Phantom [h.s]

Twenty Seven

When I wake up a few hours later, another blanket is on top of me and I'm facing toward the back of the couch. I sit up lazily, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

Harry is still sitting in the armchair, tapping his foot and humming softly under his breath. He slumps back in the chair, his lanky figure almost too tall for it. He straightens in his seat when he sees that I've woken.

"Well, well," he says, half smiling at me. "Look who's finally awake."

I immediately understand why there was another blanket on top of me when the icy air hits my skin. My insides warm when I realize Harry must have put it there.

"Sorry about the cold," he says, fumbling with fingers, looking down. "I know it's...not what you're used to."

I wrap the blanket around me, smiling at him. "It's all right," I say.

He smiles back at me from the chair, and suddenly he looks so desirable; his long legs stretched out in front of him and his hands folded in his lap, his eyes their usual haunting pale green and his dimples caving into his cheeks.

"Do you think that..." I start to speak, then stop. "Never mind."

He raises an eyebrow. "You can't just do that, Jane," he says. "Now you've got to tell me." Traces of a smirk grace his lips.

I blush. "I..." I look at my lap. "Do you think that there's any way that you'd ever be able to feel again?"

My question takes him by surprise, as he shifts slightly in his seat. It's a dumb question. I wish I had not asked him.

Nevertheless, he answers.

"I don't know," he says quietly. "It's something I've often wished for."

"Me too," I admit, and I'm glad he's not in one of his teasing moods, where he'd smirk at my confession rather than just listen to it.

He stares at me, his pale eyes seeming to look right into me, past my skin and skeleton, straight into my mind.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

He blinks. "Like what?"

"That." I pull the blanket tighter around me as a rush of cold air hits me.

He rests his chin in his palm. "I've just never seen you look so natural," he says. "When you just wake up, you let your guard all the way down."

I've never known anyone to use words quite like Harry does, in such a delicate and fascinating way. Blush creeps into my cheeks. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

He smiles, noticing the pink tint in my skin. "Good thing."

I twist the blanket around my fingers, willing my cheeks to return to their normal color.

Harry's eyes move to the clock positioned on the mantle of the fireplace across the room before looking back at me.

"It's two fifty," he says. "I should go." He pushes himself out of the seat, rising to his full height. If I feel small next to him when I'm standing, I feel practically microscopic when he stands before me as I sit on the couch. He's got to be over six feet, at least.

"How tall are you?" I ask him. "Were you, I mean," I say, correcting myself.

"Six feet, on the dot," he answers, almost proudly. "Got Max beat. He's only five ten. We had a competition growing up, you know, on who could grow the fastest and would be the tallest. Nate surpassed us both, though, and Oliver almost did too," he almost laughs. The times that Harry recalls the pleasant memories in his life brings a blissful look across his features that makes me wish even more that I had a role in his past life.