In The Heat of Los Angeles

“Good morning,” Harry said, his voice still cracking with sleep. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a new person. Thank you for yesterday,” I replied as I moved in the bed snuggling up to him. “I know I’m weird on my medication and I was still sort of out of it last night for dinner.”

“You weren’t weird on your medication.” I gave him a look and he started to laugh. “Okay, you were extremely weird and it was almost like you weren’t you for a while.”

“I’m not me. I’m some other world version of me.”

“Well I’ve decided I like you better. I’ll happily deal with the other world you if I need to but let’s do everything we can to keep you as well as possible.”

“Everything we can?”

“Everything,” he replied. I hugged him and as I did I caught the book that Dr. Gaines had given Harry before we left his office laying on the night stand next to a pair of glasses. There was a bookmark two-thirds of the way through the book. “I just want you well.”

“Thank you. If you ever change your mind or you think that there is something wrong I want you to tell me.”

“I will. But for now we are going to focus on you being well.” I felt his hand slide up under my t-shirt and rest on the small of my back. “And part of being well is today. Do I need to cancel or are we safe having The Circus over?”

“We are safe. I feel decent. I’ll keep hydrated take breaks in the shade I think it’s supposed to be breezy today which is good.”

“If anything changes you need to tell me. I’ll kick everyone out and it will just be us.”

“Maybe we do that tonight. A just us Saturday night.”

“Like do I get to take you out on a date or like a stay home Saturday night?”

“We will see how today goes. But let’s plan on you taking me out on an actual date. I’d even consider getting dressed up all fancy.”

“I would really like that.” I heard my cell phone start to vibrate on the nightstand. I reached over to grab it. It was Mom calling me, a picture of the us at Wrigley from last weekend popped up on the screen, Harry was photobombing us from the row of seats behind where we were seated.

“Hey Mom,” I answered.

“How are you feeling today, Evie?”

“Better, much better.”

“That’s good. Harry was really worried. He and your Dad have been on the phone I think every hour on the hour for the last two days.”

“I didn’t realize he called Dad. I knew he called Pops because he wasn’t letting me go to work. You called Dad?” I asked looking at him. He nodded.

“He’s who told me how to make the soup for you.”

“God you’re too good to be true.” He smiled at me before kissing me and climbing out of bed.

“He loves you, it’s very sweet.”

“He does love me…about that I suck.”

“You do,” she replied. “Your Dad told me that Harry dropped the L-word on the phone the other morning when he called. He said he loved you and just wanted to make sure he did whatever he could to take care of you. I thought I was going to be the second person you told.” I could hear the joking tone in her voice but still felt terrible. This was normally something I would share with Mom immediately.

“I had every intention of calling you Thursday morning on my drive in to the office and then the gremlin decided to kick my ass instead.”

“I know and you’re fine. I’m just happy to hear that you are happy.”

“I promise you that if we have any other relationship milestones that I won’t let a gremlin prevent me from telling you. We are taking Eliza to London for 10 days before we go to Mexico. I get to meet his Mom and step-dad, I think also his sister and potentially his Dad, we haven’t discussed that yet.”

“That’s good. What do you have today?”

“The Circus is coming over for a pool day. Nothing too exciting because I clearly need to relax after the last few days but the weather is gorgeous and we didn’t get much of a roommate night on Thursday because I was so sick. Eliza and Joe stayed at the house last night so we are just waiting on Kammi, Nick and Ty. Oh and I think Harry is inviting a friend over that he thinks would get along with Ty.”

“Your boyfriend is playing matchmaker with your roommate, it sounds like he’s officially part of The Circus.”

“Oh, he is. He got voted into Thursday’s roommate night at Kammi’s suggestion.”

“That’s good,” Mom said. “I miss you already.”
“Me too, Mom. The visit seemed too short. Mexico will be better. We will all have time
together and have the whole gang together.”

“I know, I’m looking forward to it more than I should considering how much stuff is going on. The boys are anxious for it because it means that school is out too.”

“I know. It will be good and it will be a great way to spend the last bit of time with Harry before I ship him off to France to film his movie.”

“Your Dad is extremely excited that you’re bringing Harry with you.”

“I’m not surprised and we can only hope that after tomorrow’s day with Pops and Jessica that he’s also excited about having Harry come along.”

“It’s gonna be great,” Mom said. I knew she wasn’t sure of her statement but was at least saying it because we needed to think positively, that was her normal operating procedure, think positive. “Okay well I’ll let you go so you can get ready for your guests. Love you, Evie.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

“Bye Grace,” Harry yelled from the bathroom.

“Harry says bye.”

“Tell him I say bye as well.” I hung up the phone and crawled from bed. I went through my normal morning steps in my attempt to wake up completely.

“I have to say, I like the new addition to my morning routine,” I said to Harry.

“Which is?”

“A little bit of naked time in the shower with you.” His laugh echoed off of the glass walls of the shower.

“I like that addition to my morning routine too.”

“Too bad we got in the shower, we could’ve had a little bit of naked time in bed.” I raised my eyebrows suggestively making him laugh again.

“You should probably take it easy.”

“But…sex.” I was whining and nearly begging.

“You are quite funny sometimes, Evie.” He kissed me softly. It was a nice kiss but not sex. I pouted at him. “Why the pouting?”

“Because we haven’t had sex since Chicago and if my memory is correct, which I mean it’s a bit fuzzy from the gremlin, we haven’t had sex in like a week. I’m going through withdrawal symptoms.”

“Is that all you’re after with me, Everlee? Sex?”

“Umm…no?” Yup, it came out sounding like a question. He could’ve been pissed at that response, instead the laughter started again, louder than before. “I fucking hate you.”

“Liar.”

“I am and a bad one at that.”

“Evie, I love you and sex isn’t everything. I mean sex between us is amazing and one of my favorite things lately but it isn’t everything.”

“I know it isn’t everything but it’s a really fun thing.”

“It is. But today, let’s spend some quality time with each other and our friends. Then tonight we get a date night. Wear something sexy.”

“I like the way you think. Where is this date tonight?”

“I haven’t really thought all the way through with where I’m taking you. But I can say, wear something sexy.” We finished our shower quickly because both of our phones were ringing non-stop on the bathroom sink. I wrapped myself up in a towel and went to go look at mine. I clicked the home button causing the screen to light up. Most of the calls were from Kammi but there was one from Ty and one from my Pops. I saw Harry in the mirror as he walked up behind me in his towel. He clicked his home screen, also Kammi and Ty as well as Ben Winston.

“Well at least the third caller on yours wasn’t my Pops,” I said laughing. I clicked to call him first.

“How are you feeling, Evie?” he answered.

“Much better. Thanks for helping Harry navigate through all of this.”

“It’s a mess but he handled it well. He called me and gave me updates yesterday after you left the doctor.”

“I figured as much. He’s a good caretaker.”

“That’s the kind of stuff a father likes to hear about his daughter’s boyfriend. It’s important that he knows how to take care of you when you can’t take care of yourself.”

Holy. Shit.

Did Pops actually say something resembling nice about our relationship.

