I can't explain but I want to try
There's this image of you and I
And it goes dancing by
In the morning and in the night time
I was lying if I said Zayn's call didn't scare the shit out of me.
The first thing that popped in my mind was that he somehow found out about what happened with Harry, and I knew that should be the least of my worries, but I couldn't help but have it in my mind. Once I heard the nerves in his voice, my mind quickly drifted away to the fact that maybe someone was attacking him. That was when I panicked.
Luckily, it was nothing. I was glad he hadn't forgotten about me yet, him calling just because was a real mood lifter and I appreciated his concern so fucking much. He was always so caring, I missed him.
On the other hand, things had gone downhill in regards to the job. The top one in my concern list was Alissa. Who the fuck was she? My period made me three times angrier than I'd normally would get, but the cunt had lied to me.
And I had been stupid enough to just go ahead and trust her within less than two days of knowing each other. All the precarious movement going on in my thoughts added to my period were driving me insane, and I should've never trusted her in the first place.
The second of my concerns was how we had failed miserably once more. Gaten Marina was a complete crybaby, and that was probably why he revealed everything we needed to know before I could even take out a gun.
He said, since he hadn't made it in time for the trade because we didn't allow him to, they had probably gone for the 'backup trader'. I had no idea there was a backup trader, but I guess the guy who wanted the diamond was way more prepared than we anticipated. That complicated the whole thing, and now I was starting to wonder what the fuck we'd do next.
The second exchanger was at the party too, which meant we had to travel to the next country to wait for the next trade. I was so fucking pissed off with everyone, especially with a certain couple: Alissa Chambers and Alex Turner.
The next exchange wasn't till a week and a half from now, and it was happening in freaking Argentina. We'd travel to Buenos Aires tomorrow or the day after, and we would settle down on a property I owned there. I didn't know why they had chosen such distanced countries, maybe so that way the trade would be harder to track. I had no idea, but they weren't making it any easier for us.
As soon as Harry and I got home, I changed into my most comfortable clothes and sat on the couch to watch TV. I had been craving ice cream all day, so we ordered some and watched a movie. We both had very different tastes, I don't know how I ended up watching a romantic comedy with him.
I had too many things in my mind, I wasn't even paying attention to my surroundings and I wasn't in full control of my body, which was probably why I snapped out of my trance when I noticed Harry and I were cuddling.
Trust me, I never meant to, but I was just really tired and I got lost in my mind before I could even process what was happening. And I had no clue how Harry and I ended up fucking cuddling in the first place. From what I remember, we were sitting down on opposite ends of the couch.
The other thing that freaked the fuck out of me was how I was clutching the rose pendant to death. The pressure I was using to hold it had left red crevices on my fingers and I wondered where I had gotten all this strength from. Or even better, why the hell I was holding the goddamn necklace.
The couch wasn't small, but it wasn't exactly big either. Harry was squeezed between me and the backrest, though he looked really comfortable. My one arm and leg were hanging outside the couch, and I was lucky I was 5' 1" or else I would've fallen off.
I acknowledged my own anatomy at freaking 3 p.m. when my phone started ringing loud as fuck, and it woke up Harry as well. I was surprised to see Zayn's name on the Caller ID, I was dreading the worst and it hadn't even been five minutes.
I had no idea what had happened. I had quite literally disassociated from both my body and my surroundings, and I was pretty sure that was a disorder or some shit. If you asked me, I couldn't avouch on anything I had done in the last fifteen hours while Harry slept. As far as I knew, I maybe had driven all the way to London and back and I would never find out.
I hadn't slept, I was certain of that. In fact, I doubted I had even blinked much. My eyes were bloodshot and they itched and burned so much that they were already watering. Fuck, I felt so weird, my whole body felt antsy. And I had spent this whole time just... thinking? What the fuck had happened?
It was true that I never slept at all, at least not for the past six years. But I'd usually spend the night working out or in clubs or writing or doing something. I was fully aware of my body, but now it felt like I was just... dead.
And trust me when I tell you I wasn't being dramatic. I couldn't feel a thing, the past fifteen hours were a huge gap in my mind. The last thing I remembered was the stupid-ass movie, um, The Notebook? I don't know, but Harry insisted so much that I ended up giving in to watch a fucking romantic movie.
The only thing I did know was what I was thinking about. Alissa and Alex, Harry, Zayn, the diamond, the next trade, Louis, Harry again. It was like I was lost in my own mind... and I felt safe in there for the first time in a decade.
It was ironic though, because my mind wasn't a reliable place where you could just hang out. It hurt being in there, so fucking much, and I always wished I could leave that place and never come back. But this time... this time I wanted to stay. I never wanted to wake up.
"Hey, did you know this place had a gym?" Harry appeared behind me, snapping me out of my comatose state and making me turn around instinctively.
He looked as hot as ever, wearing just a pair of black basketball shorts with a neon green fringe on each side. The bermudas were a little too tight on his ass, and it was undeniable: he had an amazing ass.
