GREEN (RL Harry Styles fanfic)

67. Color Coded

I woke up alone in Harry's bed the next morning, or at least it felt like morning, I had no idea. I had crashed hard last night. After we got back to Harry's house we made a few more attempts at baby-making before finally falling asleep convinced we had given it our all.

I slipped out of bed and grabbed one of Harry's sweatshirts to pull over my head while I went to find him. I smiled once my head popped through the hood and I saw it was his Green Bay Packers hoodie. I expected to find him downstairs making something to eat or on the living room couch. However, when I made to the bottom of the stairs the eerie silence made it clear he wasn't here. He had mentioned he was going golfing today, but I couldn't imagine he'd leave without letting me know.

I called out for Harry as I searched through the lower level, but he was nowhere to be found. I did the same thing through the rest of the house with the same results. I was starting to get worried when I finally I got a glimpse of him through one of the windows in a spare room.

Harry was on his phone pacing back and forth on the footbridge that ran along the back of his house. He was wearing only a pair of low slung heather gray sweatpants. He looked agitated by the conversation and was tugging at his hair. I didn't know if I should interrupt him or give him his privacy, but I was also concerned. I wanted to make sure everything was alright. I made my way over to the window and tapped on it to get his attention. Harry's eyes connected with mine for a moment to acknowledge my presence, but he didn't smile. He returned to his phone call and I stayed where I was on the inside of the glass. He ended the call just a moment later and shoved his phone in the pocket of his sweats with a huff. Harry pulled the sliding glass door opened and stepped inside, his face was impassive.

"Hi babe," he said giving me a peck on the lips and grazing my hip with his hand.

"Is everything okay?," I asked wrinkling my brows in concern.

"It'll be fine. Have you had a look at your phone?" Harry still sounded annoyed as he spoke. He took a seat on the arm of a chair.

"No, I woke up and when you weren't there I came straight to find you. What's wrong Harry?"

He let out a heavy sigh before answering my question.

"The fans and twitter are in a frenzy over a photo your friend posted last night. I've been on the phone with Julie and management all morning. I didn't want to wake you," he explained with a serious look on his face.

"This is about a picture of Claire and Niall? I didn't think that would be a big deal," I said still confused.

"Did you see the photo babe?," Harry asked widening his eyebrows.

"Oh God! Did Claire bang him? What did she post?," I said recalling how well they had seemed to hit it off.

This caused Harry to laugh and he smacked his knee in amusement. Once he had regained his composure he pulled his phone from his pocket and in a matter of seconds he pulled up the picture and turned his screen to face me.

At first glance I saw no issue with the photo. It was one of the selfies Niall had taken of the two of them. As my eyes searched for an answer I found it in the background.

"Shit!," I let out at my discovery. "But you can't see my face through my hair," I added, hoping that meant no one knew it was me, though I don't know if that would make things any better for Harry.

"Babe, you really don't know how smart these fans are. They knew within minutes it was us just by comparing tattoos." He turned the phone back around to him and swiped at the screen. "Look," he said as he showed me a tweet containing a series of pictures; a zoomed in version where you couldn't really distinguish any details and two other photos. One was from an event I had done earlier in the year that showed my tattoos and the other was a close up of Harry's tats. They had matched the colors of my ink to the blurry blobs of color in Claire's selfie, essentially cracking the code.