The epilogue of Nom de Plume is now up here on tumblr and here on 1DFF!
I don’t really know what other than to say but thank you. It’s been a privilege sharing my writing with you all and sharing these characters with you--thank you for sticking with me until the end.
Taking the Tube in five-inch heels was not exactly the way I’d imagined getting to my first live interview.
Once my driver had told me in no uncertain terms that it was unlikely I’d get to the station on time, I’d texted my publicist my new plan and gotten out of the car in the middle of traffic.
iv. december 24th 2014 (in which harry continues to give memorable goodbyes) [read the rest here]
Cecilia had had two full days in Holmes Chapel with Harry, plus another two on top of that in New York City, but as Harry drove her to the airport very early in the morning on Christmas Eve, it felt like they were leaving each other too soon. It wouldn’t be for long, of course—Harry was joining her in France in four days, give or take, but Cecilia had really grown to resent goodbyes over the past few months.
Instead of dwelling on their upcoming separation, Cecilia’d slowly sipped on her coffee, half turned in her seat as she watched Harry drive along the dark highway. The roads were nearly empty and mostly straight, so more often than not his hand slipped over the central console to hold hers, his rings warm and smooth against her palm, a familiar and soothing feeling.
Harry’d pretty much just rolled out of bed and put a coat over his sweatpants and hoodie, throwing a tuque on top of his head to tame his curls. It was a look she definitely liked, one made even better when Harry was singing along with the Michael Bublé Christmas album he’d insisted on listening to during the drive. The atmosphere was anything but grim, Harry belting his heart out to every song, even roping Cecilia into doing the ‘White Christmas’ duet with him by convincing her it was her patriotic duty to do so.
Cecilia was powerless to deny Harry a duet featuring Michael Bublé and Shania Twain.
But the drive to the airport went by much too quickly, Harry pulling up to the nearly deserted passenger drop-off zone before they’d finished listening to the album, a small lump forming in Cecilia’s throat. It wasn’t as if they were going to be separated for long, but Cecilia had had an amazing time with Harry and his family the past few days.
They didn’t exchange words as Harry went around to the trunk to grab her suitcase, Cecilia making sure she had her phone, charger, laptop, journal and passport before she got out of the car into the cold air.
Harry was already waiting with her suitcase on the curb when she closed the car door behind her, the small, sad smile curled on his lips forming just half a dimple.
Even if it hadn’t been nearly dark outside, Cecilia still wouldn’t have hesitated to throw her arms around him, burying her face into the wool of his coat. This was the last hug she’d get for four days, so she needed to make it count. “I’m gonna miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, Leigh,” Harry said, arms going around her tight as he rested his cheek against her head. “But I’ll be joining you before you know it.”
“I know, I’m just being overly sentimental—”
“You’re not being overly sentimental,” Harry said, shaking his head as he pulled back, one hand still securely on the small of her back. “If anyone’s being overly sentimental, it’s me.”
Cecilia pulled her face away from the collar of his coat, narrowing her eyes in suspicion at the implication in his tone. “And why would that be?”
“I, er—got you an early present,” he said, looking a bit sheepish, but his smile revealed the easy confidence underneath the confession.
It was probably the least unsurprising thing, Harry getting her an extra gift and giving it to her just before she left, but she still tried to protest. “Harry—”
“It’s not much,” he said quickly, before Cecilia could begin to imagine what kind of outrageous gift he’d gotten her. “But you’re going somewhere proper cold, and I saw this and I thought of you,” he explained, taking out a Saks Fifth Avenue bag she somehow hadn’t noticed before, reaching into it to pull out a wool blue and grey scarf.
The lump in Cecilia’s throat grew and he reached up to wind the scarf around Cecilia’s neck, fingers cold against her skin as he settled it on her shoulders, his eyes intent on his work as he fluffed it up, biting his lip in concentration. The material was whisper-soft against her skin—she already felt more protected against the winter cold, and it matched the deep navy peacoat she’d taken to wearing often in the colder weather.
It was just a scarf, she tried to tell herself, but she knew it was so much more. If anyone else had given her a scarf, it would’ve been just that—a scarf.
It was like with just his fingertips, Harry had woven protection and warmth and love into the strands of the scarf, leaving them there for Cecilia to take with her. He cared for her in every conceivable way someone else could care for another person, and he was coming up with new ways to prove it with every passing day. Just the fact that he was concerned about her getting cold, just wanted to make sure she was warm and safe—Cecilia would never, ever get over how much Harry cared and cared and cared.
She couldn’t help herself—she went to throw her arms around Harry again, unable to express herself with anything more than some words that had become very familiar to her. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he chuckled, arms wrapping back around her without hesitation. “Do you like it?”
“It’s perfect,” she said, going along with his sarcasm as she pulled back, fingering the ends of the scarf, grin so wide it hurt her cheeks. “I have no intentions of taking it off anytime soon.”
In all honesty, she’d probably be wearing it as much as she could get away with between now and seeing him again.
“Excellent,” Harry said, glowing as he always was when he did anything that made Cecilia particularly happy. “And you have the rest of your presents to unwrap in your suitcase, yeah?” Unlike Cecilia, he hadn’t forgotten that she had a flight to catch, as much as the both of them didn’t really want to separate.
She couldn’t believe Harry had insisted on waiting until Christmas to unwrap their gifts for each other. But he’d insisted on the tradition, and so they were going to Skype each other sometime tomorrow to say Merry Christmas and unwrap their presents.
