Lola felt exhausted as she closed the door behind her that afternoon. It was the last day of summer and she should have felt happy and energetic to be out of school, except she was worn and irritated by the incident that had happened after class.
She felt a pit of guilt inside her for not consoling Zayn after the fight with Harry. She didn’t know where to turn, and who she wanted to be with most. Her gut told her to go and sit with Zayn, and leave Harry on his own. But she couldn’t quite do it. Her hand instinctively reached out for the door handle on the right hand side, her body drawing itself towards Harry.
Other people were slowly turning against Harry for what he’d done to Lola, except she was the only one still there voluntarily lingering by his side. Out of choice.
Lola told Harry they should go home, so he took a long glance at her, his gaze dropping down to her pink lips before back up again. He nodded and ran the tip of his tongue over the graze of his lower lip, tasting copper. Lola cupped her hand over his baby soft cheek and gently pushed his messy fringe back, causing Harry to close his eyelids in appreciation.
“You deserved it” she stated firmly.
Harrys eyes flickered open and his brow scrunched slightly, suprised at how abrupt she was in comparison to how soft and soothing she was touching him.
“I know”
Lola sucked her lower lip inbetween her teeth, observing the purpling bruise forming on Harrys cheekbone, and the small graze on his lip. He exhaled and hung his head a little, feeling disappointed in himself for getting to the point of deserving a battering from his best friend.
“I’ve lost him now haven’t I” he spoke deeply
Lola didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t know if Zayn would ever stop being mad at Harry after hearing about how he’d treated Lola; the girl he cared about and wanted to be happy. She hoped that there was the possibility that he could, and that they could be friends again. Surely if Lola was on the path of forgiveness, Zayn could be too.
“Let’s go home” she said, standing up and gesturing for Harry to follow “No more school”
Harry cracked a weak smile of relief and shook his shaggy curls between his fingers, standing up, a good 7 inches taller than Lola “After you”
***
Lola traipsed into the house and swung the door shut behind her, letting her bag slump to the floor.
“Uh hello!” Harry called raspily from outside, pumping his fist against the door. Lola laughed as she had forgotten he was behind her, and reopened the door.
“Is my Dad here?”
“Well Jake’s not old enough to be at home on his own”
“I don’t want him to see my face and know that i’ve been in a figh-“
“Lola, Harry?” Johns voice called before he emerged from the living room. “Bet you’re glad school’s over”
“Definitely!” Harry breathed, throwing his backpack down in the hall “Never going back” he muttered, pretending to scratch and cover his bruised face as he shuffled quickly up the stairs, tugging his school polo top over his head as he did.
John raised an eyebrow at Harrys rushed exit but shook it off, assuming he needed the toilet or something. Lola put her foot on the first step to follow up and John took her arm gently. “Just a second Lola I need to ask you about something”
This immediately made her nervous, it could be a number of things. Bad things. That she didn’t want to talk to him about. Oh my god, how did he know? Was it about Harry? Had someone told him? Was it about her cutting, or Harry?
“No need to look so scared. I’m just curious. I found these in the wash” he said, holding up a pair of light wash skinny jeans “With this in the back pocket”
He held up a little piece of paper, with Lola’s Dads photo and address on it. Lola felt the blood rush to her cheeks as she tried to figure out a gentle explanation. She didn’t want to offend him, but was secretly hoping for his encouragement on her plans to find her biological father.
“I wouldn’t ask or wonder what it was, if it wasn’t for this picture on it” he said, flipping it over and having a look at the old yellow photograph “It looks a good 20 or 30 years old. Who is it?”
“It’s… my Dads address” Lola admitted
Johns eyes opened a little wider with suprise, and he nodded slowly. Christina never opened up much about her childrens fathers, so he hadn’t been fully informed on what the situation was. He knew that they didn’t really have contact with their Dads, and that they’d never been bothered about it.
But it was obvious Lola was bothered, and as she’d gotten older, her curiosity had grown. She felt like it was unfair for people to assume she would cope without a father. It was unfair that she’d never been asked if she was okay with it, or been offered the opportunity to see him. So now she’d had to do it for herself, if no-one else was going to do it for her
“I want to find him” she confessed
At the dark top of the stairs, Harry had paused when he heard John ask for a word with Lola. Not being seen, just eavesdropping. He frowned in confusion to himself as he heard Lola talk about her Dad. He knew from innocent chats with Jake that neither of them knew their Fathers.
His bare feet slowly and quietly slumped down the steps a little so he could see them both.
