Just a Name

Chapter 3

I jumped from my seat and slid the door open.

"You're gonna wake up everyone with your yelling!" I shush him.

"I'm not yelling, you are." Harry answers me in a hushed tone. "Aren't you gonna let me in?" He asks acknowledging how I only opened the door enough for me to stick my head out.

I think of Claire and Charles, the two strangers that have kindly taken me in at my father's request.

"It... It's actually a nice night. Wouldn't you rather sit out here?" I ask looking at the patio furniture.

The Callahan's have been really nice to me, but I don't think they would appreciate me chatting up with a boy in the middle of the night inside their home.

"Sure." Harry said shrugging his shoulders. I stepped out of the kitchen and started following him.

"Wait." He said turning around and almost bumping into me. I mumbled a small sorry and earned a chuckle from him.

"Can I have an Oreo?"

"Yeah, you can bring them out here if you want." I'm going to have to replace those tomorrow before Charles notices they're gone.

As much as I want him sit next to me, my self control tells me to not be so obvious and I take a sit in the single's couch.

When Harry returns, he takes a double look between me and the next available seat; his options are a three spaced couch to my right or love seat that is parallel from mine.

"Too far." He says and sits on top of the coffee table, directly in front of me.

Great.

"That's not an Oreo." I point to my book that he's carrying under the tray of cookies.

"Very clever. Now what do you call, these?" He mocks me pointing at his shoes.

I make him a face and his grin only widens. "Nike's?"

"Shoe's would've been alright." He says putting an entire cookie inside his mouth. He notices me staring and lifts the tray of delicious goodies to offer me some and I take one.

"That's no fun." He says with his mouth still full when I take a bite of the cookie instead of putting it all once in my mouth like he did.

I look away from his cute pout and change the subject. "You better not leave cookie crumbles on my book."

"I respect books." He says in a serious tone.

"Of course, you do." I say mockingly. Not to be prejudiced but he doesn't really look like he's held a book before.

"Are you judging a book by its cover?" He wiggles his eyebrows at me and laughs, amused by his own joke.

I nod my head sideways, as I try to stop the smile that was forming on my lips.

"Oh, common. That was a good one." He says as he taps my right knee with the back of his hand.

I flinch at his touch and it thankfully goes unnoticed by Harry and if he notices, he doesn't say anything.

"So, how was your day? Did you do any tourist stuff?" He asks resting his arms on his legs, bringing himself forward and making the space between us even smaller.

"Not really, woke up past noon." I say as I casually bring my legs up and sit cross-legged. "Jet lag." I finish up and relax a little now that I have put some more space between us.

Harry's eyes flicker rapidly from my legs to my eyes and small frown forms above his eyes.

"That's nice."