Simple But Significant @goodbyesaneworld - Tumblr Blog

Did she hear him right?

“Huh?”

“Do you like feeling out of control of your body?” Oh, so she had definitely heard him right.

“I mean like. . .like I guess it depends on the context?” Her mind is whirling, spinning wildly, flinging around, knocked off its axis, and careening like a piece of rock flying through space. Why did she say that — why did he ask that?

Harry laughed – it’s a real thing; something she’d only briefly heard a couple of times when they were out with each other last week. This one doesn’t last very long, but it truly is a gleeful sound, as he shakes his head quietly to himself, “Depends on the context, huh?” He repeated, and Y/N didn’t think she’d ever seen him so amused. It makes something twist in her belly, low and deep, that she’d rather ignore.

or

Harry thinks Y/N is cute and Y/N is having horny nightmares

part 1

(18K+ words)

ii.

“He said what?”

Y/N has always believed that there were people who liked sitting on the floor and people who avoided it at all costs. She had always been a floor sitter, for as long as she could remember. When she was younger, she’d play on the floor with all her stuffed animals and dolls. Then she got a little older, and laid on her stomach over the purple faux fur rug she begged her parents for (only for her cousin to spill wine right in the center of it on a summer visit) while she pretended to do homework and study, but listened to music and daydreamed about her crushes. And when she was in college, she’d have her legs spread out on the floor surrounded by notes she actively ignored while stalking her (now ex) boyfriend online. Then she went to culinary school, and there really weren’t a lot of options to sit on the floor in the kitchen, yet somehow she always found herself with her bum on the linoleum after cleaning up, waiting for her food to be finished in the oven.

And now she was sitting on the floor of her bedroom overanalyzing every interaction she’d had with her boss.

The thing is, she knew the whole point of her taking home his shirt to get the stain out was so that her spilling the drink on him didn’t plague her every thought this whole break they had – but that actually did very little to help. It wasn’t just spilling the drink that tormented her, but every waking moment she spent thinking about the whole night. From the second Harry plopped down in the booth across from her, to the moment he’d let her door swing shut behind him. Each memory twists, spins, and dances along the forefront of her brain to the sound of Beethoven's 5th Symphony because she’d recently heard it in a commercial and it’s stuck in her head. The music swells, crescendoing, Harry’s carefully curating a lettuce wrap and making her eat them, then there’s a lull of sweet violins and he’s smiling at her dancing with Niall with his drink in hand, and they start beating on the kettle drum around the time Harry’s pulling his shirt off, saying she flusters easily, calling the side he saw of her cute.

Just a month ago, Y/N would have expected cats to pose a coup against the government and throw the whole country into a state of chaos and fish-flavored treats before believing that Harry would have ever even thought anything about her existence. Apart from annoyance, at least. Despite Harry going out of his way to email her professor and let her know that he wanted Y/N to study under him, she often wondered if he even liked her. Technically, you didn’t have to like someone to work with them or to teach them. He’d seen promise in her and seemed like he wasn’t particularly fond of her as a person, but she’d accepted that with relative grace for the last year. Again, there were moments when she wished for a closer relationship with him but she’d given up that dream about five months in when he still hadn’t referred to her by name and Adam and Niall were already sharing inside jokes.

So to think now that he had smiled at her with dimples and called her cute? It doesn’t even feel real.

The morning after, her head was throbbing and she was convinced that the mushrooms Harry had cooked on the grill were actually psilocybin and she’d had a psychoactive hallucination for the rest of the night (because that had seemed more likely than any of what she was remembering). Then she sees his shirt, soaking in her sink where she’d left it the night before, and it feels a bit more tangible. Her face feels hot because now she’s completely sober and embarrassed over every single word she uttered. Then it feels like her cheeks might melt off when she thinks about how she saw his bare torso, and how she knows his nipples pebble quickly when he’s cold, and how he has laurel tattoos leading down to his dick like it’s a prized possession.

With a face hot enough to melt ice, she diligently works to get the stain out of his shirt. There’s a concoction of many different laundry agents that her mum had to teach her when the grass stains from playing outside turned into the blood stains of an angry uterus. It works well to get the brown liquid out of the shirt, maybe even making it whiter than she started. For a quick, pathetic second she wishes she hadn’t started soaking it last night so she could have pressed her nose to the fabric and seen what it smelled like – but then she wipes that thought from her brain and pretends she never had it.

The rest of the day she forced herself to tidy up, do laundry (that wasn’t Harry’s), and go grocery shopping in preparation for the threatening snowstorm. She prepped a roast that she would throw in her slow cooker the following morning, then snuggled with Hazelnut and a hastily made sandwich. Every couple of minutes an image of Harry from last night doing something flashes through her brain like a strike of lightning that she’s desperate to ignore. It could have been worse though, she decided, that maybe her brain had finally taken mercy on her and stuffed this down into a locked box.

Until Niall called her just before she started to get ready for bed.

“Okay, I think I’ve allotted us both plenty of time to get over the hangover,” he started, “Now what happened when you and Harry left the club?”

So that’s how Y/N found herself stretched out on the floor, phone pressed to her ear, Hazelnut taking it upon herself to sit heavily on Y/N’s chest and make it a little harder to breathe. She’ll blame Niall for prying open the box she’d just tried locking and sealing (even though she did a poor job of locking and sealing it in the first place) because it’s incredibly hard to act like it didn’t happen when she’s recounting it to Niall. Niall, who gasps at everything, from Harry opening the car door for her (a tiny gasp and a murmured, “He totally wants to fuck,”), to him peeling off his shirt, (a louder gasp, another murmur, only this time a question, “Oh my god, did you guys fuck?), to him more or less calling drunk-easy-to-fluster Y/N cute.

“He said what?”

Y/N covers her face with one hand, “That the side he saw of me last night was cute.”

“Oh my god,” she can picture Niall’s face, mouth ajar, his hair pressed from his forehead by the fluffy polka dot headband she forced on him – she’d just heard him spit the toothpaste out of his mouth, so she knew he was washing up for bed, “Y/N he is trying to fuck you. This isn’t even me being delusional.”

She swallows, “I mean, it’s a little delusional, all he did was compliment me,” she plucks at her bottom lip, sighing, readjusting her hips with a grimace because they hate the floor sitting agenda, “If you can even call it that. Now that I repeat it, it sounds like he was making fun of me.”

The faucet turns on, on Niall’s end, “If Harry were any other man, I might believe you and think it was just a compliment,” he sounds like he’s drowning while she speaks, so he must have moved on to washing his face, “But he isn’t just any other man. This is Harry – I don’t think he does or says anything that isn’t deliberate. Taking off his shirt, saying you’re flustered easily, calling the side he’d seen of you cute – this man wants you to slobber on him. Or maybe he wants to slobber on you. A mutual slobbering.”

Y/N laughs and the movement of her chest annoys Hazelnut enough to peek her eyes open at her but not to move off, “I don’t know, I just keep replaying like every moment and hating how I responded and reacted. Like. . okay, let’s say we aren’t being delusional and he does want to sleep with me – I definitely blew it. I was not sultry or seductive and I sounded like a dumbass.”

“Honestly, I don’t think that’s what he wants at all,” she could hear him splash more water on his face, “Not to speculate, but I think he wants someone easy to fluster and cute – both of which you are. I don’t know much about him besides that he scares the fuck out of me, but from how he was last night, he just seems like the type to tease and taunt. He probably went home and got off thinking about your face after he said it.” The water turns off, “What kind of car does he drive? Was it nice?”

She knuckles at her eyes, “It was so nice – some kind of SUV, but it had seat warmers and drink warmers. And he didn’t ask what I wanted to listen to, but he picked a playlist that had a suspicious amount of artists I listen to.”

“He’s probably stalking your socials,” Niall deduces, “Or he’s listening when we think he isn’t. Think about how many times we’ve been talking in the kitchen with him around. He probably knows more about you than you think.” Niall sighs, “Alright, babe, I need to put on this face mask and get ahold of Adam – he called like 3 times while we were talking ‘cos he wants me on League. You should probably start looking for toys around Harry’s size to train, ‘cos how long has it been since you’ve slept with anyone? You’re practically a virgin now.”

“Oh God, goodnight Ni.”

Y/N clicked off the phone, flopped it down on the floor beside her, and made no move to get up. Hazelnut doesn’t either, barely even stirring when Y/N covers her face with her palms again and groans. Delusions aside, it was a little helpful to have spoken it out loud – the thoughts had been vibrating, pushed up against her skull, ready to seep through her ears had she kept it to herself any longer. Niall had put more things to think about in her head though – the possibility that Harry wanted to sleep with her, for one.

There’s no way – she knows there’s no way. . .but. . .but like, was there a way?

No. No there wasn’t – she’s being silly. The other night Harry was just looser than he was when he was in the kitchen, that’s all. Adam had even said he was excited for them to see who Harry was outside of his role as a boss, so maybe this is just what he was like. He’d been kind to Niall too – he certainly hadn’t been feeding Niall as diligently as he was feeding her, and maybe when she would look over she’d catch his gaze more often than Niall did but he was looking at the both of them, right? Just watching his subordinates have fun. No thoughts other than being able to relax and show a side of himself that he doesn’t allow outside of the kitchen. His attitude must have just been softened by good food and his glass of whiskey, or whatever. Or maybe it was all about the vibes – which had been immaculate that night – he might have just been in a good mood too.

He probably just felt guilty because she told him that he was scary and that contributed to her whole passing out thing. And, despite prior interactions and feelings before he’d started being the tiniest bit more gentle – Harry was someone who had a heart and a conscience. There’s a chance that he didn’t necessarily want to come off as scary, but his austerity and desire for structure and success made him come off that way.

So, once again, she tries to carefully pack away the night and the thoughts of him looking at her in any way other than his apprentice that he’s become at least the tiniest bit fond of. Or, at least, one that he cares about even a little.

If she goes and looks at eight-inch, silicone dildos – well, that’s her business.

. . .

Snow blankets the ground by the time she goes back to work.

