This Thing Upon Me [Order The eBook] [Harry Styles]

Chapter 16***

As Z and I made our way through piles of old newsletters and boxes stacked as high as the ceiling, he grabbed a hold of my shirttail and I reached back and held his hand a little. He stroked my fingers absently, and instead of setting my nerves at ease, it made them electric and frenzied.

Pushing forward through total darkness and clutching for the first overhead light was frightening, but proved far less frightening than acknowledging the heat swirling around the pit of my belly, elicited by his touch. A touch he probably didn't think twice of, and which I was now obsessing over. He drew so much out of me without thought, and I couldn't help but wonder if I was capable of drawing anything out of him.

Halting beneath the light, my fingers slipped from within his and I felt cold all over. When I pulled the chord, nothing happened. Not even a spark of electricity to light the next few feet. We had to make our way to the second one while the shadows deepened, since there were no ground-level windows here.

"Youh gud?" Z whispered, noticing I had slowed.

"All good," I whispered back, trying to recall where the second switch was from memory. I could barely see my hand when I lifted it in front of my face, but sensing his pressure behind me, keeping up with my every step—listening to him breathe—somehow made me feel comforted, like I was strolling through a sun-soaked English garden and not this crypt-like death-trap.

"Got it!" I triumphed at last, pulling the chain with ease since it was longer than the last one (having grazed my forehead as I walked by). A weak light flickered to life and filtered dimly throughout the next hundred feet, right to the threshold we called "the square" (the cellar opened up into what looked like a town square, tiled in red.) It used to be a bar, and the stools still lined the outer side of the bartop in cracked leather upholstery.

"Sickkk!" Z laughed, hopping behind the counter and searching through the old glassware. I heard him popping the top off an empty decanter while I rummaged. Then I heard him sneeze a few times as he kicked up dust. After the third sneeze I gave up blessing him and just told him to get from over there.

He joined me at the boxes and we began to carefully take them down one at a time, searching for any sort of flotation device. There were heaps of old postcards and polaroids in each box, and when Zayn found a camera he watched me through the viewfinder with his signature half-grin.

"Can't believe he keeps all this stuff," I muttered, sitting in the center of the square with a box full of old albums from the 80s.

"Where's it from?" he asked, kneeling on the floor across from me and rummaging without relent.

"Trips with his first wife...stuff from his parents and family and old jobs."

"Haha check this..." He handed me a picture of a brunette woman with big glasses and a poof of curly hair. "Tell me that's not youh, Haz."

"It's not!" I cried with a laugh, tucking the pic away. He found another of Robin at the beach smoking a cigar and called it "G. sh-t".

"We're gonna be here all night."

"The other bois are probably like: 'where the hell did they run off to?'" He laughed, the tip of his tongue poking between his teeth. "We forget to tell 'em, yeah?"

"They'll figure it out soon enough."

"Maan, I love it here. I love explorin'". It was the single most adorable, unguarded thing I had ever heard him say. He was becoming comfortable with me and saying earnest stuff that made me smile.