Night Changes

50

The night of our engagement party arrived quickly, and while I was excited, I was also sad. Niall and Zayn would be leaving to return to London the next day, and the thought of being in New York without them seemed wrong some how. We had all come here together, so for almost half of us to leave felt like we were breaking up a team.

“We will be going home soon,” Harry assured me, adjusting the collar of his dress shirt as he emerged from the bathroom. He glanced at me as I adjusted the strap on my shoes, sitting on the edge of the bed.  The hem of my short black dress rode up my thighs, and he smirked at me through narrowed eyes.  “Screw the party, I wanna stay here and screw you.”

“Harry, for god sake,” I huffed, placing my hand on his chest as he approached me, leaning down to kiss me. “Cant you control yourself for one evening?”

“You already know the answer to that, babe,” he pointed out with a wink, before straightening and heading over to the dresser.

We had done nothing for the majority of the day but lay around the apartment, watch TV, cuddle, and have sex. Apparently, seeing me in a wedding dress made Harry hornier than usual. More than once I caught him checking out the picture on his phone, smirking, before leaning over to nuzzle my neck.

After a light dinner, I had started to get ready for the party. Lily had booked a room at a local bar, knowing that it would be a requirement of Niall and a preference of Zayn. I took a long, hot shower, before shaving my legs thoroughly, moisturizing, and starting my makeup.

Harry had popped his head in part way through my ritual, making a snarky comment about how long I took to get ready, and asking if I needed him to rent a sand blaster. This earned him a one fingered gesture from me, before I locked him out of the bathroom.

I found myself growing nervous the closer we came to party time. And I knew why. Tonight was the night my mother would finally meet Harry. I had been dating him for a year, and living with him for months. But she had yet to meet the man I was now engaged to marry.

She was over the moon at the fact we were engaged, and had chattered endlessly the day before about meeting the man who made me so happy. She knew nothing of our recent troubles, or even the dramas of earlier in the year back in London. She only knew I had met a boy, and fallen in love. That was all any mother ever really wanted for their daughter. All the extra stuff, I chose to leave out of that fantasy.

Harry seemed relaxed, for the most part. Or at least he was trying to act as though he was. On occasion during the day I would find him biting his nails, or rubbing the back of his neck. Both tells he usually only did when nervous or distracted. I didn’t question him, making my own assumptions to the gestures and leaving him to fret without being called out.

Once I was ready, I ventured into the kitchen, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.  Harry joined me moments later, slipping his wallet and phone into the pockets of his pants.

His eyes wandered over me, the way my dress hugged my body, and he was at my side in a flash.

“You sure you don’t want to skip this and just stay in?” he asked, kissing my shoulder as his arms snaked around my waist.