Inherent

“Music?” I echo, surprised.

“Yes. Music.” He stands from his place so close to me, grinning like a fool. “I figure we shouldn’t let this stage go to waste.”

Without sparing me another glance, he jumps down from the stage in a deceptively easy, fluid movement. I’m too busy in denial and wondering what he means by music and using the stage to consider following him, so I sit on the stage as I watch him pull what looks to be a small iPod dock out from underneath one of the old seats in the front row.

He can’t possibly mean…

A fun, swinging Frank Sinatra tune starts before I can tell him he’s crazy, and I find myself laughing again. Laughing comes so natural when I’m around Harry, and it feels like something of a relief when I allow myself the simple pleasure. I laugh, too, because Sinatra is such a far cry from the intense dubstep Harry plays at his club. I remain seated, my legs now dangling from the stage much like Harry’s had been, and watch with a grin that matches Harry’s intensity when he hops back up onto the stage. He snaps his fingers the whole way over, hips and shoulders swaying in the most mesmerizing of dances.

“Hey there cutes, put on your dancin’ boots and come dance with me,” he sings, and for a moment I’m shocked to hear such a melodious, beautiful sound leave his mouth. He’s not really trying, too cheeky and playful to really care how he sings, but he matches Sinatra note for note.

“You’re crazy,” I mutter, looking up at him from underneath my eyelashes. I add another item to my small repertoire of knowledge about Harry—he’s one hell of a singer. When he sings like that and says things like hey there cutes, he’s totally capable of making my toes curl.

“The good kind, right?” He quips as his foot taps to the beat and he looks at me expectantly. I stay on the floor, suddenly frozen and embarrassed when I finally figure out exactly what he wants to do.

“Yes. Definitely the good kind.” The sound quality from the little speakers on the floor is surprisingly good, though not so loud that Harry can’t hear my small squeak of a reply.

When he holds his hand out for me, intent on helping me up, I shake my head. I know what he’s getting at, what he wants out of this. He’s intent on crossing another item off my list.

How many is that? Well, with tonight acting as my first date, the tally would be up to three. Not counting his crazed idea of getting me to dance, of course. There’s a reason it’s on my list, just like every other item, but the speed at which Harry is completing my twisted little bucket list is bewildering. He frowns at my outright refusal, his hand still outstretched and unfaltering.

“No way,” I hold up my hands, out of his reach of course, and my face is all but flaming at this point. “I don’t dance.”

“Ah, but you want to,” he presses, and I slide farther over on the edge of the stage to evade his grasp when he moves forward.

Yes, he’s right. It is on my list, and I regret ever being a sad, depressed little sixteen year old after I hadn’t gotten asked to homecoming again. Then, of course, I ultimately decided I never would dance. I remember I had to stay home that night and Caleb had thrown a party, to which most of my high school class attended, and I hid away in my room alone with my list.

It made sense at the time. Now it seems stupid, having never allowed myself to even dance for fun. It’s too out of my comfort zone, too, and I know I’ll humiliate myself if I get up with Harry and try.

“Harry, I’m serious—!” I’m cut short when Harry swoops down, quick as lightning, and scoops me up into his arms in another effortless action. One of his arms is circled around my back while his other hooks underneath my thighs, and I gasp from the sudden change in height. My heart flutters and rockets from the shock, but then I realize that I’m here with Harry and I have nothing to be afraid of, so it’s only another split second before my heart is calmed.

“Put me down!” I don’t try to struggle in his arms, my side pressed to his chest, and I wrap my arms around his neck. No one has ever picked me up in such a way, and I’m terrified that he’ll drop me.

“You want to dance, you’ll dance!” He declares dramatically, whirling us around in dizzying circles across the stage. My reaction is shocking. A moment ago I felt ashamed, humiliated and on the verge of fleeing in panic, and now I’m laughing at Harry’s ridiculous behavior. I laugh so hard while his arms easily support my weight that I’m unsteady on my feet when he finally does set me down, eyes closed and hands fisting the front of his shirt.

“You really are insane,” I say, voice and breath equally shaky as I open my eyes and peer up at him. His vivacious grin only seems to widen.

“Only when I’m with you,” he admits. I swear my knees threaten to give out when I hear him say such a thing, and I wrinkle his shirt even further when my grip intensifies. Before I can melt any further underneath his hold and words, his arm circles my waist and he presses me flush against his body. He lifts me slightly so I have to stand on the tips of my toes, and he bends to smash his cheek against mine.

Then we’re off, across the stage in a giggling, gallivanting waltz. I laugh hysterically and I feel him smile against my cheek, too, as he holds our hands outstretched in front of us. He moves so fluidly that I find my previous inexperience isn’t an issue, and if it is, he doesn’t comment. Hell, my feet barely touch the floor.

