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Me and Harry had fallen into a pattern of hanging out regularly. When he was set free from his mother’s lovingly tight grasp on him, he would show up at my window. He always threw rocks and sticks at it since he was too scared to climb the gutter or knock on the front door.
I always answered, sometimes even anticipating his arrival.
He always had a dimply smile on his face, the glow of the noon sun beating down on him and the sweat droplets that clung to his forehead from the bike ride here as he spoke, “Can we hang out?”
Sometimes I would run downstairs and sneak him in through the back door since, again, he was too scared to climb up the rain gutter. Other times I would climb down and meet him in my back yard and we would grab our bikes and ride around town until we got tired and had to stop.
We would sometimes hole up in the air-conditioned Public Library and share a small bean bag in the back of the building, our shoulders pressed against each other’s, our knees clacking with every small movement we made. Mellow sorries and red cheeks as I read aloud a poem from one of the books I snagged from the historical section.
Sometimes we would sit underneath the kissing bridge and laugh and giggle as we saw hookups run away from each other, mimic the wet slapping of lips from above us, and sometimes sit there and talk until the sun set and, somehow Liam and Zayn found us and dragged us to their houses where on the way— Harry would complain about making a bad impression on Zayn’s family because he was muddy from our events of the day.
We had spent every day since summer started with each other, besides the three days Harry was grounded from being with me after getting poison ivy. We both just stayed in for those 3 days, the closest act of rebellion up our sleeve being sneaking our landlines up to our rooms and watching movies together from different sides of the neighborhood. Then falling asleep and getting the phones taken from us once again.
Today, however, we were lying on the roof of a CVS pharmacy, overlooking our neighborhood’s cemetery in its evening glory, every single one of the headstones shadowed by the setting sun’s tail.
Harry sighed from beside me, “I still can’t believe you managed to drag me up here.” He said, still staring away from me at the sunset as he spoke. A twist of orange, purple, and pink lay ahead of us in the sky, and I assumed Harry was too focused on counting the seconds til it faded into complete darkness to take notice of my red cheeks.
I chuckled, scooching the littlest bit closer to him to bump our shoulders together. “ I didn’t do anything. It’s probably all that poison ivy that messed with your brain chemicals.” I replied, looking at the side of his face since there wasn’t any way to get him to look at me at the moment.
He looked away from the sunset, breaking count and smiling at the ground as he hung and shook his head.
I couldn’t help but also smile just at the sight of him. His hair, which was slicked down by his mother this morning in an attempt to tame his wild, frizzy curls, was now all messed up. His skin was tan and his clothes were as plain as ever. A grey t-shirt he thieved from my closet last time he slept over and black shorts with a pair of red Adidas sneakers.
I was the same. I hadn’t changed since I was 13. Glasses still hugged my nose, and my hair was somehow beginning to be curly from how much chlorine it had been drowning in this summer at the community pool. It was as long— if not a little longer than Harry’s, and I was freezing to death in my sweatshirt and shorts.
“There aren’t just brain chemicals.” He began, turning to me, his legs pulled up to his chest with two arms around them. “Well, there are but there are like specific ones. Like, serotonin is centered around your well-being, and dopamine is strictly alertness.” He gestured his hands outward, towards the vast town and the colorful sunset in front of us. “And no, I do not care what those fancy scientists have to say about it, being pleasure or shit, I think dopamine only spiked when you’re very alert of something.” He followed shortly up afterward.
Harry was always philosophical like that. He was a walking textbook of facts that could sometimes let go and just have fun. I didn’t mind the random fun facts he spat out of his asshole, and I would never trash him the way Niall and Liam did. Every time he told me one I would listen close because I enjoyed hearing him ramble about something he was passionate about. I loved seeing the way he swooped his curls out of his eyes and made wild hand gestures and I loved listening to the high pitch of his voice when he said something incredulous.
I leaned back onto my palms, my wrists digging uncomfortably into the cold concrete roof underneath me, but I didn’t care. Harry was so immersed in what he was talking about— maybe brain chemicals still, but I heard him trail off and go into Peanuts for a second while I was still zoned in.
I don’t know when, but my eyes began trailing downwards from where they were on his eyes to his nose, pinpointing every freckle on it like they were stars in the most important constellation ever. Which, in a way they were. A constellation I had made up after having spent so much time with him and even more time just staring at him.
His cheeks were next, a little chubby and soft, the small flex of his jaw as he continued speaking, completely unaware of my eyes scanning his every move— analyzing it in a way that would make me seem insane in the eyes of anyone else. And oh, god his eyes .
Green eyes with small black pupils, the occasional glimmer of light whenever the sun hit him just right. His eyelashes were always what did it for me though. I remember the nights we were sitting on my bed, a small night light separating us as we read our comics in silence, given the occasional firefly buzzing and cicada chirping from outside my window.