“Find him? How are you planning on doing that?” John asked
“I don’t know all the details yet, but it’s something I want to do..” Lola replied to him, her fingers linking together nervously
Harry cleared his throat to catch their attention and both his Dad and Lola looked up to him. He wanted to talk to her but didn’t want John to think it was anything serious. Just teenage stuff
“Lola come up for a minute?”
Lola glanced between them both awkwardly and nodded. She noticed how Harry had changed into just a pair of slouchy joggers, riding low on his narrow hips. His bare torso gave her quick flashbacks of that heated night, pinned beneath him and feeling that same muscular golden abs rubbing against her stomach as he ground into her.
“I’ll explain more to you in a minute” she told John before running upstairs to follow Harry. He remained still standing on the top steps. Lola stopped at his step and met his tense gaze nervously, she couldn’t read it. His eyes were glowing olive colour and his curls were dark and thick rich brown. He held her eye contact for a few seconds before heading up the last two steps.
“My room” he said, turning right.
Lola followed and sat down on his plush bed with him, leaning back against the painted brown wall. Harry sank back into the mattress. He’d cleaned the dried blood of his lip but the darkening tender bruise on his cheek had a slightly yellow ring around it
“That looks sore”
“It’s alright” he said “He has a decent left hook on him, i’ll give him that”
Lola forced a weak smile and shook her head. Harry watched her loose blonde locks wave slightly and shuffled closer, resting his weight into the hand planted behind Lola’s back. He was so warm next to her, and she caught a waft of his unique natural manly scent as he sat close. Even though it was inappopriate given the difficult situation that had occured this afternoon, she couldn’t help the dirty thoughts drifting into her head. Even more so as he leant back on his elbows and she saw his abdomen muscles tensing and deep V lines become prominent above his pelvis, leading down beneath the waistband of his low white boxers, a faint line of dark coarse hair peeking above the elastic.
“Lola?”
She shook her head and looked to him, seeing him looking back questioningly “Sorry, what?”
“I said do you think Zayn will ever be the same with me…knowing how bad i’ve been to you” he asked, using his large hands to gesture as he talked. Lola forced her eyes away from his long skinny fingers and registered the question.
“Um, I don’t know” she sighed “You’ve got yourself into some shit, I won’t lie”
“I know” Harry ran his hand through his messy brown hair “I don’t know what I can do. I just…wanna get away from it”
Lola wished she could get away too, the sooner the better. She needed some time away from this village, this house and all the people around her. Jackie, Zayn, even John. She wanted to find her Dad and see if things really appeared any brighter on that side. Opportunities she’d been missing out on.
“I’m leaving Jake here with John, so I can go to Cornwall” she muttered, picking at a loose thread on Harry’s duvet. She felt Harrys eyes on her as she looked down, strong and questioning.
There was a pause of silence before Harry spoke “You want to find your Dad”
“Yeah”
“Why?”
“You of all people are asking? What would you give to get your stepdad back? It’s not about missing out on these chances for a real relative that can care about me”
“True….how are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know all that yet, I need to have a think. I just know that now is the time, it’s the start of summer. I have the time to do it, and I don’t want to waste it”
Harry accepted what she was saying and nodded slowly, curious to how Lola was going to go about it. She seemed to be under the impression that it was going to be easy. And that she’d find her father and he would welcome her into open arms. She couldn’t go to Cornwall alone could she? It was a good few hours away and she had little money.
He didn’t want to bug her about it, because he figured that when she started planning how she would find him, she’d realise that she needed help. So he changed the conversation
“My Mum’s arranged for me to see a councillor”
Lola saw the disappointment in Harrys transparent eyes, sensing that he’d started to give up on retaliating and refusing that he needed a councillor. Lola felt like the only one who didn’t agree. Of course he’d been out of control to her at time with his temper, but the power to turn it around was in the palm of his hand.
“You don’t need to” she sighed, angling her head to the side and resting it against the hard wall.
“I agree” he mumbled “There’s too much going on in my head, she’s right about that. But I don’t wanna sit down and talk about it. I just wanna get away from this”
Lola went to reply when she heard John calling her name from downstairs
“Lola?”
She paused, wanting to hear more from Harry. She rolled off his bed and headed towards the door.
“Lo” Harry called after her huskily. She turned her head to him. He took a long gentle blink, his dark red lips drawn into a straight line, the usually curled edges slightly turned down at the corners “I didn’t mean it….when, I used to tell you nobody would ever want you”
Lola twitched her mouth into a weak appreciative smile, Harry keeping his expression sincere. She pulled open the door reluctantly leaving for a moment and slowly walked down the stairs, into the kitchen where John stood leaning against the counter with his arms crossed.
