Harry

“So Nate, are we going to have an almost choking on jewelry incident again tonight?” He flipped Annie off from across the table.
“Nope. We aren’t actually here on Valentine’s Day this year, so you two missed out on me giving her jewelry.”
“What did you get her?” I asked. Due to Nate’s case and my work in LA we had been in Los Angeles over Annie’s birthday. I felt terrible about it. She always spent her birthday with her friends. We were either in London or here in Paris with Nate and Kim. But this year because of my commitments we weren’t able to do that.
“He got me a vintage sapphire and diamond cocktail ring.” She held her hand out to show us. It was a very nice ring. Nate had always been hesitant to buy jewelry for Kim on his own. Evidently, the first pair of earrings he bought her she hated. So he always made sure if he was gift giving he had Lyla, Lizzy, Annie or me with him. I remember when he had asked me when we were out to dinner one night to meet me while the girls were at work the next day and help him shop for an engagement ring. We were lucky that we didn’t get caught by photographers or both of the women in our life would’ve been emotional. It was the first time we’d hung out just us guys which was a bit awkward. I don't often go jewelry shopping with my mates. He had spent the entire time being half mental trying to pick between two rings and finally made me pick. I talked him through the decision so he came to it on his own with a little coaching. He was one of three boys, he didn’t have sisters who taught him this stuff. I was lucky I’d had Gemma over the years. She’d always taught me how to pay attention to what women did so I could get the right thing. Which was good because the woman in my life was overly opinionated and if she hated something I gave her was happy to close the box and hand it back.
“You did a nice job, mate,” I said smiling. He mouthed out ‘Lyla’ and I quietly chuckled. “So are we going to grab cocktails somewhere or are we heading back to our hotels. You two have an uninterrupted night of sleep ahead of you.”
“We could grab a bottle of champagne and share it in our room,” Annie said smiling at me. I loved her smile. Her tiny dimple showing on her right cheek, her blue eyes sparkling. She hadn’t stopped smiling since I told her I was done waiting and it was time to get married. She didn’t stop smiling when her parents all three cried knowing that she was right and they wouldn’t be able to be here for the wedding. Surprisingly her Dad even cried a bit. I know that Dads all dream of walking their little girl down the aisle and I hated that I was robbing him of that. But we knew he wouldn’t get on a plane to fly to England for what Annie was calling a shotgun wedding. I kept reminding her that we didn’t have a baby on the way, despite this book being her baby. I promised him that we could go to the church in her hometown where her Grandparents and Great-Grandparents were married, the one she had her heart set on getting married at when she still lived at home, and he could walk her down to the aisle to me, even if it was just the three of us in the building. He replied by telling me that he had handed her over to me years ago and wished me luck.
I know that despite her protests that there is a part of her that is sad that we decided to elope. She wanted to get the big dress, though she swore it wouldn’t be traditional, it would fit her personal style. She wanted to have all of her friends in fluffy dresses and watch her niece and nephew dance around like lunatics. We’d attended a fair number of weddings in our time together. Watched our friends all get married, some of them twice, and we just happily sat on the sidelines knowing that when the time was right it would happen.
I was watching her sleep in Fiji while we were on vacation when I decided it was time. She looked so peaceful. So calm. She was rarely like that anymore. Always worrying about her career and mine, the book making things worse. She’d been like this before. Leading up to the first tour of our relationship, with the help of Lizzy, I’d convinced her to leverage what she was doing with her blog to make some money on it. Lizzy told her to follow me and go on the road, to watch out for Lyla, and see the world or at least part of it while she was at it. Frankie told her that her job would be waiting for her when she got back. She was hesitant. She didn't want to use our relationship to make money. So Lizzy and Frankie agreed to keep paying her and she would keep doing the social media for the bookshop and the pub. That finally got her to agree. She’d be earning her own spending money rather than relying solely on me to pay for the things she purchased.