I would say something funny in a hushed voice in order not to wake up my parents, and his eyelashes would flutter. Those big green eyes would direct their attention away from the book to look at me, and he would offer the fondest smile he could in his tired state, giggle, and then look back down at his book.
Sometimes I swore I saw his cheeks turn as red as mine.
Before I knew it, my eyes landed on the last feature— a feature I had been avoiding in case of the gruesome events that would come to be true if I stared too hard or came too close.
His lips.
Still moving, they were plump and bowed, a light pink tint around them, and the small beginnings of a stubble coming to be on his chin underneath. I never really knew how to describe them. They were always something you kind of just look at, but never have. Like a painting at a museum.
His lips went flat, and the faint background noise he had provided also stopped. I still just stared, I was mesmerized, to say the least. There was something inside of me that was still trying to rack up words to describe the feeling in my stomach, the weight on my chest, and the heat on my cheeks.
But then it hit me, like— it physically hit me in the head and I forced myself to look away and down at the ground.
Harry had flicked my forehead.
“Were you listening to any of that?” He asked a small squeak in his tone. The kind of squeak you hear from a dog toy just deeper and older.
I opened my mouth and closed it. I was too scared to talk because with all the thoughts in my head, I was scared my brain was so full of them that one of my thoughts would just roll down from my brain and into my mouth, then down to my tongue and out into the air between us.
So, instead, I held my breath and set a hand on my cheek to cover the blush and shook my head back and forth in response.
I liked Harry.
Fucking Harry Styles.
I mentally face-palmed.
I liked fucking Harry Styles.
Ugh, Harry .
Goddamn it, Louis. Stop saying his name.
Harry .
A weight settled on my shoulder. A hand. With a thumb disconnected from the tight palm to rub my upper arm soothingly.
It didn’t do anything but make me tighten up more. But that was only because it was Harry. That Harry was right here and I liked him and all I wanted to do right then was take his head in my hands and—
“Lou, you okay?” He asked, snapping me out of my vulgar and honestly wrong thoughts.
The hand moved from my shoulder to the joint between my shoulder and my neck, where the tendons began to tighten the more and more I thought, and the closer his hand got to my jaw, and how if I turned my head the smallest bit I would meet his eye and then I don’t know how long I would be able to hold back.
“You can talk to me.” He paused, “You’re pretty much the only person I’ve been talking to lately.” He added with a sarcastic giggle. It was forced though, as if he didn’t mean it.
I couldn’t help it anymore, and my head turned towards him. The sun had set, and the sky was nothing but a dark canvas full of stars that looked small from afar but were huge up close (like his freckles). The wind blew his hair a little, a small breeze ruffling the hem of his shirt upwards a little.
God, why did he have to look so— so, so.. euphoric when I was trying my absolute hardest not to kiss him?
“Like not that that’s a bad thing at all, like,” the hand on my shoulder dropped down to the ground beside me and his tone changed drastically into something high and worried, “As I would much rather hang out with you because I like—“ The hand that dropped from my shoulder found it’s way back to me, and it draped over my knee very, so extremely carefully. Like one wrong move and I would be shattered into a million pieces.
“I like just like.. like you better than, y’know some of the other guys,” My eyes flicked down to the hand, and he retracted it again and laced his hand through his other hand to stop it from shaking. “and— I don’t know I guess it’s just like sort of, easier with you and stuff.“ He pointedly looked away from me, down at the concrete and the puddle a few feet away from us. The jacket he was sitting on, his untied shoes, shaking hands. They all just tied together who he was.
There was a steady silence, the ringing of a bell from beneath as another customer walked out of the 24-hour CVS we were still sitting on top of.
“If that makes any sense.” He finally mumbled, his eyes trailing away from the sad little puddle and down to my sad little shoes instead. “Sorry, that probably doesn’t make any sense—,”
I cut him off by grabbing his cheeks in two of my hands and slamming our lips together.
The kiss was quick and undecided. I’m pretty sure my intrusive thoughts just began spilling out of my ears and then somehow made a force strong enough to push me onto him.
Harry was still, and while my eyes were closed I knew his were wide open, staring ahead at me with his stupid eyebrows furrowed and his even stupider eyelashes fluttering shut just as I pulled away. Perfect timing.
I was breathing heavily, panting— even. Some might say I was having a panic attack and that I would need to name 5 things I could touch at that moment.
Harry’s mouth was ajar, his lips still jutting out at me as if they were begging me to reconnect. And I would have if it wasn’t for the disbelief in Harry’s eyes right now.
Then, I solemnly remembered what generation we lived in. How frowned upon it was for a boy and a boy to even hold hands, kissing would basically sentence you to lethal injection or the electric chair.
