#and also it's the first album of Harry's that has completely changed over time for me. i usually stick to the songs i like a lot and the

[huccimermaidshirts]

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[harrysmimi]

Little By Little

Synopsis: One where Harry finds out his girl is struggling with ED (Requested)

CW: mentions of ED, please put your mental health first and read with caution. And remember, you're not alone in this, you are brave, you are strong. And I love you so much! *Kissie noises*

More of my work

Harry and YN had been basically living together at this point.

They've been together for about three years and Harry had somehow now managed to convince her to stay over for the weekend and she never left. He certainly isn't complaining because he asked her to stay with him.

But lately he's been seeing her food being left over. Both of them worked, Harry is filming a movie in London and also recording his fourth studio album, YN's working on her little boutique she's so proud of as she should be. So they'd made a little rule of at least eating one meal together, he'd volunteered to make them breakfast every morning (because honestly that's the only meal he can cook without burning down his kitchen) as YN hates early mornings. So he leaves her a plate of her own. Though he waits for her to wake up and get ready for the day before he leaves for work himself. YN has switched to working from home since the Covid hit and has chose to do the same, especially when her firm didn't mind that either, it also gave her time to work on some freelancing as a Photo and Video editor aside from having a desk job a software developer.

Today, Harry was so excited to go home today. He was going to ask her to completely just move in with him. She paid the rent this month for no apparent reason, he just didn't wanted her to waste her earning like that if she's not living at her flat anymore. Or if she changes her time and needs more time, by all means he is ready to support her through.

But he would be lying if he hadn't got used to living with her, going to bed with her and waking upto her gorgeous self everyday now. He felt so whole with her now. He even wants to pop question to her, especially since she's always been so vocal about how important it was to her. He's even gone as far to take his mum with him to find a perfect ring for her.

Tonight he didn't wanted either of them cook so he got food from YN's favourite restaurant on his way back home. When he got back, he found her fast asleep on the sofa, it was Friday night he noticed then. She has Fridays and Saturdays off from work.

He didn't wake her up instead he proceeded to transfer all off the fold out of the plastic trying to make as less noise as he could knowing how much of a light sleeper his girl is. After be put lids on all of the food thermoses — great investment YN made him do — he went to check in on her before he proceeded to clean up. She had a bad habit of covering up her face with the blanket and it scares it that she's going to suffocate herself even though she's assured him many times that she can breath in just fine.

He also found it a tiny bit odd seeing her asleep in late afternoon as she's not the one to take naps but, she had much more commissioned work to do she must've been tired. Shrugging it off Harry padded his wak to the living room.

And he was just right!

She had that damn blanker over her face. He crouched next to her.

"Hey, baby, do you wanna wake up?" He called tugging the blanket off her face, "lemme see you gorgeous, I missed you today!" He cooed when she wouldn't let go.

"Five minutes!" She whined.

"Okay, but lemme see you." He requested, "there you are!" He celebrated quietly seeing her face after long hours of the day. "Hello, my love." He leans down to kiss her forehead.

"Hi," she looked at him surprised, "you came early today?"

"Mhmm," he nodded, "thought we could spend some time together for the weekend."

"Oh, I'm sorry I fell asleep watching TV." She flops on her back to look at the TV was turned off, it must have turned off on it's own as it was left unattended. She did planned to watch favourite bakery YouTuber but she just fell asleep.

"It's alright," he assured her, "do you want to wake up now?"

"Mhmm." She nodded sitting up straight midway of her yawning out her tiredness away.

"You had a good sleep?" He proceeded to take a seat in front of her, she nods again as she wraps her arms around his middle for a quick cuddle. Taking the smell of his cologne, sweet, cold and earthy tones laced with hints of sandal wood, he always smelled like he'd just gotten out of a steamy souna. "I brought your favourite so you won't have to cook tonight." He shared, snaking his own arms around her.

It was her turn to cook tonight. Mainly every dinner was on her because she really fears Harry's either going to loose a finger or two in attempt of chopping veggies and stuff or burn down his beautiful home. So she just takes it upon herself to make food.

"You did?" Her voice came as a muffle against his chest.

"Yeah," he caressed her hair gently, "do you want to go out on a walk before we eat?"

"No, we can just stay in and watch a movie or something." She suggested, pulling away from his embrace politely.

"Yeah, we can do that." He agrees, anything to spend more time with her. Though they both haven't been out since past three weeks, at he goes out for work but she haven't left her house. Even to run her errands. She instead opts to get everything home delivered.

"Okay." She said pushing the blanket off her body noticing Harry was leaning in to steal a little kiss but she moves back, watching him cant his head and look at her confusedly. "I just woke up from a long nap."

"I don't mind." He chuckled, "haven't we had morning sex many, many times?"

She sighs watching him a little hurt and press her mouth onto his in a tender kiss. He kisses her back regardless with same love.

"I need to pee so bad!" She exclaims, trying to find energy to get up. Harry giggles at her adorable laziness and watches her make a run for the bathroom.

He walks back to the kitchen and cleans up all the mess he made, wiping down the counter where he managed to spill drops of gravy and bits of rice with paper towel. He threw away all the trash and noticed she hasn't taken it out today, so he took that out himself. He made himself and his love some tea. Opening the fridge to get milk for YN's tea he saw plate of waffles he left for her today.

She didn't even take a bite frim it. He also found little storage containers with more breakfast foods he made from four days ago. Haven't she been eating? Has she been eating out? He wondered.

Harry took out all the spoilt food from the fridge to throw it away but he kept it on the counter to wait for her come back out. He is well aware that he isn't the best at cooking but she could have told him not to make her anything. Yes, it would have hurt him but not this much.

"You didn't eat you breakfast." He spoke when he saw her walking back down the stairs. Caught, she almost tripped down.

"Be careful!" He rushed towards her rather quickly, holding onto her. YN shook her head jerkingly as if she was not trying to be dizzy. "Hey what's wrong, sweetheart? You alright?" She clung onto him like a koala.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." She nodded and stood back on het feet. Harry still walked to the sofa and her sit down as he fetched her some water. He sat next to her. "Baby what's wrong? Did you start your period?" He enquired, nit to be offensive but she does tend to feel dizzy or even pass out when she's on her period.

"No, I didn't." She gulped down half of that glass of water he gave her in one go.

It clicked to him, "did you not eat at all today? Not even the snacks I got you yesterday from the grocery trip?"

"No, I just fell asleep watching TV." She said, which entirely wasn't the truth but it was.

"I, uh, baby you need to tell me what is going on, okay? Of course you haven't been falling asleep from past four days, have you?" He was being too harsh with his interrogation so he stopped there waiting for her to answer. She just opted to drink from her water instead, so he pulled her closer to his side.

YN just leaned into his touch there. She hasn't been feeling quite good in her skin recently. So many reasons to unpack but she never felt like talking to him about it. He has helped her through many of her low, he's calmer and seems to think thoroughly in moments of crisis and she's so grateful to have found him.

Oh she couldn't list many things why she was feeling this way. Which she did not felt is right to talk about but the feeling of her stomach empty felt eerily right to her, lile it always did. She bas gotten over this in past and she's sure she can do it this time too. She loves food and she can't stay away from it really.

She did ate dinner with Harry every night. Though she served herself, quarter of what she eats, but ends up throwing up in the middle of the night in the downstairs bathroom. She just doesn't want to burden Harry with this. He's already pretty stressed with his next year's spring summer collection to be bothered by her.

"Hey, it's okay my darling angel," she heard Harry coo to her realising she has been sobbing now. "You know you can talk to me right, YN?"

"Mhmm." She nodded. "I don't know, I don't know what's, what's wrong I just want to go to bed." Her voice low like a sad whining little puppy between her cries. She's sure which are ugly too.

"Already?" He enquired which made her cry even more so it scared him. For the first time Harry didn't know how to help her or even know what was actually going on. "It's okay we'll talk about it when you're ready, okay? You want to watch TV instead?" And she just nodded.

Harry took the empty glass of water from her and kept it on the coffee table, he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV to play one of her favourite movie. He didn't even bother to change as he got her comfy next to him under the blanket she was wearing earlier. She looked up at him when she could feel his gaze on her, he just placed an assuring hand on her cheek.

"It's okay, I'm here." He whispered to her with a kiss on her forehead. YN just rested her head on his chest as she stared at the TV trying not to fall asleep on her problems the best she could.

"I, I think I wanna go on a walk." She suggested.

"Yeah?" He smiled at her, "lemme grab a jumper for you real quick then." He carefully peeled herself from her urging her to go put her shoes on, a little no-shoes-inside custom he's grown to follows since her stay. He ran upstairs to get her one of his hoodies which he helped her slip of as well put his own jacket on as it was getting a bit chilly outside.

"My baby," he tugged her closer to him, "our neighbours are getting Christmas spirit, aren't they?" He pointed out, little gruesome Halloween decorations already have been swapped with happy Christmas decorations. It made her feel that much more calmer.

"Yeah. We should put up some decorations too." She suggested looking around.

"We can do that tomorrow," he agreed. "Feel any better?"

"Mhmm." She sounded, "don't feel like talking about it."

"That's okay, whenever you're ready baby." He pressed a kiss on top of her head. It wasn't that late so they took the bus to the mall to look around for a Christmas tree. "We should get a real one."

"No, it's gonna die by the end of the week." YN chuckled at his suggestion. "We can reuse these ones."

"That's boring. A real would be eco-friendly options."

"Not when you'll have to buy another one to be put on actual Christmas day." She pulled him to the little gift section to look for inspiration to buy presents for his mum and sister. Whilst her parents didn't approved of Harry, his family welcomed her very warmly into theirs.

When they went back home, Harry tried to serve them dinner he bought with him. YN didn't say much but pushed around her food after taking three bites waiting Harry to finish up.

"Sunshine you didn't eat anything." He cooed to her, "a little more?"

"No, I, I ate." She shook her head, "I'm just not that hungry."

"Why not baby?" He pulled his chair closer to hers seeing tears brim in her eyes behind her glasses, "hey lovie, it's okay you can tell me."

"It just feels good to not to," she admitted, "I just don't want to eat."

"Well you gotta fuel your body, don't you? Why do you feel that way, hmm, do you wanna tell me?" He asked, carefully reaching for her hands in her lap.

"I don't know. It feels better to feel hungry and not eat. I deserve it." She choked, "I don't want to do that. But I don't want to feel this way either. I don't know what is going. I, I don't know what do!"

"Hey, c'mere." He got up picking her up with her legs wrapped around his hips as he walked upto their bedroom, somewhere she's more comfortable to talk. He tucked her under their blanket as he slipped next to her. She cried in his chest. "No one deserves to be hungry, okay? Especially my girl. It is going to be difficult but we can make things better."

"I don't mean to cry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She cried even more.

"It's okay to cry, lovie, don't ever apologise for that." He held onto her tightly, "please don't take this a wrong way, okay? Do you think you want to get professional help? If not then it's fine, we'll figure out a way to make you better."

"I don't know," was her answer.

"That's alright!" He assured her, "you can take it all little by little okay? What do you say we start from tomorrow morning?"

"Mhm!" She nodded, "I want to sleep now."

"Of course my baby, go to sleep I'll be here when you wake up."

.....................................................................

It's been long six months now.

Harry had been trying to help his girl the best he could. It made him happy when she recently agreed on, he'd drove her to her therapist's office just this morning on his way to work.

Meanwhile they've been going on morning and evening walks, it helped her though it was not enough. But at least it was getting her somewhere to begin with. She'd still try and stall her way out of it, but Harry's there by her side.

He went home early today, to make them a nice dinner. Nice Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, it was her favourites as she ordered it on their first lunch date. He had Shania Twain playing in the background in low volume, as he sang along to her putting together a dinner.

"Where did you come from?" He heard his surprised girlfriend, she was stopped in the middle of the living room with her bag hung over her shoulder and a little paper bag from the tech shop. She must have bought another SD card he figured.

"Work...?" He laughed knowing exactly what she meant. He's been working late so it was a surprise to her, "how is your day going so far?"

"Good, had to mail the SD I had to my client so I went to buy a new one." She held up the tiny paper bag in her hand, "I am never taking his projects again for sure."

"Why are they demanding?" He asked.

"He's been constantly emailing me to mail the SD to him so that his wedding pictures don't get posted anywhere else it's infuriating I made him pay for it!" She ranted in one go as she stomped in kitchen and got herself a glass of water.

"Karen, isn't he?" He chuckled making her giggle too.

"You know how expensive SD cards are. God!" She sighed. "What are you doing?"

"Making us dinner." He he was chopping up Tomatoes for the soup.

"Do you want me to help you?" She offered, "please?"

"Why not baby!" he agreed.

"I'll go change real quick, don't start without me." She said already making her way out of the kitchen.

"Oi, come back here now!" He faux-scolding made her stop dead in her tracks, she walked back to him, "gimme a kiss." He leaned down to match her height with a cheesy smile on his face.

Of course she leaned in, her small hand cupping his jaw in between her thumb and fingers gently. Looking him dead in the dead with the softest smile he's seen on anything, waiting for her to give him the kiss. She pulled back to his dismay.

"Ask nicely next time." She tried to run away but he is rather swift with his moment he caught her by her hips and turning her around started tickling her. "Ah, Harry!" She squirmed, giggling.

"Is this nice enough?" He teased her, tickling her sides where she's more ticklish.

"Stop," she grabbed onto his elbows to stop him, catching onto her breath. He got his kiss. She smeared her lips on his the smile never fading. "We should get rid of your shirts and tank tops."

God he looked so deliciously handsome in his white tank!

"Why so? You don't like 'em?" He asked, his nose skimming against her cheek, making butterflies go haywire in his tummy.

"I do, but I prefer you without them." Taking advantage of their closeness to place another kiss on his mouth.

He chuckled softly, "well then let's go upstairs and fix it, would you like that?"

"I'd love that." She agreed, "but not now, I've got work." With that she slipped through his arms.

"You cheeky monkey!" He smacked her bum before she ran upstairs laughing. He'll have his way with her later!

......................................................................

"Put some more!" YN whined at Harry being skimpy at adding spices.

"No, it's gonna be too spicy!"

"You are literally so white, move!" She pushed him to a side.

"Hey!" He whined but he let her do her thing. At least she's trying to be involved.

Finally being done with cooking, they both sat down at the coffee table on the floor with their favourite show on the TV.

Harry doesn't like to make it too obvious to her, but he's always been keeping an close eye at her eating habits now. Not to be creepy. Not to be disrespectful. But he's doing it just to keep up with her progress. She was doing great last week, eating at least one full meal.

He saw her taking just two bites off her grilled cheese and a few full spoons of soup before she stopped.

"Baby?"

"Hmm?" She looked at him.

"How was your first session today?" He enquired.

"We talked." She started, "he said that it'll take a few sessions to see we get along and stuff. But so far I, I think he can help me."

"Yeah? I'm so happy for you, baby!" He smiled, pulling her in a brief embrace. "I love you."

"I love you too." She smiled, seemingly contained. "I can't eat anymore." She said putting back the spoon her bowl.

"You want me to make you something else?" He suggested, "it's okay, you can eat more later."

"No," she shook her head in disagreement, "I don't feel like it. I'm sorry, I know you came home early to cook and all. It just tastes bitter to me I don't know why. Sorry."

"Hey, stop apologising, babylove." He cooed, "it's okay. I promise."

"This is so bad." Her voice cracked, "I don't feel like eating sometimes and when I do, everything tastes, so, so bad. I don't know." A few tears make their way down her cheeks, "I feel like I'm being ungrateful for everything you're doing for me. I promise I'm not, I'm trying."

"I'm so proud of you for trying to get better, my love." He hugged her again, "it's alright. I can't imagine what you're feeling right now but I can tell you, I've never once felt you're being ungrateful, okay? It's okay, do you feel like eating right now?"

"Mhmm." She nodded.

"You want me to make you something else?"

"This is going to go to waste." She cried even more, feeling there are many people out there who are hungry and deserve to be fed and she's waste it all by simply not eating. It was a big internal turmoil she had been going through.

"It won't, I'll eat this for lunch tomorrow." He assured her, "you want me to make you Ramen?"

"What if I don't feel like eating that too?"

"Then that's fine, baby you don't have to cry. Please?" He requested, not knowing how to make her feel better. "Okay, let's go on a walk and see how you feel, what do you say?"

"Yeah, I'd like that." She agreed.

......................................................................

Another six months later. YN was doing better. She had to switch her therapist but she has been recovering well and good.

N O T E :

This was so difficult to write 🥺 but I tried. I am not sure how this one's gonna do.

I also apologise for the lame ending. I don't know how I should have ended it.

Tag list:

@vrittivsanghavi @buckymydarlingangel @sweetwritingfanficfriend @theroosterswife24 @sleutherclaw @melllinaa @michellekstyles @sunshinemoonsposts @marialikescherries @japanchrry Lemme know if you want to added to the tag list

[foxes-that-run]

New Years Day

This song is bittersweet, placed at end to the album because NYE/NYD is an end and a beginning. Like Clean, this song is about moving on, but now with someone who stays. It was a surprise song when 1989 TV was announced. The subject and timing indicates it may have been cut from 1989. Also note the light up Anchor - like Harry's tattoo covering 'I can't change' in the World Premier video.

