Reign || Harry Styles

32: Intervention

Out of all the available places to choose and pick from in London, they picked the least empty one.

It was raining storms, and while Harry was crossing the street to get to the rustic-looking coffee shop, he stepped on a puddle and now, his dress trousers were wet.

He was planning to wear that to his Foreign Language lecture, but now, once it was all wet and disgusting, he would rather come in lecture without trousers. Or not come at all.

When he entered the rustic-looking coffee shop, the first thing he noticed was the poor choice in music. Lovefool by The Cardigans really wasn't what he imagined his entrance music to be like.

But Niall was fervently singing along to the song in his seat across the room from where Harry was currently standing; Harry just didn't know that yet.

His chartreuse-coloured eyes skimmed around the corners of the rowdy space.

Human beings, he thought. Human beings everywhere.

It was storming and raining and bone-chilling outside. And Harry had never craved so much to be tucked comfortably in his flat, under the covers with a particular Elsie Waters whose waist his arms would circle, and stayed in that position as the days and nights would pass like the tranquil waves at shore.

Elsie Waters, Elsie Waters, Elsie Waters.

Together. Just lie together . . . for warmth, for company, for intimacy.

Nothing sexual, nothing erotic, nothing that crosses the line of platonic love. Just lie together, like how friends would.

But they had stopped becoming friends since a year and . . . shit, he forgot. He forgot how many months ago. Six? Seven? Wait, when was the first time they dated?

Elsie Waters, Elsie Waters, Elsie Waters.

He just couldn't get her out of his head, out of his head, out of his goddamn head.

And it drove him insane.

It drove him insane what happened a few nights back. He had never had intercourse that left him in such destitute afterwards.

He remembered after the sex—which they did twice—just lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Elsie Waters curled up mere inches away from him, as naked as the figure of Venus in Botticelli's Birth of Venus, his long arm under her, his hand against her warm skin. And then he'd exhale a sigh, thinking to himself, what am I doing.

Sure, it was all okay in the end. Elsie Waters, warm beds and midnight sexy times were all that made him fuzzy for the past year and . . . he'd forgot.

But something . . . something did not add up.

This puzzle piece, though used to fit so perfectly together, was now spliced at the ends with tape. Two different shapes that did not complement each other.