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It’s funny, Taylor thinks as she speed walks through the baking aisle at Selena’s heels. She used to dream about this when she was a kid, during the fourteen years she spent in drizzly Pennsylvania. She spent hours daydreaming about the fancy grocery stores, the famous friends, the lights and the cameras and the fans at every turn, about having everything she ever wanted. Her hands look translucent under the fluorescent lights. And now all she can think about is running back to the East Coast as fast as her legs will carry her and losing herself in a city she’s still afraid of.
They’re in Whole Foods, and jet lag is threatening to consume her in a way it hasn’t in a long time. Selena’s next to her, and they have plans to bake later and dissect the dissolution of her relationship with Adam, but it’s not as appealing as it seemed last night on the plane.
“I think I’m gonna fly to New York tonight,” Taylor says, as they come to a stop in front of a wall of flour. Coconut flour. Almond flour. Gluten-free flour. Too many choices. Too much. There’s nothing she wants more than to run, not walk out of this store empty handed, through the inevitable crowd of fans and into the safety of a black Range Rover. Into the quiet.
“Hmm?” Selena hums, preoccupied with the selection in front of her. Taylor rubs her eyes and tries to ignore the stares they’re getting as she waits for her to process.
“I just want to hide for about 25 years. Like, hit a reset button. Hibernate for a bit,” Taylor says.
Selena turns to face her, face open and a little tired. “Is that what you need?” she asks, grabbing a bag of almond flour.
Taylor can’t even think about baking right now. She shrugs. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I want. I just want to stop giving so much of myself away every time things fall apart.”
Selena huffs out a laugh as they head to the check out. “Okay. Just, you should call me, if it feels like too much. Talking to me isn’t giving anything away, babe.”
She rests her chin on Selena’s shoulder as they make their way through the self checkout. She’s sure there will be pictures of this everywhere tomorrow. She cares so much she thinks she’s crossed the threshold into not caring at all. When you’re Taylor Swift, everything requires damage control.
That was Swift!, the headlines will read. But it wasn’t, Taylor wants to shout. It was the longest relationship she’d ever had.
-
The plane ride from Los Angeles to New York is stupidly long. Taylor knows this, intimately even, but it’s irritating anyway. She tries to sleep for most of it, but her brain just won’t shut off. Maybe she needs to buy an island, or something. Just so she has some place to really get away. New York seemed like a good idea when she was in LA, but now that she’s in the air, it doesn’t feel like enough.
The end of her relationship with Adam wasn’t like anything she’d ever experienced before. It was quiet. There was no one thing that caused it, just one minute she thought they were making it, and the next, they weren’t anymore. It’s almost more devastating, maybe because she just didn’t see it coming. Taylor’s used to blow outs, big, crushing endings. If, then, because. She knows how to navigate messy break ups. She doesn’t know what to do with this, though. She tried so hard. Tried to make it effortless and fun, tried to ignore the papers and the paparazzi and the rumors. Maybe the two years alone made her more desperate than she thought.
Maybe she’s different. Taylor looks down at her nails. She’s picked one of her cuticles bloody, and she hisses with pain. At least her manicure isn’t chipped, yet.
Maybe she thought she’d suffered enough. It doesn’t work that way, she knows. But she’d hoped.
-
Her apartment is dark, and Taylor stumbles right into bed. For all that she couldn’t sleep on the plane, now she’s exhausted. Her phone lights up, and it’s so dark in her room that it’s momentarily blinding. It’s Ed, so she swipes it open, sees that he’s in the city.
‘Room service!! 4 seasons belated bday celebration?’ Taylor closes her eyes. She’d missed Ed on her birthday. She’d missed everyone on her birthday, really. She’d been too jet lagged and too stunned from the break up to really celebrate.
‘Napping. 1hr.’ she types back, and fumbles to set an alarm on her phone.
It lights up again, just as she’s drifting off. Taylor cracks an eye to see a response from Ed, and another text from a number that she doesn’t recognize. She can’t see the preview, because you can never be too careful. She hopes she doesn’t have to change her number again.
Taylor knows she shouldn’t be so paranoid, it’s close enough to her birthday, it could be anyone. She’s usually good at saving numbers, but she’s felt jumbled lately.
She decides it can wait. Nap, first. It’s not like her phone’s going to self destruct in the meantime. This is supposed to be a break, a disconnect, anyway.
