Always

Bonus Chapters :)

Hiiiii. If you've been here a while, you know I was thinking of doing a sequel to this story. However, I have since decided (also a long time ago) that the story does not require a sequel, as I feel it would weaken the story. Plus, I have moved on to other things in the two years since I've finished 'Always'. 

However, I did have about four chapters of bonus content written following the end of 'Always'. I had it posted on here for a while, but took it down when I decided not to continue with the sequel. It seemed like a waste to have these four chapters sitting in my computer, so I've decided to post them on the end of this story! Here they are, and I hope you'll like them :)

Also, my dear friend @andallthatjaz1d made this incredible trailer, so it must not go to waste, either! Enjoy!

Chapter 1 – Freshman Year

Joey

Skin.

In the vast, chaotic blur of all the things going on around me, that was what I noticed. The thin strip of toned, tanned stomach that peeked out beneath the hem of his white tank top as he reached above his head was enough to distract me for far too long, my current task all but forgotten as I stood transfixed by the revealed skin. The fine cut of his muscle dipped into the athletic shorts he was wearing, something I never got used to seeing despite being subjected to it relentlessly over the past summer.

"Joey?"

The sound of my name snapped me from my trance and my eyes jerked upward to land on his face, which was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. His lips were pulled into a grin, hitching up farther on one side than the other as he realized what I'd been doing.

"Sorry, what?" My attempts at appearing nonchalant failed as Harry smirked down at me.

"I asked if you could hand me that hammer," he repeated patiently. He was helping me put together a shelving unit my mother had bought for my dorm room, though so far he'd done all the work. It quickly became clear that carpentry was not my expertise, and I'd been banished to be Harry's assistant. Or rather, to just stay out of his way while he did everything else.

"Yeah, sorry, here," I said, shaking my head to snap myself out of it. He shot me one last grin before returning to his work, and I was beyond thankful for him once again.

It was move-in weekend at our university, something that would have surely been painfully overwhelming to face alone. Campus was crawling with uncertain freshman, just as clueless as I, and it was difficult to move anywhere without running into a distraught or anxious, fear-ridden student. My mother had helped me haul all my belongings into my dorm room, which of course was on the top floor, before saying a tearful goodbye and leaving me to 'become a grown woman.'

We'd driven up together with Harry's mother and sister, who had fared slightly better than my own mother. Anne had managed to hold her tears until her very last wave goodbye, while Gemma had seemed positively thrilled. They'd all left at once, comforted by the fact that Harry and I would at least be together to get things sorted out. To say I was relieved he was there with me was the understatement of the year.

As an only child, my mum would now be all alone in her house, something that made me feel a twinge of guilt. After finalizing their divorce, my parents rarely spoke to one another. True to his word, my father was indeed around more often, but it was still a small percentage of the time. The apartment he'd rented in our hometown was rarely occupied, and there was little evidence that anyone lived there at all.

A loud slam of the hammer into what looked to be the final nail in my shelf jerked me back once again, where I saw Harry examining his work with two nails stuck between his lips, holding them for the time being while he let the hammer he carried dangle in his hand. He nodded once to himself, apparently satisfied, before pulling the nails from between his lips and tossing them into a bucket of scraps we'd started.