"Baby, I just can't tell you how happy I am to have you home," Anne says, practically beaming as she sets a steaming plate of scrambled eggs in front of her son.
Harry looks up at her, giving her a smile that can only best be described as weak before picking up his fork slowly, nudging at his food. This was a bad idea. How could he have possibly thought that flying home two weeks before the wedding would be a good idea? He must have lost his mind. Sane people don't roll out of their beds at two o'clock in the morning after having the worst sex of their life, pack as quietly as possible so as not to wake their sleeping fiancé and take a redeye to their hometown. He needs to get more sleep, that's all he needs. He'd think more clearly if he could just fucking sleep.
"Are you sure you don't want pancakes, too? Or toast?" Anne presses, sitting next to him at the table. Harry hears the rustle of his father's newspaper trying to mask him as he clears his throat, and Anne sits straighter.
"I'm fine, Mom," Harry says, taking a bite of his eggs, burning his mouth slightly, but he swallows anyway.
"It wouldn't be any trouble-"
"I can't eat pancakes," he says dully, reaching for the salt and shaking some onto his eggs, even though he doesn't really care how they taste. "I'll throw off my training."
"Well," Anne says, placing a hand on his arm, glancing from him to his father, and then whispering. "I think you'll be fine. One stack of pancakes can't hurt."
"Really," Harry insists, forcing another smile as he shovels eggs into his mouth. "I'm fine."
He's chewing slowly, nudging the remainder of his food around on his plate so he misses the look that Anne shoots at Robin, who is regarding him curiously around the side of his newspaper. They are both wondering what their son is doing in their house at nine a.m. on a Thursday, looking haggard and worn, lines drawn deeply into his handsome face. Anne pulls her eyes from her husband's to regard Harry, reaching up to run her hand through the short tendrils of his hair, trying to curl even though it's still a little too short.
"I know your grandparents will be happy to see you," Anne says, her voice a little strained as she studies him carefully. "Although you came when it was just about time to cut the grass."
Harry groans, letting his head fall back, and Anne smiles. He'd made that deal with his grandmother nearly three years ago, a few of her recipes in exchange for him cutting the grass when he was home to do it. He'd managed to avoid it for the most part, coming in winter or early spring — but it seems now he would have to make good on his promise.
"You must be really busy with the wedding," his mother says, forcing a smile into her voice, and she thinks she sees him cringe. "It's nice you found the time to come home."
"I always make time for you, Mum," he says, forking more food into his mouth. Anne smiles, even though he's placating her, years of watching him schmooze on interviews having trained him well.
But she's his mother, and all the media training in the world couldn't keep the truth from her.
"Is...is everything alright?" she asks him softly, and he nods, still shoving more food in his mouth. "Did something happen with..." she pauses chancing a look at Robin, whose brow furrows in displeasure. "the wedding."
"No," Harry says simply, picking up a piece of bacon and biting into it. "Everything's fine. Operation wedding has gone into hyperdrive." He chuckles quickly before clearing his throat to mask the hollowness of the sound.
"You just..." Anne starts, looking at him with drawn brows and pursed lips. She sighs folding her arms on the table. "You just seem really sad."
Harry laughs, looking at his mother and shaking his head, looking down quickly because he can't stand the worry in her eyes. "You sound just like Eleanor."
Because he's busy pushing his food around on his plate, Harry fails to notice the indignation on his mother's face when he says these words. "You look tired, baby," she says softly, reaching up to brush her fingers through his hair again, noting the gray coming in at his temples. "You're too thin."
"Mother, I'm fine," he snaps finally, looking up at her, and she can see the annoyance in his eyes and something else, panic maybe? Helplessness? "I'm sorry," he apologizes, looking down and sighing. "I haven't been sleeping well," he admits finally, and simply saying the words lifts a weight from his chest. "I think it's just all this wedding hoopla." He waves his fork disinterestedly.
"Yeah, the big day is coming up," Anne says with forced enthusiasm, and she watches him swallow hard, sighing as she gives another longing look at Robin, who only looks sternly back at her. She looks back at Harry helplessly. "Has...has Eleanor had her final fitting?" Harry nods, his shoulders tensing as he chews his food slowly. "I never saw her final choice. Did she change it since the one that was in the papers?"