She came with to South America. Together we saw Machu Picchu and Christ the Redeemer. We danced in the streets of Buenos Aires in the moonlight as my Broadway loving lady serenaded me with the music from Evita. We got drunk on caipirinhas and made love as the sun came up. She and Lyla grew even closer. It was the first time that it was just the two of them and not Kim, Lizzy and Niki as well. She documented our life and travels on her blog. She photographed me on stage and told me that she fell more in love with me every night when I took the stage because I made so many people happy, just by being me. We survived the first part of tour and she survived on the money she was making. I was sure it was going to work.
She had no choice but to go to Ireland with me. The whole gang of misfits she called her friends were headed to the shows. Frankie, Niki and Niall were excited to show her their home, even if none of them grew up in Dublin. She was determined she was going back to London after that trip, until my Mum told her that she needed to be in Manchester to meet my Aunts, Uncles and cousins. She still hasn’t ever been able to say no to my Mum. When we arrived home, she told me she wasn’t coming with me anymore. She felt like she needed to work and help pay our bills at home, something we’d fought about since she moved in. My heart broke getting on that plane for Sweden without her but I knew that my stubborn girl was not to be pushed to make a decision. I woke up the next morning and went about my day while constantly checking my cell phone for any message from her. It was mid-show that I realized she was down in front of the barricades with security and her camera. She told me that when she cried the whole night because she couldn’t sleep without me that she finally realized I was right, something she rarely, if ever admitted, even to this day. So she packed a bag, bought a ticket and told Niall to get her in to the arena.
By the time we hit our next stop she had already arranged sponsors for her blog and her anxiety started to decrease about money. Lizzy and Frankie both jumped on board. Weekly book recommendations with links to buy it online from the bookshop and regular videos of her making drinks in O’Brien's and if she was on the road she was in her cut up O’Brien’s shirt as I videotaped her. The first video she’d done was of those caipirinhas and now O’Brien’s was the only Irish Pub in all of London where you could get a Brazilian drink. It was when we got to Paris and I saw the way her face lit up seeing this city again that I realized for the first time that I wanted to marry her. I claimed to have work and snuck out of our hotel before the sun was even able to make an appearance for a private appointment at Tiffany & Co. I explained what I wanted, which wasn’t in the case, and they agreed to custom make an engagement ring and have it ready by the time we reached Italy and then our first night of our holiday, in front of my band and her friends I dropped on one knee and asked her to spend forever with me.
The ring made her hesitate less about accepting money from me. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together and that ring meant that. I could’ve put a hair band around her ring finger and it would’ve meant the same but she deserved the dream ring and the dream proposal. I’d hoped originally that she’d get the dream wedding too. Maybe even convince her family to come to England and get married in Holmes Chapel. Or ship my whole family to the US and that church in her hometown. But then life happened. The band decided to take a break. I filmed a movie and recorded a debut record at the some time. All the while she was writing and still managing a social media client or two. She’d do speaking engagements on how to leverage social media to make money off of a blog. We worked and focused on our dreams, knowing that we’d eventually get married.
We went through some of the happiest moments in life together and through some of the hardest. There wasn’t a day that I questioned if she’d be there to hold my hand, to listen and offer advice when needed or if all else fails make a crack about me having no magic due to being a Styles and not a Potter. I was her proofreader, her production assistant, and her knight in shining armor all rolled in to one. We loved each other with everything we had no matter what. Then last fall she got the opportunity to publish this book. She’d always wanted to be an author, had even tried to write a novel once but chickened out on shopping it around. A friend that worked at a publishing house approached her about her photography and she jumped at the opportunity. I asked if I could write the introduction to the book. It was that night in Fiji, where I couldn’t sleep and she lay beside me as I wrote her introduction, that I knew I was done waiting for the time to be perfect, I just wanted to marry her. It was what I’d known in France that first trip, in Italy when I proposed, and if I was honest to myself what I knew when I walked in that little bookshop for the first time. I didn’t care whether she was in couture or converse, I just wanted to marry that girl. And now it was finally going to happen.
“Yes, champagne in our hotel room. You two girls can chat about where we need to shop tomorrow so that you can get Kim a dress. And maybe you should buy yourself a dress,” I said raising my eyebrows at her.
