Matilda | Harry Styles

THIRTY-EIGHT

I blew out a breath, praying my expression didn't give anything away as I walked back into the living room. I pulled the sleeves of Harry's jumper over my hands as my eyes landed on him, still on the couch, meddling with his guitar. He looked up, dragging his eyes over my body before furrowing his eyebrows in a way that made my heart drop.

"Are you okay?" he asked, instantly, and I silently cursed how unbelievably bad I was at masking my emotions, along with how long I'd taken to return to the living room. I always thought I'd been pretty good at it - but Harry had this shocking ability to pick up on my demeanour without so much as a single word.

"Yeah - sorry," I bit my lip. Think. "I was replying to some texts I'd missed from Grace."

"Was it her who called?" he asked me, a gentle smile on his expression as he took my words as truth. He trusted me, and I was a liar. I could only be further prompting an eventual outburst of anger and impatience from him.

"Mhm," I returned, moving to take a seat on the couch before his arm caught my waist, prompting me to sit on his lap, my back against his chest. His lips pressed to my temple as soon as I was seated, and it made my chest ache. His guitar was resting against my knees, his attention fully on me. I felt his fingers push some hair behind my ear.

"You didn't answer?"

"No," I swallowed, the lie uncomfortable on my tongue, "it was easier just to text her."

He didn't reply for a few seconds, and I could feel his eyes scanning over my side profile, before I turned to meet his eye. They held the exact uncertainty; the exact suspicion, that I feared they would. Maybe this was it. Maybe here was where he snapped.

"Okay," he returned, quietly. Whatever outburst I'd been waiting for - it didn't come. He blinked, then, and my eyes followed the purse of his lips before he picked up his guitar, again, and brought it back into a playable position. He was so patient that it hurt. I didn't know why he was with me. I knew, if I was him, that I'd have given up a long time ago - I wasn't worth all of this hassle.

I closed my eyes for a brief moment, placing a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth. I watched his eyes shift, slightly, before he turned his head to face mine, his eyes drawing over my face. He pressed his lips together, then, and didn't tell me whatever he was thinking. I couldn't really dispute it - I wasn't telling him my thoughts, either.

He brought his arms fully around me to strum once at his guitar, before he stopped. He made an attempt at explaining the basics to me, but with my inability to fully focus on this, now, no matter how interested I was in his words, combined with my musical inability - I was barely picking anything up. He was patient, and he was light-hearted - like always - and he almost managed to draw my attention away from everything I was hopelessly fixating on, onto him - onto how much I adored being in his company, doing something like this.

He'd stifle a laugh at my inability to replicate whatever chord he'd just shown me - even positioning my fingers on the strings for me, until I finally provoked a sound that sounded somewhat tenable. He cheered, then, overly praising me for strumming something he could likely do in his sleep, but he threw his head back in a generous approval, nonetheless.

"Maybe we should leave the music to you," I remarked, watching him grin at me.

"We can practice," he returned, teasing me as he brought his hand back over the strings. He strummed at them a few more times, his eyes gently narrowing in concentration as he appeared to grow briefly lost in his actions.

"Spinning out-", he began to sing, all of a sudden, very quietly, before he stopped. He cut himself off, leaving the words to linger there as if he hadn't really meant to sing them. It was more like he'd begun to play, and they'd accidentally slipped out. It wasn't a song he already had - I practically knew them all like the back of my hand, now. He stopped playing, and leaned his head back on the couch.