"Yeah," Harry says, tugging at the neck of his t-shirt, wriggling his shoulders. "It's some ballroom thing now. Big, lots of beading."
"I'm sure it's beautiful," Anne says, and Harry nods. "Did she confirm that band you had wanted for the reception?"
Harry shifts. "No...no we're going with an orchestra instead."
Anne frowns. "Oh...I thought you'd really wanted that band. You were so excited about it on the phone-"
"I was," Harry cuts her off sharply, and then takes a deep breath. "But the orchestra will be better."
"It will?" Anne asks, confused. "How so?"
"I don't know, Mum — it just will," Harry snaps, and he hears Robin's paper rustle down.
"Watch your tone, son," he warns before disappearing behind it again, and Harry nods, looking at his mother apologetically.
"Eleanor wanted the orchestra," he says softly, shoveling more food into his mouth, hoping that all those times his mother had chided him on not speaking with his mouth full will stop her from asking questions.
"Well, what about what you want?" Anne asks softly, reaching to hold his wrist, and he lets his head fall back, swallowing.
"It doesn't matter," he grumbles, wishing for once that his mother would take the hint and stop prodding.
"It does, too matter," Anne says, her voice indignant, and he looks up to see fire in her eyes. "This is as much your wedding as it is hers!"
"Mum," Harry says and then sighs, his eyes flicking to his step-father as he tries to get his tone in check. "It's too late okay. Everything is already set up. I'm stuck with it okay?" he winces at his poor choice of words. "It's going to be beautiful," he says, drudging up his most winning smile. "That's all that matters."
"No that's not all that matters," Anne insists and Robin ruffles his newspaper again, but she ignores him. "It needs to be what you want son."
"It is what I want!" Harry exclaims in frustration and ducks his head quickly before Robin even has a chance to glance around his paper. "Sorry..." he clears his throat and saying more softly, "It is what I want."
"Harry..." she says and pauses, debating.
She watches him nudge the remainder of his food around his plate, his fingernails ragged and bitten down to the quick. He has deep black circles pitted under his eyes and his cheekbones press sharply against his sallow skin. She's tired of seeing him this way, sick of watching him get beaten down over and over again. She raised him to be the kind of man that honored his commitments, drilling it into him from a very young age that you don't walk out, and you don't give up when things get hard. She didn't want him to be like his father, the sperm donor as she had spent Harry's whole life calling him. She never dreamt that it would come to something like this. So it's guilt, as much as love, that causes her to reach for his arm, holding it until he looks up at her, and she softly says:
"Honey, you don't have to do this if you don't want to."
Harry looks at her guardedly, shaking his head at her, and he doesn't want to talk about it; he never has. His relationship with Eleanor had always been a mystery to Anne, probably because she'd always assumed that she was just a fling, a little fun to be had for a while until Harry found a better match. She'd never dreamed that her son could be tamed by an LA princess — but not only did she tame him, she put him on a leash so short, he never left the porch.
"If you're having doubts or anything at all, Harry, you just tell me," she pushes, unable to stop herself, looking fervently into his face — but all she sees is him ratcheting tighter and tighter. "You tell your Mum, and we will call this whole thing off-"
"Anne," Robin says gruffly as Harry's fork falls to his plate with a clatter, resting the palms of his hands against the edge of the table, and for a minute they both think he's going to get up and leave.
But all he does is take a deep breath and shake his head, picking up his fork again,and resuming eating.
"I will," Anne insists, looking at her husband. She turns back to Harry. "Baby, you just say the word and I will call up there and-"
"Mum!" Harry exclaims, his voice echoing harshly off the walls, and his mother's mouth snaps shut. "You're being ridiculous — just stop."
"Harry, you are a good man. Calling this off isn't going to change that," Anne insists, reaching up to touch his face, and he jerks away from her touch, the action cutting her to the bone.
