Aquarelle [h.s]

thirty-eight

I reached the front door and opened it, frowning when I saw who was standing on the other side. "Liam?" I said, a bit confused. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey Sierra" he replied, giving a quick look behind me and into the studio. "is Harry here?" His gaze stayed focused behind me as he spoke, and he raised an eyebrow all of a sudden, looking back at me almost instantly.

"He is" I confirmed, hoping that he'd put something on just in case Liam wanted to come in.

He gave me a quick nod, a troubled look taking over his features. "Do you think you can step outside for a minute? I need to talk to you" he asked.

"Uh, okay" I replied, a bit taken aback. Why didn't he want Harry to hear what he was saying? It was weird, especially considering that they were friends.

Even though I found it weird, I decided to follow his request anyway, taking the key from the pocket of my jacket and getting out, closing the door behind myself.

"What is it?" I asked him when we were standing on the stairs, away from Harry's ears. It felt odd to have a conversation of that secrecy with Liam, as if I was betraying Harry in some way by doing that.

"Nicholas came by my flat today" he said, taking me by surprise. That was certainly the last thing I would've expected him to say.

"He did? Why?" I asked, clear confusion in my voice. Why had Nicholas decided to do that? Was he planning something? That was weird, really weird. He'd never been particularly close to Liam, so why had he gone to him, out of all people? I didn't like that situation one bit.

Liam nodded again, looking for something in the pocket of the jeans he was wearing. "He gave me these to give back to you" he stated, holding up two keys tied together by a ring that had a little cube attached to it, that I quickly recognised as Nicholas's. "He said he doesn't want to see you again."

"Oh?" I said, taking them and looking down at them, frowning a bit. It was weird to be given those keys back. They'd belonged to Nicholas for so long, and now they just... didn't. It felt very final. But the thing that confused me the most about it, though, was that I wasn't as upset as I knew I should've been. I should've found that heartbreaking, but I just... didn't. In some weird way, I was glad he couldn't let himself into my flat anymore. It felt conclusive, like the last thing tying us together had just dissolved into nothing, leaving us free from each other. "Thank you."

"He also said something less kind, but I won't be referring that" Liam added, the look on his face telling me that he didn't enjoy the role of messenger Nicholas had forced on him. "He told me to remind you to fix the contract of the flat at the end of the month."

"Okay, thank you" I replied, giving him a little nod. I definitely had forgotten about that. Of course Nicholas had remembered. "Is it everything?"

"No, I also wanted to talk to you about Harry."

I furrowed my eyebrows at the odd sentence as soon as it left his mouth. What could he possibly have to tell me about him, that I didn't know already? It felt a bit weird for him to want to talk about him while he couldn't hear. I knew Harry didn't have any dark secrets or anything, so it seemed rather unnecessary. "What about him?"

"I know there's something going on between you two, Sierra" Liam said, giving me a little glance and tilting his head.

"Oh" I replied, looking down. So that was what he wanted to talk about. I definitely hadn't expected to have to go through a whole introductory speech about being with Harry as soon as something would've happened between us. After all, nobody knew what I was getting into better than me, and even though I knew we were in dangerous territory, I still hadn't found a single reason to back out. "We're just... giving it a try. It's all" I simply replied, deeming it the best way to explain what was going on.