Through all the years I’ve called Chicago home, I’ve only ever ventured up north in the city a handful of times. I have no idea what could attract Harry on Broadway, but if it has, it must be interesting.

And unexplainable, just like Harry himself. In the very best way possible. Leaning my head back, I draw a deep breath and look out the window for the rest of the ride, avoiding Harry even though he still holds my hand.

“Here we are,” he announces after a good fifteen minute drive. He parks the car, hand venturing to the bottom of the dash in search of change to feed the meter. I’m desperate to get out and breathe some fresh air and try to shake Harry’s effect from my fogged mind, but when I try to tug my hand from his grasp, he pulls me back. I look at him questioningly.

“Promise me something.”

Well, what else do I have to lose? My dignity’s long gone. Keeping eye contact with him, I nod in confidence. “What?”

He looks at me for another few seconds, silent, and I try to read his expression through the car’s dim interior lights. But Harry, like always, is unreadable. “Don’t overthink anything tonight.”

I open my mouth to protest heartily, but Harry beats me to the punch, shaking his head and chuckling though he doesn’t seem too pleased with my instinctual response. Thinking is all I have left. He can’t expect me to turn my worries off—it’s not a light switch he can flick whenever he sees fit. “Just go with it, Jules. Have some fun. Enjoy the moment.”

“What are we doing again?” I ask, wary and turning queasy. I catch his smirk through the darkness, though it doesn’t annoy me like it should.

Of course, he doesn’t answer my question. I keep my mouth zipped, nonetheless displeased, and refuse to make him such a promise.

“That’s the second part of the promise. No questions.”

“Harry,” I gape. “You’re crazy.”

He shifts in the driver’s seat and cocks his head to the side, dimples popping, as if he’s actually considering the idea. My face heats under his intense stare.

“Maybe.” Then, as if he agreed to himself being mentally unstable, he opens the door and steps onto the parking lot. I stare after him in shock, watching as he jogs around to my side of the car, opens the door, and offers me a hand along with one of his ever-persuasive winks.

Now, I can’t help it. I laugh. I laugh at the ridiculous situation he’s put me in, his daunting promises, and his overly chivalrous behaviour; then I take his hand.

Harry makes me laugh even in the most precarious moments, moments where I feel faint, and moments when I just want to go home and cry. He makes me laugh.

Instead of crossing the parking lot like I move forward to do, Harry pulls me back so my chest is nearly flush with his. My breath catches as I look up at him, and suddenly his gaze is serious and my light laugh ceases. “You have to promise me,” he says lowly, pressing my hands to his chest as he holds both of them in one of his.

“Harry…” I trail off, panic rising within my chest.

“Julia, just promise me.” His tone becomes firm and unyielding, and I realize he won’t let this go. He’d probably keep me here by the car until he got it out of me.

“Okay,” I sigh, scared at just the thought, but then I try to push the worries away. Just like he said. I release a shaky breath through my nose and glance up at him. “I’ll try.”

For a few seconds, I almost believe my answer isn’t good enough. I can feel his eyes search mine, even though I don’t have the nerve to hold eye contact with him. His closeness makes me all sorts of jittery and nervous as it stands.

Perhaps he realizes this, how out of my element I am right now, and he relents through breaking out into another of his attractive smiles. He lets go of one of my hands and keeps me close to his side as we make our way out of the parking lot and across the street. We’re in front of the Uptown—one of Chicago’s deprecated movie theatres. There used to have tours of the place, but they stopped last summer. So it’s been sitting here, not in use and continually falling apart, for decades.

I’ve never been inside, but it’s supposed to be beautiful.

While we stroll down the sidewalk, I stare up at the huge marquee sign on the front of the building, unlit and depressing in the darkness. Just like the rest of it, however, it’s decayed yet somehow has managed to retain its beauty.

The streets are dark and uninhabited, shadowed and creepy. Thanks to my trusty Camry, I’ve never been forced to walk the streets of Chicago at night, and for me doing so is unnerving. When Harry leads us down a narrow alleyway one building up the street from the Uptown, I find myself clutching onto his arm with my free hand for reassurance.

Things in the dark just give me the creeps—especially in unfamiliar places. I think it’s the fear of the unknown, what cannot be controlled, what can hurt me before I even realize I’ve been hurt. I begin to wonder if I made the wrong choice going out with Harry… who leads their date down a creepy alley while giving nothing away as to what they’re up to, anyhow?

This isn’t how I pictured tonight to pan out.

“It’s alright,” he says soothingly, squeezing my hand in his. I find a shocking amount of comfort in the small gesture, and perhaps from the sincerity I sense in his voice. “I come here a lot, Jules. I wouldn’t bring you here if it wasn’t safe.”

When I can’t find my voice to issue a reply, focussed on my boots and not tripping over some unknown obstacle in the darkened alley, Harry comes to halt and pulls me closer like he did in the parking lot. He looks me in the eye, the moment suddenly turning intense.

“Trust me,” he breathes.