“Yes, I do,” Cecilia said, putting her bag on top of her suitcase, taking it from Harry, “and before I left this morning I slipped presents from Sawyer and I under the tree.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Sawyer got me something?” He sounded surprised, as if he hadn’t bought Sawyer the crochet needles she’d been looking at for months and had given then to her in New York.
“Yeah, of course she did,” Cecilia replied, smiling at the thought of Harry’s reaction to the lumpy package underneath the tree. She’d promised Sawyer to get a picture of his face the moment he unwrapped it.
“Should I be scared?”
If she had to leave Harry, she could at least do it at an opportune moment. Cecilia just shrugged, not meeting Harry’s eye, knowing the curiosity of having to wait until the next morning would kill him. “I should go now—I don’t want to miss my flight.”
It was enough to distract Harry, Cecilia still feeling the slightest ache at their separation as Harry gave her a goodbye kiss. Airport kisses (and prolonged airport goodbyes) were rarities, Cecilia dragging out the kiss for as long as possible, feeling safe in Harry’s arms and in the nearly abandoned departures area. If anyone was looking, with his tuque tucked down so low underneath his ears and the dim light, it was unlikely they’d be recognized.
Her mouth was still tingling from Harry’s lips as she walked in through the automatic doors, turning around to see Harry leaning against the car, watching her. Cecilia blew him one last kiss, hand going to rest on her scarf as she continued onward.
iii. december 23rd 2014 (in which there is mistletoe) [read the rest here]
The air outside was crisp but comforting, not cold enough for it to promise snow, but cold enough to make it feel like Christmas was properly there. Harry walked down the main street of Holmes Chapel arm in arm with his mum, wearing one of his warmest shearling coats with a Packers beanie to keep his curls at bay. He’d always loved home at Christmastime—since his life had been plunged into chaos almost five years ago, Christmas in Holmes Chapel had been a one constant.
He loved spending time with his family, the quiet evenings curled up on the couch with his mum and sister, or more chaotic events like this morning, when some of his cousins had come for a visit. There would always be his mum’s hot cocoa, freshly baked cookies, and evening strolls into town to get dinner at one of the few restaurants Holmes Chapel had to offer. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
There was always something so intrinsically calm about being back, a calm Harry hadn’t managed to find in many other places. Here, everyone had known him before, treated him the same way the always had, fame or no fame. It was something that scared him, how he never realized how carefully he watched himself until he was home and didn’t need to do that anymore. Under the twinkling canopy of lights that they’d put up for Christmas, it felt just that bit easier to breathe and to think. There weren’t going to be people posting his location on Twitter or running to the nearest tabloid with his story.
He had managed to find other places that held that same intrinsic calm, except they weren’t always a physical place—sometimes, they were people. Harry wasn’t quite sure when it had happened—at the beginning, with all her twisted words, it felt like she was going to drive him mad, but Leigh had become a haven for him as well, wherever they went.
Now, as she walked a few paces ahead of him pressed closely his sister, there was a deep-set feeling of relaxedness that seemed to uncoil every muscle. He didn’t feel the need to look over his shoulder for once, his eyes following Leigh as she threw her head back in laughter, brown hair shimmering underneath the lights. God, he didn’t think he’d ever tire of her. People had a tendency to drift out of his life, because of boredom or frustration or maybe a combination of both, he’d thought about it endlessly but never had been able to determine why. But he’d known Leigh for nearly a year, and she’d never had any trouble keeping Harry on his toes, and with every passing day, he felt more and more sure the feeling was mutual. He knew it in his gut that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Someone can’t keep their eyes to themselves,” his mum teased softly from beside him, noticing where Harry’s eyes were lingering.
Harry wasn’t even sheepish, grinning brightly. “I’m allowed to look, you know.”
“I know,” Anne gave a nod, a knowing look in her eye. “And you look very happy.”
The answer came to Harry instantaneously. “I am.”
“Do you think she had a good time this morning?” she asked, her eyes turning to where Harry’s were focused, on Gemma and Leigh who were now whispering excitedly, Gemma pointing out a storefront they were walking past. A vaguely embarrassing memory of Harry’s that happened in that store came to mind, and Harry had no doubt Gemma’s recounting the tale.
Despite Gemma’s defaming of his character, Harry remembered warmly how well Leigh had gotten on with the rest of his family earlier in the day. “I think she did—she was just a little nervous beforehand.”
He hadn’t blamed her for it whatsoever. Leigh came from a small family, he’d come to find out, and she’d never been the best with crowds. She’d stayed at the periphery for most of the morning, speaking with cousins she’d already been introduced to and Gemma for the most part, but Harry could tell she’d enjoyed herself.
“Holidays with a new family is always nerve wracking,” Anne agreed. “Especially if it’s the first time someone’s brought someone home.”
Harry didn’t miss the tone of his mother’s words—it was the first time he’d ever brought a girl home for the holidays, and that in itself was significant. He’d never been serious with anyone like he’d been serious with Leigh.
He thought back to when he’d first invited Cecilia to Holmes Chapel for the holidays. He’d been deep into album promotion and hadn’t seen Leigh for weeks. He’d invited her on a whim when he’d called her at one in the morning, the both of them barely even making sense because they were so exhausted (and happy, but exhausted nonetheless) when they’d spoken on the phone. In that moment, having not seen her for so long, the idea of having her with him for as possible when he wasn’t working himself to the bone was so tempting he hadn’t even asked his mum if it was okay before he’d offered.
Of course his mum had been over the moon to have her over for Christmas, her smile wry as she glanced between Harry and Leigh.
“I’m pretty sure she likes it here,” Harry said, relief evident in every word. “She won’t shut up about your hot cocoa, at least.”