-
Taylor’s still exhausted when she wakes up, but she arranges a car to take her to Ed’s hotel anyway. Tequila. Maybe that’s what she needs. She puts on a skirt and stockings that make her legs look even longer and a shirt that’s probably too thin, considering it’s December in New York.
She texts Selena from the car, ‘drinking with Ed,’ and gets a response immediately.
‘don’t do anything i wouldn’t do,’ Selena types. Taylor smiles before she taps the message from the number she didn’t recognize.
‘you probably don’t have my number anymore, but thought i’d let you know i’m hanging with ed in his hotel room for the weekend .x H’
Taylor’s far enough removed from three years ago that she doesn’t flinch at the x’s Harry always ends his texts with.
She and Harry are fine, for lack of a better word. They dated, then they hooked up for a while, then they were friends, then they were acquaintances. Are acquaintances.
She knows Ed well enough to know that he probably thinks the whole thing will just be a harmless laugh, and most of the time, he’d probably be right. Taylor’s just tired, is the thing. She’s tired, from jet lag and from ex boyfriends, and she doesn’t really feel like navigating an evening with an ex turned friend turned acquaintance.
It’s fine. It’s fine, but maybe she should’ve stayed in her apartment. Hell, maybe she should’ve stayed in LA, made cookies with almond flour with Selena.
The car rolls to a stop in front of the Four Seasons. Taylor hopes there aren’t any cameras, but she’s also realistic. There are almost always cameras, and tonight she’s too tired to hide. Too tired to care. So she ignores them when she steps out of the car. She doesn’t respond to the shouts about Adam, if it was Ed that came between them. She snorts out a laugh, and steps inside. The cacophony of shouts and camera flashes fades almost immediately, and it’s a relief.
She spends the elevator ride to Ed’s hotel room thinking about Harry, and the last time she saw him. It was some awards show, the AMAs, she thinks, and they sang a song that was definitely, definitely directed at her.
It was fine. She didn’t make any weird faces. They went to the same after party, congratulated each other, and it wasn’t particularly strange or uncomfortable.
The elevator dings, and she walks down the hall and knocks on Ed’s door and she’s face to face with Harry, with long hair curling around his shoulders and a small smile on his face.
Taylor smiles back, and it’s tired and tentative and she can hear Ed cackling from somewhere in the room, but Harry’s blocking her view and then his arms are around her and he’s hugging her so tightly she almost can’t breathe.
He smells clean. Like a tiny hint of cologne that she doesn’t recognize, and laundry detergent. She inhales deeply, and if she sags a little bit into his arms, well, no one else has to know.
“How are you?” he asks, and it sounds sincere but not too curious, though Taylor’s sure he’s read the papers, and that Ed’s told him she and Adam quietly fizzled out. It’s not a secret. She’s not upset that he knows, but she’s glad he doesn’t reference it or bring it up. It feels freeing, almost.
Taylor pulls back, and she smiles bigger this time. Still tired, but Harry’s looking at her like he actually cares about her answer, so she does.
“All right, you know. Closer to thirty than twenty now, so I think I have to get another cat,” she says, aiming for light and landing somewhere around almost bitter.
He laughs and pulls her inside.
Ed hugs her even tighter than Harry, and whispers happy birthday in her ear and she loves him. He doesn’t push her to talk about anything, just pulls her down on the bed with him on one side and Harry on the other and it should be strange, all the history on that bed, but it feels okay. She almost forgets to be sad. Almost.
They end up watching Trainwreck and not drinking tequila. It’s probably for the best. She still sort of feels like an exposed nerve, and she knows alcohol would inevitably lead to crying and word vomit, and later, actual vomit.
If Ed notices the way Harry’s fingers brush against her at every opportunity, he doesn’t say anything.
And when Harry excitedly invites her to see his new apartment, Ed smiles.
“It’s pretty sick, innit? Bit modern and shit, but you’ll love it,” he says.
Taylor shrugs. It’s one in the morning. She’s made this mistake before. She knows how it goes.
“Okay.”
-
They leave the hotel in separate cars. Taylor knows it’s far from a foolproof plan, that some paparazzi will figure it out anyway. She wishes she didn’t care.
It feels weird being in the car by herself. It’s dark, and it’s quiet, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. Two months ago, her nails were pristine. Now, she can’t stop biting them.
It’s only a few blocks to Harry’s new place. She didn’t even know he’d bought a place in New York, so it must be pretty new. She thinks Harry probably hasn’t even been in it that much, with album promo and all that. She wonders if anyone knows it’s his yet. She hopes not.
