Goodnight and Go [H.S.]

III

He tried to pull me aside to ask if everything was okay last week when we were working on sending out their 'Save the Dates', Gwen having stepped away to take a business call.

"Is everything okay between us?" Harry had asked me, and I could see he was trying to catch my eyes as I addressed an envelope.

"What do you mean?" I responded, still keeping my eyes down - grabbing another envelope to work on to avoid the conversation.

I knew that I had never been one to close him off, and I had noticed his confused expression throughout the day when he would try to pinch me like usual, but I was constantly moving out of his reach before he could.

Harry sighed, reaching forward to take the envelope from me, and I had opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off. "You're acting weird, Carter. Did I do something?"

"I could've ruined that, you know? And then Gwen would've had my head for it," I laughed, trying to ease the tension but his sage colored eyes held something I had never seen when it came to him. Deciding to clear the air, I sat back in my seat a little bit, shaking my head. "You didn't do anything, Harry. Everything is fine, I promise. I've just been feeling a little off lately - nothing to do with you at all."

I hated lying to him, but it wasn't like I could tell him the truth.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right? I'm always going to be here for you?"

My mind didn't even have the chance to process what he said at the time as Gwen entered the room again, sitting herself down at the table as we continued to work on the fancy stationery.

Kieran was still very adamant about me telling Harry everything, and she wanted me to do it soon. She said I needed to do it before it was too late. I know the longer I wait - the more confusing things will be. There's a part of me that nags at me constantly. It tells me that the longer I wait, the less time Harry will really have to extract everything that I would tell him, and it could end up causing a bigger issue.

I feel like if I tell him too close to the wedding it'll blow up in my face. He'll panic, and I think in that situation he would end up telling Gwen. I'm not completely sure, of course, but it's just an intuition that's been growing over time.

Stepping out of the dressing room, I see that the other girls are already out, and I realize that my thoughts had really caused me to get caught up. Gwen is looking at each of them, tapping the pad of her index finger against her chin as she tilts her head to the side.

"What do you think? There's two other styles I chose too," I explain because I can already tell that this one isn't doing it for her.

"I know I told you to choose them, but I'm not really liking this one, Carter. I'm sorry."

I shrug with a small laugh, shaking my head. "It's okay, Gwen. It is your day after all. We'll just try on the other ones."

The second dress was still not one that Gwen agreed upon, but thankfully the last one was. It was decided that I'd be walking down the aisle in a moss colored dress - the rest of the bridesmaids would be in a deep champagne color. When I saw the swatch of the color that my dress would be, my heart almost stopped right on the spot.

It was called 'Juniper', and it reminded me so much of the color of Harry's eyes.

I tried not to let my dazed expression linger on the stained material for too long, and when I came to completely, I let Gwen know that I loved the color. After that, I escaped back into the dressing room to change into the clothes I had worn to the bridal shop.