“Yeah, it is nice to have someone who can do that. Eliza gave him a little bit of help but he did the majority of it on his own.” I was standing in Harry’s closet and flipped open my suitcase with my foot. It was empty. I glanced towards where I saw a laundry basket before I left for New York, it was empty as well. That was when I looked up and noticed that all of my clothes were on hangers, there was a note attached to a hanger.

Check the drawers to your right.

I pulled open the top drawer to find them full with my clothes that had amassed themselves here over the last few weeks. Everything was clean and folded nicely. There was another note sitting on top.

I thought it was time that you stopped living out of a suitcase.

“Evie?” I had stopped paying attention to Pops. Shit.

“Yeah, sorry I got distracted. Kammi’s texting me.” I was lying. I was a bad liar but at least he couldn’t see me.

“Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“Yeah, come over for the Cubs game tomorrow and then we can do dinner after. First pitch is at like 4:30 or something, right?”

“It is.”

“I’ll have snacks and we can watch the game together.”

“I don’t want you to stress yourself out,” Pops said.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll make Harry help. I’ll text you his address. Just head over at like 4:00 and we can get ourselves set for the game.”

“Sounds like a plan. Jessica and I are both looking forward to it.” He only half sounded like he was lying. We both knew how to read the other but also did a lot of this to shield the other from what was really going on inside of our heads. If it was important we wouldn’t lie, but sometimes fib just a little.

“We are too. It will be nice to all spend some time together.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said before we exchanged goodbyes.

“Harry!” I called.

“Yeah, love,” he said as he popped his head into the closet, he was still on the phone. I pointed at the drawer.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Your clothes, in a drawer. The suitcase was starting to drive me mental.” Whoever he was on the phone with laughed loud enough that I heard them. “She’s been living out of a suitcase for three weeks. I did that for too many years, the suitcases give me anxiety and you know that.” He paused. “I feel like I’m being a great boyfriend by doing her laundry and putting the clothes into the closet.”

“Who the fuck are you on the phone with?”

“Ben.” He smiled. I held my hand out. “She appears to want to talk to you.” He handed me his phone.

“Hi Ben.”

“Hi Ev. So you’ve moved in?”

“I’ve been moved in against my will.”

“If you’ve stayed there for three weeks I think you might’ve accidentally moved in.”

“Umm as long as my things were in a suitcase I was just crashing for the night. He’s given me closet space. Not a drawer and a couple of hangers but like an entire section of the drawers in here, a huge section of the hanging part and my shoes are now situated next to his. What the fuck? Is he like OCD or something?”

“A bit clean and I’ve seen your office when you practically move in there. You are only clean because you have assistants and maids."
“You’re walking on thin ice here, Winston.”

“I know and I so enjoy doing that with you.”

“So why are you on the phone with my boyfriend?” I asked.

“We were discussing how he’s setting up one of my writers with one of your assistants. And I needed to check in on that, also I was thinking that we should have dinner tonight.” One of the writers of The Late Late Show was Ty’s set up? I mentally went through the ones that I knew and almost immediately knew who it was that he had invited over.

“Well, we were planning a date night but I think that a double date would be wonderful.” I smiled at Harry who mouthed out ‘thank you’ to me.

“How does a triple date sound? Meredith and I have a sitter for Ruby and were planning dinner with James and Julia.”

“A triple date sounds even better. You four have some inside knowledge on Harry and might be willing to share it.”

“We just might. So I’ll text Harry the details after a bit and we will all see you both tonight.”

“Sounds great, Ben. I’ll give the phone back to Harry now so I can take some time to figure out where all of my belongings are.” He laughed on the other end. I handed the phone back.

“Hey.” He was quiet but started to laugh a bit. “Yes, she is literally in a towel opening every drawer and riffling through them, I’m going to have to straighten them a bit when she’s done in here.” I flipped him off as I shut the third drawer I’d opened. I didn’t even realize I had this much stuff here. I’d been here a lot but I’d been getting dressed at the office most days. I picked up my phone and called Ty.

“Hey Ev,” he answered.

“Hey T. You on your way over?”

“I am. I ended up calling Eliza to make sure that it was safe to come over she said you were doing good.”

“I am. It was a rough couple of days but I feel like a human. I need to take it easy today so no drinking for me but it’s still going to be a fun day.”

“Well, with as determined as your boyfriend is about setting me up with someone today I probably shouldn’t drink…too much.”

“Probably not. But it will still be fun and I miss you.”

“I miss you too. It’s been lonely the last couple nights without you, Eliza or Kammi.”

“I’m sure. So hurry over here, but don’t like break the speed limit or anything.” Ty started to laugh.

“I won’t. See you in a bit, E.” I hung up the phone and started to dig through the drawers looking for a bathing suit, when I found the drawer I found more than I should have here based on the fact that I’d only had one trip to Malibu.

“Harry,” I called.

“Yeah,” he replied. When he walked into the closet this time he wasn’t on the phone.

“There are at least ten bathing suits in here. I didn’t bring ten bathing suits to Malibu. I also know that several of the dresses hanging in here have not made their way here.”

“Umm, yeah about that, I may have told Eliza that she should bring you some clothes when she came the other day. I wanted you to have stuff here and not have to either wear the same things over and over or always get dressed at the office. You’ve been here for the last three weeks, you needed clothes.”

“And you didn’t think to say, ‘Hey Evie, I think you need some clothes here. I’m gonna make you some space in the closet so you can move some stuff in.’ You just moved me in?”

“It made sense to me and Ty when I called him the other day and told him to put some of your stuff together.”

“You are colluding with Tyberius?”

“I might have done that.”

“I don’t really know what kind of reaction to have. The gesture is sweet but also… incredibly creepy.”

“Creepy?”

“Yes, creepy. You colluded with my assistants to move my belongings into your closet and was that my pillow from home on the bed that I slept on last night?”

“No?” Now it was his turn to make an answer sound like a question. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, so Eliza told me that you really loved your pillow. She may have brought yours from home and I switched it out when you were sleeping and then we ordered you another one for home.”

“You two are hilarious.”

“I just want you to feel comfortable here.”

“Ben told me I may have accidentally moved in.”

“You might’ve.”

“This is weird isn’t it. I should stay at home tomorrow night or something.”

“I mean I’d rather you didn’t. I like having you here but if you want to do that you can go home.”

“I mean I don’t want to go home. I also like being here. But you’ve moved me in. I’ve never lived with someone I’ve been in a relationship with.”

“Neither have I. But we aren’t really living with each other. We are spending as much time together as we can right now because we don’t know how much more time we have together before we might be in different places and even if we manage to not end up in different places for now come June, I’m gone for a few months and we don’t know how long it will be before you get to come visit me.”

“I know. We are experiencing this relationship differently than either of us have before.”

“Correct. I’m not used to being in the same city for weeks on end with a woman I’m in a relationship with.”

“And I’m not used to someone who fights to get me to work less and live more.”

“So let’s just take this thing day-by-day and if you decide you want to sleep at home for a night then you can sleep at home for a night. But if you want to stay here, even when I’m not here, you can do that too.”

