angel. h.s ✔️

forty four.

"Sunshine!"

I jumped and whirled round as someone grabbed my arm gripping my phone tightly in my hand in case I needed to hit them only to find myself face to face with a wide eyed and slightly out of breath Harry.

I pulled one earphone out of my ear as I tried to calm my racing heart. I didn't expect to see him but I was still thoroughly confused on what he was doing here on my street at eleven thirty in the morning; especially with that leather jacket on his back.

"Hi?"

"I've been calling your name for the past five minutes." Harry rubbed a hand over his face and I frowned shifting on my feet awkwardly.

"Sorry." I chewed my lip, shrugging slightly as I gestured to my headphones and Harry nodded slowly, his eyes trailing over my face. The action still made me uncomfortable and he seemed to be doing it more and more lately.

"Are you going to work?" Harry asked as he stuffed his hands into the jacket pockets and I swallowed as I stared at his covered hands. One of those had been inside me last night.

"No um I'm going to Westfield." I shook my head to shake away my thoughts, I had been up most of last night stressing over the situation but here Harry was, in front of me, surprisingly.

"D'ya want some company?" Harry questioned as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and I saw his car parked several metres back down the road, almost directly in front of my house.

Did I want his company? Always.

I clicked my tongue at my own traitorous thoughts before glancing up at Harry almost suspiciously to find him frowning down at me. What had I done now?

"If you want to." I finally settled on saying, I don't think I could afford the luxury of admitting how much I enjoyed and craved Harry's company and attention when I was the one who ran away last night.

"Come on then Sunshine."

Harry gave me a lazy smile as he flicked his head and I fell into step beside him quickly, flinching as Harry gripped my hand as we made the short walk back to his car.

"So how come you're going shopping?" Harry asked once we were both settled in his car and he pulled away from the curb. We hadn't even reached the first set of traffics lights before Harry had his hand on my thigh.

I could feel my heart thudding inside of my chest at the new action and I was concentrating so hard on trying to understand his thought process and what this all meant I almost forgot Harry had asked me a question.

"Sarah's birthday on Thursday and I was nominated by the girls to get her birthday present so I thought I'd just go today considering I had nothing else to do."

"We could have done something today if you'd stayed with me."

I felt my breath catch in my throat and I saw Harry's half shrug from the corner of my eye. How was I supposed to respond to that? I didn't even know if I wanted to respond to that. It wasn't snide or mean it was just a statement.

"Why are you wearing that?" I asked instead, referring to the Snakes leather jacket. It made me uncomfortable.

The worse part was I knew that was stupid but it did, it made me uncomfortable because it reminded me that Harry was in a gang. Sure he looked really hot in it, but he was still in a gang.

A gang that had caused him to be arrested.

God, that was another thing I didn't want to think about or be reminded of but I knew he'd been arrested now, the question was did Harry know I knew?

"Went to work this morning." Harry answered me and I nodded as I licked my lips silently.

"So we couldn't have done anything." I pointed out quickly, so quickly it was almost a snap. Almost.

"I wouldn't have gone to work if you'd stayed."

I sighed as I rested my chin on my hand as I stared out the window. It was clear yesterday how I felt, now it wasn't. But really it wasn't even clear yesterday. So much had happened and I was overwhelmed.

I frowned at my reflection as my vision started to blur and I huffed in frustration at myself for crying. I didn't even know what I was crying for but here I was, in my best friends car; well if Harry was still my best friend, crying.

The silence in the car wasn't awkward but it wasn't the most comfortable silence either of us had been in before and I knew it was my fault. It didn't make sense why Harry had wanted me to stay anyway.

I sniffed and wiped at my nose just as Harry turned into the entrance to the shopping centre car park and rolled his window down. The sudden blast of cold air made my eyes water even more and I rolled my eyes.

"I'll pay for parking today." I said quietly just as Harry found an empty space and pulled in killing the engine and I heard him shift in his seat and I risked glancing at him.

"No you won't." Harry muttered just as I met his gaze with a frown on my face. "Have you been crying?"

Suddenly Harry was gripping my face and forcing me to angle body to face him and I was glad I hadn't put my seat belt on so I moved easily.

"No." I lied immediately adverting my eyes. It didn't help that I was acutely aware he hadn't called me Sunshine once today so far.

"Thought you promised not to lie to me." Harry muttered and I swallowed thickly as he let go of my face.

"Sorry." I mumbled, I knew I should have told him I wanted to go shopping alone.

"Don't apologise Sunshine." My heart lifted at the appearance of my nickname.

"I think we need to talk." And then it dropped again.

"We do?" I played dumb, I didn't want to talk about it but I also knew Harry always got his own way.

"Sunshine..." Harry groaned and I shifted but neither of us said anything else.

"We can talk about it later. Let's go get Sarah's present." Harry finally said after a few minutes and I chewed my lip and nodded pushing my door open.

"Oh by the way you left your coat in my car the other night." Harry spoke up and I paused frowning and turned back to face him still sitting in the drivers seat.

"I did?" I questioned, I wasn't aware I'd taken off a jacket the last time I'd been in his car. Certainly not last night anyway.

"Yeh' d'you want it now?" Harry asked as he reached behind him and held up his own shearling jacket towards me and I narrowed my eyes at him upon seeing the teasing smirk dancing on his lips.

"That's not mine and you know it, are you helping me or not?"

I clicked my tongue as Harry laughed and held his hands up in surrender before rounding the car to join me and I chewed my lip as he nudged my shoulder as we walked towards the lift.

There was something about Harry that made everything comfortable but I knew that. That was exactly how and why we'd ended up sleeping together last night. But even with the lingering threat of our chat later I was much more at ease.

And the way Harry's hand had tangled with mine showed me that he was too.