The weather had been all over the place the last couple of days, so she was happy that they had them off, even if it meant she couldn’t do much with her time but rot away inside. Clouds couldn’t decide whether they wanted to spit out freezing rain, sleet, or snow until they settled for big, fluffy white flakes that refused to melt along her window panes. Sometimes a random, intense gust of wind would rattle the glass and pique Hazelnut’s attention but otherwise, her flat had decided to be kind to her and withstand the intense weather. Her furnace stayed warm and her water heater kept running, and even though a few times her service was a little spotty, things remained in relative working order.

Being stuck inside did very little to soothe her overactive brain but each day that passes, last Friday seems like a distant memory. Something closer to a dream – at least that’s what she’s going to pretend like it was. And after a near treacherous time getting from her flat to the restaurant in the still icy cold weather, all she could think about was how to warm her frostbitten hands. Despite coming in later in the day, the sun did very little to warm anything where it was hidden beneath the clouds. Y/N finds herself wishing hopelessly that she was back in her bed, pressed up against Hazelnut’s warm little body, but no matter how many times she closes her eyes, she opens them to see nothing but practical snowy tundra in front of her.

Because the universe has something against her, the first person she sees when she steps through the door is Harry. He doesn’t drop to the floor and kiss her feet like Niall seems to think he’d do, but he does give pause when he usually wouldn’t. Head tilted, eyes curious, “You seem cold.”

Y/N can barely get a laugh out, her lungs frosted over and stiff, “Yeah,” she agreed, “It’s freezing outside.” He continued to stare at her, and. . .well, yeah, things have changed but haven’t really. The stare he levels her with makes her mouth move while her brain tries to catch up, turning into a fumbled, rambled mess of words, “That’s um – I don’t really like driving when it's snowy and icy like this, so I have to take the subway here. And they haven’t really taken care of the sidewalks well enough, so there’s still a lot of snow to walk through and I don’t have snow boots so my shoes are like. . .like sopping wet, so I’m pretty cold, yeah. I’ll warm up soon though, being here – s’always hot in here.”

Harry looks displeased, brows knitted, “You don’t have boots?”

“Um, no? I’ve never really had boots for the snow since we – it doesn’t get that bad, that often.”

They are quiet for a moment, an awkward tension thick in the air. Y/N was stupid for even considering that Friday night might change their dynamic because this is much of the same. Weird breaks in the conversation, uncomfortable periods of heavy silence, and Y/N feeling stupid after every word she spoke. It must’ve been the shots and the presence of Niall and Adam who very rarely let the mood get unpleasant. It had nothing to do with her, with Harry realizing anything – yeah, maybe he found some aspects of her cute, but she’s also still not entirely sure she didn’t hallucinate that.

“You’ll be with Oliver today,” he changed the subject abruptly, motioning toward their saucier standing at a station she rarely gets time at – it would be good for today, considering all the different, intricate sauces and gravies they have on their seasonal menu around dinner time, “His shift ends soon. When he leaves, I’ll take over with you.”

That’s all he says before pivoting on his heel and disappearing into the kitchen, leaving Y/N to trek to the coat room so she could disrobe her winter garments.

The day goes as a typical day goes – the evening is busy, busy, busy but Oliver is nice and helps remind her of the basic principles Harry had taught her about sauces. How to get the right consistency, the proper flavoring, and what to do if it doesn’t turn out right the first time. He’s not much of a teacher but in this case, Y/N doesn’t need a teacher, just a guide – that’s the only reason why Harry would allow her to be following someone else. The first part of her night goes relatively fast with the number of people desperate to eat their food after being denied it for several days. She thinks the second half of the night slows, but only because Oliver is smiling at her regretfully when he tells her he’s clocking out and Harry will be covering the rest of his shift.

It isn’t bad – it’s the same as before, which should be good, but Y/N can’t help being a little bummed about it. For all she’d convinced herself that Harry didn’t want her like that, there was a sliver of her that still hoped that she was wrong. That Niall had been correct in his interpretations and Harry was actually chomping at the bit to slobber on her, or with her, or mutual slobbering – whatever he’s said. That he pulled off his shirt in front of her because he wanted her to think about it for days and days and days. That he was teasing her because he wanted his dick inside her too.

Alas, this wasn’t a movie. Or a show. Or a book. If it was, then she thinks the setup for them to have a riveting, whirlwind romance is there but sadly, this is real life. Harry was nice to her because she was drunk, had recently called him scary, and she’s pretty sure he knew she was crying when he yelled at her last time.

Being the same as before meant he was still making an effort to encourage her more, which is nice. Y/N guesses she’s most glad that he isn’t trying to prove to her that their dynamic hasn’t changed by being rough with her again. When he tastes the bordelaise sauce she prepared, he nods his head, “It’s good,” he complimented, “Add a bit more pepper and it’ll be better.”

She still feels like she’s glowing when Harry verbally compliments her food, no matter what the compliment is, it’s much better than just a grunt and a pissed-off look on his face. Y/N tries not to show too much that she’s gleaming, but she feels the stretch on her cheeks long after he’d disappeared to answer Adam calling for him. Like being praised by a kitchen deity; or a kiss of favor by a kitchen king.

Harry’s freshly washed, unstained shirt has been folded neatly in her bag all day, waiting for the perfect time to hand it off to him. She knew better than to do it in front of the other staff because gossip runs through this place like a grease fire, difficult to snuff out. Y/N might have been saved for the fact that the number one runner of the rumor mill, in charge of oiling all its gears, is Niall – but he’s a sucker for a good story. If someone got him going, he’d probably reveal his whole theory about Harry wanting to sleep with her.

It’s easy to find the time to give it to him because she and Harry are always the last in the kitchen. Everyone cleans up, but Harry specifically delegates her to help him with storing what’s left, putting in orders for the inventory diminished by their day of work, and tidying after they’ve tidied. A double tidy – to make sure everything is actually clean.

On a normal day, Y/N would be whining about this, but it does allow her to hand him his shirt after they’d finished.

“Harry?” She called to him, still feeling a little weird not referring to him more formally while they were here. Harry hums from where he was tucked away in the office so Y/N ambles her way over. She reaches into her bag and has it set out on her hand before he even turns around from the file cabinet he’s digging in, “I – your shirt,” she says, very intelligibly, of course, “I have it.”

When he turns around, he seems surprised – like he must have forgotten about it, “Oh?” Tentatively, he takes it from her hand, unfolding it. An impressed look twitches at his eyebrows, “You really got the stain out.”

“You didn’t think I would?” Y/N pressed, pulling her bag more firmly over her shoulder.

“I didn’t know if you could,” he countered, carefully folding it back up, “Brown liquor is notoriously difficult to get out of clothes – a white shirt at that. Are you sure you don’t want a career in dry cleaning?”

Y/N huffed a laugh through her nose, eyes rolling as she turned on her heel, “Very funny. Goodnight, Harry.”

“I hope you aren’t planning on taking the subway again,” he mentions before she can get too far. It does make her pause, twisting back to face him, head tilted because. . .well, how else was she supposed to get home? “It’s dark and even colder than when you came in. You’d be lucky to make it home without a cold.”

She tugs at the end of her scarf, “I – well, I don’t really like spending money on Ubers though, and their prices skyrocket in this kind of weather, so –”

“So I’ll take you home,” he answers definitively, “Let me get my coat.”

Harry disappears toward the coat closet before Y/N can even register what he’s suggested. Or rather, what he told her was going to happen. There had been really no room to argue and, honestly? Y/N wouldn’t have argued, to begin with. The thought of trekking through the snow and ice while a thin layer of frost formed over her eyes seemed horrific, and she’s certain her toes almost froze to the point of snapping off on the way here. She couldn’t even find it in herself to do a polite, pretend denial of it. One of those, “Oh no, I couldn’t ask you to do that? Really? Okay, only if you’re sure!” Instead, she just follows Harry out to his car and tries not to eat shit on the pavement when her feet catch on the patches of ice.

He pops the car door open for her and waits until she’s fully seated before shutting it and walking to his side. Y/N realizes that she’s much less suited for a car ride when she isn’t a couple of drinks in, so her blood is sort of roaring in her ears. Harry shivers when he gets in and keys the engine to life.

It’s quiet while they wait for his car to warm up. Y/N wondered if it would be too awkward to ruffle around through her purse and grab her phone, so she could at least look kind of busy, and not seem as socially inept as she did right now. Or maybe Harry just thinks she’s tired – which isn’t a lie. Y/N is sleepy; it weighs heavily on her bones, especially after having so much time off. It’s hard to return to being a productive member of society when she’d lounged around with Hazelnut for the last few days.

“Why didn’t you ask Niall to bring you home?” Harry inquired, finally, piercing through the silence.

Y/N hums, shifting in her seat, pleased by the seat warmer melting heat into her bum, “He and Adam were g’na have one of their League nights, so I didn’t want to make them wait for me.” It’s true – Y/N’s always there earlier than everyone and later than everyone because Harry is her mentor and those are the hours Harry works. That would’ve meant an additional 30 minutes eating into their weird little cult video game thing, and at that point, they’d try to drag her with them to make sure they didn’t lose any more play time. Y/N loves them but she doesn’t need to be involved.

“League?” Harry sounds confused and Y/N sighs – maybe he does hear a lot in the kitchen, but he blocks out a lot too. Y/N wishes that was an option for her, but Niall will just debrief her on everything anyway, so it’s better to listen for the first go around.

“League of Legends,” she replies, “Their game that they go bananas over – don’t ask me to explain it, I don’t understand a thing and Ni will go on about it for hours if you let him. Once we tried ecstasy together and he made me listen to a 40-minute spiel about this show based on it. The show was good though, so I get it.”

Y/N doesn’t realize her slip-up until Harry hums softly, “Ecstasy, huh?”

The blood drains from her body, flushes from her face, down her chest, through her belly, spinning out of her legs, and through the bottoms of her feet. Oh my god – how the fuck did she let that slip? Maybe she could’ve said that when she was drunk and could use that as an excuse, but now? Completely sober? What if Harry gets rid of her on the spot? Pushes her out of the car? No chef training under him is going to have experimented with ecstasy a year ago.

“Oh, I – um – that’s – that was a lie.”

“A lie?” He repeated, “You know how I feel about liars.” Her face pulls into a look of true and utter distraught panic, opening her mouth to explain herself, but she’s cut off, “Just kidding,” his face does not suggest he’s joking at all, apart from the tiniest twitch of his mouth, “I don’t care what you do and try, as long as you don’t come to work impaired by any measure,” he slows to a stop at a light, then briefly turns to face her, “Understand?”

