Spaces Between Us [ZARRY]

Chapter 11: Harry

Zayn Malik was still standing in my driveway, like this was the kind of thing you could do without being asked. Like showing up uninvited, after trailing me through half of London, might eventually turn into a conversation if he waited long enough.

It wouldn't.

He hadn't said anything in at least half a minute, but I could feel him watching me and he's wearing that look again. The one that said he thought he'd finally put something together, even if he had no idea what to do with it.

Then he said it again. "I know."

I didn't move. Because the truth was...he didn't. Not the way that mattered. If he did, he wouldn't be standing here with his fists clenched, hoping sheer willpower could make sense of what logic never earned him.

Still, he stood there like I was going to give him more than I already had. I didn't. I stayed silent.

He tried again anyway. "You know what I mean. And you can't say I'm wrong."

His voice was quieter now, like lowering it might make it easier to believe.

I tilted my head just slightly. "You think standing here repeating yourself is going to drag a confession out of me?"

Zayn frowned. "That's not what I'm doing."

"No?" My voice didn't rise. "You followed me from work. You waited outside my son's school. You came to my house. And now you're standing on my doorstep, acting like you're owed something."

He opened his mouth, like he wanted to defend it but nothing came out.

I watched him try to shape an argument around something he had no claim to.

"I just—" He exhaled. "I've been thinking. Since we met again yesterday."

"That much is obvious."

He shifted his weight, then said it. "Ezra looks like me."

I didn't say anything. I didn't need to. That part had always been clear.

It's how Luke and Calum figured it out. I never told them. But when Ezra was three, and I started bringing him to those suffocating family business dinners or my father's annual charity night, there wasn't much to hide. They looked at him and knew. But they never said a word to Zayn. I made sure of that.

Me and Ezra were just fine without him.

Zayn dragged a hand through his hair, jaw tight. "He does. You can't seriously tell me you don't see it."

"I don't have to tell you anything," I said. "And it doesn't mean what you think it does. You don't know my partner. Ezra looks exactly like him. I've told you that already."

He didn't buy it. That much was obvious.

"I'm not accusing you," he said, quickly—too quickly.

I raised an eyebrow. "Could've fooled me. What do you think my partner would say? If some stranger turned up trying to claim his child?"

He stepped closer. Not too close, but close enough that I could see it. The doubt. The fear behind all that rehearsed bravado.

"You didn't act like this yesterday," he said. "You were fine. You let Ezra talk to me. You talked to me. You didn't look at me like this."

He wasn't wrong. But yesterday had been the slip. This was the correction.

"You want to know what changed?" I asked, steady. "You did. You saw a resemblance and decided you had the right to drag it into my life. You don't."