fight for control ↠ harry styles [b1] ✓

CHAPTER 65

Harry Styles

In the twenty-four years I have spent on this planet, I have had a chance to wake up next to someone after a full night of sleep and feel happy. Trust me, I really have. I have loved people in my life who I felt lucky to have in my arms of a morning.

Yes, there is a 'but' coming.

But with Renleigh, it was nothing like any of those mornings. There was nothing to compare it to, not that my past lovers were comparable. There was something else with her though, something that I never felt and found hard to describe because I didn't really understand it either.

It was the kind of happiness that felt natural, that felt right, that felt like I have always had it. It was the kind of warmth in my chest and stomach that I enjoyed and never wanted to disappear or perhaps turn cold. It was the kind of calmness that is described in books when someone looks out to the sea or sits on a grass covered mountain.

At the same time, though, it was something that I have had enough of by the time I was awake again. Renleigh was a sleep-talker and she tossed- and turned a lot, too. Cuddling her was only nice until she truly fell asleep because once she was no longer conscious, it was a matter of 'which part of my body will I get kicked in tonight' and meanwhile that was funny in theory, it was not so much in practice.

Even as I let my eyes settle on her soft features in the morning, it was different. She wasn't cuddled up to me like I would have thought she would be. She was on her side but faced towards me with a stuffed pig pressed to her chest under the quilt that was pulled all the way up to her chin. Her hair was not in her face but all over her pillow and I wondered how the hell it looked so knotless.

Suddenly, I caught her eyebrows furrow and then loosen again as she sighed and scrunched up her nose for a few seconds. The cheek she slept on made her lips pucker and they were slightly open but she seemed to breathe through her nose.

"Gonna poke your eyes out."

"Oh my god!" I exclaimed as she suddenly spoke up. My heart went insane inside my chest at the unexpected comment that left her mouth and I closed my eyes for a short second. When I looked back at her, she was smirking with her eyes opened this time, slightly squinted. "How long were you awake for?"

"Hm-mhm," she hummed as she tried to say she didn't know. I shook my head as I pulled the quilt over her head and pushed down on it a bit.

"That's for scaring the fuck out of me," I said after I pulled it back off of her face.

"Next time you should just suffocate me with the pillow. More effective," she replied in a low and croaky voice. It was much deeper and fuller in the morning which was something I had noticed time and time again. I adored the way she sounded right after she woke up, all sleepy and cute, a little grumpy and out of it as she adjusted back into the real world. "I speak from experience."

"I had no doubts about that, darling," I replied. Her sense of humour was something else, again. And, see... waking up with her was just like this. Completely normal yet completely opposite to what they shown in movies or written in books. Other than the feelings she made me feel, nothing else was the same.

"You know 'cos you can cook," she began to say as she turned on her back and yawned with her hand in front of her mouth. I hummed as she did so and then waited for her to carry on. "Would you want to come Tesco with me today? I need to get stuff for my fridge and also you could teach me how to make stuff because I'm shit at cooking but also want to make something myself you know."

"Yeah, sure," I nodded. "I might have to pop in to work today to sign some stuff – at least that's all I have gathered from my schedule that Jamie sent over this morning – but we can definitely do that."