“I have my dress with me,” she replied frowning at me playfully. She had packed a short white, lace dress that she loved. She’d found it in Los Angeles when Lou and Gemma had made a trip to visit. She wore it with me to an award show that was a little bit more fun and thought it would be a dress she could wear for our wedding.
“I still think that you should wear whatever color you want.”
“What color is the dress?” Kim interrupted.
“White,” we replied together.
“And…wedding dresses are white,” Kim said.
“I think she should wear black. When I think of the woman I want to marry, she’s still in that black maxi dress she had on the day I met her. The one with the slit up to her thigh and her tattoos on her shoulder showing.”
“Harry.” She was staring me down. The tone of her voice the one she always had when she was frustrated with me. “I. Have. A. Dress.”
“We can look at it when we get to the hotel and I can tell you if I think we need to find you a new dress,” Kim said.
“Fine, let’s go back to the hotel,” Annie said. As we stood I helped her put her coat back on.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too,” she replied. We exited back on to the street and the car service was waiting. I would normally choose to walk through the city, as would Annie. But this trip was different. Our normal walks through cities when we traveled involved a few fans coming up and asking for pictures or autographs if they saw us. This time I wanted to make sure we avoided that as much as possible so that we were able to have the private moment for our wedding that we wanted. In the car Annie watched out the window, occasionally snapping a photo of something that caught her eye. She almost always carried a purse big enough to fit one of her smaller cameras but tonight she was relying solely on her iPhone. I always loved when we’d get in bed at night when we were traveling or the first day home. She’d upload all of her photos and show them to me. And then I got to see the world the way she saw it for a little while.
We pulled up in front of the hotel and quickly entered. I hurried to the front desk while everyone else requested the elevator. I asked the hotel to bring another bottle of champagne up to our suite. There had been one waiting when we arrived this afternoon but it didn’t take long for Annie and I to polish that off while calling our family to let them know we had arrived. We went in to our room and the girls were quickly barefoot and on the couch with their iPads trying to come up with ideas of what to shop for. I sat down in the chair next to Nate.
“So, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news mate, but you know you can’t legally get married in France. Right?” he inquired. He was speaking quietly so as not to disturb the girls. I laughed a little.
“We do know that,” I replied. “We filed for the proper paperwork back home and are going to just go to the courthouse on Monday to make it legal. We wanted to have something meaningful to both of us. We talked about it for a while too. We weighed a lot of options. Los Angeles, London, hell she suggested Vegas and New York at one point. But the reality of it is, we could do all of this without the legal part and still be happy. But for her to legally change her name on her passport we need a marriage certificate. When we were discussing eloping we decide that we wanted to do it here.”
“Why? If it can’t be legal and you have to do it twice why not just get married at home?”
“France, Paris more specifically, has been this place that’s meant a lot to our relationship. It was the first place we traveled together. We have so many traveling rituals that are all based on our first trip here. Her engagement ring came from Paris. It just felt right to both of us. She looked up stuff constantly when we were deciding. She cried her eyes out when she realized it couldn't be legal here. She even suggested that we just rent a flat and move here for a few months so that it could be legal. I just didn’t want to wait that long. So I convinced her that we could get married here for what we will think of as our wedding and then we’ll just do the legal bit back in London on Monday.”
“I guess that makes sense. Wedding planning is a nightmare anyhow.” I chuckled a bit. Kim had been nutty planning their wedding. Her family was livid at the fact that she wasn’t getting married in the United States. She knew that their life was in London and wanted to get married there. It would’ve been tremendously difficult for her to plan a big wedding from an ocean away. She had a family member or two originally threaten not to come. But she held her ground and they all showed up. Her mother perhaps showed up too much. She made four trips in the 10 months that they planned the wedding. The last trip was for the three weeks prior to the wedding. I’d often wake up to Kim sitting at my kitchen island with Annie before 6:00 in the morning. Annie was usually slumped over trying not to fall asleep in her coffee while Kim ranted. She’d tell her mother that she had to work early and leave. I can only imagine how having a house guest for that long leading up to the most important day of your life thus far could be overly stressful. I’d learned how to make some fancy coffee drinks and a lot of breakfast options over that time period as I cooked for the girls and helped play amateur psychologist with Annie in the mornings.
