you say. “Keep writing your fake sick email.”
“It’s not fake,” he says. “I have a very serious illness.”
“Mm,” you say.
He looks back at his screen but the corner of his mouth is doing something. You can see it from here.
“You were staring at me,” he says.
“I was resting my eyes,” you say.
“In my direction?”
“Coincidence.”
He looks down at you again and this time the expression is fully amused and you feel your face go warm which is ridiculous given everything and you look at the ceiling instead.
“Y/N,” he says.
“What.”
“What were you thinking?”
You look at the ceiling for another second. Then you look at him.
“I think you’re really pretty,” you say.
He blinks.
Then he closes his laptop very slowly and sets it on the nightstand and looks at you with an expression you cannot entirely read but that contains something warm underneath the amusement.
“Pretty,” he says.
“Pretty,” you confirm.
“I’ve been called a lot of things,” he says.
“Pretty is accurate though,” you say. “Objectively. It’s just a fact. You’re a very pretty man.”
He looks at you for a long moment.
“Go back to sleep,” he says, opening his laptop again.
“I’m not tired,” you say. “Also you didn’t have breakfast ready.”
He looks at you over the top of his glasses. “You’ve been awake for four minutes.”
“I’m just noting it,” you say. “For the record.”
He looks back at his screen.
You lie there for a second watching him type and then you sit up slightly.
“Should I send an email too?” you say.
He stops typing.
“To who?” he says.
“To work,” you say. “To let them know I’m sick.”
He turns and looks at you very slowly over the top of his glasses.
“You want to send an email to work,” he says.
“To let them know I won’t be in,” you say. “Like you’re doing.”
“I’m emailing my staff,” he says.
“Right,” you say. “And I would be emailing mine.”
He looks at you.
“You don’t have staff,” he says.
“I have colleagues,” you say.
“You have one employer,” he says. “Me.”
You open your mouth.
Then you close it.
“So,” he says, very slowly, like he’s explaining something to someone who needs a moment. “You want to send a sick day email. To your boss. Who is also calling in sick. Who is currently sitting next to you in bed.”
You think about this.
“Oh,” you say.
“Yeah,” he says.
“That would be to you,” you say.
“It would be to me,” he confirms.
“Who already knows,” you say.
“Who already knows,” he says.
You lie back down and pull the covers up.
“I’m going back to sleep,” you say.
“Good idea,” he says, opening his laptop again.
You close your eyes and lie there for a second in the quiet and then you hear him.
“Although,” he says.
You open one eye. “What?”
He doesn’t look up from his screen but the corner of his mouth lifts just slightly.
“Maybe I kept you up too late last night,” he says. “That would explain the tiredness.”
You stare at the side of his face.
He continues typing, completely unbothered, the picture of innocence.
“You’re very smug for someone who is supposedly very ill,” you say.
“I’m managing through the pain,” he says.
You pull the covers over your head.
He laughs, quiet and genuine, and outside the city carries on its Wednesday morning without either of you in it and Oscar shifts at the foot of the bed and you lie there under the covers smiling at absolutely nothing.
This is without question the best sick day you have ever had.
Summary: You’ve been Harry’s bestfriend for over ten years, having met him back when he was still wearing snapbacks and flannel shirts with skinny jeans it’s safe to say you’ve been there for him throughout most of his career. After meeting you Harry didn’t want to risk losing you so he made the choice to not allow himself to see you as anything but his bestfriend, minus the few times the two of you have shared some drunken kisses and hookups. Meanwhile you couldn’t help falling in love with him because how could you not? But all of that changes when you invite Harry over to lunch one day and before you can even offer him a glass of wine he is dropping to one knee and asking you to marry him, why? Because he’s lonely and he knows you’re lonely too so why not just be together?✨
Pairing: Harry x fem!reader, Harry x bff!fiancé
Status: Ongoing
Trope: Friends to lovers and if you squint it’s kind of fake marriage au but only kinda sorta.
CW: None it’s pure fluffy mushy goodness with only like the tiniest bit of angst
A/N: This series is requests based, since it started off as a request so all updates will be from what y’all request. I just figured it was easier to have all the parts and extras for this pairing in one place✨
Requests: Here (open)
Tag List: Open just let me know if you’d like on it💖
Conversations: Here
Instagrams: Here
Extras: Here
*you’ll find all the parts down bellow in the correct order*
CW: welcome to the last part of gang!harry x icecreamshopworker!y/n :( these two have my whole heart and i just love writing about them. be warned this part does include heavy themes such as kidnapping, violence, SA, blood, and guns, so please turn away if that is not for you. there is also finally some smut, which includes (but is not limited to ;)) face riding, penetration, size kink, choking, dirty talk the lot!!! LOWKEY SOME OF MY BEST WORK NGL!! enjoy! MINORS DNI!
WC: 11.2K
Read part one and two here.
Preview:
“Harry,” She started, “When did you do this?” Slowly, she got off the floor and petted Coco one last time before coming over to the counter. Harry had to hold himself back from kissing her silly, “Y’were asleep when I woke up, so I thought I’d get some of your things. Coco, too, of course,” He replied. He toyed with his hands behind his back, one coming up to rub behind his neck as she began going through the tote.
“Aw, Harry, thank you so much,” Y/N murmured in a soft voice. Butterflies erupted in Harry’s stomach like he was a schoolgirl or summat, doubling in effect when she suddenly gasped, “You brought my kindle?”
Harry ran a finger beneath his nose nonchalantly, “Oh yeah, thought you might want that one, help take your mind o— oh.” A soft gasp was punched out of him as Y/N tackled him in a hug, both arms wrapped around his neck. She buried her face in his throat and Harry thanked whatever deity was up there for this moment’s reprieve. “Thank you,” Y/N said genuinely. When she pulled away, Harry forced himself not to pout his bottom lip like his instinct was telling him. Already, he missed her warm body against his. His hands were still on her waist, “S’okay, was no trouble, baby,” The pet name slipped out unintentionally— and it had a few times already, but Harry wasn’t going to stop if the reaction he got from her was this; cheeks going red and eyes widening like a deer.
The next morning, Harry left a slumbering Y/N tucked beneath his covers to go fetch her dog from her apartment. After barely three hours of sleep, he was up at the crack of dawn, quietly creeping around the house so he wouldn't wake her.
The night before had taken more out of her than she'd let on.
Once she'd cried herself out in his arms, Harry left a towel and a spare set of clothes outside the bathroom so she could change out of her rain-soaked ones. Due to the nature of his work, he never found time to cook for himself, the consequences of which Y/N also had to suffer when he warmed up the frozen meal he bought (which thankfully was a ten-minute pizza they could easily split) for them to share. Except Y/N didn’t eat much at all— only picked at the crust, took maybe three bites and then quietly told him she wanted to go to bed.
Now unfortunately for Harry, he’s never been in a situation quite like this one.
Firstly, he almost never has people over at his place, and it was a bit weird just seeing Y/N there, hanging out in his kitchen, using his shower, sleeping in his bed. It was definitely not helping the little crush that he had on her. Seeing her all cozied up in his space gave him false hope that someday things could be like this, when the circumstances weren’t so life-threatening.
Secondly, he was really bad at comforting people and dealing with emotions (he never adressed his own, so how was he meant to help others?), thus he didn’t think he was the right person for her to be around when she was obviously hurting and feeling so vulnerable.
But nonetheless, life dealt him these cards and Harry had no choice but to live with them. It helped that it was her he had to be around; he liked her company a great deal, even if he didn’t do a good job showing so with his actions (or even his words). She was pretty and she was funny, and when she wasn’t scared for her life, she was adorable— like a deer— a resemblance he established when he first met her at the bar.
He’d been to her flat once before, and she lived close to Niall, hence getting there with no navigation wasn’t an issue. Though he had to keep lookout for any wanderers nearby, or anything odd, just to ensure no one was trying to track her down. So far the coast was clear, but Harry could never be too careful, comforted by the cold barrel of a gun pressed into his abdomen under the waist of his jeans.
There was a backup key beneath a plant by her door which Harry nabbed, albeit infuriatingly because of how unsafe that location was. After all of this was over, he made a mental note to give her some sort of safety training or self defence classes so if need ever arises, she’s not completely clueless. Although Harry was ready to give his all to make sure no harm ever came to her, he knows he can’t always be with her; protecting her.
The sharp, shrill sounds of Coco barking came before he could enter, and once he did, the dog tackled his legs and twisted between his ankles, “Hello mister,” Harry cooed, bending so he could pet between his ears, “Let’s get you home to mum, hmm?”
He quickly filled Coco’s bowl with food and water, and then got to work, picking out which essentials she might need while at his place. Harry doesn’t know how long this issue might play over; all he knew was that she could not be out of his sight for even a second. Being with him was the safest bet for Y/N right now, and he wanted to make sure she was as comfortable as she could be while living in (technically) a stranger’s apartment for god knows how long.
It felt invasive and borderline unethical for him to poke around her room and bathroom, grabbing her toothbrush, cleanser, charger and whatnot. He didn’t have any list or anything to go by, so he was going with his intuition as he plucked her kindle off her bedside, assuming it might help take her mind off things. Going through her clothes and underwear drawer was too much though; Harry had to draw the line somewhere. He had ample clothes for her to borrow, and in terms of undergarments, he’d swing by the mall to grab her a pack of underwear or something— the idea of which made his heart pound slightly and his cock twitch a bit.
Entering the kitchen, Coco began jumping at his feet again with his tongue sticking out. Harry knelt to pick the pup up. He tucked him in his elbow, his tiny size convenient for Harry’s muscled arm, “You’re just a needy thing,” He tsked. A quick glance around her kitchen and Harry found a colorful list of meals magnetted to her fridge. It looked like a meal plan of some sorts; dishes she probably rotates throughout the week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With his free hand he got his phone and quickly took a photo of the sheet, hoping he could recreate some of these to make her feel more at home. How he would do that with nil cooking skills was a problem for the future.
He did one last sweep of the place before grabbing his big tote bag and nestling Coco inside of it. Her stuff and the dog were separated by a soft towel, and Harry hoped the poor thing could bear the ten-minute ride on his bike back to the mall and then his place. It took some trial and error and some adjusting, but he managed the bag between his legs for the journey.
When he finally got home, she was still asleep and snoring softly. He stealthily set down her things on his counter and Coco began wagging his tail manically as he bolted for Harry’s room where his owner was resting. Before the pup could make it, Harry rushed to gently shut the door so he couldn’t pounce on the girl. Coco whined a bit and sadly looked up at Harry, “Sorry honey,” He ushered him into the living room where he pulled out the dog toys he picked up from a pet store, “Took her so long to fall asleep.”
Coco busied himself and so did Harry. He stepped into his kitchen and unloaded the groceries he got for breakfast bagels— a food he spotted circled with red marker on Y/N’s fridge. He hoped that meant she fancied it, because he was about to conquer the feat of cooking the dish for her; a challenge which paled in comparison to all the fights and mountains he had to climb working in a gang.
He put on a Youtube video with the most views and the most likes and set his phone against the counter. The apron he barely ever used that Mitch got him for his birthday (black, with the words “The Grillfather” embroidered across the chest) was wrapped around his torso as Harry pinched his bottom lip, soaking in the instructions with unwavering concentration.
He doesn’t know how long he spends there, hunched over his stove with about seven eggshells around him and splatterings of smashed avocado all over his apron and hands. There was something in the recipe about scrambled eggs, but they couldn’t be overcooked or they’d be rubbery— the avocado had to have no lumps, yet getting the core out of them was literally making Harry insane, especially when the third one flicked him on the forehead as he tried a trick he saw on reddit (he had to find an r/avocado thread to figure out when they were ripe enough to smash and eat, but not enough to be rotten).
By the time he had one decent looking, hopefully edible bagel cut in half on a ceramic green plate, he heard movement from his bedroom, signalling someone had just woken up and gone into the bathroom. Quickly he got rid of all the evidence; stuffing the eggshells into the trash, wiping the mayo and avocado from his counters, hastily undoing the apron around his waist.
Worried she’d be out any second, he set the plate on the table (casually) and put a pot of coffee on. A few minutes later, his door creaked open and Coco lost his marbles. “Oh my god, my sweet baby angel,” He heard Y/N coo, mixed with the sounds of shrill barking. Harry poked his head around the corner for a sight he was not ready to see.
Y/N was on the floor, her legs crossed over one another adorned in just Harry’s black shirt. It was way too big on her, already oversized when he wore it, so it pooled around her body and slung off of one shoulder. At some point in the night she must have forgone the sweats he left out for her, because to his dismay, her legs were bare and utterly distracting. Coco was nestled in her lap, jumping up to lick her jaw and chin as Y/N scrunched up her face, “Okay! Okay, thank you,” she giggled, picking the pup up and plopping him on the carpet. Coco began looping around her feet.
From across the room, she met his eyes, and something in her expression shifted when she noticed her belongings on his counter, “Harry,” She started, “When did you do this?” Slowly, she got off the floor and petted Coco one last time before coming over to the counter. Harry had to hold himself back from kissing her silly, “Y’were asleep when I woke up, so I thought I’d get some of your things. Coco, too, of course,” He replied. He toyed with his hands behind his back, one coming up to rub behind his neck as she began going through the tote.
“Aw, Harry, thank you so much,” Y/N murmured in a soft voice. Butterflies erupted in Harry’s stomach like he was a schoolgirl or summat, doubling in effect when she suddenly gasped, “You brought my kindle?”
Harry ran a finger beneath his nose nonchalantly, “Oh yeah, thought you might want that one, help take your mind o— oh.” A soft gasp was punched out of him as Y/N tackled him in a hug, both arms wrapped around his neck. She buried her face in his throat and Harry thanked whatever deity was up there for this moment’s reprieve. “Thank you,” Y/N said genuinely. When she pulled away, Harry forced himself not to pout his bottom lip like his instinct was telling him. Already, he missed her warm body against his. His hands were still on her waist, “S’okay, was no trouble, baby,” The pet name slipped out unintentionally— and it had a few times already, but Harry wasn’t going to stop if the reaction he got from her was this; cheeks going red and eyes widening like a deer.
“I—uh, made you some breakfast if you’re hungry. You must be, actually. Didn’t eat much last night,” He changed the topic. Y/N turned to look at the table, noticing the bagel which Harry was immensely proud of, presented on a pretty plate. She looked back at him with a little grin, “I didn’t know you could cook!” Excitedly she took a seat across from him.
“Me neither,” Harry said under his breath. He got to work preparing her coffee. The second time he came to her apartment, she was kind enough to offer him some, because of which he remembered how she took hers: two sugars and heaps of milk. He used his fancy mugs; pouring into pink and baby blue ceramics. “How are you feeling today?”
Y/N nodded slowly, chewing with her eyebrows raised, “Better— hey, you’re a real good cook! How did y’know I liked brekkie bagels?”
“Just a hunch,” Harry shrugged, “Sleep well?”
She sipped her coffee, “Um, yeah, not too bad. Your bed is really nice.”
“That’s good.”
“I… I was up for ages ‘cause I couldn’t stop thinking about everything, y’know, like, you being in a gang, plus Coco being home alone,” Y/N shuffled, picking at a loose crumb, “Then I realised it wasn’t doing me— or anyone, any good. Me worrying won’t make this go away. I’m just… just lost. I don’t want to be this dead weight you dread carrying around. I want to be proactive.”
She looked at him with real curiosity, eagerly awaiting his response. He was glad to hear she was more comfortable and not as stressed anymore, but when it comes to what the outcome would be, Harry himself was sort of in the dark until he met the others and discussed a proposition, “Mm, that’s nice you’re feeling better,” He started, eyebrows creasing, “We’ll go back down to the warehouse after this. Some more of us will be there too, n’we’ll try to come up with something— something safer for you, and just settle this shit once and for all. I’m sorry you got dragged into my mess.”
“No, no, everything I did was my own choice, Harry, it’s not your fault,” She waved her hand dismissively, “And for the time being I think I feel safest when… when I’m with you,” Y/N said, quietly. She didn’t meet his eyes, busying herself with pulling her bagel apart into bite size pieces. From where he stood, he could see her cheeks ablaze.
The words lit something inside Harry.
Someone feeling safe in his company was something he never got to hear, ever. Usually people were intimidated by him, opting to have quick conversations so they could scurry away as soon as possible. Only his gang mates would sometimes stick around and chat with him about stuff other than the current coup or drug shipment they had to process. Hearing a sweet little thing like Y/N admit so sincerely that she felt secure when she was with him made Harry feel things he’d never felt before. Warmth spread in his chest, along with an instinct to protect her in any way he could, no matter the situation.
His heart was beating at the speed of light as he bit back a smile, “I’ll try to keep it this way.”
-
After Y/N was fed and content, they both got dressed and headed down to his bike to go to the warehouse. Coco would have to spend the afternoon by himself, and this time Harry took precaution, asking his older neighbour Barbara to keep an eye on the pup and his feeding if things went awry. He hoped they didn’t, but it was one thing less on Y/N’s mind to worry about, and that’s all that mattered.
A thousand questions weighed on his mind; what was their POA? How long did Y/N have to live in hiding, not going to work or even sleeping in her own bed? When did that prick begin following her and why didn’t Harry notice earlier? So many things he could blame himself for, and he did, but he also knew doing that was not going to get him anywhere.
“Are we going on the bike?” Y/N snapped him out of his reverie, trailing behind him as they came down the building stairs. Harry pushed the exit door with his shoulder, pressing himself against it so she could pass. “Yeah, for now. I still need to go back and get y’car.” She raised her brows and put her hands on her hips, “No rush.” He could tell she was nervous getting on the bike with him, like she was last night too. The way she clung to his waist, muttering quiet prayers against his shirt was enough evidence for him to determine this wasn’t going to be that easy.
He was better prepared this time, though, “I got a spare helmet for you.” From his coveted collection he picked out the one he thought would be best for her: A big, black, globe like helmet with adjustable straps so it didn’t slide all over her head like last time. When she opened her mouth to protest, Harry silenced her by slotting it on her head, “Hey!” She cried when she emerged, an angry look on her face through the little gap, “Are these really that necessary?”
Harry flicked her forehead playfully, “Yes. I’m not endangering your life any further.”
“I’m not sure they do anything but make me immobile and sweaty,” Y/N grumbled. Rolling his eyes, Harry ignored her plea and put his own helmet on. As he patted his hands over his pockets for his keys, he realised they were missing— probably forgotten upstairs on his counter. A pinch pulled his brows together, “Fuck’s sake,” He groaned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Left m’keys at home.” He debated going back upstairs to go get them, but that would mean leaving Y/N down here all alone. No one apart from his gang mates knew where he lived which reduced the chances of anyone creeping up on her and harming her (precisely why he thought she’d be safest at his place). But the risk was too big to take. Like she could hear his inner turmoil, Y/N spoke softly, “Hey, you can go grab them. I’ll be fine.”
Harry looked around the empty parking lot. There was no one here, and only two cars parked on this level, both abandoned. Realistically, she should be fine, and Harry would only be like two minutes, yet he felt he couldn’t be too cautious; specially with her, “Come with me,” He suggested.
“Harry, go. I’m a big girl. I’m sure I can look after myself for five minutes.” She gave him a small nudge. The internal battle he fought crumbled in front of her. He didn’t want her to think he saw her as a liability or weak. If she’s telling him she’d be okay, then she probably will be, right? It took a lot from him to resign, sigh and take his helmet off again. He held up two fingers, “Two minutes. Don’t move, okay?”
“Go.”
Reluctantly, he turned around, bursting through the exit and skipping up the stairs. Every second he spent with her not in his sight made him more anxious. He had no choice but to trust her instinct and hope she’d be okay when he came back down. It took him less than ninety seconds to unlock his apartment and get his keys, basically running down the stairs and out the exit.
Except Y/N wasn’t there like he thought she’d be.
His bike stood lone, her helmet on the floor strewn to the side. Panic rose in Harry’s body as he shouted into the carpark, “Y/N?” He ran to all four corners, praying she stepped aside to take a call or something— anything than the one possibility that he was too scared to even address. A shiver went down his spine when only his voice echoed back to him, no trace of the girl. He bent to pick her helmet up and noticed a spattering of blood on the back of it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit, fuck!” He cussed, pacing the room again like she’d magically appear.
His stomach twisted in nausea as he entered fight mode. He had to find her and bring her back. How he could do something so stupid like leave her alone in an empty sketchy parking lot was entirely lost on him. Of course she was going to say she can handle it, but he should have wondered to what extent. Fuck, he really, really hated himself and the way he thought sometimes.
Without another second wasted, he dialed Mitch’s number on his phone.
“Get everyone in the van.” He started his bike. “We're going to Dean's.”
-
Y/N was scared.
It was the only emotion she was feeling as of recent; ever since she almost got kidnapped outside the supermarket a night ago. This situation was pretty similar to that one, the only difference being this time, much to her chagrin, the abductor was actually successful in his motive.
How and when that happened was hard for her to process.
One moment she was tapping on her phone as Harry left to grab his keys; another moment a hand roughly clamped over her mouth through the gap in her helmet. She yelled and she screamed against the sweaty palm, but it made no difference, her cries muffled against skin. It took them merely thirty seconds to drag her flailing body away from the bike and into the back of a car, even after Y/N whipped her head behind her so her helmet bashed into the attacker’s head. He only yelped, called her a bitch, and ripped the item off her head. As much as Y/N had pretended to hate wearing it, she found herself missing the small sense of protection it had offered. Immediately, another pair of hands covered her eyes with a blindfold, pressed a cloth against her nose hard enough to cause tears down her cheeks, and then it was all dark.
She assumed it was a strong drug because she was passed out pretty bad if the pounding in her head was anything to go by. As she now regained consciousness, she realised her hands were tied to the back of a chair, her feet bound, and her eyes were still covered. How long she was out and where she was, Y/N had no clue. The room she was in was warm, though, the faint smell of leather and alcohol lingering in the air. She was sitting on some kind of wooden chair that dug painfully in her ass, her comfort obviously not a priority to these people.
“Good morning Pumpkin,” Someone said from her right. The voice was gravelly and she didn’t recognise it, “Sleep nice?”
Her head whipped in it’s direction, “Where am I?” Y/N asked shakily. Another voice spoke from the same direction, but this time she recognised the timbre, “Far away from that little boyfriend of yours, I’ll tell ya.” It was the same creep who felt her up at the bar that night— the same one who was waiting to kidnap her before Harry noticed. Nausea twisted in her stomach, “I know you.”
The man laughed. “You don’t know shit,” She yelped as a hand came down on her thigh, trailing upwards. Y/N tried to turn away from it, and this prompted the first voice to talk again. She was grateful as the hand was batted away from her leg, “Dean said we can’t touch her, Gary.”
“Dean isn’t fucking here, is he?” Gary spat. She gasped when she heard a thud followed by a wheeze, fear making goosebumps rise over her skin, “Say some dumb shit like that again and I’ll break your fucking arm,” The second man spoke. Knowing they were capable of such violence that they didn’t hesitate to inflict on each other straightened her right up. If she wanted to get out of here unharmed, she’d have to be on her best behaviour.
“I trust your treating our guest well, Finn?” A third voice boomed. This one came from further away. Y/N bit her lip to keep from saying something that’d get her in trouble. The second voice— Finn, cleared his throat, “Yes sir.” The honorific made her think that maybe this voice belonged to Dean; a name she’d heard over and over again at both Harry’s warehouse and now. He seemed like the leader, probably, and Y/N trembled slightly in place as his voice came closer, “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s got the shits.”
Gary coughed loudly, sounding strained still from the injury Finn must’ve given him for touching her, “Oh yes, I think I ate something ba—”
“Go fix yourself.”
“Yes sir.” He resigned. Y/N heard his footsteps recede and another pair of steps shuffle closer. She held her breath.
“Harry’s got himself a very pretty little plaything, hmm?” A finger came beneath her chin, lifting her face up. Tears were already streaming down her face out of fear and her lip quivered. She hated that they saw her weakening like this in front of them, but Y/N was feeling very clueless and very helpless as to what she should do right now. Nothing in her twenty three years of life prepared her for being fucking abducted. A whimper fell from her mouth as he cupped her jaw and moved her face left and right, “Would be a shame if we carved into her.”
“You sure this is it, Finn?” Dean asked, roughly letting go of her face. Relief flooded Y/N’s veins when she couldn’t sense him in her personal space anymore. “We’re sure. Picked the lass up straight from his place. They were practically fuck—”
A loud crash made her jump in her chair. Both men became alert, “What the fuck was that?” Finn said. She heard the faint sound of a gun cocking and all the blood from her body drained. Loud bangs resounded from what probably was another room as Y/N writhed in her seat, “What’s happening?”
Her question went unanswered. She could hear the sound of Gary yelling from afar, cries of “They’re here!” echoing, followed by an even louder crash which came from much closer. Close enough that she could safely assume it was the door to the room they were in. More gun sounds and footsteps. Suddenly her hands and feet were cut lose and she was pulled to stand. She yelped as her back was pushed against the front of a tall, beefy body.
“Let her go.”
Harry.
The second she heard his voice, her resolve crumbled and her lip pushed out in an ugly cry, “Harry,” She sobbed. Tears dripped down her cheeks and jaw, and the man behind her whose voice she recognised as Dean’s spoke, “Forty thousand. That was the agreement,” Something cold tucked against her neck— something that could only be the barrel of a gun.
“Let. Her. Go.” Harry demanded. He sounded closer, the notion of which made her breathe a little easier. Another voice she recognised spoke up, “You’re outnumbered Dean.” Mitch. “I would be smart and give in if I was you.”
The gun pushed into her neck harder, nearly making her choke, “Forty thousand or you can say goodbye to your girlfriend.”
“We agreed on a payment plan! You signed the contract— it’s not due for another thirteen months!” Sarah yelled.
“I don’t give a rats ass about any contract. Give me the money or watch her di—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Y/N took advantage of her mobility and stomped her foot atop his as hard as she could. At the same time, she heard Finn yell from her left followed by a gunshot, but she remained focused on the task at hand and whacked the back of her head into his nose. The impact folded Dean in half. Before he had a chance to recover, Y/N yanked her wrists free and tore the blindfold from her face.
It took a few seconds for her to adjust her vision. Her eyes were blearly because of the tears though she could still make out the small room they were in. It looked expensive— littered with big, comfortable looking brown leather couches with a shattered glass table between them. Bottles of liquor were tipped over on the ground; some smashed and some rolling by their feet. Harry, Mitch, Sarah and two people she didn’t recognise stood at the opposite end of the room, all of them armed. She didn’t waste any time running over to their side.
Harry grabbed her arms, frantically searching her face, “Are you alright? Did they hurt you?” He asked, the calm amongst the storm— commotion all around them as Mitch and the others engaged in combat with who she assumed were Finn and Dean. “Y—yes. I think I’m okay,” Y/N replied. Harry nodded and closed his eyes, unexpectedly kissing her forehead in an act of tenderness, “Fuck, I’m so sorry, angel, I shouldn’t’ve left you on your own. So sorry, baby,” Hands came up to cup her cheeks and wipe away the hot tears staining them.
They didn’t have much time to themselves, though, as Sarah yelled at him to cover her. More gunshots resounded, and Y/N had the misfortune of watching the fight. The two big men who orchestrated the abduction fell to the ground in a pile of blood, groaning in pain. Y/N’s breakfast came back up her throat and she willed herself to tear her gaze away.
“In the van!” The man she didn’t recognise yelled. Dean and both of his men were down and the group wasted no time to get to leaving the building they were in. She was lost when she stepped out of the room; guided only by Harry’s hand in hers who rounded corners like he knew the place. When they were finally outdoors, it was raining again, drenching them for the ten seconds it took to sprint towards a long, white van. Mitch quickly slid the door open, ushering Y/N in first, followed by Sarah, Harry and the two men whose name she still didn’t know.
