“Harry, s’all this?”
Confusion laced with your words as you stood in the doorway of the kitchen. In front of you stood a tired looking Harry, a smile on his lips with an apron tied around his waist with a face covered in flour and his hands covered in a sauce that you could detect as a lemon and garlic marinade due to the aroma filling the large and brightly lit kitchen. His green eyes were sullen and his eyelids looked heavy yet he looked as happy as ever, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel before his arms opened wide and he wiggled his fingers to summon you closer to him, to give him a hug and to have you close after hours of being away from one another.
“Peaches, s’all this for, hm? Have I forgotten something?” You wondered, your cheek pressed against his chest. “Are your parents coming down from Cheshire? Is Gemma coming over? Oh, is it February already? Is it your birthday? No, it’s just gone New Years,” you whispered, looking up to him.
You were sure you’d forgotten something.
An important date; a birthday, a visit from his family, an anniversary, maybe.
Harry always took it upon himself to create a feast fit for thousands when it came to a special date or an organised meal or a planned get together that required alcohol and snacks and homemade sweet treats that had him slaving away in the kitchen for hours of the afternoon. Hours that become filled with his sweet singing and his groans every time something went wrong and the sounds of pots and pans clanging together in a hasty movement of rushing to get everything finished.
But, you raked and raked your brain and nothing came to mind. And a wash of relief coursed through your body when he explained just what he was slaving in the kitchen for.
“Just want to show my love for you, Gorgeous. I had a free afternoon, and you were busy with work and I got bored and I just wanted to treat you and show you how much I love you,” he smiled, his lips pressing against your forehead and lingering softly on your skin. His warm breath fanning across your hairline and eliciting a soft yet content sigh from your mouth, between your lips and brushing against his apron. “Cooked a storm up in here today, m’tellin’ you. Had t’ changed clothes a couple o’ times and I think I got some flour and some egg whites in my hair. Forgot it was on my hands and I ran it through my hair to push it away from my face, and it got all matted and sticky, so I need a shower before we eat or I’ll be scratchin’ all night.”
“You’re awful,” you scoffed, pushing his chest away. “What have you made today?”
“I’ve made a nice tomato soup with those croutons that you like as well as a little chicken Ceaser salad that Lou recommended to me. She said Lux absolutely loves when she makes it and she sent me the recipe the other day. I’m cooking lemon and garlic marinated chicken at the moment and some of your favourite herb-dusted baby potatoes with parsnips and carrots boiling in the pans on the cooker,” he explained, looking down at you as you snuck your head around his waist and gave his bum a soft pat. “And, I’ve made us a chocolate treat that mum recommended.”
Peeking over his shoulder, you could see bowls filled with a chocolate-looking icing and a spatula covered in frosting.
“And what has your mum recommended?”
“Some strawberry and chocolate cake. Of course, I can bake a cake because I-“
“-used to work in a bakery. I know,” you teased, a smirk forming on your lips as his eyebrows furrowed and formed a soft dip at the top of his nose.
“Stop teasing me. I did used to work in a bakery. Took you back there, din’t I? You loved the lemon cheesecake they had there,” he reasoned, tapping the tip of your nose with his finger. A smile forming on your lips as you retracted your hands from his bum and pushed at his hips.
The lemon cheesecake.
The words had your mouth watering. It was 3 years ago when Harry took you back to Cheshire for the first time, to meet his family and to show you around the routes he knew and the rooms he grew up in and the places he spent his childhood in – his primary school and his secondary school, the fields he played football in, the parks he hung out in with his friends, the college he applied for before his life changed for good, as well as the place he shared his first kiss; but he never went in to too much detail about the girl he did it with because he wanted to forget the rushed decision he’d made, new memories wanting to be made by recreating his first kiss with you, his current girlfriend who he loved dearly and knew was the one he was going to marry.
But the one place he took you too, that you loved and stayed within the walls of the longest, was the bakery he used to work at. His face lighting up as the two of you walked through the back door, an apron being thrusted into your hand as Barbara pulled Harry into her arms, handing over a slice of cheesecake for you both to share. The sweet smelling treat strong and yellow and gorgeously presented, a mint leaf sitting on top of the thick layer. His old boss, patting his back and setting him to take the front of the shop for an hour or two, was thrilled to have him back after so long – his best worker.
“We’re off track, anyway. I made us a chocolate cake with strawberries on the top as well as strawberry jam with the chocolate frosting between the two layers. It tastes good, too,” Harry smirked, turning on his socked heels and walking back towards the cooker, “and it’s sitting in the fridge to stay moist and proper. We don’t want a warm cake.”
“Did you buy ice-cream? We cannot have cake without ice-cream,” you stated, hopping up on the part of the counter that looked evidently clean and unused, holding the half-empty carton of strawberries. “Strawberry ice-cream always goes well with chocolate cake.”
“I have the carton of ice-cream with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice-cream in. I think it’s still full from when we babysat Lux,” Harry explained, lifting the lid of the saucepan, his face engulfed by steam and disappearing behind the thick smoke. “Jesus. They smell good,” and you could hear the grin in his voice. “Do you want to go and get dressed out of your work clothes? I can see paint splatters and handprints on your shirt.”
“S’actually your shirt,” you murmured beneath your breath, a shy smile on your lips as Harry’s eyes widened and his neck snapped towards you. “Sorry.”
“You wore my shirt to work?” He questioned, a smirk on his lips. “Did I say you could wear my white shirt to work, hm? I don’t remember saying you could raid my wardrobe and take one of my expensive shirts,” he teased, amusement lacing his words as they rolled from his tongue. Your eyes wide as you looked down at your fingers and toyed with your nails. “Oi, m’jokin’, Gorgeous. My clothes are your clothes. Apart from my jeans because you’ll trip over them.”
