Harry Who?

I woke up Saturday morning feeling sick from drinking too much the night before. Luckily Harry was still sleep, so he missed that unpleasantness. I ordered us some room service for breakfast and by the time it arrived Harry woke up.

"I could get used to this," he said and joined me for breakfast.

"What?" I asked.

"Coming home to find you in my room," he smiled.

"I could definitely get used to that. And this," I pointed out the room service, and the soft hotel robe I was wearing.

“I see you’re out of my clothes,” he teased and took a bite of toast. “What was that all about?”

I blushed and put my coffee down. “Sorry about that, I don’t know what got into me, but I feel like I owe you an explanation. I just wish I had one that made sense...”

He took another bite and kept watching me thoughtfully. “You’re not like, having feelings for him again, are you?” He sounded like he was trying to tease me, but he looked like he was bracing himself for an emotional blow.

“God no, Harry, nothing like that. You know I only have eyes for you,” I pretended to sound romantic.

“Do I know that?” He asked, and clarified, “I mean, I don’t really know you that well. We don’t really talk about that kind of stuff. I didn’t know you had a brother, or an ex boyfriend who played hockey.”

My heart started to race. He sounded very casual, but I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What do you want to know?” I tried to ask lightly.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just feel weird. You could Google me and find out where I’m from, and who my parents are, and all kinds of stuff. I have to find out about you the old fashioned way, the way normal people do. You know, by talking.”

I laughed, and he returned my smile. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I haven’t Googled you. I don’t even know how old you are, though I assume you’re 21 since I’ve seen you drinking and we’re in the States.”

He nodded. “That is accurate, I am 21. Nice detective work Nancy Drew. You mentioned you went to university, so you’re like 22?”

“23, I graduated last year. And I studied political science, in case you’re wondering.”

He sat up and leaned forward to look at me more closely. “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that. You work at a bookstore, so I would have thought you were an English major, or some kind of arts.”

I laughed and put my coffee down to get some toast. “Heck no, I don’t have that kind of creativity.”

We munched on breakfast for a few moments until he had a new question for me. “So, if working in a bookstore wasn’t your dream job, what is?” He asked.

I blushed and looked away. “Nothing worth mentioning.”

“Come on, what did little Elloise want to be when she grew up?” He gave an irresistibly cute smile, dimples and all, and I could not resist.

“When we were younger, my brother Scott and I always wanted to play in the NHL together.” I blushed, not sure why I was embarrassed, but Harry smiled. “Obviously, women can’t play in the NHL, so I opted to pursue a different league, but I didn’t even make it that far.”

“Sorry, Ell, that sucks. If they didn’t want you, that’s their loss.” He put his hand reassuringly on my shoulder.

“No, it’s not that they didn’t want me, I just....I played hockey in college (which is how I met Glen), and I was pretty good, I guess, I was okay enough to hopefully have some kind of career afterwards. I even represented Canada internationally a few times - not the Olympics - but I was decent enough. So, uh, I guess you could Google me too, and read my hockey stats.” I joked and tried to smile. “But senior year, I got these,” I started to pull up my shirt.

“Why are you taking your shirt off?” He asked, but trailed off when he saw the scars on my ribs. “Did your ex do that to you?” He asked, his teeth clenched, his eyes shining bright green.

The corners of my mouth lifted into a slight smile. “Are you being protective of me?”

“Did he hurt you?” Harry asked again. “And why are you smiling?” His sudden tenseness started to melt.

“No, he didn’t hurt me.” I shook my head. I hated talking about myself, especially when it came to hockey. “I was pretty badly injured in a game. For school spirit week my senior year of college the girls hockey team played a scrimmage game against the boys team, which my brother and Glen played on. It was supposed to be fun, but, I’m about 5’7”, at the time around 135 lbs, and one of their defencemen was nearly a foot taller and probably had a hundred pounds on me. It was an accident, but he’s huge, and had a lot of momentum; he accidentally sent me flying into the goalposts, and then crashed into me.” I took off the rest of my shirt and my jeans to show him the scars and explained each injury. “Basically, my hockey career = over.”

