Strangers

Chapter 8: Dress Code Violations

Gemma drops me back to Harry’s, both of us relatively silent for the whole drive. When I walk in through the front door, I’m hit with the beautifully familiar aroma of Mac n Cheese, so I follow it into the kitchen where I’m met with an even more beautiful sight of Harry dancing around in just his checkered boxers, maneuvering through the kitchen while he shovels Mac n Cheese into Tupperware.

“Like what you see?” Harry looks up at me and I realise I’ve been leaning against the doorway staring for a quite a while.

“Love it.” I grin, moving into the kitchen and wrapping my arms around him from behind.

I let out a deep sigh, pressing my cheek against his bare back. “Why didn’t you remind me you go on tour on Wednesday?”

“Because ignorance is bliss.” He turns around in my arms, a spoon of mac n cheese in his hand, I open my lips when he presses it against them and feeds me the contents of the spoon.

“Good?” He asks and I nod. “I’m putting it all into containers for you to take back to uni with you.”

Awww.

“You can’t distract me with your cooking Mister. I can’t believe you leave for four weeks on Wednesday and you didn’t even give me time to prepare.” I pout.

“I’m sorry. You were too happy I didn’t want to remind you and ruin it.” He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into a somewhat reassuring hug.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s only four weeks, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I’ll skip my morning lecture tomorrow and drive back then, so I can stay tonight.” I tell him.

“Lola Jones skipping a lecture?!” His jaw drops in mock shock, and he starts fanning himself with his hand as if he’s going to faint.

“Oh fuck up.” I push his chest, breaking our hug.

“Seriously, I can’t believe it. You never would’ve done this when you were at uni last time.”

“Yeah well, I never had anyone worth skipping for.” I shrug, blushing as I look up at him through my eyelashes.

“Cutie. But I have plans tonight.” He frowns, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Cancel them.” I say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, walking around the kitchen bench and situating myself on one of the breakfast stools.

“Well, I can’t really.” He says.

“Dude, you’re not going to see me for like 4 weeks, I thought you would jump at the chance to spend more time with me. What are these plans that are so important?”

“Well Gem and I are meant to be babysitting Lux, just for a couple of hours.”
“So call Gem and say she doesn’t need to help you because I will.”

“Why can’t we all just babysit her?” Harry questions.

“Because me and Gem don’t agree on some things and we had a slight tiff at breakfast.” I think a tiff is over-exaggerating it, but I can’t deal handle another few hours of hearing her talk about how happy she is with Ashton.

“Oh god. What about?” Harry throws his head back in frustration.

“Ashton, obviously.”

“Can you just leave them alone? She’s obviously happy with him.”

“Yeah I know but that’s not exactly a good thing, the happier she is the more upset she’s going to be when he fucks up.”

“And who says he’s going to fuck up? I mean what proof do you even have that he’s a bad person?” Harry argues.