Hurriedly, they skidded out of the parking and were immediately on the highway. She recognised the area as one not even thirty minutes from her house, and the thought of that made a chill go down her spine. Harry’s jacket wrapping around her shaking shoulders was what made her jump out of her thoughts. He was tucked next to her, and Y/N didn’t realise she was basically in his lap as she shuffled closer to him absentmindedly. “What you did was very brave,” He muttered, just for her ears. When she met his eyes, her gaze was obstructed by wet hair sticking to her cheeks and forehead.
Gently, he pushed the strands back and let his hand rest on the side of her neck where he traced circles. She wanted to say something— anything— thank him for getting her out of there, reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, tell him how scared she was— but she had nothing to show except the tears that kept leaking out of her eyes.
Harry only kissed her forehead again, “S’okay,” He stroked her damp skin, “You’re okay now.”
-
“I think we made matters worse.”
Y/N slept the whole way back to the warehouse. Her head rested on Harry’s shoulder, who tried to calm his heartbeat and convince his panic-driven body that things were okay now. Y/N was safe, and she was right next to him, and no one could take her from him even if they tried.
This wasn’t Harry’s first rodeo.
He’d been a part of hundreds of raids and shootouts in his years working in the mafia, but he still remembered what it was like when he attended his first one. The sound of a gun going off wasn’t something you ever got used to. Neither was the sight of blood squirting out of a wound of an unconscious person. He could only imagine how terrified the poor girl must be, and how worse she probably felt before they got there; all alone, blind and bound amongst a druglord and his two goons. He can never forgive himself for letting her be in such an awful situation.
As they arrived at the warehouse, she continued slumbering on his shoulder, even when he tried nudging her awake so she could walk inside. The drug they used to get her unconscious must’ve been really strong, because she didn’t budge. With Sarah’s help, he had to carry her inside bridal style, his friend getting the door for him and leading him to the single bedroom. It was barren— no one really spent the night here. Before Zayn left they never even came to the warehouse. Gatherings were normally at his mansion where sometimes they’d stay the night and hang out together. When he was gone, they had to put all the leftover money together to establish a new base, which was this ratty old warehouse until they could afford something new and nicer.
Thankfully the room had a soft bed with sheets on and a small electric heater that did a good job warming up the place in ten minutes. He set the girl down on the mattress, but as he let go to leave her alone, she fisted his shirt tightly, “Stay,” She mumbled sleepily.
And Harry was many things, but he wasn’t a fool. If his sweetheart wanted him to stay, then he’d stay for as long as she needed. He owed her that much after what he put her through the past few weeks.
So he sat there next to her, stroking her hair while she curled her head on his lap. Maybe it was time for him to finally address the elephant in the room— his evergrowing feelings for Y/N. At first he thought it was just a crush; the kind you have when you spot a cute girl from across the bar and think about buying her a drink and then bedding her. Except Harry only did the former instead of the latter, because he was too scared to go any further with her. She was so keen and so eager when she first came up to him. He spotted her intentions from a mile away. The way she rambled nervously, fidgeted with her hair, her dress, and then when he went to leave she grabbed his hand, asking him to come home with her… She was driving him nuts already.
He couldn’t get her off his mind after that. Not as he rode his bike home, warmed up a frozen steak dinner and then went off to the warehouse to see Mitch. Not as they had to do a raid in return for a debt owed to bigger lord and Harry ended up getting badly slashed and beat. And certainly not when she patched him up in her bathroom, offering her sweet smiles and worried glances.
Everything escalated when Gary plotted to kidnap her outside the convenience store. Harry liked to believe fate brought them together that night; that he was meant to be there to save her, bring her back to his place and give her solace. Seeing her in his space was probably the tipping point, though. It gave him a glimpse into a reality which he knew was impratical. Even if he did act on his feelings for her, he’d be selfish. How can he willingly let her into this violent, painful world of his knowing it would only bring her down too?
“I think we made matters worse,” Sarah brought Harry back to earth, standing quietly in the doorway. She was all changed now, rid of blood-soaked clothes, “We’re only delaying the inevitable. Dean will come back for his money. He’s a greedy bastard.”
“I think we’ll be okay for a while,” Harry said softly so as to not wake Y/N. Sarah gave him a look that read ‘are you fucking out of your mind’, “What makes you say that?”
“We’re wiring him half.”
“What?”
He looked back down at Y/N— at the slight rise and fall of her chest and the puffs of air making her hair flutter beneath her nose, “Should be there in about two days.”
“What are you talking about? We can’t afford that, Harry,” Sarah walked in now, taking a seat at the foot of the bed. She still had an incredulous expression; staring at Harry like he’d grown a second head. “I can.” He replied simply.
Sarah frowned. “...How?”
When he didn’t say anything, realisation dawned on her face. Her shoulders sagged and she began nodding her head ‘no’, “Harry.” The room fell silent. Sarah searched his face, waiting for him to smile, to admit he was joking and this was all a big prank. That the truth was anything but the insane possibility she silently considered in her head.
He didn't.
“Your escape funds?” she asked quietly.
It was true. After getting off the phone with Mitch at the parking garage, Harry didn’t waste any time organising the transfer to Dean. To do so was literally insane, he knows, but money comes and goes, but there is only one Y/N on this earth who he’d really, really like for her to stay. At least for as long as she’d have him.
The funds in question accumulated in a special savings account he opened when he first joined the gang. The idea was to deposit as much of his earnings as he could in the bank so he could save up enough to study and pursue his dreams when he paid off his debt. Before falling into this world of trouble, Harry had plans to become a criminal psychologist. He’d been preparing to tackle the degree since he was in high school, properly committed to the point where he had a poster of John E. Douglas on his wall. Things went south when his dad suddenly died and his mum fell ill and bedridden, which forced young Harry to go down avenues he only ever saw people get coerced into on TV.
Somewhere between trying to make ends meet and having to let go of his passion to help people, Harry began relating more to the criminals he studied about rather than the person trying to understand them.
Now he hoped that maybe this repayment would contribute towards his debt being paid off to the gang and he might actually be able to leave sooner and do all the things he wants to do, like go back to uni and study. This could work in his favor— he just needed to look at it the right way.
Harry knows Dean would stop at no end. It didn’t matter that they’d shot and injured him and his two best men. He would come back, and now he knows Harry’s soft spot is Y/N, creating a risk beyond his imagination. There was no way Harry would let Dean or any of his men touch her; and if the price for that was to delay his freedom, he’d do it a hundred more times in a heartbeat.
Harry nodded once. “Most of what I had.”
“Harry that’s fucking crazy!”
He looked down at Y/N for a long moment before speaking. “Maybe,” His fingers scratched sweetly at her scalp, “But I could never live with myself if anything happens to her again.”
-
This time when Y/N awoke, she was very happy to find herself tucked beneath Harry’s familiar covers. The pillows smelled like him and Y/N shamelessly dug her nose into the cushion, breathing deeply as the past events eventually dawned on her.
Within a span of seventy-two hours, two times there were attempts to kidnap her, one of which was successful. She learned that her new friend whom she had a massive crush on was part of the mafia. She was abducted and taken by a druglord and used as bait plus ransom to demand a forty thousand dollar payment. And in that process, she saw three men get shot and injured while in the middle of an active shootout. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see was Dean and Finn laying on top of each other, bloodied, one clutching his leg and the other his arm, groaning in pain.
Just a couple of months ago she had no idea that these people even existed. Her life consisted of her and Coco, her five shifts a week at the ice cream shop and the occasional night out she’d frequent with her friends every now and then. She kept her head down and worked hard to pay off her student loans, not a whiff of anything this nasty coming her direction. All until one night she got the hots for a mysterious man at the bar, and everything changed.
She was well-rested now, assuming she’d slept for about five or six hours since the last thing she remembered was being in the van and then carried onto a bed somewhere. Faint were the memories of a hand stroking her hair and her cheek gently, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in Harry’s apartment again. The massive window overlooking the park in his bedroom told her it was well into the night— the moon a dim light casting shadows on his carpet.
There was no sign of him in the bathroom or anything, so she guessed he was probably sleeping in the living room again. Y/N pulled the covers off and slowly sat up. There was a slight headache nagging her brain which was most likely happening because she hadn’t drank water or eaten anything for a long time. Not since this morning when Harry made her that delicious breakfast bagel. Or was it yesterday morning? Fuck, her sense of time was all out of sorts and her phone was dead too so she couldn’t check to confirm.
Grabbing the device to plug it in in the kitchen, she crept her way outside the room and into the living area. Coco must’ve been asleep as the only sounds in the house was of her door creaking open. Like she expected, Harry was there, but he was awake, pacing in front of his couch with his phone glued to his hand. He looked concentrated with his lip between his fingers, not clocking that Y/N was standing inches away from him.
She would’ve spent longer just being there watching, if she was being honest. Harry was a beautiful man and she knew this, yet tonight was different. His chest and back were on display, miles and miles of smooth, tanned, tatted skin stretched over beefy muscles. He wore only a pair of gray sweats that slung low on his hips and his hair was down, tucked behind his ears to keep swept back from his face which was pulled into a small frown. Whatever he was doing had his attention entirely as he only noted her presence when the floorboards cried under her weight.
“You’re awake.” He shut his phone off and took the two steps towards her. The only light in the room was from the moon and stars pouring in through his windows, illuminating the right side of his face.
“Hi,” Y/N replied, fidgeting with her fingers. The realisation dawned upon her that she was still wearing his clothes— a big, gray hoodie (might be the other half of the bottoms he had on) and black sweats. They were soft and they smelt like him, and that might’ve been a contributing factor towards how much she was sleeping around him recently. Tentatively, he tossed his phone on the couch and came closer to her, nearly toe to toe, “Hi. Sleep okay?”
“Yeah. How long was I out for?”
“Like seven hours, I think.”
“Wow.” Seven hours was crazy for Y/N who never had much time to herself anyway. She was always either working or doing chores around the apartment, taking Coco out for walks, getting her ratty car fixed or loosing sleep over not being able to pay next month’s rent. Knowing she knocked out for that long was throwing her nervous system for a loop. Her anxiety keeps trying to convince her she has something to do or she’s forgetting something important even though she knows that’s not the case.
Harry reached a hand up to gently tuck her hair behind her ear, a gesture he was doing a lot of recently. Y/N liked it though— it made her tummy flutter and her heart race as he gazed down at her with an unrecognisable expression. She felt exposed but in a good way. “Yeah. Can’t blame you. Today was a lot.” His hand stayed there, tracing the side of her face with his thumb absentmindedly.
Y/N looked away for a moment before speaking, “I don’t want to talk about it.” She was getting tired of it being the only thing on her mind; as she slept, as she woke, as she ate, as she talked to other people. In the back of her head, images of Gary waiting outside the store with a cloth in his hand never left, and now they were joined by the grotesque visual of Dean and Finn piled on top of each other with gunshot wounds. She would do anything just to think and talk about anything else for even a moment.
“That’s okay. We don’t have to.”
“How come you’re up?” She changed the topic. It was getting hard to focus on anything but the warmth emanating from his bare torso, which if he moved slightly, would be pressed right up against her. The prospect caused her thoughts to snowball. Now she was thinking about the hard lines of his abs she’d feel beneath her fingers and the muscled pillows of his pecs. A lone chain with a cross pendant rested between them and Y/N was itching to grab and pull on it.
“Can’t sleep.”
“Oh,” She attempted to compose herself, willing her thoughts away so she could speak coherently, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Why didn’t you come home with me that night?” The question was one which weighed on her mind all the damn time. Ever since he let her down and she had to go back to her friends unsuccessful, she wondered what it was about her that did it for him. The constant rambling? The nervous tremble in her fingers which she attempted to mask by sipping her drink? Or was there something else he wasn’t telling her? Judging by the way he now clenched his jaw and looked away, she began to think it was the latter.
“Y/N….” He started, hand slipping down to the side of her neck but never leaving her skin.
“No, I want to know,” She pressed, laying her own palm over the swallow on the right side of his body. The touch must’ve caught him off guard, because he looked at her hand and then her face before swallowing, making his Adam’s apple bob, “I always think about it. About you,” Y/N continued, “…Us.”
Harry shook his head. “It’s complicated.”
“What does that even mean?” Her voice was laced with confusion. What did he mean? From her point of view, the proposition was simple. Transactional. A give and a take. One night stands weren’t so outdated were they? Unless he just didn’t want to, which is fair, of course, but she’d like it if he told her straight up rather than beating around the bush with ‘it’s complicated.’ “Am I like, not your type or something? You can tell me, I just want you to be hone—”
“No! No, that’s not it. I think you’re beautiful,” He cut her off. Y/N tried to ignore the way her heart raced at his words, his fingers now fiddling with the hair on the nape of her neck, grazing her skin.
“Then what?” She asked.
“I just… You shouldn’t be hanging out with someone like me. You saw today how dangerous it can get. I’m not someone you should be around.”
“You don’t get to make that choice for me, Harry,” Y/N scoffed. “I can make my own decisions. I wanted to take you home that night. I wanted to be around you. Everything I do is out of my own volition.”
“I know,” He seemed almost pained, watching her with an intense heat that sizzled in her veins. One that made her think that like her, he too was picturing their first meeting, wondering where things could have gone if he’d given in. Her grip on his chest tightened just a fraction as her voice lowered to a sultry tone, “I still think about it. What could’ve happened if you’d just said yes.”
In an act of courage, she grabbed his other hand and brought it up to the side of her breast, letting it rest there. Worried that he would’ve yanked it away, she was very pleasantly surprised when he gripped her side hard, fingers digging into her ribs. The pressure of him there was delicious. Suddenly, she felt like she was swaying on her feet, unable to be still, and he was the only thing grounding her.
“Yeah?” He growled, pupils dilated. Taking the one last step that had their noses touching now, Y/N tilted her head up towards him. Their lips nearly brushed at this angle, “Yeah. I still… still want you to. Want you to touch me.”
“Y/N…” Harry groaned. A small gasp left her lips when he brought the hand at the back of her neck to the front, warm palm encasing her throat as he squeezed very lightly— enough to bring her to her tippy toes. Y/N gave in to her intrusive thoughts and looped her index finger around his necklace, roughly pulling him down until he was merely a breath away, “Kiss me.”
She could practically see the internal battle raging on in his head, as his gaze flitted between her lips and her eyes. There was a push and pull between them; something magnetic when she’d lean in and he’d tease her, and then he’d brush his bottom lip against her top one like a reward. When he did it a second time, she whined, yanking the chain one more time as he whispered, “Fuck.”
Harry’s lips crashed into hers, his grip around her throat so strong she felt like he was lifting her up singlehandedly. A whimper left her as he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue, asking her to open up for him. When she did, he licked into her mouth, tilting her face to the right as he pleased to have better access.
The way he kissed made Y/N’s toes curl— it was like he wanted to crawl inside of her, tasting behind her teeth, sucking her bottom lip and then biting it, hard. She could feel the sheer desperation in the way he used his other hand to push her hips, walking her backwards towards his bedroom, “I think about it too,” He started, finally letting her breathe, but he didn’t go far as he pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses down her jaw and neck, “I wanted to take you right there. Sweet little thing asking me so nicely— wearing that pretty dress,” He twisted so his back was to the bed and she faced him, still reeling from the grip he had on her throat, “Wanted to fuck you hard on my bike. Bend you over the seat and silence you with my fingers as I pounded this needy pussy.”
Y/N was on a whole other plane. She didn’t know her Harry was so filthy. The pure smut that spewed from his mouth so easily had her thinking this wasn’t his first time imagining the scene either. His hand trailed beneath her shirt and toyed with the waistband of her sweats, and she knew if he looked at her undies, she’d have soaked right through them. With every step she took, she could feel herself seeping down her thighs. “I wanted you to,” She whispered. Y/N jumped as his hand went beneath her sweats to grab a handful of her ass, her moan muffled against his lips, “I know, baby,” He replied, kissing the corner of her mouth, “Strip.”
Harry gave her hips a nudge. He sat on the edge of the bed and spread his legs wide, the girl standing between them utterly flustered and hot. He looked at her patiently with both his arms behind him, holding him up. Y/N felt like she was putting on a show for him as she stood there buzzing nervously, fingers finding the hem of her shirt. The last thing she saw before she slowly pulled it over her head was Harry’s hand sliding down to his crotch, giving his cock a squeeze. There was a faint outline of it pressed up against his abdomen and it looked big, slightly curved to the left.
Having forgone a bra, Harry was immediately met with the sight of her bare tits, nipples peaked. He groaned her name, rubbing his cock faster with his lip between his teeth. Each sound he made went straight to her throbbing pussy which cried for his attention. Y/N then worked on her sweats. She untied the string, tugging them down before stepping out of the pile of fabric. She was wearing the underwear that he bought her, and now that she was standing bare before him, she wondered if he had an ulterior motive when buying them considering the pink bow on her mound and the lace which hugged her hips.
He seemed like he was restraining himself from touching her, gaze darting from her tits, to her tummy, to her pussy, to her thighs where she dripped. To rile him up further, a mischievous glint sparkled in Y/N’s eyes as she slyly turned around so her ass was in his face. Slowly, she bent over while at the same time hooking her thumbs into her underwear to pull it off. “Fuck me, baby,” Harry sounded whiney and pretty behind her, “So beautiful.”
Her puffy, wet pussy was probably on full display, and the action did what she intended when he roughly grabbed her hips and pulled her back, seating her right on his clothed cock. Y/N writhed under his touch, shifting her hips for any sort of friction as his hand went to her throat again, turning her face so he could kiss her. This new angle drove her crazy, especially when he let his free fingers snake down to where she leaked. He passed his fingers over her folds twice, pushing them against her throbbing clit to feel it’s heartbeat, “Harry…” Y/N cried into his mouth. She had to pull away when he stuffed a finger inside, deep, curling against her g-spot instantly. He pumped it once, twice, before sadly leaving her empty and wrapping his lips around the finger. His gaze never wavered from hers, closing momentarily as he tasted her, “Taste so sweet, angel. Want you to sit on my face.”
Y/N froze, “What?” She’d never tried that though she’d seen it in porn and read about it in stories. Obviously it intrigued her, and it did look like it felt really good but her nerves were getting to her— how would he breathe with her blocking his airways? Would her weight not crush his neck? As if he noticed her hesitance, Harry kissed her jaw, then her cheek before meeting her eyes, “I want you to sit on my face so I can eat your pussy. S’so good baby, need to feel you everywhere. Want you everywhere.”
“I’ve never um— never done that before,” Y/N admitted. Harry helped her turn around on his lap so she wasn’t hurting her neck trying to talk to him. He scooted back on the bed, pulling her body with his, both his hands holding hers, “Y’don’t have to if y’don’t want to,” He set his head on the pillow, positioning her so she was on top, thighs astride his waist, “But I think it’d be fun. You’ll feel good,” She could tell he was trying to be patient with her, but his gaze kept flitting down to where she leaked as he licked his lips. Both his palms came up to grab and squeeze her breasts, “Yeah, okay, let’s do it. Will it hurt you?”
He laughed and moved her up, up, and up until she was hovering right above his face. The next words were spoken directly to her pussy, since he was too enthralled by her dripping core to meet her eyes, “Not in the slightest.” Not a second was wasted as he yanked her down, his mouth already open and tongue out. The first lick had her doubling over, a broken moan escaping her lips. Y/N gripped the headboard to steady herself, already struggling to hold it together. Harry was relentless beneath her; delivering long, deep licks all the way from her hole to her clit, which he wrapped his lips around and sucked like a starved man. He didn’t do that annoying thing where they popped on and off, instead, suckling in long bursts. When he needed a breath he paused but continued to press searing kisses over the needy button.
When her hips began moving on their own accord to ride his mouth, she has no idea, but Harry seemed like he liked it given the way he moaned against her. The vibrations travelled throughout her whole body. She was worried he wasn’t getting enough air down there, yet any time she lifted to give him space, his grip on her thighs tightened and he stuffed his face into her further. By the morning, she’s sure she will have finger-sized bruises where he held her.
At one time, she was moving a tad too much, to the point where Harry struggled to get his tongue on her, so he delivered a loud spank to her ass which stilled her immediately. She cried out loud, tears prickling in her eyes from both pleasure and pain as her first orgasm ripped through her. Harry continued to lick her through it, murmuring words of encouragement into her clit. He helped her grind against his tongue how she wanted with his nose pressed tightly against her mound.
When she came down, there was a bit of fumbling as she shuffled on his body until she was again resting on his dick and not his mouth. One glance at Harry’s face and her heart was doing somersaults— he had a big, toothy smile on his lips, appearing almost pussy-drunk with his lips, nose, chin and cheeks covered in a shiny layer of her arousal. He eyed her lazily as she began rubbing against his cock, “Not too bad?” He asked, referencing to her hesitance just before.
“Mm-mm. I wanna ride you,” She demanded sweetly. Harry chuckled and rubbed her thighs, going up to her hips, her stomach, and then cupping her breasts. Pinching her nipples, he used the grasp to bring her down to his mouth, “Yeah? I’m not sure this tiny pussy can handle my cock, baby. S’big,” He kissed her bottom lip. Y/N pouted, “I can handle it. At least let me try.”
“F’course y’can try,” He replied. She continued grinding against him and began thinking that maybe he was right; he did feel really big tucked against her folds, and all the men she’d ever been with weren’t really that impressive. She was also sort of out of practice when it came to riding someone, but he looked so good laying there cockily, the urge took control of her.
Both her and Harry worked on taking his sweats off, and she was delighted to see that he wore no boxers, so when the waistband went past his thighs, his massive cock sprung free. Y/N couldn’t help the audible gasp that left her lips. He really wasn’t lying when he said she might struggle riding him. Even Y/N was worried she wouldn’t be able to. He was long, maybe half the length of her forearm, his tip leaking precum already. His balls sat heavy at the base, full and swollen, and he was fucking thick too— if she tried to wrap her hands around it, the tips of her fingers might not touch. Just looking at it made her thighs shake, “Harry…” She whispered, tracing her index finger down the length of it. He twitched, hissing as she circled her thumb on the pink tip, “You’re so big.”
“Too big for you, love?” He asked her, lips open in pleasure.
“Maybe,” Y/N was being honest with him. He did look too big; enough to burn when he first slid in to her. Yet the thought didn’t scare her as much as it should. She was looking forward to feeling him stretch her out, “But I can take it, I think. How will it fit?” Fitting her palm around it, she gave it one slow stroke. “I’ll make it fit,” Harry growled. He clutched her waist hard, guiding her so she could sink on his cock.
The loud, high-pitched whine that came from her was unrecognisable to her own ears; never had she ever been so spent and bent over a man’s cock, but Harry was driving her nuts. He looked fucked-out beneath her, with his hair sweaty and sticking to his forehead, eyes following where they joined and jaw dropped open. It took a few seconds for her to sit on him properly and the burn of him inside was almost too much. She could feel him all the way in her tummy. Whimpering, he put an arm around her shoulders and brought her down to his lips.
Y/N was already feeling immobile. Harry pressed distracting kisses to her lips, soft, wet ones that had her struggling to focus. After about a minute of this, he rolled his hips slightly. The first nudge of him inside punched an embarrassing noise from her, his own groan muffled against her tongue. Y/N began moving her own hips to join him, grinding down as he thrusted up into her. The pain gave way to pleasure after the first few strokes, and because of the angle he was tucked right against her swollen g-spot. His hips dug into her clit with each movement, a different sort of muted pleasure erupting that made her scream.
She was already so wet, and Harry was also leaking, so when they came together the sounds in the room were fucking pornographic. Her pussy was squelching and pulsing as she rode him. “S’that too much?” He asked her after a particularly deep thrust. Y/N arched her back, “No, no— want more. Please, don’t stop,” She said as he fondled with her tits again, “Want it harder.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmmm.” What Harry did next, she wasn’t expecting. His knees bent and he planted his feet on the mattress before stilling his hips. Using his hands to stop her grinding, he scooted towards the edge of the bed, still inside of her before cupping her ass with both hands and standing up. This new position made her sob into his shoulder. Her hands went under his arms where her nails scratched down his back as he began pounding into her relentlessly. Harry moved her up and down his cock like she weighed nothing, walking towards his massive windows. Pressing her against the glass, he gathered her wrists and stretched them out above her.
The whole time his dick was merciless— stuffed deep inside of her and moving at a pace she didn’t think was humanly possible (at least not while standing). It took maybe three more strokes before she was creaming all over him. This orgasm was way more intense; she felt it brewing from the tips of her fingers, a hot pool of arousal gathering in her gut before it exploded, spreading through her veins like searing lava. She squeezed and pulsed around him, the action making him whine and cry her name.
All this must’ve pushed him to his end too, because he pulled out, practically threw her on the bed and stood between her parted thighs. Y/N watched with heavy breathes as he began pumping himself, once, twice, thrice, and then he came all over her pussy and stomach. White, hot ropes of cum pooled in the dip of her ribs, some of it landing on her chin as he released, groaning deeply. The sight of him spent made Y/N want to go all over again, but then the exhaustion settled into her bones and she thought otherwise— she was also still hungry and that wasn’t helping the case.
He tugged one last time before rolling his neck to see her, popping a dimple at her state, “Y’okay?” He asked, patting her knee. Y/N nodded, “Yup.” A warm giggle sounded from him as he pressed a quick kiss to her lips, “I’ll get some wipes.”
-
After they both cleaned up, Harry left to make her a sandwich and get a juice box from the kitchen. She was so hungry after everything she felt like she was on the verge of passing out. The night was slowly turning into day as the first rays of sun filtered into his room. Y/N laid on top of his chest, her belly and heart full. Their legs were tangled beneath the covers and she traced her fingers over the butterfly on his tummy, his own hands grazing her cheek. Her head was tilted towards him.
The past hour had just been empty conversations and sweet nothings— things they never got to talk about despite having known each other so adequately. They spoke of everything but the past few days’ events, and for that Y/N was very grateful. Every now and then he’d nudge their noses together and kiss her. Y/N knew Harry was sweet from the start, but this side of him was a surprise to her; he treated her like she was delicate, like a petal.
“Harry,” She spoke up after a particularly long pause, “I want this to be real.”
Instantly, he knew exactly what she meant; she could tell by the shift in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but she beat him to it, “And I know what you’re going to say— that it’s dangerous and not safe to be with you…” She continued, “But I also know you’re worth taking that risk. I don't want a safe life if it means it's one without you.”
Wordlessly, he searched her face for any sign that she was kidding. Y/N looked at him apprehensively, half anticipating that he might reject her, and half anticipating that he might finally do something that’s selfishly just for him. She really hoped it was the latter. A moment passed before he cupped her jaw and brought his lips to hers in a passionate kiss. This one was different to all the others, in the sense that there was no lust behind it. She could feel the emotion poured into it as he rubbed his thumb against her cheekbone.
“I think I’ve been yours for a while now,” He rested his forehead against hers again, “And I’m really, really tired of pretending otherwise.”
Y/N felt his heart race beneath her palm. “Me too.”
A/N: OKAYYYY THIS SERIES IS OVERR!!! guys i actually love these two so much this is my fav series so if u ever want a check in or anything lit just ask and im going to deliver!! I AM VERY PROUD OF HOW THIS TURNED OUT AND I HOPE U ENJOYED THIS STORY! if u did please like reblog comment send an ask they are lit anon so dont be shy!! i love hearing from you!!1 NOW ON TO THE NEXT!