His eyes looked so sad and sympathetic it was almost making me sad again. “Oh, fuck Ell, that’s really awful. That must have really fucking hurt. How do you even…” He trailed off and I watched his eyes dart over the scars again.

“What?” I asked.

“How do you deal with it? I would be absolutely devastated and depressed.” He looked so concerned and sad I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, it was hard at first, but I still play hockey for fun. And honestly, as a woman, playing professional hockey is not a realistic career.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, I had a lot of time to think about it when I was in the hospital, and going through physical therapy. That was also when Glen dumped me, so, it was a good time to start over clean slate, no hockey, no boyfriend.”

“What a douche,” Harry replied, and knitted his brows in disapproval. “Who breaks up with their girlfriend when she’s in the hospital?”

“Yeah, well, it was kind of mutual, actually,” I quietly corrected. “He kinda wanted me to go with him while he played in the NHL. But, I needed to spend months in physical therapy after getting surgery, so packing up and moving to another city, in another country, was not really an option for me at the moment. So, I chose to stay, and he left, and that was the end of it. Or at least that’s what I thought, until I saw him yesterday.”

Harry was quiet for a moment as he took that all in. “So, you didn’t want to try a long distance relationship?” I could tell what he was getting at, and I needed to reassure him that the distance was not an issue.

“No, it was not the distance that broke us up; we had other problems too. We’d been together since freshman year when we had English together and didn’t even realize we both played hockey until I saw him at practice one day,” I smiled and laughed quietly, but Harry did not seem to enjoy that sentiment. “But by senior year everything was different. He had been one of the school’s star players and he considered leaving college early to play professionally, but he always said he stayed for me. To be honest, I think he wasn’t good enough, and that’s why he stayed,” I added. “Had things been different between us at that point, I would have tried to make it work.”

He nodded, “That’s reassuring to know.”

I smiled and felt a little relieved. “So, enough about my ex boyfriend. Tell me all about your ex’s,” I joked.

“Who do you want to hear about, Taylor Swift?” He laughed, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“Wait, are you for some reason jokingly calling me Taylor Swift? Or do you mean she’s your ex?” I was trying to hide my excitement. I used to love her when I was in high school!

He laughed, then blushed. “No, we dated. You really do live under a rock, don’t you?”

I ignored his comment. “You dated Taylor Swift? Wow, I you really are wayyy out of my league. Fuck.”

“You’re just realizing this now?” He teased, and earned a light punch in the arm from me.

“Ouch, now I know why you’re so strong, from all the hockey.” He rubbed his arm.

“Sorry,” I shrugged.

He shook his head and smiled. “That is such a Canadian thing to say.” He leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek as he stood up. “Apologizing for being too strong from playing hockey.”’

“Where’re you going?” I asked as he started getting dressed.

“30 Rock, for SNL,” he grinned. “You can get dinner with us tonight, if you want.”

“Sure, I’d like that,” I gave him a quick kiss goodbye before there was a knock at the door, our reminder that Harry was here working and not on vacation, like I was.

“See you tonight!”

I had another whole day to myself in New York City and it was my last day, so I hit all the places I hadn’t visited yet. I waited in line at the Empire State Building for a long time, but damn it was worth it. After visiting a few other places, I had some time left so I went back to central park to watch the little sailboats for a while.

*Where are you? Harry texted.

I told him where I was, and he said he’d be right there. I looked around and saw quite a few other people out, and wondered how he was just going to walk into central park unnoticed. However, 20 minutes later, Harry, along with several bodyguards, and Louis, Liam, and Niall did, in fact, walk into central park. I almost didn’t recognize them, they were wearing wigs, and maybe some makeup?

“What is this?” I asked and touched Harry’s shirt. I’d never seen him wear anything this…normal before.

“We’re in a skit tonight, and these are our costumes,” Louis explained and twirled to show off his whole outfit.

“They let you wear this out in public?” I asked.

“Yeah, as long as we don’t get anything on them.” Liam answered.

“I thought we were getting dinner,” Niall interrupted. “I’m hungry.”

“Me too. I was told there would be dinner,” I looked at Harry.