He probably thought I was gross.
He probably thought I was a monster.
He probably hated me.
He probably was leaning in again and gripping the ends of my hair and kissing me again.
Wait, what?
My snap back into reality came crashing down on me, and I could’ve sworn that I saw a million tiny butterflies break out of my stomach to lift the 1000-pound weight on my shoulders.
His fingers threaded aggressively through my hair, and I just closed my eyes and let it happen. My hands returned to their spot from before, cupping his cheeks gently and kissing him the best I could.
There were a lot of teeth, inexperience, biting and tongue, and even a soft moan trickling down my throat when Harry pulled a little too hard on my hair.
He pulled away first, and I leaned forward to try and stop the loss of the heat of his lips on mine. I tried so hard just to savor the faint taste of the blue raspberry slushie he had drank hours ago mixed with the cherry slushie I had finished on our way here.
Harry stared at me, the constellations on his cheeks turning a blazing red so fierce I could see it even under the cover of the night sky.
I stared back, the hands on his cheeks falling to his chest and staying there for a second before Harry spoke up.
“I.. Uhm..” He spluttered out, the hands in my hair finally realizing what they had been doing— what devilish noises they had gotten out of me, Louis Tomlinson, just by a few tugs of his hair.
“That was my first kiss.” He said, in a hushed whisper, like he was scared to admit it.
I giggled, letting out a huge breath I didn’t even know I had still been holding onto by doing so.
“Do you wanna know a secret?” I asked, pulling him a little bit closer by the collar of his shirt.
Harry’s eyebrows raised as he looked down at my hand and how it was twisted in the fabric of his— my shirt. Then his long, beautiful eyelashes fluttered and his eyes were staring right back into mine.
“What is it?” He asked.
I smiled stupidly, “That was my first kiss too.”
Harry began chuckling a little, and he set his head on my shoulder and muffled his laughs with that. I could feel the heat of his cheeks beating down on me through the fabric of my hoodie, and I wasn’t as cold anymore with him there.
I wrapped an arm around him, my hand returning to his hair just like he had before, just less tugging. The other arm fell limply on his thigh, where it lay between the fabric of his shorts and where they began to ride up his leg.
After a minute, Harry stopped laughing, my heart rate had returned to normal, and he was looking back up at me.
It was a tender moment, and while it was not the first time I would be staring at him like this, it was definitely one of the best.
“I thought my mom was your first kiss.” He said, breaking the silence, and ruining the soft moment as we both began laughing our asses off again.
I slapped the back of his head with the back of my hand gently, “You literally just ruined the moment what is wrong with—,”
But, before I could finish Harry was kissing me again. As much as I hate to admit it, in that moment I was willing to shut up.
This time it was easier, and smoother since we both knew we each wanted it as much as the other, so there was less uncertainty.
Harry’s lips moved against mine softly, his hands traveling through my hair, pulling me close and pulling me back out time and time again.
I, on the other hand, set my hands on his waist, tightened my grip on him as I pulled him closer, and elicited a quiet moan out of him as I snuck my tongue into his mouth.
If I was being honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t think Harry knew either— the furthest I had ever gone with a guy was a failed first kiss in a dream, so this was seriously uncharted territory.
Harry’s mouth hung open for me, and I pulled away for a second to breathe since I hadn’t been doing much of that in the last few minutes.
I looked at Harry breathlessly again, both of us at a loss for words.
“I think I like you,” Harry uttered.
I smiled foolishly and then said in a teasing tone. “I would have never guessed.”
Harry rolled his big green eyes and reconnected our lips.
He was the one leading this time, so I sat back and allowed him to do this thing. The hands in my hair moved to my face as he plucked my glasses off and set them down beside us, getting impossibly closer to me after doing so.
“Haz,” I whispered against his lips.
He didn’t reply, instead, he just smiled against my lips and trailed his hands down my shoulders, chest, and stomach, then let them take a break at my thighs before guiding his unruly, most likely possessed fingers underneath my sweatshirt.
The cold pang of air that hit me was enough to almost knock me out, but the way he touched me just enough but not at all was what made me throw my head back, disconnecting the kiss entirely as the moans his mouth once housed were directed into the sky above.
“You’re so loud,” Harry grumbled from below, the hands on my stomach clamping down on my waist as he waited for me to come back down from my high. “I didn’t even do anything yet.” He pouted.
I sucked my teeth at that, “You’re torturing me.” I replied sharply, and I watched in horror as he looked down at the tent in my pants, then back up at me.
He raised his eyebrows. “Problem?” He asked, clearly referencing to the same problem he created for me in my pants.
“Fuck off.”