The dreamer meets the miserable. - (5.1k) [series introduction] angst
(2) the miserable
Violet gets a surprise visit from a not so pleasant person. - (3.6k) angst
(3) cupid
Violet tells the mythological story behind her tattoo.. - (5.9k) angst
(4) psyche
Violet gets more out of Harry than she ever expected she would - (8.3k) angst
(5) before
Harry unexpectedly caves in.. - (5.3k) angst
(6) pretty angel
Harry steps into Violet’s world, but he doesn’t stay long - (6.7k) angst
(7) after
Violet decides to give Harry another chance.. (8.5k)
(8) wonderland
Violet can’t control her nerves and Harry can’t tame his thoughts.. - (6.2k) angst
(9) to be wanted
Violet comes to a conclusion about Harry’s feelings.. - (10.8k) angst
(10) last kiss - available now on patreon
(11) different - available now on patreon
(12) the need - available now on patreon
> part 1 teaser <
> part 2 teaser <
> part 3 teaser <
> part 4 teaser <
> part 5 teaser <
> part 6 teaser <
> part 7 teaser <
> part 8 teaser <
🖤 extras 🖤
complicated (photos & playlist update)
small death (photos & playlist update)
waiting game (photos & playlist update)
and love (photos & playlist update)
[tattoo artist h x fmc]
An unexpected friendship sparks between a creative, bubbly girl and a moody, angsty tattoo artist. Violet meets Harry and immediately feels some kind of connection form between them. He tends to be very toxic and often treats her like she’s not important, but only when they’re around other people. Behind closed doors, he’s a different person who shows her affection and love. She’s unable to let go of the possibility of fixing him. He can’t stand the thought of admitting how he really feels. Her efforts to change him might not be enough.
[angst, smut, toxic]
warning: this will be extremely toxic. he is going to be mean, angsty, and hurtful at times (never physical, I won’t write any physical violence ever!!) - this is the super toxic concept I’ve talked about before. (the ivy series was just me dipping my toes into angst writing..) — alcohol use, drug/substance use, violence, harsh language, other dark themes
[fmc will have a name but limited to no descriptions — the name is just to make the writing process better for me]
> playlist :: spotify <
Cover image belongs to me. Collage image belongs to me.
ribbon banner credit: #cursed-carmine on tumblr
tattoo themed banners credit: #saradika-graphics on tumblr
CW: themes of family issues and emotional abuse (mentions of being yelled at, lack of parental care), illness (fever, sore throat), emotional vulnerability and crying, soft intimate kissing and cuddling (no sexual content).
Synopsis: Y/N falls sick while Harry’s daughter is visiting.
A/N: I know y’all probably wanted smut but i’m sick + going through it so bear with me 😭 also i changed the the girl’s name last minute because i was using my future daughter’s name and i wanted to gatekeep, if y’all have other name ideas lmk and i’ll change it
The house was quieter than usual for a Thursday morning, except for the small hum of Clara’s chatter from the living room. You could hear her from the kitchen, her tiny voice babbling over the soft music Harry had put on.
Clara’s mom was away for the week, which meant she was with Harry full-time until Sunday. That also meant she was here with you. Living with Harry had never been an arrangement you’d imagined when you’d first met him. He was older, grounded, and very much a dad, and you were… well, still figuring things out.
The first time you saw him with Clara, you’d thought, Oh. That’s what real love looks like. He didn’t just feed her and keep her clean, he looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world. You weren’t used to seeing that kind of tenderness. You weren’t used to anyone deserving it, let alone receiving it.
Now, as you leaned against the doorway and watched him sit cross-legged on the carpet with Clara, your chest felt heavy. She was in her little cream sweater, her hair clipped to the side in a tiny bow. She giggled as Harry built a block tower just for her to knock over. Every time it collapsed, she threw her head back in delight, clapping her small hands, and Harry laughed along with her.
Something in you squeezed painfully. You didn’t remember your dad ever getting on the floor with you. You didn’t remember him laughing with you, or looking like that, like you were worth his time. You felt your eyes sting and quickly turned away, pretending to busy yourself with the mugs on the counter.
But Harry noticed. Of course he did.
“Bun,” he called softly. His voice was always gentler when Clara was around, but you’d started noticing it got even softer when it was directed at you. “C’mere a sec.”
You swallowed, blinking rapidly before turning toward him. He was still sitting on the carpet, Clara now stacking blocks in his lap, but his eyes were on you.
You stepped into the living room, forcing a small smile, and sat down beside them. Clara instantly reached for you, handing you a block.
“F’you,” she announced proudly.
You took it, your smile wobbling. “Thanks, baby.”
Harry watched you for another moment before asking, “What’s wrong, bunny?” The nickname made your throat tighten even more.
“Nothing,” you mumbled, but your voice wasn’t steady. Instead of explaining—because how could you?—you leaned into him. It was instinct, the way your body tilted toward his warmth, your head resting against his arm.
His arm moved immediately, wrapping around you and pulling you into his side without a single question. “Alright,” he murmured, kissing the top of your head briefly. “Don’t have t’talk if you don’t wanna.”
And that was that. He didn’t press. He didn’t tell you to stop being dramatic. He just let you sit there, tucked into him, while Clara continued stacking her blocks.
It wasn’t until two days later that you realized you were getting sick.
It started with a dull ache in your temples, then the shivers, then the sore throat that made swallowing feel like sandpaper. You tried to hide it, old habits dying hard, because you knew what happened when you admitted to being sick. In your childhood home, illness wasn’t met with care, it was met with impatience, with raised voices about being stupid for not taking care of your health. You’d learned to deal with it silently.
But Harry wasn’t blind.
You were curled on the couch that afternoon, blanket pulled to your chin, when he crouched in front of you. Clara was napping upstairs.
“Baby,” he said gently, one hand coming up to brush your hair from your face. “You’re warm.”
“I’m fine,” you whispered automatically.
He frowned. “No, you’re not.” His thumb stroked your temple. “You’ve been quiet all day, you’re flushed, and I can hear you sniffling from the kitchen.”
You looked away, embarrassed, a little afraid. “I—”
“Shh,” he hushed, and somehow it wasn’t patronizing. “S’alright to feel rough, bunny. Means I just get t’take care of you.”
You blinked at him, confused. “You… want to?”
His brow furrowed like you’d just asked the strangest question in the world. “’Course I do.” Without waiting for your protest, he helped you sit up just enough to tuck a fresh blanket around you. “I’ll get you some tea. And somethin’ light t’eat, yeah?”
You didn’t know what to say, so you just nodded.
When Clara woke up, she toddled into the living room, rubbing her eyes. The moment she saw you bundled on the couch, her face crumpled.
“Y/N?” she asked in her little voice, climbing up beside you with surprising determination. “Sad?”
“I’m just sick, baby,” you told her softly.
Her lower lip wobbled. She looked back at Harry, who was watching from the doorway, then back at you. Without a word, she wriggled off the couch, disappeared into her play corner, and came back clutching her small, well-loved teddy bear. She shoved it into your hands.
“Mine,” she said seriously. “Make better.”
Your heart cracked clean in two. “Thank you, Lara,” you whispered, hugging it to your chest.
And then, to your utter shock, she leaned forward and kissed your cheek, just a quick, soft press like she’d seen Harry do to her a hundred times. After that, she reached up and patted your hair clumsily, murmuring, “S’okay, s’okay,” the exact same way Harry murmured to her when she cried.
You were gone. Completely undone. Tears spilled over before you could stop them, and you pressed your face into your hand to hide it. She just patted your head again, content to copy her dad’s gentleness.
Harry must have noticed, because the next thing you knew, he was beside you on the couch, pulling both you and Clara into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Got my two girls here,” he said softly, chin resting on your head. “Both need lookin’ after.”
You didn’t mean to cry harder, but you did. Not loud, just soft little sniffles you couldn’t swallow back.
“Hey, hey, baby,” he soothed, kissing the side of your face. “S’just me.”
You shook your head, burying yourself deeper into his t-shirt, the fabric warm and smelling faintly of his cologne and laundry powder. Clara’s little body was wedged between the two of you, her head resting against your arm while she clutched onto your borrowed teddy bear. You could feel her small breaths puffing against your skin, and somehow that made the knot in your throat tighter.
Harry shifted slightly so you were more cocooned in his chest. His voice was soft but firm in that way he had, like there was no arguing with him even though he never raised it.
“Alright,” he murmured, “let’s get her comfy in bed, and I’ll bring tea. Maybe a biscuit if she’s good.”
Clara perked up instantly. “Me too?”
Harry grinned down at her. “You too. But first, nurse duty.”
She nodded solemnly, clearly accepting her new role, before wriggling off the couch and padding toward the kitchen, probably to fetch the plastic doctor’s kit she always brought out when anyone in her world wasn’t feeling well.
Harry tucked an arm under your knees and another behind your back before you could protest, lifting you like you weighed nothing. “You’re burning up,” he murmured, his brow furrowed as he carried you upstairs. “Should’ve told me sooner.”
“I didn’t want to…” You trailed off, embarrassed. “It’s just a cold.”
“Doesn’t matter, you still should’ve.” he said as he nudged your bedroom door open with his foot.
He lowered you onto the bed, smoothing the blanket over you.
Clara appeared in the doorway moments later, lugging her bright red doctor’s bag. She clambered up onto the mattress with an exaggerated grunt and began rooting through it with serious concentration. Out came the plastic stethoscope, which she draped over her neck.
“Check you,” she announced, pressing the cold round bit (well, plastic pretending to be cold) to your forehead. “Hmm. Sick.” She glanced at Harry for confirmation.
“Very official diagnosis,” Harry teased, ruffling her hair. “Good job, nurse.”
She beamed and handed you the toy thermometer. “Put in mouth,” she instructed.
That earned a chuckle from Harry as he set a tray on the nightstand, mug of steaming tea, a plate with two ginger biscuits, and a glass of water. He passed you the tea, crouching beside the bed so he was level with you. “Sip slow, baby. It’s hot.”
You obeyed, your hands shaking just slightly around the warm ceramic. The honey-sweet liquid soothed your raw throat, and you felt some of the tension in your shoulders ease. Clara snuggled into your side, resting her head on your arm, the teddy bear now nestled between you both.
“Look at my girls,” he said quietly, setting the tray on the bedside table. “Clara, bug, wanna come sit with me while Y/N has her tea?”
Clara shook her head fiercely. “Stay.”
Harry chuckled, kissing the crown of her head before settling on your other side, effectively cocooning you.
“Make you better,” she mumbled, eyes already drooping with that post-nap drowsiness. “Promise.”
You managed a watery smile. “You already are, baby.”
Clara munched on a piece of apple, crumbs sticking to her fingers. When she finished, she wiped them on Harry’s sleeve, and he didn’t even blink, just handed her a biscuit and kissed her forehead.
Harry leaned in and pressed a kiss to your hair, his hand petting softly at the back of your head. “Alright,” he murmured again, “time for this nurse to get some sleep too.”
“Can I stay with you and Y/N?” she asked, her voice small.
Harry smiled. “Y/N needs her rest, bug. You’ve gotta let her get better.”
Clara pouted but obeyed when he scooped her up, her teddy bear momentarily abandoned in your lap. “Night-night,” she said, giving you a sloppy kiss on the cheek before letting Harry carry her to her own room.
The quiet that followed felt heavier than before. You were lying there in the dim room, the tea cooling on the nightstand.
It wasn’t long before Harry was back, shutting the bedroom door behind him. He crossed the room, sat down on the edge of your bed, and tilted his head at you in that careful, patient way he had when he knew you were holding something in.
“Bun,” he started softly, “you’ve been cryin’ a lot today. More than just from feelin’ poorly.”
You pulled the blanket up higher, tucking your chin into it. “It’s nothing.”
He leaned down, trying to catch your eyes. “Don’t think it is.”
Your lip wobbled before you could stop it. He noticed, his gaze flickered to your mouth, then back to your eyes, and he reached up to cup your cheek.
“Not gonna push if y’not ready,” he murmured. “But… I’d like t’understand, so I can do right by you.”
That undid you.
“It’s stupid,” you whispered, blinking hard.
“Doubt it.”
You swallowed hard. “I just… I get jealous. Of Clara.” The confession tumbled out in a rush, your voice breaking. “Not in a bad way, just—she has you. She has someone who looks at her like she matters. And I didn’t have that. Ever. When I was sick, I got yelled at. If I cried, I got told to stop being dramatic. And watching you with her just makes me…” You hiccupped, the words tangling into a sob. “…wish I could’ve had it too.”
His expression softened so much you almost couldn’t bear to look at him. “Oh, bunny.”
“And then you—” You bit your lip, tears blurring everything. “You’re just… nice. You don’t get mad. You make tea and tuck me in and—” You hiccupped, covering your face with the blanket. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“You sound like someone who wasn’t given what she needed,” he corrected gently, pulling you into his chest. “And I can’t change the past, but I can sure as hell make sure you get it now.”
You clung to him, your small frame shaking as sobs broke loose, ones that made you feel even smaller than you already did in his arms. “Why are you so nice to me?” you managed between breaths.
“Because you deserve it,” he said simply, kissing the wet trails on your cheeks without hesitation. “Every bit of it.”
You didn’t mean to, but the kisses made you melt in a different way. You tipped your face up, and he met your mouth with the same tenderness, letting you set the pace. It wasn’t urgent, just slow presses that felt more like promises than anything else. His thumb stroked your jaw, his other hand rubbing slow circles on your back until your breathing began to even out.
Between kisses, he murmured, “Pretty girl… pouty little bunny… gonna take care of you.”
You made a small, needy sound, and he kissed it away, his lips soft but insistent. When you broke apart, you were breathing hard, your forehead resting against his.
“Better?” he asked.
You nodded faintly. “Want more.”
He chuckled, pressing another to the tip of your nose. “Greedy.” But he gave you more anyway, trailing them across your cheeks, your lips, your jaw, the curve of your neck until you were practically melting against him.
When he finally pulled back, you were dazed and pouty, your lips tingling. “Mm,” you murmured almost shy.
“Let’s get you settled, sweetheart.” He reached for the cold cloth he’d brought in, laying it gently across your forehead. The coolness made you sigh, and he smiled faintly. “There we go.”
You stayed still because you didn’t want him to move away. He seemed to understand, stretching out beside you and letting you curl into him, your head on his chest. His fingers threaded lazily through your hair.
“You’re safe here,” he said after a long while, his voice barely above a whisper. “With me.”
the one where YN realises that being engaged to her boss is harder than she originally anticipated.
READ PART 1 HERE
author's note: the highly anticipated part two!! thank you so much for the support on the first part it has truly warmed my heart. I'm so excited for you all to read the next instalment of these two I love them so much. (also keep your eyes peeled for a special announcement next week)
word count: 8.6k of frustrating eco!harry and lawyer!yn (I promise they get over themselves)
WARNINGS: strong language, sexual content, lack of communication about unspoken feelings (I'm sorry).
let me know what you think of breach of contract here! mwah <3
YN spent all weekend trying not to think about Harry. She tried not to think about that balcony, and even more about the almost kiss. She tried not to think about any of it.
She failed.
It was all she could think about.
She was actually excited for work on Monday morning, as it finally gave her the opportunity to focus on something that wasn’t the fact that her boss and fake-fiancé had almost kissed her on a balcony outside of their contract.
YN immediately knows something is wrong because everyone’s staring at the phones again, and then everyone’s staring at her. Completely and utterly staring.
YN beelines for her desk and immediately pulls her phone out — and there they are.
“Sources Claim Harry Styles Engagement Is Nothing More Than A PR Arrangement.”
YN would love to know who these sources are.
She skims the article, and everything it was saying was true. They hadn’t been spotted together outside of official events, no holidays together or casual dates. Nothing.
YN’s entire stomach twists. She immediately feels sick. Not because the strangers don’t believe them, but because if this lie does come out she knows that she helped create it.
Melody appears at her doorway.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” YN responds, eyes not leaving her phone.
“You okay?”
YN closes her phone and places it face down, “As good as I can be.”
“We all know it’s not true,” Melody nods, “We can all see it.”
“Thanks Melody.” YN feels sick all over again just saying those words.
Just at that point, Kelly appears in YN’s doorway.
“Boardroom. Five minutes.”
Melody’s lips part but she doesn’t say anything. YN just nods, waiting until her office had cleared before dropping her head to the desk and exhaling a groan she didn’t know she was keeping inside.
Inside the boardroom, everyone’s waiting for her. Kelly, Dana and Harry. The air feels more serious than the last time they were all together.
YN takes a deep breath and drops down in the seat next to Harry. His eyes follow her, but she struggles to look at him, the events of the Charity Gala still lingering in her head.
“We’ve got a plan,” Kelly says immediately.
“Which is?” YN prompts.
“A weekend away,” Kelly explains, “People trust grainy photos more than polished interviews.”
“That’s depressing,” Harry responds, “Do people have nothing better to do?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Kelly responds, “It’s the truth.”
“So, we’re now manufacturing authenticity?” YN asked, fingers messing with the hem of her skirt.
“Exactly,” Kelly responds, seeming very proud of themselves, “Dana’s already found the place and booked for this weekend, one room separate beds just incase anybody recognises you and a fun itinerary already in the making.”
“How absolutely normal,” YN responds, rubbing a hand over her face.
Harry just laughs.
They’d settled on a Hotel & Spa resort an hour into the countryside. Small villages around for excursions, but on paper the perfect place for a getaway for a newly engaged couple.
Harry had picked her up after work on Friday from her flat. His car probably cost more than her rent but she wasn’t complaining.
They were both still revelling from the Charity Gala, so the car ride was silent. YN didn’t know what to say, and it seemed like Harry’s didn’t either.
Around half an hour into the drive Harry finally broke the silence.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not angry,” YN responded, still looking out of the window, “I’m just tired.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Today… not much.”
There was still the awkward air from the Charity Gala, mixed with things that YN hadn’t told him. The fact that every time she opened her phone, the media was saying another thing about her that wasn’t true.
Being a lawyer YN had heard it all. She would say that she had a thick skin, but when they were not only saying these things about her personality, but her career as well — this was the exact thing that she had been worried about.
“I can hear you.”
YN finally turned to him, “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You’re thinking too loudly.”
YN sighs, toying with a piece of thread on her jeans, “I just… I don’t regret what we’re doing but… I said that I never wanted it to effect my career and there’s so many people online saying I’m a gold digger, or that I’m sleeping my way up the company and I… never mind I’m just tired.”
The rest of the drive is silent, and YN is thankful for that.
When they arrive at the hotel, YN wants nothing more than to collapse in bed and sleep. She’s exhausted. Not just from the car journey, but from the whole mental turmoil the internet is putting her through.
Harry has all the details for check in so YN leans against the counter whilst he sorts it out. She flutters in and out of the conversation whilst looking around at how nice this place seemed — exposed beams, natural light, a perfect mix of modern whilst also keeping the natural history of a building.
“I’m really sorry but there seems to have been some sort of mix up,” The receptionist explains, “The reservations states that you requested a suite and those only come with one bed.”
“Sorry, what?” YN buts in to the conversation now, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head.
“I’m really sorry, or system usually mentions that during the booking.”
YN turns to Harry, “Did you know about this?”
“No?” He looks shocked that YN even asked him that, “Kelly and Dana booked it. Not me.”
“Is there…” YN tapped her nail on the desk lightly, “Is there any more rooms available?”
“I’m really sorry but we’re fully booked for the weekend.”
YN guessed they were sharing.
The room itself was huge, and the bed looked big enough for four people never mind just two. There was also a sofa in the corner of the room. YN dropped her bag down on the floor and flopped down on the bed.
“I’ll, uh,” Harry scratched the back of his neck as he spoke, “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
“It’s fine,” YN shrugged, not lifting her head up, “We’ll figure it out.”
They figured it out by creating what YN could only describe as a pillow barrier between them. YN felt as though she couldn’t move all night, and didn’t get the restful sleep she was anticipating but there was something peaceful in listening to the deep lulls of Harry’s breaths.
By the next morning, they ventured out into one of the neighbouring villages. They walked side by side, pointing things out to each other but there was still an air of awkwardness between them. At one point, Harry’s hand brushed hers and YN felt it all the way to the tip of her toes.
They end up having lunch in a small café. YN orders an iced coffee, sandwich and some chips. Harry orders a salad, and YN tries and fails not to screw her nose up at the sight of it.
At one point, he reaches over the table and steals one of her chips directly off her plate. YN’s mouth drops open in shock.
“That’s mine!”
“I’m paying,” Harry shrugs.
“Still,” YN pouts, crossing her arms over her chest, “If you wanted chips order chips.”
YN’s favourite part though was the small independent bookshop they went to after lunch. If you were walking too fast you would have missed it, but YN spotted it straight away.
“That’s the book you wanted,” Harry pointed out as they walked silently up and down the shelves.
YN is shocked. She’d only mentioned the book in passing a few weeks ago and yet he remembered. She was even more shocked when he picked it up and took it to the counter without another word.
Their blissful weekend was interrupted on the walk back to the hotel though, especially when they spotted the cameras that were obviously waiting for them.
They didn’t say anything, but Harry reached for her hand as they walked. It was small, but it caused YN’s body to do somersaults.
He didn’t let go of her hand the entire walk back.
Later that evening, instead of venturing out they decided to stay in. They’d both seemingly had enough of parading themselves around.
They were sat on the hotel balcony, watching the view of the sunset over the countryside with blankets wrapped around them, half drunk mugs of tea on the table. There was nobody around them, no eyes, nobody waiting to photograph them — it was just them.
It was peaceful.
“Do you know what everyone wants from me?” Harry asks, not looking at her just continuing to stare straight ahead.
“No.” YN shakes her head lightly.
“Everything.” He sighed, “If I’m tired, somebody looses money. If I make the wrong decision, somebody looses their job. If I defend myself, I’m arrogant. If I stay quiet, I’m guilty. And if I’m being completely honest… I’m exhausted.”
YN stays quiet, and in the air of sharing she admits, “I’m scared I’ll disappear.”
Harry turns to her and frowns.
YN explains, “I don’t want to just become… Harry Styles’ fiancée. I want to still be me but… Sometimes I think people stopped seeing me the second I put the ring on.”
Without even meaning to, she starts to spin the band around her finger.
Harry looks genuinely upset. She didn’t want to upset him.
“You were never a prop.” He admits, “Not to me… You were the only one brave enough to tell me no.”
YN doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know what to say.
“That’s…” Harry shrugs lightly, “That’s why I trusted you.”
The silence spreads between them like wildflower. YN watches as Harry’s eyes keep fluttering between hers and her lips. That same feeling that consumed them at the Gala was back, and this time it felt like neither one of them wanted to pull away.
YN makes the first move. With the blanket still around her shoulders she stands and makes her way over to Harry.
“Tell me to stop,” She says.
He doesn’t say anything, and instead he just reaches his hands out for her. He coaxes her towards him until she’s dropping down on his lap, her legs on either side of his.
“I don’t want to.” He finally admits.
That’s all it takes. YN crashes her face forward, dropping her lips to his. Her hands rest on either side of his face, whilst his stopped on her hips.
This wasn’t for anybody but themselves, and they could feel that. All their frustrations about this agreement had accumulated in the fact that they both didn’t want to stay away from each other.
When they finally broke away, YN’s teeth clamped down on her bottom lip to suppress her smile.
“I don’t think that was in contract.”
“No,” Harry laughs, brushing a piece of her hair off her face.
Then they’re kissing again. This time it’s more fierce, and neither of them pulls apart. In fact this time, Harry lifts himself up off the seat with YN still attached to him. He helps her wrap her legs around his waist and then he walks her into the bedroom.
She lands on the bed with a soft thud, and Harry follows her down. He hovers over her, their lips never parting.
“I…” He pulls away and rests his forehead against hers, “Do you want this?”
“I want this.”
Harry’s lips are back on hers and the feeling is all encompassing. The blanket around her shoulder falls but she doesn’t care, she’s not cold anymore. The feeling of Harry’s body pressed so close to hers has given her all the heat she needs.
Her hands slipped underneath the t-shirt he was wearing to rest on the toned skin beneath it, using it as leverage to bring him even closer to her. Instead, he pulls away and in one smooth motion he pulls it over his head.
Now, YN knew that Harry liked to take care of himself physically. He went to the gym, went on runs but she’d never seen it like this before. Her fingers danced across the ferns on the bottom of his stomach and he shuddered beneath her touch.
His fingers began to toy with the sweatshirt YN had on, and then that was pulled off too. Her bare chest was exposed, just like his and her nipples pebbled the second they hit the cold air.
There was a look in Harry’s eye that she hadn’t ever seen before. Not in a professional setting, or even during their ventures as fake fiancé’s. It was desire. The look was desire and YN could feel it in her bones.
He places a flurry of light kisses on her lips, then her cheek and then down her neck until he reached her chest. He gave her a look, and she nodded and then his lips wrapped around her nipples. YN’s back arched off the bed, a small whine leaving her lips when his teeth grazed the sensitive nub.
“Harry…” He seemed to understand her whine, as lips moved to her stomach, all the way down to the drawstring of her joggers.
“You still want this?”
“Please…” YN lifted her hips up off the bed so he could pull them off her legs, underwear included, leaving her completely exposed to him.
His head dropped to her thigh, pressing a light kiss there before he looked up at her again. That desire again. Not something that could ever be found in a contract.
“Fucking beautiful,” Another kiss to her thigh, “Knew you would be.”
“Can you please get on with it?” YN all but ordered.
Harry shrugged, “Since you said please.”
In one swift movement Harry lifted her thighs so they were resting over his shoulders and moved her body closer to the edge of the bed. He was face to face with her, and he started to place kisses around the sensitive area, enough to have YN withering but not enough to give her the friction she needed.
Then his tongue starts to slowly flick her clit, using the leverage of her legs over his shoulders as she starts to try and pull away. The feeling is relentless, and YN doesn’t know if it’s the pent up frustration in her, or the look in his eyes as he does it but YN can feel the pit burning inside of her stomach immediately.
As he wraps his lips around the nub, YN almost looses it. Her hands reach out and tug at the curls on the top of his head. She then decides that she’s had enough. She slides her hands down to his cheeks and pulls him off her. He looks confused for a second, but when she pulls his face up to hers he understands more.
That doesn’t explain the shock of watching YN sink to her knees whilst he stood at the edge of the bed. Her fingers looped into his shorts and pulled them down his thighs, exposing his already hard-cock to her. YN tried not to, but she couldn’t help the way that her eyes widened when she saw the size of him, hard and leaking in her hand.
“YN, you don’t have to.” Harry noted but YN shook her head.
“I want to.”
She placed a few light kisses to his tip, teasing him just in the way he’d done to her before she let it slip past her open lips. She looked up to see that Harry’s head was thrown back, his eyes shut and his lips parted as deep breaths escaped them. She used her hand jerk the base of his cock that didn’t fit into her mouth, and just when she thought she was going to bring him closer to the edge he pushed her off him.
“What?”
“Wanna be inside of you,” Harry murmured against her lips as he pushed her back down to the bed, “If you’ll let me.”
“Do you have a condom?” She asked, moving backwards on the bed until she hit the pillows.
“In my bag,” He turned towards it, “Wait a sec.”
“A little presumptuous of you, Mr Styles, to pack them,” YN teased, giggling slightly when she saw him rifling through his bag to find them.
Once he did, she watched with clouded eyes as he ripped the package open and slipped the condom onto his cock. He then crawled up the bed until he was hovering over her.
“Still okay?”
“More than okay,” YN pressed another kiss to his lips before she whined slightly, “Wanna feel you… please.”
That’s all it took for Harry to line himself up at her entrance and slowly slip himself in. YN obviously knew that it was big from it just being in her mouth, but the feeling of it inside of her was something else entirely. Pants left her lips as Harry’s hovered above them, a frown appearing on his forehead as he focused on the task at hand.