When Taylor performed it at the 2 June 2018 AT&T Secret Session in Chicago she introduced it by talking about Reputation being a 'bait and switch' that the album is about finding real love in the noise and learning who your friends are. Taylor Nation has a version of this with part of the intro by cuts Taylor off half way through a sentence at 24:38! They removed the part about a 3am icy swim (1:23)

"So... I found myself, um.. like 2 New Years Eve's ago I found myself in the midst of a very like incredible 3am moment where you think you are invincible and you end up like jumping in a pool in the winter and you feel super untouchable in that moment and the next morning you feel very fragile. And you're like this is love, this is what love really is. Like we all wanna find someone to kiss at midnight, that's cool or whatever But who is gonna want to hang out with me the next day? When you are like Advil or nothing! So this is a song about finding real love and finding someone to hang out with on New Year's Day."

WHY did Taylor Nation cut that? Is it because she sounds high? Because Joe was not there??? Inquiring minds need to know. The rest of their video is complete apart from a 8 second intro.

In her 1989 Grammy Museum talk Taylor talked about making 1989 sonically cohesive after Red didn't win AOTY on 26 January 2014. (6 mins) In other words, a song like New Years Day would have been cut to get AOTY. Harry and Taylors NYE kiss is well known and also in Question...?

Lyrics

There's glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me from the night before, but

The first verse sets the scene of a morning after a party. On NYE 2013 they stayed in the Greenwich Hotel which does have hardwood floors in the suites and a lobby in which girls can carry shoes in. (I have always wondered about that combo!) Polaroids are a key theme of 1989.

(Chorus) Don't read the last page But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared, and you're turning away I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

"Don't read the last page" is asking her muse to not close the book on them, to stick the relationship out through the hard and unfun times. There is a similar, or almost responding lyric in Death by a Thousand Cuts: "You said it was a great love / One for the ages / But if the story's over / Why am I still writing pages?" (Avoiding spoilers there’s also chapter references in a 1989 vault track)

Taylor is saying she will stay when it is hard and unglamorous. 'Stay' is in many HS/TS songs. Most recently in As it was "Seems you cannot be replaced / And I'm the one who will stay".

In the last lines of the chorus Taylor says she wants her muses midnights, meaning fun times, but that she will also be there to clean up the figurative and literal messes.

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi I can tell that it's gonna be a long road I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

The first line of this verse gives us a glimpse of what happened after that Times Square kiss, Harry squeezing her hand to reassure her, them both knowing it was going to be hard. This video captures them as kids, people were yelling their names and police to get to the car. This line explores both 1 night and what was part of the downfall of the relationship.

The second half of the verse is Taylor reiterating that she will stay, if he is the toast of the town or strikes out, meaning regardless of fame. In Sweet Creature, (Released 6 months before Reputation) Harry has a similar message "When I run out of road, you bring me home"

[Bridge] Please don't ever become a stranger Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere

In the Bridge Taylor entertains that they may not stay. “whose laugh I could recognise anywhere" is so beautiful, perfectly capturing holding someone so dear fearing them becoming distant.

[Verse 3] There’s glitter on the floor after the party Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor You and me forevermore

After the bridge the first verse is repeated with 'you and me forevermore' instead of 'from the night before'. Making a vow to hold onto the relationship forever.

[Chorus] Don't read the last page But I stay when it's hard or it's wrong or we're making mistakes I want your midnights But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

Lost/scared/"you're" turning away becomes hard/wrong/"we're" making mistakes. This shows maturity. Rather than turning inward or away in a hard time they are supporting each other and accepting their mistakes.

In the context of the end of the Reputation album about drama and feeling alone Taylor is matured, looking ahead to a partnership.

[Post-Chorus] Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you And I will hold on to you

In the closing Taylor is imploring her muse to hold on, remember the good in them despite hard times and promising to hold on too.

New Years Day has Taymojis

[ziamln]

Long ramble post. [1D]

I’m feeling nostalgic, overanalysing shit, and bored on a Thursday night with nothing to do. You can read this or skip over it, especially if you disagree, I’m not looking for drama. This will probably be messy and incoherent with 0 structure. For those of you who weren’t there during the 1D era, this may be confusing, particularly if you weren’t there during the shit storm that was 2015/16. Again, feel free to skip this, as it will be long and probably won't make sense, but this is my blog so you don’t necessarily have to agree with me. Before I go into this I feel like I need to clarify, I am proud of all 5 boys and their solo careers, I support them all wholeheartedly, and my saying I miss OT5 doesn’t mean I don’t. some things are facts stated by the boys others are merely a speculation or my own deduction from what has been implied or reading between the lines, just to put that out there. Bear in mind I am a Ziam blog, Liam and Zayn have always been my focal point, and always will be and I also have a Louis [& slight Larry] bias so, do what you will with that information. Basically feel free to skip!

It was so good to see Zayn in an interview after so long [I can't lie it's so weird hearing people commenting on his talking voice as something new and unusual], but hopefully, he’ll actually get better promo for this upcoming album, I’m super excited either way, his music is rarely short of anything but a masterpiece. But there’s a line in Zayn’s recent podcast which stuck out to me.

Personally, I found this intriguing, because at least to me, I feel as though it explains quite a few things. Particularly regarding Zouiam [Zayn, Louis and Liam], I’m not saying it didn’t apply to Niall or Harry but, I feel like it provides some sort of perspective on things others have speculated on, and also some things I have speculated on. Again, this is merely a speculation on my part, you don’t have to agree [scrolling is very easy]. I will not claim to know as much as I may have known about all 5 of them as I did 8 years ago, admittedly, though I support most of the boys through listening to their music, I don’t pay much attention beyond that to anyone other than Zayn, Liam and sometimes Louis, this isn’t to say I don’t like Niall, I enjoy his music or Harry, I have always been a Ziam/ Zouiam account and have always stuck to them, and as solo artists, I prefer their music, even during their time as a band. [As I’m sure many have a preference for the other boys. I don’t see an issue with it unless it is purposefully disrespectful or hateful to others.]

I know a lot of people are stuck on the line of how after ‘5 years together they all got sick of one another’, which is understandable and perhaps almost inevitable. [Personally, as someone with a sibling I definitely understand the sentiment] I don’t see any malice or drama in it, it would naturally happen to anyone after so many years of constantly being together, with barely any breaks and performing together non-stop for almost 5 years. It would catch up to even the most patient of people, especially considering how they were literally teenagers/ young adults the whole time. Nothing he said in that interview was hateful at all.

Also not to dismiss his line about how he said "I completely selfishly wanted to be the first person to go and make my own record." with this, whilst I’m not saying it’s untrue because it could be true that that's what happened. But I can’t deny its a little confusing because of the number of times the story of his reasoning for leaving the band has been changed throughout the years, initially, it started as him citing stress and saying he wanted to be a ‘normal 22-year-old’, then it was that he said there was ‘never any room for me to experiment creatively’ made sense as it was rumoured that his writing had been snubbed on Four and it could possibly be a mixture of all the reasons combined. But my point is we have been given many different reasons, but we will probably never know the full truth, so at this point, it's anyone’s guess as to what the actual reasoning was.

Of course, there is no doubt that behind the scenes of the entire One Direction era was a complete shit show, as has been stated/ hinted at by most if not all members at this point in some way, shape or form. So we can only begin to imagine the stress and pressure they were constantly put through. There is a lot we don’t know about that time, and probably never will. Some things are perhaps even traumatic for the boys who had to go through it, all we can do is speculate and be as supportive as possible as fans. 

I mean I feel like this trauma has presented itself in different ways with each member, perhaps in ways we will never know, Zayn himself has stated that we could never understand that time as it is something only they would get. 

In terms of image and what they show; Niall is quiet, unproblematic and as far as I’m aware he seems pretty much like, other than his music and tours, he keeps to himself. Harry from my impression, is a loudly quiet person, by this I mean, he comes across as loud as though he divulges a lot, people may claim he is the one who people have the most knowledge of, which is true to an extent. But in terms of his personal life, there are limitations, understandable of course, but it seems to me we only know what we are shown and the rest is left to be read between the lines. 

Louis, I feel as though we learn more about him through his music, his private life is fairly private, other than what he talks about and what we are shown, [side note: not everything that we are shown is necessarily how it is/true, this applies to all 5 boys] Louis is also quite an interesting case, we saw him get progressively quieter as time went on, especially in comparison to how he was in 2010/11, [many fans who believe in Larry attribute this to him being pushed into the closet and having to hide his more ‘flamboyant nature’] or it could be a simple case of all the stress and difficult life events taking its toll, or even [I think it's likely] a combination of all of this. Either way, it has been disheartening to witness.

Zayn has always been the most misunderstood I think. As Zayn himself said, they were all given personas and that has stuck with them from their time in the band, even until this present day I would say, [I wish some would consider this in Liam's case but that's for another post]. If you saw Zayn from 2010/11 he wasn’t particularly ‘mysterious’ or such, in fact, he was quite boisterous and funny if my memory serves me correctly, but again If the management wanted them to have a certain persona they were going to make sure it stuck. Zayn has always kept his private life exactly that, private. Typically in the case of his relationships [I would say this applies to some of Liam's also] but the main times we would hear about Zayn's relationships is if it was to make Zayn out to be a bad guy or to benefit the woman he was dating at the time through PR or some way as such, which is quite telling in itself.

Liam, again, people would think Liam is quite public and we know a lot about him but if you pay close attention, it's not the case at all. We don't know anything other than what we are told by the press or what we see. This is the case for all of them but as we know, from recent videos that Liam has done, there are a lot of other factors at play and a lot of distortion of stories and such that happens that we will never truly understand, we can only look out for it.  [another side note: IMO Liam is the full package he’s got the vocal range, the lyrical range, the melodies the dance moves, the fashion but he got so sabotaged and that pisses me off so much.]  Liam had always been the spokesperson for One Direction whilst in the band. Some people, particularly some groups of ‘fans’ or newer fans think that all his talking about 1D is him ‘trying too hard’ or whatever else to bash him. But the truth is, if you look closer, he never really stopped being the spokesperson for the band. He speaks on all of their solo endeavours, all of their achievements, indulges the nostalgic fans and is the one who most openly shows his support, he still holds the role of the spokesperson, just in a different manner. 

At a point you would seldom hear them talk about their One Direction days, unless you are the spokesperson... [it has become more frequent now], which is understandable as they are now Solo artists and perhaps wanting away from that image, but it is also quite curious in a way. But that is best left for another ramble. However, up until recently, I feel like the boys who have spoken the most about the band have been, in a sense, allocated to speak more on the topic than others [Personally I link this to the Politics comment, I’ll explain a little later on] But I find it interesting as to the different reactions we get from certain groups about each member when they do speak about their time in One Direction. Typically, Harry and Niall are met with positive reactions, with a few exceptions of course. Zayn sits in between, some of it gets regarded with nostalgia, other reactions are positive and hopeful and then the outright negativity too. Louis again sits in the middle. Liam however, you do of course get nostalgia and of course positive reactions from his fans and some OT5 fans. However, this is severely outweighed by the negativity he receives for it from *certain* ‘fans’ and some newer fans and just general people who like to jump on the hate bandwagon [side note: my god I miss 2013/2014 1D Twitter].

I’m not sure how many remember ‘Weed Gate’, how this was in a way at the time ‘damaging’ to the clean image they had and how much shit it was speculated to have caused behind the scenes, involving Zayn and Louis. 

Louis and Zayn take a video doing weed in a car in one of the Peru (where weed isn’t illegal) on tour, there started some articles that make it sound like Zayn was sick or addicted to drugs. I feel like this was also a big player in how things turned out, Zayn took most of the heat from this and from our end it looked like no one did a thing to help. [We don't know what happened BTS]. Particularly interesting from this headline was the reiterating of the ‘squeaky clean image’, not long after this there were articles about 1D not getting along that came out of nowhere, particularly about how Harry was really angry with them and such. Even more interestingly disgustingly, Zayn took on most of the heat from this despite Louis also being in the video. 

Not long after this, Zayn missed some promo interviews and the album release in Orlando because of 'illness’, they get asked on the Today show if it’s actually because of drugs [entirely inappropriate] Liam, [looking pissed] reiterated it was a stomach bug. it would also be poignant to point out that Zayn looked very unwell at the time [I would think this would be regarding the eating disorder he previously mentioned] but many thought and press stated it as being related to drugs. At the time he was also, as he did throughout his time in the band, until this very day in fact, received disgusting prejudice and hate based on his religion and ethnicity. 

To touch lightly on the politics comment: obviously, we won't know the full extent. But if one were to speculate on the matter; we know certain people had been trying to pinch Harry since pretty early on in the band, so it would make sense that some of the comments Zayn made about the contracts make a lot of sense, I feel like it also links well with what Louis said about Harry calling the Hiatus. 

‘Certain people didn’t want to sign contracts,’ This line is so vague, but at the same time, I feel like it could be linked to a number of things. It could have been Harry wanting to leave to go solo. If you believe in Larry and Ziam it could have been a harsher contract regarding keeping them hidden with more shit attached. It could have been regarding the music they make, ridiculous NDA’s or any number of things, the speculation could be endless. However, it further reiterates the point that we can never understand fully what was at play behind the scenes, as much as we would like. But one thing we did see was how the boys went from being seemingly happy, excited and relatively carefree to burdened, exhausted and jaded which is somewhat self-explanatory [fuck 1DHQ]. I was going to add a bit about their images regarding the politics but I believe that is best left for another post.

If you think the boys are free/ ever have been, I’m sorry to burst your bubble but I doubt that has ever been the case, be that within the band or as solo artists. Feel free to check out this post if you require more insight, https://www.tumblr.com/yaz-the-spaz/662781923367747584?source=share. I don't think we could ever understand, nor will we ever know the extent of what the boys were/ have been put through. Hence why they all say they have a special bond because only they understand. I feel as though villainizing any particular member is very harmful, because at the end of the day at the time they were kids doing something so amazing that hadn't really been done on that scale before. What I do find gross is the fact that some refuse to speak up about the unnecessary hate certain groups give to other members [that again is another post entirely]. At the same time, it is important to remember whilst it might seem like other members have more freedom than others, which could be the case, it doesn't mean any of them are entirely free.

I’d say back to my point, but I wasn't particularly trying to make one in this post, this was simply an info/ speculative ramble, you don't have to agree with what has been said. But if you did read through, I’d love to, respectfully, of course, hear your thoughts, and opinions on everything. I will make posts on everything I’ve said requires its own post because I feel as though there is a lot to talk about on a number of topics so they will come in due time. 

At the end of the day, as Zayn [and Liam in the past] said; “You know, we’ve done crazy things with each other and that nobody else in the world will ever understand or have them. Experiences that we've shared.”

But yeah, all in all, it was good to hear Zayn talk about his chickens and describe himself as a chill, funny and loving guy because it's so much more true to him than being painted as mysterious and I love that for him.

[ozonecologne]

Review: Keep On Ramblin’

It’s been a big year for Radio Company! They had their first live concert on December 19, 2022 where they debuted two songs from a new album to be released early the next year. That day has come, so let’s dive on in! Is it worth the listen?

This new release does not follow Radio Company precedent. Instead of being called the expected Vol. 3, the album has an actual name: Keep On Ramblin’. From what I can find, the reason for the change is that this album was planned to depart from Radio Company’s usual style of rock and jazz and instead lean more into bluegrass, folk, and especially country. Keep On Ramblin’ is being presented to us as a completely different project, but it doesn’t look that much different in terms of construction; the album still only has 10 tracks – same as Vol. 1 and one more than Vol. 2. The run-time is just slightly longer than either of its predecessors: Keep On Ramblin’ is just over 38 minutes long, more than Vol. 1’s 36 minutes and Vol. 2’s 34 minutes. Also notably, the longest song on the album is 5:39, a length that Radio Company has never attempted before. The shortest is under 3 minutes long at 2:58. The final track off of Vol. 1, Dume, is the only song in their catalogue that’s shorter. There is quite a range in the material to go along with the style shift.

For anyone that cringed when they read “country,” hang in there. I can only assure you that this isn’t Blake Shelton country, this is Emmylou Harris country. It’s not Dolly Parton, but maybe a little Loretta Lynn (if we’re being generous). I’m going to tell you now: if you don’t like country music, then you’re not going to like this album. It is going to bore you and sound a little kitsch. I also don’t think that it will convert anyone that might not have enough exposure to country music to actually like it. This album is clearly made for people that already relate to this kind of thing, and it doesn’t try to ease you in.

MUSIC

This is immediately clear from the first track, Right Kind of Trouble, which I can really only describe as hokey. This one is not like Radio Company’s usual openers, which are pretty gut-punch strong. This is a much slower take, almost bumbling, featuring Steve and Jensen in equal measure. Even though it plays to the beat of a horse rider bouncing in their saddle, it does still manage some cool electric guitar around the 1:40 mark. The tempo also starts to increase around 2:25 after a pretty nice instrumental buffet, and it is undoubtedly the best part of the song as the power builds.

While there are still some traditional rock notes as somebody shreds a guitar in the background, that opening twang never goes away. And Forever Ain’t Long slows down the pace enough that you can really get used to it. This is the first real slow dance scene song on the album, the kind of thing that plays at the end of a wedding reception by the time most people have already gone home. Jensen takes lead on this one, and his voice is really steady in this middle melody; this is the sweet spot for him and he sounds pretty professional on this one. 