There are a few flashes when she gets out of the car. She hurries up the steps, and Harry’s waiting inside, just far enough that he won’t be seen. He grabs her hand, and she flashes back to three years ago so fast it gives her whiplash. His hands are so big, and they’re not sweaty like they were when he was a teenager. God.
“You okay?” Harry murmurs as he crowds her into the elevator.
“Yeah,” Taylor breathes.
They’re standing next to each other, and Harry is still holding her hand. She can feel him looking at her, eyes big and guileless.
“I know this is probably a bad idea,” she starts, still staring ahead, and Harry interrupts her.
“I don’t think it is, actually,” he says, syrupy slow and so much deeper than she remembers. It’s like talking to a different person, especially when she’s not looking at him.
“No pressure, though,” he continues, her hand still clasped tightly in his.
The elevator dings, and the doors open directly into Harry’s apartment.
It’s still sparse, and Taylor guesses that she was right, he hasn’t spent much time here, not yet. The floors are a lot darker than the ones in her apartment, and everything is clean lines and modern touches that she always shied away from. Harry clears his throat behind her.
“Haven’t really gotten around to moving any of my stuff in, yet. Most of this just came with it. ’s nice, though, innit? A little cold, industrial like, but. I’ve got lots of time now.”
Taylor turns and smiles. Harry moves forward, puts his hand on the small of her back and pushes her gently toward the couch. It’s sleek and doesn’t look like it’d swallow you whole if you tried to sit down.
“Sit and I’ll make some hot chocolate, yeah?” He says, and she nods and kicks her heels off as she curls up on his couch.
She can hear him puttering around in the kitchen, and she tries to focus on that instead of the inside of her head. She’s been here before with Harry, more than once, and three years ago, she thought she was in love with him. She was, probably, but she was twenty two and he was only eighteen and so it goes.
Harry walks slowly back into the living room, clutching a mug in each hand. He’s lost his coat and his shoes on his way back. His shirt is pink and silky and short sleeved. Nothing like the Harry Styles who kissed her, chaste and blushing in front of his mother in Cheshire.
He hands her a mug and lowers himself down onto the couch next to her.
Taylor blows on her hot chocolate impatiently. She knows it’s probably still too hot, but she takes a sip anyway.
Harry raises his eyebrows at her wince and takes a small sip of his own.
Taylor wraps her hands around the mugs and looks down at her lap. It’s quiet and she doesn’t know quite what to say. Doesn’t know what Harry expects. She can almost feel the ghost of his hand in hers.
“Thanks, for this,” she says, and she feels naked, exposed almost, even though she hasn’t said anything incriminating.
Harry smiles, and his eyes crinkle and that fucking dimple still kills her.
“Thanks for not taking my song too seriously,” he says, and her laugh bursts out of her, unexpected.
“You got the nicest break up songs I’ve ever written, I hope you know,” she says, half seriously.
They haven’t talked about this in over a year. It stung a little when she heard the line he wrote, because she’d heard it a million times before. But she didn’t respond, publicly or privately.
Taylor’s trying to mean it when she says other people can write songs about her. Because they can.
It’s easy, after that. They don’t talk about Adam. Just the fact that they both want to hide away for about a year, stay out of the public eye. No one knows quite what it’s like to live like she and Harry do.
She wants to keep this moment forever, the two of them on his couch, the space between them decreasing. She never wants anyone's eyeballs on them ever again.
Eventually, Harry falls asleep. Her head is on his shoulder, the silk of his shirt so soft against her cheek. So different than the scratch of the flannel shirts he used to wear, and she used to steal. So different. Everything is so different now, Taylor thinks.
“I missed this. Missed you,” she whispers into his shoulder. She knows he won’t hear.
-
Taylor wakes up with a crick in her neck. She’s curled up in the middle of a mattress, a comforter heavy over her. The bed isn’t hers. She doesn’t know if it’s Harry’s or not, but he must’ve moved her from the couch last night. She remembers falling asleep with her head on his shoulder, the silk of his shirt alien in its smoothness. Her cheeks heat up briefly and she hopes she didn’t drool on him or anything too embarrassing.
She’s still wearing her clothes from the night before. Her stockings have verged past uncomfortable at this point, so she strips them off and shivers. She shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt, but she’s still not used to how cold New York gets in December. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and whimpers a little at the chill when her feet touch the floor.
She finds Harry in the kitchen, fiddling with a tea kettle on the stove top. He’s shirtless, and he’s just got dark blue boxer briefs sagging low on his hips. Taylor clears her throat as she leans against the doorway.
