Aerial

The Fourteenth Chapter

The two of you set off shoulder-to-shoulder after you wiggle from his clutch to his candid dismay, the same old chestnut of his fingers sweeping against yours and attempting to curl around your pinky seeming to carry a lot more weight this time with the lingering footprint of where his lips just were. A circus romance is not something that you're keen on and you're unsure if you ever will be, with the burden of the company's success weighing heavily on your professionalism as a partnership and you wish more than anything that your skirt had pockets that you could hide your hands inside, "so, where'd you go?"

His stare is already trained on you, "when? After practice?" You nod and he shrugs a single shoulder in nonchalance, "you said I needed to be respectful of your privacy, so I was givin' you space while you showered." His sentence trails a little bit as he further considers your question, his feet picking up the pace a bit to jog in front of you and turning around to walk backwards in your path, "wait, did'ya miss me?"

His glitzy grin battles every heavenly body in the galaxy.

You don't really know what to say because you do like privacy but you did notice his absence, so instead you choose to stay quiet. He teases you again about missing him, his accusation a humorous badger with just a hint of cunning smugness layered underneath. You blush and shake your head, not yet tapped into whatever it is you're feeling when your body resonates to his persistent touch and how or why it appears to be leagues different than before, "just curious." Suddenly you feel silly about the possibility of him slinking off with a burner because it seems impossible for him to take interest in anyone besides you, including his best friend and let alone a fleeting love interest. You lift your chin just in time to see the corner of his mouth pull into a cavalier smile, his thumb scratching across forehead before he brushes his hair from his face, "drop it, Harry."

His palms meet the air in surrender, his half-smoked cigarette burning at full steam between his fingertips to swamp you with smoldering pink, vanilla candy before he makes his way to your side again. His gaze drops to his feet as he admires them strolling alongside yours, taking advantage of the beat of silence to gather courage to ask a question that has been keeping him awake most nights, "so how come that photo of you isn't in my wallet anymore? I looked for it everywhere. I can't fuckin' find it."

His inquest catches you off-guard and trudges up muddy, scary memories of the fight that ensued when you lost control and confronted him about the clipped headshot, how thoroughly icky it felt to be caught standing in the rubble of his belongings strewn across the ground when he emerged from his shower, "I don't know. You just told me it was gone when I asked about it. I don't even know why it was there in the first place."

"Probably because it was a secret way to keep you close." He shrugs, "or something. Dunno. I think I must've always had a thing for you and didn't know how to act around you. I still don't. My defenses must've up. I've got all my cards laid out now, babe. Want you to be my main squeeze. I won't stop until you say yes." He clears his throat and kicks a pebble into the cracks of the boardwalk, "how'd you even know it was there?"

You try to pretend as if his nonchalant, sincere revelation didn't just make your knees nearly buckle, "um... you tossed me your wallet when the boys threw you into the fountain after our first performance. It popped open in my hand and my picture was right there... staring back at me."

Harry can tell that you are choosing to withhold information so he chooses the route of sailing confection-colored seas to urge you to dive further, "hey um, you ever wake up and not know where you are? It's like that every time I see you, y'know? A pleasant disorientation. Sun fighting through lacy curtains. I wanna be familiar with you. My brain is struggling real fuckin' hard to know you. My body and heart have you memorized, but it's just big, dumb rocks upstairs. Memory is the only truth we have and I'm beggin' for gospel. Can you please tell me somethin'?"