"Excuse me," the middle-aged woman in the first-class seat next to me apologetically raises her shoulders as she taps me.
I remove one headphone to avoid being rude. "Hi."
"I'm so sorry to bother you, but you're Harry Styles, aren't you?"
"Mhm," I chuckle at the way her whole expression relaxes like she couldn't be more relieved.
"Would you mind signing this for my daughter?" She places her boarding pass upside down on her tray table while we wait for the plane to dock at the appropriate gate. "She's such a huge fan of yours. I recognize you from her bedroom walls."
"Of course, yeah," I set my phone down and take the pen and boarding pass from her. "What's her name?"
"Samantha," she says.
I address the note to her daughter by name and write that I hope we're able to meet soon as well as thank her for her support before I sign my name with a messily drawn heart. Her mum is beaming as she touches my shoulder to thank me, blowing on the ink to make sure it's dry before she tucks the pass in her Dr. Phil book.
As the seatbelt sign turns off and the plane comes to a gentle stop, I remove my headphones and switch my phone off of airplane mode to see the texts come flooding in. I see messages from my mum, Jeff, Tom, and Mitch, but it's Haven's that I quickly open first.
Haven: Look at it!
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Haven: It's the perfect bed rest reading material
The text makes me smile, but before I can respond, I need to get up and retrieve my duffle bag from the overhead compartment above my seat and exit the plane. From there, I meet the security guard outside the gate so he can walk me through LAX and help me get to the exit unscathed as the paparazzi wait to catch me.
Apart from the Rolling Stone cover, almost all of the questions are about Haven or our relationship. Last month, they watched me leave my house with three suitcases and followed me to Haven's to watch me enter the backyard with that same luggage.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that that means we're most likely back together, but I haven't confirmed a thing just like I never confirmed that we were together in the first place. I talked about her in my magazine interview without ever saying her name, though I did have Jeff tell the other outlets asking that I'm the happiest I've ever been and that's for several reasons. They don't need to know that Haven is the biggest one.
Rather than getting into an unmarked SUV outside the airport, Jeff is there to meet me in his Audi and gets out of the car to help me with my bags while the paparazzi are still going crazy asking me questions like if I'm ready to be a father or if I even am the father. The last time Haven was photographed by them was earlier this month when she was coming out of her OBGYN's office and they have to know she's close to her due date judging by the size of her bump.