Just as slowly as he had entered, Harry pulled out and started to rock his hips back and forth to hers. YN all but sank into the mattress as she let Harry repeat the motion. Her legs came to wrap around his waist, allowing Harry to angle even deeper into her.
The burn that had been inside of her earlier started to grown again, only this time it felt stronger and deeper. Her nails scratched at his back as they wrapped around his neck, Harry’s head finding solace in the curve of her neck.
“Ah, fuck baby,” Harry moaned into her skin, feeling YN tighten around him as the burn returned.
“I’m close, Harry,” YN moaned, her head fallen back on the pillows.
Harry just used that as ammunition to carry on, moving his hips faster and faster, going deeper and deeper until the match inside of her lit and she cried out. The feeling of her orgasming on his cock was enough to tip Harry over the edge, spilling into the condom with a groan.
Both of them were left panting, spent on a kingsize bed in a hotel room after partaking in something that they certainly shouldn’t have done.
As YN laid there, enjoying the feeling of Harry’s body weight on top of her she realised that things between them had either become infinitely easier or infinitely harder.
Harry didn’t speak to her the next morning.
They packed up the room and got in the car for the trip back to London in silence. Every time YN felt Harry staring at her it felt as though he was wanting to say something but doesn’t or maybe couldn’t.
All YN can think about is the night before, the feeling of Harry’s lips on hers and his body pressed against her. It’s maddening, especially when he won’t even look at her for love nor money.
He’s not being rude or inconsiderate, he’s just being polite yet distant. Neither of them mentioned the night before, or the fact that they woke up naked wrapped in each others arms — they just ignored that it had even happened.
Halfway through the drive YN grew impatient.
“You’re quiet,” She says eventually.
Harry glances at her for just a second, “So are you.”
“I asked you first.”
“I’m just… tired,” He responds.
“Right,” YN lets him sit there knowing she doesn’t believe him at all.
It was ridiculous, really, how one night together could make silence feel so much louder.
Harry dropped her off at her flat without much more said on the subject. As she steps inside the door, her first instinct is to take the ring off. It’s the first time since she placed it on her finger that she just wants it off — she doesn’t want to look at it anymore.
With it placed safely on her dining table, YN fishes in her bookcase for their contract. Reminding herself of the rules felt like the right thing to do in this moment, no matter how hard it was for her to do it.
Her eyes fall to Clause 9.1 and they don’t move.
Either party may terminate this agreement if feelings become professionally inconvenient.
Not a single feeling YN had towards Harry was inconvenient — not a single one. They were real. For the first time in her whole life all she could think about was the real and completely insane feelings she had towards not only her fake fiancé, but also her boss.
“Professionally inconvenient,” She mutters to herself, almost disappointed.
It had seemed so silly to her back then to even think about wording it differently. It had been funny to her, dramatic even — because there had been no way in hell that she would ever feel that way towards him. And yet, here she was. The words now looked like a warning she had written for herself and ignored anyway.
The problem was — YN had fallen for Harry, hook, line and sinker.
It hadn’t been the CEO, or the headline. It wasn’t the man that the cameras followed. It was Harry.
Despite the awkward car journey and her ever-growing feelings towards her boss, YN truly believed that she would walk into work on Monday morning and things would have returned to normal between them.
That wasn’t the case at all.
Instead, it felt to YN like Harry was avoiding her.
Whilst usually Harry would be at her office door multiple times in a day, all for things that YN would joke could have been sent in an email — he sent the email. All of them short, and professional and to the point and without the usual banter that a visit to her office usually entailed.
When they pass in a corridor, or are in the same meetings — he doesn’t look at her. He addresses her as Ms YLN multiple times throughout the day, instead of just YN. Even some of the other staff members pull faces when they realise.
The one that gets YN the most is that he doesn’t even check if she’s okay. Then she gets angry that he doesn’t even have the balls to tell her in person that he regrets sleeping together. Maybe he was the selfish prick Rebecca had made him out to be.
“Trouble in paradise?” Melody asks as YN stalks towards her office after her third meeting of the day.
YN looks up sharply, “Don’t.”
Melody’s smile fades, “Oh. Are you okay?”
YN brushed it off as easily as she could, “Everything’s fine. There’s no trouble at all.”
Anybody could see that it was a lie.
By the time she got to her fourth meeting of the day, YN had enough. He’s being professional, which obviously they needed to be, but he was being too professional around her.
It was almost as though he was happy to speak to anyone in the company about anything except for her.
During one of the meetings, YN hadn’t even been involved in their conversation before they were all of a sudden she was being offered for something she didn’t even know about.
“YN can circulate the revised clause by the end of the day,” Harry says, not quite looking at her.
YN’s pen stills on her notebook. Not YN in the way he normally said. It wasn’t as soft as it usually was. It was just her name, placed neatly into a sentence like any other employee.
When the meeting had finally come to a close — she truly had enough.
Just as Harry left the meeting room, she sped up to catch up with him.
“Harry, can we talk?”
He didn’t stop. He didn’t turn. He didn’t even address her as he spoke.
“I’ve got another meeting.”
YN just sighs, “Of course you do.”
Instead of going back to her office, YN finds herself in the ladies bathroom with her hands pressed against the sink. Without wanting them to, her eyes start to water.
They drop down to the ring, which she had been absentmindedly twisting around her finger all day. It sat heavy, reminding her of everything.
This had started as a contract, and yet it wasn’t a contract anymore. They had slept together, they had crossed that line and all of a sudden he was avoiding her like she was the plague. She had been chosen because she was stable, clean and convenient. She wasn’t any of those things, and that became more obvious the longer that this arrangement continued.
YN had agreed to pretend, she had signed off on that.
What she hadn’t agreed to was to be the last person to know that she was disposable.
At the end of the day, when the office had cleared and she had pulled herself together from her little cry in the bathroom — YN stormed her way up to his office.
“Uh, YN,” Riley tries to stop her, immediately standing up from his desk but she brushes past her, “He’s on the phone.”
“I don’t care,” YN walks up to the door, and throws it open.
Harry is sat at his desk with his phone to his ear. His eyes widen when he sees her, obviously surprised that she’s standing there.
“I’m sorry… I’ll have to call you back,” He speaks into the phone before hanging up.
The second YN sees him, her eyes start to water, becoming visibly more and more upset.
“Was I convenient?” She offers, her voice strong despite her watering eyes.
“YN—”
“No, don’t do that,” Her voice starts to waver as it raises, “Don’t say my name like I’m already being unreasonable.”
“YN, what happened?” He stands up from his desk and tries to take a step closer to her, but she backs away.
“I want to know why I was chosen? Was it because I was convenient? Or because I worked here? Because HR could clear me? Was it because I had no public history and no one thought I would cause any problems?”
Harry looks down at the ground, unable to meet her eyes.
“Look at me!”
Harry does as she says, “At the beginning… yes.”
“Right,” YN’s voice drops slightly.
“But that isn’t what this is anymore.”
The words knock the air right out of YN’s lungs.
“What?”
“PR chose you because you made sense on paper,” Harry explains.
“Harry just stop it!” YN exclaims, “That’s not helping!”
“I know,” He drags a hand through his hair, “I know, but I’m trying to be honest with you.”
YN grows silent, wanting to hear what he has to say.
“You stopped being strategy a long time ago,” He admits.
YN doesn’t believe him, “When?”
Harry swallows, taking a small step closer to her, “I don’t know. Maybe when you looked me in the eye and told a room full of reporters that people were more complicated then headlines. Maybe when you argued with me over tea like I was just a person and not a problem to manage. Maybe when you laughed at breakfast and I realised I wanted to be the reason you did it again. Maybe because I realised I was missing something and you just fit in that space.”
YN stays silent, toying over his words. He had just poured his heart out to her and yet there was something that she couldn’t quite understand.
“You’ve barely even looked at me since we came home,” YN admits, her voice quiet and wavering.
Harry stills, “Because I thought you regretted it.”
“I thought you regretted it.”
A silence washes over them again. Neither of them knew the others true feelings.
“I didn’t regret kissing you or being with you.”
YN sighs, “Then why did you make me feel like you did?”
All Harry can say is, “Because I’m a coward when it comes to anything I actually want.”
YN lets his words sit there. She wants to believe him, god does she want to — but there’s just something stopping her. Something that she can’t quite put her finger on.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“This is,” Harry tries to convince her.
“Maybe to you. But I’m the one that everyone is whispering about. I’m the one they’re calling people stupid. I’m the one who has to walk through this office wearing your ring while people wonder if I was ever anything more than damage control.”
Harry takes another step closer, “You were never damage control to me.”
YN just shrugs, “But I was at first.”
Harry opens his mouth as though he’s going to say something else but YN shakes her head, interrupting him.
“I think we should terminate the agreement.”
“YN,” Harry takes another step closer, but she steps back this time, “You don’t meant that.”
“I do.”
“YN—”
“Feelings have become professionally inconvenient. Isn’t that what the clause says?”
Harry flinches slightly, “Is that what you want?”
A tear rolls down her cheeks, “It’s what I need.”
Harry looks at her for a long moment, and for once, there is no CEO left in him. No strategy. No headline. No performance.
Just Harry.
“Okay,” He says quietly, “If that’s what you need.”
It was the kindest thing he could have said to her. And somehow, that made it worse.
Harry had never realised how loud silence could be.
It say heavy in his office, filling the space where YN’s voice should have been. There were no sarcastic comments from her, no sharp little sighs when he said something she found unreasonable. He even missed the loud sound of her typing whilst she pretended she wasn’t looking at him from the corner of her eye.
It was just silence.
His phone buzzed. It then buzzed again.
Kelly. Then Dana. Then Kelly again. He ignored all of their calls.
The headlines had already started twisting themselves into something uglier than they had been.
Was YN Ever Anything More Than A Convenient Choice?
Convenient.
Harry closed his eyes. He hated that word. He hated that YN had said it with tears in her eyes. He hated that he hadn’t been able to deny it properly. He hated that the truth had been sitting between them — ugly and unavoidable.
His office door opened without a knock.
Kelly walked in first, with Dana following closely behind, both of them carrying laptops, folders and the kind of expressions that meant that they had already started planning for disaster.
Harry wanted to laugh, because of course they had.
“Harry,” Kelly said carefully, “We need to talk.”
“No.”
Dana blinked, “No?”
“No,” Harry repeated, “Not if this is about spinning it.”
Kelly shut the door behind her, “It’s already being spun without us. That’s the problem.”
Harry finally looked up at them.
“No,” He said, “The problem is we keep thinking that’s the answer.”
Kelly’s face softened, just slightly, “We’re trying to protect you.”
“You’re not,” Harry said, “You’re trying to protect the company.”
Dana stepped forward, “And YN.”
Harry’s jaw tightened.
“She ended it,” Harry said quietly, “Not because she wanted attention. Not because she wanted money. Not because she wanted a better office or headline or whatever the hell people are saying about her. She ended it because we made her feel like she couldn’t trust any of it.”
Kelly sighed, “Harry, I understand that you’re upset.”
“I love her.”
Kelly went still. Dana’s eyes widened. Harry looked between them, almost as though he was daring them to say something.
“I love her,” He said again, “And she is being ripped apart because of something we asked her to do.”
Kelly’s voice was quieter this time, “Then let us help.”
“No.”
Dana frowned, “What do you mean?”
Harry stood, buttoning his jacket with hands that were steadier than he felt, “It means I want to tell the truth.”
Kelly looked at him like he had just suggested setting the building on fire.
“The truth?” She repeated.
“Yes.”
“Harry, the truth is complicated.”
“The truth is usually complicated.”
Kelly pulled her laptop out and turned it towards him, “Just think… A joint statement would be best. Something simple. ‘After much consideration, Harry Styles and YN YLN have decided to end their engagement privately and amicably’.”
Harry stared at the screen. Privately and Amicably. As though YN hadn’t stood there in front of her like he had broken something in her.
“No.”
Kelly exhaled, “No.”
Dana tried again, “Another option acknowledges the pressure of public attention. We can say the relationship became difficult under scrutiny.”
“The relationship became difficult because it started as a lie.”
Kelly folded her arms, “You say that publicly and you open yourself up to everything. The press. The shareholders. Rebecca. Every person waiting for proof that you’re exactly who she said you were.”
Harry’s face hardened, “I’m not attacking Rebecca.”
Kelly blinked, “What?”
“I’m not going after her. I’m not exposing private details. I’m not turning this into a public war because I’m embarrassed.”
Dana studied him carefully, “Then what are you doing?”
Harry looked down, “I’m taking accountability.”
“Fine, okay, you take accountability,” Kelly nods, “And how do you plan on doing that?”
“A live interview.”
Kelly’s eyes widen, “Absolutely not.”
“I want her to hear me tell the truth without anyone editing it first.”
YN told herself she was not going to watch it.
Then she made tea, sat on her sofa, opened her laptop, and watched it.
So, clearly, she was an idiot.
Her flat felt smaller than usual. Quieter. The ring was no longer on her finger, and yet she could still feel the ghost of it there, a strange weight where the lie had lived for weeks. She often reached to spin it, and it wasn’t there.
Her phone had been buzzing all afternoon.
Melody had sent seventeen messages.
Her mother had called twice.
A number she did not recognise had left a voicemail she had absolutely no intention of listening to.
YN ignored all of it.
On the screen, the live interview title appeared.
Harry Styles Speaks Publicly Following Engagement Controversy.
YN’s stomach twisted.
“Brilliant,” she muttered to herself. “Because that’s exactly what this needed.”
She expected polish.
She expected careful wording.
She expected that smooth CEO voice he used in meetings when everything was on fire and he needed people to believe it was merely a candle.
Then Harry appeared on screen.
And YN forgot, just for a second, how to breathe.
He looked tired.
Not handsome-tired in the way magazines liked to describe men who had slept badly. Actually tired. Pale beneath the studio lights. Hair less perfectly styled than usual. Mouth tense. Eyes shadowed.
He was wearing a black suit, but no tie.
YN hated that she noticed.
She hated even more that she cared.
The interviewer sat opposite him, calm and composed.
“Mr Styles,” she began, “thank you for joining us.”
Harry nodded once. “Thank you for having me.”
YN wrapped both hands around her mug.
Her tea had already gone cold.
The interviewer did not waste time.
“There has been intense speculation surrounding your engagement,” she said. “Some people are calling it a publicity stunt. Others are calling it manipulation. Which is it?”
Harry inhaled slowly. YN braced herself. He would deny it, or he would soften it. He would call it a misunderstanding.
Harry looked directly at the interviewer and said, “It began as a mistake.”
YN went very still.
The interviewer paused. “That is quite a statement.”
“It should be,” Harry said. “It hurt someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt.”
YN’s fingers tightened around the mug.
The interviewer leaned forward slightly. “When you say mistake, are you admitting that the engagement was planned for publicity?”
Harry looked down briefly, then back up, “Yes.”
The word hit harder than YN expected. Even though she already knew. Even though she had helped draft the contract. Even though her own signature was on the bottom of it.
Hearing him say it out loud made it real in a way nothing else had.
The interviewer’s expression sharpened. “So the public was lied to.”
Harry nodded. “Yes.”
“And YN?”
Harry’s face changed. Barely. But YN saw it.
His jaw tightened, his eyes flickered and the professional mask slipped, just enough for grief to show through.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “YN too.”
YN swallowed.
On her phone, a message from Melody flashed up.
Melody: Are you watching this?
YN stared at it for a moment before replying.
YN: Unfortunately.
Another message came almost instantly.
Melody: He looks wrecked.
YN looked back at the screen. Harry did look wrecked. She hated that it hurt to see.
The interviewer shifted topics with practised ease.
“This situation began after your former partner gave an interview making serious claims about your character. She described you as detached, selfish, and emotionally careless. Are you saying she lied?”
Harry did not answer immediately.
YN almost expected his expression to harden. Expected pride. Defensiveness. Anger. Instead, he looked sad.
“I’m saying I’m not going to discuss a private relationship in public just because she chose to.”
The interviewer lifted a brow. “So you won’t respond to the claims?”
“Not to her,” Harry said. “Not like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what it feels like to have pieces of yourself handed to strangers.” His voice was steady, but softer now. “I won’t do that to someone else.”
YN’s chest tightened. That was not the answer she had expected. It would have been easy for him to ruin Rebecca. Easy to imply things. Easy to let the world choose a new villain. But he didn’t.
The interviewer watched him carefully. “Some would say that leaves the public without the full story.”
Harry nodded. “It does.”
“And you’re comfortable with that?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I’m more uncomfortable with becoming cruel just because I’ve been hurt.”
YN looked away from the screen.
For a second, she could hear him from that night away from the cameras.
I hate being misunderstood.
He had said it so quietly then. Like it embarrassed him.
YN pressed her hand to her mouth.
Her phone buzzed again.
Melody: Okay. I don’t think anyone was expecting that.
YN did not reply.
Because nobody was. Especially not her.
The interviewer moved back to YN.
“And what about the woman at the centre of this with you?” she asked. “There are claims that YN was chosen because she was convenient. Is that true?”
Harry’s expression almost broke. YN stopped breathing. He could lie, there was nothing stopping him from lying.
Harry’s voice was low when he answered, “Yes.”
YN closed her eyes and there it was. The word she had known was coming.
“Yes,” Harry said again, “she was chosen because she was convenient.”
The interviewer did not soften, “That sounds rather calculated.”
“It was.”
“And you agreed to it?”
“I did.”
Silence stretched through the studio.
Harry clasped his hands together, his knuckles pale.
“She was stable,” he continued. “Intelligent. Respected. She had no public history that could be used against her. She worked within the company, so HR could clear the arrangement. She made sense on paper.”
YN hated how much that hurt. It had started because she had made sense on paper. She had been sensible. Useful. Easy to explain.
Harry looked directly into the camera then, “But YN is not paper.”
YN froze.
Harry’s voice remained controlled, but something raw had entered it now, “She is not a strategy. She is not a headline. She is not a prop. She is a person who was asked to step into an impossible situation, and somehow she still treated me with more kindness than I had any right to expect.”
YN’s eyes burned and the interviewer was silent.
Harry carried on, “She didn’t chase attention. She didn’t manipulate anyone. She didn’t use me. If people want to be angry, they can be angry at me. They can be angry at the people who thought this was a good idea. But they don’t get to punish her for being decent.”
YN put the mug down before she dropped it.
Harry’s face tightened, “And they don’t get to whisper about her in the office. They don’t get to question her integrity. They don’t get to turn her into collateral damage because it makes for an easier story.”
The interviewer tilted her head. “You sound angry.”
“I am.”
“At whom?”
Harry looked down. Then he said, “At myself, mostly.”
The interviewer waited a beat before asking the question everyone wanted answered, “Was the engagement real?”
YN’s heart pounded so hard it felt embarrassing.
Harry went still. Then, quietly, he said, “It became real to me.”
YN’s breath caught.
The interviewer leaned forward. “To you?”
“Yes.”
“And to her?”
Harry’s eyes flickered, “That isn’t something I can share.”
YN covered her mouth. That was the thing that undid her. Not the confession. Not the accountability. Not even the way he had defended her.
It was that.
He did not take her feelings and offer them to the public like evidence. He did not say she loved him. He did not say she felt the same. He did not use her heart to make himself look better.
He left it with her.
Exactly where it belonged.
“But I know what was real for me,” Harry continued. “I know when it stopped being strategy. I know when I stopped thinking about headlines and started thinking about whether she’d eaten lunch. Whether she was overwhelmed. Whether she felt safe walking into work. Whether she was laughing because she meant it or because everyone was watching.”
YN cried then. The tears came quietly and fast, streaming down her cheeks in a steady stream. Because how dare he say all the right things now? How dare he be honest when she had already walked away?
The interviewer’s voice softened. “Do you love her?”
Harry’s face changed again.
This time, he did not look at the interviewer. He looked into the camera, “Yes.”
YN pressed her fingers against her lips.
Harry swallowed, “I do.”
The interview ended with Harry refusing to ask for sympathy.
“What happens now?” the interviewer asked.
Harry sat back slightly, “Now YN gets to decide what her life looks like without a contract, without cameras, and without people like me making decisions around her.”
“And you?”
Harry gave a small, humourless smile, “I learn how to be honest before honesty is the only option left.”
YN closed the laptop.
The room fell silent.
For several minutes, she did not move.
Then her phone buzzed again.
Melody: YN.
Then:
Melody: Are you okay?
YN stared at the message.
No.
Yes.
Maybe.
She had absolutely no idea.
She stood too quickly, paced to the kitchen, then back again. She picked up the ring from where she had left it on the coffee table. It looked different now. Less like a trap. More like evidence.
Something had happened. Something impossible and messy and real. YN hated that there was still a part of her that wanted to see him. No PR. No contract. No cameras. Just Harry.
She grabbed her coat before she could talk herself out of it.
Harry was not in his office when she arrived, because of course he wasn’t. That would’ve been too easy for her.
For once, the office seemed to understand that something had shifted. People looked up when YN walked through reception, but nobody said anything. Nobody whispered loudly enough for her to hear. Nobody asked about the interview.
Maybe shame had finally done what professionalism could not.
She found him in one of the smaller conference rooms on the upper floor, standing by the window with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled to his elbows.
For a moment, YN just looked at him.
He looked less like the CEO now. More like the man who had made tea in a hotel room at midnight because she couldn’t sleep. More like the man she had accidentally fallen in love with.
She knocked once.
Harry turned.
Everything in him seemed to stop.
“YN.”
She stepped into the room. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“No,” he said. “I just didn’t think you’d come.”
“Neither did I.”
That almost made him smile. Almost. The door clicked shut behind her.
Neither of them moved.
There was no contract on the table. No PR team hovering outside. No cameras flashing through glass. Just the two of them, standing in the wreckage of something they had both pretended they could control.
YN crossed her arms, mostly to stop her hands from shaking, “I watched the interview.”
Harry nodded slowly. “I thought you might.”
“That was risky.”
“Yes.”
“Stupid, probably.”
“Yes.”
“It made you look good.”
Harry’s mouth tightened. “I know.”
YN hated how quickly he said it.
“It scares me,” she admitted.
His eyes softened. “I know that too.”
She looked away.
“Was it for me,” she asked, “or was it for them?”
Harry did not rush his answer.
“For you,” he said. “But also for me.”
YN looked back at him.
“Because I couldn’t keep letting other people clean up messes I helped make,” he continued. “And I couldn’t let them turn you into the cost of doing business.”
YN laughed once, but there was no humour in it. “Bit late for that.”
Harry flinched. Good, she thought. Then immediately felt awful for thinking it. Her emotions had never been on such a rollercoaster before in her life.
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
YN stood there, trying to hold onto her anger. It would have been easier if he had defended himself. If he had told her she was being unfair. If he had insisted he had done enough. If he had asked what more she wanted from him. Instead, Harry just looked at her like he knew he had hurt her and had no right to ask for less pain. That was much harder.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” YN whispered.
Harry took a small step closer, then stopped, giving her space, “You don’t have to say anything.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” he said. “Probably not.”
YN’s eyes burned again. She was getting very tired of crying over this man, “You said you loved me.”
Harry’s throat moved, “Yes.”
“On live television.”
“Yes.”
“Which is crazy, by the way.”
A tiny smile touched his mouth. “I’ve been told.”
“Don’t smile.”
He immediately stopped. “Sorry.”
YN looked down, breathing shakily, “Why did you say it?”
“Because it’s true.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know,” YN’s eyes found Harry’s.
Harry’s voice softened, “I’m not saying it because I think it fixes anything. It doesn’t. It won’t. I know that.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because it’s the only honest thing I have left.”
YN’s face crumpled slightly. Harry looked like he wanted to reach for her, but he didn’t.
“I love you,” he said. “I loved you when you defended me in a room full of people who had already decided who I was. I loved you when you argued over contract clauses like they were life or death. I loved you when you looked at me like you could see the worst parts of me and still weren’t completely convinced I was hopeless.”
YN let out a shaky breath, “Harry…”
“I love the way you pretend not to care when you care too much. I love that you’re clever enough to ruin me in an argument and kind enough not to enjoy it as much as you could.”
Despite herself, YN almost laughed. Harry saw it. His expression softened, but he stayed careful.
“I love that you made me feel like a person before you ever made me feel forgiven.”
The words settled between them.
YN pressed her lips together, “You can’t just say things like that.”
“I know.”
“No,” she said, voice cracking. “You don’t. Because I love you too, and I hate that I do.”
Harry went completely still. YN looked at him through wet eyes.
“I hate that I love you because I don’t know where the lie ended. I don’t know which moments were real and which ones I made real because I wanted them to be.”
“They were real,” Harry said softly.
“To you.”
“Yes,” he said. “To me. And I know that might not be enough.”
That hurt more than if he had argued.
YN wiped at her cheek quickly, “I wanted it to be real,” she admitted. “That’s the worst part. I kept telling myself I was being sensible, that I knew exactly what this was, that I could control it because there were clauses and signatures and end dates.”
Harry’s eyes shone.
“And then you’d remember how I took my tea,” she whispered. “Or you’d check if I was okay after someone said something awful. Or you’d look at me when you thought nobody else was watching, and I would forget I was supposed to be pretending.”
Harry looked down, “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I’m so sorry, YN.”
“I know that too.”
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Harry took a breath, “Let me earn it.”
YN frowned. “Earn what?”
“A beginning that isn’t written into a contract.”
Her heart twisted, “We can’t erase how this started.”
“I’m not asking to.”
“Then what are you asking?”
Harry’s gaze stayed on hers.
“Dinner.”
YN blinked. “Dinner?”
“One dinner,” he said. “No photographers. No PR schedule. No ring. No pretending.”
“A date?”
“Only if you want it to be.”
YN looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the ring. Harry’s face changed when he saw it. YN walked to the conference table and placed it down gently. The sound was small. Final.
“There,” she said quietly.
Harry stared at the ring.
Then he looked back at her.
“No contract,” YN said.
“No contract,” he repeated.
“No cameras.”
“No cameras.”
“No calling me convenient ever again.”
Harry’s expression softened with something that almost looked like pain, “Never.”
“And if this hurts?”
“Then we tell the truth before it destroys us.”
YN swallowed. Every sensible part of her told her to walk away. Every terrified part of her told her to run before she gave him the chance to break her properly. But there was another part too.
The part that remembered him making tea. The part that remembered his hand on her back outside the gala. The part that remembered him saying, She is not my truth to tell. The part that loved him.
YN lifted her chin, “One dinner.”
Harry’s eyes softened, “One dinner.”
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I’m trying very hard not to.”
“Try harder.”
This time, he did smile.
Only a little. Only enough for YN’s heart to do something deeply inconvenient inside her chest. She should have left then. Instead, she stood there with him, close enough that the space between them felt like a question neither of them was ready to answer.
For the first time, there was nothing between them.
No headline.
No contract.
No lie polished pretty enough to pass as love.
Just Harry, looking at her like the truth might still be enough.
Alone in the silence of a hotel room, Harry is forced to confront the unbearable weight of four years he never even knew existed. As grief gives way to fury, one truth becomes impossible to ignore - he's already lost enough time with his daughter, and he refuses to lose any more.
Word Count: 9.4k
Ch. 1 - 10 (x)
Silence became the loudest thing he had ever lived inside. Somehow, in the wake of everything, the noise of absolutely nothing outsung the sound of anything he’d ever heard before.
It pressed in on him from every corner, dense and ringing as if the air around him had weight. After all of the yelling - all of the tears, sharp insults and edged words - the relentless noise in his head, he longed for it. No cicadas humming. No trees bristling. No stark reminders that the world kept spinning while his had halted completely. Pure, uninterrupted quiet. All he needed was time to himself. Time to digest. Time to process. Just get to the car, he thought, clinging to it like a lifeline.
