Right now we are passing by Staffordshire, by night it looks just like the other districts we have passed by, quiet with not-so-busy streets and the passing lights of the streetlights. I look at the map in the GPS on the panel and we're not even half of the road we have ahead. The estimated time for us to arrive to Edinburgh is in 6 hours and twenty minutes. That's a long way ahead.
The car is silent right now, for the past half hour he was telling me about these great photographers he's a fan of, describing me their work with detail. He even got the pleasure of working with one of them for a photo shoot, the perks of being famous, I guess. He told me everything he learned from him, from the way he works with the lights and shadows to the way he behaves so you feel more comfortable in front of the camera. He really likes photography, I see. It reminds me of that time he told me that he was raised to play the violin, he talked about it with so much passion that its entertaining to hear.
Now that we are both quiet, my thoughts are keeping me distracted.
I can't keep my mind off what he said to me about an hour ago. He told me he fell for me back then... How am I going to keep that off my mind? I can't. I didn't want to ask further because I was having a panic attack - well, almost - but... It makes me incredibly happy because I fell for him too, even if its hard for me to accept. Its not like I fell in love with him but I definitely felt something, and something strong.
I'm still wondering, why me? Why did he invite me? He said it himself, its been eight long months and he doesn't feel the same way as he did back then. I guess I'll have to find out later, not right now. I'm not ready to have that conversation yet. I don't want to push it.
Just the thought of him thinking about me makes me blush. I can't believe it, I really thought he forgot about me after our flight. I guess I was wrong, terribly wrong.
"Tsss. Damn." I hear Harry say from his seat. When I turn to look at him I find him frowning with one eye closed and a gritted grin.
"What's wrong?" By his expression I don't know if he's in pain or just laughing at something. He moves his left foot tapping the floor of the car repeatedly, as if he were in discomfort.
"I need a wee." He says and then bites his bottom lip, scrunching his nose.
"Oh, I thought you were in pain."
"I am in pain." He says to me holding onto his inner thigh. "Fuck, we need to make a stop."
"Here? We are in the middle of nowhere." I say moving my eyebrows up, looking at him. "There's not a bathroom near. And its drizzling." I point out.
"Unless you want me to pee my pants, we are making a stop." He glances at me right after turning the wheel to the left, leaving the pavement road and stopping the card right next to a field. "Stay here."
"Where are you going?!" I ask frantically as I see him open the driver's door.
"To wee!" He answers me like if it was the most stupid question someone could have asked.
Then, he leaves the car throwing the door on his way. I stay inside with my mouth open, turning my head to where he is running. He hides between some bushes checking if someone is around. I stare with my mouth wide open, he is insane. It makes me frown but at the same time this whole situation its hilarious.
"Are you seriously peeing there?" I ask once I roll the window down, feeling a few drops hit my hand. He turns his head to look at me and he blushes.
"Frances! I'm trying to have a wee!" He yells from where he is, making me laugh. "If you look I can't... I can't do it."
"Now you know how it feels when someone snoops on you." I yell back, hiding my laugh. "Now we're even."
"If you don't look away I'm turning around." He looks at me death serious, still will his hands tucked on front. "Do you want the full picture?"
"Harry!" I instantly close my eyes just when he is about to turn around, moving my face the other way. "Keep it in your pants!"
"That's what I thought." He smirks while going back on his business.
After two minutes or so he returns to the car, he sits down and closes his door. He shakes his hair making droplets of water go all around the car, the drizzle is starting to get heavier out there. He then looks at me, hiding a laugh on his features. I roll my eyes at him, looking away. This is exactly the Harry I remember from back then.
"How does it feel to snoop on me?" He asks with a smirk on his face, opening the front compartment taking a bottle of hand sanitizer out.
"Not cool at all." I respond with a chuckle, looking at the bottle. "You were about to flash me."
"I think its fun." He chuckles cheekily, placing the bottle back inside. "I think you've learned your lesson."
"Oh, yeah I did." I say meaning every word. "Never doing it again."
"Great." He smirks at me pulling down the lever brake. "Let's go back on the road then."
Once the car is on the pavement again he touches the GPS that was currently on hold. It doesn't turn on again so I decide to be a great co-pilot and help. I press the On button a few times but nothing happens. After a few tries it turns on but the screen is glitching, making it hard for me to see the map. I turn it off and when I turn it on again the letters on the screen are in Chinese. What the...?
"Yòu zhuǎn yì zài 500 mǐ." A Chinese voice comes out of the speakers, making me frown in confusion. "Yòu zhuǎn yì 500 mǐ."
"Oh no." I look at the device not knowing what to do.
"What did you do?" Harry asks concerned, the voice speaks the same thing again and that makes me press random buttons to make it stop.
"Nothing! I did nothing, I think its broke." I confess, pressing a few words and that only makes it to change the language, now its speaking Portuguese. "Yeez."
"Vire à direita na quatrocentos metros." It changes to a female voice, now the letters are in normal letters, that makes it easier for me to read.
"Frances, there's an intersection next. What direction do I take?" He asks with anticipation in his voice, his grip tightens on the wheel.