One problem that I have (which will recur throughout the album) is that Steve’s harmonizing doesn’t always feel super intentional here. It’s a little limp in the background and keeps fading in and out. I’m not sure if this was an intentional mixing choice, but if it was then it wasn’t a good one. The choir coming in behind for the bridge almost makes up for it.

Around the 1:45 mark, we get a surprising piano solo, which is very much giving saloon. You really don’t hear many of those too often anymore (though maybe there is a reason for that), and it’s admittedly a pretty fun touch. We get some more traditional guitar solos later, but this one stands out for the group. This definitely is not a modern or hip album, and it’s not trying to be. 

Steve takes over for Every Light, with its now customary twang, while Jensen takes a higher register in the back. At this point, I’m still a little confused about the harmonies; they lack some commitment beyond the first track, which is unusual for this genre! For a two-piece set, Radio Company is making duets that aren’t really duets, and that feels like a mistake when you’ve chosen the perfect vehicle to deliver that. There’s also not much call and response – another staple of folk country. Look at something like Golden Rings for example and look at how strong both parts could be.

Maybe downplaying the country duet is Radio Company’s way of “modernizing” country, but I think that if you’re going to make an old-fashioned album then you need to commit to an old-fashioned sound. Turn up the mics, you cowards!

That being said, the fiddle rocks. The most interesting part of this song is the belting repetition at 1:54, but then they never do it again? What was that even about then? The whole song is as flat as a midwestern highway without the instrumentals cutting in.

The first major departure (and the first thing I’m actually impressed by) comes with Ain’t No Tellin’, which opens with an organ. The notes are much softer and more graceful than anything else so far, and Jensen takes the lead with an incredible head voice that sounds just beautiful. The longest song on the album is long for a reason; it starts as church music that slowly transforms into a solid electric guitar solo, and we even get a brass section coming in towards the end. It’s the most complex song that actually takes itself seriously, and I think we could have pushed it even further: a more sustained choir, longer solos, more, more, more!

I’m impressed by how much Jensen’s vocal ability has improved based on this song alone. Listen to 3:40 to 3:46 with that sustained note and then the run immediately after – he’s exercising a lot more control than in the past, even at 4:25 when he starts to get more gravely the way he likes to do but can’t always achieve. 

This song is worth all 5 of its minutes, which I rarely say about songs that long. I love the slow fade out at the end but hate Jensen’s forced laughter at 5:19, which brings us right back into the realm of cheesy again. 

...Which is probably a good thing seeing as the next song is You Made Me Blue, a Steve song that doesn’t fit with Ain’t No Tellin’ at all. It’s got some more fiddle on it, which I do like, but the lack of transition kind of ruins the vibe. And I thought we were doing so well with that this time around!

This is a square dance song that’s extra good for stepping. It’s really charming in its own way, and I’m weirdly endeared by this one. Maybe because I love Blue Kentucky Girl so much? These opening harmonies feel intentional, which is immediately more country to me (and they even do call and response later in later choruses)! It starts like that anyway, but then as the song goes on the harmonies get pushed to the back again. Steve fronting with Jensen being soft and weak in the background is not a formula I super enjoy; I’ve said before that Steve’s vocals are almost too clean and I reiterate that here. Still, I actually like this one for how distinctive it is.

The title track, Keep on Ramblin’, is fine but reminds me of an old complaint... inconsistent capitalization. In the title of the album, the word “on” is capitalized, but in the song title it isn’t. That’s weird, man! Hire an English major!

Jensen fronts here in a pleasant register with a richer tone than Steve’s, but he’s not pushing himself. It’s a little boring. There’s some nice picking around 2:20, and the backing vocals are giving me I’ve Just Seen a Face, but the Dawn & Hawkes cover. Like, listen to 0:47 – 1:02 of Keep on Ramblin’ and tell me you don’t hear that. Those are all the parts that stand out to me on this one.

Sadly there’s no Akon to be found on Sweet Escape, and to be honest, I’m getting bored at this point in the album. The truth is that most of these songs sound really similar to each other and I can’t remember most of them except for Ain’t No Tellin’ and You Made Me Blue, which are really clearly distinguished from one another. The rest all follow a pretty standard formula. I’m not sure if this is an issue with the quality of the music (probably) or if it’s just a matter of sequencing (definitely) – but there isn’t enough variation to break up the songs. I guess I like the “ooh ooh oohs” in the background of this chorus, but that’s about all that stands out here.

The harmonies are a lot more balanced on Return to Me. Like Right Kind of Trouble, Steve and Jensen are on equal footing on this one, even if the note at 2:04 is a little weird.

This one kind of rips off Sam Cooke’s Bring It on Home to Me but it’s obviously nowhere near as good. We get more of a brass feature at the end, which is nice; I didn’t realize how much I missed the brass section until it came back in this one. They tend to feature more heavily than this in Radio Company projects! This song has a pretty weird ending in that it’s pretty abrupt, like they just chose not to finish the phrase. This is the shortest song on the album and I don’t really think it should be?

Restless Man is another slower song with Jensen at the front. There’s a strong piano but Jensen is vocally a little less strong (I wonder if this song was recorded earlier in the process?). It’s another sobering moment of the album that I find myself gravitating towards just because the rest of it is so homogenous. We get the dynamite combination of the harmonica and the fiddle around 0:45 that continues on, and there’s also some nice layering around the 2-minute mark. There are lots of great instrumentals on this one and the variation is so needed. This one is fine, but looks better in comparison to what’s around it. I’m missing any kind of emotional journey or payoff.

The album ends with Velvet Sky, opening with a slow fiddle introduction in what I think is kind of a weird way to end an album. And you know what? I think it’s because Steve here inexplicably reminds me of Alan-a-Dale. This is for some reason giving me Oo-De-Lally, and there’s already a more impressive version of that out there so I’m not really seeing the point.

The song starts in earnest at 1:08, adding in some more layers where the vocals become a bit firmer, and ends by just trailing off. It’s like we’re watching Robin Hood and Little John walk deeper and deeper into the forest as the screen fades to black, leaving merriment behind them – the party’s still going, but they’re taking it elsewhere. Or, perhaps the audience has finally gotten tired enough from their evening of dancing to walk away, leaving the band behind in the barnyard to stumble back home and sleep it all off. For what it’s worth, at least it ended the same way it began.

STORY

Radio Company writes more... efficiently than they have in the past on this album, with vague impressions and mixed metaphors that really do their damndest to create clear characters. On Vol. 2, we got the story of Roy and Lori on Truly Forgotten, but this album has broadened the idea of doomed lovers to span a full album. The bare writing works against them on occasion in confusing the point of view in several places and withholding important information, and so I can’t say with certainty that I follow the complete arc of an album narrative. However, maybe being vague is the point, so as to not give too much away.

We open with the familiar trope of a devoted speaker that just can’t seem to win the heart of their beloved in Right Kind of Trouble. No matter how hard he tries, it’s never enough to make her stay: “It’s not if but when you’re gonna go / By the time you leave, well, we both know / Who and what we are.” He even idealizes her to the point of sainthood: “Slow down baby / Before you fall from above” – fall off her pedestal, or from Heaven, etc. It’s clearly an unhealthy balance of devotion and flippancy where the “black magic woman” keeps leaving the speaker over and over again, even as he begs on bended knee for her to stay.

But maybe, the speaker alludes by the end, that’s not such a bad thing? This kind of tenacity at least proves that the lover is strong and dependable, in that she sticks to her guns: “But you just won't break at all / You're the right kinda lover.” This is a person that can be counted on not to break under pressure, if only because she seems not to care too much about the speaker.

This idealizing and yearning continues into Forever Ain’t Long, where the speaker pleads for his lover to “take me to heaven / Or wherever you're from,” to a time “before the hurt came along.” We learn that at least one of these two is really in denial about how dysfunctional the relationship is, and try to just ignore that or push it aside:

The truth is in knowing, only makes it feel wrong, so we go right back to that old feeling we want it to be

Wouldn’t it be nice to return to the very beginning of a relationship, before any problems start to set in or things get difficult? Wouldn’t it be nice to never fight, or butt heads, or deal with anything tough? Our speaker yearns for that ignorant bliss when we can still project our lover as an angelic fantasy. The title of the song comes from the phrase that the speaker repeats, “Take me forever, forever ain’t long” – denial is a fundamental part to making their relationship work. Forever IS a long time, but the speaker doesn’t want to acknowledge that. He even begins to doubt if it’s worth it to stay as things become more complicated: “all the hours I spent here / Was it wasted all this time / Cause I'm slowly losing all hope.”

In Every Light, we discover through third-person narrative the picture of a troubled salt-of-the-earth soul that lives for the thrill and pushes his luck and can’t be tamed even by the person who loves him most – all very familiar stuff if you ever read any bad boy!Harry Styles fic on Wattpad in 2013. We learn that this person is caught up in “cheap tattoos and booze” and keeps “runnin’ every light that came upon them / Proved his love with the pedal down to the floor / Though she knew he was a wanted man / And always dreamed of having more.” This is someone that “rambles,” that cannot be tied down and lives passionately and in poetic pain, “hid[ing] in darkness.” This is the emotionally unavailable antihero that our lover romanticizes and pines for.

Ain’t No Tellin’ speaks to the false bravado that our rambler carries and also to his deep conflict, first hinted at in Every Light (he was “destined for a life of being torn”). The song opens, “Oh the fact is / Cold but true / Ain’t no tellin’ / Who I am.” This is the exact opposite of the line in Right Kind of Trouble that suggests certain actions tell us everything we need to know about who we are. But the rambler doesn’t seem to be self-aware enough to understand himself so easily; he speaks one minute of unbridled sweetness and laughter, only for anger to replace it the next. (This same disquieting anger appears on Vol. 2 in tracks like Quarter To, so this inability to make sense of oneself because we contain darker aspects has clearly been weighing on these writers for some time.) 

It is perhaps this very fear of self that makes the rambler so distant, and provides insight into why he acts the way he does: “When you need it / And you know that I’m a little far away / Ain’t no tellin’, no, / Where the hell I am.” He’s running from himself just as much as he’s running from love, because what is love if not looking right down into someone, seeing them for who they are, and choosing to stay with them? If we don’t know what is really underneath the performance we give to the world, how can we ever feel ready to accept unconditional love? If we are unsure of who we are, that would mean to trust someone else to know better – would they give us what we need, even if we don’t know what to ask for? He asks his lover over and over again, “who are you / holding onto now,” unsure of her intentions.

As in Vol. 2, the solution lies in faith, though the advice here sounds less wise and more placating: “Just believe in / Every time / When we feel it again.” Rest assured, things will work out even when we’re not our best selves, because we can always believe we’ll get back to that original feeling that first brought us together. That will never go away. This moment is connected with Forever Ain’t Long and that original desperate denial we need to make an unsatisfying relationship work; it’s also connected to Right Kind of Trouble, when the rambler says,

When you’re lonely You can hold me close Oh then go and leave me Needing and knowing We’re one in the same

So maybe we DO know who we are: we are the same, at least there’s that. This assertion diminishes the fear of abandonment with the knowledge that being apart cannot destroy their relationship – the foundation has always been strong.

But is that enough to keep a relationship together, despite its problems? When is the right time to cut someone off?

For this couple, maybe that’s the right thing to do. You Made Me Blue is a celebratory breakup song: “You made me blue / For the last time.” The speaker is finally free, having given up on the promises their lover used to string them along with for so long. You promised we’d be happy, and you left me instead, the song says. So, good riddance! We get the repetition of things “going wrong” in the relationship, causing the lover to leave them and “[take] everything I had” with them. The speaker reflects on that desperation from Right Kind of Trouble and realizes that they actually deserved a lot better: “I was doomed the day we met / But now I see / That you’re no good for me.” The lover went from being TOO good to NO good at all, one extreme to the next. But instead of getting too down about it, the speaker revels in their newfound freedom. It’s a blessing, actually, to be left!

The song ends, “Yeah, you’re out there and / I’m here taking care of me / I don’t care / I’m just happy being me” but it’s just another denial. Letting go of those dreams of “more” mentioned in Every Light of course would be painful, but the speaker refuses to acknowledge that, and I’m left unconvinced by the end.

Keep on Ramblin’ is a delusional continuation of Every Light post break-up: “Left town again for no reason / Hit the floor I was away” echoes the “pedal down to the floor” line in Every Light. The reference to a “life of crime” later also suggests this link to the “wanted list” and “bad crowd” in Every Light. The rambler continues to live in denial of the hurt that he causes and the pain that he feels: “Nothin’ wrong bout how I’m livin’” and, “Time is only passing if you think of it that way / This life of crime is lonely, but only if you let it in to stay.” If we just “keep on rambling,” keep moving, keep running away from our problems, then maybe they’ll never catch up to us. If we never gaze into the abyss, it can never gaze back. This is why the rambler packs up and leaves “for no reason,” and why he doesn’t care to feel the passage of time. 

It’s never really clear in the album who’s doing the leaving when: they both seem to be constantly leaving each other, even though it also seems like neither of them really wants that. That’s how relationships are, I guess: a series of miscommunications can break us, when not saying how we really feel is the greatest possible sin.

Sweet Escape is all told to us again from a third party: he (the rambler) said all of what we’re about to hear – his words are being reported to us from someone else. The flawed rambler thrives on attention: “He said, ‘I want to be the one people turn to / Even if it means I may be wrong.’” He needs to be needed at whatever cost. And just as things go south, his desperate bid for control comes out in narcissistic claims that “I had planned it all along.” Nothing’s wrong, everything is going according to plan. He’ll continue to boast and brag and wind the lover up with hot air even “knowing somewhere in the dead of night / A better man with a bigger fight may show / And give it a go.” Some day, someone with more integrity may come along and force him to face consequences for the way he treats people, losing his beloved forever – the rambler fears this, but will never confront it. In the meantime, he’ll continue living freely, “sail[ing] through waters [that] no one [else] has the nerve to,” actively trying to “reach rock-bottom… in a bottomless sea.” More thrill-seeking, more self-destruction, fueled by the impulse to destroy ourselves.

Return to Me is a little tricky to place. There are two possibilities for this song as I see it fitting into this story of the rambler and his lover:

1. This song is from the point of view of the lover waiting for the rambler to come back to her. On the one hand, it may represent a kind of yearning that can set in even after the elation of a break-up with someone toxic in You Made Me Blue, but feels like a moment of weakness that sets a journey of personal empowerment back a few steps. In the first line, the lover asks, “How far will you go?” And even though the lover does say, “I can't wait another day” – she’s through waiting around for them – she also confesses that “I’d go to the end of the world for you / If only you return to me.” She once again proposes marriage like in Forever Ain’t Long – “Ride with me / Round the lakeside / Got a raincoat and a veil” – impulsively jump into my car, run away with me, let’s get married. A moment of doubt as well for the abandoned lover, attempting to rationalize the behavior that hurt them: “Maybe I deserved it / To be left this way / I’m not sure / How I was so blind.” Maya Angelou wrote, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time” and maybe that’s what the lover is saying too. He has always shown himself to be unreliable and untrustworthy, so how could I have expected any different from him? Maybe our relationship breaking has always been my fault, from expecting too much from someone that could never deliver. I should have known better. It’s a very familiar feeling.

2. On the other hand, this song could also still be from the perspective of the rambler, whose running has finally caught up with him to the point where he now understands the finality of the lover’s decision to leave him in You Made Me Blue. The line about “riding round the lakeside” would make sense given the rambler’s repeated association with cars, and instead of a rationalization we may find a moment of clarity: “Maybe I deserved it / To be left this way / I’m not sure / How I was so blind.” Maybe my actions really do hurt people, this was never as casual as I liked to make it seem, and I deserve to be left behind for treating this person who really cares about me as disposable. Maybe she was never really indifferent to me – maybe I just kept pushing her away all this time.

I don’t think it really matters which interpretation of this song you go with, and I prefer to think of it as both at the same time. These two people can think the exact same things for different reasons, which perhaps shows how well-suited they actually are for each other. For once, they are totally in sync. The irony is that they’ve also never been further apart.

The latter interpretation does make more sense as we enter into the epiphany of the rambler, our “Restless Man.” He confesses that he’s “had my time / Spent it livin’ off my mind / When all along it’s wrong that led the way” – he’s finally seeing his actions clearly and knows that he hasn’t been making the best choices, for himself or for others attached to him. He’s still not promising his lover perfection – “Ain’t saying I’ll be the greatest,” and it is definitely a “gamble” – but he knows that he cannot continue the way he has been living so far. He has to change. He pleads, then:

So keep on coming around To comfort me Oh and find us A place to land And slow down This restless man

The song ends with a desire to slow down, or, more accurately, to be made to slow down: exercise some of that strength that we saw in Right Kind of Trouble and make me new, the rambler asks. The question mark hangs in the air as we approach the last song, the end to the rambler’s journey.