She nods, eyes wide, nervous, “I – yes,” she tells him, “I’m sorry for – still, I didn’t mean to tell you that. And I don’t want you to think I do it regularly! We just wanted to see what it was like – or at least I did, the last time Ni did it was in UNI during a rave, and I definitely get why people do it at raves because – yeah. But I haven’t done it since.” Y/N kind of wishes someone would shove their hand over her mouth to make her stop talking (Harry, preferably, but she thinks that would probably make her moan). She’s just stuck in the perpetual need to impress him, and finding out that she and one of his other learning chefs did ecstasy and then talked about a video game for 40 minutes is like. . .not impressive at all.

Harry’s gaze darts around her face like he’s looking for something. Or maybe he’s just registering that she’s freaking the hell out. Whatever it was he finds, he turns back to the front and slowly eases the car past the light once it turns green, “I won’t judge you,” he finally says, “I’ve done it before.”

Y/N had never once learned anything personal about Harry in their time together. Everything she knew about him was based on old interviews and untested hypotheses because picking his brain was impossible. He was someone who believed that work was for just that. . working; there was no time for gossiping, sharing anecdotes about each other’s lives, discussing interests, and through that somehow decrypting their political ideologies. So Y/N knew nothing about him, except for the amount of salt he thought necessary to add to certain dishes and his preferred method of slicing onions.

So this was – riveting information, actually. A tidbit – a small sliver into Harry’s life that she’d never been granted before. She takes it in, and – greedy as she is – wants more.

“You have?” She turns to face him more, “That’s – that’s crazy! When did you?”

Harry pulls right, driving down a relatively quiet street. For a Thursday night, there wasn’t as much hustle and bustle as usual, but that makes sense with all the snow. Nobody wanted to risk breaking their front teeth on the pavement because of poorly shoveled and salted walkways, “My second year of culinary school,” he replied, “After a particularly grueling semester. Someone in my class offered it to Adam, who then offered it to me.”

“That’s – whoa,” she says, very intelligibly, and she thinks she hears Harry puff through his nose an amused noise, “Did you ever do it again?”

He shook his head, “No. I don’t like feeling out of control of my body.” Then, he tacts on, “Do you?”

Y/N stilled, blinking at him.

Did she hear him right?

“Huh?”

“Do you like feeling out of control of your body?” Oh, so she had definitely heard him right.

“I mean like. . .like I guess it depends on the context?” Her mind is whirling, spinning wildly, flinging around, knocked off its axis, and careening like a piece of rock flying through space. Why did she say that — why did he ask that?

Harry laughed – it’s a real thing; something she’d only briefly heard a couple of times when they were out with each other last week. This one doesn’t last very long, but it truly is a gleeful sound, as he shakes his head quietly to himself, “Depends on the context, huh?” He repeated, and Y/N didn’t think she’d ever seen him so amused. It makes something twist in her belly, low and deep, that she’d rather ignore.

“Why do you – um – why do you ask?” Her face felt hot.

There was a smile on his lips that she’d never seen before – taunting, goading, before he answered simply, “No reason,” with a pleasant-sounding sigh, even though Y/N thought that there was definitely a reason, but there was certainly no way that the reason is the reason that she was thinking about. Because if it was then. . .then that would mean that maybe her and Niall’s grandiose delusions had more accuracy than they originally thought. And if that were true, then that would mean Harry is thinking about doing the naughty, despicable, filthy things that Niall has been prophesying for weeks now.

The rest of the ride is quiet, though it’s not very long – just five minutes of Y/N fidgeting with her fingers in her lap before they pull into her complex. Harry remembered the way from the last time he dropped her off – she’d only realized at the end of the trip that she didn’t have to direct him once. He pushed the car into park, then turned to face her, still seeming humored, his eyes tickled with an emotion she doesn’t see often from him. So infrequently, in fact, that she didn’t know what emotion it was. . .just that it wasn’t the typical, aloof gaze that he normally leveled her with.

“Thank you,” she gathered her purse in her lap and gripped the straps like they’d keep her from saying something stupid, “Have a sweet night, or good dreams, or – have, um – christ,” the grip hadn’t worked, “Have a good night.”

Harry nodded politely toward her, “I’m sure I will,” he replied, “You too.”

As Y/N took the elevator to her floor, walked to her door, ambled her way through her flat while she started shedding layers, and made her way to the bathroom (all while Hazelnut slithers around her ankles), her mind raced. Niall had heard from his friend’s, dog’s, cousin’s, owner’s sister (or whatever) that Harry was a freak, hadn’t he? That he was into different kinky dynamic play, how his dick is huge, he edges people for weeks, he fucks nasty. Did he actually want to do that with her? Why else would he ask a question about her opinion on feeling out of control of her body?

Or – fuck, did he really just want to know if she did other drugs? And then she accidentally made it weird saying it depended on the context. Like, seriously – what other context could there be? Drugs, alcohol, or giving your body to a kinky sadist and letting them make decisions over it? She seriously thought her face could melt off from how much heat it held, despite the way glacial winds battered against her cheeks while she walked to the front door.

Of course, she updated Niall, after her shower, when droplets of water were still clinging to her skin and she avoided stepping out of the bathroom because she knew it would be freezing.

Ten minutes later, she gets a reply (probably in the middle of a snack break, or a piss break – they have one scheduled in every thirty minutes of their gaming).

OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!!!!

He might as well just tell you he wants to fuck at this point, he’s being so obvi

Should you show up to work in a collar and buttplug or would that be too much?

. . .

The thing is – Harry is a professional.

There are no lingering gazes or suggestive questions during work hours, nor are there references or insinuations that they’d ever spent even a moment together outside this kitchen. Again, unless being scrutinized by the razor-sharp eye of the deluded, their relationship dynamic hasn’t changed by much. However, Harry is much more giving with compliments, or soft praises to encourage her. She roasted a rack of lamb the other day and when Harry tasted it, accompanied with a careful hum and a pissed-off face, he verbalized, “This is good,” with a nod of his head, “It can be even better next time. We’ll work on the seasonings together.”

So that’s nice – because Y/N doesn’t necessarily want to be the source of kitchen gossip. For example, when one of the servers that used to work there started hooking up with Vivian, their saucier, only for Vivian to find out the server had a wife. Then she found out at the beginning of their shift one day, promptly cried about it to the other kitchen staff (the kind of inconsolable sniffles that were hard to stop), and as Y/N recalls, Harry had said something like, “Take the day to compose yourself, we don’t need tears in the sauce.” Which. . .could he have been nicer about it? He sure could have, but the more she grew to know him, the more she realized that this was Harry being nice.

(He’d run the sauce station that day, had Y/N follow him around like the imprinted duckling she acted like, and – mysteriously – the server quit a couple of weeks after that.)

The moral of the story was – if people were fucking at work, they kept quiet about it. As long as nobody brought the drama and theatrics of their relationship into the kitchen, and so long as their meals never paid the price of the emotional toil an argument in the break room could have – Harry didn’t care what anyone did. Though Y/N isn’t sure if he knows who is rendezvousing with who. He doesn’t care to concern himself with petty things like that – or so Y/N thinks. It’s just the vibes he gives off.

Does he give off the vibe of someone who would fuck an employee? Well. . .Y/N and Niall have differing responses to this question. If you ask Niall, Harry is frothing at the mouth to stick his hands down Y/N’s pants in the pantry room and make her beg for him to spit on her tongue. If you ask Y/N – yeah, Harry kind of does seem like he’s into that, but she couldn’t be positive that he wanted it from her. Or, maybe he might, but he’d realize how inexperienced she is in kink and that could be a turn-off. Who wants to have to teach someone how to fuck the way they like it? That’d probably be so aggravating, especially for him. Up until recently, she thinks he barely liked teaching her anything to begin with and that was the basis of their relationship.

“You’ve clearly haven’t read enough corruption kink literature,” Niall flicked her ankle, Y/N’s foot resting on his thigh while he carefully brushed the nail polish over her pinky toenail (Y/N helped him get rid of his calluses and ingrown nails in a very grueling “at-home-spa” day last week, so this was his repayment – he was surprisingly very serious about it and doing a great job), “I’ll send you some recommendations.”

Y/N sighed, dropping her head against the back of her couch, and narrowly avoided landing on Hazelnut (who lifted her head and glared momentarily before going back to sleep), “He’s been – like, you know how he has me come in on off days to practice?” Niall hummed a small nod, “Beyond a few subtle things I’m definitely reading into, he doesn’t mention anything crazy at all. I’m starting to feel like he just wants to fuck with me.”

“Fuck with you, fuck you – it’s the same difference,” he shrugged, pressed the brush back into the bottle and dunked it a few times, “Harry is a serious guy, yeah? He’s not going to interrupt prep or cooking with clear signals that he wants to blow your back out. It’s why he only does or says shit kind of blatant outside of that environment – his personal and work life are separate.” Niall tilted his head to the side, “I’d say you’re one more outing from the work setting away from him having you call him Daddy, but that’s just my hypothesis.”

With her unpainted foot, she nudged his knee and ignored him when he clicked his tongue, scolding her for it, “Shut up,” she sighed again, “Ugh, I want to fuck him.”

“In due time,” he murmured wisely, “Now stop moving your damn foot before I paint the whole toe.”

Niall did have a point and it did stand with Y/N’s – Harry is a professional through and through. There’s no way he would hint anything at work, right? At least definitely not during working hours. She guesses why she’s frustrated, is because there aren’t many opportunities that involve her and Harry outside of the kitchen. So they’re basing all these theories off the whole two times something kind of happened, and it would probably be an outstanding amount of time before they were alone outside of the restaurant again.

Unless Adam could convince him to come out for dinner and drinks again, but – well, Y/N doesn’t see that happening any time soon.

. . .

Y/N was in a bad mood.

It was mostly hormonal, she knew that; this morning she woke up to her period which had been looming over her with threats in the form of symptoms. Her breasts were tender, her lower back ached, and the fatigue was so intense it was hard for her to stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time on her off days. Plus she was horny and hungry, in equal, large, thought-consuming amounts which was the biggest red flag (no pun intended). Still, she could have had an LED sign light up on her ceiling that said YOU’RE PERIOD STARTED!!! and she still would have worn the same shocked, annoyed expression when she wiped after peeing.