“Okay, I mean I probably won’t do that. I’ll go home with Eliza and Ty.”

“I know that but I want you to know that if you need time away from them you can have it. It’s quiet here and you really do love the house.”

“I do love the house. I also love my condo.”

“I love your condo too.” I finally found the bikini I wanted and started to change into it. “But you’re always welcome here.”

“Thank you,” I said. I wasn’t really sure how to keep having this conversation. It was like he wanted me to move in with him without actually asking me to move in with him because this awkward conversation we were having was exactly like it should be with us. We drank too much and had what was supposed to be a one night stand before accidentally realizing we enjoyed the other’s company and that we might want to hang out with each other. Now here we were a mere three weeks later and he’d covertly moved more of my belongings into his house so that I felt like I was at home. We were super fucking weird there was no question about that.

Once I’d changed and found a dress to throw on as a swimsuit coverup I headed downstairs. Harry was right on my heels as I left the room. We found Joe and Eliza in the kitchen staring at the coffee pot on the counter. These two couldn’t function without caffeine. I laughed because Eliza had her head rested on the counter and Joe’s was rested on her’s.

“Good morning,” Harry said in his most chipper voice. He was so much more of a morning person than I would ever be.

“Be cautious talking to these two in the morning before they’ve had their coffee.” I heard the machine finish brewing the pot and grabbed four mugs from the cupboard above it. I filled all three of them and added a splash of cream and two sugars to Eliza’s and just cream to Joe’s before turning and putting the mugs in front of them. They each took a huge gulp before I saw their shoulders relax.

“Good morning,” Eliza said.

“Thanks for letting us crash here last night,” Joe added. Harry laughed at the visible difference in both of them after even just one drink of their coffee.

“No problem. Thank you both for the help with Evie while she was sick.”

“Always,” Eliza replied. “So Ty called.”

“I know he called me too, he’s on his way over. Kammi called me as well but we both had a shit ton of missed calls this morning and I called Ty and Jimmy back.”

“She texted me and wanted to make sure she was still supposed to come over and had questions about what she should bring and if it was a drink all day pool party day or a relax all day.”

“It’s a relax all day pool day,” Joe added. “I declared that you shouldn’t be drinking with the way you were still feeling last night. She typically listens a little more to me. Future big brother and all.”

“Future big brother?” I asked. “You know something I don’t know.”

“You’re stupid if you don’t think he talks about marrying her. I think my Mom and Victoria have the wedding planned out already if I’m honest.”

“I wouldn’t be shocked by that. Victoria wants to get to plan that huge New York wedding she’s been dreaming about since she got pregnant with Kammi. When she moved away from the city I knew Vic was a little freaked out that Kammi would fall in love and never want the wedding in the city. Then she fell in love with your brother and I think her only concern is that Nick will want to get married in Jersey which we all know just won’t do.”

“No, it would not.” Joe started to laugh. “Nick won’t want Jersey, he will want whatever Kammi wants.”

“Which might not be New York,” Eliza said quietly. “I mean she loves LA more than any of us which is super fucking weird.”

“I know.” I shrugged before taking a drink of my coffee. “So Joe are you gonna miss Eliza while she’s in London with us in a couple weeks?”

“Of course. I will miss all of you, but I’ll definitely miss Eliza a little bit more than you two. It might be nice to not watch you get all handsy with each other all the time.” I was leaning against the counter when Harry came and stood behind me and bent to use the top of my head to rest his chin.

“We aren’t handsy with each other all of the time.”

“Says the woman who tried to convince me we didn’t need to shower this morning because we could have sex.”

“Shh! Don’t tell them that shit.”

“You don’t think I heard him laughing at you upstairs when we were getting up?” Joe asked. “It was obvious you were either having sex or begging for sex by the sound of it.”

“I hate you all.”

“No, you don’t,” everyone replied.

“Well one of the people in this room conspired with another person in this room to covertly move me into this house.” Eliza and Harry both took a drink of their coffee while trying to act innocent.

“I wondered why you spent so much time packing her shit up the other night while I was at the condo,” Joe said. “They moved you in?”

“I have a section in the closet. A rather large section in the closet.”

“I mean it’s not like I gave you half of the closet or something.”

“No but you gave me a third of it.” Harry started to laugh as I turned to look at him. “I have my own home that I own and make mortgage payments on. You act like I need a place to stay.”

“Oh I know you don’t need a place to stay. I like having you around here and I needed your shit off of the ground and out of that fucking suitcase. I was going to go crazy. You just throw the clothes back onto the suitcase. You’re used to be at home or at work where you have people that come and pick up after you when you do that.” Eliza started to laugh. “I have a maid but she isn’t paid to pick up after my girlfriend and as Emma doesn’t live in Los Angeles and Eliza so far hasn’t moved herself in I was in need of picking up after you or I was going to have to send you home which is the last thing I want to do.”

“You do tend to just take over space,” Joe said. “You have taken over more than one tour bus that I’ve called home.”

“You aren’t supposed to side with them.”

“Sorry, Ev. I’m gonna side with Eliza because well, she’s hot.” I started to laugh and flip Joe off. It wasn’t long before the gate started buzzing first was Ty then Kammi and Nick.

“So Ty have you figured out who Harry is setting you up with yet?” Kammi asked.

“I have not,” he replied. “He didn’t text me a name to stalk.”

“His name is Eli and he’s a writer on The Late Late Show.” Harry seemed excited about providing a little bit of information to us about his potential new boyfriend for Ty.

“When Ben told me you were setting Ty up with someone that worked for him I knew immediately in was Eli!” I danced excitedly.

“Is he the one with the incredible smile?” Eliza asked. I nodded excitedly. “Oh Ty, you’ll love him.”

“He’s a very nice guy,” Harry said. “Incredibly smart and yes the ladies are right, he has a great smile.” I laughed at Harry. “He’s one of the writers Ben and James rely on a lot and since I spend a bit of time there I’ve gotten to know him rather well. I am not just setting you up with someone to set you up with them. I honestly think you’ll like him a lot. And if you don’t that’s also perfectly fine and if you want me to refrain from trying to set you up with people in the future tell me and I will. I’m new to The Circus and I don’t want to do thing that someone in my place shouldn’t do.”

“You’re fine, Harry,” Ty responded. “I’m sure you made a great choice.” I was busy pulling up Eli’s Facebook page. I handed my phone to Ty so he could see the cute profile photo. “Okay, he is pretty cute. Do I look okay?” I hugged Ty as I took my phone back.

“You look great,” Kammi said. “Don’t worry.” She paused for a minute. “So are we really not drinking today?”

“You guys can, I however can’t. We have a date night planned and if I drink and retrigger the gremlin I have a feeling that my very sweet boyfriend will kick my ass.”

“I wouldn’t kick your ass. But you shouldn’t spend a whole day out in the sun drinking when we know we won’t have dinner until later.”

“Big date planned?” Nick asked.

“Well when Ben heard I was setting Eli up with Ty he called this morning. He invited us to dinner with he, James Corden and their wives.”