On top of the family drama surrounding their pending nuptials, there was a lot of work that went in to the wedding. Nate’s family was huge. Each parent being one of at least four kids, his Dad the twin brother to Lizzy’s Dad. Their twins, Max and Jack are named after the Dads. The first time I met both of the Dads I was blown away, having not realized they were twins. It explained to me why Nate and Lizzy often looked like they could be brother and sister instead of cousins and why they were so close. They had been more like siblings as it was three girls in one family and three boys in the other. Kim had a large number of people making their first overseas trip for the wedding. All the work paid off. The wedding was fantastic and turned out perfect. And now they are raising quite an amazing little family.
There was a knock at the door. I stood and went to let in the room service cart that had a bottle of champagne and some desserts for us. The girls finally put their iPads down long enough to let me pop the bottle of champagne and fill the glasses up for them.
“What do you need me to do for this whole thing?” Nate asked me.
“Just be there. We don’t really want anyone to have to do anything which is why we went with this plan. Those two I’m sure will drag us all around the city tomorrow to find the perfect dress for Kim. So perhaps we will have to either sneak away for a drink at some point or just enjoy a day of our girls playing dress up.”
“That I can handle.” I looked across the room at our girls. They were back on their iPads now. Champagne in one hand and fork full of cake in the other.
“Now that we’ve found some ideas on what we should be looking at for me let’s look at something for you. I mean not that what you wear is as important as what I wear or anything,” Kim said. Annie nearly choked on her bite of cake laughing. She stood up from the couch and grabbed the dress quickly going in to the bathroom to change.
“Does she not want to wear white?” Kim asked me.
“I think she thinks she’s supposed to wear white. When we first got engaged and she lived in that Pinterest app on the road, most of the dresses she looked at had color and weren’t white. Either something very edgy and black or sort of a pinkish color. But for some reason when it finally came time to plan something she thought she should just wear something she already owned that was white. It baffles me. It’s not who she is. I’m still shocked she actually wore it to an awards show. Don’t get me wrong, she looks stunning in the dress, but it’s just not her.”
“She’s never one to do something because it’s conventional,” Nate said. “Doesn’t seem much like my girl Belle to do that.”
“Not at all,” I replied.
“Well, maybe the three of us can tag team her tonight and tomorrow and get her to wear something that is more fitting of her personality,” Kim said. “I mean admittedly, I’m traditional. Wedding dresses are supposed to be white. But just because I think it should be white doesn’t mean that’s the way it always has to be. She should embrace her own personality. And if you, as her groom, think she should be in something that exemplifies who she is, then she should listen to you. The only opinion that matters tomorrow other than hers is yours.” The door opened and she walked out in the dress. It was gorgeous on her despite my feelings on it being her wedding dress. It was pretty short and had sleeves that went just beyond her elbows. It was a lot of lace and very form fitting. Not something I would’ve imagined her wearing for our wedding at any point in our relationship.
“You look really pretty…but no,” Kim said. I smiled. She would normally have said yes to this. The dress was something Kim had texted Annie about from her couch as she watched Red Carpet coverage of the award show that night. She had loved it and loved that Annie went so far from her normal style and wore white.
“No?” Annie asked.
“Nope. I mean, I love the dress. I’ve loved the dress since you text me from the fitting room and since you wore it to the AMAs but no. This just isn’t what YOU would normally pick for YOUR wedding. So let’s get something that screams ANNIE when someone sees it.”
“Are we all sure about this?” she timidly asked.
“Yes,” the rest of us in the room said.
“Love, when we first got engaged you looked at things that were the polar opposite of traditional wedding attire. Embrace that.”
“Are you really sure about that, babe?” she asked. She wanted so badly to make me happy with what she wore and it was ridiculous.