I can’t look away from him, not when he’s so close and so passionate. His warm breath fans across my face, and it’s as if he warms my entire body. There’s something in his eyes, too, that tells me I can trust him. That he’s safe.

“Okay.”

Obviously, I’m really trying to take his promise seriously. If he were anyone else I wouldn’t have even gotten in his car. Just like he said. We stare into each other’s eyes, stuck so close together I can feel his chest rise and fall with each breath he takes, in a dank alley between two dilapidated buildings. It’s the last place I ever expected to be with the last person I ever thought I’d date, and the moment is perfect.

Blinking, Harry graces me with an abrupt smile and pulls away. I ignore the disappointment, having been so enamoured in the moment and in Harry that I would have kissed him. More than willingly.

“Come on, I want to show you something,” he rasps, and I get a sense of déjà vu as we turn left, heading back up in the same direction we just came. Toward The Uptown. I don’t know why, but I feel as if Harry wants to show me something important to him. Maybe it’s his sudden serious air, but I feel it. Almost like I had shown him all my problems last Sunday, Harry wants to show me something important to him.

Nothing seems so scary to me anymore, not with Harry’s promise of safety and the sudden change in mood.

I realize that I do want to be here, as confusing as my mixed feels and guilt are. I want to be here with Harry. I like him, and the realization is like a kick to the gut. There’s no going back from this.

He kissed me. I liked it. I like him. I have no idea how he feels about me, or if all of this is just some extravagant game to him. Part of me even goes so far to hope it is—that twisted part of my mind and heart wants me to believe I’m just a joke to Harry, so that I’ll be the only one to end up hurt.

But I like him. There’s no going back, I can’t backtrack and forget how I feel. How he makes me feel. How I’m starting to need him, just from the way I had clutched onto him for support earlier when I got scared and my heart started with its usual hiccups, only to be calmed with his simple, sincere reassurance.

I’m in over my head, and there’s nothing I can do about it now, if only maybe try to push him away. And by the second, such a thought is getting hard to even consider.

It isn’t long before we come to another stop. Harry releases my hand and I focus on how chilly it feels to not have him next to me when he gently pushes me backward.

“One moment,” he mutters distractedly, eyes taking me in for several seconds with his tempting smile before he turns and makes his way toward a decrepit door. For a split second I’m sure that Harry is intent on breaking the old, fragile glass window, but he braces his shoulder against the frame of the door and with both hands, he gives a mighty push downward on the door handle.

With much, much more strength than I possess. Normally, I would be intimidated and almost frightened by another’s show of strength but with Harry, I almost feel secure.

A low pitched thump comes from the other side of the door, though the stuck handle only moves down a couple of centimeters. It may be old, but it looks tough. I take this moment, through the noise, to grasp that we’re breaking into The Uptown. The idea doesn’t upset me as much as it should. This is the most adventurous thing I’ve ever done, and of course it’s with Harry.

“Hold on,” he murmurs more to himself, puffing out his chest. I can only watch in fascination, arms crossed and slightly shivering because the temperature is in the mid-forties, as he pauses, the corners of his eyes crinkled in concentration. Then he uses all the strength in his upper body—I see his arms bulge, his back hunch, and his torso tense with the movement, putting it all into one enormous push to send the door handle flying down.

“Be careful!” I say right as the door pops open with his push, and it opens with such force that Harry has to steady himself to avoid stumbling inside with it.

Seeing that he didn’t hurt himself, I laugh, and he turns to me with a soft smile and eyes glinting. “Are you laughing at me, Jules?”

To his words there’s an illicit promise. I cover my mouth to hide my impish grin. “No.”

“Really?” He asks, slow as he takes a step forward; he’s obviously trying to hold back a chuckle too, surprised by my sudden bout of laughter. I scrunch my nose in an effort to keep from laughing, matching his pace with careful steps backwards.

“I’m not!” I exclaim, but a giggle escapes with the short phrase. I have no idea where this sudden confidence stems from, especially after Harry’s intimidating display, but it feels undeniably good to let loose for once.

Maybe Harry is on to something with the promise…

“I don’t believe you.” He raises one of his eyebrows, taunting and alluring at the same time, and I gasp when he suddenly lurches forward with his arms extended to engulf me. I release a girlish squeal as soon as he makes a move.

Trying to step to the side only seems to aid Harry in capturing me, because he catches me easily with one arm around my waist. By now I’m laughing hysterically, utterly caught in the moment and now also, seized within Harry’s embrace after he pulls me back. Defeated, I allow him to whirl me around and press me flush again his chest, arms enclosing around my waist playfully.

“That’s not very nice, sweetheart,” he hums with a smirk, and then he lowers his head to nuzzle my neck. I laugh again, though this time at the sensation of the short stubble on his jaw coming in contact with the delicate skin of my bare neck.

“I’m sorry!” I plead, though I don’t feel apologetic at all. It’s not even as if I wanted to make fun of Harry—I’m just laughing. Laughing at the situation, us, and everything. Because I haven’t laughed like this in so, so long, and I don’t want to admit that I like being so close to Harry.