“I may have promised James that we’d do dinner since he claims he’s the one that convinced Harry to set up a meeting with us and now that we are dating James thinks this is all due to his genius.” Kammi started to laugh.

“I love James,” she said. “You’ll have to tell them that I say hi. I haven’t seen any of them in a while.”

“I will,” I replied. “It should be a nice night. They all have sitters and can go out for a little bit. I also figure that if there are two people in Los Angeles with dirt on Harry it’s them and they just might be willing to spill it.”

“They will. There is no question about it. They will give you ammunition to pick on me.”

“Remind me to call The Late Late Show office on Monday,” Kammi said to Ty. Harry flipped her off. “Well, I just wanted to check to make sure you were okay if we drank. I brought stuff for mimosas.”

“Have at it,” I replied. “You should all enjoy the day. I have to stay fine for dinner and then tomorrow we are hosting Pops for dinner.”

“Do you need me to run to the store later today or tonight to pick stuff up?” Eliza asked. She really was the greatest thing in my life because she did grocery shopping and managed my calendar. Some agents in Hollywood had the assistant that worked their desk and a personal assistant that managed their home. Eliza did it all and I knew how lucky I was that she did.

“I think I’m gonna do Nonna’s traditional Sunday dinner. He hasn’t been home in a while and every time I suggest making it he comes up with something else. You know how he is. He wants to either eat out or eat at his house and Sunday dinner takes so long to make that he’d go crazy if I was in his kitchen for that long because it would mean he had company that long.” Eliza nodded and started going through her phone.

“Look and tell me what of the ingredients you need picked up.” She had an app on her phone that she kept my recipes in and I could click which things I needed. I scanned through the recipe and made the list from it and added a few things I knew we’d need if Dad was coming over.

“You’re a lifesaver, EJ and you know it.”

“That I do. I’ll go and have it over before 10:00 tomorrow.”

“But it’s Sunday, I want to sleep in,” Joe whined.

“You can. I got an easy week at the office because she was out so the least I can do is go pick up the groceries tomorrow.”

“We can do that,” Harry protested, he still wasn’t used to Eliza doing a lot for him.

“If you want to I can send the list to Ev. If not I’d be happy to go. I need to run for the condo too so it’s no big deal.”

“We will talk about it later,” I said as the gate buzzed again. I quickly let Eli in and went outside to wait for him to pull his car up. Once he was out of the car he came and hugged me tightly.

“Hey Everlee,” he greeted cheerfully. “I just want to start by saying this whole you and Harry thing I’ve been told about makes me happy. You two are my favorites.”

“Aww, thanks Eli. So has H warned you that this is a set up?” I asked.

“He did. I nearly chickened out until he told me you were involved in this. He said it was with your business partner’s assistant. Texted me a few pictures. He’s super cute and even though he’s a bit younger than me I’m okay with that. I think we will have a lot to talk about.” Eli had been an assistant in Hollywood before finally landing a job as a writer. He knew the ins and outs of the business just as well as Eliza or Ty did.

“I sometimes forget that you haven’t always been this swanky writer and used to work the desk of a studio executive.”

“An executive that believed in me. Sort of like your assistants have. We are all lucky we found the good ones to work for. Okay before we go inside, do I look okay?”

“You look adorable. You got this Eli.” I opened the door and we went inside.

“Hey Eli!” Harry seemed excited to see that Eli hadn’t chickened out and was here. It was fucking adorable to think that Harry wanted to find someone for Ty. I mean he’d offered to play wingman in Chicago but Ty was always hesitant about that. He didn't want to go to bars that were basically just people looking for a hookup for the night. I knew why too. He saw his best friend in a serious relationship with someone who she was likely going to spend the rest of her life with. Then in the last month he’d watched me morph from being married to my job into this woman who was smitten by her new boyfriend and he was losing Eliza too, it was obvious the way she and Joe were behaving that they were falling for each other quickly.

“Hi Harry, thanks for inviting me over. I’m excited to hang out. You have a gorgeous home.”

“Thanks mate.” Harry hugged him quickly before turning to start introductions. Eli knew Eliza well because she usually tagged along with me when I went to The Late Late Show studios to bug Ben and James. He’d met Kammi a handful of times but it was less likely she had clients going on the show. Nick and Joe had each appeared on the show as well but didn’t often pop in to bug the writing staff the way I’d started to do after meeting several of them during a brainstorming session for a client’s appearance. “Eli this is Ty Kirkwood. He’s also with SME.”

“Nice to meet you, Ty,” Eli said as he stuck his hand out to shake Ty’s.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Ty replied. I almost felt bad for them. The Circus was standing around the kitchen at Harry’s and staring at them as they shook hands for the first time. I could tell that Kammi was happy to see Ty being open to one of us setting him up with someone. Ty had barely dated since moving to Los Angeles. He always claimed he was too busy. I think the reality was that dating in this industry, and city, were tough. You always felt like someone wanted the connections you could bring them not to develop a connection with you. And if you were an agent, manager or assistant at a competing firm, good luck making it past drinks on the first date. During my attempt at online dating as forced upon me by The Circus last summer I ended up on dates with agents who wanted to become managers and a few managers looking to jump ship from the firms they were with. The worst one brought me his resume like he was on an interview not a date.

Ty and Eliza faced the same issues trying to date that I had but perhaps on a different level. We’d shared horror stories over drinks more than once when we’d all attempted to go on dates. Eliza had someone once try to steal her phone to get client numbers out of it. The person was a junior agent trying to sign some of our clients because they knew we were a management firm who had top tier clients and they also knew that because she was my assistant that she’d have access to just about everything. That particular bad date of Eliza’s was fired the following day, he should’ve checked to see that the head of his department played golf with my father nearly every Friday. When he found out that he had an agent who stole my assistant’s phone from her purse when she was in the restroom he got pissed. Luckily the phone he stole was Eliza’s personal phone not the one with all of the information they were looking for. Ty’s worst date brought an 8x10 headshot, flash drive with his reel, and a script he was writing. Ty stared at the guy and kept telling him he couldn’t get his script greenlit because his boss was in sports. We did a table read of the script over take out on that week’s roommate night, it was hysterically bad and had about 10,743 typos if I remember correctly.

We all made our way downstairs and outside to the pool. Harry had done a lot of work yesterday getting ready to have everyone here. I was clueless about it all as I’d been asleep the entire day. I hadn’t even realized he’d left my side because every hour on the hour he was walking me up, making me drink some water and checking on me before allowing me to go back to sleep. I walked over to where he was standing by the bar area. He had on a pair of swim trunks that were pretty short and showed off the tattoos on his thighs along with one of his designer floral print shirts. He was an expert at what Dads would wear on vacation. I wrapped my arms around him from behind hugging him tightly. He turned around to look at me, wrapping his arms around me.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he replied.

“Thank you for this.”

“I’m just grateful that you are feeling up to having everyone over. I don’t like seeing my girl sick.”