Harry swivels around, and god, she doesn’t know how she forgot about those fucking tattoos, but she did. She swallows hard.
“Want some tea? I can do coffee, but I’ll have to figure out the machine first,” he says.
“How are you not freezing right now,” she says in response, and a dimple presses into Harry’s cheek as he smiles.
“Always run a bit warm, if 'm honest, but I am cold. Just couldn’t wait for tea.” Taylor rolls her eyes, and tugs down the sleeves of her shirt self consciously, as if she’s the one who’s almost naked.
“Tea’s fine,” she says belatedly. She isn’t staring. She’s not.
Harry turns back and grabs a second mug from the cabinet, and Taylor feels see through, even though he’s not looking at her. She remembers the night before, and part of her wishes she hadn’t said anything. She doesn’t want Harry to think he’s a—a rebound, or anything like that. He’s not. They’re not—it’s not like that anymore. She’s just chasing a feeling she had when she was 22, it’s fine, maybe this is what a midlife crisis looks like. Maybe they’re real after all.
Taylor pads over to where Harry's pouring the tea, and hops up on the counter. Harry freezes, but she grabs his arm. Pulls him towards her. She's so cold, and so tired, and Harry's warm and comforting and right here. Present.
Sitting on the counter, she’s a little taller than Harry. It’s strange, tilting her head down to look at him. Fuck, his eyes. Still green, her brain supplies helpfully.
His hands are on her knees, and they’re so large and they totally eclipse her kneecaps. Taylor’s frozen for a minute. When did she shave last? It’s winter, so she’s been wearing stockings a lot, but she took them off this morning and she regrets it now. Her knees are so bony. She’s seen the women Harry’s been with since they broke up. She shouldn’t feel self conscious. They’ve been here before a few times, after all. But everything is so different now. They aren’t the same. Fame ate them alive and spit them out and now she’s sitting on Harry Styles’ kitchen counter in New York and his hands are sliding up her legs, slowly, and she’s pretty sure she’s just one giant goose bump at this point.
“Do you still think this is a good idea?” Taylor says, and she’s so quiet she worries for a second that Harry won’t hear it.
For a second, he just looks at her, and she hopes to god that he doesn’t try to promise her anything, or make any grand declarations. She’s pretty sure she can’t handle anything at this point, doesn’t know why she decided to open her mouth in the first place.
“It’s early,” Harry says, and his voice is raspy from sleep and probably five years of touring as well, “it’s early, but I think we’re both gonna be okay.”
Taylor frowns at him.
“Not really what I asked, but—” Harry cuts her off with his lips, dry, gentle, barely any pressure at all. It’s the first time she’s been kissed since Florida, since Adam, when things were still good. When she thought things were still good, at least.
It’s over almost quickly as it begins, but Harry’s standing in between her legs now, and his hands are still on her thighs, steady and warm and she wishes she wasn’t nervous. Wishes she didn’t think this was a terrible idea.
“Maybe you should stop thinking, just for a bit,” Harry says, and he moves one hand up to slide behind her neck, and this time, they’re kissing for real.
It’s different than she remembers. Maybe Harry’s grown up, or maybe Taylor just decided to forget how good it felt to be the center of his attention. Harry kisses like he’s drowning, like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to touch a human being. Both of his hands are cupping the back of her head and his bare chest is pressed against her in her thin shirt and she’s not cold anymore. His tongue swipes her bottom lip and she hates that she gasps. But it’s so, so good, and fuck, she missed this. His tongue slides against hers and then he’s pulling back, breathing softly against her lips, eyes big and serious.
“Okay?” Harry says, an inch from her mouth, and Taylor closes her eyes, just for a second. Tries not to think about how she ended up here, hiding from the entire world in New York, Harry Styles between her legs. She opens her eyes, and Harry’s still in front of her. She pointedly doesn’t think about all the times she opened her eyes and he was gone.
“Okay,” she says, and it’s barely a whisper and he’s on her, frantic this time, lips trailing down her neck, sucking, and she feels his teeth nip the delicate skin just beneath her jaw.
“No marks,” Taylor says, breathless, and Harry whines against her neck, licking gently against the mark she’s sure will bloom.
“Please,” he says, and her breath hitches and she gives in, wraps her arms around his head, pulls him close and says, “okay.”
His hands creep up her shirt and he sucks at her pulse point, hard, and she gasps and she lets him. Fuck it all.