I can’t fully make out Velvet Sky, and as the final track to the album maybe that contributes to the reason I find it to be such an odd ending. There’s enough to suggest here that Velvet Sky may be a reflection on the life that the rambler has led now that he’s decided to settle down (to a point). He’s seen everything he’s needed to see in the world: “I've walked down every street / Dragged both feet across most all the land / Bathed on every beach / So I know each grain of sand.” BUT, the song goes, the only thing that’s stuck out to him after everything is the sky over the sea. What’s left unspoken and what could give our rambler some peace is that the sky is the same everywhere. It’s constant, and you can’t outrun it. The speaker repeatedly mentions that the velvet sky is “the one thing that I love” – not a person or a home or a feeling, but the open and inviting sky, which has never abandoned him and never can. However, it’s later clarified that it’s the sky over the ocean that makes him happiest because in silhouette there he can see “where a sail finds a friend in the wind.” The sight of two boats on the water is his favorite in the world: an indirect way of saying that a loving partnership really means the most out of everything to him, where in Sweet Escape he only “sailed” alone.

While the wording is troubling, it’s suggested elsewhere that the rambler has abandoned the rambling lifestyle, as he is left “prayin’ I won’t end up just like the one who ran away / If in fear is where I'm livin’ for the most… away from all this wretched sin.” There’s still some uncertainty, some fear that this won’t work out and that the change won’t stick, because that beautiful velvet sky out there still calls his name. But this line does seem to imply that he’s through “running away” and doesn’t want to be the guy that does that anymore. The biggest piece of evidence that things are ending on a good (if complicated) note is that “you’re headed toward the shore to follow me.” If he is still running away, at least someone is running with him instead of away from him. 

Ultimately, it does little to resolve the fundamental issues at the core of the rambler’s relationship with his lover about identity and darkness. There’s also an argument to be made that this last song implies that the rambler has been left alone and abandoned forever, rejected, longing for something he can never have. “Pay me no mind” he dismisses, and he “drink[s] wine from a bottle each day,” recalling the “booze” he was mixed up with in Every Light.

The story of this album poses a flawed but passionate character afraid to do any self-reflecting, and then refuses to ever force that introspection. It seems to me at least that the rambler never fully solves his own problems, and what little peace he may find comes at a cost. The album instead, I think, poses a challenge to its listeners: will you run? Would you stay? 

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that any of this comes across well in the music of the album – there’s a total disconnect here between form and content.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Keep On Ramblin’ fits into country canon without standing out. Most of it is, and I do hate to say this, mediocre bar music. This is not the sweeping indie rock with quiet ambition that I was just getting used to from Radio Company; I wouldn’t put these songs on anywhere other than a backyard BBQ to fill in the spaces between better and more recognizable performers like Willie Nelson and Gram Parsons. It’s fine, but they just don’t go far enough here for my taste. Too many cliches, not enough belting or strong feeling, weak harmonies, and the instrumentals barely even get started before they’re over. There is no discernible arc in either the music OR the story that I can find, and if there is one then it’s too much work for me to even want to unearth. A lot of it more or less blends together, and it’s not an album that I care to think too hard about.

I grew up with classic country music and I appreciate it. I’m trying to be impartial about the style change, but I have to be honest: I just like this less than Vol. 1 or Vol. 2. I know that Radio Company are capable of better! As of now, my favorite project from Radio Company might actually be Vol. 1; I did not expect to feel that way, but that’s the project I feel most nostalgic for out of all of them so far.

Track ratings out of five stars:

Right Kind of Trouble ⭐️⭐️

Forever Ain’t Long ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every Light ⭐️⭐️

Ain’t No Telling ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You Made Me Blue ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Keep on Ramblin’ ⭐️⭐️

Sweet Escape ⭐️⭐️

Return to Me ⭐️⭐️

Restless Man ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Velvet Sky ⭐️

Average song rating: 2.5/5

Favorite tracks: Ain’t No Tellin’, You Made Me Blue, Restless Man

[zanniscaramouche]

I’ve been thinking about nothing but narry since receiving an ask from @nonsensly​ about my favourite fics containing the two youngest directioners. Considering the very first fic I wrote in this fandom was a narry fic I knew I had to put together something to share with everyone! I’m sure I’ve left out hundreds of fics I’ve loved over the years, but here’s what I could throw together with the little amount of time I have.

💚 consider this by peerpressure // @horansheroes - 82k

Harry has not read the rule book of parenting, but he’s pretty sure it has a paragraph dedicated to not flirting with strippers. Not even if they’re very hot and also very charming. In which Harry is a single father to five year old Hugo and Niall is a stripper who makes it very hard for Harry to remember his priorities.

zannithinks: MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE FIC! Not just Narry, but in the one direction fandom as a whole. I love love love this story with the passion of a thousand suns. A sweet, heartwarming and absolutely charming story so nuanced with the mundane struggles of reality.

💚 i forget where we were by torielle - 70k

"You,” he says thickly, swallowing. “You don’t - you don’t remember.” “Not the last three years,” Harry tells him simply. “Sorry. What was your name?” “Niall,” he mutters, face suddenly dark. “I’m Niall, I’m Liam’s assistant." Harry wakes up to find he has retrograde amnesia and a perfect life - seemingly.

zannithinks: absolutely heartbreaking with a string of hope through it all

💚 the tale of the sun by peerpressure // @horansheroes - 53k

A modern royal AU in which Crown Prince Harry unexpectedly sets eyes on the sun.

zannithinks: This author has several other fics on this list not by accident, and several more to check out on their ao3! This one is perfect for royal au (and rwrb)  lovers!

💚 take a look at the stars in your head by pallomharry - 35k

Niall fills all the blanks in his life, he strengthens him as a person, and most importantly, he completes him. He can’t imagine a life without him, and it all makes sense, that in one way or another, they will always find each other. Because they’re soulmates, after all.

Harry wakes up in several parallel universes and in each of them they all come back to one thing; Niall.

zannithinks: I haven’t read this one yet, but this author has several fics on my tbr and I can’t wait to sink into them. A first glance at the starting lines and this looks wonderfully written and intriguing.

💚 run away with my heart by storhan - 28k

Niall’s a con artist who was only after Harry’s money, but he left with something much more valuable: his heart.

zannithinks: I couldn’t take the suspense in this one! I was pacing the floors, sweating, literally pulling my hair out. Talk about a wild ride.

💚 the beautiful ones by orphan account - 27k

Harry pulls away sharply, chest rising and falling, eyes searching Niall’s face, almost as if he's expecting him to curse him out. “Is this okay?” He asks so quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

And no. It’s not, but it feels okay, and that's more than enough to get Niall to duck back in to continue kissing him before he can change his mind.

It's 1984 and Harry Styles wants Niall Horan to help him write his new album

zannithinks: yet to read this one, but it’s summary alludes to something right up my alley and I have a suspicion it’s gonna be a keeper.

💚 from way up there by andfollowthesun // @andfollowthesun - 18k

Harry’s thirty-one now, and he’d like to think that he’s a little more street-smart on what it takes to make a relationship work. More than just texting each other, or great sex, or the fact that Niall will guffaw at all of Harry’s jokes, even the really, really shitty ones.

(Harry and Niall and eventually, a lavender farm.)

zannithinks: oh! my heart! this is a little squeeze and tug on the heartstrings that gently soothes the soul.

💚 hold me closer by peerpressure // @horansheroes - 15k

"D’you wanna join us?” He whispers in Niall’s ear. Niall pulls his head back in surprise. Harry stays frozen, close, and smiles at him - a kind, small smile and Niall realises that Harry is serious. He flicks his gaze to Emily, who smiles at him, too. Niall takes her in, properly. Her cleavage, the hint of round, soft breasts underneath her top. Her hips and her thighs, hidden under her jeans. He moves his gaze to Harry’s hand on his wrist where his thumb rubs soothingly on Niall’s skin. Alright.

zannithink: talk about a 180 from the fic above this. This fic is gritty, smoking hot, and packs an emotional punch you don’t see coming until you’re already bruising. The narration in this, the characters... wow. Definitely a gem.

💚 controlling the curve by cordensangels131 - 12k

Harry Styles is baseball's hottest phenom, signed first in the draft and ready to light up the big leagues. The team, however, decides he needs a little seasonsing first and sends him down to play for their Tripple A team in Florida.

Niall Horan is a minor league catcher, a player’s player, bouncing around from team to team, trying to hang on for a few more years. Now he's charged with preparing Harry for his big league debut by teaching him control on the field.

Their dislike is mutual and instantaneous. Harry thinks he knows all he needs to know about baseball and Niall thinks Harry is a spoiled pretty boy who doesn’t respect the game or his teammates.

zannithinks: smoking hot and immersive in the world of baseball, this fic is clearly well researched with a side of spice.

💚 a little tenderness by @disgruntledkittenface - 10k

"Listen, my alpha and I broke up and it turns out that all of our friends were really his friends and I need someone to help me through–”

“No,” Harry practically shouts, the word bursting out of him unbidden. He cringes when he sees the shock on Niall’s face, his pale skin flushing lightly. “I’m sorry, but my answer has to be no. I don’t help omegas through heats. I’m really sorry, Liam knows that, so I don’t know why he would give you the idea–”

“It’s not heat, Harry,” Niall interrupts. “It’s depri.”

“Oh. Fuck."

zannithinks: this left me in a pile of goo! the softness of it all :0

💚 out of the woods by countthestars // @moondoggiestyle - 9k

"Hi,” the boy says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the counter, body language open in invitation. Niall half expects him to tip his chin up and bare his throat, but instead his smile grows wider, pulling crookedly at his mouth.

zannithinks: I reread this often! Like WOW talk about writing talent and GOALS. Immersive doesn’t even begin to explain just how this fic wraps you up in such a detailed world. I could easily read 100k more of these characters.

💚 make a mess of me by anonymous - 3k (nourry 3some)

Harry wants to be full to the brim. First he manages by himself, but then Niall and Louis help him out.

zannithinks: we all need that one outrageously absurd and smoking hot fic we keep in our back pocket as a dirty secret. Read the tags and suspend disbelief for this one!

💚 slow hands by hellolovers13 // @hellolovers13 - 3k (nourry 3some)

"Wait. So when you say you’re genderfluid, that means sometimes you’re a girl, right?” “Uh, yeah.” “So when I asked what you’d do if you were a girl and you said ‘Niall’. Does that apply now?”

zannithinks: woo! The temperature raises several degrees with this one. An interesting dynamic and nuanced characters wrapped up in fun smut.

[dustedmagazine]

Centipede—Septober Energy (Esoteric)

In June of 1971, the impossible happened, or maybe it’s just impossible now. An aggregate residing under the rather misleading, or at least incomplete, moniker “big band” converged on Wessex Sound Studios in London and recorded, under the direction of Keith Tippett and for a major label, the diverse and ultimately indescribable music comprising Septober Energy. It was to be the only album by Centipede, performing Tippett’s variously organized compositions, and it has now been reissued from the original tapes in a package that should prove as definitive as the disparately fragmenting and congealing sound-energies swirling from the speakers.

Listing the musicians would be a fruitless task; just check out the album’s Wikipedia entry for full details. Suffice it to say here that core membership from King Crimson, Soft Machine and Nucleus forms the heart of the venture, which was also produced by Robert Fripp. While he doesn’t play, Brian Godding, guitarist from Blossom Toes (whose albums have also enjoyed recent deluxe Esoteric reissues) provides still underappreciated distorted riffage, especially on the second piece. Even to cite those three groups as the orchestra’s power nexus is far from complete, as the personnel list comprises many of the finest improvisers on the English scene at the time, including Paul Rutherford, Maggie Nicols, Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Harry Miller and so many others. Their ensemble and individual contributions fuse all manner of transcultural classical, jazz and prog influence to form the four-part epic, each piece one side of the double album.

Yes, there was a previous CD version taken from the master tapes, but there’s something richer about the sonorities here, something full, dark and sparkling by turn, presenting all instrumental and vocal details with new depth and amazing perspective. What now emerges with the most stunning clarity are the dynamic extremes. Godding’s raunchy lines blast their way onto the soundstage as wasn’t even the case with the first vinyl issue, but the album’s opening moments ring forth with crystal percussive clarity. Ditto the third part’s inaugural minutes, the vocals floating over the silence in something conjoining icy serenity and anticipation, and then those sinewy and delicious percussion dialogues, courtesy of Robert Wyatt and John Marshall, thrum, rush and roar only to fade, making room for a fusion of military and circus as exciting as it is confounding, as if Charles Ives had contributed passages to King Crimson’s Lizard. Best of all is the droning sections bookending the first piece, somehow raw and delicate, a foundation of tone transformation supporting constantly changing color and ensemble size, the initial six-minute arc anticipating the kaleidoscopic freakout and ritualistic repetitions to follow. Equally poignant are Keith Tippett’s effortless piano arpeggiations and the meditative unisons of Nicols and Julie Tippetts voices as they buoy shimmering string harmonics later in the track.

The album is a minor miracle of constantly morphing acoustic space, and this must be a consequence of Fripp’s production, which can now be appreciated afresh. Even beyond that, it cries freedom, a communal salute to a point in time when the enthusiasm underpinning such multileveled cross-reference and the projects housing it was real and immediate, perhaps less defined but inimitably palpable. If excess occasionally looms large, it is always tempered by a chamber-music veracity as the never-murky waves and rivulets ebb, flow and trickle in majestic succession. Syd Smith’s superb liner notes set the stage and spin the narrative yarn in his typically engaging and inclusive fashion. Taken as a whole, the package speaks to a time and a musical environment in which anything seemed not only to be possible but in reach, nearly tangible, the proximate dawn of another day that cycles through Julie Tippetts’ lyrics manifest. The organization gave several concerts; were any of them preserved? Either way, with the exception of Carla Bley’s monumental Escalator Over the Hill, it is difficult to think of another album encapsulating so completely the diversity in unity occurring when so many talented musicians gather in creative celebration. The fact that it is now reissued with the care it deserves is heart-warming. 

Marc Medwin

[izacore]

these “larries” are so delulu, like yall you only have 1(1!) life!!!!! you’re telling me that they shouldn’t come out because they’re going to miss a few opportunities to make money?? (tbh i truly believe they would be better off out) or have to say they’re gay every time they meet someone (no? im bi and don’t go screaming it to my coworkers? everyone already thinks they’re gay anyways) idk putting money over happiness/freedom is just dumb imo you’re money won’t matter when you’re dead but at least you could’ve had a happy life, it really is that simple (also them saying it would ruin louis’ career 💀 yall the gp don’t care about him at all, NO ONE asks me about louis NADIE

No, because I genuinely giggled when I read how 'Louis would be over'. I don't know how to tell them this but sadly, Louis is already over among the gp and he only has his fans, which one of the many proofs of can be the fact that the uk album charts numbers were made up of the fans buying fitf during the first week/in pre-orders and when those fans bought everything they had to buy, it fell off the charts. Let's not pretend we don't know Louis' fandom's dynamic because it's obvious his fans are ride or die fans and, like I spoke about already, if his team was competent enough, they could spin a narrative that would have everyone pity him, the way they always wanted.

Don't even get me started on Harry's side in this. As if he doesn't have connections. As if Elton John isn't considered an icon and a legend and touring in his 70s. Harry's fandom is big and just like Louis, he brings a lot of money so I doubt anyone would willingly NOT show him support. Like let's be real here, all the celebs, brands and randoms would be scrambling to congratulate them and show how supportive they are.

I think that what this fandom has problems with is accepting that HL are in a significantly worse situation than they were in 2015 so they are starting to talk like TPTB and Modest and roll out all the excuses why coming out would be such a disaster to their careers. Truth is, none of us knows what would happen. All the examples people are always giving, are based on bands from 80s, 90s, 00s and I think we all agree those were completely different times and a pre-social media era. There has never been a boy band as big as one direction before in the digital era and as I stated many times, I firmly believe that Larry was the main factor of the band's success.

Now, everyone lovessss saying how Harry is breaking the norms and changing the game but where there truly could be a situation that would be just that, suddenly it's... too risky? Which leads me to another thing I have noticed, which is how much Harry's galactic level of fame is something a lot of Larries love to boast about too but that's a whole other discussion.

This post already got too long so I guess what I mean is: we can't really predict how things would go with their coming out but I don't think catastrophizing about it just to justify them using a child to protect their careers is a right thing to do. 1D in itself has always been a special phenomenon with a totally unique fandom dynamics, basically taking part in creating the stan culture on social media. Which, in itself, allows me to think that we should not try to see this situation through the lens of similar older ones, because nothing like this has ever truly happened.

[estradasphere]

oh shit, the 2006 version of the site has a "band history" section. no mention of quadropus for some reason but it does have some valuable info on the band's beginnings (put it under the readmore)

1990- Tim Smolens and Jason Schimmel - future Estradasphere bassist and guitarist, respectively - meet at Miraleste High School in 7th grade. Later around 1997 the band Don Salsa recorded its first album.

1998- Tim and Jason move to Santa Cruz. Tim starts to play on the streets with John Whooley (sax) and Dave Murray (drums); soon Jason joins in.

1998- John, Dave, Tim, Jason Conception, and Jason Schimmel among other local musicians play on the streets of downtown Santa Cruz, usually in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz . It is at this time Richard Carse, a friend, mentioned the name Estradasphere.

1998- Jason Conception starts to focus on his other project, Netwerk:Electric, leaving Estradasphere.