“Your girl doesn’t like being sick either.” He bent down to kiss me. “I’m excited for today and tonight and I’m actually sort of excited for tomorrow. Pops wasn’t a giant dick on the phone today.”

“We’ve been talking a lot over the last couple days so that he could get updates on you. He actually stopped by the house in between meetings while you were sleeping yesterday. He’s who delivered your lunch that you ate.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, he wanted to make sure our girl was okay.”

“Did he say that?”

“He did. I nearly shook you awake when he left because I was so blown away. He offered to pick up your lunch and brought food for me and Eliza as well. He was very kind when he stopped at the house, made small talk with me and stuck around for about 30, maybe 45 minutes.”

“Wow. Then why today when I said I’d text him the address did he not mention that he knew where you lived?”

“Not sure. But he does. He got the address from Ty I guess because he was on his way to the house when he called to tell me.”

“I think you could knock me over with a feather right now.”

“The same could’ve been said for me yesterday. But it is the progress we both wanted to see, right?”

“It is. It just might take some getting used to. James Scarcello doesn’t often admit he’s wrong so while we might see a change in his behavior we won’t likely ever see an apology for what he did. His apologies come as gifts, not words.”

“I don’t need an apology. I just need for him to not try and force us to end our relationship. I love you too much to lose you.”

“I love you too much to lose you.” He bent down and kissed me again, this time pulling my body closely to his. My hand snuck under his open shirt, resting over his heart. I could feel the speed of his heart rate increasing the longer we kissed. Just that feeling made me feel like my nerves were igniting and wish I could take him upstairs to our room and make love all day while our friends continued their fun without us. I knew I couldn’t do that though based on the yelling coming from Eliza. We broke the kiss and both turned just in time to see Joe finally flip Eliza’s raft over and then jump up on it. “Those two are hilarious.”

“I find it hard to believe it took them all this time as friends to figure out that they are good for each other.”

“We’ve always just been our group of friends. Nick threw the balance of The Force off initially when he asked Kammi out. It meant that the dynamic of part of our group was changing. I think Joe was probably nervous about doing that again. Plus he’s dated people that he traveled in the same social circle as before and when it ended a lot of bad things went down.”

“It’s never easy but sometimes it’s worth the risk. It obviously is with them.”

“It is. And I know he’s excited that this finally means he’s invited to Mexico. He told me that the Moms finally included him on the mass email that goes out to everyone about the trip. At some point I feel like the trip is going to grow and have to include the whole Jonas family and then we will need to just basically buy a resort because houses won’t hold us anymore.” Harry started to laugh a bit.

“I was included on that email as well.”

“I figured. Evidently my Dad is already planning stuff he can do with just you.” Harry started laughing. “I think he has a bit of a crush.”

“Your Dad is wonderful. It will be a good trip. Get lots of time together before…” I cut him off shaking my head and putting my hand over his mouth.

“We aren’t going to talk about that. We’ve got time before you leave me. I don’t want to start crying about it now. If we talk about this much longer I’m going to start bawling and then just be stressed about you leaving me for the summer and not knowing when I’ll get to see you. I can’t start that now.”

“Okay, no talking about me leaving right now.”

“E! Are you gonna get your ass in the pool?” Nick yelled.

“I am but I was having a moment over here. Jeez!”

“No tears about being apart this summer.” He gave me a quick soft kiss. “Now let’s go have some fun. But…”

“Not too much fun, I know.”

“Thank you.” He laughed a little as I turned to walk out towards the pool. I saw Kammi on a swan raft, Joe on a slice of pizza and Eliza resting her arms on the edge of the pool. Nick was talking to Eli and Ty while having his first cigar of the day. Everything felt so right. These were my people and judging by the flirting I was catching from Eli and Ty things looked promising for all of us. The day was fun and a good chance for us all to hang out and not talk about work, which typically consumed so much of our lives. Around 3:00 everyone filed out of the house so that they could all go home, grab a nap and get ready for their Saturday night plans. Nick and Joe were cooking dinner for Kammi and Eliza at their house. Eli had asked Ty to go out for dinner, which made all of us so excited.

“I’m tired.”

“You did a lot better today than I expected. I figured you’d try to leave and go take a nap a few hours ago.”

“I did consider it but it was fun. I needed to hear how week one of living together was going for Nick and Kammi. And it was way too much fun to watch Ty and Eli flirt with each other. I’m anxious for Ty to send a recap to all of us on the date.”

“Did you get the notification on your phone that I did?” he asked. I glanced down at my phone. There it was. Nick Jonas added Harry Styles to the group conversation titled ‘The Circus’.

“You got added to the group chat?”

“I evidently did. This is a big step, isn’t it?”

“It is.” We were finally done picking everything up and getting it put away in the kitchen. I wrapped my arms around Harry’s waist. “You know what else is a big step?”

“There's so many I could come up with that we’ve gone through.” He swayed back and forth with me.

“You moving me into your house.”

“Still not over that, huh?”

“Nope, it might take me a while to be over it.”

“Well, I wanted you to know that you could stay here as long as you wanted and whenever you wanted. Like when I’m gone this summer. You can stay here. You’ll have more privacy, more space, a pool.”

“I have two roommates that I live with.”

“I know this. And they can stay here if they want. My house will sit empty.”

“Yeah, if I stay here my condo will sit empty. You’re crazy. When you leave I’m going home. Hell you might just annoy me enough I go home before then.” I felt his hand sneak down my back and squeeze my ass. “Okay, that’s a lie. I won’t likely leave if you’re here unless you kick me out. But the only reason for that is sex.” He started to laugh loudly, his voice echoing off the walls of the house.

“Someone really is feeling sex crazed today.”

“I mean first of all, I’ve seen you naked or in swim trunks that are pretty much too small for you to wear in public for most of the day. You’re hot, parade yourself around scantily clad and shit happens. Second, remember back, all the way back, back to the beginning. I didn’t want to date you, but sex, that was another story.” He started laughing again. “I am a weak, weak woman.”

“You’re a very sexy woman and I enjoy how much you love sex. But I also think we need a nap before dinner.”

“Oh, I 100% agree with that. The only thing I like more than sex is sleep.”

“I don’t think a single person could dispute your love of sleep after the last few days. So let’s go nap.” We went upstairs, pulled off our swimsuits and crawled under the covers in bed. I rested my head on Harry’s chest as he played with my hair that was still damp from the pool. “So Emma sent me my schedule for filming today.”

“That’s good. You can start getting ready. We can buy all the stuff you’ll need while you’re gone.” I had known this was coming. Eliza and Emma included me on the email chain this week while they were working everything out. I knew that as this stuff started to get rolling that I’d need to not spill everything I knew all the time. Some of this stuff was Emma’s job to work out, not mine.

“I will literally fly straight to France from Mexico. You could fly out with me to be there while I get settled.”

“Harry, I love you and I love that idea but we have to walk a really fine line with some of this stuff, especially on this film. I’m not just your girlfriend and you know it would be really hard for me to go and just be your girlfriend and not constantly worry about work when you’re getting settled for your first film. Maybe you go and do that first week or two and I come out for a long weekend. We can have time while you’re not filming to spend together and while you’re filming I can just be a girlfriend and do the things a girlfriend would do, like explore the area her boyfriend is working in.”

