Last Place You Look

Chapter 20

It'd been two weeks since Harry's birthday. He's put two slips of paper into the wishing bowl Kira got him for his birthday. I swear, he was obsessed with it. He wouldn't stop talking about how many things he could write but how much he struggled with choosing which one to put in and risking forgetting all the others.

"Well why don't you just put in more than one?" He looked at me like I'd yelled at his mother.

"That's cheating, Charlie. The instructions were clear, only one per week." I rolled my eyes at him, feeling like cheating when it was positive emotions and thoughts was okay. But I didn't press it any further.

He was also very secretive about his wishes as well. He'd decided to dedicated Sunday mornings right when he woke up to writing something down and putting it in the bowl. He added a strip the morning after his birthday since it wasn't exactly the first thing on his mind when everyone left. My curiosity started to get the best of me the first Sunday though. We'd been staying at my place more lately, so the bowl became a permeant resident of my dresser. I woke up Sunday to find him staring at me. He looked away the second he saw my eyes open and started writing immediately. He coiled it up tightly and slipped it in the opening with a smile on his face before getting back into bed and wrapping me into the tightest hug possible.

He'd also made a habit of telling me he loved me every chance he got. Every time he said goodbye, every time he said hello, every morning, and every night. He never failed to remind me. I think that he was just relieved he no longer had to keep it in and was making up for lost time. I didn't mind though. Hearing him tell me he loved me was better than any song I'd ever heard.

And that brought us to today, February 13th. It's a Friday. Valentine's Day is tomorrow and I felt like I should have been excited but I couldn't muster it. Harry was basically bursting at the seams about it so I didn't say anything about my particular distaste for it. The last one I celebrated ended in the failure to even get out of the house because I couldn't look at myself in the mirror and he didn't make it any better.

Harry was excited though. I was beginning to fully understand what Niall had said when we sat at the bar on New Year's Eve, about Harry being a true romantic. He'd been leaving me candies with notes attached the last few days.

He brought up wanting to do something to celebrate and looked offended when I told him I would love nothing more than to stay at home and do absolutely nothing. He didn't accept that as an answer. He basically begged to let him take me somewhere for the weekend. Just us. I agreed, hesitantly, but told him that he wasn't allowed to get me anything if he insisted of taking me somewhere. He agreed reluctantly, but I never said I wouldn't get him something though.

We were leaving in a few hours. I was leaving work early so we could leave. I coerced him into telling me where we were going. He was taking me to Emerald Isle. I loved the beach and we didn't exactly live close, so this was his gift to me. He was giving me the beach.

I forgot to pack last night. I got wrapped up in wanting to get ahead of my deadlines so I could really take the weekend off and just be with him. He was a little frustrated when he woke up this morning to find my still empty bag at the end of the bed, but quickly let his frustrations go when I told him I hadn't come to bed until after 2am and I just genuinely forgot. He told me he would pack it for me while I was at work.

I don't know where I got him, but goddamn did I get lucky.

When I got home, his car was already packed with our things. He waited on me to change into comfortable clothes and grab something to do for the road. I kept the journal he had gotten me for Christmas and my favorite purple pen in my purse.