Where Your Heart Is (A Harry Styles Fanfiction) #pfcc2k16 #Wattys2016

Chapter Eighteen: Four Walls.

And I'm trying hard to take it lightly, but we're here now.

*****

My cheeks hurt, literally.

We have been talking nonstop for hours now, if you can consider what's been happening a proper conversation.

The truth is that I barely said a thing about me in the last couple of hours, other than a few comments on the side that would relate to whatever he was saying at the moment.

Like sharing with him that my favorite treat from the bakery were the red-velvet cupcakes filled with cream cheese, when he was describing to me the mess he would made whenever he dared to try and bake them himself.

I must confess, if I were to be in a different situation or more specifically, in another company, I would have probably felt easily annoyed by it. But his voice is so deep and somewhat soothing, that even with his slow way of letting them out, I would find myself rather lost and hypnotized by his words.

His Cheshire accent also moves me, but not because it's British and sexy like most people would think since to me it is the accent I grew up with, but because it simply makes me feel like home.

Living in America for almost two years now, and because most people I have met found it hard to understand me - though I never really knew why -, I've let my accent fade out almost entirely, and my parents like to tease me about how I sometimes sound like Madonna in the 90's.

"I don't see anything, Harry... All I see is black ink." I say with a chuckle, knowing that even if his tattoo of a heart was not there to cover it up, I seriously doubt there's even a scar to be seen.

"I swear, it's there! He got me real good!" He whimpers like a child, running his fingers through his painted skin and twisting it in a weird angle so he can have a closer look. "Look, right here!"

Somewhere along our random chat, he decided to share with me his first memory ever and how it involved getting scratched on his upper left arm by the family cat after jerking at its tail a little too rough for its liking. He was three years old and he was playing with the furry pet as they would roll around on the floor.

He said he was butt naked because he was going through an exhibitionist phase of his life - which made me giggle just to picture him like that -, and when his beloved pet decided to cut the playdate short, he tried to make him stay by any means necessary. And the cat just wouldn't take it.

"Oh, yeah... I see it." I lie, narrowing my eyes and pretending to be looking at something that's really not there. "Well, I think the cat was right, though. And considering how... exposed you were, he surely showed you a lot of mercy."

I laugh at his reaction as he quickly reaches for his crotch, cringing at the sole idea of getting scratched down there.

All at once, his features harden as he winces, clenching his strong jaw and knitting his eyebrows together in a frown that carves two deep lines above the bridge of his nose. His pink lips go pale white because of how his mouth is so tightly closed due to the imaginary pain.

"Why would you say that?" He whines, still covering his goods with both hands. "I think you just scarred me for life!"

Even with his serious face, the only thing that remains soft and rather innocent on it, are his eyes.

There's a light inside of them, very much like a bit of fear for what could have been if the cat hadn't been so forgiving, and my laughter dims out into a simple smile that doesn't seem to be going away as I am hit with the realization that he is the perfect combination between this fine, perfectly built, tattooed arm man I have sitting in front of me and that helpless, bare naked, playful boy he used to be.