I was in a supermarket staring at boxes of cereal. Well, it wasn’t exactly a supermarket, per say, it was more of a ma and pop market on a corner street, a few blocks closer to the flat than Starbucks. It had been my original intention to go there; but I was dawdling on my walk and looking around at fresh flowers beaded with dew in the little patches of garden people kept in their front yards. Summer was slowly coming into full-swing, though summers in London tended to be wetter and colder than back home. I’d take any change, to be honest.

My ear buds were looped around my neck, still playing but reduced to a small hum. Uniform checkered tile spread across the floor before disappearing underneath shelves and cans stacked to form buildings in mini dioramas. Over a grainy loudspeaker, Radio One was playing softly, adding to the whole disjointed theme of the shop. Several signs were displayed outside, declaring everything to be happy! And cheery! And Wow please buy EVERYTHING!

I moved on from the cereals to the chips, which I had to remember to call crisps, surveying the selection. I picked a bag of sour cream and onion; they were my guilty pleasure snack and I always tried to keep stocked up on them. It was surprisingly hard to maintain.

Eventually, the longer I stayed in the shop, the more I felt I needed to buy to bring back to the flat. It was amazing what tomato sauce cans stacked up in the shape of Big Ben could accomplish. Carah was out dropping off some paperwork for the boys, it should take all of an hour, and I left the flat the same time she did.

It’s been four days since the beach. Four, painfully awkward and uncomfortable while also being the best possible four, days ever. It was strange how a group of people could affect your life so much in such a short window of time.

Magically, I ended up with a cart filled with things we probably didn’t need. I was already handing over the cash to the clerk behind the register, who appeared to be rather dismal and not at all cheery like the signs gave off (false advertising), when I realized that I did not drive here. My car was a small red suped-up thing that existed only in my imagination. I wasn’t even licensed to drive in England, and there was no way I was walking all the way back with this stuff. Or taking a cab, because I couldn’t bring everything up in one trip unless they developed teleportation or something in the last five minutes and no one told me.

Reluctantly, I pushed my cart over to a side of the store; everything already bagged and paid for, and pulled my phone out of my bag. I dialed Carah’s number, already dreading her predicted smug reaction to this.

“You’re on speaker, Lin!” She shouted from far away, and I rolled my eyes.

“Hey Carly!” A bunch of voiced chorused in unison, and I laughed. “Did you get your caffeine fix already? Are you showing up to the studio?” Carah and Niall asked at the same time, her voice contrasting comically with his Irish accent.

“Hey boys, I’d love to, but I’m not exactly sure if that’s possible at the moment. Carah, I need you to do me a favor, pretty pretty please?” I said, staring through the darkened glass of the shop. It was the middle of the day and traffic was as dead as it could be on a Wednesday.

“Did you try to fit your sasquatch feet into my heels again, Linnie?” She replied sarcastically, and I groaned. She loved revealing every embarrassing detail I could possible have.

“That was once,” I whined, “And we were in ninth grade, and they were nice shoes!” She giggled, a tinkling laugh that passed through the speaker. “But that’s not what I called for. I sort of detoured on my way to Starbucks into this little market and sort of bought the whole store. No way in hell am I going to bring this stuff back by myself. I don’t even have a car. Or a license.”

“Bloody hell, Carly,” Louis added, sounding close to the phone. “What are you doing, preparing for a feast?”

“Shut up, Tomlinson, if I was you are now uninvited. But tell Eleanor that she can still come,” I shot back, and I could practically see the petulant scowl he’d be wearing on his face.

Carah regained control with a laugh. “Aw, you hurt his feelings, Lin. But I don’t know how soon I can get out; I’m buried in an avalanche of stuff to do and I think I’m going to die of blood loss due to paper cuts.”

Before I could respond, another voice beat me to it. “I’ll pick you up,” Harry said, and I had to pause for a moment. Static filled the line.

“Okay—” And then I heard the door open and shut again and didn’t say anything else.

“I called that,” Niall attempted to whisper to someone, but instead failed and said it loudly and there was a smack, probably from someone hitting him on the back of the head.

“They’re not supposed to know about that!” Zayn said, panicked, and I coughed, reminding them that I was there in the first place.

