"Bye, Benny. I'm going to miss you so much. You can always call me on the phone and talk to me if you want, okay? I'll be home. And don't forget to wash your hands, put your toys away and help grandma, okay?"
He leaned in to whisper now.
"And remember our secret. Only you and I should know about Papa. Okay?"
"Okay."
"I love you."
Gemma closed the trunk to her car and came around just as he was stepping back from the car.
"You do this every time."
"I do what?"
"That... stuff."
"Tell my child I love him?" He asked as he closed Benjamin's door.
"No. You say goodbye like he's going away for two years. He's just spending the night. He'll be back tomorrow."
"I know."
"And it's not like you're not away from him sometimes. You have a regular babysitter. Or do you also do this with Niall?"
"No. I don't do this with Niall because Benjamin doesn't go anywhere. Niall comes to me. But this is different. He's going away and I'm going to be home alone."
Gemma put a soft hand on his shoulder.
"Harry, let me tell you what you should do for days like this."
"What?"
"Find a boyfriend."
"Gemma, no."
"Yes, Harry. It would help you fill the time when Benjamin comes to stay with us. Plus you can't use the college excuse anymore. You've been out of school for six months and you've been settled in this new house for like five, almost. It's time."
He folded his arms.
"Gemma, I don't need a boyfriend. I have Benjamin and that's what I should worry about."
"Uh, Harry." She leaned in with a lowered voice.
"Having a child doesn't mean you can't have sex."
He frowned.
"It's not about that, Gem. When you bring someone new in your life, you have to make sure that your child is safe around them. There's crazy people in this world and you can't trust everybody."
"That is true."
"So then no boyfriend for me. Because I don't feel like vetting anyone. I'm good the way I am. Just bring my boy back safe, okay?"
She smiled.
"I will. Don't worry. We'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye."
When she got in the car, he stood back and waved to Benjamin once more before blowing a kiss.
Then he watched them back out of the driveway and stood there until he couldn't see them anymore.
That's when he realized he'd been outside with no coat on. Silly him, so focused on getting his son ready that he didn't even think about himself. The life of a parent sometimes.
He slowly walked up the driveway and up to the front door, just as he put his hand on the knob to open the door, he heard the sound of an engine getting closer. At first he thought Gemma was returning, but when he turned around, he realized it wasn't her.
With a look of confusion, he waited until the engine turned off and then watched as a familiar face emerged from the car.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" He called out.
"What do you think? I'm here to see my son, of course. I thought I didn't need to call to do that."
Harry rubbed up and down his arms to warm them.
"You don't. But he's not here, Zayn. You just passed him."
"Passed him?"
"Gemma just took him."
This time Zayn waited until he reached him before he responded.
"What exactly do you mean by 'took him?'"
"He's spending the night with her and my mom tonight. So she came by and picked him up. She just left."
Zayn twisted his mouth sideways as if he were thinking.
"Hmm. I see."
"Yep. Sorry."
"That's okay. So what are you doing out here with no coat?"
"Just forgot."
"How do you forget your coat in the middle of winter?"
"You try rushing a four year old out of the door in the morning while making sure he has everything in his overnight bag."
"I would like to try. But right now I can only imagine because he's not here."
Harry smiled but then he thought about something.
"Speaking of morning. It's a Friday. Aren't you supposed to be running the dry cleaners?"
"I am. But I took an early weekend to be here. I was hoping I could spend a weekday with him. I haven't gotten to do that with him yet."
"Oh. Bummer. I didn't mean to waste your whole day. Do you still wanna come in though? Or not. You don't have to. I realize you're here for Benjamin. You don't have to stay."
But Zayn clasped his hands behind his back.
"I think I'm allowed to make sure the father of my child is okay also. After all, you did go through the hard part of it all. I'm pretty sure checking up on you is just as appropriate."
"You just said two different things. Do you think or are you pretty sure?"
"I'm certain."
Harry laughed quietly then opened the door and went inside. Zayn followed and closed and locked the door behind him so Harry didn't have to.
