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"It's a feeling, like a heartbeat."
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Harry finds Baby the next morning as she's walking out of the dining room after breakfast. He grabs her arm and pulls her away from the rest of her family and Nelson, who are all too wrapped up in a conversation about God-knows-what to notice Baby's absence. She tries to shriek, not knowing it was Harry who grabbed her, but Harry covers her mouth with his hand before she can make a peep.
"Practice. Barn. Ten minutes," he says, removing his hand from Baby's mouth and walking away before she even gets the chance to respond. Harry's morning is free, and he wants to take every chance they can to get in some extra practice.
Baby hurries back towards her family and Nelson, trying to think of an excuse to leave and head towards the barn. "Where'd you go, Baby?" Nelson asks as she walks back up to them, wrapping her knit sweater tighter around her body and trying to think of an excuse on the fly.
"Oh, um, I tripped back there, got some dirt on my clothes," she says, looking down at her tank top and denim capris. "I'm actually gonna head back to our cabin and change." It's the most logical excuse she can think of, especially because she really does need to change if she's going to be practicing.
Before Nelson or her parents can say anything, Baby runs towards her cabin hastily, not wanting to be late meeting Harry. After their practice yesterday, Harry would not leave her mind. The look of his lips pressed around the joint, the way his eyelids began to droop the more hits he took, the sweat glistening on his skin as he leaned against the windowsill, the sunlight shining directly on him as if he were an angel sent straight from heaven. Baby doesn't think she's ever seen a man look as good as he does, not even on TV or in the movies. Harry Styles is unlike any other man on Earth, Baby is sure of it.
Baby throws open the screen door of their cabin and rushes into her room, finding the closest practice clothes she can – her denim shorts and a black and white stripped muscle tee. Baby throws her clothes off, discarding them haphazardly around the room, and pulls the new outfit on. She kicks off her flats and slips on her sneakers as fast as she can and she's out the door with 5 minutes to run to the barn.
She receives weird looks as she runs down the path, but Baby isn't concerned with the people around her. She's only concerned with Harry and not wanting to make him dislike her more than he already does. To say he confuses Baby is an understatement. At first, he hated her, and then he seemed to tolerate, even enjoy her company for two days, and then after the meadow he immediately went back to being closed-off. Then, when she was leaving the dance studio yesterday and Harry called out to her, it felt like he was the same Harry that shared the story about his mom and the clouds, not the same Harry that refused to let her fill in for Peggy. She just wishes that Harry could be straight-up with her so she wouldn't have to continue to play this guessing game.
Baby arrives at the barn with only a minute to spare, bursting through the doors and throwing herself onto the floor, attempting to cool down. Harry walks up to Baby and stands over her, peering down at her with an amused look on his face. Her cheeks are red from exhaustion and her hair is sticking to the sides of her face from how sweaty she is, and they haven't even begun practice. Hopefully by the time they've performed the routine Baby will finally build some stamina.
