The Contract // H.S.

Chapter Ten //

I walk into my house for the first time in almost forty-eight hours and drop my keys in the bowl on the entryway table. I can smell whatever Sam has decided to cook us for dinner all over the house, and it's comforting. It's 5:30PM, Harry and I finished running through the script about an hour and a half after our insane makeout session in his hot tub. That was unexpected. After that, Harry drove me back to my car where it was still parked in the lot next to the restaurant. I am surprised it didn't get towed away. 

On my ride home, I couldn't help but analyze everything that had just happened to me in the past 24 hours. My ex drugged me, and tried to kidnap me. Harry punched him and took care of me. I spent the night at Harry's house. Harry cooked me breakfast and was a complete gentleman about not going too fast when our attraction to each other would have landed us in his bed for the rest of the night if we'd let it. Harry is not what I was expecting. 

What did I expect, anyway? If I believed the media, I guess I thought he was a playboy rockstar, who gets everything he wants without trying and that includes the multiple different women he brings home every week. Notorious for being perpetually single, the non-media version that I'd heard of him was that Harry was a good person, but deathly afraid of commitment, of relationships, of labels. He could be a bit of a narcissist and loves women who stroke his ego. So what the hell does he want with me? He can't possibly be interested in this being more than a fling. The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to feel like I have to guard my heart. If I'm not careful, Harry could break me. I'm fully aware of that by now based on the exploding electrifying feeling I get whenever he touches me. This was supposed to be a simple contract, I was hoping Harry would be unbearable to be around so that it would be easy for me not to get my emotions involved. But it's too late for that now. 

Now, back in my cozy little LA bungalow, the haze of the last day is lifting. The Harry bubble that has been surrounding me has disappeared. Maybe I need to tell Sam.

"Sam?" I wonder out loud into the abyss of the house. 

"Hey Clo! In the kitchen," Sam distantly yells. 

I walk into the kitchen where Sam is currently holding a glass of wine above her head, dancing around the room while waiting for whatever is in the oven to finish cooking. 

"How did running lines with Harry go?" She turns to look at me, a questioning look on her face when she realizes my hair is still half-damp. 

"Good," I say as I walk to one of the cabinets by the sink and grab a glass to fill it with ice water. 

"Just..good? Girl you gotta give me more than that," Sam laughs. "I feel like I haven't talked to you in weeks."

"Sorry. Yeah, it went well," I take a sip of my water. "Harry's actually pretty talented. Go fucking figure," I say sarcastically. Sam laughs.

"So you're gonna have to explain this Nick thing to me. I can't see any situation in which you'd be stupid enough to have dinner with him," Sam asks, continuing to drink her wine. 

"Ugh, Sam, I don't know. It sounded like he was really upset. He was crying for fuck's sake. Just a ploy to get me to say yes, though," I walk over to the eating area in the kitchen and take a seat and launch into recapping everything that happened starting with saying yes to meeting Nick for dinner. Sam brings dinner to the table and gasps at the appropriate times. She thinks what Harry did sounds "hot as fuck", and I'm about to tell her what happened today when I stop and change course. 

"Listen, there's something I need to tell you but you can't tell a single soul in the entire world, Sam," I tell her, hoping that if she understand the gravity of not letting this get out that she will be especially careful with this secret. Sam has been the most trustworthy person in my life the past two years so I'm not terribly worried.