She can feel him against her, hard and tenting out his pants, and she wraps her legs around him and pulls him as close as she can and he moans deep in his chest and detaches his lips from her neck.
He pulls back and Taylor whimpers at the loss. Harry’s lips are red and spit slick and he’s the best thing she’s ever seen.
“Is this—can I?” Harry starts, palming himself and biting his lip and Taylor is acutely aware of how slick she is between her legs. She hops off the counter and slides her panties down her legs, watching Harry watch her while he squeezes himself, almost like he can’t help it.
Taylor hasn’t had as many sexual experiences as the average 26 year old, she knows, but here with Harry in front of her in this moment, in the wake of feeling so overstimulated that she doesn’t know what she wants anymore, is easily the most charged situation she’s ever been in. Even more than all those nights they spent holed up in hotel rooms and doing walks of shame the next morning. It was never like this.
She feels a little awkward, because Harry’s just looking at her now, and his hand is still on his dick and she’s got her panties in her hand and a mark throbbing on her neck and she’s never had sex with anyone in a kitchen before.
Taylor swallows, about to break the silence that feels like it might swallow her up, when Harry moves again. His hands are on her waist and he lifts her back up on the counter like it’s nothing. She squeaks when the backs of her thighs hit the counter top.
Harry’s mouth is on hers again, and she can’t see straight. It’s just hot, perfect suction, the sound of their lips almost obscene in the quiet of his apartment. She reaches between them and pushes his briefs down as far as she can, and she feels weird, sitting there with Harry’s hard dick between them, still wearing her skirt and bra and shirt.
She pulls back, and they start to talk at the same time.
“I want—”
“Please—”
Taylor inhales sharply and pushes the words out of her mouth.
“I want you to come inside me,” she says, and she can feel how red her cheeks get, because she’s never asked for anything like this before, and it’s weird that she’s doing it here, with Harry.
Harry groans. “Fuck,” he says, pushing his pants the rest of the way down and kicking them off. “Is this—are you” he starts.
“I’m good, I’m on—and I’m clean, obviously, if you—”
“Yes, yes,” he babbles, and he’s sliding his hand up her skirt and kissing her so deeply she thinks she’ll never be able to breathe again.
He slides his index finger into her, so slowly she thinks it might kill her. She’s so slick that he goes easily and it feels like nothing, and she gasps as his thumb circles her clit. She’s gotten herself off since Adam, but it feels so different when it’s someone else doing it to her, and Harry is practiced and sure as he slides another finger in and she gasps into his mouth and tries to rock into his fingers as best she can.
Taylor feels wanton like this, panting into Harry’s mouth, with his hand up her skirt and his fingers inside her and maybe it’s because it’s been months but suddenly she’s closer than she thought and she’s grabbing his fingers so fast that he looks up worriedly.
“No, no, it’s fine, just, want to come with you in me, please,” Taylor says, out of breath and red faced as she looks at the flush spreading down Harry’s chest and the way his dick is leaking at the tip.
Harry closes his eyes and moves in close. He kisses her and it’s soft. A juxtaposition to the hard press of him against her thigh and she’s never done it before, not like this. The heat of him is so much and he’s rubbing himself against her folds, slicking himself up, and when the head slides up against her clit she groans and she’d be embarrassed but Harry just laughs, full of wonder, like this is the best thing that's ever happened to him.
And then. He slides inside her and it’s so hot and overwhelming and almost too much and his hands are shaking at her hips and he’s breathing hard into her neck and everything is still.
There’s a clock ticking, somewhere. She can hear it, and for a second, that’s all she can focus on. Tick, tick. Harry hot and starting to move inside her.
He pushes forward gently, rocking his hips, and slides his thumb down for her to rub against, and it’s so much better than she remembered. So different.
Taylor pulls his face up to kiss him again, and his tongue mimics the movement of his hips.
Harry’s trying to keep quiet, she can tell, but he can’t quite manage it, keeps letting out these little gasps into her mouth and she’s pretty close, she can feel her orgasm building up, just out of reach. The counter top is warm now underneath her legs, and this is the dirtiest thing she’s ever done, and it feels right.
“More, please, just, close,” Taylor pants out, and she wraps her legs tight around Harry’s waist as he shoves in deep, once, twice, three times.