“Yes, there is dinner.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and we all walked over to the Loeb Boathouse, where they had reservations under a fake name. They all kept looking around, waiting to get noticed, but the place was busy and no one seemed to notice One Direction sitting right in front of them.

“This is really nice,” I said to Harry, holding his hand in public for the first time. “If only you weren’t wearing those ugly glasses.”

“But without them, I wouldn’t be able to do this,” he leaned closer and drew me into a long, passionate kiss I was more than willing to reciprocate. I finally pulled away, feeling embarrassed to make out in front of the guys and their bodyguards (who were dressed normally to blend in).

“What, you’re embarrassed to be seen kissing me like this?” Harry teased.

“No, I’m just not into PDA.”

“Then we’re more perfect for each other than I thought,” he replied.

I thought back to that first time we went out in public together and the list of things we weren’t supposed to do. “Yeah, I guess so,” I smiled.

“It’s time for you guys to get back to set,” one of the bodyguards said and drew Harry and I back to reality. I held hands with him all the way back to 30 Rock and even got to hang out backstage while they got their makeup and costumes touched up.

When it was finally time for me to take my place in the audience, Harry kissed me goodbye. “You’re going to love tonight’s show,” he said.

“I’m sure I will, I’m really excited!” I said. I had never been to a live event like this, other than a concert, but this was totally different. When the guys came out with their wigs and ‘normal’ clothes the crowed went crazy. They were actually really funny, I could not stop laughing at Harry. They were back in their regular clothes by the time they had to perform. They sang ‘Night Changes’ the first time, and another song I didn’t recognize the second time they performed. Harry must have known where I was sitting because I swear he was looking right at me. It was amazing, and I knew, in that moment, I would do anything to make this work between us.

We woke up late Sunday morning after staying out way too late Saturday night. My head hurt, but I had a lot of fun at the after parties.

Harry and I ate breakfast in our room for the last time before we both left. I was heading back to Ottawa, and he was going onto the next part of the tour. I couldn’t get that thought I had the night before out of my head, and I needed to clear things up before we parted ways again. After we’d both finished eating I snuggled up close to him.

“Harry, I hate to do this, but before I go I just have to know: what are we?” I looked up at him and his eyes looked uncertain, almost scared.

“Damn Ellie, for a second I thought you were breaking up with me,” he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer. “I don’t know what we are. Do you mean, like, are we dating?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I didn’t come all the way to New York just to have sex with you and be a tourist. I could do that with anyone,” I paused. “Well, not anyone, but what I mean is, you’re the only person I would do that for right now. So, I guess, that makes you my boyfriend?”

He looked down at me again, and I could tell he was thinking. I felt embarrassed, because maybe that’s not how he saw it. I turned my head to hide my face in his chest, to wait for him to finally say something.

“Yeah, something like that.” He rested his chin on my head and I held him tighter. That was not exactly the answer I was looking for, but if that’s how he felt I wasn’t going to argue. “I don’t know. I’m trying really hard not to fall in love with you because the way things are now, there isn’t much a of a future for ‘us,’ whatever that is.”

I pulled away from him to look him in the eyes. “Harry, now it sounds like you’re breaking up with me.”

“I’m not, but…” he bit his lip and his sad green eyes made me want to rush back into his arms.

“But what? We’re either dating, or we’re not.” I took a step back out of his embrace. This was not ending the way I thought it would, but perhaps it was inevitable
.
“I don’t know if we can,” he finally said. “I still have a month left on this tour, and then…. Then I don’t know what. I don’t know how we could be together.”

I could tell he didn’t want to say any of this to me, and it hurt like hell to hear it, but this didn’t have to be the end. We could find a way. “Harry, I would quit my job in a heartbeat; I am not tied to Ottawa in any way, or even Canada. I would give it all up if you wanted me to. Just say the word, Harry, and I’m yours.”

Notes

Longer chapter than I expected, but I wanted to wrap up their New York trip (I meant to do it in one chapter, but stuff came up). Things are changing a little between Ellie and Harry, and it might be a few days before the next chapter as I figure things out.