I don't get much rest that night, that's what happens when you've got a hundred thoughts competing for attention in your head.
I keep thinking there should be some defined way I feel about all of this, but there isn't. A pro and con list might be helpful, but I've sworn off lists for a while, seeing as how the last one brought me more than I bargained for.
When I told him he wasn't my type, I wasn't using it as a tool to put distance between us. It's how I felt. It had nothing to do with the way he looks or the fact he can't dance or the fact that he can have any woman he wants, but this feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe we've been like two caged animals for a very long time and now we have a taste of freedom and the first instinct is to be indulgent. And of course it's natural to have developed some sort of feelings for each other.
I know there's a popular theory floating around that a man and a woman can't be friends without sex entering the picture at least once. Not necessarily the act of sex, but wondering whether there is something more going on.
I had every intention of being his best friend and his roommate. I think he had the same intention.
We might have even stayed that way if every person and their brother didn't keep grilling us about the hows and whys of our situation. After a while, you start to wonder. And now I'm stuck in a place where he's still not the type of guy I'd get together with, but just the same I feel attracted to him and resentful that he didn't kiss me good night. He cheated me of that nice feeling I enjoyed yesterday. He's made me greedy for his lips.
I'm up here, sitting on the fence, scared to jump off, and unhappy with the notion of staying put.
. . . .
I'm gone before he's up the next morning, but I leave him a note to go and buy something for Melissa's barbecue. I'm sure that by noon, he'll appear in the common office fireplace begging me to tell him exactly what to get.
I know him too well.
"Hey." He says, then launches right to the heart of the matter. "What do you bring to a barbecue?"
"I have no idea. Go buy some dessert or a bottle of wine or something."
"Wait, we're expected to bring our own food and drink?"
"Just do it, Harry."
I spend most the afternoon sitting around while the other editing guys argue with the me until we finally decide we'd be better off without that particular article anyway. His head pops up again.
"I have to go to Darsbury this afternoon, I'll be back the day after tomorrow, early morning."
"Why?"
"The World Quidditch Association wants me to go and try to persuade the Tornados manager to release Klining as a free agent. It's stupid." He rolls his eyes.
"Okay, I'll pick something up for Melissa, go get packed."
"I don't wanna go." He whines.
"It's for less than 48 hours."
"I could come back and you'll have found some hot stud who can cook better than me."
Yeah, because they grow on trees. I chuckle.
"I won't."
"Aw, honey, you'll wait for me? How sweet."
"Yeah, I'm just sugary. If I'm not up when you get back, wake me? I need to get some stuff done in the morning."
"Okay. I'll see you then."
. . . .
The house is quiet. There are containers of Chinese food on the table.
"Got you those flat rice noodles you like. Didn't have time to cook." The note next to them says. It's his writing.
I pull that wok he got out of the pantry and throw in the contents of the containers. I don't know why I don't just heat them with the spell, the idea of using something of Clay bought….no, I'm not thinking that. I can hear sizzling in a couple of minutes, so I get a plate and pick up my cell phone. I punch in the only number I've ever called on it, since I only have this phone for one reason, after all.
"Hi mom. I'm fine, thanks, you? Just about to have dinner. What do you think about Harry?"
*
My team manager says I did a good job and I should go explore the town. I decline, just wanting to get the rest of the meetings over. Sooner, rather than later.
It's not that I'm worried about the hot stud, it's that I feel this insane, childish need to stay in her face about that list. I don't want her to have time to think of ways to deny every single item on it.
The ordeal is torturous. I want nothing more than to yell at everyone "Can I go home now?"
Klining, the player we're trying to sign, finally invites me out to a bar and I tell him that I promised someone I'd go straight home. He smirks but moves on.
When we finally wrap and are told we can return to London., it's a wonder that I don't splinch myself in all the rush.
I arrive home and the house is still dark. I drop my bag at the door and climb the stairs.
I open her door and step over to her bed and sit on the edge.
"Hermione," I say softly, brushing my fingers along her face.
She sighs and shifts slightly in her sleep.
"Wake up..."
"Mmmm."
"You asked me to wake you up," I whisper.
God, it would be so easy. I want to kiss her again and it would be so easy...
"You're late," she says, opening her eyes.
"It was a long meeting."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, and there was this person who asked me to a bar..."
She stiffens.
"Klining."
"What?"
"He invited me out to some bar."
"Oh." She stiffles a laugh. "Did you have loads of fun, then?"
"Shut up!"
She rolls over. "What time is it?"
"A little before six."
"I'm going back to sleep," she murmurs, her voice muffled by the pillow.
"Oh, okay." I stand up.
"Melissa said to tell you she missed you."
"Okay."
"I missed you." She mumbles softly.
She turns towards the wall and I shut the door quietly behind me.