Dec. '98- Timb Harris joins the band. Estradasphere is still playing on the street and local coffee shop Java House.

March '99- George, friend of the band, reads at his first show.

Jan. 7, 2000- Estradasphere’s first show at the local Kuumbwa Jazz Center. The band started playing only clubs; the street was something of the past. The band opened for larger acts coming through the area.

March 3, 2000- It's Understood CD Release Party at Palookaville, a local Santa Cruz club (RIP), was packed with fans in costume. There were two stages to accommodate the circus acts and the band.

May 19- June 18, 2000- with their first official CD the band hits the road, opening for the Secret Chiefs 3. They played 28 shows in clubs all around the US and Canada. Tim played bass on this tour for SC3; other members of esphere would also appear throughout SC3's set.

You can read the Tour Journal, written by drummer David Murray.

January 5, 2001- 2nd Annual First Friday at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center sells out. The Band plays 7 debuts in two sets, with a double encore.

April 1, 2001- Estradasphere plays a full show at the Knitting Factory in LA. The largest crowd for the city.

2001 - Estradasphere releases a live EP entitled The Silent Elk of Yesterday. It features over an hour of songs from live shows.

Summer 2001 - 2nd North American tour, with Tub Ring

Spring 2002 - Buck Fever is released, and Estradasphere embarks on its third North American tour.

Dec. 2002 - The Norwegian band Farmers Market fly all the way to the US for a brief California run with Estradasphere. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

March 2003 - Making splashes, Estradasphere attends the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in Austin for their first time.

2004 - The band is reinvigorated by drastic lineup changes, as sax man John Whooley parts with Estradasphere, moving to Joshua Tree, California. The band then mutates into a six-piece; new members are: Adam Stacey (keyboards, accordion), Kevin Kmetz (tsugaru-shamisen, guitar), and the band's new permanent drummer, Lee Smith.

2005 - Hiding in their studio, bandmembers work daily on a mysterious new, currently untitled album.. No word yet on a completion date, but insiders label the new material as the band's most "epic" and "insane"… only time will tell.

[the1975attheirverybest]

Do we know where this animosity between Harry and Matty started?

Btw my favourite album Harry has made was his first one, I love it, actually even managed to go to that concert (which was not that nice of an experience but not his fault), last two I don't know... Didn't really strike any chords for me. But I'm more of a lyrics kind of a girl and the lyrics weren't really giving (imo)

Oh HS1 is amazing, as a soft rock fan, I was into it. But FINE LINE?!! One of my all-time favorite albums in the history of all of music. PEAK HARRY STYLES. not a single fucking skip. ICONIC. Should’ve won album of the year at the Grammys. Not Harry’s House (though I love that one too).

I don’t think there’s too much animosity. I think, when Matty wrote a few songs for 1D back in the day, and they decided not to use them, Matty was okay with it, until they asked for The Sound. Matty said he like just went into that studio session and showed them some of the stuff that he was working on at the time. Which included The Sound and Girls. He wanted to give them The Sound. Ended up changing his mind about it. So, go listen to 1D’s “Change Your Ticket.” The opening is a complete copy of “Girls” (hence Matty’s joke that his favorite 1D song is “Girls”). BUT Matty and the rest of the 1975 covered What Makes You Beautiful for the BBC live lounge once. He’s over it I think.

He’s said multiple times that he would love to produce for Harry. There were rumors that Harry “blocked his number.” Idk if it’s true or fans made it up. During the O2 show when Matty said he asked Harry to come onstage the day after Taylor, “but it was a firm no” he also followed it up with “he’s a busy guy. I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with me despite what Twitter says.” So Matty seems to wanna keep it friendly?

I think Harry only doesn’t wanna work with him because Jeff Azzoff (Harry’s manager) is a control freak and would never let someone with Matty’s reputation ANYWHERE NEAR HARRY. which is such a shame if you ask me.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

How do you define stories, eg. The stories H / L tell about themselves? As opposed to comments/feelings etc, that you mentioned in a previous ask

I think I’m struggling to identify what is a story in this discussion despite completely agreeing that H&L don’t tell them about themselves

Sorry if this is a stupid question

It's not a stupid question at all anon. I was going by vibes and it's really useful to try and articulate what I actually mean.

I think the key element of a story is that it suggests elements of change. When you talk about celebrity image you're talking about something that is reasonably static. But storytelling requires a narrative - someone to be one way and then something that happens that changes that.

For example, Larry is fan storytelling - and what makes it a story is that the beginning is Harry and Louis fell in love (insert whichever gifs are most meaningful here) and then management/the label/the homophobia of the music industry made them hide it. I think it's not just the young love, but the story to it that makes the fan version of Larry so powerful.

I first started thinking about this by comparing Harry and Louis at the time that Red (Taylor's Version) came out. That album is a masterclass in telling stories about yourself and your life (and this is important -storytelling isn't suggesting that something isn't true - I think everything she was saying was true). The original 'All Too Well' wasn't a story as much as a single emotional moment (that was part of a wider story told by the album). But the ten minute version was telling a very precise story. As well as telling a story about her relationship with Jake (which was incisive and devastating) it also told a story about her as a person. The way she could only see (or only felt safe sharing) one part of the experience of that time - the intensity of love and heartbreak, when the other person never loved you as much as you loved them. When she retold the story, putting in the power dynamics between them, she was deepening the story about then - as well as telling the story about how much she'd grown as a person and an artist. (All of this was echoed and underscored in the short film).

The biggest pieces of storytelling from Taylor is through her art. But she does also use her image and public aspects to add texture to the stories she is telling. The difference between how the public sees her relationship with Joe and her previous relationships suggests that something has changed. Or the way she began to be seen with a lot of female friends, both off stage and on, when she wanted less focus on who she dated. I think there are lots of different ways of telling stories - including art, public appearances, images and so on, but what makes it a story, rather than just a moment, is that something changes - there's a narrative.

So when I say a celebrity is good at storytelling, I think what I'm actually saying is that they're good at intentionally changing how they're understood over a short period of time. That's what Taylor and Beyoncé (as a recent anon said) and others are very good at. An Harry doesn't really do at all, and Louis has done very sporadically with mixed success.

[amberfmp]

Celebs that have had a problem with photoshop

Zendaya

When Modeliste Magazine posted heavily retouched photos of Zendaya in October 2015, the actress, who has been a long-time champion of body positivity, was the first to publicly speak out against the publication's choice.

“Had a new shoot come out today and was shocked when I found my 19 year old hips and torso quite manipulated,” she wrote in an Instagram caption. “These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have.”

Modeliste later addressed the issue on Instagram, acknowledging that the “re-touching of photos is a sensitive subject.” In the same post the magazine announced that “Modeliste Editor-in-Chief, Amy McCabe jointly with Zendaya and her parents made the immediate decision to pull the issue and are working with Zendaya at her request to publish the complete un-edited and authentic images from our Cover shoot in Puerto Vallarta.”

Meghan Markle

It’s pretty clear Prince Harry loves everything about his royal bride-to-be, Meghan Markle, right down to her freckles. So it’s likely he’d share readers’ disappointment that his fiancée’s freckles were missing on the cover of Elle France’s December 2017 issue.

The cover, which features a photo from a 2015 issue of Gritty Pretty magazine, shows Markle sans her signature freckles. This comes after the actress and activist told Allure that she’s always annoyed by this particular Photoshop fail: "To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot."

Iggy Azalea

Despite the name of her album, “Digital Distortion,” Iggy Azalea isn’t a fan of photo changes. The rapper appeared on the cover of Schon Magazine to promote her album wearing a transparent corset-dress that accentuates her curves. After the release, Azalea took to Twitter to share a side-by-side comparison how she looked before and after Photoshop. Although she admitted to loving the photos in general, Azalea said that she preferred the image “before they photoshopped (her) thighs and hips to seem skinnier.”

Meghan Trainor

Meghan Trainor pulled down her “Me Too” music video once she realized that the size of her waist had been edited without her permission. With lyrics such as “I see the magazines working that Photoshop. We know that s*** ain't real. Come on now, make it stop,” the “All About That Bass” singer is known for celebrating her size. "I took down the YouTube video because they Photoshopped the crap out of me. And I'm so sick of it and I’m over it, so I took it down until they fix it," Trainor told fans in a Snapchat video. She also released a side-by-side photo on her Instagram showing the difference between the two versions.

Callahan, C. and Wolf, D. (2018). 10 celebrities who’ve called out Photoshop fails (on their own faces!). [online] www.today.com. Available at: https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna120067#anchor-strong10Lordestrong [Accessed 16 May 2024]. ‌

[bananagrey]

Just the two of us song lyrics bill wither

JUST THE TWO OF US SONG LYRICS BILL WITHER SERIES

Mizell Berry Gordy Jr.、Freddie Perren、Deke Richards、Alphonso J. Sorted by ＞ Sorted by album (Time) Sorted by song name (Characters) Sorted by other 1~1000 首 1001~1446 Song Lyricist Composer Date 1 3 (Glee Cast Version) 2 3 3 4 Minutes (Glee Cast Version) 4 4 Minutes(4分鐘) 2010-05 5 4 Minutes 2010 6 A Boy Like That (Glee Cast Version) 7 A Boy Like That 2011 8 A Change Would Do You Good (Glee Cast Version) 9 A Hard Day's Night 2013 10 A House Is Not A Home 11 A House Is Not A Home(Glee Cast Version) 2010-06 12 A Thousand Years (Glee Cast Version) 13 A Thousand Years 14 ABC 15 ABC(Glee Cast Version) Berry Gordy Jr.、Freddie Perren、Deke Richards、Alphonso J. After 121 episodes and over 728 music performances, Glee came to an end on March 20, 2015. On October 17, 2013, in the wake of the death of Cory Monteith three months prior, and one week after his tribute episode 'The Quarterback' aired, Murphy announced that the sixth season would be the final one of the series. The show was also chosen by Fox to fill the coveted time slot that followed the network's coverage of Super Bowl XLV in 2011. In 2011, the show once again won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series, and Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer won Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively, and Gwyneth Paltrow won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.

JUST THE TWO OF US SONG LYRICS BILL WITHER SERIES

The season was nominated for nineteen Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, six Satellite Awards and fifty-seven other awards, with wins including the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, and Emmy awards for Jane Lynch, guest-star Neil Patrick Harris and Murphy's direction of the pilot episode. There were live concert tours by the show's cast after the first and second seasons completed shooting a concert film based on the 2011 tour, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, was produced by Murphy and Fox and directed by Kevin Tancharoen.ĭuring its first season, Glee received generally favorable reviews from critics, with Metacritic's weighted average of 77 out of 100 based on eighteen critical reviews. The series' merchandise also includes DVD and Blu-ray releases, an iPad application, and karaoke games for the Wii. The music of Glee has been a commercial success, with over thirty-six million digital single sales and eleven million album sales worldwide through October 2011. Songs covered in the show were released through the iTunes Store during the week of broadcast, and a series of Glee albums have been released by Columbia Records. Glee features on-screen performance-based musical numbers that were selected by Murphy, who aimed to maintain a balance between show tunes and chart hits, and produced by Adam Anders and Peer Åström. The sixth and final season aired from January to March 2015. Subsequent seasons aired in September through May. The pilot episode was broadcast on May 19, 2009, and the first season aired from September 9, 2009, to June 8, 2010. The three wrote all of the show's episodes for the first two seasons, and Murphy and Falchuk initially served as the show's main directors. The series was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, the latter of whom first conceived of Glee as a film. In subsequent seasons, the main cast has expanded to fourteen and fifteen members. The initial twelve-member cast included club director and Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), Will's wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig), and eight club members played by Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Amber Riley, Mark Salling, and Jenna Ushkowitz. It focuses on the fictitious William McKinley High School glee club, New Directions, which competes on the show choir competition circuit while its disparate members deal with social issues, especially regarding sexuality and race, relationships, and learning to become an effective team. Glee( Glee (TV series) )【 1446 songs in total 】 Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that aired on the Fox network in the United States from May 19, 2009, to March 20, 2015.

[widowshaze]

late night talking | w. maximoff

pairing: wanda maximoff x gn!reader

summary: after all of the late night talking you’ve done with your long distance girlfriend, you finally decide to surprise her with a secret you’ve been keeping, but wanda seems to have a plan of her own.

warnings: none, pure fluff, hints of smut at the end but none is written

word count: 1.9k

authors note: harry’s new album has me in an absolute choke hold and one of the songs, the title makes it pretty obvious, popped this idea into my head and i haven’t been able to get it out. it was quickly written but i’m absolutely a sucker for a good fluffy fic so i hope you enjoy <3 also, a side note, thank you so much for 700 followers oh my god. never did i ever think i would reach the following i have but you guys continue to amaze me everyday. i love each of you with my entire chest. this is my present to you <3

you do not have permission to translate, copy or post my work elsewhere!

navigation | wanda maximoff masterlist

Your bookbag was the first thing to hit the floor when you entered your apartment, your keys followed, thrown somewhere on the dining room table, but you would worry about where they landed later. You had a one track mind and there was honestly only one thing on your mind, your girlfriend.

Most of your friends gave you the side eye, or even a look of discontent when you told them about your girlfriend. Was your first choice to have a girlfriend that lived on a completely different continent with an almost six hour time difference, your number one priority? No, it wasn’t. But your girlfriend was different from the rest, she was kind, funny and all around perfect. She was down to earth and unlike the rest of the girls that flooded your college campus. But most importantly, she cared.

You could come home from class and go on what would seem to be a three hour tangent about something new that you learned, and her focus wouldn’t stray from you. She would watch you with the goofiest grin on her face and this sparkle in her eye because she knew this was something that you loved. She would even pitch in and explore the conversation more which would make you smile as you continued your tangent, all because she cared.

But today, that usual pep in your step as you headed to your room, was glorified as you had been keeping a secret from your girlfriend for ages. She had texted you maybe a few hours prior, asking if you were still on for your “date” tonight. Only being able to see each other through a screen was hard, but you loved her, so you would set up these dates where you would each have a bowl of popcorn and you would watch some of your favorite movies together, thinking about the time where you would finally be able to do so cuddled in each other’s arms.

You plopped down on your bed and grabbed your laptop, flipping the screen open and immediately ringing your girlfriend. It took her longer than usual to answer, but it was something you brushed off immediately as soon as she answered, and her bright smiling face took over your screen. You couldn’t help but match her smile as she answered, the way her eyes shimmered in the daylight- Wait. Daylight? You raised your eyebrow in question as you eyed your girlfriend on the screen.

“Hey baby,” she greeted when she saw you take over her phone screen, “what’s that face for?” She asked through a laugh as you continued to give her a curious glance, your eyes wandered around what you could see behind her. “What are you up to?” You questioned and she just smiled.

“Oh you know, just taking a stroll through the park.”

“At 10pm?”

“What can I say, I enjoy the serenity of the nighttime.” You were still suspicious.

“Then why is it still bright outside?” You questioned and she turned her head slightly as if she were checking her surroundings and then faced towards you again. “It’s just the street lamps, don’t be silly babe.” She said with a nervous chuckle, you weren’t buying it but you decided to change the subject completely.

“There’s something I needed to talk to you about.” This caught her attention as she stopped walking and looked you straight in the eyes. “You’re not breaking up with me are you?” You let out a loud laugh, as your head flew back in laughter, at what would make your girlfriend think this is where the conversation was headed.

“Geez babe, I mean I know you can tell a good joke or two but that was hilarious.” She pouted in response so you continued, “No babe, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Plus, I love you too much, so you’re stuck with me.” A small smile spread across her face as you noticed her continue her walk, “I love you too.”

“Good, now that that’s taken care of, I really do want to talk to you about something.” You spoke seriously as you reached towards your bedside table, shuffling in the drawer for something before pulling out an envelope and placing it in your lap. “What do you have there?” She questioned and your whole demeanor changed. Sure, had the two of you talked about meeting each other one day? Yeah, of course you had. If anything, you talked about it all of the time, but it was a short conversation that was blown off by her telling you about soemthing stupid her brother did. But now here you were, about to tell her that you had bought a one way plane ticket for the summer once your semester was over so you two could spend it together, and you felt the sudden urge to puke.

“Baby?” She questioned when you grew quiet, you glanced at her on the screen and let out a breath. “You know, we’ve been doing all of this late night talking, literally about anything and everything until the morning, and you’re in my life, you’re such a huge part of my life now and I can’t get you off of my mind, even if I tried, you just consume my thoughts everyday.” You paused, waiting for a reaction and as you watched as she smiled at your words, you took it as your cue to continue.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I know it’s come up in conversations before but it was never serious, but I did something, and I hope you’re okay with it.” She gave you a curious look as you opened the envelope that was in your lap and held the contents of it up into the view of the camera, you watched as she squinted to see what the item was, an action causing a small laugh to escape from you before her eyes suddenly widened and she halted all movements.

“Y/N,” she spoke through a shaky breath. “Is that what I think it is?” You nodded slowly, as you watched her cover her mouth with her hand. “Are you serious?” She choked out as her eyes began to fill with tears, and you wanted nothing more than to be able to reach through that screen and wipe them away.

