the social experiment // haylor au

eight // content

It sounded so juvenile – like they were in high school and they were giddy teenagers instead of fully grown adults.

"I mean, yes, Taylor. If that's what you're offering."

Her eyes shone and the radiant smile on her face was the good sign he'd been hoping for the past few days. Suddenly, irrationally, his nervousness came back. No, not irrationally. Never, did he think someone who understood him as intuitively as Taylor would be interested in him. And he had not anticipated wanting to be with anyone like her – not since...

"Taylor, I know if we are together, I'm going to make mistakes. I don't, uh – I don't know how to be uh," he stopped and swallowed, pulling a hand through his hair, "the kind of person you deserve to be with. I know I still have so many things I need to work on. I want to treat you right, but a small part of me just keeps thinking about how I'm sure I'm going to hurt you because I'm me."

He sat back on the couch and they broke eye contact for the first time since they'd begun their tête-à-tête.

"Harry," she called and he looked back her now-misty face. She looked at him like how she might look at a wounded little bird. "I like you because you're you. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't have opened up to you, I wouldn't have befriended you. I certainly wouldn't have let you get so close to my daughter. And making mistakes? I'm going to do plenty of that. But, I don't know – you are nothing like anyone else I've been interested in – and a vast improvement intellectually. But I just really like you, and I really believe in the two of us; you shouldn't forget that."

It took his frail nerves a moment to assimilate what she had said. He nodded slowly.

"So, Taylor Swift, will you be my girlfriend?"

Taylor laughed and tucked her head into his chest as he pulled an arm around her. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and nodded slowly. His heart soared. With pure bliss pumping through his veins, he dipped his head down slowly and pressed a kiss to her cheek, which brought a blush that he could see easily, thanks to her lack of makeup.

"Hey – one more thing," she suddenly remembered, jumping up and padding over to the desk in the corner and pulling a manila folder from the top drawer and bringing it to him on the couch with a pen swiped from a cup.

"What's this?" he said slightly amused as she pulled a document from the envelope and flipped to the last page.

"A patient release form. I can't date you if I'm still your psychologist."

-

"Harry, you're here!" he heard a high pitched voice squeal as soon as he followed Taylor up the stairs into the causal living area he'd grown so accustomed to being in. It was early evening, the soft lights on the streets coming on and complementing the soft lighting of Taylor's Christmas lights indoors.

"Hey Kennedy," he found an easy smile already on his face when he said her name, a detail that was not missed by Taylor.

"Yeah, Harry's here for the movie, Ken," Taylor smiled and disappeared into the door that led to her bedroom, presumably to fix her mussed hair before Kennedy noticed anything off about her mother.

Her mother, who had, after Harry had signed his release form, kissed him within an inch of his life. He had no idea how she could hold her breath as long as she did, but when she pulled away, he was breathing like he'd just run a marathon, eyes wide in amazement. Taylor relished the look of utter adoration that he gazed at her with, as she'd delicately climbed on top of him where he'd flopped down on the sofa and showed him just how much their relationship had changed.