Harry sits down right beside the armrest, pulling me down with him. He instantly wraps his arms around me, pulling me close to him.
"You smell really nice." Harry whispers into my ear.
I blush and give him a quick "thanks, you to." We spend the next couple of hours watching TV. I'm starting to get slightly uncomfortable from sitting too long so I shift a little bit to try and make myself more comfortable. Just as I am beginning to get comfortable again I feel something poke my rib. I jump as Harry laughs. He begins to tickle me so I stand up and try to get away but he grabs me and pushes me backwards onto the couch, tickling me even more. I try to push him off but sadly he is a lot stronger than I am.
"Harry stop." I laugh, pushing his shoulder a bit. All of a sudden he is right on top of me, and super close to me. My throat completely dries out, my stomach twists into knots. I try to speak but all of a sudden it feels as though I don't know how. I think Harry must realize that something is wrong because he is off of me in a flash.
"Hey what's wrong?" He looks sad as he rubs his neck, a look of uncertainty on his face.
I instantly feel regret and sadness wash over me. Why do I always do this. Harry and I, or anybody for that matter, will be having a good time and all of a sudden they do something or I do something that triggers something in me and I freak out on them, ruining everything. I know that it's not really my fault but I always feel as though it is, I wish I could change, I just don't know how to.
"Jade, what's wrong." Harry presses again, taking my hand in his.
"Nothing." I sigh with a shake of my head.
"Jade, we've been through this before, obviously something is wrong," Harry pauses, looking directly into my eyes with a sigh, "I just want to help you."
"I know Harry, and I appreciate that, I really do, it's just really hard for me to talk to anyone about, especially you." I sigh, feeling comfort wash over me as he begins to rub his thumb over my hand. "I just don't want to be responsible for ruining something else."
I feel Harry's gaze on me but I make sure to keep my eyes averted towards the ground. I only look up when I feel something small and wet drop onto my hand. When I look at Harry the first thing I see is his blotchy red eyes. He looks down in embarrassment, I take my hand and slowly reach towards him which causes him to look up, I then use my index finger to wipe away his tears as he lets out a slight laugh.
"It's supposed to be me wiping away your tears." Harry softly laughs with a shake of his head. "But thank you."
"Why are you crying? What's wrong Harry?" I softly ask, trying to hold back tears myself.
"I just don't like to see you hurting, I wish I could help that." He replies honestly.
"And you have." I assure him, placing my hands back in his. "I know you might not realize it but you have, more than anyone else in the world, really." I lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. He slowly moves his arm towards me, I know he is struggling to see if I will flip out at him for touching me so I take his arm and wrap it around my waist to show him that it's okay. After sitting in silence for a few minutes we both decide that we should go get ready to go out for dinner.
I walk into the bedroom where Harry assures me that he put some dresses and shoes that he bought for me. I walk over to my bag and am confused where there isn't any dresses other than more casual ones. I am about to pick out one of the sundresses when a beautiful white bag with gold tissue paper, beside it is two boxes, a medium sized black one and a smaller blue velvet one. I take the tissue paper out of the bag to reveal a beautiful red dress, I slowly put the dress on and stare at my reflection in awe. The dress reaches just above my knee, it is a red lace pattern that is tight on the tight but slowly flares out towards the bottom. I walk back to the bed and open the black box, taking out a pair of black pumps. Finally, my hand shaking I open the last box to reveal a pair of small, gold hoop earrings and a gold necklace with a single pearl. I quickly put everything on and apply a small amount of makeup, leaving my hair in it's natural wave. I slowly look at my reflection to take in everything with the dress and am shocked at what I see, i could never have imagined wearing something like this, or actually feeling this way. I feel beautiful, even happy that I am who I am for one of the first times in my life. If only my mother could see me now, she would be proud, I know she would. I sigh, pushing my hair out of my face and make my way over to Harry. When I step out of the room he is adjusting his tie. When he turns around he immediately walks over to me and smiles.
"I thought it would look good on you, I just never imagined it would look this beautiful." He takes my hand in his as I myself blush. We don't speak until we are in the lobby of the hotel where he tells me again that I look beautiful. His compliments almost make me feel self conscious, it's not often that I am told that I look nice, at least not in a respectful manner, so I guess it's just hard to accept his compliments.
"So trust me, you definitely need to try the tortellini" Harry says as soon as he closes his door of his range rover. "It's really good! I mean, get whatever you want, but that's my personal favourite."
"I actually love tortellini, I haven't had it in so long." I smile, the happy memories of my past flooding my brain.
"Well then you should definitely get it." Harry pulls out of the parking spot and begins driving down the road.
We make casual small talk all the way to the restaurant which isn't actually too far away. When we reach the restaurant Harry pulls into an empty parking space, turns the car off and quickly runs around to my side to help me out. He opens my door with his hand outstretched. I smile up at him and place my hand in his, immediately lacing our fingers. We walk into the restaurant, La Brasserie, and are immediately greeted by a friendly hostess who takes us to a small, closed off space in the back. After we take our seats she quickly takes our drink orders, Harry and I both getting a glass of red wine.
