Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

42ᴺᴰ CHAPTER

He chuckles at that, nosing at her head. “That I’ve noticed. But why?”

“Wanted to surprise you,” she states simply, and then he feels her head moving from under his chin. If the sounds her tousled hair makes on the pillow is anything to go by, he’d say she’s staring straight up at him. “Which reminds me, we have a party to attend in an hour.”

Harry opens his eyes slowly and feels the vestige of awakeness that’d been almost fading completely hitting him again. “You’re not serious.”

She shrugs. “We spent a week working on this, and you’re going.”

He frowns. “We? As in…”

“As in me and Zayn. He wanted help,” she clears, leans closer to press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “An hour, Harry. Make the best of this bed before I push you out of it.”

Harry growls. “Oh no.”

That only seems to spur Elisha, whose smile turns bright.

“Ooh yeah.”

--

The hour after that they napped, and that was pretty much it.

Harry woke up to soothing kisses all over his face and the threat of being thrown out his own mattress if he didn’t ‘move his pretty little ass’ right then.

It wasn’t that much of a threat having said that he spent so long grinning at that that she actually came to punch him, except he held her wrist and pulled her back down on the bed for fifteen more minutes.

No need to say they ended up late for his own birthday party.

His family is mostly there. For the past ten minutes Anne has been chatting Perrie up, after having peppered Harry with more kisses and a hug that still feels too tight due regret, resentment or mere longing – a long-term one. Gemma is hidden in a corner with her boyfriend, glass in hand and voice subdued by the song.

His grandmother seems like she doesn’t want to be there at all, squinting her eyes at every single detail and mentally trying to block her ears. Whose idea was to bring her, honestly? Harry spends some time with her before excusing himself to talk to others, anyway.

Robin is talking to Elisha as they sit on a table and nip on a dish every now and then, the smiles on their faces making it clear they’re having much more fun than Harry himself.

Zayn leans over his shoulder as he considers turning off the blasting music and sending everyone home. “Having fun?” he asks almost as if reading Harry’s thoughts.

Instead of replying to his friend, he shakes his head in disbelief, glancing around amazedly. “I can’t believe you used my warehouse, Z.”

Zayn laughs behind him, moves to stand on his side and wrap an arm around his shoulders. The older boy points forward with a beverage in hand, almost as instigating Harry to visualise something. “Nice though, huh? Leesh did a hell of a job with the decoration.”

Leesh.

All of his finished paintings have gone to the walls. The biggest ones are pinned higher, the smaller, not much higher than their own heads. The ones he hasn’t finished are placed onto easels she’s placed on the second floor area (where his mattress should be but is nowhere to be seen); against the walls forming an ‘L’ with small seats around and small candles lit up on the floor inbetween the unoccupied spaces.

She’s also shifted his rope of photographs to the back of the room, and now there isn’t only one, but three. One above the other. Not only his photographs seem to be there, but also his drawings. Every. Single. One. Of them. (Which are… many. Wow. He doesn’t recall drawing that much).