“Won’t get them up my legs because they’re so tight,” you giggled, reaching for a strawberry and picking the stalk off of the top. “Surprised your legs still work, if I’m honest, Peaches. And your balls. I’m surprised they’re still release sperm.”
“Oi, they work very well, thank you. The number of condoms I’ve fill can be proof,” Harry smirked, his teeth taking his bottom lip as he chewed on the flesh lightly. “Besides, they work well and we’re going to make babies. Lots of ‘em.”
“Alright. You have the easy part. All you have to do is spunk in me and then I do the hard work,” you grunted, jumping from the counter and stepping, with a large step, over to where Harry was standing. His arms behind his waist as he tugged on the strings and undone the knot at the base of his back, removing the neck of the apron and placing it over the back of the stool underneath the kitchen island. “M’just goin’ to get changed. Anything in particular? My pyjamas? My underwear?”
“I’d love for you to come down naked, but, I’d like to eat rather than have sex with you on the counter,” he whispered lustfully, his arm snaking around your waist and pulling you to his body. “I love you. Wear a nice something. We don’t get to go out but, it’s always nice to dress up in our own house, right?”
“I prefer this anyway,” you smiled, “it’s so much more private and we can kiss and be intimate without people catching us in the act or taking photos or interrupting us.”
You loved his fans and his strong fan-base supporting his every move.
And he loved them just as much.
They got him to where he was today and he never stopped showing his appreciation, no matter he was; walking the streets, getting a coffee from Starbucks, making a breakfast stop for the two of you in the later hours of the mornings, eating in a restaurant with you between lunchtime and dinner-time, or on his morning run when he was dressed down in his hoodie and a pair of running leggings with his hair pulled back into a tight bun with loose tendrils falling down his face and sticking to his skin with the sweat building up in layers.
You’d been interrupted on many dates and you understood that they were excited to see the one they admired and the only that they loved with their entirety and the one that they had been wanting to meet since the moment he was able to greet fans and take selfies with them and hug them tightly as he whispered his ‘thank you’s to them. But it was always nice to have a date in the comforts of your own home, where you were one another’s company without the feeling of being stared at or spoken fondly of or interrupted for chats and photos. It was never part of the ideal date Harry had in mind, and it was then (in times when all he wanted was to enjoy a dinner with you) that he wished he could click his fingers and have the privacy he desired – privacy where he was left alone to be intimate with you as you went out on normal dates and experienced the normality of a relationship that should have come with the relationship you had together.
“You’re definitely right, although we still run the risk of Horan coming up the steps and knocking on the front door,” Harry chuckled, “he’s missed me.”
* *
Dinner had gone down a treat.
With washed plates and full tummies and wine-flavoured lips that were pressed together in soft kisses, the both of you were content and happy and pleased with how the night had passed. The conversations entailed of anything and everything that was unrelated to work, because it was a Friday night and all you wanted was to unwind from the stresses and forget about the work you would go back too on Monday morning – the stresses of looking after children for a little under 5 hours, in a busy nursery block, where your attention had to be divided by those who were in need of being noticed and heard and where you had to be fully aware of what was happening.
Conversations entailed plans being made to visit his mother in Cheshire – because Harry claimed that he ‘never saw mum as much’ and that he wanted to get more recommendations on food he can treat you with.
He spoke about holidays and when you had time off so he could whisk you away to an exotic country and treat you like a queen – Hawaii and Greece being the top countries he mentioned more often than none, and it was clear cut that he’d been researching hotels and flights and seeing when the best time to go would be where the rooms weren’t all occupied and you would be left alone to spend time together.
You spoke about parties and get togethers as well as the newest upcoming party, slash, get together that Grimmy was holding in a couple of weekends at his home – a Summer party that required everyone to be there with booze and food and their party hats on because he claimed it was ‘going to be the best party thrown out of the entire list of parties thrown for Summer that year’.
But as the night came to a close, and Harry’s hair was washed and dried from egg whites and yolk, and the both of you were dressed in your pyjamas – a nice fitted yet thin sweater upon Harry’s body with a pair of his black joggers hanging down his legs, whilst you dressed in your sleep shorts and a loose white t-shirt of Harry’s that had gone through a lot in it’s life time – lounging on the sofas with reruns of old programmes that the two of you used to cuddle up and watch.
“We should head t’ bed in a bit, Gorgeous. I can see you’re almost falling asleep over there,” he chuckled, the sound rousing you from your state of tiredness. “S’almost midnight and you look exhausted,” he stated, yawning soon after.
“Coming from someone who’s been cooking all day and looks even more tired than me,” you teased, dropping your phone to your chest and propping yourself up on your elbows. “Come sit over here. F’we fall asleep, we fall asleep. I jus’ want some cuddles, really.”
And you need not say more.
Because he was up in a flash, and making his way over to you, shuffling himself behind you and spooning you close to his chest. His feet knotting with yours, with your ankles bashing together every so often, and his arm snaking around your waist and settling upon your belly where his fingers began to draw soft circles into the material of his t-shirt.
“You’re so comfy. Love bein’ this close to you, Gorgeous.”
“Hmm. S’my favourite position, honestly,” you whispered, twisting your body around and wrapping your arms around his neck as you pressed your chest to his. “Love you,” you whispered, your lips brushing against his.
“I love you too,” he whispered back, before pressing his red wine-tasted lips to yours.
* *

YOURINSTAGRAM: Hi, Peaches. Come cuddle with me. I miss your warmth and your cuddles and just you in general. You’re so close but so far. @harrystyles.

Notes