“I couldn’t be more serious about something in my entire life.” You breathed out. “I want to hug you, and I want to kiss you. I want everything that every other couples have with you. God, I’m so in love with you Wanda Maximoff that it hurts, and I can’t stand being away from you for another day of my life. So when my classes are over at the end of the month, I’ve got a one way ticket to Sokovia and I’m not leaving until you make me.” She let out a small laugh as she wiped at her tears.

“I don’t think I’d ever want you to leave.”

“Good, then I won’t.” You smiled as she shook her head.

“Well, this ruins everything I’ve planned.” She spoke honestly as she turned to face a very familiar apartment building.

“What plans? Wanda, what are you up to?” You questioned as you leaned closer to your computer screen, she didn’t say anything as she flipped the camera on her phone and showed you the outside of your apartment building. It took a few seconds for you to register what your eyes were seeing, but you let out a gasp at the immediate realization. It was her turn to laugh now as she flipped the camera back to herself.

“Well, are you going to come down and give me a kiss or what?” At the rate of speed in which you jumped out of bed and bolted out of your apartment, they should call you quicksilver because your feet had never moved faster in your entire life. You completely bypassed the elevator, knowing it would take too long, and ran down the six flights of stairs that were separating you from your girlfriend.

The second you hit the lobby of the apartment complex, you could see her standing out front, and that’s when it hit you. Tears immediately began to fall from your eyes as you busted through those doors and ran to her. Wanda barely had time to register that you were in front of her before your arms tightly wound themselves around her waist and you picked her up in a hug, holding her as physically close to your body as you could.

Her legs encased themselves around your waist as her arms tightly circled around your neck, hugging you back with just as much enthusiasm as you had hugged her with. Your few tears had turned into streams of tears as you buried your face into the crevice of her neck, in complete utter disbelief that your girlfriend was here, in your ratty old town somewhere in the middle of Ohio, in your arms.

The two of you stood there in your own little bubble, crying as you held onto each other. She was the first to pull away from the embrace, but it was only so she could grab your face between her hands and kiss you like her life depended on it. Your grip around her waist tightened as you poured every ounce of emotion into the kiss.

You had dreamt about this day for months, what it would be like to finally have her in your arms and what her lips would feel like pressed against your own, but nothing prepared you for the real thing. This was better than any of your dreams could have given you. Her lips fit perfectly against yours like you were two pieces of a puzzle. They were perfect and so soft that you could get lost in them for hours.

She broke the kiss first, leaning her head back enough to look into your tear filled eyes, her eyes wet with fresh tears of her own as she just looked at you. Her hands still holding your face as if you were going to slip away and this was all just a dream. “You’re here.” You whispered out in disbelief and she smiled and nodded. “I’m here.” You gave her your signature goofy grin as you leaned back in to kiss her once more.

She couldn’t help but laugh, god how you loved that laugh, and smile into the kiss as you pecked her lips multiple times before attacking her face with many more. “I think you’ve made your point.” She spoke through a laugh and you set her back down on the ground, but the grip you had against her waist didn’t budge. “I can’t believe you’re here.” You spoke, still in disbelief.

“Well believe it, because you’re stuck with me for two weeks.” Your smile grew bigger at her words, but one thing that stuck out to you, was how her voice sounded, sure her accent was delicious on a call, but in person, you could feel your knees growing weak. “God, your voice sounds so much more sexy in person.” You whispered out, she tilted her head and threw a smirk your way. “Oh really?” She questioned and all you could do was nod in response.

“Well then, why don’t you take me upstairs to that apartment of yours and really show me how sexy you think it is?”

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[gurugirl]

Smutty One Shot

In celebration of 100 followers (my blog has only been up a little over a week) I’m posting my first quick smutty Harry one shot! Thanks for all the love ❤️

Summary: Harry, a stranger to you, wants to buy the albums you’ve put on Facebook marketplace. Once he’s in your apartment you wind up giving him more than your albums. 3.5k words

Warning: NSFW, SMUT

NOTE: This was written in the early days of my fic writing stage and it's not my best work!! You've been warned 😬 xoxo

You were moving out of state and needed to get rid of some stuff. You posted some furniture and odds & ends on Facebook Marketplace and sifted through all the scammers and weird requests that came in the days to follow. There were a few with genuine questions and interest but for the most part you had no-shows or they’d just stop contact with you completely out of the blue.

That is until he showed up at the time he said he would and kept in contact with you throughout the entire process. You couldn’t believe your luck! You waited for him in front of your condo when he messaged you saying he was just around the corner. You really needed to start selling your stuff or it’d all just be going to the thrift store for donation and you sure could use the money before you moved away.

Harry parked his car in front of your building and when you saw what looked like the description of the car he gave, you watched closely as the man climbed out and stood upright as he closed his door. He was quite attractive, you couldn’t lie. He was tall and broad, with curly brown hair and tattoos covering an arm.

When he spotted you wearing your yellow linen dress (as you told him you’d be wearing) he smiled brightly with a row of healthy teeth and a deep dimple. The closer he got you could see his eyes and he really just was the whole package. But then when he spoke to you…

“Hi. I’m Harry.” He held his hand out to you but all you could focus on was how handsome he was combined with a deep voice that was lined with a British accent.

You only reached out to shake his hand when he chuckled at the state you were in. His light laugh brought you back enough to remember to compose yourself.

“I’m sorry! I’m… uh. Well, it’s this way! Follow me!”

You really needed to calm down. He was only here to pick up your collection of albums after all. It’s not like you were inviting him up so he could fuck your brains out or anything. That kinda stuff only happens in the smut fics you read. Definitely not in real life.

You lead the way to the elevators and find yourself talking his ear off about your albums and how you also have a turn table and console that you’d like to get rid of. You laugh uncomfortably when he only hums in response.

“So, anyway. I don’t know if you want to try out the albums. Ya know… like test them out on my turntable to make sure you’re getting good quality vinyl. So, like, if something was scratched I could, ya know…”

You trailed off and didn’t finish your sentence when you looked up at Harry and he was just grinning down at you.

Why was he looking at you like that? You’d probably been rambling and now he thought you were a complete ditz. Or he found you annoying.

When the elevator finally made it to your floor you exited quickly, glad for the change in atmosphere. Harry followed you down the hallway to your apartment and you both entered your little space where you silently led him to the albums.

“So, you can look through them or whatever. I won’t hover.” You turn to look back to Harry and he’s got his eyes on you, his head cocked slightly and a smirk on his pink lips.

“You okay, pet? Seem a little nervous. I’m not going to bite ya. Unless you’re into that.”

His eyes stayed glued to you and you watched as he not-so-subtly dragged his gaze down over your figure. Was he hitting on you?! There was no way. He was far too attractive to be truly flirting with you. Nah…

You open your mouth to respond but you aren’t quite sure how to. If he were actually serious you’d tell him that, yeah, you are into that and you’d let him bite you if that’s what he wanted. You’d let him pull your panties down over your thighs and fuck you against your couch or the kitchen table even. Instead you just laugh and feel your face grow hot at the image that had just filled your dirty mind.

“Cat got your tongue? You seem flustered.” Harry reaches a hand up and gently squeezes at the back of your neck. His hand at your neck has you nearly purring as you close your eyes for just a second. It’s been some time since you’d been with anyone and Harry’s overwhelming presence and attractiveness were really doing something to you.

You nod and force yourself to speak, “I am a little flustered. Yes. Sorry.”

Harry keeps his hand at your neck, gently squeezing and massaging and you wouldn’t normally let a stranger touch you but somehow this was different. Harry was different.

“Now why’s that? Are you flustered because of me? Y’got nothing to be worried about. Not gonna hurt you. I promise.” His eye contact is intense and he’s so attractive that it almost hurts.

All you can manage to squeak out is a tiny okay.

He’s not here to hurt you or fuck you.

When Harry releases your neck and moves to the albums to look through them you step away to let yourself breathe. You lean against your kitchen counter and close your eyes. It helps make you feel more grounded.

When you’ve calmed down a little you peek around the corner to see Harry holding up an album. You decide to turn on your turntable so he can test what he wanted.

You click the button on for the sound, turn on the receiver and lift the lid for him.

“If you want to try any of them just flip this switch and it’ll start spinning and play the record.” You speak softly, not looking at him in the eye as you give the instructions on how to use your turntable. You move away from the space so you aren’t hovering but before you can get far Harry’s gripping your elbow to hold you in place.

“Look at me. There we go,” Harry says and as soon as you look up at him you are caught once again by his presence and those mesmerizing eyes.

He chuckles at the state you’re in, “I think I have a good idea of what you need to help you calm down. Want me to tell you what I think?”

You nod your head, eyes still on the tall man. He moves so his grip on your elbow has pulled you into him and his other hand is on your hip. You’re going to burst if you don’t peel your gaze away from him but you can’t seem to.

“I think you want me to help you. You’re all worked up and you need a release. I could use one too if I’m honest. Pretty girl like you could really do the trick.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and just kept nodding your head. Yes. You needed a release and Harry was so attractive you’d let him be the one to do it with no questions asked.

“Yeah? You want that? How do you want it?” He dips his mouth down close to your ear and it makes you keen at the feeling of his breath on your skin.

“I want… however you do it. Anything.” You are feeling desperate in his close presence.

“Anything? So no preferences? I’ll tell what I like. I like to touch a little first. Kiss.” He speaks against your ear and it’s getting you hot and you just know your panties are evidence to how hot you really are. “Really let you get into it, ya know? I want to feel you get nice and wet and then I can taste a little if you’re up for it. Maybe we can both taste and leave it at that. But if you really mean it that you want anything then I’d like to fuck you until you’re all relaxed and calmed.”

“God…” you breathe out. You wanted that. You begin to nod and Harry moves the hand at your elbow up to cup your face and his eyes remain solid on you.

“Does that sound okay?” You continue nodding and squeak out an affirmative yes. That’s all he needs to hear to bring his lips down to yours.

His lips are warm and he quickly licks at the seem of your lips so you open up for him and you feel his tongue inside of you mouth. Suddenly you are being moved in the direction of your couch but Harry never removes his lips from yours. When he’s pulled you to the intended destination he lets go of you for a second so he can bring you to sitting with him. Once you’re both seated you resume making out. It’s hot and wet and Harry even lets out a small moan from deep in his chest and it makes you aware that he’s enjoying this too.

In a moment of sudden braveness (or horniness most likely) you place your hand over his thigh and slide it up toward his crotch, but you stop before getting all the way there. Harry pulls at your waste to draw you in closer and then parts his lips from yours.

He looks down to where your hand is and places his own over the top of yours and gently pulls your hand to over his clothed erection.

“Feel that, pet? I’m already hard for you. Your lips are so sweet. Makes me want to just eat you up.”

You look down at your hand and the thick lump underneath his pants and give him a firm squeeze and he groans.

“Mmm… yes. Wanna help me undo my pants, pet?”

You quickly get to work unbuttoning and unzipping him. His grey briefs under are now visible, along with the prominent erection tenting them.

Harry grabs at your hand again and places it over him. He’s so hard and thick under your hand. You’re curios to see him with out the briefs but you’ll be patient. He brings his lips back to yours again and you two start up right where you left off.

It soon turns into Harry bringing his own hand onto your thigh. Your dress has ridden up just a bit and so your thigh is bare to him. He lightly caresses your skin as he continues kissing you. You’ve kept your hand over his covered dick and have begun rubbing at him.

“Can I?” He says breathlessly as he smooths his hand further up your thigh to just under the bottom hem of your dress.

You nod, “Yes.” He presses his lips back to yours as he slowly moves his hand up your dress and makes contact with the edge of your panties. He backs away from the kiss and you see the aroused look in his eyes.

“Can I move these to the side? Feel you?” He asks as his fingers tap over the fabric of your panties.

You look down at his hard cock and then return your gaze to him, “Yes. But can I pull you out too? Want to feel you.”

Once he’s got your panties pulled to the side and you’ve lowered his briefs it feels like chaos. It’s wonderful chaos though. His lips on yours, his fingers gliding over your slick center and your hand strokes over his thick shaft gently. It’s all moans and saliva and rushed kisses with hands exploring and feeling.

Harry smells so good, you find yourself thinking. Nice and clean with a hint of something sweet. It somehow makes you feel better about this whole ordeal. You’re probably about to have a one night stand with a stranger you’ll never see again so at least you know he’s showered and smells nice.

When he removes his fingers from you he takes the arousal drenched hand and dips a finger into his mouth.

“Mmmm… mind if I get you to lay down? Get a better taste?” He slurs his words. Your heart is pounding in your chest and you are in a state of yes when it comes to Harry right now so you immediately scoot yourself around to lay flat onto your back with Harry moved in between your bare legs.

He gently pushes your dress up to your hips and moves your panties to the side again, wasting no time in diving his mouth right onto your wet cunt.

Harry eats you like you’ve never experienced before. He’s all in. He uses his hands and his mouth and his tongue and his nose. It feels so incredible along with the occasional eye contact he gives you and the moans that spill from his mouth vibrating into your core.

Harry lifts his head up and keeps his index and middle finger working your dripping hole as he speaks, “You’re so wet for me, pet. Bet I could just fill you up with my cock right now, huh?”

You look down at him between your thighs and he’s gorgeous with his hair wild from your fingers running through it. He’s watching you to determine if you’re ready for him or not and you’re still in a state of yes.

“Please. Yes!” You wiggle your hips and Harry grins at you with his dimple making an appearance. He removes his fingers from you and sits up. You can see his dick is still hard and begging for relief.

“Do you have condoms?” He asks. In your haze of lust you’d forgotten that vital part. You search your mind for where your condoms would be. It’s been a while but you know you’ve got them somewhere.

“I think… yeah just let me go find them.” You sit up and your panties snap back over your center and you hate the feeling because you’re so wet. As soon as you enter your bedroom you pull your panties off completely to rid yourself of the drenched material.

Searching through your dresser you come up empty but then you try your side table next to your bed and there they are. Your 10 pack has 7 condoms left inside and you check the expiration and thank the higher powers they are still usable.

Grabbing the whole box you quickly re enter the living room to see Harry waiting patiently on your couch where you left him. Cock still out, smirk still present.

“Probably only need one, pet.” He jokes when he sees you’ve carried the whole box to the couch.

You laugh, “I know but I was just hurrying.” You remove one of the wrapped condoms and place the box onto your coffee table. Handing Harry the condom you sit next to him and watch as he removes the rubber from the package and rolls it down over his impressive length. You can’t wait to get him inside you.

“How do you want me?” Harry asks as he climbs over you and presses his lips back to yours. It’s a searing kiss and you don’t know how you’re supposed to answer him when he’s kissing you the way he is. It’s hot and sloppy and he’s got your head spinning.

When he finally parts from you there’s a gasp that falls from your lips. He’s pressing his tip against your wet pussy and you can’t think straight.

“Fuck, just fuck me. Please. Want…” you’re words are cut off as he begins to push inside of you at your pleading.

He slowly enters you with his lips over yours and when he’s bottomed out you both moan at the relief. He feels incredible inside of your hot cunt. He helps spread your legs for him so he can rock into you and when he angles his hips upward you feel him gliding over your sensitive g-spot and then he pushes into you over and over again.

Harry’s keeping himself hovering as he gets into a hearty pace and you feel the material of his jeans rubbing in between your thighs at each thrust. You’re both still clothed minus the panties you removed and it’s so hot having a stranger as sexy as Harry is, over you and pounding away into you while he’s still got his jeans most of the way on. It feels desperate and dirty, because it is.

Harry leans back further to make his thick strokes even deeper and you see stars when he does this. He’s fucking into you so deeply and deliciously that you are making all kinds of noises and moans at each dip of his cock. Harry’s also being a little more vocal than he normally is. He’s so gone in this moment and can’t believe his luck that the gorgeous Facebook marketplace girl (yeah, he checked out your profile before he contacted you about your albums) is letting him fuck her.

You reach down to rub over your clit because you’re so close but not quite there. You need a little something extra and as soon as your fingers make contact you feel how quickly your orgasm is approaching you.

“Oh god. Yes! Fuck, Harry!” It’s so warm and wet and it feels so good in every way. Never in a million years would you have thought you’d be letting a stranger into your home and let him fuck you but how could you deny Harry? He was probably the most attractive man you’d ever met. And he was so good at what he was doing you really couldn’t regret anything.

“That feel good, pet? You feel so good around my cock. How’d I get so lucky? Fuck you’re so pretty.”

Harry was losing his even pace with his own orgasm coming to a head quickly. He increased the rhythm a bit when he noticed your thighs were beginning to shake. You were rubbing at your little clit with fast movements and his yummy dick was filling you so good. Your mouth was hung open and your face hot. Harry kept his eyes on you, waiting to see you fall apart on his cock. He wanted to be sure you came before him.

“M’gonna come. Oh my god! Fuuuuu…” you choked out a strangled moan as your body began to tingle and your orgasm washed away all of your thoughts and worries. Harry pumped into you a handful of times as he watched you come on his cock before he let himself go. Harry groaned deeply and threw his head back when he felt the wave of euphoria hit.

Once you’d both come down Harry leaned over you and kissed you hard.

“Mmm… that was exactly what I needed. You feel a little better now, pet?”

You are still breathing a little hard when you nod and respond, “God yes. Thank you.”

Harry laughs at your repones and slowly pulls himself out. When you’ve both cleaned up Harry goes back to your album collection and decides he’ll take them all.