Thankfully she’d only bled in her underwear, but still, she was annoyed that it forced her hand to start laundry. And all she wanted to do was eat a breakfast sandwich, take a bath, and crawl back into bed but she needed to be at work in a couple of hours. There were errands she needed to run, Hazelnut had a vet appointment, and she thinks she promised her neighbor she’d change the batteries in their smoke alarm (it was an older couple, who had no business standing on a chair to reach it). A list of things that were daunting on a normal day, but even worse today, and she had to work a busy shift on top of that.

Things have been hectic at work lately – it always is after the holidays, so they’ve been running around like crazy. Even Harry and Adam have had to jump in even more than they already do, preparing dishes, cooking the meat, sauteing vegetables, and the like – because they’ve been getting slammed. Both during the day for lunch and at night – Y/N wonders if the rich were trying to quell their seasonal depression with fancy meals or something. So she knew that having a nice, easy night wasn’t promising, and while she woke up in a foul mood already, that did nothing but worsen it.

Then, to add icing to it, her ex messages her again and she should really just block the dumbass’s number but something in her heart won’t let her. So there was that too.

Still, she goes about her business in the morning and when she gets to work, she puts on that she’s doing just fine. Y/N had always been a firm believer that you shouldn’t make your bad mood other people’s issue, so she tries to keep it to herself as much as she can. And she’s good at it too – only Niall notices that she’s more grumpy than normal, and it wasn’t for anything but the sound of her laugh being just a touch different. Niall is very in tune with the people he considers himself close with, so a tonal shift of any kind has his brain dinging. He seems to know the root of the issue before Y/N could disclose it (sometimes she wonders if he has a tracker on his phone to keep up with her dates) because at lunch there’s a piece of chocolate and two paracetamol waiting for her in the breakroom.

Everyone else doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong either, save for Harry, maybe. It feels like his eyes are more keen on her today than they typically are on her, following her around the kitchen. Or maybe he’s just in super mentor mode and is making sure her dishes are being prepared correctly, even in the fast-paced environment of a dinner rush. Either or, every time she looked up his eyes bore into her with the same apathetic glare he always had and she always darted her gaze away quickly (could he at least look a little happy when he saw her? Why did he always seem so unimpressed?).

For the most part, he leaves her be, too busy with his own shit to have time for any additional hovering than normal. He sticks close by so he can taste or correct a technique, but far enough that Y/N can zone out a bit – fall into the methodical structure of making mass amounts of potage aux legumes and let the rest of the night zip by. He’d barely spoken to her today, but once two hours ago, when he tasted the soup.

“The taste is good,” he told her, “The consistency could be smoother but this isn’t a bad start. Try pureeing less at a time and it will improve.” It does take a knock at her confidence but he rebuilds it rather quickly the next batch she makes when he stirs it and hums approvingly.

By the time the end of the day rolls around, she’s dog-tired. The exhaustion only weighs heavier in her bones when Harry grabs her attention as they are cleaning, “Stay after tonight.” That is all he says, and she immediately wants to flatten her face into a pillow and scream but instead, she nods and replies, “Okay.” with little fuss. Despite how extra fussy she feels.

Soon enough, Niall is squeezing her shoulder and telling her to message him when she gets home, and Adam is threatening Harry to not stay here too late. Really, this is no different than any other day – Harry typically expects her to stay until he tells her to go, but a request like this must mean he’s planning something. She just couldn’t figure out what, considering his normal “teaching her something new” days are the days the kitchen’s closed. Y/N thinks she’d be more annoyed about staying if Harry were anyone else but – well, it’s Harry, after all. Even in a foul mood, she is appreciative of any extra time he wants to give her to instill some of his knowledge.

They finish tidying – or, Y/N finishes tidying. She wasn’t sure what Harry was doing until she turned around to find that he had a variety of ingredients out, some in their respective measuring cups, some still in the packaging. The confusion must show on her face, because without so much of a hum to question him, Harry is explaining what she’s looking at, “We’re going to make a slice of cake.”

Y/N tilts her head, “A slice of cake?”

“A big slice,” Harry nods resolutely, “Do you like chocolate?”

She blinks, his eye contact undeviating, “I – yes? Yes, I do.”

“Good. Let’s begin.”

It’s. . .weird. Y/N’s very confused because Harry has never given any indication that he’s interested in desserts at all. Of course, she knew that he was capable of creating pastry dishes, but he always seemed to prefer savory dishes – his owning a restaurant like the one he does was proof enough of that. A weird fact that she’d picked up about chefs in general is that once they find their flavor they tend to stick there. A chef who prefers searing steaks and curating the perfect plate for dinner typically fumbles through baking a cookie made from scratch. She’s unsure why that is, but it has happened enough times for her to make note of it.

Harry, as always, seems to be perfect at all things. He moves around, showing her what order to add the ingredients, the consistency it should be after mixing, and how to perfectly melt the chocolate – all with the practiced ease of someone who bakes every day. Maybe he does when he gets home, but she hardly believes that.

Harry just belongs in the kitchen. Every aspect of cooking, of baking, of creating something delicious for people to consume and enjoy – seems to be a craft that he’s perfected somehow. Y/N knew that if culinary school hadn’t worked out, she would use her business minor to do. . .something. Having a degree would make it easier to get hired at some random skyscraper building, doing desk work 9-to-5. She would’ve made do with that – it wasn’t her dream by any means, but she could still find happiness somewhere, even if it wasn’t at work. There were still holidays to cook for her family, friends who wouldn’t have survived off more than the fries in her university cafeteria, and neighbors who appreciated her replicating old school dishes from their childhood.

But Harry? No. . .there was nothing else he could do. He didn’t fit anywhere else – or at least, she thinks he is too stubborn to fit anywhere else; his heart, his body, and his spirit all belong near pots and pans. At least that’s what she thinks – she’s honestly quite sure he’d agree.

It doesn’t take too long, and when he slides it into the oven to bake (she’d never seen a tin that was cut into multiple slices before – and they only filled up one of the six), she wonders what they’ll do while they wait.

The answer is clean up, which she should’ve seen coming, but that only takes a little while. As she’s wiping off the soap suds from her hands, Harry is prompt against the counter they’d been working on. The area they’d utilized is wiped down, sparkling, and smelling faintly of the cleaner he orders in large shipments (the boxes are heavy, Y/N knows firsthand). She doesn’t know what they’ll do – hopefully not stare at each other for the remaining 15 minutes of the bake time – so she searches for questions about the baking process to fill in the empty space.

Harry beats her to it.

“How is your mood today?” He inquires, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm against the counter.

“My mood?” Y/N repeats, and he nods, “Oh. . .well. . .I mean – why do you ask?” The question seemed kind of cryptic to her. Did she have a huge blood stain on the back of her bottoms? It sounded like the kind of thing you ask someone before you potentially tell them something that would put them in a poor mood. How is your mood today? Because just so you know, I’ve been staring at a blood spot the size of a small country on the back of your pants, just so you know – it’s probably been there since about midday.

“You were different today,” he tells her, “You’re typically more bubbly. You seem to be in a poor mood – am I right?”

Y/N is shocked. Like, legitimately – if anyone had told her a couple of months ago – or, arguably, even last week – that Harry would notice any sort of change in her mood, she thinks she would have popped a lung from laughing so hard. Because the very idea of Harry paying enough attention to her to even recognize what her baseline was is hard to believe. So hard to believe that it’s actually kind of hilarious, the thought – like imagining a llama baking a cake.

She stares at him for probably a little too long to be normal, the gears cranking and turning in her head before she finally thinks to reply, “Oh!” Y/N shakes her head, then realizes it looks like she’s disagreeing with him so she fixes it to a nod, and in the end, her head just looks like it’s wobbling and knocking her brain around (it feels like it too), “I mean, yeah I wasn’t in a great mood today? Was it that obvious? I thought I was doing a good job hiding it.”

“You did well,” he countered, “I was just paying close attention today.”

Y/N’s breath catches in her throat, “You were?”

“Mhm,” he nods, “Is there something wrong?”

She sighs, shoulders sinking, “No, not really, just – tired, I guess? It’s like. . .personal or whatever,” she says, but then motions to her uterus and forgets that she’s trying not to be blunt and continues, “My period, so like I’m just tired. And my ex messaged me which was annoying, then I had a busy day so there was just. . .a lot stacked against me today.”

Harry’s mouth opens around an “Ahh, I see,” before the oven beeps. He holds his finger as if telling her to put a pin in the conversation before he goes to retrieve it. Harry brings it to the counter they were at to cool. “And it’s been busy today, so I’m sure that was no help.”

She shrugs, her face feeling hot when she realized she might have been too open, “It’s – that’s life I guess. Sorry for telling you that, by the way,” she wanted to melt into the ground, form a puddle that he mops up then pours down a drain, “You probably didn’t want to know that.”

“I asked you, didn’t I?” He rebuts, “If I ask then I want to know the answer. I appreciate your honesty.” Harry pulls the icing that they made closer to them, “This is my second time hearing about your ex. Why does he keep messaging you?”

“Ugh,” Y/N flops her body further against the workbench, groaning, noting that the pressure of the edge pushing against her lower abdomen is nice – Harry’s big ass hand against it would be nice too, probably, and warm (she would be imagining that later while she was in bed), “It’s stupid because he’s always just asking me for restaurant recommendations, or wondering if I can get him a table and a discount here, like – he’s so annoying about it.”

Harry hums again, thinks for a moment, then replies, “Pardon my language, but why don’t you tell him to fuck off?”

Y/N laughs a little, humorlessly, “I – I’m not sure,” she plucks at her fingernail, “Maybe then because that makes me the bitter ex-girlfriend? We ended things mutually with no hard feelings. . .or, like – he thinks it was no hard feelings at least.”