"Brrr. It's so cold. I think I'm going to make some hot chocolate. What about you? Would you like some?"
Zayn walked over towards him.
"I'll take some. Thank you. But I admit I thought you were going to ask me if I wanted to learn how to make it. You know, since I asked you to show me one day."
"Ah... you want to know my secret."
"May I?"
"You do realize I'm freezing and I'm using the hot chocolate to warm me up, right? If I take time to teach you, that means longer time before I get warm. Taking longer to get warm means I risk getting sick. And if I do get sick, I can't take care of Benjamin, which means as a single father, Gemma and mom would have to keep him longer, forcing me to stay here alone."
But Zayn reached forward and rubbed up and down Harry's arms with his hands, using the friction to rid some of the cold. Harry exhaled quietly. Zayn used to do this in the winter when they first starting dating. It never actually helped if Harry was really cold. But it did lead to kisses that eventually made him warm up.
As if they both remembered the same thing, they drew away from each other.
"I'm... going to make... the hot chocolate. You can come if you want.''
That was Harry's official offer to teach him and he knew it so he followed him in the kitchen.
The first thing Harry did was put a saucepan on the stove and turned on the burner. Then he took a jug of milk from the refrigerator and poured some over into the sauce pan. As the milk was warming up, he began to get out all the other ingredients and utensils he needed and set them all up on the counter in an arrangement.
"Should I be worried?"
Harry looked back.
"Hm?"
"You're not saying anything. And I'm sure this is not how a tutorial works."
Harry chuckled.
"Right. Sorry. Um... Milk first, you see."
"How much?"
"I don't know. What you see."
"So you don't measure?"
He took a whisk and stirred the milk.
"No."
"Then how do you know how much to put in there?"
"I just do it based on how many mugs I'm making. In this case I know there are two of us. So I filled it up to there."
"I see."
Then he reached for the cocoa powder and poured some of that in as well as sugar.
"Let me guess no measurments?"
He took a whisk and began to stir the mixture.
"You guessed right. It really just depends on your tastebuds. If you're used to flavoring things with sugar, you can just about tell how much you need to get it to your desired sweetness. I've been making it like this for years now, so it's automatic for me."
"Automatic for you but somehow still useless for me. You do know this isn't helping me very much."
"Well, yeah. Because you're standing over there like I'll bite you or something. I don't know anyone who can adequately learn to make anything from that far away."
"I didn't know if you wanted me up there. Some people are crazy about their space."
"I have a four year old. My personal space was invaded the moment they cut him out of me. Get over here."
Zayn took a couple extra steps closer and stood next to Harry.
"Is that better? Can you see what I'm doing now?"
"Maybe."
When the mixture finally heated up, Harry poured in a few chocolate chips and mixed them with a whisk. Slowly the mixture darkened just a little.
"That already looks good."
"I'm glad you think so. Because it's pretty much done."
After adding a few drops of vanilla extract, he turned off the burner.
"Do me a favor and reach in that cabinet there for two mugs."
"Sure."
After opening the cabinet, he pulled out two mugs and sat them down. Harry had them quickly filled with hot chocolate.
"I have marshmallows, whipped cream and chocolate chips. What would you like on top?"
"I'm not choosy. I like it the way you make it."
"Ah, a man who actually let's me do something the way I want. I do like the sound of that."
So he topped both Zayn's mug and his own mug off with marshmallows and whipped cream.
"And that is how you make homemade hot chocolate."
"You didn't really want me to know how to make this, did you?"
"I told you it was a secret."
If it had been anyone else, Zayn might have allowed himself to be offended at this point. But he didn't really mind Harry wasting his time. Because at least he still recieved something delicious out of it.
He ended up following Harry to the living room and plopping down on the couch with him.
"So... what exactly do you do at the dry cleaners that allows you to just take off on a day like this?"
"I thought I told you I own it."
"Well, yeah. You did. But what does the work require?"