“So, are you moving or? S’that why you’ve got all your stuff on marketplace?” Harry asks you as he boxes up the albums.

“Ugh, yeah. Got a job in another state and I have too much stuff to bring with me so I’m trying to get rid of what I can before the move.”

“No shit? Wow. Congrats. When, uh…” Harry scratches at the back of his neck, “…when do you move away officially?” He asks the last part as he looks directly at you.

You feel your face getting hot again. “Two weeks from today.” You smile at him sheepishly. You don’t know if he would want to see you again before you left but you certainly wouldn’t be against it.

“Ahh. Okay. Well, uhm, if you wanted to like hang out before you leave or something… like this weekend my band is playing at Piper’s bar. Be nice to see you again. If you wanted…”

You smile at him and nod, “Yes. I’d really like that. Uh, do you want my number?”

You both exchange numbers and make plans to see each other Saturday night. When he drives off you feel totally relaxed and de stressed. There’s no telling what the future looks like and it’s doubtful Harry is part of that as you’re moving soon, but you sure have no problem enjoying what you can while you’re still here.

Check out my masterlist if you enjoyed this! 😘

Xoxo

[watchmegetobsessed]

THE DEAL

a/n: i literally wrote it in less than a day because i was inspired by a movie... of god, i have issues, but ANYWAYS! this one is a classic friends with benefits to lovers story with so much angst and a grandiose love confession at the end so buckle up, you are in for a treat!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEASE give feedback if you enjoyed it!!

pairing: Harry X Reader

warnings: some, drinking, sexual content, a hell lot of it, angst and messy emotions, it’s a lot!!

word count: 11.8k

masterlist

If your life was some romantic comedy his would be the moment where the camera would zoom on you, your eyes blankly glued to the ceiling, makeup from last night smudged under them as a muscular, inked arm gets thrown across your chest, a snoozing man beside you as you have the internal little monologue.

“You’re wondering how I got into this situation, right? Completely naked with one of my best friends after a night spent with heavy drinking and ending up fucking in his apartment until we both fell asleep.”

Yeah, this is probably what the voiceover would say as the camera would slowly get farther from you, Harry’s sleeping figure coming into the frame while you’re still lying like a damn statue. This was not supposed to happen. Not that it was bad, because oh God! Harry really is as good as his ex-girlfriends gushed to you when you met them on night outs. You could never blame the women for falling for him, he has the charm, the personality, the humor and definitely the looks. If you weren’t you, you’d be one of those girls who would do anything to get his attention just for a split second. But you’re not.

Growing up with a single mother that was repeatedly fucked over by several men, you were taught to be the kind of independent woman who needs no man. Who only uses them for whatever reason and throws them away before they could even realize what’s happening. Feelings could never be involved in the equations, those are just not for you.

For a while you thought you weren’t even capable of feeling anything at all. But the way you cried when your hamster you got for your sixteenth birthday died changed your mind and you realized that you are just saving yourself the time of allowing people to make you develop feelings for them and then give them the chance to break your heart. You’ve seen that happen to your mother enough times to know that you don’t want to go through that. It’s not worth it and why would you risk it all when you could easily get what you need and move on to the next one?

Your friends always joked how you’re gonna be the single aunt to their children later who would take them to clubs and honestly? You’re just fine with that. Because you always thought that while your married friends will be busy with keeping their marriage together with whatever pathetic man they chose to marry, you’ll be living your best life without a worry on the world. That sounds pretty good for you.

There’s no need to make it prettier than what it is, you’ve had a lot of hookups the past years but you always tried to keep yourself in check, have some kind of rules to follow so you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else in the process. One of those were that under no circumstances would you ever sleep with a friend. No matter how badly you want to, no matter if they are begging, it can never happen.

But you broke that rule.

Turning your head to the side you look at Harry’s sleeping face squished into the pillow and you almost wince, because you know that when he wakes up, this gonna hurt like a bitch. He’s gonna freak out, or what’s worse, he’ll want to take it further, take you out on a date… be in a relationship with you! And you’ll have to break his heart because none of those will ever happen.

You and Harry went to high school together and he is one of the very few people you stayed in touch after graduation. Though you grew a little apart when you went to different universities, later on you both somehow ended up in New York and while you’re working as a graphic designer at a magazine, Harry is making good money from writing music for other artists. He’s been one of your closest friends these past years and while you’ve always found him attractive, you should have never let this happen, because it will mess everything up and you didn’t want to lose such a good friend.

Harry stirs in his sleep next to you, his hand squeezing your side before his eyes blink open, green irises finding your wide eyes. He stops for a moment, looking around, taking in his surroundings before his eyes fall closed again.

“Wow, must have been one wild night?” he mumbles into the pillow before a raspy chuckle falls from his lips.

Last night, the two of you and a couple of your mutual friends celebrated that Harry has gotten his biggest deal so far, having to write an entire album for an up-and-coming artist, so you all got pretty wasted, especially you and him. It’s a little blurry how the two of you ended up like this, but you do remember wildly making out hidden somewhere behind the bar before he asked if you wanted to come to his place. You stupid little thing, should have said no…

Groaning, Harry rolls to his back, his arm falling from you as he lies sprawled out next to you.

“The tequila shots. Shouldn’t have had them,” you rasp out, a smirk tugging on his lips at your words. “So, um… we both can agree this was a one time thing, right?”

Harry peeks at you, pushing himself up a bit so his head rests against the headboard. The sheets slide down a bit lower on his body, revealing his toned chest and his several tattoos. Memories of you kissing them eagerly last night flash into your mind and you can only hope you’re not blushing like a school girl.

“What if I don’t agree?” Harry cocks an eyebrow and you almost groan. You knew this was going to happen!

“Harry, I’m not going out with you. You know me, I don’t do that. It’s nice that you think that it could work between us, but I don’t do relationships and I’m not changing my rules, not even for you.”

Harry starts laughing, as if you just said the best joke of the century, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. You give him a puzzled look as you sit up, holding the sheets to your chest.

“Who talked about dating, Y/N?” he then asks. “You said last night was a one time thing. We fucked last night. What if that wasn’t the only time we did that?”

You start to put the pieces together, though you’d definitely be sharper if you already had your first coffee of the day.

“Are you trying to start a… friends with benefits thing with me?”

“I mean, you could call it whatever you want. I personally really enjoyed last night and judging from the way you were screaming my name, you did too.” Now you’re for sure blushing. “Why not do it again?”

“This is not a movie, H. I don’t think it’s manageable without ruining our friendship.”

“Have you ever tried something like this?” You shake your head no. “Then how could you know?”

“Have you tried it?”

“Never,” he chuckles. “But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. We are both cool, smart people. I think we can give it a try and whenever someone is feeling like they had enough, we’re just gonna stop.”

“What if you catch feelings?” you ask, raising eyebrows at him.

“Oh, but what if you fall for me?” he throws the question back with a cocky smirk and you smack his naked chest.

“You know I never do that!”

“I don’t think you can just decide that, but alright,” he chuckles, holding his hands up in defense. “I promise you I won’t catch feelings for you, Y/N. I swear on my…”

“Your mom’s and sister’s life!” you point at him. It’s clear that he thinks it’s silly, but you just keep staring at him until he gives in.

“I swear on my mum’s and my sister’s life that I will not catch feelings for you, Y/N.”

“Alright. And we can end it anytime?”

“Whenever you’ve had enough of me,” he smirks back, so pleased with himself that it’s clear he doesn’t think that could ever happen.

“If you keep that cocky look on your face it’s gonna be a very short deal, Styles,” you warn him, but he just laughs before he quickly pulls you back down to bed, getting on top of you, his hips sinking between your legs and you gasp when you feel that he is already semi-hard.

“Why don’t we get a head start on it then?” he offers, his lips crashing against yours before they travel down your body and soon enough he gives you something that’s a thousand times better than a coffee in the morning.

At first you’re clearly hesitant about it. Not sure if it was a good idea or you just ruined everything between you and Harry, but soon enough you realize that it wasn’t as bad of a decision as you thought it to be.

Harry is the one to call you for the first time, two days after the night you drunkenly hooked up. You’re just leaving the office when he hits you up, asking if you have plans for the night or you’re free to go over to his place. An hour later you find yourself pressed up against the wall of his apartment’s hallway, both of you eager to get each other out of your clothes. Now that it all happens without either of you being drunk, you actually have the chance to think about how good it is with him. He is just the perfect mixture of dominant and soft, knows when to be the boss and when he has to slow down a bit.

He makes you cum three times. Three mind-blowing times, and you also give him two orgasms. You try to make it equal and make it three, but he respectfully says no.

“If you touched my dick again I think I would start crying,” he chuckles jokingly, so you don’t even think about pushing it.

Instead, the two of you order Chinese, have dinner together, talking like you always used to before the deal and then you go home. There’s no awkwardness, no weird situations, not even when you leave. Harry leans closer and for a moment you think he is gonna be corny and kiss you goodbye, but then you feel him smack your ass before pushing you out the door, just like he always did before, joking about how he is gonna charge you rent if you stay any longer.

Nothing has changed, only that you now spend a good chunk of your time together naked, moaning each other’s name before you get back to your usual.

So after that you don’t shy away from reaching out to Harry as well. It becomes a regular thing, the two of you meeting up about two of three times a week. You fuck, hang out a bit and go your separate ways. Slowly, you start to forget about times when you stayed dressed up for more than ten minutes after meeting Harry.

You keep switching between your and his place, but sometimes meet somewhere in the middle. You’ve had sex in a restaurant bathroom, in his car in a parking garage and even in his cousin’s place in Brooklyn. That was a bit odd but still quite pleasing.

Tonight is going to be the first time you’re gonna be out with all your friends and Harry since the deal was made. No one knows about it and you intend to keep it that way.

Once you’re done at work you head home, texting Leticia, another friend from high school to meet you at your place to get ready together. She was Harry’s friend at first, what’s better, she openly hated you at first for some reason.

“You just had a punchable face at fifteen, you can’t blame me,” she used to tell you. It was actually Harry who made the two of you friends and you’ve been close ever since.

You get to your apartment almost at the same time. Leticia starts rambling about her asshole of a boss at the law firm where she works at as you open a bottle of wine to start the evening while you roam through your wardrobe for an outfit.

“Is Leo coming? I owe him a few bucks from last time,” Leticia wonders, digging into your dresser for a pair of tights she can borrow to pair with her leather skirt.

“I think he is, but he is going to be late. He is coming from Staten Island from his dad’s,” you muse, checking yourself out in the red dress you just tried on, not quite pleased with the look, so you quickly work down the zipper and look for something else.

“Um, whose is this?”

Turning around you see that Leticia is holding up a shirt Harry left at yours a few days ago. She is clearly confused about the men’s clothing between your stuff, because you are not one to steal them from the men you sleep with since you don’t really want anything from them to remind you of them.

“Oh, um, that’s… That’s Harry’s. He left it here a few days ago,” you shrug, not making a big deal out of it, but Leticia is nosier than that.

“And why is Harry leaving his clothes around your place?”

“Is that a crime?” you snort, trying to play it cool.

“No, but in what kind of situation did this shirt come off of Harry and end up in your dresser?”

You can’t think of a good answer that would stop her from interrogating you, and the way you’ve just gotten silent is telling her more than words could. She drops the shirt, eyes widening at you and it’s clear that she put two and two together.

“Oh my God! You’re sleeping with Harry!”

“No! I’m… I just—We…”

“You two are totally fucking! What the fuck!” she gasps in complete shock as you pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Let me explain it, alright? W-We hooked up on the night when we went out to celebrate his big album deal.”

“When I couldn’t go, right?”

“Yeah. So we were both very drunk and it just happened. And I really thought it would ruin everything but we somehow ended up making a deal.”

“Jesus, you guys are acting out the Friends With Benefits movie? Who are you, Mila fucking Kunis?”

“It’s not like that!” you defend yourself quickly, but then you realize that it’s just like that so far. “Well, it kind of is, but the ending won’t be like that.”

“Do you really think you can just do it with absolutely no strings?” Leticia sighs, her hands coming to her hips as she stares back at you.

“It’s been going great, so I really think it’s doable. And if any of us decides they had enough, we’ll just call it quits.”

“Yeah, because it’s that easy,” she rolls her eyes. “One of you will catch feelings and someone is gonna end up crying, Y/N.”

“No, that’s not gonna happen,” you shake your head stubbornly. “He promised it won’t happen.”

“Feelings don’t give a shit about promises! I hope you really know what you’re doing, because I don’t want to have to choose between the two of you,” she grumbles before throwing Harry’s shirt back into the drawer, grabbing the tights she’s been looking for.

Leticia doesn’t hold a grudge for the news she just found out, but she surely has gotten you thinking. Is it really gonna end bad? Why can’t there be a scenario where it goes perfectly fine and no one gets hurt? Harry promised it’s gonna be alright and he has been proven right so far, so why are you having second guesses now?

Arriving at the bar the majority of your friend group is already there, including Harry. You sit across him in the small booth, just exchanging a quick smile before the first round arrives and the evening starts. You allow yourself to take a better look at him while he listens to Mitch’s story and you can’t say that you don’t find him hot. He is wearing a vintage, floral printed shirt, the first few buttons left undone, so you have a nice view of his chest and his necklace you’ve felt under your lips so many times before when you were kissing down his body. He keeps twisting and playing with his several rings and it makes you stare at his hands for a tad bit longer than you intended to. God, he looks so damn good, you really just want to fuck him here and now.

You keep changing who goes up to the bar to order and the third round is yours, so sliding out of the booth you go to the bar and wait for your turn. A young, handsome guy is making the drinks and you clearly catch his eyes.

“And what can I get for you, beautiful?” he smirks at you when it’s finally your turn.

“Two vodka sodas, a martini and three vodka cranberries,” you smile back at him with a hint of flirting in your tone.

It’s kind of second nature to you, a few charming smiles and winks have gotten a lot of free things for you in your life and you never miss a chance to use your advances.

“All that for one pretty girl?” he teases you.

“I would be all over the floor if I drank all of it,” you chuckle, pulling your card out of your wallet, tapping it on the terminal as he finishes up the drinks, kindly putting them on a tray so you can easily bring them over to the booth.

“Don’t worry, I would surely pick you up then,” he winks at you, placing the last drink to the tray before you thank him and head back.

As you take your previous seat you notice that Harry is watching you intently.

“What?” you mouth him over the conversation at the table.

“Nothing,” he shakes his head, turning his gaze away, grabbing his drink and focusing back on everyone else.

You go up to the bar two more times, once to ask for some chips and once for some napkins after a drink has gotten spilt onto the table. Every time you exchange a few words with the bartender and you have to admit, he has a great sense of humor paired with his looks.

Sometime later in the evening you decide to switch to water, so you go up to the bar a fourth time, the bartender coming to you right away at this point. As you wait for him to grab you your drink you feel a hand on your lower back. Turning to the side you see Harry standing next to you.

“Hey, want to come to my place after this?” he asks, leaning closer to your ear. His hot breath hits your exposed skin on your neck and a shudder runs down your spine, especially with his hand still on the small of your back.

“You want a rerun of your first time?” you smirk back at him, referring to the drinks you both have had, though it’s definitely not as wild as that night was.

“No, but this dress is making it hard not to want to rip it off,” he bluntly tells you as you glance down at yourself. At last you decided to wear a black bodycon dress that surely shows every dip and curve of your body and apparently Harry has been enjoying the show.

The bartender arrives with your water, his eyes falling on Harry and you see that he is a little taken aback by his presence.

“Hey man, can you get me another one as well? I’ll pay for both,” Harry nods at him and there’s something foreign in his tone that you can’t really put your finger on. The bartender just nods back and goes to grab another water.

“What if I wasn’t in the mood?” you tease him, continuing the discussion where you left it a moment ago.

“Oh, please!” he chuckles smugly. “I saw you eyeing me from across the table, Y/N. I know you are definitely in the mood.”

He is right. So damn right. You’ve been crossing your legs under the table for a while now, feeling your arousal growing every time you saw him run his tongue over his lips or whenever his finger played with the lip of his glass, imagining him doing the same with your body.

Biting into your bottom lip you need to take a deep breath, but when Harry sees your teeth digging into your lip, he loses his patience.

“Or we can just do it now,” he growls lowly, grabbing your hand before he starts pulling you towards the restrooms. You don’t even have the chance to protest, not that you want to.

He is quick to pull you into an empty restroom, locking the door behind the two of you before his lips attack yours, pushing you against the door with vigor and hunger. His hands are already bunching your dress up around your waist and you moan his name when your hips meet and you feel his hard length through his jeans.

“We have to be quick, so no one notices we disappeared,” he pants as he helps you up to the counter, your back hitting the cold mirror behind you.

“Then shut up and just fuck me,” you challenge him and it makes him absolutely feral.

You don’t have time to enjoy it the way you usually do in bed, but the excitement of the situation alone has gotten you so wet that you’re already dripping when he pushes your panties to the side with one hand while his other works on his own pants.

“Fuck, already so wet for me, huh?” he breathes out, his lips brushing against yours before they kiss you fully.

“Just like how you’re rock hard for me,” you grin against his lips, a hand wandering down to his cock as you pull it out of his boxers, stroking it a few times before he pulls a condom out of his back pocket and wraps himself up. “Were you counting on this quickie, Styles?” you ask when you realize that he just had a condom ready on him.

