HARRY STYLES
"Hails," I whisper, gently shaking her awake and feeling terrible about it, too. She told me she wanted to come with me to get the puppy even though I warned her that we'd have to leave the house at six in the morning, and we didn't even get home from Manchester last night until almost eleven.
"Hm? What?" She gasps and flinches away from me, forcing me to stifle a laugh.
"Did you still want to come with me to get the puppy?"
"Oh my God," she whines quietly as she rubs her eyes. "I'm sorry, I forgot to set my alarm."
"You don't have to come–"
"No, I want to," she sits up and scratches her fingers through her hair. "Can you wait for two seconds while I brush my teeth and change?"
"'Course, yeah," I step back toward the door. "We'll pick up coffee on the way, alright? I don't want the smell to wake Scar up."
"Okay," she whispers back before I silently close the door to give her privacy and make my way downstairs to wait for her. I start to doze off in the ten minutes it takes her to get ready, very much wishing that I was back in bed with Scarlett as I stand and follow Hailey out into the freezing cold.
"Well, that'll wake you up," I mutter as we fall into my car, and I wince at the loud sound of the engine rumbling to life.
"That was such a dad thing to say," Hailey laughs with a hoarse voice still.
All I do is smile and think about how Scar and I have already spent the last two days officially "trying" for a baby. She threw her birth control pack away in the trash and put her prescription on hold for the moment, which is an insane idea to think about for too long. She once had a pregnancy scare when we were together forever ago, and despite how much I loved her already, I wasn't ready for a baby then. Birth control was our saving grace, and now it's in the garbage. That's insane.
As promised, I stop at a Starbucks for Hailey and me to get coffee and a couple of breakfast sandwiches on the way to the nearest pet store. We finish eating in the car and wait for them to open at 8:00 on the dot, after which we're the first customers in the shop.
"Oh my God, look at these," Hailey coos and shows me two white porcelain food and water bowls with those two words engraved in black so we can tell the difference. "Look at the cute paw prints!"
"Alright, drop them in," I leave the cart with her and go to ask the two women at the small cashier's desk which toys are best for new puppies.
"The poor little thing will be teething, so they'll definitely need something to chew on, but you want to be careful about anything with rope or string. They can swallow the bits and pieces and that's not good. You also don't want anything too small that they can potentially swallow and choke on."
"Oh, okay," I take a few of the multi-colored rubber toys she hands me. "And a leash and collar? Which would you recommend?"
She takes me over to the wall of options and explains that I'll need to come back and get a sturdier collar as the puppy grows older and stronger, but for now, I let Hailey pick the combination that she thinks Scarlett will like the most. It's the black one with little red hearts all over it, which I'll admit is cute.
"What else do we need?" I mumble the thought out loud.
"A crate, right?" Hailey points to the opposite side of the store. "For him to sleep in?"
"Right," I follow her over there, and after consulting the woman again, we get the smaller crate because apparently he'll feel more comfortable in a more confined space until he outgrows it.