"I know that. I said I was fine," he spits before setting his fork down and shoving his plate away, his stomach suddenly rolling.
"Anne, leave the boy alone," Robin says, looking at her exasperatedly over the top of his newspaper. Anne glares back at him before reaching for Harry's hand sitting on the table, covering it with hers.
"You can't do this if it doesn't feel right, Harry," Anne says softly, leaning towards him. He snatches his hand away from hers, his shoulder twitching hard, trying to mask it by rolling his neck and looking out the window over the backyard. "You can't..." she trails, not even finishing as she takes in the set of his jaw, the blankness of his face. He's shut down.
Tears fill her eyes, and she pushes back from the table, sniffling as she stands and Harry's eyes close at the sound, trying to block it out. He never could handle seeing his mother cry. It was as if their tear ducts were hard wired together, and if she started, so did he, and the other way around. And because of this very fact, she hurries from the room, leaving a deafening silence in her wake.
"I do love her," Harry says, almost impulsively, and he glances over at his father who is lowering his newspaper, setting it on the table. "I do."
"I never said you didn't," Robin replies, eyes still roaming over the page, but Harry knows he has his full attention. It's been this way ever since he was a teenager, when talking about personal things got harder for him because of everyone always striving to know everything about him. Giving the illusion that Harry was merely talking aloud to himself was the greatest thing Robin could have ever done for his son.
"I love her, I just..." he trails, Olivia's face crawling into his consciousness, and he shakes it away, reaching up to rub his burning eyes.
"Just, what?" Robin asks, and Harry wishes he had just shut up.
"It's just cold feet," Harry says, not quite willing to admit that he was desperately trying to find a way to put an end to it so he could be with Olivia, so he could be the man she deserved, so he could keep his promise. But he's a coward, especially in front of his family who he cares the world about, so he falls back on the old standby of keeping up his rouse. Robin smiles, nodding his head knowingly. "It's gonna be fine. It's okay."
"I never said it wasn't," he says, shaking out his paper. "Happens to the best of us."
Harry eyes him for a second. "Were you nervous when you married Mum?" he asks quietly, and Robin glances at him before nodding.
"I was," he states simply, and then glancing at his son he adds, "It was a lot to take on. Not only was I marrying your mother, but I was adopting a son and a daughter, too." A smile tugs at Harry's lips. "You can't take something like that lightly, and heavy decisions like that are bound to make any man nervous. But I knew I loved your mother, and I knew I loved you and Gemma. There was no one else could fathom myself with."
"Me either," Harry replies somewhat spastically, and Robin's eyes pull from his paper to regard his son curiously, skeptically — and Harry does his best to hold his eyes, feeling even worse for lying to his father.
The wall around his heart trembles, and now he knows coming here was the worst thing he could have done. He's packed all this away, boxed it up and put it in the back of his mind where he was content to keep it. Olivia is now nothing but Eleanor's assistant and his colleague, a friend he would tentatively say, but only tentatively because he can't allow any of those old feelings to escape their boxes. Not until he has a solution, and he doesn't have one. He doesn't know how to get out of this. So he needs to keep everything compartmentalized. Otherwise, the whole charade comes crashing down, and he knows he doesn't know how to pick up the pieces.
So he doesn't let the house of cards fall.
"How's Olivia?" Robin asks nonchalantly, and Harry swallows hard.
"I dunno," he says, and the honesty hurts him. He really doesn't know.
"You don't see her anymore?"
A fleeting memory of her passing him in the lobby of Eleanor's office building, her dark hair swinging as she meandered through the crowd, how he'd stopped dead in his tracks for a full ten seconds.
"No," he says simply, even though the misery in his voice is evident to his father.
"Why not?" Robin asks, turning the page in his newspaper.
It's amazing how easy it is to avoid each other when you're both working at it.
"We've both been busy," he says, fingers picking at a loose string on the placemat beside him, biting on his bottom lip slowly. "I mean she's Eleanor's assistant, not mine."
"What's she been up to?" his father asks, and Harry cringes, the sutchers in his heart tearing at the seams, and he doesn't want to be having this conversation.