"I think I can understand this." I say out loud while I read the panel, trying to understand the words. Its kind of similar to Spanish. "Try to slow down."
"You really are something, Frances." He chuckles glancing at me as I try to work the GPS.
After some tries I finally do it, changing the language back on English and leaving the damn device alone. Just in time the usual English male voice announces to take the next left, I'm glad I could fix it. Otherwise we would be lost in a few hours and I definitely don't want that. I let a breathe out, feeling the tension I didn't know I was holding leave my body.
"You should be thankful I'm here. I managed to fix your broken GPS." I say with a proud smile on my face. I grab the bottle of wine from the bag, opening the small wrapper on top. "I deserve to have a drink."
"You were the one that broke it in the first place." He chuckles keeping his eyes on the road.
"Still... I managed to fix it." I finally take the plastic cork out, taking the bottle to my lips. "Cheers to me."
"Cheers, I guess." He chuckles once again, taking his bottle of water up. "Don't drink that much, I don't want you to fall asleep."
"Okay, that only happened once." I look at him gasping. "And I was drinking pure vodka, not wine."
"Still." He smiles not even giving me a glance. "Save me some for later, when its your turn to drive."
"My turn to drive?" I move an eyebrow up.
"Yeah. You weren't thinking I was driving the whole eight hours, were you?" He glances briefly at me, I shrug.
"I guess it never crossed my mind." I reply being honest. "I can't even remember the last time I drove a car."
"What? Really? Do you have a license, right?" He asks and I nod my head, I guess he notices on his visual field because he continues, "Are you any good at it?"
"If I'm completely honest with you, not that much." I let a chuckle out, remembering all those times my dad used to freak out every time I was behind the wheel. "I don't even know how I passed the practical test."
"Well, you're a girl, its understandable." He says it as if it was the most common thing to say. "Girls just weren't born to have good driving skills."
"How sexist of you." I punch his arm softly, keeping in mind he is driving. "We are totally capable of doing anything."
"Hey, I'm not being sexist, just statistically speaking." He says as a matter of fact. "There are hundreds of studies on the subject, just google it. Women are more dangerous behind the wheel than men."
"And yet you were offering me to drive your car? How brave." I take another sip of my wine, I had forgotten I was drinking it in the first place.
"Well, I take it back." He chuckles slightly, making me cross my arms on my chest. "Besides, you're drinking and I don't have a death wish. DUI causes more accidents than men and women combined."
"Well... You do have a point." I uncross my arms, pursing my lips to a side. "Where do you get all these facts anyway?"
"I just know things, Frances." He rests his left elbow on the armrest, moving his hand up in a gesture. "And I once watched a documentary on Discovery Channel about car accidents."
"You are totally the type of person that would watch documentaries." I giggle, changing the radio station to the next one. I was growing kind of tired of listening to the classical music he changed in to. "My dad loves them, he used to make me sit and watch boring history documentaries with him."
"Hey, they're not boring. They are quite lucrative." He nudges my arm playfully. "Your dad sounds fun, I also love watching documentaries."
"I have never heard a twenty-something boy say that." I say impressed, really. Harry is like a Pandora box. More and more that I get to know him I get to see every new aspect of him, each fact more alluring than the other. And we are talking about documentaries. How can you explain that? You definitely can't judge a book by its cover. "You would definitely get along with my dad, he has watched almost every documentary out there."
"What does he do for a living?" He asks, making me sit back and close the bottle.
"He's an history teacher. Hence his love for knowledge." I press my lips together in a smile. Talking about him makes me realize how much I miss him. I hope he receives the last Barcelona postcard telling him about my plans of moving there.
"That's very cool. I bet he's pretty interesting in conversation." He says and I nod my head, agreeing with him.
He then told me about his father. I don't know how we ended up talking about our families but its an interesting side of him, so personal. He told me he is an accountant and lives for the numbers. He was the one that made him take violin lessons since he was four years old. In his own words "I kinda own everything I have accomplished to him." If it wasn't for him and the support of his mom, he would have never grew interested in music.
Then, he started telling me about one time he went to the races with him. Its not that the story wasn't interesting, because it was, but somehow my hearing disconnected completely getting lost on the way he was speaking. So pure and genuine, so utterly him. I got lost at the way his free hand moved with ease in the air while explaining something to me, in which I just nodded my head even though I wasn't listening while I was focused on the he rings in his hands and the small cross still inked in there. I got lost on his soothing slow voice, a bit raspy and calming. I got lost on his sudden grins and at the way his lips pursed naturally when he finish a sentence.
I got so lost that when he finished the story is when I noticed the tremendous storm falling outside, hard droplets hitting the roof of the car making a horrible noise. He now was driving slow, another thing that I didn't notice.
"Since then I grow so scared of horses that I never returned." He chuckles, running his free hand back on his hair. "They freak me out still."
I remain quiet, looking at my surroundings and catching only a faint light in front of us, that being a car in the distance. The rain was falling so thick that it was hard to see the lines of the road. A couple of thunders break lighting the entire sky. I'm starting to get a bit nervous, its storming out there.
"Are you sure you can... Drive with all this rain?" I ask trying my best to keep my voice calm.