“‘m gonna come, I’m sorry, I’m—” Harry babbles, and god, she can feel it when he does. Alien and strange and hot and she feels so full, Harry shooting off inside her, and that’s what pushes her over the edge, weirdly enough. She pushes herself forward, feels him still hard inside her, and reaches down to cover his thumb with her hand. And then she’s shuddering through it with Harry’s hot breath on her shoulder as he huffs out another laugh and she has to pull his hand away, oversensitive and trembling.
Taylor can hear the clock again. It must be in the living room. She focuses in on it as she comes down and Harry’s breathing slows against her neck. His lips start to move, and they leave a wet trail up her shoulder. He kisses across her cheek and finds her mouth and it’s so tender that she feels weirdly close to crying.
They weren’t like this, before. They were fast and hurried and reckless and Taylor always told herself she learned her lesson. But now. Now, in the aftermath of careful and calm and secure and quiet, she thinks maybe she was wrong.
Harry pulls out slowly, and she winces a little. He presses his lips to the center of her forehead.
She feels sticky. Sore and a little tired and a little embarrassed now that it’s over. She’s slick between her legs, more than normal, and her cheeks heat up again when she thinks about why.
“Wanna shower? You can go first, ’s quite nice, I’ve got one of those waterfall shower heads,” Harry says as he pulls back.
His eyes are searching her face, and she’s not sure what he’s looking for. Not sure what she wants him to find, either. So she smiles and nods, and he’s still naked when he helps her hop down from the counter.
She follows him to another bedroom, his, she guesses, and he gives her a towel and an old gray sweater, jumper, her mind corrects, and a pair of worn flannel pajama pants.
“It’s right through there,” Harry says as he points to the door next to his closet, “I’ll start on a fry up while you’re in there, all right?”
Taylor twists his clothes in her hands.
“Just what I need, I think, thanks,” she says, and it doesn’t feel like enough. He’s smiling when she looks at him, though, and it propels her forward to kiss the dimple that’s appeared on his cheek.
“I missed you,” Taylor whispers as she watches him leave. He’s still naked. It’s not the worst sight she’s ever seen. She wonders if he heard her.
Harry’s right. His shower is pretty great. Nothing makes her feel better than a hot shower, and his has all kinds of jets and yes, a waterfall shower head.
She thinks absently about getting one for her place as she puts on Harry’s clothes and wraps her hair up in a towel.
She pauses for a minute, isn’t sure if she should walk out like this. It feels to domestic. Too fast. They were never like this. She isn’t sure if they’ll ever be like this. She isn’t sure if she wants them to be or not.
So Taylor breathes. Leaves her hair in the towel, and meets Harry in the kitchen.
-
They end up taking a nap, and not talking about it. Taylor reasons that they were never good at that kind of thing, anyway. And she feels like she’s done enough talking in relationships for the next decade, so she lets it be. She curls up, her chest against Harry’s back, and she exhales. Breathes in deep. Lets it go.
It’s easy, waking up next to Harry. The world hasn’t ended. It’s dark outside now, and her sleep patterns are going to be even more fucked than they were in LA. His hair is mashed against his head on one side and fluffy on the other, tickling her nose. He’d taken a shower after they ate. She’d cleaned up the kitchen and tried not to think about anything. About the fact that she ended up here, begged him to come inside her, liked it. Harry had been too lazy to dry his hair after, and Taylor just crawled into bed next to him, tiredness deep in her bones. Jet lag. Harry. Adam. Everything. Sleep. That’s what she needed.
It’s okay to want. It’s okay to want shamelessly, even. And maybe this is what she needs. Maybe. So she rolls over, and Harry’s hands slide around her waist, and his smile is so, so soft. So patient. And she can admit now, maybe, that she missed this. It was only three years ago but it feels like several lifetimes.
She looks at Harry, his long hair and tired smile and she can hear his deep, raspy voice in her head, and she knows he’s not the same as he was. He’s older and taller and present in ways that he couldn’t be before. But they’re both here now, and she can’t quite believe it, even with him right in front of her. Taylor knows how fast things end. She knows you can be on a tropical vacation with the love of your life one minute and on a boat by yourself the next. She knows. She wrote an album about it. But this. There’s something about the quiet. The tick, tick, tick of the clock in Harry’s living room, and how it doesn’t sound like a threat. Time. They have so much of it now.
He’s still looking at her. And so she kisses him. Kisses him like she used to, but also like he’s hers, for good this time. It breaks the quiet, and it’s almost violent, the clash of mouths, like they’re trying to climb inside each other. It stings a little when Harry’s teeth close around her bottom lip, but it can’t hurt as much as being apart. It doesn’t.