21 September 2014.
The next morning, we decide to have breakfast at a family restaurant that owns a farm. We thought it would be fun to have a nice breakfast and then to visit the farm and look around.
We sit down and a girl in her late teens, I would say, comes to take the order. She looks like the typical country girl coming from a movie. She is thin, her hair is straight with a bang, and it is tied up. She wears a long apron. When she stands very close, you could see the lines of her pink lipstick, and her lips' real colour from the inside when she speaks. She looks overall decent, really pretty.
There are details here that I have not seen or enjoyed in a long while. I am so grateful to Claire for asking us to come.
When we leave the farm, I see a very cute dress on a mannequin in a tiny shop and decide to go in and take a look. Inside the shop is a young well-built man. He gets up and greets us. Claire and Liam stay outside, talking.
"Can I try a dress like that on the mannequin?" I ask him.
"Oh yes sure. You would probably need..." he checks me out.
"A six." Both him and I say together and I smile. Harry nods, not very amused.
"Let me check." the man leaves from the backdoor and we wait for him.
"We are out of size six. The only one I got is the one on the mannequin. Do you mind waiting for a bit for me to remove it so that you can try it? It shouldn't be long."
"But if it does not fit I would have wasted your time."
"You can waste my time all you want, no worries." he goes towards the mannequin and starts undressing it.
"Do you have to try it?" Harry whispers to me.
"You don't like it?" I ask.
"I do but I think we can just buy something else. Maybe -"
"Here you go." The young man cuts Harry off, handing me the dress. "You can try it in the fitting room, right here." He opens the curtain for me.
I try the dress on and look for a while in the mirror. I wonder if it is too short. I try to imagine how it would look like if I sat down wearing it. If I bended a bit. Would I be comfortable or is it too short?
I open the curtain and get out to get Harry's opinion on the dress.
The young man stands up from his seat when he sees me, almost blocking Harry's view.
"Wow." he says.
Harry raises his eyebrows. His face unexplainable. He coughs.
"Oh, sorry." the man says, stepping aside.
"I do not think I like it." Harry says instantly. It seems for me that Harry did not even look at the dress before saying that.
"What are you talking about? She looks amazing in this." The man insists.
I see that Harry is not happy with his response. Is he...?
"Are you sure Harry?" I ask him.
"You know what?" The man says. "She looks so good in this, I want to give it to her for free."
I realize that these people probably have a different point of view on these kind of gestures than us. But even for someone in the country, this gesture was a little too much. Harry's eyes widen and become red. I think he is going to explode.
"How much is it?" Harry asks.
"Seriously, I mean it. I-"
Harry cuts him off. "How much is it?"
I frown at him. What is wrong with you?
"Thirty." The man says, a bit taken aback by Harry's tone.
Harry pays for the dress immediately, then turns to me "Will you keep it on or do you want to change back?" he asks me.
"I think I will keep it on." I reply, happy at his suggestion, completely oblivious to the fact that it was sarcastic.
"I think you will change back." he answers.
When we leave the shop, we walk silently for few minutes until Claire asks what is wrong. And Harry explodes.
"The guy inside was hitting on her and she could not care less."
I open my eyes. "What the hell, Harry? What could I have done?"
"You know Harry, maybe if you were just a little bit taller, he would have noticed you and wouldn't have hit on your girlfriend." Claire jokes.
"He was checking her out!" Harry almost yells.
"He even offered her the dress for free!" He continues.
"What?" Claire and Liam both exclaim and start laughing.
"He is right, Lauren. That is a bit too much even for a nice place like this. I now really want to see the dress on you. Must work like a charm."
"It does." Harry says, with a very low voice.
"What was that?" Liam asks.
"I said it does." He raises his voice. "She looked so good in it and I saw how he was looking at her and I wanted to kick his face."
All of us laugh at Harry's expression.
"Give me that." he says, holding the bag for me. "You happy now? Oh, the things you could make me do."
****
We all pack up again, wait for the lady owner to come. When she is here, she asks if we had a good time and we all exchange sweet looks. All of us know exactly that this was one weekend to remember. Forever.
When Claire and Liam drop us off, we group hug and I feel extremely thankful for having them in my life.
Harry unlocks the door and I walk in past him.
"So," I say passing by. "It seems Mr. So Confident is actually capable of feeling jealous."
"If only you had seen yourself through my eyes when you tried that dress." He answers, coming after me and shaking his head. He closes the door behind him.
"Or through that man's eyes. Probably the same." I joke, enjoying Harry's first instance of weakness since I met him.
"Not at all the same. You are allowed to think that I am exaggerating, but I do not think anyone did look or will ever look at you with all the love that he carries, the way that I do."
JE LEEST
Under This Roof
RomantiekI thought that I can tell a lot about someone's character as soon as I meet them. In fact, I bragged about that to my friends, especially when they make me meet their significant others. I didn't think of it as prejudice. I thought of it as good ana...
