Sensation (h.s)

Chapter Thirty Nine

He tells me over text I can go ahead and wait at his apartment for him, but I decide against it. I haven't heard from Lena in nearly a week and I'm not surprised when she's not in the hotel room when I arrive. I take advantage of having the time to myself to spend nearly an hour in shower in hopes of relaxing my nerves. My mind has somewhat slowed down since this morning since my plane ride consisted of multiple hours I had to myself to straighten out my thoughts.

After my shower, I take my time putting on lotion and adding a few treatments to my hair in hopes of increasing the health. I move on to applying some green face mask that smells like mint that I bought months ago and never used.

While I'm waiting for the product to settle and cleanse my skin, I take a seat on the edge of the hotel bed after tracking down my phone from my travel bag. Harry hasn't sent me anything so I assume his flight hasn't landed. I spend a few minutes silently staring at the carpet while analyzing things I have to do in preparation to go back to classes.

At some point my mind wanders off in another direction and I find myself shamelessly crouched over my purse in search of the note James gave to me before I left. I feel slightly guilty still being so caught up in everything even though I've decided time and time again Harry is what I want now and James is just part of my past.

Despite my mind telling me not to, I go ahead and enter his number into my phone and send a text. I start off casually with a short greeting alongside a note in parenthesis where I mention who I am and that I'm messaging him from my new phone number. My brain reminds me time and time again I'm very likely making a large mistake by contacting him, but I push the thoughts aside. I'm sick of everyone telling me what to do with my life and even though my rebellion could be much less harmful things other than contacting James, I go along with it anyways.

He texts me back within minutes of sending my first message and my heart races as soon as I see his name on my screen. Millions of memories flood my mind of the past just from the simple moment.

In the message he returns my greeting and tells me he's glad I got ahold of him. His message is short yet somewhat flirty in an odd way that has me smiling to myself as I respond.

Fifteen minutes into our back and forth messaging, I nearly jump out of my skin in excitement when James asks if he can call me. He claims it's been too long since he's heard my voice and I have to stop myself from squealing when my phone starts ringing in my hand.

"Hello?" I answer after the third ring, too excited to wait for the respectable amount of rings.

"Hey you." James greets back sweetly. My heart races once again just from the sound of his deep voice on the speaker.

"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice sounding somewhat squeaky. It feels somewhat taboo to talk to James while dating Harry even though I'm not doing anything wrong just by talking to him. I'm not cheating on Harry by chatting with an old friend...

"Nothing, really. I'm glad I could get ahold of you. I mentioned the other day how much I've missed you, right?" He chuckles softly as he asks the question and I bite down harshly on my lip. I'm laying on my bed trying to act casual even though I feel crazy.

"Yeah, you did. I told you I've missed you too. Then we hugged it out."

"Ah, right. Then you gave me the famous look I had seen many times in the past and I tried to kiss you then discovered quickly that look no longer has the same meaning." I hear him laugh again and I giggle along with him while thinking back to the moment from only a few days ago. This conversation is suddenly getting less harmless than I promised myself it would be.

"You know I have a boyfriend, J. I apologize for the misleading look that I didn't even know I was giving you." My tone is teasing and I can almost picture him smirking on the other end of the call.