But when his back hit the leather seat, it wasn’t familiar. The smell wasn’t his. The steering wheel didn’t feel right in his palms. It was a car that he didn’t recognize, just like the life that didn’t belong to him. Rented, temporary, and untethered. The driver’s side door came to a close and the silence sealed itself in around him, complete and utterly merciless. He’d gotten exactly what he asked for and realized it wasn’t what he wanted.
Everything operated strangely after that. Time felt like it moved differently all night - hours felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours. Stretched before collapsing on itself. It warped the weight of what had been dropped in his lap. It bent the air inside the car as it sat there, idle and unstarted in the driveway. The eerie blanket of completely quiet made it feel obscured, like tasting static.
The radio remained off. His fingers didn’t drum the steering wheel. He didn’t roll the windows down or hum to himself to keep his mind busy while he sat at a red light, the way he always did. Another small habit to keep his thoughts from turning inward. There was nothing to fill this space that was only built to hold silence. Twenty seven minutes of unbearable silence.
Every so often, his hands froze before his fingers flexed involuntarily, as if his body needed proof it was still alive or useful - as if sensation had to be forced back into them. They were the same hands that waved to a sea of faces under stadium lights. The same hands that wrapped around microphones, steadied the neck of a guitar or used to meet the curve of Anna’s waist like it was reflex. Hands that never held his own child during her first few moments on earth. That truth followed him all the way back to the hotel. Heavy and relentless, settling deeper into his bones with each stretch of another mile. So he drove in silence.
The drive ended the same way it started - finding himself sitting somewhere he didn’t want to be. Time had somehow fused itself together. Or stopped completely. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember if he’d been driving for 15 minutes. 30, maybe. An hour, perhaps. All the same. The time on the dashboard clock was telling him it was half past 10pm. He didn’t bother to look at the time when he’d pulled out of Anna’s driveway. In fact, he didn’t remember pulling out of the driveway at all. No memory of putting his foot on the gas or shifting back into drive. Did he even stop at red lights? Miles disappeared beneath him without asking to be remembered. The noise in his head was so busy he couldn’t seem to recollect how he’d gotten here.
Harry stared through the windshield for a long moment after pulling beneath the hotel's awning, hands still wrapped around the steering wheel long after the engine had gone quiet. The silence wafting in the car clung to him as stubbornly as the ache in his chest. He wasn't sure what he was waiting for. Permission, maybe. Or the impossible hope that if he sat there long enough, he'd wake up and discover none of it had happened. He closed his eyes for a second - lids wound tightly shut as he sucked in a deep breath. When he opened them, he’d be somewhere else.
In bed, where he could just get up and abandon this bad dream amidst disgruntled sheets. The morning light filtering through curtains. Disheveled sheets twisted around his legs after another restless night. Maybe even a text from Mitch asking what time they were leaving. Or scolding him for running late. Coffee. A quick, hot shower. Anything but this. Anything but a world where he'd learned, in the span of an evening, that he had a four-year-old daughter he'd never known existed.
His lungs emptied as he opened his eyes. Nothing was different. A sharp rap loud rap of knuckles against the passenger’s side window splintered the silence, instead - jerking his shoulders almost on instinct. There was a moment he nearly forgot where he was, the soft glow of the hotel exterior lights lulling him into recollection.
A navy-blue name tag caught his eye first, faintly lit by the warm glow pooling beneath the maroon-colored awning. His gaze followed upward until it reached the face behind the window - the valet, who couldn't have been older than twenty-three. Sandy hair in messy curls peeked out from beneath a neatly fitted cap. A polite, practiced smile settled easily across his round face. It was the kind of smile worn by someone who greeted hundreds of strangers every week. There was an openness to the kid that only belonged to people who still believed every interaction was ordinary. A luxury Harry yearned for as he rolled down the window.
"Evening, sir." he said through the glass, cheerful enough that you could almost ignore the fact it was forced.
Harry blinked. It took him a second longer than it should have to remember how to respond. The words reached him, but they seemed to arrive from somewhere impossibly far away. He looked at the earnest kid for a beat whilst his expression remained blank, as though he'd forgotten where he was. Like he had no idea what came after someone greeted you.
The smile lingered for another second before uncertainty crept in around its edges. It faltered minimally, the corners of his mouth tightening as his eyes flicked over Harry's face, searching for some sign of recognition or response. A faint crease formed between his brows, confusion settling in as he hesitated, clearly unsure if he'd been heard at all. The valet shifted his weight, brow lifting a little more noticeably now, his polite composure wavering just enough to reveal his uncertainty. Harry watched as his body leaned in towards the car, fingers flexing on the edge of the window.
“Do… you want me to park the car, sir?”
“Right.” Harry nodded quietly as if the valet pulled the thought right from his head. “Yes - yeah, thank you.”
His fingers, slim and fable, fumbled loudly as they fished the set of keys out of the cupholder beside him. Amidst it all, he could feel the weight of the valet’s stare heavy on the crown of his head. When he looked back up and offered the keys over the passenger seat, the young man offered another polite smile. It was smaller this time, gracefully touched with the careful patience people reserved for strangers who looked like they'd had a difficult night. Harry wondered if it was that obvious.
“No problem!” The valet chirped, wrapping the keys in his palm before scurrying to the driver’s side of the car.
Harry nodded absently, already somewhere else again by the time he pushed open the driver's door. He was met with the whipping of humid Georgia air, which wrapped around him as he stepped beneath the hotel's awning. For a brief moment he simply stood there, watching the valet slip atop the leather seat and situate himself behind the wheel of the rental car. It struck him then how effortlessly the kid had known what to do next. It felt like a luxury Harry could no longer afford, and he wallowed in that thought as he watched the tail lights of the car blur into nothing.
The heavy glass doors opened before he reached them, releasing a rush of chilled air that chased away the thick Georgia humidity still clinging to his clothes. Inside, the hotel gleamed.
Cream-colored marble stretched endlessly beneath his feet, polished to such a high shine it reflected the warm glow of crystal chandeliers overhead. Gold accents caught the light at every turn. They framed oversized mirrors, lined the concierge desk, traced the edges of towering floral arrangements that looked as though they were replaced every few hours. Somewhere out of sight and deeper in the lobby, a pianist drifted lazily through an old jazz standard. Every note dissolved into the soft murmur of conversations and the faint clink of crystal glasses from the hotel bar.
The details reached his eyes but never quite settled in his mind, sliding past him without any meaning. He could've been walking through the grandest hotel in the country or the lobby of another airport Hilton for all he cared. His body moved forward because it knew it was supposed to, not because his brain had told it to.
People lingered everywhere.
A couple leaned shoulder to shoulder over drinks, laughing quietly between themselves. A businessman wheeled a carry-on toward the elevators while absently loosening his tie. A young family crossed the lobby with a sleepy little girl draped across her father's shoulder, her tiny hand curled around the ear of a well-loved stuffed teddy bear. Harry's gaze caught on them. Only for a heartbeat.
Long enough to watch the father instinctively adjust her weight against his chest without waking her. His own chest tightened. Four years. Four years of moments that ordinary. Four years of reaching for a child who already knew exactly where she belonged. His feet kept moving. He lowered his head before anyone could catch his expression.
"Mister Styles," a voice greeted warmly, the Southern drawl softening each syllable. "Good evenin'. Welcome back."
The younger brunette from earlier, the one who'd spent the afternoon swiveling lazily in a creaky desk chair trying to invent ways to entertain himself during the lull between check-ins, had long since gone home. In his place sat a woman pushing sixty, if he had to guess. Her silvery hair was gathered into a loose twist at the nape of her neck while thick-rimmed glasses rested low on her nose. She looked up from her computer, her face immediately brightening the moment she recognized him.
Harry slowed just enough to acknowledge her. But, involuntarily, his chin just dipped in an automatic nod. The corners of his mouth twitched into something that could’ve passed for a smile if someone wasn't looking too closely. He could've stopped. Could've asked how her evening was going. Thanked her. Wished her a good night the way his mum had spent years insisting decent people ought to do. The words were there somewhere. He knew they were, he could feel them. He just couldn't seem to reach them right now. Instead, he kept walking.
His lips pressed into a thin line, his gaze drifting somewhere beyond the concierge desk, beyond the lobby, beyond the hotel itself.
A father.
The words appeared again without permission. Not a singer. Not a son. Not a brother. Not the same man who'd sat at the kitchen island in Anna's parents' house, entirely sure that he fully understood the shape of his own life.
A father.
The title felt impossibly foreign and horrifyingly familiar all at once, like trying on a coat that should've belonged to him years ago. A bellhop maneuvered an empty brass luggage cart around the corner, offering Harry an easy smile as he passed. Harry nodded back automatically.
I'm someone's father.
The thought struck harder that time. Not someday. Not one day. Already. For four years. And somehow, impossibly, the rest of the world continued exactly as it had before. The all too familiar, mundane habit of trudging down another hotel hallway. Loitering impatiently in front of the elevator while awaiting its descent, pressing the button again as if it’ll somehow expedite its trip to the lobby floor.
He could hear the elevator mechanics grinding together faintly before the doors opened up. In the split second that existed before the doors parted, he hopelessly prayed that it’d be empty. The idea of ascending to the 15th floor with company made the knot in his stomach twist a little harder.
The empty carriage felt like the first break he’d caught all day. He wondered, if someone else was packed in here beside him, what they would think of him slamming the button to the 15th floor four separate times before manically hitting the ‘close doors’ option on the bottom of the panel. He was the only one in here, and he desperately needed it to stay that way.
The elevator climbed in complete silence, save for the occasional mechanical hum as it eased past another floor. He held his breath with each floor that passed, saying a silent prayer that the carriage didn’t grind to a stop to give refuge to another hotel guest.
Harry stood alone beneath the recessed lighting, his reflection staring back at him from every pane of brushed steel that lined the cab. He caught glimpses of himself from every angle. Staring back at him, he had resorted to nothing but bloodshot eyes, shoulders pulled tighter than usual, curls fallen haphazardly across his forehead. He hardly recognized the man looking back.
A soft chime announced the 15th floor. The doors parted with practiced ease, revealing a hallway washed in muted amber light. Plush burgundy carpet swallowed the sound of his footsteps as he wandered toward his room, the corridor stretching endlessly ahead in perfect symmetry. Every identical door looked as temporary as the last, each one housing strangers with lives that would remain blissfully untouched by his own. He wondered if anyone else behind a closed door was burdened with problems that mimicked his own.
"Oh my God... did you just see who that was?" a voice whispered, not nearly as quietly as its owner had intended.
It was a bleak reminder and a harsh reality check. He wants to just disappear, which is almost impossible given who he is. The concept of this hotel hallway becoming another place where he has to be ‘Harry Styles’ felt like a burden too heavy to carry. He isn’t even sure who that person is right now. The fame has never felt more insignificant. Usually fans remind him of his career, his accomplishments. Tonight, none of that mattered because the only identity he can think about is the one no one else knows. The one he couldn’t even bring himself to say out loud.
Another answered almost immediately. "Just leave him be. It's late."
Yes, Harry thought wearily. Just leave me be. Tonight, more than any other, he couldn't bear the thought of being perceived. If someone stopped him now - asked for a photograph, an autograph, exchanged the kind of harmless small talk he'd spent years navigating with practiced ease - he didn’t think he could manage to survive it. That carefully rehearsed smile. The genuine gratitude. That outward version of himself that belonged to everyone else. He wasn't certain he could keep the thoughts from spilling out.
I have a daughter.
The sentence had begun living just beneath the surface of everything, scratching relentlessly at the back of his throat, begging to be spoken aloud if only to prove it was real. Still, he could feel their eyes following him from somewhere behind. Curious. Hopeful. Wondering if they'd made the right identification. He kept his head lowered. Shoulders squared. Body angled just enough to signal what his mouth wouldn't.
Please don't.
The familiar weight of being watched had never felt heavier. By the time he reached his door, relief had settled so deeply in his chest it almost hurt. His key card slipped into the lock. A flash of green. A quiet mechanical click. It was the first thing all evening that had gone exactly as expected.
He threw one foot inside, then another. The door swung shut behind him with a muffled thud, severing the warm glow of the hallway in a swift, single motion. Darkness swallowed the room whole, wrapping around him before his eyes had the chance to adjust. Harry stood motionless just inside the doorway. He drew in a long breath through his nose, but it left him slower than it entered, collapsing from his lungs in something that sounded dangerously close to surrender.
Only then did he reach for the wall, fingertips trailing blindly across cool textured paint until they found the light switch. Instead, he stood motionless just inside the doorway, allowing the darkness to swallow him whole. It settled over his shoulders like another layer of clothing, concealing the room from view and, for one fleeting moment, asking nothing of him.
His trainers remained laced tightly to his feet. The middle button of his shirt still fastened atop his chest. The mint green suitcase sat picked through at the foot of the bed, reminding him of how he picked it apart earlier in the day for the right clothes to wear. Reminding him of how he’d gone to Anna’s with entirely different expectations of the outcome.
He couldn't bring himself to move. Every action between leaving the Wilson’s driveway and arriving here had happened on instinct alone. Pressing the auto start button to the rental car. Merging onto the highway. Handing his keys to the valet. Smiling (if he could even call it that) at the eager looking concierge. Riding in the elevator. Walking the endless hallway to his room. Each one had been another task.
Another distraction. Another excuse to put off the moment when there would be nothing left to occupy his hands, leaving only his mind to address its thoughts. His thumb brushed absentmindedly over the light switch, soon followed by a gentle click. Warm light spilled across the room all at once. Each bulb above him chased the darkness into the corners, exposing the familiar anonymity he'd stupidly hoped wouldn't be there.
The air conditioner hummed steadily beneath the window, its mechanical drone occupying the silence without ever quite interrupting it. Crisp white sheets stretched taut across the king-sized bed, untouched, every corner folded with impossible precision. It was not the same restless, anxiously distraught pile of sheets he’d left behind hours earlier.
His wedding suit lay abandoned across the ottoman where he'd thrown it off the night before, the jacket slipping lazily over the edge as though it had collapsed under its own weight. Beside the bathroom door, his suitcase sat lopsided and half-unzipped, one polished dress shoe still tucked neatly inside while its mate rested several feet away where he'd carelessly kicked it off after the reception.
Aside from a freshly made bed, nothing had changed. The room looked exactly as he'd left it, only now it felt painfully unfamiliar. Like it belonged to the blissful, unassuming version of himself who had walked out of it hours earlier. The version who still foolishly believed he understood the shape of his own life. Who understood exactly who he was and what he wanted.
The physical world remained frozen while his internal world became irrevocably altered. The room hadn’t changed. Georgia hadn’t changed. He was changed. Harry let his eyes drift slowly from one corner of the room to the next, taking inventory of everything except the thoughts he'd spent the last few hours outrunning. There was nowhere left for them to hide.
He threw his wallet on the TV console, missing it entirely and wincing a bit as it landed on the carpet with a thud. His eyes rolled next to his suitcase, where they pondered the idea of sifting through it for a clean pair of sleep shorts. The effort required to unzip it, to pull out a change of clothes, to begin the ordinary routine of ending a day suddenly felt impossibly disproportionate. There had been a version of him this morning who would've showered without thinking. Hung his clothes neatly in the wardrobe. Set an alarm. Maybe answered a few texts before bed. That man had completely checked out just after sunset.
Harry wandered farther into the room without any real destination, his fingers absently grazing the edge of the dresser before finding the back of the desk chair. He pulled it out just enough to sit, only to think better of it. The bed looked inviting until he glanced at it, then it became suffocating. Even the silence intertwined with the whirr of the air conditioning seemed restless, pressing against his ears with a weight that made the room feel smaller than it was.
His gaze fixated, instead, on the wedding suit draped carelessly across the ottoman. Twenty-four hours ago, that suit had been arguably the most important thing hanging in the room. He'd worried about wrinkles. Whether the tie sat straight. Whether Anna would look at him. It held the faintly remaining scent of a shared cigarette. Deeply engrained in the fabric were memories of a few shared laughs, sobering questions, the slight hint of potential.
Now it looked absurd. Fabric. Thread. Buttons. The longer he looked at it, the more he felt his stare harden and burn with resentment. How could something that had consumed so much of his attention that morning suddenly feel so meaningless? He couldn’t even bring himself to look at it anymore.
His eyes drifted toward the mirror above the dresser before he caught himself. He wasn't ready to look. Instead, he found himself staring through the window, beyond his own faint reflection mimicked sloppily by the room lighting, to the parking lot several floors below. Cars came and went beneath pools of amber light. A couple crossed toward the entrance, their laughter muted by the glass. Somewhere in another room, someone let out a burst of laughter loud enough to carry through the walls before it disappeared just as quickly.
As cruel as it felt, the world had continued without asking his permission. His life, however, had not. And he’d be remiss to recognize that the life he’d known before would likely never look the same again. Which made his jaw tighten. The anger returned as suddenly, and profoundly, as it had left.
Absent-mindedly, his thumb slipped beneath the leather band of his watch before he'd consciously decided to take it off. The buckle came undone with practiced ease, the same familiar movement he'd repeated thousands of times over the years without a second thought. He turned it over once in his palm, glaring down at the shiny silver before setting it carefully atop the dresser.
The face still ticked. Second after second. Minute after minute. It hadn't stopped. Time never did. It didn’t wait for anyone, and it passed threateningly. Whether he wanted it to or not.
His eyes lingered on the sweeping hands longer than they should have. With a lump in his throat, he carried on watching them continue their slow, indifferent path around the dial. The longer he looked, the more it frustrated him how completely unmoved it was by the fact that his entire world had come undone somewhere between one rotation and the next. It was sickening how such an inanimate object was seemingly taunting him from the palm of his hand.
Four years. The number sounded manageable for a moment. That is, until he tried to hold it in his mind. Instantly it became impossible. Four years wasn't a number - it was time. Time measured in ordinary Tuesdays and hurried breakfasts. In bedtime stories read for the hundredth time because children never seemed to tire of hearing the same ending. In scraped knees that healed, baby teeth that loosened, red marks carefully and quirkily marked against kitchen walls to count growth spurts. Four years wasn't something you counted. It was something you lived.
Or, in his case...Something he'd missed.
His throat tightened again. Constricting and releasing in short spurts. Somewhere wrapped within those four years, Charlie had learned to laugh. Someone had discovered that ticklish spot that sent her into breathless giggles. She'd learned to clap, to wave, to point at things she wanted but couldn’t yet find the words for. Someone had witnessed every one of those moments. Someone had laughed with her. Cheered for her. Picked her up after she'd fallen. Soothed her back to sleep after a bad dream. It just hadn't been him.
His fingers curled instinctively against the edge of the dresser. He wondered what her voice had sounded like before she could pronounce words properly. Like how she pronounced the word ‘yellow’ or ‘spaghetti’. He thought fondly of the idea of her babbling endlessly in that language only babies seemed to understand. Did she reach for Anna the way every child instinctively reached for the person they trusted most? Eventually his thoughts brought him somewhere else. To a place where he considered a moment - one brief, confusing moment - where she'd looked around the room in search of someone she couldn't quite name. The thought stopped him cold and invited a queasy feeling to the pit of his stomach.
He closed his eyes to try and ward it off. No, he decided, she wouldn't have. How could she ever know to miss someone she didn’t even know existed? That realization alone hollowed him out in an entirely different way. It wasn’t because she'd forgotten him, but because she'd never been given the chance to remember him. He was likely never even a forethought.
His gaze returned to the watch as it continued ticking, unaffected and completely unrelenting. He found himself thinking now about every hour he'd spent crossing oceans. Every late-night interview. Every encore. Every airport terminal. Every hotel room that blurred into the next. He'd measured his life in departures, seas of people as blurred faces, boarding passes, vacations, unmoored responsibilities. Meanwhile, somewhere between Georgia and New York, a little girl had been measuring hers in birthdays and firsts. He’d fallen short of his biggest responsibility of all, and he didn’t even have a clue.
The watch suddenly felt heavier than it had any right to. He picked it up again, turning it over in his hand. Four years. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-one days. Thirty-five thousand and... he stopped counting. The mathematical gymnastics were meaningless. No equation in the world could accurately calculate the gravity or magnitude of lost time.
Tucked away in his pocket, deemed as an afterthought for the bulk of today, his phone buzzed. It twitched against his thigh, the thin barrier of fabric between his phone and his bare skin buzzing faintly. Like it needed to urgently remind him of its imperative existence.
Upon fishing it out reluctantly, Harry only stared at the lock screen. He squinted against the sudden wash of harsh blue light as if it had done something to offend him. Notifications sat stacked one atop the other, ordinary and absurd in their urgency and completely forgotten. A handful of ignored emails. A slew of unanswered texts. One from Gemma, another from Jeff. Someone else following up about a call he’d forgotten he was supposed to take. Someone else asking when he was flying home which, in turn, elicited a bitter laugh. As if, at this point, he had any idea. As if he had even thought that far ahead. The world, of course, still needed things from him. Then he saw his mother’s name.
Landed. I’ll call you when I get home. Love you. X
Something inside him lurched so violently it absolutely terrified him as his thumb froze over the screen. For one unbearingly gruesome second, he was no longer trapped in his thoughts within the four walls of a hotel room in Georgia. In that fleeting moment, he was just a little boy again - caught in limbo between needing his mother and not knowing how to explain what hurt. The muscles in his throat constrained again with a force that made him swallow hard once, then again. Neither time seemed to help. The message on the screen blurred slightly before he blinked it clear. His own mother didn’t know.
No one knew. Not a single friend. Not Gemma. Not his mother, who had grown quite attached and poured love into Anna once with the easy, open affection she tended to give people she believed might become family. His mother had no idea she had another granddaughter.
Harry seemingly lowered himself squarely into the desk chair before he even realized he’d moved at all. Everything felt off kilter as the room seemed to tilt strangely around him. The carpet felt soft beneath his feet, the air conditioner kept humming on as though nothing about the shape of the universe had shifted. His phone remained firmly gripped in his hand. Anne’s message still glowed menacingly back at him. Innocent, unaware, and all too unbearable.
How was he supposed to tell her? The question struck with such tenderness, such sudden brutality, that it nearly ripped through the anger entirely. How was anyone supposed to make that kind of call?
How was he supposed to answer that call, which he knew would come sooner rather than later, and segway into this revelation. Small talk about the wedding, a few lighthearted jokes about the airport, a recap of an otherwise eventless few hours aboard a plane. She’d ask in a tone that masked any trace of meddling how returning Anna’s ring went. Which, ultimately, he’d answer with the ground-altering sentence, Mum, I have a daughter, that would elicit a deafening silence on the other end of the phone. How would he find answers to the questions she’d surely ask him? Likely to be questions he still had unanswered as well. How could he fathom that discussion without imagining the hurt in her voice when she realized she had missed four years too? Four years of birthdays. Four years of photographs. Four years of tiny dresses and first words and sleepy morning curls. Four years of getting to know someone that was just as much a part of her, too.
He could only picture his mother going eerily quiet. That, to him, was the worst part. Not crying or gasping. Just meet his declaration with a devastating stillness of a mother trying to be strong for her son while something inside her quietly cracked. His hand tightened around the phone until the edges bit into his palm. And then, beneath the grief, the anger came back. It crept up on him slowly at first before crashing down all at once. His mother should have known. He should have known.
There should have been a phone call. A message. A letter. Fucking something - anything. There should have been one single moment in the last four years where Anna looked at their daughter - looked at a face that held a strong resemblance to his own adolescence - and decided he deserved to know she was alive. That there was a father out there that belonged to her the same way she belonged to him. A father that would’ve given up anything if it meant gaining her instead.
His thumb moved instinctually before he could stop himself, feverishly moving to open his messages. Before he could even recognize what he was looking for, he found his fingers busy typing Anna’s name. As a result, the old thread appeared like a bruise he’d forgotten how to stop touching. He hadn’t deleted it, and he hated that about himself.
For years, he’d convinced himself it meant nothing. That it was only there because deleting it felt dramatic. Because he wasn’t the kind of person who scrubbed someone from his phone like they had never existed. He had kept it because some part of him had never been brave enough to let the last proof of them disappear. He had kept it with a deeply buried, silent hope that one day they’d be answered.
The most recent messages sat at the bottom, exactly as he remembered them. A missed call. Another one two days later, sent directly to voicemail just as the first had. Then the text.
Can we talk?
Three stupid words. Still green. Still unanswered. Followed by another hauntingly green bubble.
I don’t want to leave things that way. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.
Both messages still sat there, frozen in time with all the humiliation of a hand extended into empty air. Like so many times before, Harry stared at them until his vision sharpened around the edges.
He remembered sending each text message. Remembered standing outside a studio with one shoulder pressed to a brick wall, the city moving loudly around him while he watched the screen like it might change if he wanted it badly enough. He remembered trying to call her first. Once. Then again. He recalled the physical feeling of disappointment upon being immediately sent to voicemail. The hesitance of leaving a message, but quickly hanging up instead. He didn’t know what to say. He’d nearly convinced himself to try for a third time, so sure that the first two didn’t count because his hands had been shaking and he hadn’t known what he would say if she answered
But she hadn’t. The calls never went through. The messages never turned blue. Maybe it was denial, or his brain creating something out of reflex to shelter his fragility, but he had told himself she’d changed her number. Eventually, he had forced himself to come to terms with the fact that she had blocked him. He’d let that explanation settle where the wound was because it made sense in the cruelest way. Anna had wanted him gone. Anna had shut the door. And, in turn, Anna had made sure there was no vessel for him to knock anymore.
But now, staring at the old green texts, that assumption curdled into something sharper before taking on an entirely new shape. She had known then. She knew when he called. She had known when he reached, however clumsily he did it, back toward the wreckage of them. She had known there was something more than heartbreak sitting between them, something alive and growing within her. A beautifully devastating fuse of him and her. Yet, still, she had stayed unreachable.
No, worse. She had willingly, intentionally, made herself unreachable.
Harry’s jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. In light of recent events and a crushing new reality to be faced, it woefully dawned on him that a changed number was not an accident. Silence that complete, that calculated was not passive in any capacity. Disappearing that thoroughly took effort. It took planning and willful, precise intention. It took waking up day after day and deciding that the father of his child would remain exactly where she’d left him - behind the slammed door of a once happy home.
The phone lowered slowly into his lap while his anger pulsed through him - nowhere clean to go. It was too tangled with disbelief. Too tangled with grief. Too tangled with the memory of Anna’s face in the yard, pale and stricken and defensive, as if he had been the one who’d forced the truth out of hiding by daring to ask the wrong question.
How had it taken until tonight? The thought struck him again, wider this time, expanding beyond Anna until it filled the room and swallowed him whole. How had she managed to get by this long without this being known? How had he managed to live four years on the same earth as his daughter, growing and existing right under his nose, and he never caught even a whisper of her?
He rattled off all the things he’s done throughout the course of his career - the larger half of his entire life - and found himself circling. He had been photographed buying coffee. Photographed leaving gyms. Photographed outside hotels, inside airports, walking too close to someone, standing too far from someone, wearing a shirt people decided meant something it didn’t. Strangers online from far and wide could (and have) build entire mythologies out of a ring on his finger, a lyric, a glance, a blurry background reflection in somebody else’s Instagram story.
And yet, amidst all of that, Charlie had existed. Not as an idea or a rumor, but as a child. His child. A little girl with a name, with a face that favored his own many moons ago, with a laugh that replicated her mother’s. She had existed for this long and somehow there had been nothing.