However, both my giggle and breath are caught when I feel his warm lips press to the same area his stubble irritated the skin. My hands immediately wind around his form, much like every other time he did something like this thus far, and I’m overwhelmed by the foreign sensation.

I feel his smirk press feverishly onto my neck once more, lightly sucking and I emit another gasp, bunching the edge of his jacket in my hands. No, I definitely didn’t expect this to happen just from laughing at him, and I realize he’s probably had this goal all along—to cease my laughter.

In the absolute hottest way possible.

“Harry,” I breathe when he doesn’t let up even long after every part of my body has frozen, holding onto him so I don’t topple over. He pulls back reluctantly, eyes cloudy through the darkness of the back alleyway, and it’s as if I can see him visibly shake himself.

The hunger of what I can only guess to be desire hardened his features, his breathing shallow much like mine, though he softens when he gets a good look at me. He probably sees an overwhelmed, flustered girl holding onto him, and his hold around my waist tightens.

In an effort to gain a sane part of my mind back, I scramble to come up with something to say. Questions fly through my mind like holy crap, did that really just happen? Did I really just let Harry does that? When did we go from simple, innocent kisses to necking? None of those questions—or their answers—would help me in this situation, however. They’d probably only panic me more and show Harry just how much of a prude I’m known to be.

“Are we going in?” Heat flares in my cheeks as I nod over his shoulder to the door he forced open. Yeah… that really just happened. Perhaps the scarier part is the fact that I’m not even intimidated or scared like I would have felt otherwise. If it had been anyone other than Harry, I’m sure I would have collapsed.

“In a minute,” he says, soft though I notice his voice has also turned husky. He continues to look down at me with his dark, penetrating gaze. It’s unnerving.

I nod in agreement, the movement shaky and quick. He seems to sense my nervousness, now, and he breaks into a soft smile.

“It’s not often I get to see you like this,” he admits in such a hesitant manner, like he’s afraid I’ll run off if he talks too much. He pulls a loose strand of my hair away from my eyes, his large hand lingering as it brushes against my cheek.

For once—for the first time, really—Harry has arms around me, I haven’t let go of him, and I’m not crying or otherwise upset. Nervous and scared of such a foreign situation, sure, but with Harry I find that things like this come much easier than they otherwise would.

“Like what?”

“Smiling. Laughing,” he chuckles and tilts my chin upward with his thumb after I look away in embarrassment. “Now, blushing… that’s something I’ve seen before. But I can’t seem to grow tired of that, either.”

I realize fully now what I’m doing—I’m allowing myself to enjoy this too much, and I have to remember that this won’t last. This is too good and it feels too right to stay. Harry will forget, he’ll grow tired of my blush and my smile and my laugh even though he says he won’t, and soon enough he won’t want to entertain me and my weird little life.

And even if he doesn’t, he’ll for certain leave when he finds out about my heart.

So I have to be ready for when he does. He notices my abrupt change in mood, and his smile turns downward into a slight frown before he cups my jaw again. His touch, warm against my cold cheeks, draws shivers up my spine. I know, too, that it isn’t my reaction from standing in the cold weather. No, I would shiver at Harry’s touches even in a blistering sauna. I resist the urge to close my eyes and lean into his hand.

God, I wish I could have this. With him. “What’s wrong?” He asks, tentative as he searches my expression for some clue as to why I’ve clammed up on him.

“I’m sorry.” I pull away and shake my head, wrapping my arms around my torso as if to shield myself from him, from his disappointment. “I’m just—I’m not used to this. This sort of thing.”

Shut up, Julia, I scold my own useless mouth. Before you make an even bigger idiot out of yourself.

“What did I say?” My heart stutters in lament of his apologetic expression. Oh, no, Harry. Please, please don’t think any of this is your fault. It’s all on me.

“Nothing.”

“No, what did I say? Back at the car?”

Realization dawns on me when I figure out what he means, recalling with a flush the promise he coerced me into making.

“Not to overthink it,” I all but whisper, feeling the distance between us like crackling static electricity. He too looks as if he wants to close the space I’ve created, but he merely raises his eyebrow questioningly.

“And what are you doing?”

I sigh, a small strained smile breaking out again. His own lips curve at the sight. “I’m overthinking it, aren’t I?”

“Yes, Jules, you are,” he says with a grin, offering his hand to me. It’s instinctual, second nature when I take it without hesitation. He smile only widens when he tugs me along behind him toward the door. “Come on, let’s go see.”

Notes

12/1/2013: If you've come here in search of the newly posted chapter, it's actually now labelled Chapter Nine, Harry's POV. So mosey on over there and take a look :) I love you guys!

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Hope you like part two of their date! Please comment! I have lots more for you guys! Your comments always motivate me to write and edit what I've written so far so I can get it up for you faster :)

At some point soon I'm going to go back and add a chapter of Harry's POV in between chapter eight and nine. I think at least. I'm writing it now, though I'm not sure where I'll put it. I'll make sure to point it out when I do!

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