“I wish you could just come for the whole time. That’s a thing that families do, right?”

“Sometimes, yes. Significant others or kids will go and stay while they are filming but a lot of the time it’s just the time between or maybe a visit while they are there. But my role in your life isn’t just as a significant other. Most people don’t bring their managers for an entire shoot. Just the occasional pop in unless they have a lot of clients in which case it’s rare to see a manager or agent on set unless it’s in LA and they can go for like an hour.”

“You have a lot of clients.”

“I do and I have a lot who are getting ready to go into the studio or out on tour. I’ve been ignoring a lot of the stuff I normally do in favor of spending time with this really hot guy that is part of my life. I need to start doing my normal stuff, but just maybe leave the office at a reasonable time.”

“Maybe next weekend we lock ourselves in the house or go up to Malibu, just us. Get in some quality time before we start traveling again and before I leave. We’ve done a lot of stuff where we are with a lot of people whether it’s The Circus or your family and coming up is traveling with a lot of people and going to visit my family. I just want some time with my girl.”

“I can maybe arrange that. I do really wish I could just be the girlfriend that follows you around and just gets to enjoy being with you. But I also enjoy that I get to be your manager because goddammit babe, I’m so proud of you.” He smiled big as he hugged me tightly.

“I don’t think I’d want to have to pick one or the other so I’m okay with learning how we navigate this. Neither of us have done this before so it’s something we get to do together.”

“No one I’d rather figure it out with more than you.” Him playing with my hair eventually lulled me into the nap we were supposed to be taking. I woke up after about 45 minutes and started to get ready for our dinner. “Hey, where did we decide we are going? Do I need to dress nicer?”

“Yeah,” he called back. I looked through what Harry and Ty had stolen from my closet at home or work and added to the closet here. I found a bluish gray wrap maxi dress and decided on that. It had a high slit because of the wrap and was a little low cut. He told me this morning to wear something sexy so I was going to go with that theme. I hung it up in the closet before going back into the bathroom to do my hair and makeup. I saw my phone buzz on the counter.

The Circus Conversation
TK: What the fuck am I supposed to wear on this date? You three girls are FAILING. I pick out your outfits for every first date you go on. When I have one you’re all too busy. I need new friends.
ER: You’ll look great in whatever you wear. Plus you’re the stylist out of all of us.
KM: Wear jeans and a t-shirt with a jacket or something. I mean we all know you could wear a garbage bag and look better than most people.
NJ: We should’ve all gone back to the condo with you. What time are you meeting Eli?
TK: Not until 8:30 but you all know I get weird and have to pick out what I’m wearing far enough in advance that I don’t freak out.
HS: Eli likes you Ty. I don’t think what you wear will matter.
ES: You look hot in black. Black jeans and a black sweater. I just looked at the weather and it’s supposed to get cold tonight. On that note, did you send a jacket that would look cute with that gray wrap dress?
TK: Yeah, your leather jacket that you wear with that is there.
KM: How do you know what’s in her closet?
TK: I packed a bunch of shit up and sent it with Eliza to send to the house.
JJ: Ev, did you move yourself in?
ES: No…he moved me in. I had no part in this covert operation to move me into nearly half of the closet. This morning I thought I had like 1/10th of it. I just realized I have about half of it. How much do I have left at home?
ER: Not much, honestly. It’s either at the office or Harry’s. You’ve got a capsule wardrobe that Ty built left at home.
TK: A brilliant capsule wardrobe she will never see.
JJ: Harry, you moved her in?
HS: Her suitcase was giving me anxiety. Every time a suitcase sits on the floor of my closet I think it means I need to get ready to leave for months on end. Especially if it’s big as the one she had. So I just decided it was time to hang the clothes up. Then Ty, EJ and I thought it was time to give her more options so she didn’t walk of shame her way through the office anymore.
NJ: Big move dude. If you get sick of her at least she still has a home.
KM: HEY! You aren’t sick of me and I’m likely to get sick of you first. FYI I have a capsule wardrobe at the condo too. I can always go home.
TK: Now would be the perfect time for all of you to get sick of your boyfriends and come home. I need my girls.
HS: We are probably going to be ready for our dinner early. Want Evie and I to stop by and help?
TK: Yes, please.
HS: We will leave in like 10 minutes. She can finish her makeup at home since you restocked her bathroom with everything.
ES: You all bought me new makeup too? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK PEOPLE?
ER: It’s sweet. And don’t worry, he paid for it all.
ES: That is what I was worried about. Don’t worry I’m glaring at him.

“Your glare is terrifying.” He started to laugh at me as he looked at me in the mirror. He was completely dressed and ready. I was finishing the last curl in my hair.

“You’re lucky that I have to put my dress on so we can leave or I would hit you right now.”

“It wouldn’t hurt, you’re little.” I slugged him in the arm while I walked by. “Okay, it actually does hurt. I should’ve listened to your Dad when he warned me.”

“Yes, you should have listened to my Dad. He knows better than most that I pack a punch. He’s also who taught me how to box when I was 10.”

“10?” Harry asked. He was finishing his hair while I got my dress on.

“Yeah, he wanted to make sure that I knew how to defend myself. So he taught me how to box. I would never in a million years compete but it’s a good work out.”

“Oh, I know. I also box.”

“I know what we are doing this week.” He peeked his head into the closet and started to laugh at me.

“You want to box?”

“Yeah, you need to know that I pack a punch. So next time you think of moving my shit you think twice.”

“You aren’t going to get over that soon are you?”

“Absolutely not. I have to explain tomorrow to my father that my boyfriend hijacked my wardrobe and moved me into his house when we’ve been dating roughly three weeks.”

“Well, your Dad was onboard with it. Your Mom encouraged it and actually texted me with a few things you have at home that you might like here. She’s the one that suggested your pillows being here.”

“My family is the absolute worst,” I said while laughing. I finished putting my dress on and grabbed a pair of heels.

“Fuck, you look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I replied as I walked towards him and moved to my tip toes to kiss him. “Now let’s go since I’m finishing my makeup at the condo so we can help Ty.” We headed downstairs and out to the car. It was weird to think that Harry had only been at the condo once and he’d more or less moved me into his house. To anyone outside of our relationship we were weird and I knew that was how it probably would come off to an outsider. But we were happy and truly that was all that mattered. It didn’t take long for Harry to arrive at the condo and park the car. We were quiet as we headed to the elevator, he grabbed my hand as we leaned against the wall. As we reached my floor the elevator gave off it's high pitched ding.

“I love you.” He was speaking quietly. “I hadn’t told you in a while.”

“I love you, too.” I laughed. A while had been since earlier today when he felt like he just needed to tell me. He was so liberal with his use of the phrase. Sometimes when you hear something a lot or experience something a lot it loses it’s special feeling, but not this. Every time he said the words my heart jumped into my throat, my heart rate sped up and goosebumps covered my skin. It was like hearing the most beautiful song for the first time each and every time he said the words. As I grabbed my keys from my purse to unlock the door my phone started ringing. I grabbed the phone not looking at the number. “This is Everlee,” I answered.