. . . .
When she emerges around 10, I make her waffles for breakfast and she looks suitably impressed.
"Aunt Jemima," I admit.
She laughs and I pour her some orange juice. "But that's fresh squeezed."
"From the market down the street?" she teases.
I stick out my bottom lip in a pout and she shakes her head.
We finish breakfast and I move toward the sink with the dishes.
"Let me help," she volunteers. She makes a move to perform the cleaning charm.
"No, I've got it."
"You cooked, at least let me clean or something."
I relent and hand her the dish towel. She laughs and teases me yet again about my inability to clean things with magic.
I wash and she dries and before long, the kitchen is spotless once again.
"Thank you," I tell her.
"No problem," she shrugs. "We're a good team."
"Yeah," I smile awkwardly. "I told you."
She catches on quickly. "That's not what I mean."
"But it's true."
"Maybe."
I let out a whoop at her admission and she shakes her head.
"I'm sorry I said anything."
"You're weakening..." I tease her. "You want me."
She swats me with the dishtowel.
"I'm irresistable," I tell her and grab at the end of the dishtowel and pull.
It's enough to catapult her toward me and the force of our bodies coming together sends us flying toward the floor where we land in an ungraceful heap.
"You're insane!" she laughs and I break into laughter with her as we work to untangle ourselves.
"Which you like," I grin at her.
She tries to get to her feet, but she's still laughing so hard that she can't quite manage it.
I stand and tug on her hands until she's standing and we're face to face.
She stops smiling.
"What?"
Her tongue darts out and wets her lips. And I know what. But I can't move. I need to know.
She gives me the answer I'm looking for as her lips touch mine and then that tongue comes forth once again and moves across my lips and I groan and crush her against me as I let her in.
*
Last year I had attended a special game up North. Harry played wonderfully and was praised, or course. Afterwards I met him outside his locker rooms and he grinned mischieviously.
"There are enough reporters outside to populate a small country." I inform him.
He laughed. "How bout we give them something to report about?"
I looked at him blankly. He puckered his lips, and I got the picture.
"Well. . .I don't know. . ."
"Come on. You owe me!"
"For what?"
"I don't know, but you will some day."
I shake my head, and agree, for some reason that still, to this day, I cannot remember.
As we stepped into the crazed mob of wizarding reporters, he leaned down and whispered in my ear.
"Let's make it really hot. Tongue?"
"Sure, what the hell."
He dipped me right there. I think some of the fans whistled and clapped and others were stunned into silence. The latter group is what prompted him to have a talk with Mrs. Weasley and lead me to decide that enough was enough. Not that I regretted it, it just seemed like we should stop fooling around for a while in front of the cameras.
So, if we're keeping score, I'd slid my tongue against his once before, very briefly.
* * *
This time, I do it on my terms. I was tired of thinking. My brain hurt. I wanted to feel.
He acquiesces almost instantly, and I slide my tongue past his teeth until it meets his. He pulls me so close together in response that I lose my balance for a second and he senses that and presses me against the fridge. My fingers tangle in his crazy hair and I know I've been a fool to not have pursued this earlier.
Lack of oxygen forces us to break apart momentarily and we're left gasping for air.
"Wow." He says after a beat.
"Yeah."
"That was-"
"I know."
Then his lips are back and his tongue and his hands, all of it, like they've been set free for the first time. It's the middle of the morning on a Saturday and I feel drunk as I raise my arms and circle his neck, like I wanted to that first time. I use his shoulders as leverage to raise myself on my toes and he moans into my mouth. The kitchen is so wrong for this.
He pulls my shirt out of my pants and I purposely ignore the warning lights.
One, two, three knocks at the door.
"Harry." I pull back, out of breath. He kisses me again. "Door." I pull back again.
"They'll come back." He's working on my neck. Four, five, six knocks at the door.
"Go." I implore him and he curses softly, then tries to fix his shirt. I'm furiously tucking mine back in and pulling my hair up into a makeshift ponytail.
"Hi Harry, you're back!" I can hear Melissa's voice. "Listen, I'm all out of room in my fridge, can I leave some stuff with you guys for tonight?"
"Yeah, sure." He answers her and I bolt upstairs so she hasn't had a chance to give me the once over. I'm like a kid caught red-handed, trying to steal a candy bar.
. . . .
I can hear them loading food downstairs.
This whole thing is my mother's fault. She got me to admit I missed him while he was gone for not even a whole day. She then pressed on until I admitted he may have asked me out, kind of. I finally caved and told her he'd kissed me twice, careful to omit the part where I actually instigated the second try.
"And?"
"And what?"
"You're happy with this?"
"I'm thinking about being happy with it." I say cautiously.
"So what now?" She asked.
"I don't know."
But I knew. Oh, I knew.
