After The End: Book 1

40. Impulsive

Harry's POV

I've said it before, but I make bad decisions. I can't help it sometimes. There's like an itch in my brain. It's been up there so long that half the time I can't even tell the difference between a bad idea and a joke. Maybe it was neither. Maybe an idea could be so bad, that it was just a little bit good.

"Okay, but we could just get married. Problem solved." I suggested. I was gazing at her from across the room where I lay on the floor. My new carpet had just been installed throughout the apartment and the hardwood floors were to be finished in the kitchen and bathroom the following day. Those old tiles hadn't been salvageable after all. It was nice that the carpet didn't smell like old mildew anymore. A lot of improvements had been made to the flat. The water still didn't work right but the windows were new and shiny and the light fixtures no longer flickered.

Lux was sitting on a stool holding a precariously placed paint board in one hand, and a yellow topped paintbrush in the other. The living room wall, identical to the one upstairs at Louis that had been graced with a bullet hole, was covered in a mural of sunflowers and other wildflowers, twisting and turning in an imaginary breeze. There were pinks and blues and oranges swirled in. Truly, it was a masterpiece. It was one of the happiest things I'd ever looked at.

Lux turned to face me with an amused expression. I wondered if she knew about the yellow streak of paint lining her cheek. "I'm not sure getting married is the best way to get Louis back for politely crediting you."

I rolled my eyes. On my chest, the white cat began to purr in her half sleeping state. Birdie had grown about a centimeter in every direction. She was still small and more precious than anything else in life. That hadn't changed. Only a few weeks had passed, but she was my pride and joy.

On the matter of Louis "politely crediting" me, I want to clarify that nothing that he did was polite. Louis had listed me as a contributor on every song I'd helped him with. The first single he'd sold that week had dropped by some small artist I hadn't heard of and it happened to be the one I'd sang for him on his soft copy that I'd helped with. I'd woken up to a slew of phone calls from people who had seen my name in the end credits and now assumed I was looking for employment. I wasn't. I didn't want to work. I was battling off every call as if they were offering me bombs or drugs or something nefarious.

"If we get married, nobody will be writing articles about my return to music," I reasoned. "They'll be too busy wondering if I'm back on drugs." I scooped the cat up to prevent her from falling and sat up. I set her on the carpet beside me where she wandered a few feet away and then came back and laid down on the carpet, content to doze off in an arms distance from me. This cat was the best thing to ever happen to me, I assure you.

Lux raised her eyebrows at me like she didn't find me funny. She totally did. "Are you sure this isn't just a ploy to get us married?"

I smirked. "No, it's about business. Purely transactional. You're not even my type."

Lux rolled her eyes and went back to painting. "You aren't my type either. We should break up."

"We weren't even together," I agreed.

"We are getting married though," she reminded me. The flower she was currently painting was bigger than the ones around it. That one would be my favorite, I could tell already. The summer sun fluttering in through the windows brightened it just right.

"Obviously," I said. "Let's do it later today."

She laughed. "You have to give notice to the powers that be. Same day marriages are too complicated."

"Let's give notice then," I tried to keep from laughing. It didn't work.

She paused painting again. I imagined her brain reeling as she decided how to respond to me. She was exhibiting the same stiffness she had when I'd walked in with the kitten in my hand. "You're being awfully insistent about that."