No grainy photos of Anna with a precocious bump tucked beneath a sundress or poking out of a shirt. No leaked photo of Anna with a baby on her hip in some grocery store parking lot. No anonymous comment buried beneath a fan account. No blurry picture posted by someone’s cousin’s friend with a caption full of question marks. No internet theory ever strange enough to reach him or garner any traction. No cryptic murmur from a mutual friend who had heard something and thought he ought to know. Tried as he may, he can’t even come up with a memory of ever seeing a photo of Anna anywhere with even so much as an inkling or reference to Charlie. And he was sure he’d scoured every corner of the internet by now. Enough to have at least remembered.
Not even suspicion, just four years of total silence. It was almost impressive. Which, in turn, only seemed to make him angrier. The longer he thought about it, the less it felt like luck and the more it felt like architecture. Anna had not only kept a secret. No, she had managed to build an entire life around keeping it.
Family who knew not to say his name too loudly. Siblings who offered an impenetrable ring of secrecy and familial protection. Friends who knew what not to ask and topics to steer clear from. A small, southern hometown that understood and practiced privacy as a form of unwavering loyalty. A daughter raised beneath the protective cover of marshland, church mornings, closed gates, and southern manners sharp enough to keep strangers from peering too closely.
And Harry had been everywhere. All this time - painfully, publicly, and ridiculously reachable. Out in the complete open yet, somehow, still tucked away in the darkest corner of Anna’s thoughts. In a box with no lock or key.
Anna could have found him if she wanted to. That was the part he couldn’t stop turning over. There had been lawyers. Managers. Friends. Email addresses. Even an instagram DM, if she was truly amiss of all other routes. His mother. God, his mother. If Anna had wanted the truth to reach him, she could have sent it in a hundred different directions and one of them would have surely found him.
But she chose none. Every single day, she chose none. Every morning Charlie woke up, Anna knew and still chose none. Every birthday candle blown out, each one marking another year that had passed, Anna had a plethora of options and still chose not a single one. Every fever, every first word, every new tooth, every nightmare, every little shoe tied by the door, every bedtime story read beneath a soft lamp, every moment where Charlie became more herself, Anna knew there was someone out there who had no idea what he was missing. The most agonizing realization of it all was how she willingly, and continuously, let him miss it.
Harry looked back down at the phone, where his mother’s text still waited on the screen - small and loving and completely unaware. It was too much to face at the moment, so he pressed his thumb against the side button until the screen went black. To his dismay, the darkness reflected his own face back at him.
The reflection was haunting. He looked at the tired, stricken, angry person hollowly staring back at him. The reflection of a man with a daughter. The reflection of someone’s son who had to call his mother and tell her she was a grandmother four years too late. The phone sat heavy in his hand as though the weight tripled with each thought that swirled in his skull.
For years, he had mistaken Anna’s silence for the end of their love story. Tonight, he understood it had also been the wall built around the beginning of his daughter’s life. It was enough to prompt him into throwing the phone onto the bed, watching it land face down atop the crisp hotel duvet. He couldn't bring himself to look at it anymore.
Not at the unanswered messages. Not at the conversations that had simply... stopped. Not at the impossible realization that somewhere buried beneath years of ordinary notifications and forgotten reminders, his entire life had quietly rewritten itself without him even knowing. The room suddenly felt too warm, too stuffy and overbearing. Or maybe it was him.
As if to subdue the uneasiness embedded across his entire body, he dragged a hand over his face. The scrape of stubble was rough against his palm before he forced himself to his feet. Each movement of his body took place before his brain had a moment to catch up with the decision. His legs managed to carry him toward the bathroom with the slow, heavy gait of someone who had been awake for several days instead of a few hours.
The light above the vanity blinked once before flooding the small room in a sterile, blinding shade of white. Everything existing inside of the lush ensuite bathroom remained painfully untouched. Fresh towels folded with crisp corners. Tiny bottles of shampoo lined neatly along the marble countertop, a few of them adorning the shower shelf. A bar of soap wrapped in paper that promised lavender and eucalyptus, as though either could fix what the day had broken.
Harry immediately leaned forward, bracing both hands against the cool stone, where his head hung between his shoulders and his eyes closed. It didn’t matter what corner of the hotel room he retreated to, the anger was still there. It hadn't softened. If anything, it had become heavier.
Anger at Anna. Anger at himself. Anger at every mile he'd driven believing the hardest thing he'd ever lose was her. He laughed once beneath his breath, cynically and empty. If someone had told him yesterday morning that by dusk he'd be informed of a four-year-old daughter that was half his, he would've called them insane. He would’ve laughed uncomfortably. He would’ve shot them a sideway glance and dismissed them. Now the sentence lived inside him as comfortably as his own name.
I have a daughter.
He said it out loud once, voice hoarse and low. Then he said it again. This time, it was more clear. Ultimately he rolled his eyes and shook his head. It didn’t matter how many times he said it aloud, it still couldn't make it sound or feel even remotely real.
His hands found the buttons of his shirt almost absently, working downward one at a time. The fabric slid from his shoulders, soon followed by the thump of his belt as the buckle met the cool tile of the floor. His shorts followed, then his socks. Each article of clothing landed somewhere behind him in a disarray with little more than a soft whisper against the floor. He wasn't undressing. He was shedding the day. He was shedding every insult thrown at him, and from him. He was trying to peel off remnants of what he was sure would turn out to be the most emotionally agonizing night of his entire life.
At least, that’s what he was trying to do. No matter what he got rid from his body and threw to the floor, the weight stayed exactly where it was. Heavy on his chest, and even heavier on his mind.
The shower roared to life with a violent, relentless rush of water. Steam gathered almost immediately, curling upward in lazy ribbons before swallowing the room inch by inch. Harry stepped beneath the spray without testing the temperature. Heat struck his shoulders first, then the back of his neck. It poured over him unforgivingly, soaking his hair until it clung to his forehead, running in steady streams down the planes of his chest and disappearing beneath his feet.
He stood perfectly still, succumbing to the water as it hammered against him hard enough to sting. If anything, he welcomed it. It offered itself as something tangible to feel besides the ache in his chest and the throbbing at his temples. Minutes passed, or maybe only seconds. He wasn’t entirely sure. Time had become impossible to measure.
He scrubbed shampoo through his hair with more force than necessary, fingertips digging into his scalp until the skin almost felt raw. Soapy clumps lathered in bunches across his skin before disappearing down the drain in cloudy, fizzled out ribbons. He stared down at the drain, watching it spiral away. The simplicity of it all felt almost uncomfortable. Wash. Rinse. Gone. If only grief and anger managed to obey the same rules.He tipped his head back beneath the spray and squeezed his eyes shut. Like the haunting whisper of a ghost, Anna's voice found him right away.
"I wanted to tell you."
The words echoed and bounced between his ears with perfect clarity, as though she was standing behind him in the confines of the shower and whispered them directly into his ear instead of shouting them across a backyard hours earlier. Then another.
"It was you, Harry. Just you."
Then came another.
"I didn’t mean to keep this from you for so long."
Each sentence landed exactly where the last one had, striking the same wound over and over until he wasn't sure where the pain ended and the numbness began. He threw one palm flat against the tiled wall as if to steady himself. As if touching something palpable in front of him could subdue the sound of Anna’s voice piercing his thoughts. His breathing turned uneven.
"Fuck."
The word escaped through his lips before he’d even realized he said anything. It wasn't loud, or even angry. It sounded tired. Flat out, bone-deep tired.
He stayed beneath the water until it began to run cooler. His fingertips wrinkled into a shrewd state and his skin flushed pink beneath the relentless heat that had long since stopped feeling warm. Nothing had changed.
He abruptly shut the water off, inviting the silence to return all at once, where it had begun to ring louder than the shower ever had. Harry reached blindly for a towel hanging on the rack just outside the curtain, lazily dragging it over his hair, then his face, before wrapping it low around his waist. Steam still hung thick in the air, following him menacingly as he stepped back toward the bedroom.
The bathroom mirror was masked beneath a veil of fog, but he stopped in front of it anyway. For several long seconds, there was nothing staring back at him but a blurred outline. Featureless and unrecognizable. Without warning, his hand lifted almost without thinking, a flat palm sweeping slowly across the glass. It left behind a clear path that emerged through the dense layer of condensation. He gave it another pass until his reflection began taking a human shape. First his eyes, followed by his mouth. Then the hard line of his jaw came into focus, and Harry was left to do nothing but stare at himself.
He had looked into thousands of mirrors over the years. Backstage mirrors rimmed with bright bulbs. Hotel mirrors. Studio mirrors. Bathroom mirrors in cities he'd forgotten almost as soon as he'd left them. Every single time, he'd known exactly who was looking back. Tonight it was like staring at the reflection of a complete stranger. The man in the mirror had the same green eyes. The same curl to his hair, fighting to take form beneath heavy droplets of water. The same dimple in his cheek. He was sporting the exact same face he'd woken up with that morning. Yet somehow he felt entirely unfamiliar.
Because sometime between leaving this hotel and returning to it, everything had changed and flipped itself upside down. His entire life. He searched his own reflection as though the answer might be written somewhere across it. Nothing looked different, no one passing him in the hallway would've known. The concierge hadn't. The valet hadn't. The couple laughing by the elevators hadn't. To every stranger he'd crossed paths with tonight, he was still Harry Styles. Singer. Celebrity. Guest in room 614. He was the only one who truly knew that none of those titles sat at the center anymore.
Somewhere, fast asleep in a blissfully peaceful state beneath the same Georgia sky, was a little girl who shared his smile, his blood, his family. A little girl who was a living, breathing piece of him. A little girl who had unknowingly rearranged every piece of his identity without ever even meeting him. He wasn’t looking at the man he'd been that morning. He’d likely never see the face of that man again. Right now, staring back at him through the reflection of a mildly foggy mirror, he was looking at someone’s father. Her father.
The realization should have, by every accord, filled him with joy. Instead, it hollowed him out. Fathers wrapped their children’s tiny hands in their big, protective ones as they crossed busy streets. They placed band-aids upon scraped knees. They read bedtime stories in silly voices and carried sleeping children from the car without waking them. They knew their daughter's favorite color. Her favorite breakfast. The stuffed animal she couldn't sleep without. All in all, Harry knew absolutely none of it. He had become a father in the cruelest possible way - without a single memory to prove it or show for it.
His eyes burned again, but not with tears - with helplessness. No matter how long he stood there, no matter how hard he stared into the mirror searching for the man he was supposed to become, he could never look back at the father Charlie should have known from the beginning. That man had been stolen out from under him long before Harry ever knew he existed.
His jaw tightened until it ached. The helplessness didn't stay helpless for long. Instead, it hardened. It unfolded slowly at first, like cooling metal, until grief gave way to something far more dangerous: anger. It reappeared again, this time more Raw. More unrelenting. It surged through him so suddenly he felt himself flexing and unflexing his hands, his knuckles growing whiter each time. Four years. Even now, after grappling with it for so long, the number had become even more unbearable. Not because it was large, but because it felt so full.
Full of all the moments that had belonged to someone else without ever asking for his contribution. Someone else had carried Charlie through the grocery store when she grew tired halfway down the cereal aisle. Someone else had crouched beside her after scraped knees and whispered that she was alright before brushing the dirt from her tiny palms. Someone else had listened to her laugh herself breathless over something only a four-year-old could possibly find funny. Someone else had tucked blankets beneath her chin at night, then checked beneath the bed for monsters. Or held her hand crossing busy parking lots. Someone else had become the person she instinctively reached for when she was frightened.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut. Those weren't just milestones, those were glimpses into a fatherhood he never got to partake in. A plethora of quiet, ordinary moments no one thought to photograph because they merely happened every day. The type of moments that built a relationship through one bedtime story, one breakfast, and one hug at a time. And the most gruesome part of it all was just how badly he had been robbed of all of them.
The word settled heavily inside him like a rock at the bottom of a body of water. Robbed. He wasn’t forgotten. He wasn’t just excluded. He was robbed. Choices had been taken from him before he'd ever been allowed to make one. Before he even knew there were choices like that he had to make. His breathing grew shallow as the thoughts jumbled together. Anna had decided. It wasn’t a choice they made together. Not after a conversation. Not after giving him the chance to fail. She had looked at the future of their daughter, looked down at the sweet face of a newborn wrapped contently in a hospital blanket, and decided she already knew what kind of father he would've been. The image of it all made his pulse thunder manically in his ears.
His reflection stared back at him through the clearing mirror, equally exhausted and equally furious. Maybe Anna believed she'd done the right thing, he thought. Maybe she truly thought that, by choosing this route, she'd be protecting Charlie. Maybe she'd convinced herself that shutting him out had been the safest choice for everyone. He didn't know. He wasn't ready to know, and at this point, he didn’t care. He wasn’t looking to be understanding of the decision. He didn’t even have the capacity.
Tonight, right now, all he could see were the years. Each one she had decided belonged to her alone and claimed for herself. His chest rose with one slow breath. Then another before he looked back at the man in the mirror.
The years behind him were gone, and there was nothing he could say or do to get those back. Lost time was cruel and unforgiving like that. There was no amount of anger that would give him Charlie's first steps or her first birthday. The first time she reached for someone's hand. The first time she whispered "Mama." or the potential first words of “Dada.”. Those memories had slipped beyond his reach forever, and that was that. But tomorrow wasn't hers to decide by herself anymore. The thought settled over him with a surprising kind of calm as he tracked his steps earlier in the evening to Anna’s invitation to dinner.
She could be angry if she chose to be. She could slam every door in that house if she wanted to. She could shoot him down. She could remind him of every mistake he'd ever made, every fight they'd ever had, every reason she'd convinced herself he didn't belong. She could do her worst and throw every fuck up in his face. She could, as she always had, keep that unwavering wall up through stoicism and spite. He would listen. He would answer. He would fight if he had to and scale that wall at any cost. Whatever guilt, hurt feelings, or shame it came with, so be it. Because for the first time since he'd walked out of her backyard, he understood something with perfect clarity.
This wasn't just about him anymore. This wasn’t about a fractured relationship. This wasn’t about his feelings for Anna, or vice versa. In fact, it wasn't even about Anna at all. It was about a little girl who had spent four years growing up without ever being given the chance to know her father. He had already lost enough, and he refused to lose tomorrow or any day after.
Harry held his own gaze for another long moment before finally looking away. For the first time all evening, the uncertainty loosened its grip. He still didn't know what he was going to say. He still didn't know how Anna would react. He didn’t even have a working phone number to call and preface his appearance tomorrow. He still wasn't sure if Charlie would smile when she saw him again or hide behind her mother's legs.
None of that mattered. He was going back to the Wilson house. This time, though, he wasn’t returning as the man Anna had left behind. He wasn’t coming back as a lingering ghost from the past. He wouldn’t be the guest who'd politely accepted the boundaries she'd drawn around him. This time, he’d be showing up on the porch as Charlie's father. And for the first time since the silence had swallowed him whole, the decision felt louder than the grief.
☆𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ☆ Read all the other parts here for this to make sense thank you - Angel
Y/N POV
The hotel doors slid shut behind me with a quiet hiss And just like that Silence no more shouting. No more people trying to calm us down. No more Harry yelling my name from somewhere down the hallway.Just me.I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself as the cold night air hit my skin. It was well past midnight, the streets almost empty except for the occasional taxi driving by. The city looked beautiful—lights glowing against the dark sky—but I couldn’t even bring myself to look at it properly. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I kept replaying everything over and over in my head.Every word.
Every accusation.Every look on his face.
I don’t even remember deciding to leave. One minute we were screaming at each other, the next I was grabbing my phone, my wallet, and walking straight out while everyone else stood frozen.
I heard Louis call after me.
Then Niall.
Someone—I think Liam—tried to follow, but I was already in the lift before they could reach me.
And Harry…
Harry shouted my name. The way he said it keeps echoing in my head.
Not angry.
Panicked. I should feel guilty. Maybe I do.
I don’t even know anymore. I wiped at my face, only realising I was crying when my sleeve came away damp.People walked past me without a second glance.To them I was just another girl crying in the middle of the night.If only they knew. I unlocked my phone.
18 missed calls.14 from Harry. 2 from Louis.1 from Niall.Messages kept appearing across the screen faster than I could read them.
Harry: Please don’t leave like this.
Harry: Y/N, answer me.
Harry: I’m sorry.
Harry: Please.
I couldn’t look anymore.I switched my phone onto Do Not Disturb and shoved it back into my pocket before another notification could appear.For the first time in years… I didn’t know where I was going.Usually I’d end up back with the boys after an argument. We’d cool off, apologise, laugh about how dramatic we’d been. Not tonight.Tonight felt different.Tonight felt like something had broken.I wandered aimlessly through unfamiliar streets, letting my feet decide where to go. I didn’t care if I got lost. Maybe getting lost would be easier than figuring out how to go back. Because what if I did go back? Would we just pretend none of it happened?
Would he apologise?
Would I?
Would anything actually change?
The questions were exhausting.
My phone vibrated again in my pocket.
Ignored.
Again.
Ignored. Then it stopped. For a second I thought maybe they’d finally given up. Until headlights slowed beside me. A black SUV rolled to a stop at the curb.
The passenger window lowered.
“Y/N?” I froze. I knew that voice.
But there was no way… Slowly, I turned towards the car. “…What are you doing here?”I stared at the car, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.The streetlights reflected off the black paint, making it impossible to see who was inside.
Then the driver’s door opened.
“Y/N.” I blinked, trying to process what I was seeing.
“Jeff?” The boys manager stood beside the SUV, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat. He looked as surprised to see me standing alone on the pavement as I was to see him. “I was heading back to the hotel after a meeting,” he said carefully. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”
I glanced away.
“I just… needed some air.” He looked at me for a moment, then at the tear tracks I hadn’t managed to wipe away.
“You’ve been crying.” I gave a dry laugh.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” He didn’t smile.”I’m guessing something happened.” I crossed my arms over my chest.“You could say that.”
He didn’t push.
Instead, he opened the passenger door.
“Come on. At least let me get you somewhere warm.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
“I wasn’t taking you back.” His answer caught me off guard. “You look like you need five minutes to breathe before making any decisions.”
I hesitated. Every part of me wanted to keep walking. But another part of me knew I was exhausted.
Cold.
And completely lost.
Without another word, I climbed into the passenger seat.The warmth hit me instantly.For the first time since leaving the hotel, I felt myself relax—just enough for the adrenaline to begin wearing off. Jeff pulled away from the curb, driving in silence.No questions.No lectures.
Just quiet.My phone lit up again on my lap.
Harry calling… I stared at his name.It rang until it stopped.Almost immediately…Louis calling…
I declined it
Jeff noticed.
“You don’t have to answer them.”
“I’m not ready.”
“I figured.” The car pulled into the underground car park of another hotel across the city.I frowned.
“This isn’t ours.”
“No.”
He switched off the engine.
“I’ve booked you a room for tonight.” I looked at him in surprise.
“What?” “You both need space. Going back right now isn’t going to help either of you.” I swallowed hard.
“And Harry?”
Jeff sighed quietly.
“I’ve never seen him like this.”
That was all he said.
He didn’t need to say any more.
The words alone made my stomach twist.
As we stepped out of the lift onto the top floor, Jeff handed me a keycard.
“Get some sleep.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You don’t have to sleep.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “But don’t spend all night convincing yourself everything has to be decided before morning.”
I nodded.
“Thank you.” He gave a small smile before walking back towards the lift, leaving me alone outside the room. I slid the keycard into the lock.The light flashed green.
The room was silent.
Too silent. I dropped my bag by the door and sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the wall.
Harry’s POV
I didn’t sleep not properly, anyway i tried I lay on the hotel bed staring at the ceiling, listening to every tiny sound outside the room, hoping that one of them would be her coming back But every time the lift doors opened Every time someone walked down the hallway my heart jumped and every time it wasn’t her, it sank again. he boys had tried everything Louis sat with me for hours, telling me to stop blaming myself. Niall kept reminding me that she needed space. Liam just sat quietly, because he knew there was nothing anyone could say to make it feel better.But I couldn’t stop replaying it. The argument.
The things I said. The way her face changed when I raised my voice that was the part I couldn’t forget. Not her walking out.Not the door closing. Her expression.Like I’d hurt her.And the worst part?
I knew I had. The sun started coming through the curtains, and I was still sitting on the floor outside our hotel room
Same place.
Same clothes.
Phone in my hand.
Waiting.I looked down at the screen again.
No new messages.I opened our chat anyway.
My last text was still there.
Please just tell me you’re safe.
I didn’t care if she was angry with me.
I didn’t care if she needed more time.
I just needed to know she was okay.
“Harry.”
I looked up Louis stood in the doorway, his hair messy from barely sleeping.
“You need to come inside.”
I shook my head.
“I’m staying here.”
“Mate…”
“I’m staying here.” He sighed but didn’t argue. Because he knew.Then suddenly…
The lift made a noise.
Both of us turned.My whole body froze. The doors opened.And there she was.
Y/N.
Standing there with tired eyes, messy hair, and the same jacket she left in.For a second, neither of us moved.The entire world felt silent.
She looked at me.
I looked at her and before I could think, I stood up.
“Y/N…”
“I’m sorry.” The words came out at the exact same time.
We both stopped. A small, broken laugh escaped her through her tears.
“You first.”
“No,” I shook my head quickly. “You.”
Another second passed.
Then everything just fell apart.
“I shouldn’t have shouted at you,” I said, my voice cracking. “I shouldn’t have made you feel like you had to leave.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I shouldn’t have walked out like that. I should’ve stayed and talked to you.”
“No.” I stepped closer.
“No, you needed space. I pushed you too far.”
She shook her head.
“I love you.”
That was it.
That was the thing that broke me.
Because after all the anger, all the fear, all the hurt that was still there.
She still loved me And I still loved her more than I knew how to explain Before I could say anything else, she crossed the space between us She ran straight into my arms. I caught her instantly. The second I felt her against me, I held on like I was scared she would disappear again She buried her face into my chest, sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” she cried.
“I know,” I whispered, holding her tighter.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.”
My hand moved through her hair as I tried to calm her down, but I could feel my own tears falling.
I hated that we got to this point.
I hated that I made the person I loved feel like she had nowhere else to go.
“I’m never going to stop being mad about the fact you walked out,” I whispered.
She pulled back slightly, worried.
I wiped her tears.
“But I’m more mad that I made you feel like you had to.” Her face crumpled again.
“I thought I lost you.”
I shook my head immediately.
“No.”
I pressed my forehead against hers.
“Never.”
Behind us, I heard the boys quietly disappear back into the room, giving us the moment. For the first time in hours…I finally breathed.
She was here.
She was safe.
And she was in my arms.
“We’re going to talk about this properly,” I whispered.
She nodded.
“Yeah.”
“But not right now.”
A small smile appeared through her tears.
“Not right now.”
I held her closer Because sometimes, before fixing everything you just needed to remember why you were fighting for it.
———————————————————
( Couple days later )
@ THECELEBSPILL :
Y/N and Harry have officially got everyone talking 👀
After a few days off before heading to the next city on tour, the two were spotted spending a lot of time together… and the photos have fans asking questions.
📸 First sighting: the pair were seen at a club, looking very close while enjoying their night out. Multiple moments showed Harry and Y/N laughing, dancing, and sharing what looked like a lot of kisses.
📸 Second sighting: what appeared to be a private date. The two were seen grabbing food together, walking around, and looking very comfortable in each other’s company.
📸 Third sighting: the moment everyone is talking about… Y/N and Harry were photographed kissing in Harry before leaving the night behind.
The interesting part? 👀
The two have always said they were “just friends”…
But fans are now wondering if there’s more to the story than they’ve been letting on.
Friends? Something more? Or just two people enjoying their time off together? 🤔☕️
We’ll let you decide…
#YNSquad #HarryStyles #TourTea #CelebrityTea
Comments
harryfan1: “JUST FRIENDS?? 😭😭 Be serious, I have never looked at my friends like that.”
@ynfanpage: “The way they’re always together but still saying nothing… interesting 👀”
@stylesupdates: “The car photos??? Yeah I need answers because WHAT was that.”
@tourlife_: “Everyone acting shocked when they literally spend every day together. Let them live 😭”
@harrygirl1994: “I’m sorry but Harry’s smile around her says everything.”
@ynsupporter: “People need to stop assuming. Two friends can be close without it being a relationship.”
@celebteaobserver: “The timeline is wild… days off, club, date, car… someone explain 🤨☕️”
@harrystylesarchive: “Imagine being on tour and your biggest distraction is your best friend 😭”
@1dfamilyforever: “The boys definitely know what’s going on 😂”
@papwalks: “The fact they thought nobody would notice them being this close is sending me.”
@ynlover: “If they’re happy, who cares? But the chemistry is LOUD.”
@harryonly: “Here we go again… another person using Harry’s name for attention 🙄”
@stylesgirlforever: “Funny how she’s suddenly always around him now…”
@donttouchharry: “Not everyone needs to be this close to Harry. Some boundaries would be nice.”
@teaaddict: “The way people are ignoring that Harry has a whole tour and career… everything becomes about her.”
@harryfan2009: “I don’t get the hype. Harry can do so much better.”
@unknownuser: “She knew exactly what she was doing letting those photos happen.”
@stylesarmy: “The ‘just friends’ thing is getting harder to believe… but I don’t trust her intentions.”
@celebritywatcher: “Everyone saying ‘let them be happy’ but why does she always end up in the spotlight?”
@harrystylesdaily: “I miss when Harry’s life wasn’t turned into a relationship storyline.”
@anonymous: “Not saying anything bad but I feel like she enjoys the attention a little too much.”
Summary: You spend your days developing disposable cameras at a Walmart photo lab, but one regular customer slowly becomes the highlight of your routine. Month after month, you catch glimpses of Harry's life through the memories he trusts you to develop, until he finally starts noticing the person behind the counter.
Word Count: 2.9k
A/N: Soooo... the weather? 👀 I'M BACK!!! (I think... ) i hope you guys enjoy this! Don't mind the title, i hate it too.
Warnings: Mentions of grief and the loss of parents.
.
You woke up that morning still half-asleep, your body heavy with exhaustion. After dragging yourself into the shower, you stood beneath the warm water with your eyes barely open, letting out a long sigh as the steam slowly woke you up. You washed your hair, soaped your skin with practiced movements, and tried to gather enough energy for the day ahead.
Once you were done, you pulled on your usual work clothes: beige pants, a faded pair of Converse, and the bright red vest with your name tag pinned neatly over your heart. Your hair went up into a high ponytail without much thought.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee greeted you before you even reached the kitchen.
"Good morning, Bunny," your grandmother said warmly.
"Morning, Grandma," you replied with a sleepy smile
"Already heading to work?" she asked, pouring a mug of coffee before sliding it across the table toward you.
"Yeah. I'll bring home the discounted chicken tonight."
"Sounds lovely, Bunny. Have a good day." She handed you a peach on your way to the door. "I'll be at Myrtle's house for most of the day."
"Okay"
You smiled softly as you watched her leave, the screen door creaking shut behind her.
Your grandmother had taken you in after your father passed away a few years ago. What had started as an undetectable infection in his lungs had stolen him within weeks…and you barely remembered your mother. When you were five, she'd boarded a bus headed somewhere you never learned, and she never came back. After that, it had always been just you, your father, and your grandmother—the woman who practically raised you while your dad worked long hours…
Your father developed film for a living.
He started in a tiny photo shop downtown before eventually landing a job at the photo counter inside a Walmart, back when disposable cameras still had a place in people's lives. You grew up behind that counter as much as you did at home, surrounded by the smell of developing chemicals and stacks of yellow Kodak envelopes.
Your childhood existed on film.
Birthday parties. Christmas mornings. Toothless smiles. School recitals. Every milestone preserved on glossy paper before it was tucked into family albums.