“What are you doing? We are supposed to be helping Ty and then going on a date,” Harry said making a somewhat angry face at me. I flipped him off.

“Hey E,” came the sound of a voice I hadn’t heard in a while and a voice I loved more than nearly any other. I could feel the smile spread across my face.

“Holy shit. You’re alive and evidently rediscovered telephone.”

“Yeah, I have a manager who bullied me. Mailed me a bloody fucking iPhone and told me to turn it on or find new representation.”

“Well when I manage to get you a year off it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to disappear.”

“I haven’t totally. In fact I will be in LA this week. I land Monday early, taking a red eye tomorrow night.”

“Can I claim you Monday afternoon? We can do dinner Monday night.”

“I’d enjoy that. Are you gonna cook for me?”

“I could. I mean it’s too bad you won’t be in town tomorrow. I'm making meatballs for Jimmy and his girlfriend for dinner.”

“And me!” Harry interrupted. He clearly didn’t like not knowing who I was on the phone with and who was going to steal me from him on Monday.

“Well shit, it’s too bad I’m not on an earlier flight. I enjoy watching you try to play nice with Jimmy’s girlfriends.”

“I know you do. So why don’t you tell me what I’m fixing or where I need to make a reservation and we can do dinner. It won’t just be us though.”

“Eliza need to join us?”

“Actually no, I have a new man in my life that is getting sort of bitchy about the fact that I haven’t told him who I am on the phone with.”

“You have a boyfriend? I clearly should've gotten a cell phone sooner.”

“Yeah, you probably should have. This is one you’ll approve of.”

“Do I know the bloke?”

“You do. A friend of yours actually.”

“Now you’ve got me curious.”

“He’s tall, maybe 6’1”. A bit on the skinny side. And has a shitty tattoo that is your handiwork on his wrist. And I perhaps owe him a bit for one of your larger hits.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“He’s being obnoxious as fuck right now. I might have changed my mind by Monday night.” Harry was trying to get me to pay attention to him and started to throw crackers at me that he’d found sitting on the counter in the kitchen. “Harry, if you don’t fucking stop throwing crackers at me I’m leaving you at home and going to dinner with your friends without you.”

“Who are you on the phone with?”

“Ed you dumb shit.” Ed was laughing hysterically on the other end of the line.

“Wait…he got a phone again.” I clicked to put him on speakerphone.

“Actually mate, your girlfriend mailed me an iPhone and told me to turn it on and call her or look for new representation.”

“Sounds like her. She’s so warm and loving, isn’t she?”

“She is. Okay so I land at like 11:15 Monday morning. E can you pick me up at the airport?”

“Of course. We can grab lunch and work from my office on Monday. I’ve got some ideas for you, you’ve got some demos for me and we’ve got some interest in some songs and a few artists that want to schedule sessions.”

“Sounds brilliant. I’ll see you Monday morning. Harry, stop picking on her, I know from experience that it rarely ends well.”

“Thanks for the advice mate. I’ll stop in Monday to her office. Tell her what you want to eat and I’ll run to the store for her.”

“You’re her errand boy now, aren’t you?”

“Basically.” I laughed listening to the two of them talk.

“Alright, Monday morning Ed. I'll see you then. Love you.”

“Love you too, E. And you Harry.” I hung up the phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me that’s who was on the phone?”

“Because I haven’t heard from him in six weeks. I was more concerned with talking to my artist. Sometimes I won’t be able to tell you who I’m talking to. You can’t throw crackers at me every time.”

“Sorry, it was there and I thought I could use it as ammo.”

“Stop fighting and come help me!” Ty called from his bedroom. We both headed down the hall to find Ty’s bedroom roughly resembling an area that FEMA would have declared a disaster and immediately called the National Guard in for assistance.

“What the fuck, Ty?” I asked.

“I’m nervous. Everything makes me feel fat. I don’t know what to wear.”

“We’re here to help, Ty. Sit down and let Evie and I figure it out for you,” Harry said. I started to go through his closet with Harry. We found a nice pair of jeans, a striped top and a blazer as option one. Then a white t-shirt and black leather jacket to match the same jeans as option two. “Do we need a third?”

“Yes,” I said. I kept digging and found a pair of black pants and a burgundy sweater. “I think this is it. I don’t know how he manages to find the clothes he hasn’t worn in a good year and a half in these instances but he always does.” Harry laughed a little. “Alright, Tyberius, you are a wonderful man. You are handsome, intelligent, and will find the person you are supposed to be with some day. It may not be today and if it’s not, that’s okay.”

“I know.” He relaxed a little bit.

“And what is it that we tell ourselves?”

“That when love is supposed to walk into our lives it will.”

“And…”

“That a relationship and the love of another person doesn’t define us and will never complete us.”

“Exactly. I love you Tyberius Alan.”

“I love you too, Everlee Mae.” Ty and I had both been through rough relationships. He'd been in love once too. The guy was older and basically treated Ty like he was arm candy. Having lost his parents young made Ty for a while feel like he needed someone to love him that wasn’t his Grandma or Grandpa. This guy made Ty feel great for a while and then when he decided to stop making Ty feel great, he made him feel broken and miserable. It took a long time to fix that. He had forgotten how to value himself and how amazing he was. It was a sad situation but was part of what we bonded over. I spent the last two years of my relationship feeling like I deserved to be thrown out with the trash every time I was blown off by Drew. It’s part of why I felt so lucky to have found Harry. Eliza had always played the field, she would think a guy was great and get bored easily. Finally with Joe she’d met her match. Kammi had always been more concerned about sports and only occasionally casually dated a few guys until she moved to LA and started dating Nick. Ty had finally gotten the courage to leave his boyfriend when he moved to Los Angeles. The guy had reappeared a few times when he had business trips to Los Angeles but we did our best to keep Ty from falling back into that rabbit hole.

“Thank you, Everlee. I need that reminder sometimes.”

“I know. I need it too on occasion.” I gave him a hug as he stood up. “Now which outfit do you like?”

“I vote the leather jacket,” Harry said. “I had suggested a shirt that you have that has a really bold pattern, E told me no.”

“Of course she did. It’s not a good first date outfit. How you managed to get her to go on a date with you is beyond me. You had a really bold print shirt on for your first date, she sent me a picture of it. It was a little too wild for my taste.” I started to laugh. “I’m surprised that she let you out of the house in this one too.” Harry’s jaw dropped open and he started to laugh.

“He’s kidding. And this shirt is actually sort of tame in comparison to some of your other shirts.” Harry flipped me off. “Your wild shirts aren’t too much for his taste, just wait until we get to Mexico. I think you look cute in whatever you choose to wear, even if it’s weird, which a lot of it’s weird.”

“Okay, I’ll get dressed. Go finish your makeup, I don’t want to make you two late for your dinner because you had to come help me.”