He was glad Leigh was having a nice time, because there was a lingering selfish twist in his gut from wanting to spend as much time with her as possible while also not losing any time with his family. So he’d done it, managing to squeeze in a whole week at home with Leigh joining him for the first couple of days. He could’ve stayed for more than a week, but a few days after he’d invited Leigh to Holmes Chapel, she’d invited him to go skiing with her family in the French Alps.
That was a big deal, spending more time with her family as well, even if he had spent a week at their cabin over the summer. Leigh didn’t have the best relationship with her mother, so any time she invited him in willingly, that was a big thing.
It was also strangely convenient that Leigh’s family had decided to spend their winter vacation in the Alps—if they’d gone to ski anywhere in North America, Harry knew that it would’ve been impossible for Leigh to visit for the holidays, the travel ridiculous. He couldn’t help but wonder who’d first suggested that they vacation close to England.
When they arrived at the restaurant, a family-owned place that Harry had been going to since he was in high-chairs, they received a warm welcome. The hostess was a friend of a friend whose name he only had to think about for a second, greeting him warmly with a hug as Leigh shyly lingered in the background as they waited to be seated.
Harry stepped around the crowd to get to Leigh and help her with her coat, the two of them stepping to the side into an alcove so they had a bit more room to shrug off their coats. His eyes stayed on Leigh’s face as she surveyed the room, lit by dim lights and candles, holiday garlands all around, with low ceiling beams and scuffed wooden furniture. Curious like she always was, she looked upward as Harry grabbed her coat from her, startling Harry as she let out a laugh.
“Nice one, Harry,” she said, looking at him with one eyebrow raised, like she usually did when he was in trouble. But he hadn’t done anything that he could remember recently that was worthy of an eyebrow raise.
“What did I do this time?” Harry asked, putting on his best innocent face, because he genuinely hadn’t a clue of what Leigh was going on about.
With an unamused tilt of her head, Leigh pointed a finger upward. “Mistletoe. You can’t honestly try to convince me you didn’t know it was there.”
Holding his hands up in defence, Harry shook his head. He really hadn’t a clue, but he just took it as a lucky break. “I swear, I had nothing to do with this.” He took a step closer to her, eyes immediately falling to her lips. “But you know how I feel about traditions.”
They were very, very important to keep, in Harry’s educated opinion.
“I think you’re going to have to enlighten me,” Leigh said, eyes cast downward even as her lips pulled up into a hopeful grin, just a bit shy with public displays of affection like she’d always been.
And there’d been good reason to—most of the time, they never knew when someone with a camera phone was lurking about. But this was home, this was the holidays, and the cold weather had left Leigh’s lips and cheeks pink, supple and tempting.
“I think I will,” he said, already licking his lips in preparation.
Harry turned them so his back was facing the restaurant, hiding Leigh from view from most of the customers as he brought his hands to either side of her jaw, thumbs smoothing across her cheeks. Knowing he shouldn’t take too long, he leaned down to press his lips against hers.
He could feel her smile, relishing in the way she went up on her toes a little bit so he didn’t have to lean down, her hand clutching to his shirt. The kiss was short, just long enough to catch the lightest taste of honey from her lip balm as he pulled back, Leigh’s eyes still closed.
She looked so beautiful, lashes long and dark against her cheeks with a stray section of hair falling across her face, that Harry had half a mind to kiss her again. He’d never get enough of her, stolen kisses under the mistletoe that much sweeter.
He’d have to thank whoever had thought to put it up, but his plans to kiss Leigh again were rudely interrupted by Gemma, who tugged on the back of his sweater with a quick “Oi, stop taking advantage of the mistletoe.”
ii. december 22nd 2014 (in which there isn’t enough flour) [read the rest here]
Harry and Cecilia were making an absolute mess of the kitchen, dough, flour and baking utensils covering nearly every inch of available counter space. Rather than be off put by it, Anne seemed almost pleased when she came across the two of them cutting out gingerbread shapes when she popped her head into the kitchen to see what all the laughter was about.
It was all Harry and Cecilia really had the energy to do that day—their flight from New York had gotten in late, so they’d slept in, emerged for lunch, and taken another nap on the couch before deciding they should probably do something productive with their time.
After the chaos of the past month, spending an entire day in the same place—not even having to get dressed properly—was strange. But it was a good strange—Cecilia could already feel the tension seeping out of her shoulders as she and Harry goofed off in his kitchen at his house in Holmes Chapel. This was the fourth day in a row she’d seen him, something that hadn’t happened since October when Harry’d had a week off in LA after tour ended and Cecilia had been in school. Even during her Thanksgiving holiday, Cecilia’d been overwhelmed with work, and Harry was in Australia for half of it.
But they’d made it to their break. It was a temporary relief from four am phone calls, a day’s worth of travelling just to spend the night together, running to and from film sets, television sets, rehearsals, and stressing about deadlines and presentations. They didn’t have much to worry about for the remainder of the year, even if there were only nine days left of 2014.
“I’m hopeless at this,” Cecilia huffed, after decapitating a gingerbread man for the third time in a row trying to lift it from the counter to the cookie sheet. “They keep sticking.”
Harry gave a small chuckle as he looked up from what he was doing to see the sorry state of the workspace in front of her. Harry’d already neatly filled two sheets with perfectly cut and even gingerbread men, and Cecilia’d only managed one. Her efforts certainly weren’t as nice.
“No, see, you need to put more flour down,” Harry explained, gently popping his hip to nudge her aside, deft hands easily tearing the flattened dough from the counter.