There were plenty of hard feelings, actually, Y/N was just good at pretending that there weren’t. They had dated for three years, the longest relationship she’d ever been in and the most serious she had ever felt about another person romantically (at least next to her long-standing celebrity crushes – that was an untouchable love that no man in her life could ever come close to). Y/N thought things had been going well, enough that she was starting to wonder if they should talk about moving in together. There had never been any glaring red flags that something was going on, that his eyes were wandering, that when he was with her he was thinking about his new coworker who understands him on a deeper, personal level than their relationship could have ever gone – according to him, at least.

Y/N remembers how it felt with her hands in his, the way he stroked her knuckles, how he made a big deal of looking empathetic like the situation wasn’t his fault, to begin with, “I never physically cheated,” he promised, “But emotionally. . .emotionally I haven’t just been yours for a couple of months now.”

“How long?” She’d inquired, her voice steady as she could have made it. She wanted to cry but she didn’t, because. . .well, Y/N knows how to hold them in, you know? And she’d rather feel them burn behind her waterline than let this stupid fuck see her upset.

“Six.”

She remembers pulling her hands away, slipping them from his grasp, with a soft frown, “Okay,” she wanted to shove him off the chair he was sitting on, “Thanks for letting me know.”

It probably hadn’t been the reaction he was expecting. Part of Y/N thinks that it hadn’t been the reaction he wanted either; who didn’t want their girlfriend to grovel at their feet? Beg to be chosen? Remind him of all their time spent together and why he shouldn’t throw that all away. That’s the reaction he wanted – to be sought after and fought for, but she didn’t give him that. And she thinks, maybe, every time he just pops up and asks her about recipes to impress someone, or to get him a reservation and money off at a high-class restaurant – he thinks he’ll get that big reaction. Almost like he wants to feel justified in what he did – his bitter ex, he had to break up with, it just wouldn’t have ever worked, like see how hostile she got when he just asked a question?

Harry watches her, as she relives the moment, with furrowed brows, “What a prick.”

Y/N laughs, “It’s fine, it’s whatever,” she waves her hand, “This place is way too ritzy for him to afford anyway, so at least I don’t have to worry about him showing up.”

After the cake cools, Harry carefully transfers it to a decorating board. He shows her how to spread the icing so it’s a smooth finish, where to add the slices of strawberry, and the appropriate and classy amount of whipped cream to dollop on top. “Ready to try it?” Y/N nods, probably the most enthusiastic she’s been all night. Harry only grabs one fork, and she’s confused – did he not want to try it himself? Or was he going to indirectly kiss her again so she could think about it like a loser for two weeks nonstop?

Harry slices into the desert, a spot that has the right amount of ganache icing they made, that shows off the fluffiest most moist part of the cake, it gets some of the strawberry and some of the whipped cream too. She’d never witnessed someone so methodically get every aspect of desert into one bite, nor had she ever had them present it to her either. Hovering near her mouth, waiting for her to part her lips – which she does – so that he can slip it inside.

For as careful as he was getting all the right parts of it onto the fork, he was not very careful in the transmission – or maybe Y/N’s coordination is just worse off than she thought because some ended up on her lips and chin.

But the cake is delicious; what she’s chewing and swallowing down is divine. As she looks for a napkin she whines, “That’s so yummy,” with a frown, “It’s a waste to have to wipe any of it from my chin.”

She expected a huff from his nose, maybe. The way he shows he’s a little amused by her before taking to the rest of the cake and having a bite for himself.

Instead, Harry’s hand raises to her face.

Y/N freezes – like a predator has just spotted her in the forest foraging for seeds. She can’t read him (could she ever?) exactly, as his fingers carefully cradle her jaw. Her breath sticks in her throat when the pad of his thumb swipes over the mess on her chin in a way that’s almost too tender for how fast her heart races. Has he ever touched her before? Have Harry’s fingers ever gotten anywhere near her face?

She’s dizzy when he swipes it up, over her bottom lip, resting carefully at the seam of her mouth. It’s his turn to still, waiting quietly, patiently, for her to make a move, but Y/N is seriously frozen! Her brain is not computing a single bit of stimuli right now and she thinks she’s malfunctioning, blinking at him, not pulling away, not getting closer.

Harry wears the tiniest, smallest smile at the corner of his mouth, “Open,” he orders, and Y/N’s lips part automatically – did he plant a chip in her brain or what? His thumb sinks between them and rests on her tongue, sweet from the chocolate, salty from his skin – his skin – that she’s tasting, because his thumb is in her fucking mouth! “Suck.”

Was she really doing this? Yes, absolutely. Somewhere, hardwired in her brain is the desire and need to listen and enact every instruction he’s ever given her. Even if that instruction is to suck on his thumb while the rest of his fingers splay out over her jaw, and her heart was hammering like a rabbit's, and the gleam in his eyes resembled a wolf’s.

Y/N is tentative about it; honestly, it’s probably way less porn-y than it could have been. She wishes she had the wherewithal to bob her head, make it sexy, something for him to remember and dream about later – that would make him want her more. But it isn’t like that. She is shy, the way she curls her tongue around his knuckle, how she pulls him deeper into his mouth with careful each careful suck. The icing is long gone by now, but she doesn’t want to let go or look away from him and how he stares at her mouth.

The only thing that gets her to let go is when Harry starts to pull away, and even then – she grazes her teeth along his knuckle when he withdraws. A whine bubbles in her throat when she swallows thickly, wanting more, but it’s like Harry reads her mind. With one hand, he grabs her wrist as if to keep her still, and with the other, Harry pulls a slice of strawberry from the cake and offers it to her, holding it at her mouth. This time he doesn’t have to instruct her to part her lips, she just does it, and he seems pleased as he feeds it to her. Watches her chew, rubs his thumb along her bottom lip, and once she swallows, urges her mouth open again.

She opens up as wide as he wants her to and lets him carefully prod his fingers inside of her mouth. Harry uses his index and middle fingers, sliding against the ridges of her teeth, petting the inside of her cheek, and sliding down her tongue again. When he does that she tries to close her lips around him again but he clicks his tongue, “Ah ah,” he shakes his head, “I didn’t tell you to do that, did I?” This time she does whine, pitiful and needy. Something wanting curls low in her gut and she thinks she might pass out because she really hasn’t taken a proper breath in like three whole minutes.

But she lets him explore her mouth and feel what he wants to feel, and she isn’t sure what his motive is. Maybe just to prove that he could – perhaps just to see that Y/N would do anything he told her to.

Eventually, he finally pulls his fingers from her mouth. With the ones not wet from her spit, he caresses her cheek with his knuckles, sighing, “Hm, it’s time to go home,” he murmured, “You had a long day.”

What? That was it? Wasn’t he supposed to. . .Y/N doesn’t know, she thinks he was supposed to like –bend her over the table and fuck her or something, right? That’s usually where these things go, don’t they? The hot, sexy mentor throws his sweet little mentee down and stuffs her full. . .or something like that.

Harry must notice her confusion because he laughs – a bright sound from him that’s rare to hear. She’s used to the puffs through his nose and the mild look of amusement, not something so outwardly jovial, “What is it?” He inquired, “Expecting something else?”

She blinked at him.

“Oh, uh….no?”

“Okay then,” he nodded, “I’ll pack up this cake for you.”

. . .

Y/N hasn’t stopped thinking about it.

She doesn’t think anyone in their right mind could stop thinking about it., honestly. The ghost of his fingers still weighs in her mouth, poking and caressing all the spots hidden from his eyes. His gaze, staring at her curiously but knowingly, all in the same glance – like he knew she would let him do it but wondered how far she would let him go. And Y/N isn’t coy; there’s no cat-and-mouse game with her. She would have taken anything he put into her mouth without a second thought, probably, just because Harry was the one telling her to.

Did he like that, or was that a turn-off? This was only one of many questions plaguing her every waking thought, along with her subconscious, that had been unhelpfully supplying scenarios in her dreams, all of which ended with her legs spread and needy. A recurrent theme in every naughty dream is that she can’t see Harry at all, but she knows that it’s him – she could feel him, his aura, the true, honest-to-god vibe that he just emitted from being near. And just as soon as he’s about to come into view, crawl up her body, unzip his trousers, and finally let her see what the hell he’s been hiding in there. . .she wakes up.

It’s a cruel joke, and one she has a feeling would make Harry a little giddy. Honestly, it's more like a nightmare, really. A horny nightmare.

She hadn’t told Niall about this recent development yet because it had suddenly gone from fun, delusional daydreams to horny, lingering nightmares. How was she going to explain to Niall that Harry had poked around in her mouth but then didn’t fuck her? Honestly, she was like. . a little embarrassed about how easily she gave in. How much better would it have been had she trailed her tongue around his knuckles, grazed her teeth against the skin, hummed, and maintained eye contact but with a twinkle that bespoke her playful, confident demeanor? Harry probably would have had no choice but to fuck her then. . .like it might have been a need at that point, had she really pressed forward and been sexier.

The next day, Harry is painfully normal. Not even a glimmer in his gaze would suggest he even made a cake with her yesterday (one that she had already consumed when her belly was aching with cramps and her mind was aching with questions), let alone shoved his fingers in her mouth. Y/N tried her best to act the same: indifferent and calm. But when Harry stands beside her, when he tastes the soup she was preparing and murmurs his praise, when he accidentally touches her arm as he’s reaching for the ladle – goosebumps pimple all over her body. She stiffens, her heart races, she thinks maybe she could pass out, and her mouth feels significantly empty (and she’s significantly upset about it).

But nobody else seems to notice. The person would have been her delusional partner in crime, but when lunch comes around, and all he has to talk about is the Grammys and how he’s been farming for gold in League – well, Y/N knows she’s not being obvious. At least not to anyone but Harry, who could probably smell the tension on her when he was within 400 meters of her, like a shark sniffing out blood in the ocean.

All she received as acknowledgment for the night before was a question right after lunch when Y/N had just left the storage room carrying two large containers of chicken broth. They’re balanced on top of one another, and she keeps them stable with her hands and her chin on the top of the second container.

“Did you enjoy the rest of the cake?” He inquired, appearing out of thin air and taking them from her easily, holding them close to his body “Or are you saving it?”

Y/N’s face felt hot at the memory, especially when she admitted, “I finished it already.”

“Ahhhhh,” he seemed pleased, “Yeah? It must’ve been really good then.”

She nodded, her breaths felt thin in her throat, “Yes,” she agreed, “Thank you again, for that.”