His toned abdomen was on display, and so were the many ink designs percolated on his skin. I doted every single one of his tattoos, and it seemed as though today I was founding plenty of new ones.
I hated how he had chosen to not wear a shirt whenever we were home, it only increased my needs and that was something that we still hadn't discussed. Everything had been too heated and we hadn't got a second of peace to decide what was going to happen with us. I was scared about what he had to say, to be honest.
I knew what I wanted though: distance. And trust me, I was dying for him to fuck me, but things would start getting more complicated if we actually slept together. The phone call with Zayn had made me cross-examine everything. I promised my actual boyfriend that I'd come back for him, and I always tried not to break any promises.
"Nope," I formed my lips into a line, nodding unwittingly. "You know what's funny? I have the same shorts."
"Oh, really? Let me see then." Harry quirked the corners of his lips down and raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest.
Fuck, had he done that on purpose? Of course I had to look down to watch the way his biceps flexed, it was so fucking alluring. And his tone... was he flirting with me? He sounded like he was flirting with me, but he couldn't flirt with me. Why was he flirting with me?
And before I could even blink, I found myself rushing up the stairs to get the bermudas. I had, in fact, the same pair of shorts, and I found it so weird how many coincidences I had spotted so far: the rose tattoo on his elbow had the same design as the ones scattered across my body, his ring matched mine and now we had the same bermudas.
Universe.
Shut up.
I slipped into the shorts without even caring that Harry was watching from the threshold of my room, he had seen me walking around in my underwear before. Plus, the way his mouth was watering at the sight was just feeding my ego and it worked as a huge boost of self-esteem.
"See?" I hooked my fingers on the hem of my shirt and lifted up to above my navel, enough for Harry to be able to see.
Honestly, I don't think he was looking at the short, but it just made me smirk stupidly and let the shirt intendedly fall over my stomach. His eyes lifted to my face again, and now we were just creepily staring at each other in complete silence.
"You said there was a gym here?" I broke the ice, raising my eyebrows at him and making him snap out of his odd trance. "I could use some workout."
"Mind if I join you?" He cleared his throat awkwardly, keeping his anatomy leaned against the door sill.
"Nope, not at all." I endorsed, turning around to grasp a sports bra from my bag.
I didn't even hesitate when I took off my shirt, keeping my back to him. I wasn't wearing a bra, I was sure he had noticed that before. I wasted no time in slipping into the sports bra, leaving my whole stomach exposed as well as my cleavage.
And when I turned around, that's where Harry's eyes landed on first.
"C'mon, Mr. Gazer, let's go work out." "I walked past him, making sure to bump our shoulders in the process.
I grabbed my Adidas together with my phone and music speaker, I hated quiet workouts. And no, I didn't give a damn if Harry was annoyed by the music because I was in a great mood and I was really emotionally attached to music.
It was weird, I had never done my exercise routine along with anyone else. Except for Zayn, he joined me every now and then. But I was used to doing it all on my own, and now I was sharing my most personal things with someone I had met barely a week ago. Dammit.
Harry guided both of us to the gym, and I was surprised when I realized the place was actually gigantic. There were a bunch of treadmills, dumbbells, gym pads, weight banks and other machines, punching bags and two huge-ass mirrors that covered the walls.
I would probably just go off on the punching bag, then run a bit, arm workout and, in the end, elongations. The basics. I had no idea what Harry's workout was like, but I wasn't going to focus on him.
Or at least I was going to try not to.
I put on my shoes and connected my phone to the speaker, putting my Spotify playlist in shuffle. Immediately, Talk Is Cheap by Chet Faker started playing. Harry turned his head to me at the sudden change in the atmosphere, but I was already heading towards one of the punching bags without even looking at him.
I stretched a bit my quadriceps, adductors, biceps and a shit ton of other muscles not to hurt myself, and I could feel Harry's steady eyes on me while I elongated on one of the gym pads. I really couldn't care less though, he could stare all he wanted.
As soon as I finished, I headed directly to the ring and put on the punching gloves. I circled my neck and went off on it, offloading all of my brisk behaviour and emptying my mind at least momentarily.
Workouts were a really important thing in my life, they were the only time of the week that I actually felt like I was doing something good for myself both physically and emotionally, especially since I barely ever ate or slept. Punching bags were my besties, I could vent with them without having to say anything. They understood, as stupid as it sounded.
My mind had been stuck in Alissa and Zayn for a long while now. I couldn't understand why I was so mad at Alissa, we weren't that close. We knew each other for less than a week and yet it felt like I had been fooled by my best friend in the whole world. Probably my period had something to do with that feeling, but I honestly couldn't tell.
She told me she belonged to the D.M.G., and maybe that was true, but that didn't change the fact that she was now conspiring against me. I couldn't bring myself to think about things such as if she would've killed me if she had to. It hurt to think that way, to be honest, and I hated that I had grown so attached to a stranger.