“I get it, you were a baker,” she said, her competitive side maybe getting the best of her as she crossed her arms over her chest, watching as Harry gathered up the dough.
Harry laughed as he reached a hand into a container of flour, sprinkling it onto the counter generously. “I am a baker—I heard you moaning earlier eating that shortbread, you know.”
Cecilia had to admit it was the best she’d ever had, completely melted in her mouth. The crushed candy-canes on top really added the extra touch. But Harry’s ego when it came to baking did not need any more inflating.
She waited a couple of seconds to reply, her eyes watching Harry’s hands as he balled up the dough and began to roll it out again, much more effortlessly than she ever had. “They’re alright—if that whole singing thing doesn’t work out for you, you should become a pastry chef, really.”
“Sounds like I should start looking up culinary schools, then,” Harry said, going along with the charade.
“It’s not like that singing thing is going well at all.”
“And you’ll sample all of my creations?”
“Of course, it’ll be a great way to deal with deadline stress,” she said. Just the thought of eating more cookies had Cecilia slipping past Harry to reach for the plate of shortbread. It was the holidays and stress had taken away her appetite for much of the semester, so she could afford to indulge. When she turned around, cookie in hand, Harry was there, catching her wrist before she could bring it to her mouth, eyebrows raised.
“Just alright, hmm?” he asked, leaning close. He smelled like nutmeg and sugar and his cheeks were flushed as there was a smudge of icing sugar on his lip and Cecilia swore he could probably feel her increasing heartbeat where his fingers were wrapped around her wrist. “That’s the third one you’ve had.”
“I’m a fan of ‘just alright’ shortbread,” she said pointedly, not breaking eye contact and she tried to tug her wrist out of Harry’s grasp, but to no avail. “Can I have it now?”
Harry snatched the cookie in question out of her hand before Cecilia had time to react. “Not until you admit that it’s the best shortbread you’ve ever had,” he said with a smirk.
Of course Harry was going to try and play that game. Cecilia immediately lunged for the cookie, but it was a predictable move, Harry holding the cookie high above his head so it was a couple of inches out of her reach.
“Do you really dare come between me and a cookie?” Cecilia warned, maybe not so accidentally stepping on Harry’s foot and she attempted to get the aforementioned cookie while Harry kept pacing backwards.
“Yes, I think I do,” he replied, eyes rich with mischief and mirth as he watched Cecilia try and extract the cookie from his hand, her hand on his shoulder to try and get some leverage, to no avail.
Cecilia was never one to give up, eventually cornering Harry by the fridge as he kept the cookie out of her reach. The two squabbled as Cecilia grumbled about Harry’s height and he laughed, taking way too much enjoyment out of torturing his girlfriend. Cecilia had worked hard the last few months, and she just wanted a cookie.
With one last reach, she sent the cookie flying out of Harry’s hand, it landing on a thunk on the floor, but Cecilia wasn’t paying particular attention to that. Instead, she was focused on the way Harry had stepped forward, pushing her back until she was pressed between him and the counter.
They’d just been pressed up against each other seconds ago as Cecilia had tried to get the biscuit, but this was a whole different story. Harry’s eyes were much more focused than they’d been before, two hands on the counter on either side of Cecilia, his breath warm against her cheek, sending tingles down her spine.
The seconds passed as they stayed there, the previous fight over shortbread forgotten as they relished in the electricity that crackled between them. Even after nearly a year it had never faded, the faintest spark always there, no matter how tired they were.
“Do you know how hard I’m trying not to kiss you right now?” Harry asked, breaking the silence, eyeing Cecilia much like Cecilia had been eyeing the shortbread earlier.
Harry’s statement sounded pretty stupid to Cecilia. “Why are you trying hard not to kiss me?”
“There are things in the oven,” he murmured, eyes wandering down to her lips. “If I start, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
He was speaking slowly, reverently, licking his own lips after he’d finished speaking. It was a moment the both of them savoured, a rare time where they could take things slow to make the kiss so much sweeter when it finally happened.
Cecilia brought an arm up to wind it around Harry’s neck, not caring if she got gingerbread dough in his hair. It was totally his fault for putting them in this position. When he was so close, right in front of her, her lips were practically aching because his mouth wasn’t on hers. “I think you’re gonna have to learn some self control, because we have a lot of kissing to catch up on this break,” she told him, hand putting pressure at the back of his neck.
“That we do,” Harry said, suppressing a smile as he leaned down to kiss her.
Cecilia sighed as his mouth touched hers, lips warm and just a bit chapped as her eyes closed. It was the small moments like these that she’d learned to savour, the warmth of his hand grasping her waist, the sound of the small groan he let out when Cecilia nipped his bottom lip. She could taste the sweetness of the dough he’d sampled as she ran her tongue along the seam of his mouth.
They’d always had a thing for kissing against kitchen counters, really, but they’d also always been unfortunate with rude interruptions. Cecilia could have, would have, should have spent the afternoon kissing Harry in the kitchen, but instead the timer went off, the two jumping apart.
They cleaned up the kitchen just in time for Anne to come in to start cooking dinner—she refused help with it, of course, insisting they’d done enough by helping with the baking for the guests that were coming over the next day. A bunch of friends and extended family were coming over for a visit tomorrow morning, and Cecilia was a bit nervous about it—it felt very Official to be at Harry’s for the holidays, even if she was leaving early Christmas Eve to spend the actual day with her own family.