"Yeah, I'm used to driving in the rain, perks of growing up here." He says completely calm. "Why? Does it scare you?"
"Mhm." I say pulling the sleeves of my jacket to cover my hands.
"Well, if it gets too stormy we can always pull over somewhere and wait for the rain to pass." He says moving his left hand to my shoulder, in an attempt to calm me. "Does that sound good?"
"Yeah." I say just when a lighting streaks making me squint my eyes close.
When I thought the rain couldn't get any harder, the wind started to go crazy moving all the trees and everything around us so hard that one sign pull out from the ground and was now sliding through the road in the water flooding the pavement. I try my best to keep my eyes open but after a moment I had to close my eyes.
I have to admit that I'm a pretty nervous person, I get scared easily and even more when it comes to nature. As a surfer, I have learned to respect nature and its calls. Sometimes you just have to let the nature be and find shelter, like in this case. The rains its starting to get even heavier, we can't see anything no more.
"Harry." I say as I see the car in front of us in the distance stop, I only see the red lights indicating it stopped.
Just when Harry stops as well, a fallen branch of a tree hits his side of the car, making us both jump at the impact.
"Perhaps we should make that stop now." He says letting a nervous chuckle out.
It took us about a twenty minute drive to get to the next county, when it should have taken us around five if it wasn't for the terrible rain. Soon enough the GPS guide us to a small motel at the side of the road, it looks more like a house but its going to work for now. Harry finally parks in front of it in an empty spot, the wind whistling wildly in the air.
We stay there in the darkness of the car for a few more minutes, organizing our stuff to get out of the car as soon as possible. I put all the snacks inside of my purse, god knows when are we going to get back on the road again.
"Here, you can take my jacket." He starts taking it off but I stop him.
"Oh, its okay. I'm good." I say closing my own jacket. "I'm ready when you are."
"Alright." He says unlocking the car.
Very hurriedly we run outside of the car and into the inn, just those few seconds outside was enough to damp all my hair and part of my clothes. When we step inside of the motel the instant smell of humid and wood hits my nostrils, there's a hint of chicken soup in the air as well. There's a faint sound of chatter in the distance, maybe in the room next to this one.
In the front desk, or the small table they put in the middle of an entry, there's a sign that says 'Ring the bell if empty', so we do.
In a couple of seconds an old lady pops her head in the room and then walks to us.
"Jensen! We have more guests!" She shouts excitedly to someone else in the house, she's carrying a pile of pink pale towels in her hands. She then turns to us. "Hello, young lads. How may I help you? Looking for a nice warm room?"
"Hi, miss. We were just looking for a place to... Rest until the rain passes." Harry says for the both of us, pushing his wet hair back. "We should be hitting the road as soon as possible."
"Oh, dear. With that bloody storm out there?" She says with a thick northern English accent. "The man on the telly said we were expecting a twelve hour storm. Its not going to pass anytime soon, dear."
"Oh." I hear him say 'fuck' under his breath, it makes me giggle.
"Maybe... We should stay the night." I say to her and to Harry. I know he was not planning on staying but we have no choice.
"It would be our pleasure. We are very packed tonight." The lady says with a polite giggle. "We haven't hold these amount of guests since the flooding in 1998."
"A towel?" She offers and we both take one with a 'thank you', its warm and soft, smells like lavender detergent.
"We would like a double bedroom, if that's possible." Harry says while running the towel on his hair, taking off his jacket. I do the same, placing the towel around my shoulders.
"We only have one double bedroom here and its already taken. In fact, we have only one room available apart from mine." She says with an amused voice, taking a key under the desk. "But you can't take that one."
"Jossie! Oh, there's my Jossie." A bald man with a thick mustache over his upper lip comes inside of the room, he's wearing an apron over his khaki pants. "Supper is ready, my love."
"Will you be joining us, then?" The lady asks us and I nod my head, taking the key from her hand.
"Yes! Yes... Its warm in here. Thank you." I say giving her a smile.
"Wonderful." She responds with another smile, her cheeks round and pink. "Go on and dry up, the supper will be served in twenty. Right, love?"
"That's right. Supper its on the house." The man responds rounding her with one arm. "We are serving chicken broth."
"Third room to your left. Go on, go on." She moves her hand for us to move.
"Okay. Thank you again." I say already with one foot on the stairs.
Harry follows me up the stairs with a long face. If it was for him he would still be driving in that storm outside but there's no way in hell I would let him do that. The second floor its just like the first one, cream pastel wallpaper covers the entire walls with a few painting hanging here and there. With the amount of family photos it makes me think this once was a big family house. I walk to the third door on our left and unlock it, stepping inside of the cozy room inside.
"Its not as small as I thought." I say as I step inside the room, placing my purse and my jacket on the bed, it occupies almost the entire room, only leaving a small space for the side tables and a small way to the bathroom.
"Well, I'll guess will be staying the night, then." He says taking a deep breath, looking around the small room.
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A/N: Oh yes, oh yes. I also hate rain. I also hate that it was raining so bad that they had to stay in a motel. Yeah, I'm so upset :)))
Thoughts???? :)))
Byeeeeee