She hoped he wasn’t going to refuse her permission to go. Heck she didn’t need his permission anyway! He was technically nothing to do with her, not even legally a guardian. Just some man who was keeping a roof over her head.
“I think…..” he started “I think if you want to find your real Dad, then I have no reason not to encourage that”
Lola breathed a sigh of relief and gave him a grateful nod.
“That being said, I think you should do it slowly, and carefully. I’m assuming you don’t want Jake to come with you when you visit him…?” he asked, and Lola nodded again in response
“I’d be grateful if he could stay here…”
“Well I said i’d keep you kids with me as long as I could, and I am still happy to do that. I don’t want to see you without a roof over your head, and I do care about you both despite how we’ve known each other a few months”
“Thank you….we are both thankful for what you’ve done” Lola declared, looking him in the eyes to show her sincerity in what she was saying. There was a moment of quiet interuppted by a shuffling sound as the kitchen door opened.
Lola looked over her shoulder and saw Harry entering the room, nervously rubbing the back of his bicep.
“Harry, what happened to your face?!” John demanded, seeing the bruise and graze on his sons flushed lips. “Have you been in a fight or something?”
“Don’t worry Da-“
“Harry you’ve been punched, I want an explanation please” he said sternly “Who was it? Did you start it?”
Harry hung his head down, pinching the bridge of his nose. He gritted his teeth as he replied “Doesn’t. Matter”
“Harry” John warned
“Dad! It doesn’t matter okay, I was joking around with Zayn in the gym at school and he hit me a little too hard and I fell. Chill out” he said, putting his hands up in an arrest position
“Have you put ice on-“
“No more questions” Harry put his hand up to his Dad “I wanna ask Lola something”
“Well that’s right, she is planning on going to visit her Dad. And i’ve just been discussing with her that she should do it slowly, maybe send him a letter first”
Lola rolled her eyes and felt impatient, she just wanted to do it her way and find him as soon as she could. She didn’t want to wait months for a reply letter or possibly a phone call, she needed someone and she wanted to meet him. She’d waited long enough for this.
“I know she is, and that’s what I wanted to ask about” Harry said, turning to Lola, a metre or two between them.
John witnessed the oddly caring and protective way Harry was looking over Lola, as if he was genuinely concerned about what she was planning to do. He never really understood how they saw and felt about each other, and whether they were close or not. It almost seemed like something secretive between them.
“What I wanted to ask was….well, can, like erm..” Harry stuttered, avoiding eye contact as he tried to get his question out. “Can I…” Lola cocked her head skeptically as she awaited the rest of his sentence
“Can you what?” she said, making a circular motion with her wrist to urge him to continue
Harry lifted and dropped his hands in a feeble shrug, as if he didn’t want to be asking this. He scratched the back of his tan neck, a nervous habit
“I was gonna ask….well..you probably not want this”
“Oh Harry spit it out” John tutted, earning a deep frown of frustration from his son. Harry looked up from beneath his mousy soft eyelashes and met Lola’s curious stare, feeling all the vulnerability inside her just from looking at her shiny innocent eyes.
“I’d like to….” he sighed softly, pulling his sore lower lip inbetween his teeth “Can I come with you?”
Lola raised her eyebrows in suprise at his question and her lips fell open slightly. He’d struggled to get that out, and she now knew why, it wasn’t something she was expecting to hear. Why would he want to come with her? Miles and miles down the country to Cornwall to find someone irrelevent in his own life.
But what she wasn’t aware of, was that there was something Harry decided he could do for himself in that particular corner of the country.
“Please, I want to” Harry added, stepping a little closer forward to Lola and glancing to his hesitant Dad for acceptance. Lola had a stunned expression painted across her face and glanced back and forth between the two people in her presence, looking for some help.
Was this really a good idea? Going alone with Harry of all people? What if he changed on her suddenly, or if she needed to escape from him when he returns to his old ways. She trusted that he’d truly learnt his lesson but she could never know for sure
He wanted to get away and she knew that. And she could do with some company to assist her, just incase things went wrong.
She looked back to Harry, feeling her skin tingle as his glittery green eyes burning into hers, soft and provoking. He was waiting for agreement, his heart pumping a little harder under his chest
“Okay” she said, almost in a whisper “Come with me”
THIS IS NOT MY STORY. All credit goes to xxfan1direction.tumblr.com go follow and check her out. She has an amazing blog and is a beautiful writer.