Cecilia walked into the den where she and Harry had stationed themselves to wait for dinner, to find him with a guitar in his lap, humming softly to himself. He had his phone open in front of him, squinting at the chords of “Wonderful Christmastime,” from the sound of it. There was a pine-scented candle lit in the corner, along with a miniature christmas tree, Harry dressed in a hoodie and sweats and orange fuzzy socks he’d certainly stolen from Gemma.
Maybe it was just because now Cecilia finally had the ability to think straight, her mind starting to recover to the hectic and stressful past weeks, but she felt a surge of contentment. This was Harry at his most natural, no tension visible in his shoulders, seamless with his surroundings. She felt lucky that’d he’d invited her in.
Though it wasn’t like Cecilia had grown up in a house devoid of Christmas decorations, or Christmas celebrations, she’d never been in a place that had felt quite so cozy and homely. It was because she rarely spent the actual day at her house in Canada—Christmas Day most years was spent at whatever ski resort her family was spending the holidays at. This year was no exception—she was leaving for France the day after next, which was just an excuse to spent every moment she could with Harry before she had to leave.
She couldn’t help the smile that crept onto her face as she took a seat beside him, watching him frown as he got a note wrong.
“Are you just gonna sit there, or are you gonna help me sing?” Harry asked once Cecilia’d been sitting there for a few moments, his hands pausing on the strings.
“Neither,” Cecilia said, sliding her cold feet under his thigh because she didn’t have anyone to steal fuzzy socks from. “I think I’m gonna gaze at you adoringly.”
“No, you have to sing,” Harry insisted, dimples deep in his cheeks as he looked over. “Help me practice for my annual Christmas Eve Serenade.”
There wasn’t much doubt that Harry wasn’t making up the Christmas tradition—Cecilia had seen him onstage enough times to know that Harry was a natural performer, had grown up taking any excuse he could to do so. She was glad she was at least getting a preview now, Harry’s fingers still a bit clumsy on the strings as he softly snag the lyrics. He’d gotten much better over the summer, insisting on playing the guitar at many songwriting sessions he’d been to.
Cecilia, however, had never been a performer. Even when it was just her and Harry in the den, dimly lit with Christmas lights. “I am not singing.”
“You’ll sing with me in the car, why not now?” Harry’s whine and pout were in excellent form, voice high and pink lips pulled down, but Cecilia wasn’t having any of it.
She felt shy, which was unusual for her around Harry, as she grabbed a pillow a clutched it to her chest. Maybe it lingering nervousness about being at his house at this time of year, maybe it was just because she’d hadn’t seen him enough over the past months. Maybe she was just still a bit exhausted. “Get a couple of drinks in me, and then we’ll talk.”
“After dinner it is, then,” he declared, setting the guitar aside, and Cecilia knew he had every intention of following through with it.
“I don’t think your mom will appreciate if we spike her hot chocolate.”
Harry gave her a mischievous look. “As long as hers is spiked too, she won’t mind.”
“Wonderful,” Cecilia said, a bit sarcastically. As much as she was looking forward to Anne’s hot chocolate, that had a special place in her heart, she wasn’t looking forward to embarrassing herself in front of Harry’s family.
“We’ll have you singing along with the rest of us, it’ll be amazing,” Harry promised her, his attitude alone enough to banish the temporary feeling of insecurity she’d felt. He never pushed her too far, knew how to strike the right balance of attention and not letting Cecilia hide herself away. She’d had a giant final presentation to do at the end of the semester, and whenever she’d been on the phone with Harry the week before, he’d been full of advice and reassurance, patience never wavering.
Instead of responding, Cecilia cuddled into his side, the both of them sinking deep into the couch as Harry wrapped his arms around her. Since reuniting they’d done this a few times, sitting there and holding each other, just breathing at the same time now that they finally had the time. Cecilia definitely needed it, and was pretty sure Harry did, too.
“I missed you, missed this,” she said after a few moments, grasping one of his hands so she could press a kiss to it, just off to the side of his cross tattoo.
Harry made a low sound of approval, pulling her closer. “Missed you, too, Leigh.”
i. december 21st 2014 (in which the holidays did not get off to a good start) [read the rest here]
As Cecilia came to consciousness, the first thing she registered was the pounding of her head, the next the feeling that something had died in her mouth last night. She stayed where she was for a few moments, but the taste in her mouth was truly awful, enough to outweigh the worsening of the ache in her head as she slid out of bed, blearily stumbling toward the bathroom in search of water.
It wasn’t until she’d finished half a glass that she fully opened her eyes. The nightlight in the hotel bathroom was enough to reveal that she was wearing only three pieces of clothing. The first was a sock (belonging to her), the second was a black thong (fortunately also belonging to her) and the third was a semi-sheer shirt with a tiger that took up most of the back (which she’d stolen off of her boyfriend at some point during the previous evening, evidently).
After grabbing some painkillers, Cecilia shuffled back into the room, looking past the lump in the bed at the clock that read six-thirty a.m. She and Harry had been sleeping for all of an hour and a half—they’d gotten back from the Saturday Night Live afterparty around five. They had a flight that left at noon for Manchester, which meant they had about two hours before they needed to get up and pack their things to go to the airport.
None of these numbers meant much of anything to Cecilia, since she was maybe, definitely, still a little bit drunk.
It was probably the reason why instead of going to bed like any other sane person would do, she elected to flop onto Harry, who groaned underneath her.
“Harry, what the fuck did we do last night?” she muttered, nuzzling her face into his neck, frowning when something dug into her cheek. As far as she could tell, Harry was only wearing a pair of boxer briefs, but he’d also managed to keep his hat on his head. Not a huge fan of anything that was causing her further pain, she grumpily took the hat off and flung it across the room, sending some other items crashing to the floor, but she didn’t particularly care.
