Door Fourteen: Caerus

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"SORRY, I KNOW you weren't expecting me, and I know it's been awhile..." she trailed off. Her eyes found the floor once she looked into Harry's eyes.

He opened the white door wider and made a head gesture towards the house. After she entered, he closed the door behind her without locking it.

"Why are you here?" He asked in a tone that threw her a bit off balance. His face had turned back into a statuesque expression.

"Uhm," she blanked, "Well I wanted to say sorry, for uhm, the last time I saw you. I was really rude and I didn't mean to be." Indira cracked her knuckles and bit the inside of her cheek.

"That doesn't sound like that was the only reason," he clipped. He was right, per usual.

"I'm sorry, did I come at a bad time?" Indira had hoped to mend the wall between them, but it seemed like Harry didn't want to. Maybe she had read the signals all wrong. Maybe he was just being polite when he said he would see her again.

"Do you always say sorry this much?" Finally, there was a twinge of a smile curving on the side of his lips. Now Indira was confused.

"Look I don't know if you're messing with me or not, but I really did come to apologize and I was hoping that the offer for dinner was still on the table. But clearly I—"

"Indira, darling, I am not messing with you." The way he said her name flustered her up. Harry took a deep breath, then removed his eyes from her. He used his hand to rake his hair back, disheveling it from it's combed state. "There's just a lot going on right now."

Boy, did she know it.

"I wanted to talk to you because I felt like...I don't know...I just don't want things weird between us..."

"You think there's something weird between us?"

"No that's not what I meant," she lied, biting down on her lip and looking away from his eyes. Harry knew she was lying.

"I can see that there's something else on your mind." Harry cocked his head to the side and leaned against the kitchen counter. Usually—as far as she knew—he was playful around her and incredibly nice, but today he was very aloof and inquisitive.

Indira cracked her knuckles once more and shifted the weight on her feet. "There is, but I just don't know how to word it without sounding like a stalker or a freak."

"Tell me. I promise you won't sounds like any of those."

Indira nodded, then took a shaky breath. "When I first saw you out of work, there were people with cameras following you, Misha, and some other guy, around. When you ran into me, more people with cameras were following you. You had some sort of fame to you, that much I knew, but then I looked you up and..." Indira couldn't finish what she wanted to say because when she finally had the courage to look up at Harry, his face held nothing but pain and sorrow. She didn't understand the sorrow, but evidently there was something wrong.

"...And what was it that you found?" Harry said coolly even though on the inside he was screaming.

"That you were a model, and that you just...stopped for some reason," she shrugged.

"That doesn't bother you?" A thick eyebrow perked up as he leaned away from the counter.

"Why would it bother me? Does it bother you that I'm a cashier?"

She really is something else, he couldn't stop the small grin that formed on his face.

"Touché. Well, out of all the things said about me, I'm glad you found something that was actually true."

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