Lucky Penny [h.s.]

10.

Penelope.

We were sitting in the water still, and I rolled my head back on my shoulders to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, basking in the comfortable temperature. I closed my eyes on instinct, holding a can of lukewarm beer in my hand as the water softly splashed against my thighs that were half in and half out of the water.

Harry was still next to me, and we had been in this same position for about an hour. It surprised me that no one had come sit with us but everyone seemed to leave us alone as we talked. It felt refreshing to talk to him in such an honest way and I was glad that he explained himself for what happened on Friday, and that he also accepted my apology.

The door was closed now and maybe that was for the best.

My emotions were all over the place and I didn't really want to bother Harry with them. I constantly felt the need to laugh at my own misery and cry at the same time. Yesterday had been a day spent in bed even though I was restless, tossing and turning and bawling all the time. The things that Patrick had said lingered to this moment still.

But I did stand by what I did and I wasn't ever going back.

I turned my head to the side to see Harry's side profile, him mimicking my position. He was leaning back on his hands, letting the sun hit his face and exposed chest. I used the opportunity of him having his eyes closed to let my vision dart over his form. I had never seen him without a shirt on besides when he woke up on the couch and I was in the kitchen last week.

Back then, I turned around quickly to hide my blushing cheeks because it felt too sinful to stare at a half-naked man while my boyfriend was in the other room. But back then I had already seen that he had a long, slender torso that was covered in much more tattoos than I had thought.

He had a great body, not that I had expected anything less. This man was sculpted to perfection and I had to keep myself from drooling when I saw the defined muscles of his abdomen. He wasn't overly muscular either but clearly did work out.

"Flirting." His voice suddenly snapped me out of my thoughts and I flicked my eyes up to see that he was looking back at me, a half smirk on his lips.

"What?" I frowned.

"Flirting. You're flirting, checking me out." He explained and I let out a laugh, "I'm not. I was looking at your tattoos." I lied. The excuse came quickly and Harry seemed to believe me.

"Oh." Harry smiled, "Right. Sorry. I'm so used to them I hardly see them anymore." He dropped his eyes to his own stomach, stretching his legs out so he was lounging in the sand.

"You've got some really nice ones." I murmured as I looked at the ink on his body for real this time. I leaned forward and squinted my eyes to see some of them more up close. I was instantly wondering what the story behind some of them was. Even though it seemed like random doodles, they fit together really well somehow, the sleeve on his arm telling a story that I had yet to uncover.

He nodded, "Yeah, I think so too. I like them." He let me look intently at him, inspecting some of the details in a few.

"The ship is insane." I commented in a concentrated murmur, seeing how many little strokes were used for that one. Harry lifted his arm for me to see a little better before I moved on to his other arm, "This eagle is interesting too, looks quite recent." I pointed to the inside of his other arm and he nodded, "It is quite recent actually. Had another one beneath it that I covered up."

"What did you have before?"

"I had 'things I can' here and 'things I can't' on the other side, covered that up too." He explained.