If the weight of his girlfriend hadn’t been enough to get him up, the theft of his hat was enough for Harry to crack an eye open, groaning. “Why are you awake? I didn’t hear an alarm.”
“My brain thinks I’m in a state to write,” Cecilia muttered into his shoulder, hating how the room was spinning. Rooms were not meant to spin like this.
“Ignore your brain. Go to bed,” he replied, the words as slow as molasses as he made a half-hearted attempted to push Cecilia off of him, but she was a dead weight on top of him.
“Did you really dance on a table with Kristen Wiig last night?” she said, adjusting herself to get a bit more comfortable on top of Harry, not quite coherent enough to be aware of where she was moving her limbs in relation to his.
Her memories of last night, particularly once they started drinking when the show ended to about the point where they were roaming the streets of New York City in search of takeout at four am, weren’t incredibly vivid. There’d been a fancy party, paparazzi, a lot of people she’d been intimidated by, Sawyer, approximately six tequila shots, but there was quite the clear memory of Harry bringing down the house with Kristen Wiig with the help of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.
Harry gave another groan, shifting her knee off of his thigh. “I think I did.”
“And not to any song,” Cecilia said, becoming a little more conscious as she recalled the events, getting up on her elbows, squinting in the darkness to see his face. “You danced to the Dirty Dancing song.”
“You know we could talk about this all when ‘m not still drunk,” he said, ninety percent frustrated but ten percent endeared.
Cecilia gave him a couple of pats on his shoulder, that she didn’t mean to be hard but they sent his lead lolling on the pillow anyway. “I can’t believe you danced with her and not me,” she pouted.
“I asked you to dance on the table with me,” Harry said, seeming to resign himself to Cecilia’s presence on top of him as he ran his hands up her sides, sliding them underneath her (his) shirt. “Several times, I think.”
“No amount of alcohol will make me ready enough to go and dance in front of that many people with you,” Cecilia declared, surprisingly convincing considering the amount that her head was still spinning. Harry’s hands on her waist, leaving goosebumps in their wake, however, were definitely making her feel more grounded.
She had to make a note that just because Sawyer said it was a good idea to take another tequila shot didn’t mean it actually was a good idea.
“Then why are you jealous?” Harry asked, hands continuing to wander along her spine.
“If I’m jealous of anyone, it’s you—Kristen is amazing, I would’ve danced on a table if she’d asked me to,” she explained, not even caring about the contradiction.
Harry gave an indignant sound, fingers tightening into her skin. “Then why didn’t you dance with me?”
“The moves you showed off in that sketch scared me off,” she laughed softly, lifting her head away from his neck, which smelled more of beer than of his cologne so she could hold her face above his, her hair creating a curtain around the two of them.
“I was comedic brilliance,” Harry defended, his nose just brushing hers.
Cecilia wrinkled her nose, partially at Harry’s statement, partially at his bad breath. “You were nearly breaking character the entire time,” she said, ducking back into the shelter of where Harry’s neck met his shoulder. She was only half sprawled on top of him now, nearly in danger of falling off the bed if it wasn’t for one of Harry’s arms holding her to him.
“It speaks to the comedic excellence of the women I was working with.”
“Aidy Bryant is amazing, but you just suck at keeping a straight face.”
“It’s too early for this.”
“I’m cold,” Cecilia whined—of course she was cold, she was only wearing a sheer shirt, a thong, and a sock, and hotel rooms weren’t exactly warm and cozy. There was a chill everywhere except for where Harry’s skin was touching hers.
Harry pointed out the obvious. “You’re on top of the covers.”
“I’m too tired to move,” she groaned. “I thought I had nothing in me after finals, but this is true nothingness.”
She’d flown straight in after she’d finished her last final at UCLA—her last final ever, in fact. In order to earn the last credits she needed to graduate, she’d chosen to write a thesis, which didn’t require finals—it didn’t require her to be at school most of the time, either. On the bright side, this morning was the start of Harry’s break as well—he’d pre-taped a Fallon appearance airing in a couple of days, so this was the beginning of his first extended break since going on tour.
With a resigned sigh, Harry positioned his hands (not making much of an effort to avoid her chest) so he could lift Cecilia off of him, pulling back the covers so she could slip into bed on the other side. However, he didn’t have as good of a grip of her as he thought he did, and so instead of lifting Cecilia off and over him, he ended up pushing her off the bed.
With a very loud thunk, Cecilia’s head hit the bedside table before her body hit the floor with an even louder thunk. She’d always said hotels bed were always unnecessarily high off the ground.
“Ow ow fuckity ow,” Cecilia, cried, clutching the back of her head and stomping her meet as her head throbbed—there was definitely going to be a lump there tomorrow.
Harry, in a word, was panicked. “Shit, Leigh, are you—”
“I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m gonna die, that fall was too much for my hungover body to handle,” Cecilia whined, rolling away from the edge of the bed, leaving Harry where he was leaning over the side.
“I won’t say you didn’t have that coming.”
Harry was generally a bit more perceptive to Cecilia’s pain, but he was still a little drunk and she’d just woken him up at seven in the morning, so that meant that she wasn’t exactly in his good books.
“You’re my boyfriend,” she whined, still on the floor and clutching her head, but she’d stopped rolling one she’d hit the wall. “Be nice to me or I’m gonna come up there and fight you.”
“I know you’re threatening me, which is usual, but are you actually okay?” he asked, voice softening. At least he sounded a bit remorseful.
