boys don't cry. [h.s]

thirty three

November

Isabel waited until she heard the shower turn on before she started to undress, taking off all her clothes one by one and folding them carefully on the chair by the bed. She was so scared that she felt faint, but the thought of his touch had her walking into the bathroom, her knees weak and hands trembling.

Harry stood under the shower with his head hanging so that his hair fell in front his face, water battering onto the back of his neck and sliding down his shoulders to his chest. He pushed a hand over his cheek and slid his fingers up to claw his hair back, before resting his palm over his face as the water beat down on him.

It was a posh shower, the type where you walk in past sheets of glass and try your best not to slip with nothing to hold onto. Isabel clung to the flat glass with shaking fingers and stepped towards him, but he didn't hear her. He stood with his back to her, his head still hanging.

With her heart pounding, her legs shaking, her mind racing, she closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his back and spreading her fingers flat across his stomach, kissing his spine. Initially he jolted in surprise, but then he seemed to slump even more, his fingers intertwining with hers and his head falling forward on his neck.

She kissed each bump of his spine on the back of his neck, running her nose along the ridges and pressing her lips to the cut of his shoulder blade. When she pulled away he tried to grab her, gripping her hands tightly and making a little disgruntled sound, but she shook him off. Bending down to pick up his shampoo, she smiled when she saw he had turned and was frowning at her anxiously.

"I thought you were getting out," he mumbled, and she shook her head at him. He looked so exhausted, his body slouched and his shoulders slumped, but his eyes were bright and alert as he watched her squeeze his citrus shampoo into her hands.

"Here," she whispered, standing on her tip-toes and running her hands through his wet hair. He closed his eyes, exhaling through parted lips and wobbling slightly on his feet. She was so close to him that their noses were almost touching, and the urge to kiss him was so strong it knocked the breath out of her. It had been so long that she'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

"Wash it out, Harry," she told him, kissing the tip of his nose and giving him a little pat on the shoulder, and he stumbled backwards until his head was right under the water. He reached his arms up to tease the shampoo out, and it was almost torturous the way he was standing facing her so that she could see the muscles in his torso stretch as his arms went up, the rise and fall of his chest, the strain of a vein beneath the skin of his neck as he threw his head back. She stared at him unabashedly as she rubbed shampoo into her own hair, trying to breathe normally as she drank him in, wondering how on earth she hadn't collapsed into the floor yet.

Isabel stepped forward, sliding next to Harry so she was under the water too and their bodies were almost close enough to be pressed together. It occurred to her then that neither of them even needed to wash their hair, but Isabel supposed she just wanted to smell like him, and now all she could smell was him, that tangy citrus smell everywhere that was so heart wrenchingly, unbelievably familiar she could have cried.

Her eyes were shut as she raked her fingers through her hair, so she was startled and flinched when Harry pulled her arms down gently. He slid one arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him so their chests were flush and their toes brushing, and she could feel he was hard, pressed against her stomach by the proximity of their bodies, but she pretended not to notice. His other hand traced through her hair for her, his fingers sliding across her scalp gently as he washed the shampoo from it. Her head fell to his shoulder, not caring if she got shampoo in her eyes, and she clawed his chest like he was the side of a cliff, her nails making half-moon dents into the skin.