Then Harry tilted his head, “Which part?” Either he’s just a pro at pretending to be aloof in all situations, or this particular situation didn’t leave him as giddy, breathless, or frazzled as it did her. She’s more inclined to believe the latter as his gaze sits still upon her, undeviating, and. . .well, he didn’t look like he cared much what her response would be.

Before she could answer, Adam came barrelling out of the kitchen, “Y/N!” He’d exclaimed, and he seemed so frantic that it had Y/N’s heart kicking in her chest – what could be wrong? “Please settle this between Niall and I. He’s making an absurd claim that my leather club pants are outdated and tacky but –”

“That’s because they are,” Nill emerged after him, “When was the last time you saw someone in leather pants for a night out, and it wasn’t a Groovy 70s-themed event?” He tossed his arms up, “Just buy a fitted trouser if you want to show off your ass! Ask Harry where he gets his.”

Harry had disappeared from her side in the fuss, so Y/N never got to answer – though she didn’t know what her answer would be. Thank you for noticing I was in a bad mood? Thank you for making me a slice of cake under the guise of teaching but you actually just wanted to do something nice for me? Thank you for saying my ex was a prick? Thank you for putting your fingers in my mouth and then implanting what will easily be months worth of wet dreams?

Other than that, he hadn’t brought it up, and it had been a full week. Y/N was going crazy thinking about it over and over and over again, mouth feeling painfully empty. Every time she swallowed, she imagined the weight of Harry’s fingers on her tongue, how much space he’d occupied, how she thought he would’ve kept going even if she started drooling all over him. Y/N hadn’t even thought about actual dick-in-vagina penetration with her ex as much as she was thinking about Harry putting his fingers in her mouth, like – seriously, she’s feeling a little pathetic.

Still, she persists through her days, cooks, cleans up, pretends like she isn’t itching to crawl into his shirt, and refuse to leave. . .let’s Niall talk about his campaign in league with Adam (whatever the fuck that means). Y/N figures that either something will happen or. . .it won’t. She sure as fuck wasn’t going to bring it up – like, what if he regretted it? Maybe he thought about it and decided it wasn’t what he was looking for. Maybe he wanted something different, someone different, someone prettier, who was sexy and didn’t ruminate about a two-minute situation for seven days.

Y/N is kind of abandoning all hope one night when everyone had left the kitchen, and only she and Harry remained. It was quiet, reminiscent of how it was just a month or two ago, with Y/N stuck in a loop, wondering what Harry was thinking when he was silent like this. He made his way around the kitchen, tidying, marking things off on his sheet, carefully storing what could be preserved.

There are so many thoughts roaming around in her head that she’s barely paying attention to what she’s doing, which technically shouldn’t be a problem because she’s just cleaning. But maybe when she’s cleaning the stove she should be just a little extra careful. Even if it’s been a while since it’d been on, a burner that’s been scalding hot all day typically takes quite a while to cool down. The light near the dial warning of its heat was still illuminated, but Y/N wasn’t paying any mind to that. So she isn’t extra careful like she should be and she ends up accidentally burning the side of her finger on the burner grates.

She flinches, cursing low to herself and gripping her finger.

“What happened?” Harry, who had just been across the kitchen, was suddenly at her side when Y/N turned to toss the wash rag in the sink. She’ll admit that it made her yell, startled by his agility and wondering if he should have looked into being a private detective, or a spy even. His eyes widened at the volume of it, echoing through the kitchen.

“Shit!” She breathed out, holding her fingers from the pain, then both of them held to her heart, feeling it slam against her chest, “Harry, you scared me!”

Harry is firm but gentle in the way he reaches out to her; his fingers slide down her forearm to get a grip on her wrist before guiding her to the sink. He twists the faucet on, and a soft, cool stream flows from the nozzle. When Harry can identify which finger she hurt, he carefully pulls it to sit beneath it. At first, Y/N hisses, her body jerking, but Harry’s grip on her is so steady that she barely even budges and that. . .she’s real enough to admit that it does something for her. But what doesn’t do something for her these days – she’s really easy to work up lately, and she knows the man holding her so tightly right now is the one to blame.

“You need to be more careful,” he scolds her after a little while, and when Y/N turns to look at him, she realizes his face is much closer than she thought it’d be. Her gaze darts back down to her finger as she clears her throat, “You aren’t normally clumsy like this. Are you alright?”

She nods quickly, “Yes, yeah, sorry I just – got distracted,” she shrugs, “I’m a little tired.”

Harry stares at her for a moment, holding her finger beneath the water – it really isn’t necessary for him to stand there but she wasn’t going to complain about him holding her hand. Even if this is a little more clinical than how she’d like it, she’d take this – how big his fingers looked compared to hers, the way they swallowed her hands up when they’d move from her forearm, stretching out over her knuckles. They’re warm too, and surprisingly soft. She’d expected more callouses from him, but they were smooth like he’d used a sugar scrub on them. And because her pervy brain couldn’t do anything but haunt her, she tried to remember if they felt that soft in her mouth too.

“You’re always saying that,” he clicked his tongue, “How tired you are.” Yeah, Y/N guesses she says that a lot, but the thing is – she’s never said that to Harry directly before. To complain about being sleepy in front of Harry would have been like trying to piss him off on purpose. It’s just a rule of thumb not to whine or moan about how busy you were or how tired you are to Harry. Honestly, it was a rule of thumb not to speak unless spoken to when it came to him during work hours. The only person to break this regularly was Adam, and Y/N was second to that, only because she had just recently gotten comfortable calling him over to ask questions about the dishes she was preparing.

So how Harry had been hearing her complain about being tired, she wouldn’t know. That’s something she only thinks about or fusses with Niall over. Maybe she’d said it once or twice to the other staff in the kitchen this week because it had been extremely tiring, but she couldn’t imagine speaking loud enough that Harry would have heard her.

“I’m just having trouble falling asleep lately I guess,” because my sexy as fuck mentor is all I can think about, and it’s haunting my dreams – Harry hums again, “Even when it’s busy here and I’ve been running around all day, I just kind of. . .stay awake when I’m home. Hazelnut doesn’t help, she loves playing until late. I have to tire her out.”

Harry smiles a little, at what Y/N believes to be the thought of Hazelnut, but then he opens his mouth, “It seems like you need something to tire you out too, hm?”

It was a loaded statement to make, and Y/N is immediately reading into it.

So she could either stumble over her words, or she could try something – to propel this further. To make him understand that she wanted this too if he did – that it’s all she can think about. That she wants his stupid, dumb, soft fingers filling her mouth again. Pressing at her gums, the back of her teeth, stroking along her tongue, making her feel dumb and needy because she wants it to be his cock so badly, but she’ll take whatever he gives her.

“Are you. . .are you offering?”

It could have come out more confident, for sure, but the message comes across clearly. Harry, once more, allows a smile to twitch at his mouth when he looks at her – a brief thing that makes her insides stir up as he slips his hands from hers.

“That depends,” he answers, turning off the faucet, “Are you a good girl?”

Y/N’s breath feels like it leaves her lungs but she somehow manages to speak, “I – yes,” she pouts her mouth, “You know I am.”

Another hum, “You’d let me fill up your mouth with my fingers again?” It’s his only true mention of it happening, and Y/N thought she wanted him to be direct about it, but her heart slams against her sternum hard enough that it might crack it. Her ribs rattle with each beat, and all the blood in her body is surging this way and that. Every cell in her body shivers and vibrates in anxious excitement.

“Yes.” She agreed urgently.

“What else would you let me put in your mouth?” Harry goads, but Y/N doesn’t mind playing into it. She’s never been one to play hard to get, really, and maybe that makes her look extra desperate and extra pathetic, but she doesn’t care if it gets her what she wants. Right now, she’ll look as pathetic and desperate as she needs to, if that’s what Harry likes – if it’s what finally pushes him.

Y/N wheezes, practically, “Anything.”

That does make Harry chuckle, the smile returning only this time much bigger, and she sees that dimple again – honestly, she might scream if he doesn’t fill her mouth up quickly. Harry’s palm is soft when it cradles her cheek tentatively and slowly before he introduces his thumb to the corner of her lips, “Anything, huh?” He repeats, pressing down into the tender flesh of her mouth, firm enough that it pushes her bottom lip against her teeth, “You’d let me fuck my fingers in your mouth right here again if I wanted, right? You’d drool all over them like the messy, greedy little puppy you are. Open your mouth.”

A sound leaves Y/N, something like a whine and a gust of breath leaving her lungs again, and she’s so worked up she feels herself squeeze around nothing. She parts her lips instantly and feels strings of spit stretch and snap with her mouth as it opens and Harry slips his thumb inside of it. Y/N should wait for him to tell her to suck again, probably, but she can’t help it – she wants to, so badly, and she’s been thinking about it, and his thumb actually feels really good in her mouth. Does she have an oral fixation? Wouldn’t have that arisen at some other point in her life? She isn’t sure and she doesn’t care either, not when Harry’s tender hold turns a little sterner.

“I thought you were good, hm? Who told you to start sucking?” He inquired but he makes no move to make her stop, and only huffs a laugh when she whimpers around the thumb in her mouth, “Looks like you wanted this badly, hm? This is what’s been keeping you up at night.” He doesn’t say the last sentence like a question, more like a statement, and he’d be right so there’s nothing for Y/N to pop off and correct him for. She nips around his knuckle, and pulls his thumb in deeper, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands – so one of them – the one that isn’t burned – grips onto his wrist to keep him from moving it.

Harry does start to slip his thumb from her mouth, but before she can protest it, Harry slips his index and middle finger into her mouth. Now the sound Y/N makes is a little more gleeful, a content hum, and really, since when is she into this? Y/N has never had the urge for something to fill her mouth up like this before, but she needs it more than anything – maybe it’s just because she’s ovulating. She’s always been a bit ravenous during this part of her cycle, and Sabrina Carpenter’s lyrics have started making a lot of sense over the past couple of days, so that would add up. But she needs this more than anything right now.

Embarrassingly enough, Harry must be able to tell, if the way he murmurs, “You really like this, hm?” is anything to go by, “You’ll need training, won’t you? To be a really good girl for me. I’ll teach you how I like my puppies to act. Do you like the sound of that?”

