Art | Harry Styles

15

The back of his head lands in her lap, as he continues to roar with laughter, covering his face with his hands.

"You're a literal child, you know that?" Sophie teases with a light chuckle, her own laughter beginning to settle as Harry removes his hands from his face, cheeks flushed with giggly content.

"Maybe," he giggles again, trying to blow a piece of hair away from his forehead with little luck. Sophie rolls her eyes, reaching to move the piece from his skin, fingers landing in his hair, now, for the first time ever. The soft brown locks are smooth beneath her touch, the curly wisps somehow so messy but effortlessly perfect at the same time. She doesn't notice her hands running through his hair until his eyes close and a smile forms on his lips, shaking her from her thoughts, "Mm, that feels nice." He doesn't really mean to point it out, but he still does.

Her hands lift a little too quickly, and her eyes quickly flicker away from his face, landing just about anywhere but his face. The contact is too much. Nothing more than friendly, Sophie, no, no, no.
"Are you okay?" he asks nervously, in fear he's overstepped at her sudden jolt upwards as she stands up, his head lifting from her lap. Every time his confidence builds, he quickly begins to doubt himself.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she clears her throat, before quickly forcing her typical wit back into it, "you have to go to the airport in a few hours, so we should probably get started on this tree."

After an odd phone call at three o'clock that morning, where Harry had declared how intent he was on having the greatest, most extravagant Christmas tree he could find, he'd managed to force his companion out of her house at the ungodly hour of seven AM, in search of a Christmas tree, and a ton of decorations to go with it.

"You're going home tonight," she'd whined in protest, "why do you need a Christmas tree if you're not even here for Christmas?"

"Because, Sophie Ashford, you devastatingly ignorant imbecile," Harry had deadpanned, "it's December 23rd. I fly out tonight, and that means my apartment has a lonely few days without me, until the New Year, and so I at least want it to feel festive."

"You want your apartment to feel fe-"

"Yes I do."

"You do realise an inanimate object can't feel anythi-"

"Yes it can."

Truth be told, she's going to miss him while he's away. But she won't tell him that. Instead she'll fire weak jokes at him, insisting that her Christmas will be just as, if not more merry here.

Sophie had told Harry the moment she'd discovered Alice wasn't coming home for Christmas. The flight prices had risen far too much, and it simply wouldn't work with her school and work schedule. It's well over a month since Sophie found out, but she still can't ignore the sting she feels in the out of her stomach when she thinks about how it'll be her first Christmas without her best friend. Harry knows that. And he nods and listens when Sophie rants about it, and quietly notes the way in which she cuts herself off at the risk of sounding "stupid and childish". He doesn't know where she's got that idea from, as he assures her she's nothing of the sort.

"Right," he stands up now, brushing off the precious conversation, picking up one out of the three boxes of lights that sit on the floor, "white lights, or rainbow?"

"You want to go full out, don't you? Do both," Sophie says as if it's obvious, reaching for another box with a grin.

"White and rainbow lights on one tree? That might not work."

"Oh, it definitely won't work. But it's guaranteed to make the place more festive," Sophie points out, and so Harry nods, in no position to argue with the girl.