While other kids learned to ride bikes or play instruments, you learned exposure, negatives, enlargers, developer baths, fixer, timing, and light. You learned how to hold a strip of film without leaving fingerprints, how to spot an underexposed frame before it reached the printer, and how every photograph carried a tiny story.
By the time you graduated high school, college wasn't an option. There simply wasn't enough money.
You worked as a waitress for a while, picking up every shift you could, until your father got sick. When he no longer had the strength to stand behind the photo counter, you stepped in to help.
Then, after he was gone...
You never really left.
Now, every morning, you unlocked the little photo lab tucked between Electronics and the Pharmacy, one of the last places in town where people still went to develop their film
.
You flipped on the lights, the soft hum of the fluorescent bulbs filling the tiny photo lab as it came to life.
Like every morning, you settled into your routine.
Register on.
Computer on.
Photo printer.
Film processor.
You checked the day's pickups, sorted the envelopes into alphabetical order, wiped down the counter, and finally propped up the new promotional sign your manager had insisted on.
FREE PHOTO DEVELOPMENT AFTER FIVE ROLLS.Ask about our loyalty card.
"Ohhh we've got discounts over here now?" Victor said, leaning against the counter as he snapped his fingers dramatically.
"Apparently it was a marketing decision" you replied with a quiet chuckle "Want to sign up for a loyalty card?"
He pressed a hand to his chest "Darling, I'm flattered, but the last thing I know how to do is take a good picture, i was meant to be in front of the camera"
A laugh escaped you. "Aren't you supposed to be up front? like…for real?"
"It's barely eight in the morning. Nobody's coming in for—"
The overhead intercom crackled to life before he could finish.
"Victor to the front of the store. Victor to the front of the store."
You looked up with an innocent smile "Have fun."
Victor groaned dramatically as he pushed himself off the counter.
"I don't get paid enough for this place"
"You've been saying that for three years"
"And yet somehow it's still true"
You laughed as he disappeared around the corner, the store falling quiet once again.
.
You looked up from the stack of pickup envelopes to find a woman in her early forties juggling three things at once, a giant insulated water bottle tucked under one arm, an oversized tote bag threatening to spill over, and a disposable camera pinched carefully between two fingers.
Her ponytail was slightly crooked, there was a smear of sunscreen across one cheek, and she wore a bright green soccer mom sweatshirt despite it being almost eighty degrees outside.
You smiled instinctively.
"Good morning."
"Hi!" she breathed, already sounding exhausted. "Can you develop one of these?"
She placed the yellow Kodak disposable camera on the counter as if it were something precious.
"Of course."
You picked it up, turning it over in your hands out of habit.
The flash had already been used.
The advance wheel refused to turn.
"Looks like you've finished the roll."
"Oh, thank God," she laughed. "My son had three soccer tournaments this weekend and I think I took every single picture with that thing."
"I'll take care of it."
You reached beneath the counter and grabbed one of the familiar yellow processing envelopes.
"Name?"
"Jennifer Collins."
You wrote it carefully across the top.
Phone number. Date. One roll of 35mm disposable film. Standard development. Four-by-sixes. Expected pickup: three business days.
"You'll get a text as soon as they're ready."
"Perfect."
You handed her the receipt and Jennifer waved before disappearing into the endless aisles of the store. Once she was gone, you slipped the disposable camera beneath the counter into the tray labeled TO BE PROCESSED.
By noon, the tray held six cameras.
Three disposable Kodaks.
One Fuji.
Two rolls of professional 35mm film sealed inside black plastic canisters.
When the morning rush finally slowed, you pulled on a pair of powder-blue nitrile gloves and disappeared behind the swinging door marked PHOTO LAB — EMPLOYEES ONLY.
The room was barely larger than a walk-in closet.
Metal shelves lined the walls, stacked with bottles of developer, bleach, fixer, and stabilizer. The air carried the faint chemical smell you'd grown up with, sharp enough that most people wrinkled their noses, but to you it smelled strangely comforting. Like home.
You switched off the overhead lights until only the tiny red safe light remained.
Film hated light.
One careless second could erase an entire vacation.
Working almost entirely by touch, you cracked open a disposable camera with a small metal opener. The plastic shell popped apart with a familiar snap, revealing the tightly wound roll hidden inside.
Carefully, you pulled the film leader free and clipped it onto the machine's loading tab before feeding it into the processor.
Years ago, your father had done every step by hand, dunking negatives into trays of chemicals one after another.
Now the machine handled most of the work.
The film slowly disappeared inside with a soft mechanical hum.
Developer. Bleach. Fixer. Wash. Dry.
The process took a little over twenty minutes.
Long enough for you to restock photo frames, ring up a customer buying batteries, and answer two questions about passport photos.
When the processor finally beeped, you returned to the lab.
A warm strip of negatives emerged from the dryer, hanging like a tiny ribbon of memories.
You held it carefully against the inspection light.
Tiny squares.
Tiny lives.
You checked each frame for scratches, light leaks, dust, or overlapping exposures before feeding the negatives into the scanner. One by one, the images bloomed across your monitor in surprisingly vivid color.
Jennifer hadn't exaggerated.
Soccer fields stretched across nearly every frame.
Children in oversized jerseys chased soccer balls through muddy grass.
Orange slices during halftime.
A team huddle.
One little boy grinning proudly while holding a plastic participation trophy.
A blurry picture of a golden retriever that had apparently wandered onto the field.
You smiled despite yourself.
There was something wonderful about ordinary lives.
Moments people thought were too small to remember.
.
The cheerful chime of the service bell echoed through the back room. You pulled your gloves off with a sigh, setting the strip of freshly developed negatives onto the drying rack before pushing open the swinging door that separated the lab from the counter.
"I'll be right there!"
As you rounded the corner, you already had your customer-service smile ready.
Then you saw him.
Harry.
He was standing exactly where he always did, one hand resting on the counter while the other absentmindedly rolled a disposable camera between his fingers. A worn canvas tote bag hung from one shoulder, and the sleeves of his faded forest-green sweatshirt were pushed up to his elbows. His curls looked slightly flattened on one side, as though he'd spent the morning wearing a baseball cap, and there was a pair of sunglasses hooked into the collar of his T-shirt.
He looked... familiar.
Not because you'd ever spent more than five minutes talking to him, but because he'd been coming to this counter for almost a year now. Once every month, sometimes every six weeks, he'd walk in carrying one, occasionally two, disposable cameras, drop them off with the same easy smile, buy fresh ones, thank you by name, and disappear back into the world until the next roll was full.
Most regular customers developed pictures of birthdays or holidays.
Harry developed his life. Road trips. Cabins.
Coffee shops you'd never heard of.
Sunsets from places you couldn't name.
Friends who looked impossibly close, always laughing at something outside the frame.
The same golden retriever that seemed convinced every couch in existence belonged to him.
A little blue house with ivy climbing around the porch that appeared often enough for you to recognize it instantly….
His photographs never felt posed. Half of them were crooked, overexposed, blurry around the edges, or caught someone in the middle of laughing. Somehow, those always ended up being the best ones.
Over the months, you'd unknowingly started piecing together tiny fragments of his life. Not enough to know him. God, not even close. but enough that when he walked through those automatic doors, your brain quietly filled in the blanks.
He liked camping. He drank his coffee black. He traveled whenever he could. He had a dog that hated sitting still for pictures.
And judging by the amount of birthday candles and Christmas dinners you'd developed over the past year... he had people. Lots of them.
A full life.
The kind that fit effortlessly inside disposable cameras.
You blinked yourself back into the present when he smiled.
"Hi."
"Hi" you answered, returning the smile without even realizing it. "Sorry about the wait."
"No worries" He lifted the little yellow camera between his fingers. "Finished another one."
You glanced at the disposable camera before meeting his eyes again.
"I figured."
He set the disposable camera on the counter, watching as you picked it up and turned it over in your hands, checking that the advance wheel had stopped.
"Looks like you got all twenty-seven."
"I always do." He grinned. "I hate wasting frames."
You laughed quietly as you grabbed one of the yellow envelopes.
"Name?"
"Harry."
"Last name?"
"You still have to ask?"
"It's procedure."
He let out a small laugh before answering anyway.
As you scribbled everything down, he leaned his forearms against the counter, looking around the tiny photo department.
"You've been here a while now."
Your pen paused for half a second.
"Almost three years."
"Really?"
You nodded. "Time flies when you're surrounded by disposable cameras."
He smiled to himself.
"Did you always want to do this?..."
It caught you completely off guard, not because it was an invasive question, because it was the first question he'd ever asked that wasn't about prints, pickup dates, or whether the flash had worked.
For a moment, you simply looked at him, and then you shook your head with a small smile.
"Not exactly."
He waited.
"My dad worked here before I did."
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
"He developed film?"
"Yeah." you said while your fingers absentmindedly traced the edge of the envelope. "He'd been doing it since before digital cameras took over. First at a little photo shop downtown, then here." You smiled faintly, the memory warming you despite yourself. "I practically grew up behind this counter."
"So you learned from him?"
"Everything”" you chuckled softly "I think I knew what fixer smelled like before I learned long division."
That earned a genuine laugh from him "I can believe that."
"He used to let me hand him the negatives after they came out of the processor" You shrugged. "Eventually he trusted me enough to run the whole thing myself"
Harry's smile softened. "Where is he now? Retired?"
The question came gently, genuinely out of curiosity.
You glanced down at the counter for a moment. "He got sick."
Silence settled between you.
"It happened pretty fast" You swallowed. "An infection in his lungs. By the time they figured out what it was..." You offered a small, resigned smile. "...there wasn't much they could do"
"Oh...I'm sorry."
There was no awkwardness in the way he said it. No rush to fill the silence.
Just two simple words, spoken like he actually meant them.
You nodded "Thank you."
"He'd probably be happy you're keeping it going."
You looked around the little photo lab, the aging machines, the shelves full of chemicals, the faded Kodak posters that hadn't been replaced in years. "I hope so."
For a second, neither of you spoke.
"Well..." A crooked smile tugged at his lips. "I'm glad you're still here."
You blinked, It was such an ordinary sentence, so casually said, and yet something about it settled warmly in your chest.
Before you could think of a response, he reached toward the display beside the register.
"I'll take two more."
You looked over to find him holding up a pair of disposable cameras.
"You've got another trip planned?"
His grin widened "Maybe"
There it was again…that little bit of mystery but never enough information to satisfy your curiosity
You rang up the two disposable cameras, sliding them into a paper bag before handing it across the counter along with his receipt "Your film should be ready by Thursday."
"Perfect."
Harry tucked the cameras into his tote bag before flashing you that same easy smile he always wore.
"I'll see you then"
"You will."
He gave you a small wave as he turned, disappearing into the bright maze of grocery aisles. You let out a quiet breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding.
"He's gone now, right?"
You didn't even have to look up.
Victor.
He leaned dramatically over the counter, following Harry's direction."Jesus Christ."
You rolled your eyes."What?"
"That man."
"What about him?"
Victor looked at you as if you'd just asked what color the sky was.
"He's offensively attractive!"
A laugh escaped before you could stop it.
"Oh, please"
"No, seriously." He pointed toward the grocery aisles. "Those curls? The smile? The whole 'I'm effortlessly cool' thing?"
You shook your head, trying and failing not to smile. "He's just nice"
"Exactly" Victor snapped his fingers. "That's what makes him dangerous"
"I don't think nice is dangerous"
"It is when you're built like..." He gestured vaguely toward where Harry had disappeared. "...that"
You laughed again, shaking your head as you tucked the receipt book back beneath the register. Victor watched you for a beat before narrowing his eyes.
"...What?"
He leaned closer. "That smile"
"I smile at everyone."
"No" He wagged a finger "Customer-service smile? Totally different..."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I do" He crossed his arms triumphantly. "The second Pretty Boy walks in, your face changes"
"My face does not change"
"It absolutely does"
You busied yourself straightening a stack of photo envelopes, refusing to look at him.
"You get this..." he waved his hand around your face, searching for the right word "...soft look"
"I don't"
"You smiled before he even said anything"
"I was being polite"
Victor snorted "You weren't smiling at Soccer Mom like that"
You opened your mouth but then closed it. "...That's because she told me about her son's soccer tournament"
"And Harry tells you he filled another camera…."
"Which is relevant to my job Vic"
"Mhm" Victor nodded with mock seriousness. "Whatever helps you sleep at night"
You sighed dramatically. "He's just a regular customer, I literally don't know anything about him"
Victor raised an eyebrow "No?"
You shook your head. "No"
He smiled knowingly "That's funny."
"...Why?"
"Because from where I'm standing..."
He nodded toward the swinging door that led back into the photo lab.
"...you look an awful lot like someone who's looking forward to seeing whatever's on that roll"
Your cheeks warmed instantly.
Victor caught it and his grin grew impossibly wider "Oh my God."
"Don't."
"You do have a little crush."
"I do not have a crush.
"You have a Kodak crush"
"I'm going back to work and you should too!"
Victor laughed as you pushed through the swinging door
"You can't hide in the darkroom forever!"
"Watch me!" The door swung shut behind you, muffling his laughter.
You leaned against the cool metal shelf for just a second, shaking your head at yourself
Ridiculous.
It wasn't a crush. It couldn't be.
He was simply the customer whose life passed through your hands once a month, twenty-seven frames at a time.
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈 — 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐢 — the one where YN realises that her brother's wedding might not be as easy as she once thought...
𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓 | 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 9k+
𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: welcome to every summer since!! this one has been cooking for while, it's actually the idea that got me back into writing recently so I've loved getting them down onto a page. Please let me know what you think, and what you're excited for and what you think the plot twist might be (hint, I think it's a good one). enjoy!! mwah <3
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language, weddingrry, and two absolute idiots who cannot communicate to save their lives (this warning will come often)
A destination wedding in Positano would be an exciting event for anyone. To see two people endlessly in love with each other decide to spend the rest of their lives with each other in one of the most gorgeous places on earth — it was practically a dream.
For YN, her feelings towards the event were a little more complicated.
YN had known that Harvey was going to propose to Yasmin for a while, so she wasn’t too shocked when the announcement photo went up on Instagram, or when the wedding invite came through her door a couple of months later. She knew it was only going to be small, with only close friends and family in attendance. The one thing she just hadn’t quite anticipated that it would take place in Positano. Looking back though, she probably should have. Italy was one of YN’s favourite places, and one of Harvey’s and they’d had their fair share of holidays there with Yasmin too. It made sense that they wanted to celebrate their love there.
Yasmin was perfect for Harvey. Whilst Harvey could be a little over the top, always high-energy and bouncing between one thing and another, Yasmin calmed him. She was stiller, highly organised and kept him in line — exactly what he needed. They were in YN’s eyes a perfect match, and she couldn’t wait to watch them get married and start the rest of their lives together.
Now, that was one thing. Seeing the two of them get married at the end of the week was its own thing, in YN’s mind. The wedding itself, the week long event that they’d rented a villa for — that was the thing that YN was dreading.
The siblings were as close as they have ever been, especially after their mother died. Their father hadn’t been in the picture, so it had always just been the three of them, well now two. No matter what swirls in YN’s head about the event — she loves her brother and would always be there for him. They’ve only got each other now.
But, saying that, they were different.
YN was twenty-six, Harvey was thirty. There was a significant age gap between them that never mattered when they were younger, but grew more as they did. When YN started university at eighteen, Harvey had already graduated and was making a name for himself in the music industry.
Their lives were very different, and that meant their circles were very different.
Harvey had more friends that YN could probably name, making them throughout his long career as a music producer. It was actually how him and Yasmin met, when she was recording backing vocals on an album Harvey produced five years ago.
YN had studied English Literature at university, and worked as a junior editor for a publishing firm. She had one friend, Olive, who had been her rock throughout university and beyond, and that was pretty much it. She had acquaintances, and people she spent time with but not a lot of true friends.
Their lives were very different, and that wasn’t a bad thing but it did mean that YN often felt slightly out of place in Harvey’s circle. They were all in the music industry in some capacity, living a life completely different to what YN was. There was nothing wrong with that, it just made her slightly uncomfortable. And if she was honest, slightly insecure. She didn’t have the most money, or the biggest flat but she had worked hard for every penny, and every step she had taken in life.
There was another thing. Another thing that niggled in the back of YN’s brain, and had done since she met him eight years ago.
Harry Styles. Harvey’s best friend and partner in crime.
It was a storyline that YN had read a hundred times over, and no matter how many times she had told herself that she wasn’t going to allow herself to fall victim to something so common — she couldn’t help it.
YN had been eighteen when she first met Harry. It was actually her eighteenth birthday, and he had been twenty-four. YN was going out in London with Olive and some of her friends from college as a last hurrah before university. Harvey had asked if he could drop in with a friend or two. YN had said yes, obviously, having not seen her older brother in a while. What she hadn’t expected that night was Harry Styles to be the friend he was bringing.
YN had taken one look at him, standing next to her brother, head tipped back as he laughed at something stupid Harvey had said — and that was it. She was done for.
𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟖
YN has had too many shots. Categorically, too many shots.
It was her eighteenth birthday after all, obviously drinking had been on the cards but she just hadn’t expected to quite have so many in such close succession.
That was why when Olive had pulled her over to the bar, arguing that they needed to have more shots, YN had backed out.
They had rented out the top floor of one of their favourite bars for the event, or Harvey had. When he heard that his little sister wanted to celebrate her birthday with her friends in London, he had insisted he helped. YN wasn’t going to say no, especially when she knew her and her friends would all be safe if he did that.
“Water, please,” YN had all but gasped to the bartender.
“Boo!” Olive had drunkenly slurred from the side of her, “C’mon it’s your eighteenth, YN!”
“Yeah and I would like to live to see nineteen!” YN retorts, face lifting in joy when the bartender placed a pint of ice cold water in front of her.
YN watched as Olive picked up another shot of what YN was guessing was tequila and threw it back, taking a bite of lime afterwards.
Olive and YN were platonic soulmates. Both girls knew it and weren’t going to let anything come between them. They were slightly different though, with Olive a lot more outgoing than YN was but they balanced each other well. Despite their differences, they hardly ever argued or got annoyed with each other and if they did it was always small and easily fixed.
YN pretty much drank the entire pint of water in one gulp, feeling slightly refreshed afterwards and ready to get back to it.
“Come on!” Olive grabbed her hand and started to pull her towards the dance floor, “I wanna dance.”
YN allowed herself to pulled a step or two and then her phone vibrated in her pocket. YN pulled her arm out of Olive’s hold and held up a finger.
“One sec!”
YN stopped, watching as Olive found a group of people to dance with in the middle of the floor. Pulling her phone out, she saw a very unflattering photo of her brother (one she had chosen especially for his contact photo) and swiped to answer.
“Harvey?” YN practically shouted down the phone, trying to be heard over the background noise around her.
“YN?” He shouted just as loudly back, “We’ve just got here! Where are you?”
“Upstairs!” She called back, “Harv, I really can’t hear you.”
“Harry!” She heard Harvey call, quieter than before, “Upstairs mate!”
“Where are you?” YN asked, trying to push past the bodies towards the entrance. Just as she got there, she spotted her brother walking towards her, “Oh, I see you!”
“Jesus, YN, how many friends do you have?” She watched as Harvey, phone to his ear still scanned the crowd for her. It was only when she started to wave her arm around like a mad woman that he finally spotted her, “There you are.”
YN closed her phone and placed it back in her pocket, smiling as she bounced over to her brother. Just as she started to move, she spotted that he wasn’t alone. Well, YN knew he wasn’t alone from the conversation they had earlier, but she hadn’t quite expected that this ‘friend’ of his to be none other than Harry Styles.
YN froze.
She watched as Harvey said something to Harry. Surprisingly, it must have been funny because Harry tipped his head back in laughter, his eyes closing as it shook through his body.
“You gonna say hi or what?” YN was in that much shock that she hadn’t even noticed that the duo was now standing directly in front of her, staring at her expectantly.
“Oh,” she plastered a smile on her face, “Hi.”
“Happy birthday, squirt,” Harvey extended his arms out, and engulfed YN in what could only be described as a bear hug.
“Thank you,” she mumbled into his shoulder, “Thanks for…” she motioned to the party around them, “This.”
“Don’t mention it,” Harvey shrugged, dropping his hands into his pockets, “This is Harry… Harry this is my little sister, YN.”
YN never thought that she would have a book moment in real life. She had read so many books, so many romance books at that and she never thought she would ever experience anything like book characters do on a page. But, as she stood there in the middle of her eighteenth birthday party, and Harry Styles’ eyes settled on her, the world stilled around her. The music quietened, the people seemed to disappear and all she could focus on was the green of his eyes. Eyes that were staring directly at her.
“Happy birthday,” He gave her a smile, “It’s nice to meet you, Harv’s always talking about you.”
YN froze all over again, “Thank you… It’s… uh nice to meet you too.”
The problem was, YN hadn’t even been that big of a fan of one direction. She’d enjoyed Harry’s first album, but Harvey had helped produce that one so she felt like she had to. But, even minus her brother’s involvement it was a damn good album, and Sign of the Times was a fantastic song to sing in the shower.
“There’s a lot of people here, squirt, I didn’t think you had that many friends,” Harvey commented, looking around the room once more.
“I don’t think I know who half these people are,” YN admitted, brushing a piece of her hair away from her face, “I think they’re treating it more as a final college bash than a birthday.”
“You’re having fun though, yeah?” It was Harry that asked. It was at that point that she also realised he hadn’t stopped looking at her, “You only turn eighteen once.”
“Yeah… yes I am,” YN nodded.
“Great,” Harvey tapped her on the shoulder, “Well… we’re going to get a drink, do you want anything?”
“No thank you,” she managed to squeak out before they walked away from her and towards the bar.
It was almost as though her feet were cemented into the ground. She couldn’t move. Of course she knew that Harvey and Harry Styles were friends, but she hadn’t the slightest clue that they were close enough for Harry to tag along with him to his little sisters birthday party.
“YN,” Olive appeared directly in front of her, the girl’s hands resting on her arms and giving her a shake, “You still with me?”
“I… I think so,” YN muttered, looking at her friend with the same shocked expression.
“Is that fucking Harry Styles with Harvey?” she asked, shock evident in her own voice.
“Yes?” YN’s response sounded more like a question than anything else.
“Harry Styles is at your birthday party?”
“Yes?”
“Why is Harry Styles at your birthday party?”
YN just shrugged, “I don’t know… Harvey said he’d be bringing a friend but I didn’t know that it was going to be… him.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
“He’s even prettier in real life, if that’s even possible.”
“I know.”
That was the first of three things YN learnt on her eighteenth birthday. The second being that tequila is not her friend and never will be.
The third was that meeting Harry Styles on that day was one of the best and worst things to ever happen to her.
𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔
A crush had blossomed somewhere in her chest, and she hadn’t ever been able to get rid of it. That was the tale, the one as old as time — the younger sister falling for her older brother’s friend.
That eighteenth birthday party had just been the start of something that grew. All of a sudden, Harry was everywhere. Every time she saw her brother, he was there too. They became inseparable.
That’s why when she had heard the news that Harry was going to be Harvey’s best man, she hadn’t been the slightest bit shocked. But, it did cause an anxiety to blossom within her chest.
When she had arrived late last night, she had bypassed the rest of the wedding party that was already here and gone straight up to her room. She had sent Harvey and Yasmin an apologetic message, saying that she was too tired and yucky from the flight and just wanted a shower and to go to bed.
That wasn’t the truth though. What had really happened was as she arrived at the villa, she was as the message said exhausted from the flight but she just couldn’t face it. She had been directed towards the patio, and the first thing she saw was Harry Styles, in a pair of shorts and a linen shirt dancing with one of Yasmin’s bridesmaids.
She was beautiful, far too beautiful and they both had big grins on their faces and that was enough for YN to decide that she needed another night, just one to be able to face him.
YN had that one night and yet she felt no better.
Instead of showering and relaxing, she showered and then clad in the villa-issued dressing gown, towel wrapped around her hair - YN laid on the plush bed in her room and stared at the ceiling. Telling herself over and over again that she was being silly and she needed to get over it, then she would remember something, a small snippet of Harry that would cause those feelings to just come rushing back.
Sleep hadn’t come easy, and she somehow felt worse this morning than after her flight. She had dragged herself up and out of bed, showered again because she thought it would help wake her up (it hadn’t) and got dressed for the day. She’d settled on a pair of linen shorts that stopped just above her knee and a flowy white top with small flowers on it, and short straps.
Thanks to Yasmin’s very detailed itinerary, YN knew that they would be meeting for breakfast imminently and yet she just couldn’t move. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, messing with a loose thread on the edge of her shirt.
She was being silly now, and it was frustrating her. Yet every time she tried to shake her nerves, it just didn’t work. She didn’t want to see him, to have to be with him and pretend that his eyes weren’t the ones that plagued her dreams. It was so silly, and yet to YN it felt like the end of the world.
YN groaned and dropped back on her bed, arms spread at her side. She stayed for a second before she heard the sound of her phone vibrate on the bedside table.
Sitting up, she reached over to grab it. Groaning once more when she saw the notifications pop through one after another.
Harvey: Oi
Harvey: Yas’ going to be sending search and rescue in a minute
Harvey: Get your arse down here
With a sigh, YN sent a very passive aggressive thumbs up in response and pushed herself up from the bed.
Somehow, miraculously, she put one foot in front of the other and made it downstairs.
“God,” Harvey dropped down at the table across from Harry with a thud, an espresso on each hand, “I’m exhausted and it’s only day one.”
“Oh, thanks mate,” Harry went to reach for one of the cups but Harvey pulled it closer to him.
“These are both mine,” He explained with a furrowed brow, “Get your own.”
Harry was gobsmacked. He didn’t even know what to say, he just laughed and shook his head.
“I didn’t even think you were that bad yesterday,” Harry said, leaning back in his chair.
“I wasn’t,” Harvey sighs, running a hand through his hair and taking a sip of espresso, “But between Yas and my sister I’m going to go into an early grave.”
Harry tried to ignore the way his heart lurched when Harvey mentioned YN. Instead, he tapped his thigh with his finger and tried to keep his face as still as possible.
“YN’s here?” He asked, praying that Harvey didn’t notice the way her name got caught in his throat.
“Yeah she arrived late last night,” Harvey explains, running a hand over his face.
“I didn’t know,” Harry shrugs, “I haven’t seen her.”
“Nobody has,” He shakes his head, “She got here, messaged me she was tired and was going to bed and nobody has heard a peep since. Yas is freaking out because she needs to know if her dress needs steaming and if it does it needs to go today and… argh.”
Harry watches as Harvey drops his head back in his chair, both hands coming to rest over his eyes. Harry tries really hard not to laugh, but it’s impossible not to and a small chuckle escapes his lips.
“Mate, it’ll be fine,” Harry offers in support.
“I know,” Harvey sighs again, “It’s just… I sent her message five minutes ago and she replied with a thumbs up but I’ve not heard anything else.”
“See,” Harry points at Harvey’s phone, “You’ve had a sign of life, she’ll be here. It’s YN, she’ll have spotted a bookcase and become so distracted that nothing else in the world will matter.”
“It’s just…” Harvey looks as though he was contemplating sharing his next remark, but he does anyway, “I’m just worried about her… she’s been really anxious about coming here and I don’t want it to have stressed her out.”
That immediately perks Harry’s interest, “Anxious? Why?”
“She, uh, struggles with,” Harvey waves his around at the people milling around them, “This… she thinks that because she’s not in the industry or something she doesn’t fit in.”
“That’s bullshit,” Harry frowns, “Of course she fits in.”
“I know that and you know that,” Harvey recites and then shrugs, “It’s a bit harder trying to get her to realise that.”
Harry lets that settle with him. As much as he agreed that there was a part of YN that felt like she maybe didn’t fit in — he can’t help but think that there was maybe something else in it. Harry found himself looking away from Harvey, hoping that overnight his friend hadn’t turned into some kind of mind reader and could read into all his thoughts.