“You could show up in ripped jeans and a t-shirt and I’d still marry you. Get something that is more you.”
“Okay. Well, I guess we have more shopping to do tomorrow than I originally thought.” She shrugged her shoulders with a laugh. I stood and followed her in to the bathroom knowing that the zipper on this dress was tricky.
“You know that I’ve only suggested that you find a new dress because I love you and want you to be your authentic self when we commit to each other. If you want to wear this dress on Monday when we go to the courthouse that is fine.”
“Thank you for pushing me to do what is going to make me happiest. I just felt like if we are being so untraditional that I should maybe embrace the white dress thing.”
“Hell no. Embrace the be you thing you normally do.” I unzipped the dress and kissed her shoulder. “I am going to love you no matter the color of your dress or hair.” She laughed at my comment. She’d thought about coloring her hair brown again, something closer to her natural color and the color she had when we first started dating. She currently had platinum blonde hair. A month ago it was pink. Last fall it was a grayish lavender. She had been having fun and I loved that she still allowed herself to do that instead of falling in line with what a typical 37 year old woman was supposed to do. She lived life how she wanted to live it and I fell for her more and more every day.
“I had thought about having Louise change my hair color while we were home last week but we were in town for such a short period of time that I hesitated. And then thought, do I really want generations later of our family to go ‘Why did Aunt Annie have mermaid hair for her wedding?’. So I figured I’d just wait and do it this week. We’ve got a little time now that we are going to be home for a few months without any extended trips.”
“You’re happy about that aren’t you?”
“So happy. I mean while our house in Los Angeles is beautiful, amazing and everything I dreamed a house could be…London is home.”
“I know it is. I’m excited to be back home for a while too.” I kissed her softly before leaving her to change out of her dress. I opened the door to see Kim finishing her glass of champagne.
“We are going back to our room,” she announced.
“A kid free night is rare for you two. Enjoy it. And by enjoy it I don’t just mean fall asleep with the TV on.”
“I wasn’t planning on it mate. We will see you two in the morning to go shopping,” Nate said as they stood up to leave the room.
“Sugar, we are alone now,” I called as the door shut. I heard the door of the bathroom open and turned to see her in a black nightgown I hadn’t noticed she took in to the bathroom with her. “Still make my heart stop.” She blushed before coming up to me and standing on her tip toes trying to kiss me. My hands slid the silk of her nightgown before sneaking beneath it and grabbing her ass. She moaned quietly in to my mouth.
“You make mine race,” she whispered. I bit her lip slightly. I led her towards the bed and as my knees hit the mattress they buckled, me landing on my back with her on top of me. My hands were resting on her rib cage. She wasn’t lying. Her heart was racing. She sat up and began to unbutton my shirt before going for my belt. I struggled to get my boots off. I finally flipped her on to her back and stood so I could get rid of my boots and my pants. She crawled to her knees so she could finish removing my shirt.
I crawled back on to the bed with her moving us towards the headboard. Our kisses were hungry. Our hands roamed each other’s body. We laid under the covers kissing for what felt like hours before I had enough of the foreplay. I hovered above her and looked in to her eyes. The eyes I’d fallen in love with the first time I’d seen them. They changed colors based on her mood and her clothing. Surrounded by soft white sheets and her pale skin they were a light blue but shown so brightly.
“I love you. Always have, always will,” I said softly before kissing her. Her breathing hitched as I entered her slowly. Her legs instinctively moving around mine and her ankles hooking together. Her hands moved from my hair to my shoulders to my chest. I felt her fingers tweak my nipples, it was her signal to me. She often played out on me what she wanted for herself. I broke the kiss and looked down at her smiling before kissing down her neck and taking her nipple between my lips and then teeth. She moaned. My pace was slow and steady. Her moan changed slightly, it was my signal. She was ready for me to speed up, I wasn’t ready to yet. “Slow down.”
“But…but…I don’t want to.”
“Well, I’m not ready to speed up.”
“Please.” She was begging.