Now, I had been overthinking about Zayn's call and I came to the conclusion that something wasn't right. I had deliberately told him not to come looking for me, so if he had called that meant he wanted to tell me something, but he made the last-minute decision not to say a word.
My only theory was that he somehow found out about me and Harry, but I couldn't see how that would've happened in the first place. I wasn't going to discard the theory just yet though, I was going to wait and try to connect the dots on everything.
I don't know for how long I went off on the same punching bag, probably not long since the same song was still playing, but Harry's voice snapped me out of my own little bubble. "Can I join you?"
"Join me as in fighting in the ring?" I squinted at him, a thin layer of sweat coating my hairline and ragged breaths escaping my lips.
"Yeah, why not." He stated, clearly not willing to work out on his own. I didn't mind though.
I scanned his body up and down. I didn't know where he had been the last few minutes, but he was sweaty too and breathing heavily. He could've been running or going off on a punching bag like I was. His curls were tied up in a small bun on the top of his head and the sweat made his torso shine under the blinding lights of the gym. I took a second to analyze his words correctly before I answered.
"Are you willing to be my punching bag?"
The smirk that creeped up his lips was enough to make me grin too. I wasn't sure if he knew what he was getting himself into, I had no mercy when it came to fighting and I was clearly not going to crash all of his bones, but he seemed to be really confident about himself.
"Are you willing to be my punching bag?" Harry arched an eyebrow at me, making me snort mockingly in response.
"You think you can handle me, yet my training is way better than any FBI agent's." I gave him a warning look, but I couldn't erase the smirk off of my face as hard as I tried.
"You'd be surprised, baby." He winked at me, and the sudden nickname made my blood stop flowing in my veins.
Baby.
I had a weird feeling in my chest, it felt as though it was tingling and I loved the feeling. He had called me baby and I was so caught up on it that my mind had gone on dead short for some brief seconds.
I clenched my fists, feeling the thousand butterflies fluttering in my stomach, and jumped into the ring, "I've been waiting the whole week to kick your ass."
"Don't lie to yourself, you want me to do something else with your ass." He smirked, showcasing his dimples.
My heart stopped abruptly, mostly because what he said was... partially true. It was a low blow for him to start with sexual teasing, because he was going to get the worst payback he could ever imagine.
"You know? You're too annoying, I think I changed my mind." I tried to hide the effect his words had had on me, taking out the punching gloves and tossing them somewhere in the room. "I might break you a couple bones, that way you'll think twice before talking."
I scrunched my nose and gave him a tight-lipped smile, watching him as he took his own gloves. I wasn't mad at him, I was just messing around and, well, preparing my revenge. I knew the men's weak spot, and that was their crotch area. He was the one who had brought sexual teasing into the game, I might as well use it too.
Maybe today, or maybe when he less expected it.
"Hit me with your best blow, c'mon." I motioned my index finger so that he'd get underway once and for all, and he luckily complied.
I analyzed his position and the way he was standing, and it took me little to no time to understand his fist was heading to my stomach. I dodge it easily, keeping my hands behind my back. I was, indeed, really good, but this dumbass thought he could overpower me.
Harry groaned in frustration when he failed the blow, and I found myself laughing under my breath because it was impossible not to. He then chose a different technique; instead of running towards me, he approached me slowly. He knew what he was doing, because he was just standing with his hands by his sides and I couldn't seem to decipher what his next move would be.
Fuck.
I unlatched my hands from my back and imitated his position just to be more prepared, but he caught me off guard when he suddenly directed his fist to my face. I managed to block it with my wrist, but then he used his spare hand to punch my stomach. My movements were fast and I made it in time to cushion his fist with my palm, but I felt the impact either way.
The pain was more annoying because of my period and I had to give him some credit on that. My weakness was stomach blows in every state of my life, but especially now, and the motherfucker was very well aware of that.
The thing was, now I was just pissed off at him for using that against me.
I went against every single one of my morals that told me to just defend and not attack and simply ran towards him, managing to connect my fist to his side. But he grabbed my hand and crossed it around my neck before somehow pinning me against the floor.
I grunted in pain the minute the side of my face hit the ground, and I didn't know what was up to me because I was a much better fighter than this shit. My period was making me grow angrier each time Harry overcame me, I had to focus on showing him who ruled.
He kept my hands against my back for a short second before letting go of me. I stood up instantaneously, holding my shoulder while I circled it. The expression on my face was a clear reference to my anger, I knew I could beat the shit out of him and I was really holding myself back from doing so.
I felt Harry's presence behind me before he spoke, and his hot breath crashing against my skin made a weird chill go down my spine, "Who's laughing now?"
I gathered all of my strength however I could, inhaling deep intakes of oxygen before I turned around abruptly. It took all of my muscular force and avoiding the sharp pain on my ovaries to jump, wrap my legs around his hips and pin him against the floor with my hands around his neck.
I looked deep into his eyes before applying a little bit more pressure on his windpipe. A breathless grunt left his lips, which was my cue to stop. I left my spot on his lap and looked downwards at him, I had only done this to prove a point.
"I am."