She nods, her mouth full, her eyes threatening to close, her cunt clenching around absolutely nothing and leaking into the cotton covering her. The whole thing should be extra humiliating, but it only turns her on more. A puppy, huh? That’s what he’s into? Y/N could do that – she could wag her tail and bark too if he wanted, she’s just as big a pervert as he is – she might be an even bigger one.

Harry seems. . .endeared? Fond? Y/N doesn’t know if she’s just seeing things, but she hopes that’s what he’s feeling right now. He doesn’t seem disgusted or annoyed, at least, and that’s reassuring to her.

“You’ll need to let go of me for a second,” he murmurs, “We need to go to my office.”

It’s with a mighty sense of will that she’s able to pull away, ultimately more embarrassed now that she wasn’t actively doing it. Harry looks at her lips for a moment longer than she was expecting before guiding her to his office. Y/N had only been in here a couple of times before, one of which when she first came here, Finley by her side as Harry told them all the things he didn’t like and all the things that they would do. When he outlined their schedule, when he was so scary Y/N was regretting accepting his offer, while she wondered if she had what it took to be a chef studying under him.

And now he’s pulling her in here, pushing the door closed behind them, and offering his fingers back up to her mouth. Maybe Y/N is a greedy puppy, because she takes them back in and this time she does bob her head once, pulling them deeper, down to his second knuckle. Her throat convulses at the intrusion, rejecting it, and it makes her shudder as she withdraws some. The saliva in her mouth is on another level right now, but Harry doesn’t seem to care at all. She wonders what he’s thinking about – wonders what he wants from her. Was he getting off on this too?

Y/N looks down, but her view is obscured by his hand. Even if it wasn’t, he uses his other hand to tilt her chin up, “Ah ah, eyes above the belt, Pup,” and the nickname – wow, is it possible for her to cum untouched? She kind of thought stories like that were bullshit but the curl of arousal in her belly is so intense, it feels like there’s no way that it isn’t a possibility.

Harry’s free hand moves from her chin, down to her top. The black button up she has tucked into her bottoms is carefully pulled up from beneath her trouser band, and the button of her trousers follows shortly after. Harry works with a precision only someone with experience could move with, dragging the zipper down, pulling the fabric out, entirely. The tips of his fingers graze along the delicate waistband of her underwear, before he stretches the elastic and slips his fingers in.

When he feels how wet she is, he cusses.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” it’s the first time he’s sounded truly affected by anything, and Y/N bristles with it, humming around his fingers, “Such a messy pussy. All from sucking on my fingers?” Her hips move without her say, bucking into his touch – his fingers are cold in comparison to her scorching insides and she wants more of them. Wants him to rub her clit, wants him to tuck them inside of her, wants to ride them while he sits there with them still and makes her do all the work. She wants, and wants, and wants so viciously that it feels like she might go crazy.

Harry plays around in her wetness a bit, slipping his fingers through it between her folds before slipping the pad of it up to her clit. It’s swollen, flicking beneath his fingers before looping soft circles over it. Y/N moans, her brain fizzling out for a second, all soap bubbles from the sink filling the grooves. It’s the only thing that’s gotten her to stop sucking this whole time, her mouth falling open around it. She wonders if he could feel her pulsate and squeeze around nothing if he liked it, if he liked how she felt. She wonders if he’s hard, and she wants to touch so badly she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

“There you go,” she shivers, his voice is placating like he really was talking to a greedy dog. It’s humiliating in the best way for her and makes her leak more – could he feel that? “Poor thing, all this worked up over a little treat. How cute.” It’s the first time he’s called her cute since after the Korean barbeque, and Y/N is suddenly reminded of that entire night. How he’d made sure she was fed, how he took care of her after, drove her home, calmed her panicked drunk self about the stain she’d left on his shirt. How soft we were with her led to all of these delusions that might not have been delusions in the first place. He did want her, at least in some way. Maybe not in all the ways Y/N wanted him, but still, something was better than nothing. Maybe she could fuck this out of her system and actually sleep without her subconscious bullying her.

It goes from feeling good to feeling really good in just a couple of spins. How all orgasms do, it’s building, and building, and building, until suddenly things are feeling great, and there’s a point where there’s no turning back. That’s where she was at – her teeth dig into his fingers, which is not helping the puppy allegations in the slightest, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind it. He seems amused, tickled, and a little too joyful for someone who hasn’t even gotten touched yet. This alone should have rang alarm bells in her head, but it didn’t, because her head was full of cotton after her brain finished melting from her ears.

So when Y/N knows it would only take a couple more circles of his fingers before she would cum, and he pulls his fingers away – well, she’s shocked. Shocked and horrified and appalled. The look must be written all over her face because Harry’s biting down on a huge smile then, dimples and all, slipping his fingers from her mouth too.

“Wh-why?” She asks, and the distress is palpable – enough that Harry even gives a small, pitied laugh while he thumbs at her bottom lip, “I was almost – I almost –”

“Mm, I wasn’t ready for you to do that yet.” He tells her, and Y/N frowns – nobody had ever snatched an orgasm away from her before. Honestly, her ex just seemed stoked that he could get her there every once in a while. Y/N hasn’t even done that to herself.

“But I was!” It sounds whiny, even to her own ears, and Harry still seems pleased with himself.

“I thought you were a good girl, yeah?” He rubs his fingers, wet from her spit, on his shirt. The fingers wet from her, he merely drags his tongue across right in front of her because he hates her guts and he wants her to suffer before continuing to speak, “Good girls wait for their treats. Are you going to be a well-behaved puppy or not?”

Y/N feels frazzled and overwhelmed and so needy she could scream. She’s starting to think that maybe she was right from the start – maybe he was just fucking with her.

Still, she relents, “You hate me,” she accuses him, but Harry just laughs again, like she’s just the most amusing thing in the world. Probably like when you’re watching your dog look at its reflection for the first time or when you put them in socks and they walk funny. Harry takes it upon himself to rebutton and zip her pants while she pouts, her arms crossed over her chest, “You really do, I knew it.”

Harry doesn’t bother to tuck her shirt in, “You’re fussy when you’ve been edged,” he murmurs, “Poor thing.” He calls her again and plucks at her bottom lip again, only pushing on it until she sucks the pout back into her mouth, “Alright, let’s put some cream on your burn and bandage it.”

The contrast between what they were doing five minutes ago and what was happening now – honestly, was kind of funny. If Y/N was in the mood to find humor in anything, then she’d be laughing, but she’s still feeling a bit huffy over it. She rubs the cream on her little burn while Harry cuts a sliver from the bandage, then helps her loop it around her finger carefully, “Take it off in the morning and air it out,” he murmurs, but then slips the cream and the rest of the bandage in her pocket, “If you do this for three days then it should heal up nicely, and barely scar.”

“Okay,” she nods, “Thank you.”

Harry looks like he’s thinking about something when he’s staring at her, watching as she tucks her shirt back in at least a little bit and addresses her hair that had been smashed between her head and the wall, so her bun was all fucked. When she’s finally halfway righted herself, she finally looks back at him, blinking, waiting for him to speak.

“Be careful on your way home, Puppy,” is what he decides on, and Y/N feels her face get hot all over again, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

. . .

“Why in the f-u-c-k am I just now hearing about his fingers in your mouth?” Niall is staring at her across the table at a Greek restaurant where she should definitely not be explaining this story. She couldn’t help it, though, because her brain-to-mouth filter is nonexistent when it comes to being with Niall, even when they’re in public. And all Niall had to do was say, Any new Harry stories, I need something to preoccupy my time with – and she was explaining everything.

She did cower beneath his glare, a little, “Because I kind of felt pathetic and stupid because he wasn’t doing anything about it afterward, and he wasn’t bringing it up so I was like – well, guess he decided that I was ugly and – ow!”

Niall, who had kicked her from underneath the table, is staring at her with crossed arms, “Call yourself ugly again and I’ll kick you harder.”

Pouting, she reaches down and rubs at her shin, “--and I was like. . .licking my wounds a bit. But then he did it again so –”

“He did it again?” Niall exclaimed.

“So I was like – well, I better tell Ni,” she finished, then nodded, “It was – Niall, it was crazy! I’ve never been so horny in my life, which is insane, because it was after I burned myself so –”

“Okay, hold the fuck on,” Niall’s pretenses of keeping his language somewhat appropriate for a dine-out setting are lost almost immediately, “Start from the beginning of the night, after I left with Adam.”

Y/N does – she explains it all. From he burning her finger, to Harry sending her off with soaked panties and stuff to treat her wound, and everything that happened in between. Niall is good to tell stories to, even if they aren’t very interesting ones because he’s a very active listener. He gasps, he asks questions, his eyes widen, his brows furrow, his mouth falls agape in shock and he scoffs at the right moments too. By the time Y/N finishes the story, you would’ve thought Niall had gone through it as well, with how flustered he seemed.

“Oh my god,” he’s holding his head in his hands, “I can’t believe you were getting felt up while I was begging Adam to wax my ass for me.”

“Please, Ni, nobody wants to see your balls from that angle when they aren’t planning on fucking you.”

“Oh my god, he is a fucking freak, my sources were correct.” He ignores her, then his head darts up, “Wait, so showing up to work in a collar and a buttplug wouldn’t have been too much! God I understand kinky fuckers so well, it’s like my brain is hardwired for it.”

“Your brain is hardwired for it, because you’re also a kinky fuck. Did you forget?”

He ignores her again, “Wait, so how do you feel about the puppy thing? Is it a turn on or do you actually hate it?”

Y/N had been mulling over this for a couple of days now, “I think if anyone else did it, I wouldn’t like it,” she explained the conclusion she’d come to at 9PM one night, when Hazelnut was lying on her belly, purring, her eyes shut but her right paw kneading her nails just below Y/N’s breast, “But with him it just like. . .feels right? Like I couldn’t imagine him treating me any other way.”

“You’re so right, this is like – this makes perfect sense for him,” he nods.

“What do you think I should do though?” Y/N asks, her hands squeezing around the glass of water she’d been preoccupying them with, “Like – how should I be sexier? What would make it hard for him to keep his hands off me?”

