isabella [h.s.]

five

**I'd rather be a friend than an enemy
Now I'm getting out my head
And then without a chance
it's taking over me**

HARRY

I'm in the middle of making a cup of tea the next morning when the door of Isabella's bedroom is creaked open and a slightly dishevelled, half-asleep man emerges from behind it. He's dressed in baggy, all black clothes, and he's even wearing a snapback and a gold chain, despite the fact that he literally just woke up. I find myself wondering if he was wearing that chain the whole night, and by the looks of him, I wouldn't doubt it.

"Oh, hey, man," he says once he opens his eyes enough to see me stood in the kitchen, as if he forgot that I live here too. Scratch that, as if he forgot that this is my apartment. "I need to take a leak. Where's the bathroom?"

Without saying anything, I just point to the door of the bathroom and he nods at me as a thanks before hurrying off. As I return my attention to stirring sugar into my tea, one teaspoon as always, I begin to wonder when Isabella will be making an appearance. I assume that she's pretty tired after the fun night she apparently had, and that she may not want to face me after all the noise I had to listen to. Or maybe because she walked in on that rather strange moment between Nancy and I last night. I let out a sigh as I remember it, really hoping she doesn't bring it up at work today. I don't think I could handle that kind of awkward conversation when I'm running on very little sleep.

When the guy, who's name I still don't know despite the fact that he's currently walking around my home, strolls out of the bathroom, he joins me in the kitchen, saying something about how Isabella asked him to make her some tea, and then making some comment about how he doesn't understand why 'you weird British people' like it so much. I just hum lowly, because I don't particularly understand why Americans like certain things, but I'm not rude enough to comment on it.

I take a seat at the table with my mug while he refills the kettle, and I hope that he'll return to Isabella's room as he waits for it to boil, but unfortunately he doesn't, just leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. From the closer proximity, I notice that's he's practically covered in tattoos, ink littered all down his arms, across his hands, and up his neck. He even has a few face tattoos, a few dotted near his temples and then some illegible word scribbled under his left eye. I'm not the type to judge a book by its cover or anything, but I'm partly surprised that he doesn't have a teardrop tattoo to complete his collection.

"I'm Hunter, by the way," he suddenly says.

I nod my head, taking a sip of my tea as I tidy up the case files I'd thrown to the side to make room for the dinner party last night. "Harry," I reply, hoping that suffices as an introduction.

"So, Isabella said you work for the NYPD or something?" he asks in a vaguely disinterested tone, and it becomes pretty clear to me that he's only making conversation to fill what would otherwise be an awkward silence. I'm not sure if he's aware of his own transparency or if he even realises that I know he's not really interested in what I do for a living, or anything about me, but I decide to humour him anyway.