Cecilia sighed, the throbbing in her head receding a bit, closing her eyes and wishing the room wasn’t spinning so much again. “I didn’t need those braincells. I don’t need to worry about my brain until, like, earlyish January.”
“Sounds great, I’m going back to bed if you wanna join,” Harry grumbled, any concern completely gone. Over the past year, Cecilia had learned that when hungover, he only functioned when absolutely necessary.
A example of absolute necessity would be the time he woke up and there was a girl he’d met the previous night sleeping on his floor. He’d been a great host, then, but this was a situation where Harry could get away with being snarly and turning over with a huff. And he did exactly that, leaving Cecilia where she was on the floor. In pain.
“Since you’ve nearly killed me, I’ve been startled into functioning,” Cecilia said, not surprised when all she got was a grunt in response. As much as she’d been killing herself over finals, the last two months of album promo, right off the end of tour, had been gruelling for Harry. He’d been bouncing back and fourth between Europe, Australia, and North America for the past six weeks since the album had come out—Cecilia could understand why he was a bit cranky.
Instead she hauled herself off the floor, carefully unbuttoning Harry’s shirt (she didn’t bother asking if they were designer anymore—the answer was always yes) and laying it over a chair, opting for a luxurious hotel bathrobe instead. At least there were some advantages to staying in hotels all the time.
Picking between the clothes scattered on the floor, Cecilia made her way to the windows, seeing that it was just starting to get light outside. It was a view she’d never tire of, even if she had spent hours writing in front of it yesterday. New York City at sunrise was spectacular, particularly when there was a light layer of fresh snow covering everything.
However, Cecilia’s peaceful moment, her aching head temporarily forgotten, was short-lived.
“Why did you open the fucking curtains?” Harry snarled from the bed.
“Because I’m actually up and being a productive member of society trying to pack,” Cecilia said, picking up something off the floor just in case Harry opened his eyes. “Seriously, how the fuck did we create this much mess in two days?” she asked, looking around the room.
Between her and Harry’s giant suitcases, the contents of which had managed to go all over the room, despite the fact they had barely spent any time in the room since they’d gotten there.
“Dunno,” Harry grumbled. Cecilia glimpsed him shoving his head back into a pillow, and knew he’d sleep for a while longer. She should probably get some water and pills into him, because their flight was going to be hell, but she didn’t particularly feel like disturbing Harry more.
After a few minutes of throwing things in the general direction of her suitcase, Cecilia gave up on packing, deciding to write for a while instead. She didn’t feel up to the glare of her computer screen, so she sought out her journal instead, the one she took with her everywhere.
But it wasn’t in her purse.
It wasn’t in her backpack.
It wasn’t in her suitcase.
It wasn’t on the vanity.
“Harry?” she said, voice tight and high with panic.
Harry sat straight up in bed at her tone, hungover crankiness forgotten. “Leigh, what is it?”
“I can’t find my journal.” Her hands were just beginning to tremble as they pulled open a desk drawer.
“You really can’t?”
“It’s not in my bag, I had it in my bag yesterday—” she said, almost more to herself than Harry, her entire being focused on finding her journal, hangover forgotten.
Asides from her most personal thoughts and feelings, there were Book III plans in that journal, along with other things she’d been working on, and if her journal fell into the wrong hands, it would be disaster. There was bile creeping up her throat, but now she couldn’t tell if it was because of her nerves or the hangover.
This wasn’t the first time Cecilia had lost her journal—there’d been this same panic before, but, of course, Harry had swept in and saved the day.
Just because he didn’t have the journal in his immediate possession this time didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try and save the day again.
“We’ll find it, okay?” Harry said, getting out of bed already, alarmed to see her in such a state. He was well aware of the importance of the journal. “Where do you last remember having it?”
“Sawyer’s, yesterday before SNL,” Cecilia said, barely any tension leaving her as Harry put his hands on her shoulders in what was meant to be a soothing gesture. Instead, she stayed looking at the empty drawer, like her journal would magically appear if she looked at it hard enough.
“Call her, I’ll keep looking,” Harry said, giving a shoulders a squeeze before going to look under the bed, not bothering to even pull on any clothes.
Cecilia grabbed her phone (which fortunately had some battery left, but not much), dialling Sawyer’s number. While she waited for her to pick up, she plugged it into the charger on the wall.
It took two calls for Sawyer to answer her phone, but when she did Cecilia didn’t bother with a greeting. “Check your kitchen—is my journal there?”
“What?” Sawyer asked in a whisper.
“Your kitchen, Sawyer, go there,” Cecilia said, maybe a bit more forcefully than she’d intended, but in her defence, her life was in that journal.
“Could you pipe the fuck down, noisy child,” Sawyer hissed.
Cecilia was in no mood to be reprimanded. “Go to your kitchen right now and see if my journal is there.”
“I’d love to,” Sawyer sighed, grasping the gravity of the situation—she was one of three other people who fully understood how dire the situation was. The second was currently up to his elbows in dirty laundry in his suitcase, and the third was probably asleep on her waterbed in California. “But I’m not currently at my apartment,” she continued.
“Where the fuck are you, then?” Cecilia began to pace, restless with the glacial progression of the conversation.
“Pete’s,” Sawyer said, voice still hushed.
“Who the fuck is Pete?”
“SNL Pete.”
Cecilia was a bit slow to catch on. “Why are you at SNL Pete’s place?”
“I fucked SNL Pete.”
Cecilia gasped, managing to forget about her journal for a second. “You fucked SNL Pete?”
