the social experiment // haylor au

four // rain on your parade

The following week brought about two things out of the ordinary for Harry.

The first thing that happened was that Taylor was the one who had traveled form her home to his; and the second, was the fact that her travelling to him is before the Friday of the next session they'd booked together.

Harry thought about how he was having a normal week – besides all the times he zoned out during work – which never happened normally – and thought about Taylor, or Taylor's surprise kid, and how he sort of wanted to meet her kid – you know, just to see if she was like her mom – and so this was all a bit of a surprise to him. He had been trying to come up with a mechanism that would be a solution to the liquid oxygen not being mixed into the fuel of a space craft, which would correct the propulsion and trajectory of the craft and release a backup store of oxygen, when Louis entered his office uninvited.

He knew before he looked up from his computer that it was him, because no one else he employed had the audacity to stroll into his office uninvited, and Harry knew that he couldn't fire his best nuclear engineer – and Louis knew this too, because he did whatever he pleased most of the time. It probably also helped that he was the of Harry's few friends.

Harry had found him increasingly more and more invasive and annoying over the past few weeks, because he always made it a point to ask how his girlfriend Taylor was doing, which annoyed Harry to no end. Harry regretted ever telling him he'd been seeing a psychologist, but Louis was his friend, and that dictated that they have regular conversations about the happenings of each others' lives. He had long since stopped trying to correct his friend because he wasn't about to waste any more energy on this absurd fixation with his personal life. Harry only paid one person to worry about his private life, and it certainly wasn't Louis.

"Hey boss, your girlfriend's out in the lobby looking for you," Louis said, leaning on Harry's desk and picking up a cup full of pencils, examining how sharp they were, one by one.

"I don't pay you to keep tabs on Taylor, Louis. And besides that, Taylor's not my girlfriend," Harry said almost automatically, not looking up from his iPad, where he was sketching something intently. After a few seconds, the words registered and his head shot up and he looked at the other man quizzically. "Did you just say Taylor was out in the lobby?"

"Yes," Louis paused as he watched Harry almost stumble into a bookshelf as he practically flew from his chair, "Actually, I'm also calling bullshit on all those doctors that claim you have a genius IQ because a pineapple has more brains than you some—" Harry didn't hear the rest of what he said, because at that point his mind was running at the speed of light and he'd left his office, work completely forgotten, and out the door to the gallery right outside it, overlooking the glass double doors in the front and the large, marbled lobby of Think Tank – with the company logo of a big blue brain emblazoned in the middle of the floor.

Sure enough, there, on a Wednesday afternoon was Taylor Swift, MD, talking to one of the blonde, too-eager receptionists, who hurried off at something Taylor had said.

Harry took the curved steps two at a time and arrived flustered a few seconds later, face to face with a radiant looking Taylor.

"Harry, hey. I thought I'd bring you some flowers," she said, gesturing to the roses now in a vase being carried back to the front desk by the same young receptionist he'd seen dashing off a moment ago. "And I also thought we could go out for some coffee at a place I know close by – that is, if you're not busy right now."

Harry had to blink a little and take a second to process her words. He thought of the fuel and oxygen designs sitting on his desk. Then he also thought of Taylor's expectant smile, like this kind of thing was completely normal to do – the showing up at his office taking him out to coffee unexpectedly. And bringing him flowers. And looking so gorgeous in that skirt and strappy tank top. He forced his eyes back to her face.