Then he heard it.
The sound came from just behind Harvey, at the double doors at the back of the villa that lead to the patio that they were sitting on. An unmistakable sound, a laugh that could make a smile grow on even the grumpiest of faces.
It was YN, walking down the steps. She was chatting and laughing with Yasmin, the two of them with the biggest smiles of their faces. It made Harry’s heart skip a beat. She wasn’t wearing or doing anything special, just a pair of shorts and a flowy shirt, her hair down but pinned back from her face. She looked slightly tired but he presumed that most of the wedding party were after the travel.
He looked away, especially when he realised there was no air in his lungs and Harvey had realised that he was staring intently at something.
Harvey turned, saw the two women walking down the steps and raised his arm to call them over.
“Well, well,” Harvey joked as YN slipped into the seat next to him, “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Hello to you too, Harvey,” YN just beamed.
“You’d get a nice hello if you hadn’t caused me to sprout grey hairs a few days before my wedding,” he retorts.
YN just rolled her eyes, a smile still on her face.
It was then she turned to look at Harry, and he watched as her smile dropped just the slightest. It wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone else, but he saw it and he tried to ignore the way it made his heart plummet.
“Hi, Harry.”
“Hi.”
A silence grew around them, thick and all encompassing. It happened again. Just like the first moment they met, at YN’s eighteenth birthday. His mouth became insanely dry, and his heart started to beat ten times faster in his chest. All he could hear was static, and all he could see was her. YN. Smile faltering just because he was there.
“YN?” It was Yasmin’s voice that interrupted them, causing the girl to flinch and look away from him, “After breakfast will you come and find me with your dress? They need to leave by this afternoon to be steamed in town before Friday.”
“Of course.”
Harry watched as Harvey leaned over, placing his hand on his bride’s thigh, “I thought we said no getting stressed about wedding stuff today.”
“I never said I wasn’t going to get stressed,” Yasmin responded, “You did.”
Harvey rolls his eyes, “We penciled out fun for today. The pool; maybe a walk. A couples of days to relax before the rest of the guests arrive tomorrow and we’re on high alert.”
“And we’ll get to that,” Yasmin nods, “But that doesn’t mean that everything can’t be perfect in the meantime.”
As the couple bickered back and forth, Harry watched YN. She was watching her brother and Yasmin with a smile on her face, yet there was something vacant about her eyes — almost as though watching them was hard for her somehow.
“I’m gonna..” YN pushed up from the table, “Go and get some breakfast.”
Without a second thought, Harry pushed up from the table too, “I’ll come with.”
YN didn’t say anything, and instead just gave him a small nod. They walked together back up the stairs of the villa and towards the kitchen. Harry kept a safe distance away, but all he wanted to do was reach out and touch the slip of her hip that was showing between her shorts and the way her shirt was sitting.
Harry noticed the espresso machine at the entrance to the kitchen and slowed, “Coffee?”
YN looked positively relieved at its mention, “Yes please.”
She lingered to the side, eyes seemingly trying to focus on anything and everything that wasn’t him making her a coffee.
“So,” Harry started, clearing his voice from the lump that had formed there, “How have you been?”
“Good,” It’s a short response, and Harry doesn’t like it, “You?”
“Busy… but good,” he nods, trying to focus on the coffee, “How’s Olive?”
“She’s good,” YN nods, “Wish that she could be here but kids don’t leave school for another week.”
Harry hums, “I forgot that she was a teacher… I bet she’s good at it.”
“She is,” he doesn’t miss the smile that crosses YN’s lips, “She’s insane and the kids love her… it’s the perfect mix.”
Once Harry had finished the coffees, he passed YN hers and she thanked him. They then made their way further into the kitchen, where a magical display was in front of them.
Maria, the villa’s caterer, had put on what Harry could only describe as a fantastic spread. Bread, cheese, meats, fruits, pastries. The whole spread was enticing, and Harry’s hunger grew tenfold.
“Oh god I want it all,” It seemed as though that was the same for YN.
Harry laughed, picked up two plates and passed her one. She placed her coffee to the side and looked like a woman on a mission.
He followed her around, watching as she put a blend of everything on offer on her plate, piling it up until he couldn’t see her plate anymore. He just laughed and followed suit.
“Keep going!” It was Maria that called out to them, “I like big appetites here.”
YN just giggled, continuing to place a medley of fruit on her plate. She went to pick up her plate but Harry shook his head.
“Grab the coffees,” he nodded to them, “I’ve got them.”
“Oh!” Maria gasped, “Such a gentleman… you’ve got yourself a good one there.”
“I…” Harry watches as YN hesitates, a myriad of emotions crossing her features before she finds the right words, “He’s just showing off. It’s all a front, Maria.”
Harry’s lips parted in shock, and then he couldn’t help the barking laugh that escaped them.
“I don’t believe that for one second!”
Harry followed YN out of the kitchen and towards the table where Yasmin and Harvey were still sat. Yasmin had moved so she was closer to her husband to be, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder.
Harry placed YN’s plate down, and then his. YN hesitated slightly when she realised he’d placed hers down right next to where he was sitting. But, it was only for a fraction of second and then she dropped down in the seat.
Harvey, seeing the mountain of food on her plate reached forward and grabbed a grape. YN immediately smacked his hand away, but it was too late and he popped the grape in his mouth.
“Mine,” She pointed at herself, sending her older brother a glare.
“C’mon, you’ve got enough food for a small army there,” He reached over again but she was too quick for him this time, and smacked his hand away with more force.
“Yes and Maria said a healthy appetite is good — this is all mine,” she motioned to her plate, “If I don’t finish it all, you may have some.”
“Honestly, Harvey,” Yasmin shook her head, “You’re like a child… Maria’s put on a full spread in there go get your own.”
“Thank you Yasmin,” YN nodded, continuing to butter some of the bread she had picked up, “You may take what you want from my plate… just not the grapes because they’re my favourite.”
Yasmin reached over and grabbed a piece of melon, humming when the sweetness hit her tongue.
Harvey, on the other hand looked gobsmacked. He turned to Harry with his eyes wide and lips parted.
“Did you see that?”
“See what, mate?” Harry laughed, munching on one of the pastries he’d grabbed, “What your life is going to look like in the future?”
“Exactly that,” Harvey shook his head, “I’m going to be outnumbered.”
“You already are,” Harry laughed.
Harry swore he saw the corners of YN’s lips lift up at that.
Harvey and Yasmin went to get their own plates shortly after, leaving YN and Harry sitting there in silence whilst they munched on their breakfast.
It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence at all. It was just two people sharing space with each other in the Italian morning sunlight, with the sea breeze dancing through their hair.
Harry just let it settle between them, not forcing anything. Even though there were a thousand things he could’ve said, he just didn’t.
He just wished he didn’t regret it as much as he did.
“Black and white polka dots or navy and white stripes?” YN asked, holding two bikinis up at Yasmin who was lounged across her bed, already sporting a figuring hugging yellow swimsuit and matching cover up.
“Jesus, YN,” Yasmin’s eyes widened when she saw them, “Who are you trying to impress?”
“No one,” YN answered a little too quickly to be convincing.
Yasmin just raised an eyebrow at YN, but she didn’t push.
“The polka dots,” She responded, “The stripes will be better for the boat trip tomorrow.”
“You’re so right.”
After breakfast, everyone had split up to do their own things. YN had returned to her room to have a nap, which she was more than thankful for. After seeing Harry her nerves had dissipated slightly, and an overwhelming exhaustion at the whole situation had washed over her.
She had managed a good two and half hours before Yasmin all but bashed the door to her room down, ordering that she get her swimsuit on because they were going to the pool. Scared of creating a bridezilla, YN had just said yes.
Normally YN wouldn’t wear something so revealing, but she had to get something out of this trip for herself and if topping up her tan-lines was the only thing, she’d be dammed if she didn’t get them.
The bikini tied around her neck and back, the cups flushing perfectly to her boobs. The bottoms were high waisted, and hugged her curves perfectly. Just as Maria had said earlier, YN had an appetite and it meant that she wasn’t the slimmest in the world, but she had come to embrace her curves the older she’d gotten. They were a part of her, and she wouldn’t change them.
The cover up was a thin, black lace tie-up that sat around her hips. She tied her hair up in a mess on her head, just so it didn’t get drenched and placed her sunglasses on her nose. She then stood with her hands on her hips in front of Yasmin.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
The pool itself matched the grandeur of the villa. It sat just beyond the patio, overlooking the cliff and the sea that stretched to the horizon. Some of the groomsmen and bridesmaids were already on loungers when they got there, but Yasmin and YN secured a spot underneath one of the umbrellas, shielding them from the early afternoon sun that was fierce and mighty.
Yasmin slipped into the pool first, whilst YN sat on her lounger applying a heathy sealing of suncream to her skin.
“Oi!” It was Harvey, popping his head up from where he’d been laid on the grass just to the side of the pool, “Suncream.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yas.” It was more of a warning than anything.
“Have you got ours?”
“Harry’s got it.”
It was then that YN saw Harry, sitting on a lounger a few away from them. Yasmin climbed out of the pool and made her way towards the lounger where she’d deposited her towel. Harry held out the suncream for her, and she accepted it with only a slight glare.
“Gimme a sec,” She turned to YN, “Just going to get Harv to do my back.”
YN just hummed, trying not to grow embarrassed at the fact that she was unsuccessfully trying to get her own back and was about to ask Yasmin to help her.
YN could feel Harry lingering at her side, and she tried and tried so hard not to look. He was wearing green swim shorts, low on his hips. He knew exactly what he was doing, the band of the shorts exposing the ferns resting on his toned stomach, highlighting the deep V that dipped in between his legs.
“Do you…” she hears him start before he clears his throat, “Do you need any help?”
“I’m alright thank you,” YN responds, her pitch increasing at the end.
She was struggling, but she didn’t want to admit that. She could only reach the top of her shoulders and the bottom of her back, the middle section was just completely unreachable. But, she didn’t want to say that to Harry.
“C’mon,” Harry tried again, “You’re missing your entire back, pretty much.”
Sighing, YN dropped her arms and held out her suncream to him. Harry looked at her, waiting for her to nod before taking the suncream off her. He dropped down on the sun lounger next to her. YN heard the cap go, before the sound of him squeezing the bottle. He rubbed his hands together before he placed them on her shoulders.
“Sorry if it’s cold.”
YN bit her bottom lip, “It’s fine.”
YN tried to stay focused on literally anything in front of her but she couldn’t do it. Her eyes fluttered shut as his hands started to work across her shoulders. His thumbs every now and then pressed into her muscles, and she almost whimpered. His hands worked across her shoulders, all the way down her back. They slipped under the tie of her bikini, his fingers almost brushing the cups of her bikini. Then his hands slipped lower, getting the bottom of her back.
YN gasped when his fingers brushed the plushy flesh of her hips, dangerously close to the tie in her bikini bottoms. She was frozen, completely. All of her senses had been taken over by the feeling of Harry’s hands on her, and then all of a sudden they weren’t.
Harry pulled away, jumping up from the sun lounger and passing her the suncream back.
“Uh…” he scratched the back of his neck, “Done.”
“Thanks,” before the word was even fully out of her lips, Harry was stalking off and making his way towards the villa, his steps quick and his head down. YN was slightly taken aback with how quick it had all happened.
Yasmin dropped down on the lounger next to her a second later, skin shiny with her own suncream. Her eyes were watching Harry, just like YN’s were.
“What got up his arse?”
YN shrugged, “I don’t know.”
The problem was, YN did know what was wrong with Harry, because it was the exact same thing that was wrong with her. It was the exact same reason that she pushed herself off the lounger and made her way towards the pool.
At first, she dropped herself down to the poolside and slipped her feet under the water. With it being an outdoor pool, the water wasn’t warm but thanks to the blaring Italian sun it wasn’t freezing either. After her feet became acclimatised to the water, YN slipped her whole body into the water, allowing herself to float.
Looking back, she should have said no.
She should have said no to Harry and waited for Yasmin to come back. She shouldn’t now know what it feels like to have Harry’s hands brushing across her body like that. She shouldn’t be able to wish that they were still there. It hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hour period yet in Positano, and YN’s chest felt even tighter than it was when she arrived.
YN hadn’t the slightest clue how was she was supposed to survive this week.
This crush was fine when they were miles away, when he was on an international stage and she was at her desk in her small office in central London. All YN worried about then was seeing his face whilst she scrolled through her phone.
But here, where she could walk around any corner and there he was going to be, standing in front of her — it was stressing her out more than words could explain.
“YN?” Yasmin called from where she had just slipped in the other side of the pool, “You alright?”
“Good,” YN nodded.
“You look like you’re going to throw up… please don’t throw up in the pool.”
YN shook her head lightly, “I’m not going to throw up.”
Just as YN said that, her eyes focused on a table on the patio. Sitting at the table where they had been a few hours earlier, sharing breakfast in each other’s company was Harry, laughing away to something one of the bridesmaids said. It was the same bridesmaid that YN had seen him dancing with the night prior. YN’s stomach turned. It twisted painfully when she saw her drop her hands to his shoulder, and then run it down his arm. He didn’t flinch, or push it off — he just let it happen.
She was pretty, insanely so. It was one of Yasmin’s friends from the industry, Evelyn. She was exactly the type of girl that YN imagined Harry would be with.
YN may not have felt sick before, but she definitely did now.
“Are you having the time of your life without me?”
YN was sitting at the small dressing table in her room, phone propped up against the mirror with a fierce concentration on her face as she attempted to pin her hair up. Olive, in a very similar position except for the fact she was cooking her dinner, was on facetime, wanting to know anything and everything about the trip so far.
“Its…” YN struggled to find the right word, “…nice.”
“Nice?” Olive deadpanned, her nose curling up slightly, “That’s all I get? Nice?”
“I don’t know what you want, Olive?” YN asked, slightly frustrated with her friend in a way that she definitely didn’t mean, “Sorry.”
“No it’s okay,” Olive responded, but YN could tell by her tone that she wasn’t fully convinced, “Something’s obviously happening.”
“It’s not… I’m…” YN shook her head, flinging one of the grips she had in her hand down to the desk, “I’m just… in my head.”
Olive hummed, “What’s he done?”
YN furrowed her eyebrows, “What’s who done?”
“Harry.”
YN froze in the middle of applying her lip gloss, her eyes settling on Olive who was staring at her with an expression that let her know she wasn’t going to get away with not saying anything this time.
“Nothing,” YN shook her head.
“Liar,” Olive retorted immediately, “Tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Olive groaned, “Right. I don’t get to be there and see the two of you pining after each other in person so please, I’m begging you to give me a verbal recount of the events that transpired today.”
YN fell silent, “… we do not pine after each other.”
“Yes you do! And I know you’ve been hiding something from me for a while, and I’ve given you the space but this is literally the perfect opportunity for you to make you move.”
“Make my move?” YN furrowed her eyebrows.
“Yes!” Olive exclaimed, “You’re in Italy, at a wedding — romance is literally in the air YN. You need to finally grab life by the balls and do something for yourself… or grab Harry by the balls, maybe he’d enjoy it.”
“Olive!” YN all-but screeched down the phone, “Please stop talking about balls.”
“Look… I don’t know what’s happened, or what’s going on right now with the two of you but he used to make you happy,” Olive sighs, “You’d come back from seeing him and Harvey so happy, YN, and now… you just get so sad whenever anybody mentions him.”
“I don’t,” YN shakes her head, “And nothing’s happened… I’m just… I think I’m just tired.”
Olive just hums, not convinced at all, “Well… I’m here if you need me. Now get your sexy bum down there and enjoy your nibbles and drinks.”
“Thanks, Ol.”
“Anytime, babes.”
YN watched her phone go black, and she sighed. She dropped back in the chair she was sitting in and ran her hands down her thighs, her palms having clammed up under Olive’s questioning.
YN knew that it was coming from a place of love, but it pained YN to not tell Olive the whole truth. She wanted to more than anything to tell Olive everything but how could she explain something that she hadn’t even full come to terms with and understand herself? It was completely impossible, and it stressed YN out more than she could admit.
All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and go to sleep, but there was a cocktail and nibbles party going on downstairs that she had to go to. Maybe she would go, show her face, enjoy one to many cocktails and divulge in some nibbles — and then she would go and curl up in her bed.
The dress she had chosen was a deep maroon colour. It plunged at her neckline, and had short sleeves that landed in the middle of her upper arm. It cinched at her waist and flowed out down to her ankle. She had paired it with a plain pair of sandals, not wanting to kill her feet too soon with heels.
She wasn’t trying to prove anything, she didn’t need to. But despite the mess that was currently in her brain, causing the anxiety to bubble deep in her chest — she at least wanted to feel confident in her appearance, so that could shield her from everything in her brain.
The cocktails and nibbles were being held on the patio. It had been transformed, with floral arrangements sitting on the table and lanterns hanging on strings above them. The whole thing felt so cosy and so beautiful, that YN couldn’t help but smile.
The party had seemingly already started by the time she arrived, with people milling around with colourful cocktails in their hands, or some with small plates full of whatever deliciousness Maria had cooked up.
Her first stop was for a cocktail, knowing that the evening was going to be a lot easier to handle once she had the buzz of alcohol in her system. The cocktail she had chosen was fruity, the kind of sweet that could make a person completely forget they were drinking alcohol until they woke up the next morning.
Her next stop had been the nibbles. When she saw Maria had made small half-sized bruschettas, she immediately put three on her small plate.
“Oh!” Mid bite into one the many mini bruschetta’s YN had piled onto her plate she heard a hybrid of a gasp/squeal next to her, “I love your dress!”
It was Evelyn, standing next to her with a small plate in her hand, with only one mini bruschettas on it. She was wearing a lacy camisole and long flowing skirt, dolled up to the nines. YN’s heart sank slightly just looking at her.
“Oh,” YN managed to slip out, “Thank you.”
“Where’s it from?”
YN hesitated, “I don’t know… I might have thrifted it.”
“Oh,” YN watched as her nose curled up ever so slightly, “I wish I could thrift things like that! I never find anything!”
YN just hummed, wanting nothing more than to shove the rest of her bruschetta in her mouth but she resisted.
“You’re Harvey’s sister right?”
YN furrowed her eyebrows slightly, “Yes?”
“Oh how sweet!” Her voice goes up in octave once more, “Harry said that his little sister was here but I didn’t realise how cute you were!”
Cute. CUTE.
That was it. That was the final straw for YN. Without a care she placed another small bruschetta onto her place, totalling to four small bruschettas and gave Evelyn the sweetest smile she could muster.
“Excuse me,” YN gave Evelyn the sweetest smile she could muster before making her way towards one of the empty tables on the patio.
YN had officially had enough interacting for the day. She felt socially wrung out, her head hurt slightly and all she wanted was to eat her bruschetta and drink her cocktail in peace.
She ended up just people watching. She watched as Harvey and Yasmin made their way around everybody, chatting and laughing and obviously enjoying their wedding celebration so far.
They looked happy. Truly happy. Without even meaning to, YN started to spiral. Well, it wasn’t a big spiral per se it was more her wondering if she’d ever get that. She’d watched Harvey and Yasmin fall so in love with each other over the years, becoming each other’s person. She wanted a person. She’d thought she’d found her person, or at least one of them. But, maybe she hadn’t.
“I’m happy for them, I am but I don’t know if I could do the one girl forever thing,” YN heard a voice say behind her, slightly boisterous from the obvious alcohol intake but not one that she recognised.
“C’mon man, you’ll find the one,” Another man spoke, and this time it was a recognisable voice. It was Harry. It wasn’t as loud as the other one, but it was still audible from YN’s seat.
Part of her wanted to turn around. They obviously didn’t know that she was there, or if they did they didn’t care that she could hear their entire conversation word for word.
“Coming from you!” the boisterous voice replied, “Got no plans to settle down either?”
“Nah,” the word turned YN’s stomach in an indescribable way, “I don’t think my life’s built for it, mate.”
“You could have your pick of anyone,” the voice replied, “You could choose any girl you fancied.”
“Yeah,” Harry voice was quieter this time, as though it felt unsure, “Not on the cards for me, mate.”
That was enough for YN. She’d heard enough, and from the way that her eyes were watering she wanted to get as far away as she could before they fell. Pushing back from her chair, it made a clattering sound against the patio but she didn’t care. All she scared about was going back up to her room.
She clutched her glass close to her, and made sure that her plate of bruschetta was safe before climbing the steps into the villa. Just as she got to the door, Harvey walked out, almost knocking her bruschetta out of her hands.
“Hey,” He held his hands out, almost as though if the bruschetta did fall he was going to be there to catch it. He took one look at YN’s teary eyes and his expression hardened, “You okay? What happened?”
“Nothing,” YN shook her head, blinking rapidly in hopes that it would stop the tears from falling, “I’m fine.”
Harvey just gave her a look, “You’re not. You look like you’re about to cry.”
“Harv just drop it!” Her words came out harsher than she meant, “I’m fine. Go enjoy yourself, I’m just going to go up to bed.”
“No, come on,” He pointed to the patio, “It’s still early… Yas said that she wanted to talk to you about something anyway.”
“I’ll catch her in the morning,” YN gave him a smile, “I think it’s just jet lag… I’ll be fine in the morning, I promise.”
“Okay,” he nudged her arm lightly, “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? I know that I’ve maybe not been the best these last couple of years but…”
“I’m fine I promise,” YN interrupted him, “I’ll see you in the morning, Harv.”
He just nodded. YN took that as her opportunity to slip away, making her way towards the staircase without bumping into anybody else.
Somehow, she managed to get all the way to her room before she let any tears fall. But, when they came they were hot and they were fast. She placed her drink and her plate down on the side, and then leant her hands against it, hoping that it would at least centre her in some way.
She was stupid. So, so stupid for thinking that she could handle this. For thinking that her heart could handle seeing him in this way after everything that happened. She couldn’t, and apart of her had always known that.
She just needed to stay as far away from Harry as she could. She needed to create a distance between them, one that had needed to be put in place for a long time.
Her heart couldn’t take it anymore.
Harry watched YN walk away.
He had just watched her walk away.
As Harry sat on the balcony looking over the sea, legs spread out on the table in front of him — it was all he could think about. When Ryan had been talking to him, way too drunk for it being that early in the evening, Harry had pretty much zoned out. He’d been polite, responded to his questions and that was it. Harry knew Ryan, but definitely not enough to start divulging in his deepest and darkest secrets — so he hadn’t.
If he’d have known that YN was sitting in front of her, he’d have chosen different words.
All he had to do was take quick scan. He hadn’t seen her come down so he’d just assume she wasn’t outside yet, but he was wrong.
There was some truth into what Harry had said to Ryan, but there was also more to the story. He would have explained that it’s complicated, that there’s more to the story than just finding someone to settle down with, that real feelings often complicate matters.
He just hated that he’d upset her.
There was so much unspoken between them, so much unsaid and yet neither one of them seemed to be able to find the words. So they danced around it, they avoided it and they just pretended that nothing was happening, which it wasn’t. But, Harry just didn’t think that they could carry on the way they were without something changing.
As he stared out at the still water, the moon’s reflection showing him the ripples of the waves in the distance, he decided that something did have to change. Both of them were not going to be able to enjoy the weekend unless they spoke about it.
The problem was, Harry didn’t think that YN wanted to talk about it.
He couldn’t blame her, it wasn’t an easy thing. There were so many levels, so many reasons as to why ignoring it would be better for everyone involved and yet Harry didn’t want that. He wanted them to lay everything out on the table and get everything off their chests.
This wasn’t going to end once the weekend was finished. They were going to be in each other’s lives, well, forever. They could avoid each other, but they both cared about Harvey, and therefore they were going to both be at important events for Harvey, together.
There was just something about being at the wedding that just made Harry want to sort everything out. It wasn’t just Harvey and Yasmin’s life that were going to change, everyone’s were. Dynamics were going to change, it was inevitable.
Harry was so deep in thought, in his own spiral that he hadn’t even heard the door open beside him. Not until he noticed Harvey dropping down in the chair next to him.
“You alright, H?”
“Yeah,” Harry nodded, “Just enjoying the quiet.”
“It’s so fucking peaceful out here,” Harvey sighed, extending his legs out in front of him just as Harry had, “Perfect place to get married.”
Harry smiled, “Anybody could tell you that… how come you’re out here anyway? I thought you and Yas would in pre-wedding bliss, planning the future.”
“She’s in with YN,” Harvey said after a few seconds or so.
“YN?” Harry asked, slightly too quick but he didn’t have the capacity to care, “She okay?”
“Yeah,” Harvey nods, and Harry could tell by his tone that he was telling the truth.
“Is Yas okay?”
“Yeah, they’re both okay, H,” Harvey nods, “I just… YN said something to me earlier and… I think she just needs family around her right now. I thought Yas would be better than me… I just… I don’t know.”
Harry nodded, “I’m sure she would’ve appreciated you checking on her.”
Harvey shrugged, “I don’t know if I might be part of the problem.”
Harry’s heart started to beat quicker in his chest. They were both dancing around something, as Harry seemed to be with both siblings, and yet neither of them wanted to say anything.
“You know what YN’s like,” Harry tries, praying that his voice came off strong enough.
“I know,” Harry watches as he rubs a hand over his face, “She just gets in her own head.”
That was something they had in common. It was so easy for everyone to get in their heads the harder things became, to ignore the problems in front of them or avoid it.
As Harry sat there in silence, sharing the space with one of his best friends in the entire world he realised something. He realised that if they didn’t talk, if they didn’t let everything that they’ve been holding in out — it wasn’t just them would feel the consequences.
Harvey was already feeling them. He didn’t know exactly what it was, and maybe he didn’t know the truth about Harry’s involvement. But, he could tell that there was something there.
Tomorrow.
Harry was going to talk to YN tomorrow. He had a full night to think about what he was going to say, and staring out at the sea whilst he did it seemed like a good idea to him.
𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Fem!Reader x Harry | 𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 9.1k
YN hated being a cliché. As a romance editor, she'd spent years reading love stories, polishing every trope imaginable and telling herself she'd never become one of them. Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Harry Styles walked into her life. She tried to ignore it. Tried to convince herself it was nothing more than an inconvenient crush that would fade with time. It never did. Eight years later, they're both in Positano for her brother's destination wedding. They've spent years dancing around whatever exists between them, pretending it isn't there, never quite brave enough to ask the questions neither of them wants to answer. Now they're trapped together for a week beneath the Italian sun, surrounded by friends, family, and enough romance to make even YN question her own rules. Maybe falling for Harry Styles was always going to make her a cliché. The real question was whether they'd finally stop pretending they weren't living one.
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈 — Benvenuti
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐈 — Il Temporale (... coming 19th July, 2026)
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐈𝐈 — Desiderio
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐕 — Le Promesse
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐕 — Per Sempre
𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐒: 𝟏. This story contains adult themes and language, such as sexual scenes. If you are uncomfortable with any of those, please do not read. 𝟐. This is inspired by Harry's slutty little shorts and the fact that I love weddingrry. 𝟑. This is an age gap (6 years) and also a brother's best friend (sue me) story meaning it's made up of a lot of yearning and miscommunication. 𝟒. It is sort of an au but not really, I've just changed some of the events and timings to make it work for this story... i.e. Harry is not on tour in it like he actually is. 𝟓. I also describe YN as being curvy/plus-sized in this story, it's not a 'plot-point' necessarily but that's just what I imagine her to be. 𝟔. The main thing is please enjoy! I've loved writing this and it's just such a summery story so please enjoy!
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆: This story includes explicit language, sexual content, and two very, very frustration idiots-in-love!
Please let me know what you think of 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 HERE!