"Some of everything. Paying bills, opening and closing the store most times, ordering supplies and cleaning chemicals. Making sure our machines work and are up to code, keeping up with the payroll, etcetera."
"Hmm. Interesting that I didn't hear anything about handling the customers or their orders."
"What?"
"You showed up at my house out of nowhere. And you told me it was because you saw my form. Actually you said Louis told you about me first but you did admit to getting my address off of a form after that. That means you purposefully looked up private information for personal reasons and I'm pretty sure that is illegal."
He smiled.
"You got me. I don't deal with the customers directly. I avoid that if I can."
"Mhm."
"Listen, I'm sorry about that. It was wrong. But I don't hate where it landed me."
"You don't hate that you've assumed responsibility for at least the next fourteen years, for a child you had no idea existed?"
Zayn sat his mug down on the table.
"No. I do not and that's not what I mean either."
"Well what do you mean? Where has it landed you?"
"With you, on your couch and now drinking my second mug of your secret but delicious homemade hot chocolate. Fair tradeoff, I think."
Harry found the idea of hot chocolate being a fair tradeoff for suddenly being responsible for a child quite comical. But with that comparison in mind, maybe all the things he told Benjamin about his father as he was growing up weren't as far off from the truth as he thought.
"Benjamin thinks the world of you."
"He does?"
"He does."
"Wow. That makes me feel good. Does it bother you though?"
"No. Not necessarily. I wanted him to know who you were. That's why I told him stories about you all the time. Good stories. I just hope I didn't do him a disservice by only saying good things about you. Having too high of expectations isn't good for anyone either. Makes it harder to handle disappointment."
"Can I say something?"
"Sure."
"The fact that you did that amazes me so much. I mean you thought that I used you for sex and you got a baby out of it. You didn't have to listen to your mother and tell him about me at all. At least not good things. If you told him I wasn't good to you, it wouldn't have been a lie from your prospective."
"I know. But look at the other side if it. I'm glad I did. Because now we know the truth."
"That I didn't use you. I loved you?"
Harry covered his eyes with his hands.
"Do you have to say it?"
"Yes I do. We said we wouldn't forget."
"In our heads." He dropped his hands.
"We don't have say it."
"Maybe you don't but I do. To remind myself that I did. Not that I forgot. It's just... it's nice to remember the best thing that ever happened to you sometimes."
Harry paused. "Zayn."
"Hm?"
"It's been five years. By now, I can't possibly still be the best thing that ever happened you."
"By far."
Harry smiled.
"Too bad you're not the best thing that happened to me though."
"Oh I'm not? Interesting. Some other boy came into your life after me?"
He sipped his hot chocolate. "Yes, actually."
Zayn knew he had no right to be hurt after all that had happened between them but it kind of did.
"Who? And what did he look like?"
"Well, he was extrmemely short for one."
"Really?"
"Yeah. And he had dark hair, brown eyes. Very cute. Unfortunately he cried an awful lot. Oh and I only fed him milk for the first six months of his life."
As soon as Zayn realized what Harry was getting at, he laughed.
"Oh, you have jokes."
"Am I not funny?"
"No, you are really funny."
"Are you sure? Because it looked like you were getting jealous for a moment."
"I was."
Harry didn't expect him to be so blatantly honest. But he still reached out and playfully pushed the side of his leg.
"Stop it. You on the other hand are not funny."
The look they shared caused Harry to look away, but when he saw Zayn reach forward for his mug to drink from it, he sneaked another glance at him. It was weird how the other father of his child, whom he thought he'd never see again, was here in his living room after all these years. Two months ago, he probably would've literally kicked Zayn out.
But now that he had a new perspective on everything that happened, he was so glad that he only ever told Benjamin good things about his Papa. Zayn wasn't perfect, of course. But in high school when things were good between them, he seemed perfect to him. And between him and no one else, now that he finally had a chance to sit here with him and have a conversation without Benjamin being there, he was only reminded of the reasons he loved him then, and continued to love him years later even when he was convinced he hated him.