To commemorate Harry releasing his tour dates, I decided to post installment no. 1 of my slow burn Harry Styles x OC au. I’m going to be tagging some people who I think may want to read it. If you like it, please share! :) @harrysdimplles, @rainbow-91s, @bbletsdoitallovragain, @fromyourstrulyh, @for-fucks-sake-h, @ouronlyangelhes, @toothpastekissy, @softlyicons, @kindnesstuff, @h-styles-babes, @internet-is-my-bitch, @harryisart
Warnings: slow burn, eventual relations, mild language
Soft, mitten clad fingers struggled to retrieve one particular card from its place among others in a floral clad, quilted wallet. Realizing her folly, and the line that was accumulating behind her, the elderly woman nipped the end of her mittens with her teeth and freed a single, wrinkled and frail hand. Free of restraints, the woman plucked a credit card from her wallet and handed it to the store clerk with a small smile and a genuine apology to those in line behind her. A young mother offered a gentle response and a smile to the woman as her two small children continued to draw in their coloring books, completely unaware of the hold up.
All around town events such as these played out in one shop after another. Crows Cove had long been a place where people living their everyday lives genuinely acknowledged the lives of those around them. There was a certain type of luck that brought each member of the community to the town, and each person’s story was just as interesting as the last; however, the thing that each person values most about living in Crows Cove is the genuine human connection that seems to be missing in most places across the world.
Crows Cove was an idealistic town for parents to raise their kids, for older generations to retire, and for a teenage girl to seek solace in after running away from her home. At sixteen, Eden Braxton found her way to Crows Cove after days of walking; hunger had taken over her tall frame and left her frail and meek as she stumbled down the cobble-stone road that led through the town’s square. There was a firmness in her fragile voice as she told the Crows Cove residents who noticed her that she was a twenty-year-old woman simply passing through, but when generous townspeople such as Mr. Eddie Crandall, Mrs. Beatrice Crandall, and Mr. Virgil Hope offered both work and a place to stay to the young woman, Eden quickly lost sight of the original plan that had circulated her mind throughout her tiresome journey, and soon settled into her new life in Crows Cove.
Intelligence and cunning ambition had always suited Eden, and it wasn’t long before she began to flourish. At eighteen, she was promoted from store clerk in Virgil Hope’s convenience store to supervising manager, at nineteen she moved into her apartment–a quaint, two bedroom cottage-like home located just two blocks off the town square–and by the time she had reached her twenties, she had inherited a Crows Cove heirloom.
Beatrice Crandall’s husband, Eddie, was a man cherished by all. It was Eddie’s philosophy that if someone was in need, he was needed. However he could help, Eddie offered a hand; he was the type of man to give you the shirt off his back and a twenty dollar bill from his pocket simply because it was all he had to give at the moment. It was Eddie who first pointed out the tall, gangly girl wandering into Crows Cove Square that bleak November morning so many years ago, and it was Eddie who told Bea to offer their home to Eden. But of all the things Eddie did for the people of Crows Cove, his prized contribution to the community was Eddie’s Albums, a record store positioned at the south corner of the square that overlooked the white sandy shores of the nearby cape.
Since its establishment in the 1970s, people of all ages would gather at Eddie’s Albums for good coffee, good music, and good company–the three pillars of which Eddie lived his life. When Eddie passed away, he chose to leave the business to the two people who he knew would appreciate it most: his wife, Bea, and the closest thing he ever had to a child of his own, Eden. Bea, still spry of mind and alert in her old age, handled the various logs–reports, expenses, and the works–while Eden handled the shop. Eddie noticed early on in his relationship with the young girl that, no matter how broken and beatened she had seemed, music fueled her soul. Even through the tear streaked, rain soaked exterior he’s seen her in the moment she arrived, there was an ember within her that only he seemed to recognize. He could see the small flickering of orange through the smothering grey smoke that clouded her life, and especially during those first few months, he couldn’t help the overwhelming joy that swelled within him whenever he saw that small ember flick into a burning flame as she helped out around the record shop.
“Bea,” a young woman’s voice called out as the mitten-clad woman at the front of the convenience store attempt3ed to heave her groceries onto her shoulder. “What did I say about carrying the groceries? The voice was gentle and banter-filled, yet chastisement eased its way through as her pale eyes peered down at her older counterpart’s large dark orbs.
“Oh hush, Eden,” the silver headed woman sighed as she surrendered a few of the heavier bags into the young woman’s grasp. “I’ve been carrying my groceries home from Pete’s for years. I’m certain I can manage the half of a block walk from the store to my house.”
“I’m sure you can too, Bea, but that doesn’t mean I’m can’t help you out.” den owed her life to the Crandall family. She was hopeless, homeless, and hours away from complete starvation when they gave her another chance at life. Eddie and Bea meant the absolute world to the now twenty-three year old woman, and losing Eddie hit Eden harder than she had ever expected.
“You’re help is always welcome, Eden. I just don’t want you to think I always need it.” Bea’s lips curled as she glanced upward at the woman she’d helped raise into adulthood, completed in awe of the person Eden had become.
“I know, I know,” Eden sighed as she pressed her back against the chilly glass of the shop’s door and pushed it from its rigidly closed position. “You were a ‘Nam medic who didn’t take shit from any soldier; you can carry your own damn bags,” Eden recounted as she mimicked Bea’s usual response to people offering her more help than she needed. Eden remained in her fixed position in the chilling November air until Bea had emerged from the store with a smile of admiration plastered upon her face.
“And don’t you forget it,” she huffed and the pair huddled closely together as they passed the little shops that speckled the town’s square. Bea and Eddie had lived on the ground floor of what was the town’s first hotel, which was positioned on the opposite corner of the town’s square from the record shop. The couple had lived in the building for the past forty years, and during the more recent twenty years of their residency, Eddie and Bea had the rest of the old hotel renovated and rented out rooms to passers by. Eden had been one of the may lost teens the couple had taken in and given shelter to through one of their unoccupied rooms, but she was the first one that no other soul was looking for.
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