“Okay.” He teased, sliding away from me, the hands on my waist leaving, taking the warmth of them with him entirely.
“Wait.” I paused, “Come back.”
He smirked, “You are not Louis Tomlinson. By now, he would’ve shot himself in the head if he even felt me kiss him.”
He slid back to me, but his hands remained on his knees, leaving me aching for him once again.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Need I remind you I kissed you first while you were talking about fucking dopamine.”
Harry opened his mouth to retaliate but closed it as he noticed me leaning forward and.. dodging his lips to kiss his neck.
Big shocker. For me and him.
“Lou..” The previous tone he used to tease me was out the window, and it now went up an octave and he kept his head back, staring at the sky as I kissed and sucked on his tanned skin.
He set a hand on the back of my head and pulled me off of him.
I was worried, that I went too far or upset him, scared him off or even hurt him.
Yet, instead, all he did was press his lips together and shake his head, “I can’t go home with a hickey. My mom will kill me, and probably kill you once she finds out it was you.” He reminded me, and I just sighed.
“That’s stupid.” I pouted.
Harry’s smile grew. “But you know what I can do?”
I looked up at him, interest piqued.
Instead of answering verbally, he just proceeded to tug my hair enough for my head to throw back, and he kissed the part of my neck I had been guarding all night.
I just sat there and closed my eyes at the sky and smiled ear-to-ear as he worked purple bruises onto my skin.
10 minutes, 5 hickeys, bitten lips, messy hair, and a painful throbbing in both of our pants later, we were scrabbling down the ladder in the alley between the CVS and the deli, unchaining our bikes from the dumpster we chained them to.
As I finished undoing my lock, and Harry was beginning to work on his, I cast two glances to each side of the empty street to ensure we were completely alone, and I pushed him up against a brick wall.
I had my hands on the sides of his face, and he had his hands on my hips, making the stupid idea of pulling my hips closer to his and bucking upwards against me.
We both let out unguarded moans and pulled away as we heard a door slam shut and a person walked back into the CVS.
We laughed the whole way home, racing past each other and plotting ways to sneak him into my house without my parents knowing.
Thankfully, when we approached, my mom's red Honda and my sister’s Ford were both gone from the driveway and we both silently thanked the lords for providing us an empty house for the night.
My key fumbled in the lock, and Harry was busy stashing out bikes around the side of the house, too horny to lock them up or hide them better.
I swung the door open, and Harry came up behind me as I held it for him, “Ladies first.” I mused, but he grumbled something derogatory and pushed me inside with him, grabbing me by the collar of my hoodie and smashing our lips together. I had to kick the door shut with my heel and pray that whatever lock I turned would be enough to keep any robbers or kidnappers out for the night.
I smiled against Harry’s lips on the way up the stairs, pushing him against the beige wall behind him and pinning his waist against it, swallowing every loud moan he muffled with my lips.
“Lou,” He panted, hands still pinned to the wall as I sloppily kissed the corner of his lips.
“Hm?” I mumbled in response.
“My dick literally can’t breath right now.” He told me blankly, and I chuckled as I took a step back, dragging him by the hand up the stairs and into my room.
The window I snuck out of at noon was still open, a light breeze circulating my cold room, causing goosebumps to rise on Harry’s frail arms.
He shut and locked the door behind him, and instead of immediately kissing me, his mouth open and 5 words I had been aching to hear all night rumbled off his tongue as he grabbed the hem of my hoodie.
“Can I take this off?”
—
The next morning I awoke next to Harry.
Just Harry, because he was the only thing the sun was centered on in my entire room.
His hair was super messy, like— past bedhead-level messy. It was the I-just-got-fucked kind of messy, and then I remembered the full extent of last night.
His shirt was snagged on the tip of my headboard, my sweatshirt was in a heap on the ground in front of my door, which had the lock turned upside down. His and my shorts were at the bottom of my bed, and my comforter had fallen off the bed, leaving us with just a sheet to cover up our bottom halves— which were luckily covered up by boxers.
I rubbed my eyes, looking away from Harry to properly fix my glasses because for some reason they were still on, which was a little concerning.
The room was freezing despite being summer, and I looked behind me at the window that had been letting bugs and dust in all night.
I slithered out of bed reluctantly and walked over to the window, pulling it shut and locking it, trapping the cold breeze in the room, but disconnecting the source.
As I turned around, Harry stirred, and an arm reached out to my pillow.
“Come back.” He grumbled sleepily, his eyes half-open, face squished by the pillow.
I picked the comforter up off the ground and threw it down on the bed as flat as I could, then got under it and watched as Harry wiggled underneath it, then stirred some more and laid his head on my chest, tangled our legs, and passed back out.
I smiled, perfectly content with being squished, and fell back to sleep as well.