“Alright, we will be in my room if you need anything.” I kissed Ty’s cheek and we left his room and headed to mine.

“You were good at calming him down.”

“It's a trick. He can do the same to me. He’s done it a few too many times actually.”

“Why?”

“We both have shitty taste in men, well, had shitty taste in men. Ty’s ex basically wanted a boy toy. I think they were together almost two years. Guy had a lot of money, big on Wall Street. Paid for Ty to travel with him, bought him a lot of lavish gifts, and Ty moved into his penthouse which he didn’t pay a dime of rent on when they’d been together two months. He offered to pay for the rest of school when Ty’s grandpa got sick and he was worried they wouldn’t have the money to help with school, which was really a non-worry, his grandparent’s are loaded. The guy basically just wanted to be a sugar daddy and for a while Ty was happy, until the guy started to act like an ass all the time. He didn’t like the idea that Ty wanted to get a job when he graduated from college. He basically wanted Ty to be his trophy husband he was an absolute jerk about us planning our trip after graduation to travel Europe. Part of why he decided to move to LA was to get away from that relationship.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you? I mean you haven’t really gotten to spend a lot of time with Ty which is my fault. I’ve been hogging you except with Eliza.”

“We should do dinner with Ty this week. I’d like to get to know him better.”

“Okay, I would like that.” I finished my makeup and we were out the door after checking on Ty again. We headed through the city to where we were having dinner and were taken in and to our table. Ben and Meredith were waiting, after quick hugs we sat down and ordered a bottle of wine to split.

“How is everything going, Everlee?” Meredith asked. I’d met her at a few events in Hollywood that Ben would attend, she was a sweet person.

“Really well. We just got back from Chicago, we went home for my younger brother’s 16th birthday party. We’ve got a few more trips planned before I lose this one for the summer,” I said as I ran my fingers through the hair above Harry’s ear.

“You got the role?” Ben asked. Harry nodded. “Congratulations man, that’s incredible. Are you excited?”

“Extremely excited. A bit bummed that Evie can’t join me for the whole trip but she’s got to work.”

“Lots going on?” I nodded my response to Ben as I took a drink of my wine.

“I’ve got a lot of artists in the studio hoping for late summer releases. I have a week of stacked meetings I’m sure since I haven’t been in the office for two weeks. And now I have to clear my Monday. Shit, I need to text Eliza about that.” I grabbed my phone to fire off a text.

“What is Monday?” Meredith questioned.

“Ed will be in town. He’s been taking time off but has demos to play me. I hadn’t heard from him in six weeks until today. When he’s flying in from England, I clear my schedule.”

“I can see that,” Ben replied. “Any news on music for this one?”

“I have a list of producers I think he should meet with. I need to get the meetings set up over the next week or two so that we can get it nailed down before he goes off to work on the film. That way when he is done he can go into the studio and get to work. Need to strike while the iron is hot. If I let him go too long people may not care that the curly one from One Direction is releasing music. As much as I hate saying this in front of him, most boybands have a shelf life. One Direction is a bit different but odds say they won’t all get to be the Justin Timberlake of their group.”

“She’s smart. I listen to her when she tells me to do something.” Harry smiled.

“That’s usually a good plan,” Julia said laughing a bit as she and James were brought to the table. We stood hugging them quickly.

“Always listen to the lady,” James added. “She's usually right.”

“Don’t inflate her ego too much.” I flipped Harry off.

The conversation during dinner was easy and flowed well. It was different seeing Harry with people who were obviously incredibly important to him. He was at ease with them in a way I hadn’t seen him. He laughed louder. His dimples were so deep I was sure that I could swim in them. His eyes lit up when both couples talked about their kids and did the typical digital parent move and pulled up recent photos of the kids on their phones. There was talk of us having dinner with Ben and Meredith at their house this week so that Harry could see Ruby, she evidently missed him and was disappointed she wasn’t invited to dinner. Meredith said she cried a bit about it and so they promised that Harry would come visit soon. James did have stories to share about Harry that had me laughing all night and Harry’s cheeks turning a bit pink with embarrassment. It was an earlier night than I was used to for a Saturday because everyone needed to return home and relieve nannies for the night.

“I didn’t realize you were Ruby’s godfather.”

“I am. She’s an amazing kid.”

“You keep surprising me, Styles.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you were so at ease tonight. It was good to see.”

“I’m always at ease around you. What do you mean by that?”

“You are at ease around me. But I’ve observed you around my friends and my family, it’s natural to be a bit on edge, we are still new. With them you were yourself in a way that I haven't seen outside of us being at home just as us.”

“I guess I didn’t think about that. I mean I lived with Ben and Meredith for so long that they are basically family. James and Ben are so close that it's only natural that he and Julia are part of my life. They’ve all joked that if I went much longer without working that the next time I showed up at the studio I was going to have to start getting everyone in the office coffee like an intern.” I laughed as I reached to hold his hand while we drove back to his house.

“You’re about the right age to be an intern. Just finishing with college and looking for the first job in the real world.”

“Would you have hired me?”

“No,” I said. He looked at me appalled. “You’re too cute. It would be completely unethical to hire an intern because I wanted to sleep with him. So it’s a good thing it’s only sort of unethical to sleep with a client.” He laughed loudly.

“I’m glad you have a questionable ethics then.” He pulled into the driveway and up to the house. The view from this house still blew my mind when I looked out the windows late at night at the city sparkling below us. “Want another glass of wine?”

“No, I should save myself for tomorrow. There will be beer during the game and wine with dinner.”

“So tomorrow, what is Nonna’s typical Sunday dinner?”

“Meatballs, it’s a long process.”

“The ones that we ate at her house in Chicago.” I nodded. “I’m excited about that. Do I get to help you cook?”

“If you want to.”

“I would like to help you. We can get up and go to the store in the morning.”

“Okay, I’ll let Eliza know we’ve got it covered.”

“I actually don’t usually mind going to the grocery store.”

“I usually have mine delivered every week. Saves time.” Harry laughed. “I like to make sure I’m efficient. I typically have a lot of shit to do.”

“Like me? This slit in this dress killed me all night.”

“I’m glad it served it’s purpose.” He started to lead me up the stairs to the bedroom. When we made it in the master I went to shut the lights off as he kissed me.

“Wait, I forgot I had something to give you.” He escaped and went into the closet quickly and came out with a box that was clearly from Tiffany & Co. My heart beat sped up.

“What the hell?”

“Just open it,” he said as he handed me the box. I slid the iconic white bow off and opened it. Inside was a soft teal pouch. I opened it and found a keyring inside with one key and a charm that had a simple ’S’ on it. “It’s a key to the house. You can come and go whenever you want whether I’m here or not. And I was trying to find something cute to put it on and since both of us have an S with our last name it made sense.”

“It’s very sweet, H. Thank you.”

“I had intended on giving this to you before you saw that I’d moved some of your clothes here. I sort of failed at that.”

“It’s okay, it’s a very sweet gesture. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied before taking the box and setting it on the nightstand. He quickly shut the light off before reaching for me. “Now back to what we came up here to do.”

Notes