"This place is beautiful Harry." I tell him as soon as the hostess leaves. The walls are a bit of an off white colour, dim lights and some of the most beautiful plants I have ever seen, in the corner of the room there is a small waterfall that makes that calming sound that just automatically makes you feel at ease.
"Yeah it is, isn't it." Harry nods in agreement. "I found it a few years ago with four of my best friends." He smiles to himself, probably at the memory of his friends.
"Speaking of friends, how come I never see you with any of them." I ask in what I hope to be a polite way. "Also, why are we in a secluded area?"
Suddenly a sad, dark look crosses Harry's face, "We just went through some stuff I guess, we are just on a bit of a break right now, we worked together and now we are just taking a break until we are ready to get into things." He sighs, running his hand down his face, "and I'll tell you about the secluded area thing later, okay, but for now just try and enjoy the night."
"Okay, I will. But before I carry on I just want to say that I hope whatever it is that happened between you and your friends gets fixed, everyone deserves friends." I smile over at him.
Before he has a chance to say anything our waiter comes out with our drinks. He hands us over the drinks and then takes our food orders. When he's finished he assures us that they will be right up, finally leaving and making his way to another table. Harry takes a sip of his wine and then focuses his attention back to me.
"Thank you." He smiles over at me. "And what about you, do you have any friends?" He places his wine glass down on the table, his eyes only leaving mine for a split second.
I shake my head and shrug, "I don't really have any friends, I haven't for a while. After my dad died I started distancing myself from everyone, of course my friends that I had at the time tried to stick around but I get it, I don't blame them a bit for leaving me, if anything I blame myself. I did get my friends back for a little bit but then other stuff happened and everything went to shit from there." He looks at me with a sad expression.
"Jade, when will you tell me what happened?" Harry presses once again for me to tell him more about my past.
I know he wants to help, and I want to let him, but I honestly believe, no, I know, there isn't anything that he can do. I also don't want to drag him into my messy life, and I kind of like him and I know that the second I tell him what happened he is going to ditch me. But for whatever reason, I make him a deal. "I'll tell you what happened to me when you tell me more about why we are in a secluded area and how everyone knows you," I tell him, "And what happened between you and your friends" I quickly add.
"Fine." He crosses his arms, sending me a bit of a glare. "If you really want to know I'll tell you as soon as we get back to our room okay."
"Okay." I surprise myself by saying. We both take sips of our wine at the same time, making sure not to drop our eye contact, neither one of us wanting to be the first person to drop it.
"Okay," Harry nods, a smug, yet nervous, or maybe scared, look on his face. He quickly changes his attitude though, sending me a huge smile. "Anyway, I think they have our food on the way. He cocks his head to the left and through the curtains I see our waiter with our food.
"Alright here we go, ravioli for the ravishing young lady and tortellini for the handsome young man.
"Thank you." I smile as my food is placed in front of me.
After Harry thanks and assures the waiter that we are all good, we both dig into our meal.
"This is amazing!" I exclaim after a few bites. Harry takes my hand in his, entwining our hands, sending me a squeeze in agreement.
"Hey, want to hear a joke?" Harry asks while swallowing some of his pasta.
"Yeah, sure. Try me." I nod, I mean, how bad can his jokes get.
"Okay, um," Harry pauses to take a breath to keep himself from cracking up. "knock knock."
"Who's there?" I answer automatically.
"It's open." Harry spits a bit of his wine out while slapping his knee, his back slouched as he slaps his knee.
"That was painful." I reply with the most unamused face in the world. I honestly don't understand his humor some days, like I genuinely don't see how he finds that so funny. I admit, some of his jokes do make me laugh, but that one was just next level sad.
"Come on, laugh! It was funny." Harry continues to laugh but slowly calms himself down.
"No, I only laugh at funny things." I shrug jokingly.
"Okay, if it wasn't funny then you hit me with one. Try me." Harry slowly replies, his eyes in a slight glare.
"Fine... um..." I trail off trying to think of a knock knock joke, the only ones I can think of are extremely cheesy but sadly, they're all I got. "Okay, knock knock."
"Who's there?" Harry replies after taking a bite of his tortellini.
"Nana."
"Nana who?"
"Nana your business." I reply snarkily.
"That was actually really good!" Harry exclaims while wheezing. I don't particularly find the joke to be extraordinarily funny or anything but seeing Harry laughing so hard makes me laugh too. The rest of our night is spent with us telling knock knock jokes, drinking wine, and eating our food and laughing, mostly laughing if I'm being honest. We decide to order dessert, both of us just getting a simple cheesecake with a raspberry drizzle.
"This was really good." I smile at Harry as he pays the bill. "Thank you so much for tonight." I continue to smile over at him as I brush my hand through my hair, a habit I have gained over the years.
"I'm just glad you liked it." He smiles in reply as he places the money on the table. "But the night isn't over just yet." He shakes his head.
"Oh?" I ask with a raised eyebrow? What else are we doing?" I ask in curiosity.
"That's a surprise." He winks.
While rolling my eyes at Harry I gather my things, as does he. We then thank the hostess and our waitress before making our way out to his car. He opens my door for me and helps me in, being sure to close it behind me. He then quickly runs around to his side, rapidly putting on his seat belt, making sure no one is behind or beside us and then rapidly driving away.