Honey Smiles // Harry Styles Series #3 - Jamaica

Port Antonio 12

The last week at Geejam was peaceful. We visited the market, Harry looking so young and perfect in his torn jeans, t-shirt, and red bandana around his neck. He and Mitch bought straw baskets for their mothers; I helped Harry choose. He helped me pick a sun hat for my own mom.

There were a few photos in the press from Miami. Harry and a mystery woman on the beach, Harry seen at Deception and a South Beach hotel with the mystery woman. I was happy to remain a mystery. The actor and his date were bigger news, anyway, and we were soon forgotten.

He was in the studio a lot, strangely reluctant to talk about his work. I didn't push; I'd hear it someday. He did hint that there might be a song I'd recognize. I thought the hurricane and the nighttime swims might have been food for his creativity.

On the day before I left we took paddleboards out in the bay with Mitch and the drummer Sarah and Tom, who had brought a GoPro. The sky was the most vivid cerulean blue, dotted with white clouds, and the water was calm and warm and clear.

I caught Harry on camera underwater as he swam idly, and above the gentle waves as he lay on the board on his back, smiling at the sky, white shorts molded to his thighs. It was how I wanted to remember him, golden and peaceful and happy, and, for that moment, mine.

It was as though he was memorizing every inch of my body as we came together that night, in new ways and old. Finally, in the pale pink and turquoise of dawn, I laid back and wrapped myself around him, as he pressed down over me, rocking us gently to a deep and powerful finish.

He came with me to my cottage to collect my luggage that morning, and, from nowhere, against the wall of my terrace, we had each other again, fast and hard. One last, fiery connection to cauterize the wound of separation.

There was no awkwardness as he hugged me before I got in the car that would take me to the airport, that would take me home. He kissed my lips and whispered in my ear, "I'll dream about you, Caroline, about how you... you know. Thank you."

I blew him a kiss as we pulled out of the drive, then turned to face ahead, to face the future. I was a different woman than the one who had arrived a few months before; I was strong, confident, excited about whatever might be next. Harry had helped me find myself again.