Niall is good to ask, not only because he knows how a guy’s brain might work but because he is sexy. He’s coy and flirty, and every person that he sets his sights on to date ends up obsessed with him. When he’s dating someone, or even when he just has a fuck buddy, he’s always covered in love bites and hickeys, and they’re messaging him nonstop while he ignores them in favor of snapping those medieval torture hair ties with the balls attached to them on Y/N’s head (when she wanted to try a ‘cyberpunk’ hairstyle that didn’t even work out). If anyone knew how to lure Harry, it would be him.

“Don’t do anything differently,” Niall tells her instead, shaking his head, “Clearly, whatever you’re doing does have him worked up.”

Her brows dip, “But I feel like I just come off like a. . .like a. . .”

“Big virgin dummy?”

“Hey!”

“Maybe Harry likes big virgin dummies,” he teases, pulling his straw to his mouth, taking a sip of whatever fruity lemonade he’d ordered, “Listen, Harry is like. . .at the risk of sounding cliche, not like other men. I don’t think the same tactics would work for him. If he wants a “dumb little puppy” to train, then you fit the bill, Sweetheart.” He slides his drink away, “Not to say that you’re dumb or that you even come off as dumb. But you clearly space out when he’s trying to talk to you, listen to what he says, and have this cute deer-in-the-headlights look about you. Plus, you’re good at your job and followed his lead when he acted like nothing happened between you two.” Niall leaned on his hand, “You’re probably pretty interesting to him.”

Y/N runs her thumb over her brows to relax them, “Okay, if you’re sure,” she replies, "I'm like, worried I’ll make the wrong move and he’ll snap out of whatever spell I accidentally cast on him – hey!” He kicks her again.

“You’re cute and funny, there was no spell involved,” Niall scolds her, before a smile pulls at his cheeks, “I can’t believe he’s going to edge you! I’m so giddy right now, I could squeal.”

She hides her face in her palms and shakes her head, “Stop! I’m so – not giddy about that! I know he’s going to be mean.”

“That’s the fun part isn’t it?” Niall pulls at her wrist, “No stop hiding, we need to look up collars and measure your neck when we get back to your place.”

. . .

Another week of nothing passes. The air outside is still cold for the most part, but they’ve come to the part of winter where there’s a fake promise of spring for a week or two. Just before the area plunges back into the icy tundra that torments them until the actual solstice. Still, Y/N enjoys it while she can – opens her windows, and accepts the fresh, warm-ish breeze, and the sun that blares through the glass.

So she starts her day in a pretty good mood. She and Niall are back on the mornings now, but this day in particular Harry isn’t coming in at 5 AM so he relieves her of her 5 AM duties as well. He will be seeing her promptly at 6 AM, however, which. . .okay, yeah, it’s only an hour but an hour is still an hour! Plus the sun was so pretty the day before, Y/N sat outside and soaked it up so she’s high on vitamin D and vibes.

It must show on her face when she walks in, and Harry instructs her to start preparing the vegetables for the day (they’re already washed and waiting for her on the cutting board).

“You’re awfully cheery this morning,” he made note, and Y/N shrugged.

“Is that a bad thing?” She asked.

Harry looked like he was considering it, before shaking his head, “Carry on then. Be in a cheery mood.”

So she does. She even kind of hums a little until Harry side-eyes her, and then she stops humming. Even with the new development in their dynamic, Harry is still intimidating as hell and kind of scary, so she doesn’t want to annoy him or bother him. By no means did she believe that him having his fingers in her mouth and his hand down her pants gave her any special treatment. If Mora gets a glare when she starts singing and cooking the steaks, then Y/N sees herself as no different.

They move harmoniously, as they always do. Adam and Niall come in loud and bright like they always do. Everyone else filters in; the mood is light and airy, and Y/N is excited to start cooking.

The good vibes continue until around 2 PM when there’s a complaint about Y/N’s plate. And the vibes diminish entirely when she walks out to speak to the customer to see what’s wrong, and she sees the same annoying prick that is always there bothering everyone. She hadn’t seen him since the last time he’d come and stirred a fuss. When Harry initially yelled at her, and then she went and cried in the food storage closet. Y/N still remembers how horrible it felt to be accused and scolded for something that she hadn’t even done, and she has a feeling that the same thing is going to happen again today. Because no amount of being a cute, dumb puppy is going to stop Harry from being upset when the state of his business is questioned.

“Oh, what a surprise,” the man says, this time with a different woman sitting across from him, “It’s you again. You think they’d have put some sense into you since the last time.” He raises his hand, this time another piece of hair, another color so far from her own that she could have screamed over it. The only thing that is a little confusing is she doesn’t remember plating this. Y/N was supposed to prepare the seared salmon, but Harry had told her she was needed in the sauces to help Niall. She’d been a little confused but didn’t question it, because any chance to hang out with Niall in the actual kitchen was pretty fun but they’re always at different stations.

So Y/N didn’t make this one, because she hadn’t made salmon today, but it must have come from her station for the waitress to come get her.

The manager is at her side, opening his mouth to apologize again but another presence emerges to the left of them. Y/N turns to see Harry, her heart hammering – was he going to remember that she hadn’t prepared that dish? Or would he have forgotten? This is. . .not a good look, being in the same position as she had been before, even if this time it definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, could not have been her fault. The piece of hair was long in length – longer than Harry’s, and the wrong color too. But he hadn’t noticed the color last time – he’d probably been so mad at her that he was blinded by it.

“Thank god you’re here,” the man shook his head, looking disturbed, “Another piece of hair. You should really look into monitoring the women who –”

“You planted that.” Harry cut him off.

The man stops, blinking.

“Wh-what? That’s absurd?” He exclaimed, “Why would I have done that?”

Harry has the same, impassive look on his face that he did the last time they were in this position, but this time he shrugs, “You tell me. Why would you plant your date’s hair into a dish that I prepared?”

The color drains from the man’s face, “What?” His eyes darted between Harry to Y/N, “When I asked the waitress she said –”

“She said that chef Y/N made it,” Harry filled in the blanks, “But the thing is, Sir, I’ve been hearing a lot about you since you’ve been here last. How you’re always bothering the female staff, how you seemingly only enjoy the food and leave a good tip if it was a male chef, or if you had a waiter as opposed to a waitress. How you’re always here with different women who look uncomfortable in your presence. So I imagine that you saw your food, asked who cooked it – as you always do – heard it was a woman’s name, and thought that you could get a free meal again, correct?”

“Excuse me –” The man was red now, bright red, looking enraged, but Harry continued.

“But I had the hostess alert me when you came in, and I made sure that I was the one to prepare your plate. This –” he plucks the hair from the hands, holding it between his fingers, then holds it up to his head, “Is not my hair. It’s not the same length or the same color, and I was the one to cook the fish, plate the dish, and have it sent out to you. It’s not the same color as your waitress; hers is bright pink, and Chef Y/N has never come into contact with your plate. This does, however, look very similar to your date’s,” Harry holds it out now toward the woman who looks embarrassed to be sitting across from him now, and it is a perfect match – if he dropped it onto her shoulder, nobody would have questioned where it came from, “You planted it.”

“I – I did not –”

“I don’t like liars,” Harry takes another step closer, withdraws the plate from the table, “And I won’t stand for you harassing my staff anymore. Get the fuck out of my restaurant.”

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, which is unusual for this time of day, with this amount of people seated and eating. Y/N is staring, wide-eyed, and flustered by the whole situation when Harry pivots from the table, “Y/N.” He says her name and it startles her from her trance. She’s worked with him long enough to know that this means he wants to speak to her, so she trails after him, her heart slamming against her chest.

Harry drops the plate onto the kitchen counter and directs Y/N into his office. Adam catches her gaze, looking distressed – he must think she’s about to get yelled at again. Honestly, maybe she was – Y/N doesn’t know.

He closes the door behind them and Y/N tentatively sits in the chair across from his own at the desk. Harry doesn’t sit though, instead standing beside her, his arms crossed – oh she was definitely getting yelled at –

“I’m sorry.”

Y/N is confused instantly.

“Wait, what?”

Harry takes a deep breath, “I don’t want you thinking that the only reason I did all of this is because of the change in our dynamic,” he explained carefully, “And I want you to know, going forward, how I treat you will not change no matter if we are friendly outside of the kitchen or not. I know you understand this, yes?” Y/N nods, eye gaze locked onto his own, “But after last time, I inquired about this particular customer and heard a lot of stories that I wish would have been shared with me before. Then you cried – and for all I’ve yelled at you, you’ve never looked like that afterward. Never seemed so distressed or sad either, it’s when I first got a feeling that something was off. So I wanted to apologize to you because you deserve it. I should have heard you out and asked you what happened instead of assuming the worst and berating you.” His gaze is softer than she’s ever seen before, despite how angry he just was – it melts her insides and makes her insides swirl with an emotion different than the usual, horny demon that tries to overtake her, “So I’m sorry.”

“Oh – it’s,” she raised her hands, “It’s okay, I –”

“It isn’t,” he replied, “It isn’t okay at all. I’m sorry.”

Y/N swallows thickly, nodding, “I – okay,” she replies, “That’s – I accept? Honestly, I forgot about it like a couple of weeks ago, so I promise I’m not holding onto it or anything! So I accept your apology.” She answers, and she doesn't necessarily know what to do with her hands so she holds out one of hers for him to shake. Y/N isn’t sure why – she’s just a loser, and panicking, and her boss was just really fucking hot out there, so she isn’t sure what to do with herself.

Harry entertains her at least, and meets her hand with his own, shaking it once, “Alright,” he agreed that it was settled on, “Are you okay? I know the situation was uncomfortable.”

She smiles, nodding, “Yeah, it was – it was kind of uncomfortable, but you were really cool out there,” she told him, “Like, badass and cool. That dick has had it coming for a long time, and you told him off so it was. . .it was pretty cool.”

This makes Harry laugh, and he doesn’t let go of her hand. Instead he squeezes hers, warm against his palm.

“You’re cute,” and even if he’s said it before, it still makes her shiver, that he thinks her bumbling and fumbling through her words and sounding stupid was in any way endearing, “Do you have plans tonight?”

Y/N shook her head, “Nothing besides – well, Hazelnut and I may watch a movie.”

“Tell Hazelnut you’ll need a raincheck,” Harry told her, “You’re coming to my flat.”