It’s fun. It’s freeing, and dancing with Harry so close to me is both comical and exhilarating. The feeling is almost like that of a shot of adrenaline, twisting around the stage with Harry, my heart steady with Harry’s chest pressed against mine.

“Harry! I don’t know how to dance!” I say nonetheless, hardly intelligible through my bout of laughter. While I can’t see him with the way he’s got our faces pressed together, I imagine the wild grin and twinkle in his eyes that go along with his booming laugh. Gone are my worries of stepping on his feet or tripping us both up and clear off the stage—Harry knows what he’s doing, and I realize once again that I trust him.

I trust him.

“Really, sweetheart? Because you’re dancing right now, with me. Just look,” he pauses his theatrical speech to push me away from him in a dizzying twirl, his grip secure on my hand after he pulls me back and my torso crashes back into his, my palms clutching onto the fabric of his clothed chest. He holds me there, his hand still grasping mine on his chest, and stares down at me with intensity I’ve only ever seen in his dark, olive eyes. Sides aching from laughing so much, my breathing is as unsteady as ever, and I slowly come to calm when Harry’s stare doesn’t falter, his smile the wildest I’ve seen yet.

I smile back at him, uncertain though genuine.

And while the rhythm swings, what cuckoo things I’ll be sayin’. ‘Cause what is dancing but making love set to music playing?

Reaching up, I run my hand along the edge of his jaw in another tentative, courageous gesture. His smile fades slightly so it’s not wild and playful, but subdued and like he knows I’m battling between bravery and cowardice and totally out of my comfort zone. Harry doesn’t move as I keep my hand there and my thumb dips over his deep dimple, his eyelashes fluttering when he looks down at me almost tenderly. It’s the softest look I’ve seen on him yet, and I’m sure my eyes are as wondering as his always are when I do something particularly odd, except that I’ve finally come to terms that Harry is beautiful.

The music has been drowned out to white noise, my thoughts filled with nothing but Harry while I look at him in fascination. I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t be here, in a run-down movie palace eating Chinese food and dancing to Frank Sinatra.

With him.

Around my waist still his arm tightens as he bends to lower us in a dramatic dip, the movement slow and I watch the muscles in his biceps contract and work to steady me. He draws his head down so close our foreheads are nearly touching, and my hand still doesn’t falter on his jaw.

We’re so close that I feel his lips quirk against mine when he smiles again. I’m utterly frozen, stuck reveling in his beauty and in the fact that he seems to see beauty in me, too, and I shiver when he brushes my hair back over my shoulder with a light, skimming touch on my neck.

He kisses me, and this feeling too is all new. This isn’t testing, teasing, or desire-filled like all the times he’s so forwardly pressed his mouth to mine. I’m too wrapped up in this new feeling of trust and the tenderness he manages to express, of feeling how much he cares for me through something as simple as a touch of the lips, to consider whether or not this might be a mistake.

But right now—it definitely isn’t. Something that feels so absolutely right could never be a mistake. We stay like this, in a ridiculous cheesy dip with our upper bodies touching everywhere possible and one of my legs between his, even after his mouth leaves mine and we’re left panting and totally impassioned.

Somewhere in the back of my hazy mind, I take note that this is also the third time tonight that Harry’s kissed me. He must like to kiss… it’s going to take me a while to get used to that.

Tonight is so perfect, in fact, that I’m happy. Happy. The word alone is so foreign to me, yet I feel it. When I’m with him… it’s as if I forget all the bad things that eat away at my mind otherwise. It’s wrong for me to feel this way, of course, because I’m essentially living a lie. It’s so wrong. I know it, and yet I still kissed him.

I kissed him because I love how I feel when he’s so close to me, what it’s like to care for and have mutual trust in each other to take part in an act that would otherwise make me feel vulnerable and insecure. I loved everything about tonight, from his constant wandering touch, his cheeky jokes to our promises and his persistence. His crazy dance moves. I love that he thinks I’m different, and not in a bad way. I love all of it.

I’m violating the trust he’s placed in me, I know that too, and through the vilest of ways. I’m keeping something so infinitely, life-alteringly important from him. Yet, with his arms still around me and our lips brushing as we breathe, I can’t bring myself to ruin such a perfect moment.

I’m sorry, Harry.

Notes

This update is much shorter than what I usually post, but I couldn't continue with the next scene in a way that flows or works well, so here it is. I'll try to update again soon to make up for it :)

Tell me what you think... do you like Harry's and Julia's budding relationship? What can be their ship name? Hulia? Hahaha. Predictions, thoughts, suggestions? I'm all ears here.

Thanks for reading/commenting/rating!