“I’ll see you in a bit, Linnie! Drop by the studio, yeah?” Carah said hurriedly, becoming increasingly suspicious, and the line went dead.

I was definitely going to “drop by” now.

To distract myself from becoming anxious before Harry showed up, I pushed the cart over to a wire rack of those stupid gossip magazines, picking one at random and flipping through the glossed pages.

I didn’t expect to see a picture of me in it. With Harry. From our outing at the beach, even. My eyes drifted to the headline: Harry Styles’ New Girlfriend? X-Factor Star spotted getting cozy with a new friend at the beach!

I had to swallow down the lump that was forming in my throat. The picture was of Harry standing over me, pulling out my headphones before he called over Niall and Louis to dunk me into the ocean. If this photographer managed to get this photo, did he get evidence of my mental break down, too? Will the next headline be one declaring the apparent instability of Harry Styles’ ‘bird’, as they referred to it? I hadn’t seen another soul at the beach, but I guess the pap was just really good at his job.

My stomach churned.

As if God were playing a cosmic joke on me, One Thing by the one and only One Direction filtered through the speakers. I really should have expected this, pictures of me appearing in tabloids if I hung around the boys as much as I often did. They were famous! Should I have expected something else, honestly?

Then why did it unsettle me so much?

“I meant to talk to you about that,” Harry said, appearing beside me like a ghost, looking handsome as ever with an apologetic smile on his face. “But first, let’s get the things from the trolley into the car.”

I smiled in return. “Trolley? Is that what it’s called here?”

Harry only chuckled and shook his head as he grabbed the bags. “You have a ton to learn if you’re going to be here for five more months.”

It didn’t take long to load up his car, a gigantic monstrosity that I would be afraid to drive next to, nonetheless actuallydrive.

After a few minutes, Harry began to tap his fingers nervously against the steering wheel.

I spoke first. “Does this always happen?”

“The pictures?” He asked slowly, as if there was anything else I could be possibly asking about. I nodded, and he sighed, loudly. “Yeah. They always find a way, those bloody paparazzi. I haven’t gotten a moment’s peace since before X-Factor. They like to make up stories based on tiny bits of truth.” He chuckled darkly, and I wondered exactly what bits of truth they had spun to create him, the Harry Styles everyone saw.

He glanced over at me, worried by my silence in thought. “Are you mad? I completely understand if you are, Carly, it’s overwhelming, especially when they assume every damn girl I even so much as look at is my girlfriend—” I reached over and put my hand on his over the steering wheel.

“Calm down, Harry. I’m not mad. A little freaked out, but I sort of expected this. I’ll have to get used to it eventually, right?” I said, knowing in the back of my mind that ‘a little freaked out’ was an understatement. Everything was off-kilter, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Harry, in the time I had known him, had demonstrated a remarkable tendency to feel double the emotion; if he was fine, but someone beside him was uncomfortable, he’d feel uncomfortable and then spend ages trying to think of what could fix it. I hadn’t thought before I met him that there was such a thing as being too self-sacrificing.

We made it to the flat, and I grabbed my keys from my purse and unlocked the door while Harry grabbed some of the bags. It felt so strange, doing such domestic things with him. My heart twisted a little bit in my chest.

He put the things on the counter just inside and headed back out to get more, and I began to pack them away in the cupboards or the fridge, humming the tune of The A Team by Ed Sheeran softly to myself.

Eventually I ran out of things to put away and turned, wondering what could be keeping him.

He was standing in the archway of the kitchen, staring at me and smiling. My face heated up, turning red with blush blood. He put the things down on the counter, mentioning idly that that was the last of it, and shut the door. Our eyes remained locked the entire time.

Harry approached me, cautiously, seeming the slightest bit nervous. A laugh bubbled up out of my mouth.

“Nervous, Styles?” I asked, and he smirked in response. Our faces were close.

“So far, Carly, you are the only girl capable of making me this nervous.”

Half a step, it took. Half a step for him to close the gap between us and press his lips to mine.

Notes

so here's a fact, usually when I write I listen to the same song on repeat and won't move until I've finished the chapter, which is probably why I end up updating so late.

This chapter I listened to Wake Me Up by Ed Sheeran :)