After The End: Book 1

26. Fulfillment

I scowled. "Harry, I'm serious."

He allowed a small smile to break. "This feels like a midlife crisis. Is that what this is? You're about to have a kid so now you're trying to relive your glory days?"

"Normal people have jobs!" I snapped. Harry looked taken aback. I took a deep breath. "You're the one who said you wanted space. You're right. I've got no reason to be here all the time and... I want my life back or some semblance of it. I'm literally 25 and retired."

Harry nodded as if processing that. He smiled. "Okay, so what do you want to do? Launching solo? Are you going to start singing with rappers like Zayn?"

I laughed. "I don't know, but definitely not that."

Harry thought for a moment. "You should write music again. Get your piano out of storage and write some songs."

"Okay, but then what do I do with them?" I asked carefully.

"Oh my god you're hopeless," Harry put his face in his hands like he was exasperated that I'd have the audacity to ask anything of him. "Call Melvin and ask him to dinner. Play him something and see if he can get it sold on someone. Then, after that, quit and be a stay at home parent because nobody should work if they don't have to."

He started to walk away.

"Melvin?" I asked quizzically. I ignored the rest of his statement.

Harry paused but didn't look back. "Melvin Green. The ugly producer that used to go to the pubs with me before we all got fired. He used to call asking for music all the time but I was too coked out. I'll send you the number."

"Thank you," I called as he wandered through the doorway back towards his losing uno game. He had been weirdly helpful. I wondered if he ever questioned how blunt he was. Maybe it was just a "brain soup" thing as he called it. He had told us only some things got better.

True to his word, that night he passed me a sticky note with a sloppily written phone number on it. I tucked it into my wallet and instead dialed my storage people about getting the piano moved.

Harry's POV

"What are you going to do when I move out?" Lux asked sitting on my side of the bed and crossing her arms. All sides of the bed were mine. She was an intruder, but the side up against the wall was definitely becoming more mine than the other side.

I crossed my arms back at her and stayed silent. "I don't ask for you to be here," I clarified again.

"You've also stopped telling me to leave," she reminded me with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes and chose to ignore the truth in that. Throughout the week, she had perfected the art of sneaking into my room after Louis door closed for the night. She didn't stay until morning anymore after having been caught by Naomi, instead sneaking out in the early morning hours. Some days, I woke up momentarily to her kissing my nose in the dark but most days I woke up hours later with Louis at my door inquiring about breakfast. It was an interesting arrangement. I was choosing not to give it the careful thought it probably called for.

"You're never moving out," I reminded her. "You're treating Louis like a life time bed and breakfast."

"And what are you doing?" She retorted.

I approached the bed and let myself fall with my back down on the mattress. My feet still dangled to the floor as I looked up at the ceiling. I was considering putting stick on stars up there but I thought Louis, and by extension Lux, would laugh at me. "I'm enjoying retirement," I muttered.

"You're retirement is really boring. No offense though," Lux laughed. I felt her hand go to my hair. She ran her fingers through it softly before I reached up and grabbed wrist, pushing her away with attitude.