“You feel so good. I don’t want it to end.” I thrust harder in to her and held my hips against hers. Her breathing became ragged.
“You're enjoying torturing me,” she said as I pulled back nearly removing myself from her before slamming in to her again.
“You like when I torture you.” Her muscles tightened around me.
“I…I do like it when you torture me.” Normally when I behaved liked like this she could typically reach orgasm more than once. I watched her eyes roll back in to her head and saw her chest rising and falling quickly. And then she hit it, her first orgasm. As her breathing slowed and she finally opened her eyes I started to speed up my movements. She glared at me. She was hoping I’d allow her to catch her breath a little before sending her in to the spiral of her second orgasm, instead I was eager to see her come apart in front of me again. “I…I…I…hate you when you do this.”
“No, you don’t.” I bent down and captured her lips with mine. I inched back and opened my eyes. She was staring in to them.
“I love you,” she breathed.
“I love you,” I replied before kissing her again. She bit my lip as I moved faster again until we both started to fall back down from our high. I laid my head on her chest listening to her heart beat and breathing. She ran her fingers through my hair for a few minutes, nearly lulling me to sleep until she nudged me off of her and went in to the bathroom. She reappeared a few moments later with her hair in a messy bun and her makeup off. She crawled under the covers next to me and laid her head on my chest.
“I’m really happy, Harry,” she said quietly.
“I am too. I’m glad we are finally ready to do this.”
“Me too,” she responded. “Me too.”
“Nate did point out that we can’t legally get married here.”
“I knew we couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes.”
“I told him that you really had your heart set on Paris so we were going to do it here so that our photos and our memories are here.”
“I still would’ve moved here for a few months so we could’ve done it legally.”
“I know, but I’m glad we don’t have to do that. If we are going to be back on this side of the planet we may as well live in our house in London.”
“I know.” She sighed. “It doesn't matter where it happens really, though I am excited that we are here for it.”
“As am I,” I replied. “And then on Monday you can put on that little white dress that you think you need to wear and we can go to the courthouse and then submit the paperwork to change your passport.”
“Yes, changing my passport. Annie Styles. It doesn’t sound too terrible.”
“It sounds like music to me.” She laughed at me and moved to kiss me.
“Let’s get some sleep.”
“Okay. I love you.”

“And I love you.” One more kiss and she put her head on my chest again and I listened to her breathing change as she drifted off to sleep.

Notes

Okay...so I am blown away at how the first chapter back into this has sparked interest in the story again. I wanted to give an end to this story that these characters deserved. The chapters have been coming to me easier than anything I've been writing in the last few years and it almost makes me sad that an end is coming. I'd originally intended the end to be three chapters and then got REALLY long winded with this chapter and realized it needed to be split in two. So there will be another Harry chapter coming because I'd mapped it out to be in his point of view. I don't think anyone will mind a little extra Harry. It's been fun falling back into this story.

In regards to the chapter title and song title, I felt it was appropriate to finally use some 1D songs and each of these last chapters will have a song from Made in the AM.

So let me know what you think. I'm anxious to know what everyone's reaction is to where this story is ending. Do you have any predictions for what will happen? Any thoughts? And would you be interested in a one-shot series that told the story of the 7 years that were advanced in this story? I had a one-shot series started that I intended to use to tell the tidbits of the characters lives before the first chapter of London Calling that I have a few pieces in and a lot of ideas. It could be expanded to cover the missing pieces of life before the snowy weekend and between the two trips to Paris. Let me know if you'd be interested in me expanding Always In My Head - A London Calling Series to include more stories of these characters. Always In My Head was never intended to only be from Harry and Annie's perspectives, so it could have Kim, Nate, Lyla, Niall, or anyone else from their lives. Just let me know what you think as I am on the fence of closing this up completely and moving on to something else.

As always find me on Twitter, Tumblr, Kik (raybandsandcoffee - that typo will forever bother me) or message me here. Hell, I'll even accept emails if you prefer, you can email me at raybansandcoffee@yahoo.com (or find me on Yahoo Messenger).