Devil's Due [h.s.]

Chapter 51

Chapter 51

The next time I saw Harry, the majority of his bruises had healed.

It was a week later. A long, exhausting week where I was stuck for the majority of the time between wondering whether I should try to contact him or not. If we were at that point in whatever sort of relationship the two of us had where it was okay to check up on the other. I wasn't sure if he would do it for me, didn't entirely care if he would or not, but I wanted to know that he was okay. He'd seemed so on edge when he'd gotten me to leave his house so quickly the previous week that I had no doubt something was wrong. Could almost sense it.

Otherwise, though, things had been relatively normal on my end. I'd gone out with my friends a few times during the week to try and take my mind off things, grateful that Harry had actually followed through in making the black SUVs that had tailed me for months on end a little more inconspicuous. They now drove less incriminating cars and even managed to park in places that not even I could spot, despite knowing they were there. Harry hadn't been lying when he said they were trained to go undercover when needed.

It was a weight off my back knowing I didn't have to sneak around to keep them hidden anymore nor did I have to quickly urge my friends into restaurants, my apartment, or wherever we were headed that day in attempt to keep them from seeing my lovely security. The five of us had had a good week, all of them having slept over the entire weekend because Olivia's parents were out of town and she was feeling lonely. Like that would have been a big selling point, anyway, considering neither of them refused to leave until I'd told them everything about Harry.

Describing him to my friends was harder than I'd thought considering I didn't know what was going on half the time between us and couldn't give them the straight truth about how we'd gotten together in the first place. By the time they finally left my apartment Sunday evening, after having helped to bathe Meatloaf, the most that they knew was that we'd started hooking up after he'd given me my tattoo and that we just hadn't stopped yet. Nothing more, nothing less. Exactly what I'd wanted them to know in case this whole thing cleared up and Harry suddenly did decide that the latter was what he considered us and chose never to see me again.

Even with this in mind, the nagging notion that whenever I thought about him, I felt like I was doing something wrong, I finally had resolved by Thursday that I was going to reach out to him – whether he'd want to hear from me or not. The worst thing that could happen, I figured, was that he wouldn't answer me again.

The entire drive home from the studio I'd gone over and over in my head what I was going to say. First, I was going to try calling him, and if he didn't answer, I'd text him in such a fashion that I was sort of dancing around the precarious "Are you okay?" question that I knew I'd never get a straight answer for anyway. Though by the time I reached my apartment, hands full of extra easels and paint that I figured I could keep myself busy with, every single thing I'd decided on saying left me abruptly.

Because as soon as I opened my door, there he was. Exactly how I'd walked in on him the first time he'd broken into my apartment. Sprawled on my couch with Meatloaf in his lap, legs resting on the coffee table before him, his gun laid out right beside his ankles.

Only this time, he wasn't smoking. And in place of his hands toying with a cigarette, his fingers were instead busy scratching just behind my cat's ears. That, and he didn't look nearly as pissed off when he turned to look at me upon my entry.

For a long moment, I said nothing. Both confused and annoyedly elated that he was here – that he'd shown up – a feeling I tried to quickly shove away.

"Your bruises are gone," is what I found myself saying after what felt like an eternity.

"Bring the whole fuckin' studio home?" he asked with a small grin, ignoring my statement and nodding toward my arms. Before I could respond, he was placing Meatloaf on the couch beside him and had made his way across my apartment in a matter of steps, reaching forward to help me grab what I'd carried up.