Always

Chapter 4

He blushed fiercely before stuttering a few unintelligible syllables and started up the stairs towards me, avoiding looking anywhere near my face.  I waited until he was at the top of the stairs, right below where I was standing.  He stood on the step below me and he was still an inch or so taller than me.  Since I was standing in his way, he was forced to look at me. 

When his eyes finally met mine, I just smiled at him and said, “It really was,” before turning around and heading down the hall to my room.  Pulling my laptop off the desk, I brought it over to my bed and sat down.  Noticing a figure hovering in my doorway, I looked over to see Harry standing just outside my room, looking nervous.

“Oh Harry, come on you can come in my room,” I said, patting the side of the bed next to me.  He let out a puff of air before coming fully into my room, dragging his backpack with him, and gingerly sitting down on the very edge of my bed, as far away from me as possible.  “I already told you I don’t bite,” I said without looking at him, focused on getting my laptop running.  It started humming as he scooted maybe an inch closer to me, looking extremely uncomfortable. 

I turned my body a little bit towards him and looked at him.  The lighting in my room cast shadows across his face, throwing the line of his jaw into sharp relief with his neck.  Yet again, I was taken by surprise by him.  His jaw line was so strong, especially now in his tense state, that I couldn’t take my eyes off it.  As I stared, he clenched it even tighter, seeming to sense my gaze.  My eyes shifted to his hair, which was in his normal nerdy style.  Deeply parted on one side, front slicked up at first then over towards his left ear, right side pressed down.  The color a light chocolate that many girls paid obscene amounts of money to copy. 

I wondered what he’d look like without his hair styled and just let it go naturally.  As adorable as he was on his own, with his nerdy and nervous habits, I couldn’t help but think he had major potential to be insanely hot.  What with the hair, sharp jaw, full, red lips, straight teeth, and beautiful green eyes, I was shocked that more people hadn’t taken notice of him. 

My gaze was apparently making him very uncomfortable because he cleared his throat and said, yet again, “What?”

“Have you ever been in a girl’s room before, Harry?” I asked bluntly, already knowing the answer.

"N-not besides my sister’s.”

“Well that obviously doesn’t count,” I giggled, looking him in the eye.  He looked a little embarrassed and blushed again. 

“I like yours, though,” he said sweetly, glancing tentatively around the room.

“Thanks. Have you ever kissed a girl?” I asked bluntly, smiling at his complement.

I could hear him swallow as his eyes widened, locked back on my own.  I think this was the longest eye contact we’ve ever had. “N-no.”

"Have you ever wanted to?” I asked, not surprised by his previous answer.  I licked my lower lip and his eyes darted down to my mouth before quickly returning to mine. 

“I-I think we should work on our project,” he said, finally dragging his eyes away from my face and not answering my question.

I stared at him for a few seconds, a ghost of a grin still on my face before agreeing.  We worked diligently for a few hours before I heard my mom come home from work.  I could hear her shuffling around in the foyer, hanging up her coat and taking off her shoes before she stopped moving around.

“Joey!” she sounded angry as she shouted my name.  I could hear her climbing the stairs, and was confused as to why she was using that tone.  “Whose shoes are those?  You better not have a boy in your ro-“ she cut herself off as she appeared in the doorway, eyes landing on Harry and I on my bed, notes, laptop, and papers scattered all around us. “Oh, hello, sorry about that, who are you?” She smiled at Harry as if she hadn’t just been about to go off on me.

She was not used to finding me innocently sitting in my room with a boy; my past behaviors had trained her to expect much less respectable activities.

“I’m Harry,” he replied, obviously slightly flustered from the sudden turn in voice. 

She smiled at him, taking in his appearance and reaching the conclusion that we were just doing homework.  “Nice to meet you, Harry, I’m Emily.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he mumbled shyly.

“What are you two working on?” she continued, shifting her gaze to me.

“Biology.  We’re partners for a project,” I answered.

“Well that’s great!  I’m about to make some dinner, Harry will you be staying?”

“Oh no-“

“Yes, he will,” I cut him off, looking over at him.  He looked at me with terror in his eyes, green irises nearly completely showing in his wide expression. 

“Lovely,” my mom smiled before turning to go back downstairs.  “I’ll let you know when it’s ready!”

“What are you doing?” Harry asked as soon as she was gone.

“Inviting you to dinner, obviously,” I said innocently. He pursed his lips together, nostrils flaring a bit. “Harry it’s fine, it’s not like I asked you to marry me or something.”

He let out a nervous laugh that sounded more like a gasp.  Once again, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning ridiculously at him, his nervous behaviors quickly becoming extremely endearing.  A half hour went by of Harry trying to focus on research while I simply examined him.  His hair, jaw, eyes, cheek bones, lips, neck, arms, and hands all were put to my scrutiny.  The more I looked, the harder I found it to believe that he had never been discovered by any of the girls in our school. 

His neck was taught as he leaned over the bed, squinting at the computer screen through his glasses.  I could see a vein running through the muscles that I found extremely distracting as it disappeared into the collar of his plain white t-shirt.  His arms were lean, yet toned, hinting at surprising evidence of athleticism.  I had just started to examine his long, lean fingers when his repetition of my name brought me back to the surface.

“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked, feeling a slight blush creep across my cheeks.

“I asked if you thought we should use this source for our project.”

“Oh, right, yeah looks great,” I answered, still very distracted by his features.  “Harry?”

“Yes?” he swallowed.  Nervous.  Always so nervous.

“Remember what I asked you earlier?”

“Um, yes,” he chewed on his lip.  Another nervous habit, I guessed.

“Well?  Have you ever wanted to?” I asked.  I noticed I had started leaning towards him, knees pointing his direction.  We were about a foot apart, which with him was saying a lot.

He continued to chew on his lip, his eyes glancing back down at mouth again before opening his to answer.  He sucked in a breath of air, about to reply when a call of “Joey!” interrupted him.  He blew out his breath as I answered my mother, acknowledging her statement that dinner was ready.  He just looked at me some more, again not answering my question, as I climbed off my bed.

“Shall we?” I asked, motioning towards the stairs.  He nodded and got up, smoothing his dark jeans down the front before following me downstairs.