roses so red [harry lewis]

one petal down

CHAPTER 12: one petal down

"Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit." Rosalie panicked, shooting upright in bed and grabbing her phone, which was about to vibrate off the bedside table.

"Hi, Talia, I'm so sorry," She breathed, rubbing her eyes vigorously with her free hand while she tried to catch her breath. "I just woke up, I'll be there in twenty." 

"Don't worry!" Talia laughed, "I expected just as much. I saw Harry's snapchat he sent Simon, never pegged you as one to dance on tables though." She teased.

Rosalie huffed out a breath and mumbled a sarcastic goodbye, hanging up her phone and dropping it onto the sheets which covered her legs. The tan sheets.

Rosalie had white sheets, ones with tiny flowers on them.

And as Rosalie blinked, she remembered those little moments that filled the gaps between the Chelsea game and the walk home and the moment she awoke in a bed that did not belong to her, hungover and disoriented. She remembered all of the cheers in the pub, the clicking heels on pavement, the shy blushes as their arms brushed on the walk home.

Rosalie remembered all of the kissing.

Well, the two whole kisses that she never thought she'd feel so tingly over. The bar, and then, last night when they'd climbed under the warm covers of his bed, her toes curled in the socks he'd let her borrow. They pulled the sheets over their heads, and Rosalie reached out and found him in the black of the night, and she moved closer to him, and he'd moved closer to her, too.

He'd moved around a little, the sheet falling down in between them and sticking to their faces. Harry pulled the sheet back up, propping it in the air so that he could find her face. And then Harry kissed her softly, and a little awkwardly, because his nose found hers first and he'd almost missed her mouth, but she almost thought it was better than the kiss in the pub had been.

"Up, wake up!" Rosalie told him, shaking his shoulders sharply where he laid all tangled up in the sheets. Harry groaned, shifting only to pull away from her grip and disappear deeper into the blankets. "Harry, wake up, we're late enough already."

"Do we have to go?" He groaned, his voice muffled by the pillow his face was buried in.

"Yes, we do." Rose implored, pushing the blankets off of her legs and shimmying out of the pair of football shorts Harry had loaned and into her work pants, which were a little more worn than they had been the morning before.

Harry groaned again, but something in her tone must have motivated him because he pushed the blankets away and sat upright, his hands dragging over his face in exhaustion. His eyes opened up and quickly snapped back shut, just as quickly as Rosalie turned away to hide her almost-bare skin.

She had her bra on, sure, but she felt exposed suddenly and hurried to button her shirt up, facing the window so that Harry couldn't see her getting dressed again. He wordlessly got out of bed, pulling open a drawer and grabbing a new pair of trousers and a top to slip into.

He was ready in minutes, his teeth given a quick brush and his hair flattened with his palm. Rosalie stared at her reflection in the mirror, licking her thumb and using it to wipe the smudges of mascara from her undereyes. "Ready?" Harry asked, clearing his throat.

Rosalie glanced up and then back again anxiously, nodding and getting to her feet, her purse hanging over her shoulder. She trailed after Harry into the hall, trying to regulate her breathing. Not only was she suddenly much more shy than she had been last night, but she and Harry were officially very late to lunch, which was going to appear suspicious to their friends.

"Morning, mate," A  voice chimed from the living room, and Rose's head snapped up instinctively. She's completely forgotten the problem she should've been worrying about facing, although the odds couldn't have possibly been worse.

"What the actual fuck is going on here?" Callum asked, his tone shifting as he realized it wasn't just Harry who had walked into the sitting room from down the hall.

"She's just catching a lift to brunch." Harry lied quickly, and Rosalie couldn't tell if she ought to be taken aback by how easily the lie had appeared, or that he'd felt he had to lie about why she'd been spending time with him.

"Like shit," Callum scoffed, waving the remote he held at Rose. "That's why she looks like that, yeah?"

"Looks like what, exactly?" Rosalie jibed before she could stop herself, arching two sharp auburn eyebrows at the boy on the couch, who leveled her stare and opened his mouth to respond.

Harry's hand landed on Rose's lower back, guiding her gently towards the door to the flat as he responded, cutting off the sound of Callum's tactless response. "We can talk later, mate, we're leaving."

He pulled the door closed behind them quickly, leading the way in silence down to the car park and out to his car, where he pulled the door open for Rosalie. She pursed her lips, biting her tongue instead of telling him all of the reasons why he should've let her get it herself, why he should've let her win her own fight against Callum.

But she held it all in, staring quietly out the window as London sped past them and they rounded to the front of the restaurant, his car slowing and lingering outside. "You can go in, I'll park and come in a few minutes." Harry finally broke their silence.

Rosalie nodded. He didn't know that he'd ever seen the bright girl so silent. She pushed open the door, moving lethargically. As the door shut after her, she sucked in a breath of heavy London air to clear her thoughts.

Maybe she had to let him win this one, silence Callum instead of feeding his fire. There was no reason for her to fight his first thoughts on seeing them together when she wasn't even sure that much more than two kisses were ever going to come, or whether she wanted anything more than those two kissed at all.

It was better this way, with Callum being the only to see what he thought was there, with Harry shutting him down and silencing the thought in its tracks before it could build and carry on. 

Rosalie pushed through the front doors of the restaurant and glanced around, her eyes landing on the table in the middle of the room, every chair filled except for one. Talia, Freya, Gee, Nia... and absolutely nobody else. She froze where she stood her, feet glued in place and her heart falling so far into her stomach that she was surprised it didn't fall out onto the floor.

The door chimed open behind her, and she knew by the look on Talia's face as he mouth gaped open and her eyes went wide as saucers that exactly what the girl was going to joke about had materialized into reality right behind her.

Harry's hand touched the small of her back, just two fingers setting her skin on fire as she quickly whipped back around, unable to disguise the sheer terror on her face when she looked at the rosy-cheeked boy behind her, who gave a small chuckle and a grin. "I don't think I was invited, you knob."