You Feel Like Home [h.s.]

In Which Harry Needs Help of the Nannying Kind

The next morning, Harry feels a bit more tired than usual. His shoulders feel heavy, his eyes barely opening fully, and his head is bustling with far too many thoughts at eight in the morning—thoughts filled with white kittens and brown hair and melodic giggles that sound prettier than any song he's contributed to in the past few months.

He's desperate for a caffeine boost, and instead of his normal tea blend, he chooses to start up the coffee maker, the wheezing and gurgling sound of the machine causing him to frown. When he reaches for the cabinet that holds all of his tea mugs, he notices the empty space where the blue porcelain one used to sit, his frown turning into a lazy grin when he remembers that was the mug Ryan walked off with yesterday afternoon.

Harry had a feeling she wouldn't be returning it last night, understanding slightly that their last interaction was probably too much for her to handle with the way her eyes were shifting and her cheeks were reddening and her hands were shaking in his kitchen. He smiles at the image of her washing his mug by hand, letting it air dry on a tea towel while she mulls over how to knock on his door the next day to return it. Would she just leave it there, sitting on the hallway carpeting without knocking? Would she maybe add a personalized post-it note in her loopy scrawl, writing thank you, signed with an x? Or would she choose to be brave and knock on his door, a shy smile gracing her lips, offering his mug up with her small hand wearing another assortment of oversized comfortable clothing that made Harry's insides swirl?

He doesn't dwell on it. He'd like to imagine her wanting to come over on her own accord, in his mind the mug was the perfect peace offering—an unmentioned symbol of him declaring, "Yes! I want you here! Please, don't be shy anymore!"

But he's trying not to think about it. Mainly because his enthusiastic toddler has been following Harry's every move in the kitchen, speaking what feels like a hundred words per minute, with every other mention being Ryan and Luna and playtime.

"I just think she's so cool, daddy. Don't you? I think she wants to be my friend. We'd be good friends, right? Me and Ryan?" Jackson asks, hot on Harry's heels.

"Sure, Bubs. Can you finish your brekkie at the table, please? I don't want you standing too close to the stove." Harry's a little exasperated because the topic of his cute neighbor and her white kitten is all that Jackson wants to talk about ever since she left their flat yesterday afternoon. And while he'd love to contemplate the inner workings of his neighbor in his own head, talking about the girl he can't stop thinking about to his overly-eager four-year-old son is slowly causing Harry to lose his mind.

He hears Jackson's slipper-clad feet waddle over to the breakfast nook in the corner of the kitchen, watching out of his periphery as his son hoists himself up onto the cushioned bench under the three bay windows, placing his teddy down near him as he grabs the spoon he left sinking in his bowl of muesli.

Harry watches the coffee drip slowly into his mug, and just when he thinks Jackson has moved on to something else, he brings up Ryan's name again. "When do you think we can go over and play with Luna? Do you think Ryan could bring her to the park with us? Oh, wow, I think that would be the funnest! Right, daddy?"

The deep breath Harry takes causes his shoulders to hunch even more, his hands gripping the edge of the granite countertop as he tries to exhale the frustrations Jackson is unknowingly causing him. He's so vexed that he doesn't even attempt to correct his son's grammatical error, and Harry's wondering why he's so fucking on edge this morning.

It's not that he doesn't want to see her, because Christ—it's all he could think about during his meeting yesterday. He was so distracted with thoughts of mahogany eyes and nervous mumbles coming from full, pink lips, that the artist he was collaborating with had to pull Harry out of his head on more than one occasion.