"I dunno, taking online classes, hanging out with Hannah," Harry says, waving a hand before crossing his arms over his chest. Robin looks up at him.
"Hannah? That little blonde girl that works for you?" Robin asks and Harry nods, watching his father's eyebrows raise before coughing out a laugh. "They don't exactly seem the type to run in the same crowd."
A ghost of a smile tugs at Harry's lips, the feeling foreign to him. "Yeah, I guess it seemed odd to me too, but..." Harry sighs, his memory drudging up all of the idle chatter he'd tried to ignore, Hannah's face lighting up as she gave the blow by blow of the weekends events, including the information that Olivia is a very good dancer and how much the guys always love her when they go out. "They seemed to hit it off. Surprisingly, they have a lot in common." They must; Olivia has been going out with Hannah and her friends every weekend for over a month now.
"Like what?" Robin asks evenly, and Harry winces, his heart tearing a little more as he remembers everything he'd tried to ignore.
"Shopping, lunch," Harry says dismissively, and as he examines his fingernails he mumbles, "out to the bars, you know...s-single girl stuff."
"Hmmm," Robin hums, and Harry looks up at his father, finding his face set in a look of contemplative curiosity.
"What?" Harry asks, his heartbeat increasing for reasons he doesn't quite understand until Robin looks at him and says:
"So, she's still single then?"
Harry looks down into his lap, his teeth grinding slightly as he crushes one hand in the other and utters the words that have been killing him for over a month now. "I don't know."
His father heaves a sigh. "Harry, if Olivia is the o-"
"Dad, I really don't wanna talk about all this okay?" he says, shaking his head. "I came here because...because I just wanna get my head on straight," he swallows hard, looking down into his lap again. "I'm not saying that I'm having doubts," he adds quickly. "I just...this...this is a huge thing that's happening in a couple weeks. I mean...fuck I'm getting married," he says, and Robin bites back everything he was going to say because the look on his son's face is nothing short of absolute terror.
"You just need some time to think," Robin says, and Harry looks up at his father, his eyes helpless and scared and he nods, a reluctant movement of his head.
The last thing he needs is time to think, he broods — but he can't help but wonder if that was the point of this whole trip all along. He'd been sleepwalking through the last several months, plowing through daily life in an effort just to get it all over with, and he hasn't been happy. Not in a long time. So sitting here with his father at the kitchen table he grew up at, he finally allows himself to ponder just what it might mean if he were to choose something different, to choose...someone different.
And just like that, every moment with Olivia comes flooding back, the dam he'd constructed around the memories breaking, and he's drowning in it. The day they'd met, that cute giggle at one of his lame ass jokes. That first business lunch together when she'd given him support and encouragement. When he'd broken down in front of her about Eleanor, told her everything and confided in her, and she'd tried to help him through it, again encouraging and guiding him. How beautiful she'd looked at his birthday party, and the aftermath of that. Their first kiss, her mouth soft and warm against his, and that first time at her house, and then every time after that. It all crashes over him, and he puts his elbows on the table, putting his head in his hands, and he tries to breathe.
He's supposed to be getting married in two weeks, and he chooses now to wonder how he's let it go this long and get this far without him doing the right thing, doing the thing that feels right in his heart.
There has got to be a cure for this kind of terminal idiocy.
"Son," Robin says softly, but Harry doesn't look up at him, afraid that he may have some kind of breakdown if he does. "I'm not gonna harp on you okay? You have to be patient with your mother, she's just worried. And so am I, which is why I'm going to say this, and it's the only time I'm gonna say it."
He pauses and Harry waits, staring down at the wood grain of the table, shifting restlessly in his chair. He hears his father sigh.
"Someday someone will walk into your life, and you'll realize why it never worked out with anyone else," Robin says softly, and Harry's eyes close as tears prick at him hard. "Sometimes you have to lose something to get something better."
Harry's brows furrow, looking up at his father who is staring at him steadily, meaningfully now, and he thinks he understands, his chest lightening considerably.
Sometimes you have to lose something to get something better.
—
A/N
👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻
Lucky number three.
:)