The statement was interesting enough that Harry stopped rummaging in his luggage, his eyebrows shooting up. That, combined with the truly disastrous state of his hair would generally have been enough to make Cecilia laugh, but she had other things to worry about.
“Yes, he’s like what, your age?” Sawyer moaned. “Oh god, what the fuck did I do, I need my crochet needles, it’s too early for this—”
“Sawyer, we can talk about Pete later,” Cecilia interrupted, her anxiety about her journal missing back in full force now that the shock of the news of Sawyer’s escapades had worn off. “Journal. It’s kind of important. I need to leave for the airport in an hour and a half, and I can’t leave without my journal.”
She heard rustling in the background, like Sawyer was pulling on clothes. “Fuck, I’m rusty at this one night stand thing, I’m in his kitchen, panty-less—”
“Did you really have to say ‘panty’? really?”
Despite how tense the situation was, Harry snorted when he heard Cecilia’s end of the conversation.
“Well excuse me, I’m the one who’s about to haul-ass from bum fuck Egypt to Brooklyn to look for your journal, but first I need to figure out how to extract myself,” Sawyer whispered.
It was a testament to how good of an editor Sawyer was that she wasn’t even going to hesitate to sneak out of someone’s apartment at eight am to check for Cecilia’s journal.
She tried to take a deep breath again, hoping with all her might that her journal really was in Sawyer’s apartment. The situation was under control. Even if the three people responsible for handling the situation were all in a muddled state between drunk and hungover.
Cecilia tried her best to remember what she’d done in her first year of university. It’d definitely been a while since she’d done it the whole sneaking out thing. “Right, thank you. I guess leave him a note? If you want you—wait, let me ask Harry,” Cecilia paused, turning to Harry. “Harry, one night stand etiquette check—a note on the kitchen table is totally valid, right?”
There was without a doubt some alcohol still wreaking havoc in Cecilia’s bloodstream.
Harry’s lip curled, his eyebrows drawing together tightly as he tried to come up with a safe way to answer the question. “I mean, I usually bought them breakfast, but—”
Harry seemed to be speaking particularly slowly this morning, and Cecilia didn’t have time for any of that.
“Note on the kitchen table is fine,” she told Sawyer. “Leave your number if you had a good time, just a thank you if you didn’t.”
“I will be leaving my number then,” Sawyer whispered. “I’ll let you know when I’m back at my place.”
Cecilia hung up the phone, tossing it back on the bed with a bit more force than necessary. There was nothing more she could do but wait now, and that was the worst part.
“Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck fuck fuck,” she chanted, bringing her hands to her face. She was hungover and exhausted and this was the last kind of stress she’d needed. What she wanted was a nice relaxing holiday with Harry, but if her journal had been lost, she’d be on edge for weeks as she waited for Book III secrets to be revealed online.
As he had so many times over the past year when she’d been a bit of a mess, Harry brought his arms around Cecilia, holding her close to him. “Leigh, breathe, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll find it,” he said, voice low and soothing and definitely taking the edge off of her anxiousness, the bare skin of his chest warm against her cheek.
While they waited for Sawyer to call, Harry tried to keep Cecilia occupied as they cleaned and packed, always keeping an eye out for her journal. Harry even suggested they move their flight if they couldn’t find it, but that was met with a strong declaration from Cecilia that Harry was “getting the fuck on that plane, I’m not leaving New York City without my journal, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you miss even an hour with your family.”
Sawyer ended up finding Cecilia’s journal under a pile of yarn (she thought it best just not to ask), and so on their way to the airport they made the detour to Brooklyn to pick it up.
Between the stop the subsequent long goodbyes between Cecilia, Harry and Sawyer—Cecilia’d wanted to get details on Pete, but Harry had had to drag her out the door—they nearly missed their flight.
Much to the protestation of their hungover bodies, Cecilia and harry had to all but run through the back corridors of JFK to make their flight, the Thai take out they’d had threatening to make a reappearance.
A bit out of breath and the last to get on the plane, Cecilia and Harry all but collapsed into their side-by-side seats in business class. As soon as they were settled (a routine they’d gotten very good at), Harry reached over to take Cecilia’s hand, giving it a squeeze that she returned, saying everything that needed to be said. They’d made it through the past nine months, and now they could finally take a moment to breathe.
Caesura; a multi-part Nom de Plume holiday drabble series, beginning December 18th
“Did you really dance on a table with Kristen Wiig last night?” she said, adjusting herself to get a bit more comfortable on top of Harry, not quite coherent enough to be aware of where she was moving her limbs in relation to his.
Harry gave another groan, shifting her knee off of his thigh. “I think I did.”
“And not to any song,” Cecilia said, becoming a little more conscious as she recalled the events, getting up on her elbows, squinting in the darkness to see his face. “You danced to the Dirty Dancing song.”
Nom de Plume, chapter forty: not in the swing of things yet
The last chapter of Nom de Plume, not in the swing of things yet is now up here on tumblr and here on 1DFF!
There’s still the epilogue to come, but I just wanted to thank each and every one of you for reading and reviewing, this is without a doubt one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had, and it’s all because of you. Thank you very very much for sticking with me this long, I hope you like it and I’d love to hear what you think.
I’d been up for around twenty-four hours straight in a last minute crunch to get everything for the second draft of Vendetta finished. Yes, I had been trying to get better with the whole sleeping thing, but I knew as soon as I got it done I could rest, and exceptions should be made for deadlines. As long as I wasn’t doing it all the time, I’d be fine. Caffeine was great.
Harry, however, didn’t seem too pleased.
