The Weeks Between • HS

Week 23: Part 1 • Harry *

Nola is exhausted. She has been trying to catch up from staying up with the girls being sick and then being sick herself. I'm currently rubbing her feet, watching her get closer and closer to falling asleep, but it's like she won't let herself give in. I decide to give her permission because I don't plan on letting her sleep once we get to the house.

"Darling, just rest. We'll be there before you know it." The near commandment has her drifting off in seconds, proving to me just how tired she really was. I keep massaging her feet because I always want to be touching her. Touch is most definitely my top love language. I know it's not Nola's, but she bends for me in that area. What she doesn't know is that I stop myself about half the time, because I know the amount of touching that I want to do is annoying to every human being on the planet besides me.

It doesn't come as naturally to her. You can tell that she was raised in a household that was very hands off, both literally and figuratively, but then she had her girls. She is so affectionate with them and giving of her personal space and touch, to the point that sometimes with me she will say she is 'touched out' at the end of the day. I used to respect it more than I do now, but now I love her and it's impossible to keep my hands off her body because they are the only thing that is telling her how much I love her since I haven't said the words yet.

Nola has been noticeably trying with me. She's always been affectionate towards me, but over the last month, or so, she has been the one initiating things and reaching out for me before I have the chance to reach out for her.

The other thing I love to do with Nola is watch her sleep. Not in a creepy way, like she likes to say it is, but in a if-I-stared-this-much-while-she-was-awake-she'd-dump-me kind of way. It's while she's sleeping that her whole body relaxes and softens in a way it does no other time of the day. No worry riddles her face. No heavy emotions weigh down her eyebrows or the corners of her mouth. There's no poker face hiding that she isn't always as tough as she seems. She's just Nola. My Nola, and I have memorized every inch of her body while she was sleeping over the last five months.

Nola is a sound sleeper, but I'm not when I am at home. So, that means I've woken up for every shift of her body in the bed and every dream and let me tell you, the woman sleeping across from me has a very vivid dream life. I stopped asking her a while ago if she remembers them because she told me she didn't and I could sense that me knowing about them further creeped her out. She dreams about her family, her girls. She dreams about Luke, and misses him (those ones take some time for me to get over). Then, she also dreams about me. The thing that I love about those dreams is that her face never contorts into one of sadness or pain like it does with some of the others. She stays happy and relaxed. That, and she's even been known to chase an orgasm, or twelve, with my name falling from her lips as she gets herself off in her sleep right next to me.

"Mr. Styles, we are about to land." The air stewardess tells me quietly and I move my hands up Nola's leg, changing the pressure to rouse her. I break the seatbelt rule just long enough to gently shake her shoulder because I don't want the feeling of the plane touching down to wake her up. "Nol, love, we are about to land."

I start to sit back down but she reaches over and unties the strings on my hoodie. "What are you doing?"

"Making you less of a loser. Nobody ties these," she says and I sit back in my chair to tie them back up.

"I do. I like the feeling of the hood up behind my neck. It doesn't stay unless you tie them." I defend while we wait for the plane to land. She dolls her eyes at me, as e pre red. Once it does, and we have taxied most of the way to the waiting cars, I stand up and help Nola to her feet. "What time is it?" she asks.

I pull out my phone and see that Paddy is here, waiting. "Around 1am."

"So, being exhausted is an acceptable feeling at the moment?" she says, letting her head rest on the partition next to her.