“I knew for sure I’m gonna fuck you tonight, but wasn’t sure how long I’m gonna last,” he grins, capturing your lips again before he pushes himself inside you with no warning, making you both gasp.

“Fuck! Harry!” you moan as he starts moving rapidly, definitely not taking his time like he usually does. He is pounding into you without mercy, panting against your lips as his ring clad fingers are digging into the flesh of your thighs.

“You like that? Like it when I fuck you somewhere public?” he growls, making your legs curl around his hips.

Your hands move up his chest and neck, fingers tangling into his curls and you give them a tug, earning an animalistic grunt from him as he starts going even harder and faster. You’re rapidly getting closer to your orgasm.

“You close?” he pants and you nod. “Come on, cum all over my cock, Y/N.”

A few more thrusts and your walls tighten around his dick, squeezing him as you gasp, riding your high, your head falling backwards, meeting with the mirror behind you. Harry follows you a few pushes later, moaning your name repeatedly before his movements come to a halt and you both take a moment to catch your breath.

When he pulls out you both just quietly clean yourselves up, fixing your clothes and hair so you don’t entirely scream sex with your appearances.

“My offer to come to mine after still stands,” he smirks, running a hand through his hair before you head out.

“Tempting, but I have some work to do in the morning, so no,” you turn him down, stepping out to the dark hallway that leads back to the bar. Harry grabs your hand and pulls you back, his lips smashing against yours, surprising you with his move. He kisses you deeply, sucking on your bottom lip hard before he pulls back.

“What was that for?” you ask out of breath.

“If you’re not coming over, I needed something to have a good night,” he shrugs with a smug smirk before you return to the bar.

You catch the bartender’s look as you finally get your waters and Harry pays for them. You catch the two men eyeing each other for a moment before you and Harry return to the table and you forget about the whole thing.

A Sunday afternoon you’re lounging at Harry’s. You jumped at each other’s bones when you arrived, but now you’re chilling on his couch, watching a series you both wanted to start so you decided to give it a go together. Your leg is lying across Harry’s lap, his hands absentmindedly kneading your thighs. It feels nice, like a massage, especially after how sore he made you earlier, stretching you out more than he usually does with a new pose you tried out.

Your phone chimes next to you and tearing your gaze away from the TV you check to see who just sent you a text. It was one of your coworkers, Anthony, he sent you a raging text about how he still has no idea what to wear to the company party that’s gonna be next Saturday and you realize that you totally forgot about it.

“Shit!” you curse under your breath.

“What?” Harry asks, pausing the show.

“I have this stupid work party next weekend and I totally forgot about it,” you growl, checking your calendar quickly if you can squeeze in a quick shopping spree before Saturday or you’ll have to find something in your closet.

“Aren’t those things nice with a lot of free food and drinks?” Harry wonders.

“Yeah, but I don’t like it, because all my colleagues bring their partners and I’m usually the only single one and they keep trying to set me up with someone,” you roll your eyes even at the thought of having to suffer through another one of those awkward conversations about your love life. Like it’s any of their concern!

“I can go with you if that helps,” he offers and you give him a look over your phone. “What? I’m sure if you brought someone they wouldn’t bug you.”

“But we are not together,” you remind him narrowing your eyes at him.

“They don’t have to know that. It’s a win-win, Y/N. Your colleagues would stop nagging you and I can eat and drink for free,” he smirks, clearly pleased with his little plan.

“I mean… you’re not wrong,” you sigh.

“See? Then it’s settled,” he pats your legs, smirking widely at you, but you’re still not entirely convinced. “Come on, Y/N. It’s gonna be fun!”

“This is so cliché, Harry!” you groan, your head falling back against the arm of the couch. “Pretending to be a couple? Straight out of a damn movie.”

Harry lifts your legs up so he can get out from under them, placing them back to the cushion before he climbs over to you, half of his body pressing onto yours as he squints his eyes at you.

“We can fuck in the bathroom, if you want,” he bluntly offers and you just start laughing at his dirty mind and technique of convincing you. “What? There’s literally no better offer out there. Free food, free drinks and free sex. Really good sex, if I may add,” he points out and you smack his chest lightly.

“Didn’t know you were thinking about charging me for the sex,” you joke.

“Might as well do, baby. Especially if it’s the best you can get,” he smugly huffs and you’d retort something funny, but you get caught up on the name.

“Baby? Since when are you calling me baby?”

“Since we are gonna be a couple next week. Gotta rehearse, baby,” he repeats the nickname and a foreign feeling bubbles in the pit of your stomach. Why is this one little word making you feel things you haven’t before? “And you know what else we can rehearse?” he continues, oblivious to your inner dialogue.

You don’t get to answer upon feeling his hand slide between your legs, fingers gently pressing onto your clothed clit and though you can’t stop a moan from slipping through your lips, you still grab his wrist and pull him away.

“My legs are too sore, I wouldn’t enjoy another round of you pounding into me,” you tell him and you can see the proud glimmer in his eyes that he was the one who got you into this state, though he luckily doesn’t comment on it.

“It doesn’t have to be pounding, then,” he smirks and leaning down he kisses you, taking his time as his hand frees itself from your grip and slides under your shorts and panties, fingers meeting your already throbbing bud.

He repositions himself so one of his thighs are between your legs, his lips never leaving yours as his fingers start drawing circles on your clit, sending pleasure down your body in waves.

“Fuck,” you breathe out against his lips when two of his fingers tease your entrance before pushing all the way inside, curling them between your clenching, wet walls.

“No, we are not fucking right now,” he smirks, never missing a chance to joke around and you want to retort to his comment, but words get caught in your throat when his thumb starts playing with your clit, fingers sliding in and out of you in a steady rhythm.

“So, are we on for Saturday? It’s gonna be fun, hm?”

The little shit is using his fingers to convince you and he has the audacity to ask you questions when you are about to see stars. Sometimes you really do hate how big of a smug fucker Harry is, but it’s hard to feel hatred for him when he is about to make you cum again.

“I-I don’t… Harry!” you gasp when he abruptly pulls his fingers out of you, right when you were so close. “I was about to fucking cum!” you growl, raging eyes meeting his green irises.

“I know,” he chuckles. “Say that you’re in and I’ll make you cum.”

“You motherfu—“

You don’t get to finish, his lips smashing against yours as his fingers return, moving faster than before, quickly pushing you towards the edge again.

“Say it. Say it, Y/N,” he mumbles against your lips as your chest is heaving and you start buckling your hips to meet his movements.

“Fuck… Okay! I’m in, just please make me cum!” you whine, hands gripping his shoulders like your life depends on it.

“Good girl,” he smirks and finishes you off without any more teasing.

You cry out his name, fingers digging into his muscles as you push your thighs together, trapping his hand between them while he keeps fingering you oh so perfectly. He makes sure you ride out the last waves of your orgasm before he pulls his fingers out and without batting an eye, he just licks them and fixes your panties and shorts before returning to his previous position with your legs across his lap, starting the show like nothing really happened.

Saturday morning you’re able to quickly get your nails done and Leticia comes with you, the two of you having brunch together afterwards. You go to a new place near the nail salon and as the waiter arrives with your orders, you notice that he slides a napkin onto the table with a small smile.

Grabbing it you see a phone number scribbled onto it. Normally, you send back a smile and tug the napkin into your purse, but this time you just leave it on the table and decide to ignore it.

“What the hell is up with you?” Leticia asks and glancing up at her you see her gesturing towards the napkin. “You don’t seem too thrilled about the approach which is very unlike you.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I’m just… not interested,” you shrug, reaching for your fork.

“Not interested? The dude looks like the lovechild of Chris Hemsworth and Johnny Depp. He is exactly your type, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’m just not seeking another hookup right now, that’s it.”

“Oh my God!” Leticia gasps and you give her a puzzled look.

“What?”

“You don’t want other men because of Harry!”

“What? That’s crazy,” you laugh, because she has clearly left her mind at the salon for even thinking that.

“Have you hooked up with anyone else than Harry since you’ve made your little deal?”

“I, uhh… Flirted with the bartender when we were out together.”

“Flirting doesn’t count, not even in relationships.”

“I don’t think many would agree with that, Tish,” you huff.

“Okay, but did you have any interest in fucking someone else?”

“I don’t get it why you are making a big deal out of it. Why would I seek anyone else if I’m perfectly pleased by him?”

“Honey, that’s like… how relationships work.”

“That’s not true,” you shake your head, though what would you know about relationships? Your first and only one was when you were seventeen and it lasted twenty-one pathetic days.

“Are you fucking with anyone else?” She asks, eyebrows raised at you as you shake your head no. “Are you fucking him?”

“Obviously,” you scoff.

“Do you spend time together that doesn’t include sex?”

You are almost quick to say no, but then you realize that would be a big ass lie. Every time he comes over to your place or you’re at his, it’s never just the sex. That’s always primary, but not everything you do. All the dinners, the movies and shows you’ve watched together, when you sit on your tiny balcony with a bottle of wine, talking and laughing like you always did before the deal, something always happens after the sex.

Your silence once again answers Leticia’s question. Reaching over the table she takes your hand in hers, giving it a soft squeeze.

“Girl, you are totally dating Harry.”

Leticia once again manages to put a flea in your ear about this whole Harry thing. You wish she didn’t say a thing, because now you can’t think of anything else than the fact that you really are doing all the things with Harry that people who are dating do.

You get so riled up that you almost cancel on the evening, but you’d hate to have to sit through the evening with your colleagues alone when you said you’d be bringing someone. That would make their usual nagging a hundred times worse. So instead, you suck it up and decide to ignore the issue just for the time being and you get ready.

You were able to find a new dress beforehand, the yellow dress is truly a sight to the sore eyes with the corset-like top and very subtle lace details here and there. It’s a little daring, but everyone goes all out for these parties usually and you definitely don’t want to be underdressed.

Harry texts you that he is in front of the building a little before seven, holding up the taxi he came with so you quickly grab everything you need and head out.

You’re the first one to see him through the glass entrance doors of your building, he is standing next to the car in a simple black suit and a soft yellow shirt underneath. It was actually your idea to match your outfits and he surely understood the assignment, especially seeing his also yellow nails.

Part of you is still hung up on what Leticia told you, but a bigger one is so excited to see him and also very into his look for the evening, that you push your doubts to the back of your mind and step out of the building with a shy smile on your lips as his eyes fall on you and you see his lips part.

“Wow! This dress is… wow!” he breathes out, his eyes raking your frame up and down shamelessly as you walk closer.

“Do you know any other words than wow?” you tease him, biting into your bottom lip.

“Yeah. How about: I would love to bend you over this taxi and take you here and now in this dress?”

Your face heats up immediately, slapping his arm, but then you leave your hand on his bicep and give it a squeeze as your answer: you’d definitely love that if it wasn’t kind of illegal to have sex out on a busy street.

The ignorance in you is so high that you don’t even mind how Harry keeps a hand on your thigh in the car, what’s more, you’re quite liking the warmth of his touch on you. His fingers are gently tapping against the music the driver is playing and he even hums a little along the songs.

“Hey, how is the album writing going?” you ask to break the silence a little.

“Great! They asked for fifteen songs until the end of August, so I have plenty of time, but I’m already done with six,” he beams, and you smile back at him proudly.

“That’s amazing. Can I hear any of them sometime?”

“I mean… if you buy the album?” he chuckles, making you roll your eyes at him. “I’ll see what I can do about that,” he then adds, giving your leg another squeeze before turning towards the window.

The party is just the same as it always is. A luxurious evening to celebrate the company’s success in the past six months, a way to give back to the employees and make them feel appreciated with all the free stuff. It’s nice, but you don’t feel like it’s necessary, people would be happier with a raise after all, than one night of free food and drinks.

Harry holds your hand as you walk in, the majority of the guests already present, music playing and there are several open buffet tables and bars in the gigantic ballroom that was decorated in a forest-like theme just for tonight.

“So you did not lie about bringing a date!” Anthony beams as soon as he sees you, his boyfriend, Pete following him right behind, both of them wearing matching burgundy suits.

“Have I lied to you about anything?” you chuckle awkwardly.

“Plenty of times,” he points out before turning towards Harry. “Hello handsome, I’m Anthony, Y/N’s favorite coworker, and this is my boyfriend, Pete.” They all shake hands, Harry smiling back at them warmly before his hand finds yours again, his fingers lacing together with yours in an instant.

“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you, I’m Harry.”

“Oh my! The accent!” Anthony gushes, clearly already a fan of Harry’s. “I was really afraid Y/N just said that she is bringing someone so we would get out of her hair this time.”

“I feel offended,” you give him a look, but he just shrugs it off, even though he is more right than he knows.

“Come on, let’s get you guys a drink, we are all sitting over there!”

Joining all your coworkers at the table, you get a head start on the food and drinks, not shying away from stacking everything you like onto your plate. Talking, mixing and mingling, Harry stays right next to you, charming everyone the two of you meet, earning you some approving looks from your colleagues that usually try to set you up with someone they know. This time, you’re left in peace the moment they see Harry with you, his hand always somewhere on you, holding your hand, the small of your back, your hips or waist or, your personal favorite, the back of your neck under your hair. His presence is uplifting already, but his tiny touches just warm you even more on the inside.

“I have to say, Y/N, you are absolutely glowing!” Dianne, one of the editors compliment you when the two of you are at the bar waiting for your drinks to be refilled. Harry stayed back at the table, deep in conversation with Pete about guitars, from what you could understand from their conversation.

“Oh, thank you!” you chuckle softly.

“This man is for sure treating you well. It’s so great to see you finally finding your person.”

She meant well with her comment, but it’s what brings everything you kept hidden in the back of your head out to the front. Tonight was supposed to be all pretending, making everyone believe something that’s not even there, but then why do you feel like it’s real? Like you fooled yourself with everyone else as well?

Your eyes fall back to Harry at the table, who is intently listening to something Pete is telling him and as if he had a sixth sense, his eyes snap at you, a smile stretching across his pretty face at an instant that makes you stomach dance again, heart beating oddly fast.

What is happening to you? This cannot be real, you can’t be having feelings, especially not for Harry. No, you do not allow that for yourself, emotions are off limits for you, because if you fall for someone that gives them the chance to leave you and break you and you’ve seen what it does to a woman. You got enough of the suffering through your mother and you vowed not to let it happen to you. And not even Harry Styles will change that. This is about sex and nothing else, no feelings are involved and that will not change. You won’t let it.

Excusing yourself from Dianne you quickly go back to the table, the refills long forgotten as you take your seat next to Harry. His hand instantly finds your leg as he looks at you with a sweet smile at first that turns into slight confusion.

“Thought you went for a refill?”

“Forget the drinks,” you shake your head, leaning closer to his ear. “You promised me bathroom sex.”

You feel the shift in him right away, how he bites into his bottom lip, his bright green irises darkening at your words, his hold on your leg tightening. His gaze flickers to your eyes and you want to devour him, you want him to take you here and there to prove you that this is all it’s about: sex.

Clearing his throat he mumbles a lame excuse as he pulls you from your chair, tugging you towards the restrooms, you try to keep up with his pace in your heels, but you also can’t wait for him to slam you against the door and fuck you quick and hard.

As soon as you’re locked away from the party in one of the bathrooms, your lips collide with his as he pushes you up against the door, a leg coming between your thighs and you can’t stop yourself from grinding on him.

“Fuck,” he rasps out, hands cupping your jaw as he angles your head just right while your hands are already traveling down his body to reach his pants, eager to get them undone as fast as possible.

However the sudden rush and desperation catches Harry’s eyes and he grabs your hands, stopping you mid-action.

“Hey, everything alright?” he asks, out of breath, concern filling his eyes.

“I just need you to fuck me,” you bluntly reply, but he doesn’t move.

“Okay, but why do you look so shaken up? Did something happen?”

“Harry, stop babying me! I said I’m fine, I just want you to fuck me!” you snap, losing your patience. Not sure if it’s with him or with yourself though.

“You’re obviously not fine! You are snapping at me for being decent and making sure you’re okay!” Harry steps away from you, the moment completely ruined as all physical contact ends with him, his eyes staring back at you in disbelief and you feel like a ticking bomb that’s about to explode.

“It’s not your concern if I’m okay or not. We have a deal, just go with that and leave the rest to me!”

“But above the deal we are friends too. I’m not gonna just… fuck you senseless when you’re obviously upset about something. You’re not in the right mindset.”

“Oh my God, stop being so fucking nice! Stop making these grand gestures and stop pretending like you give a fuck!” You raise your voice and it surely surprises him, but he is still more concerned than angry at your outburst.

“What do you mean pretending? I do care about you! Is that a fucking crime now?!”

“It is because it is for the wrong reasons!” you retort, feeling your throat closing up at the same time. Oh God, you hope you won’t start crying, that will make it even worse. “I think you are taking this pretending a little too far tonight. We are not a couple, this is not real, Harry,” you remind him.

He stares back at you for what feels like eternity and you wish you could read his mind, because you can’t read anything from his eyes, he just stands there like a statue and you feel panic crawling up your spine, slowly digging its claws into your flesh.

And then he finally breaks his silence.

“And would it be so bad if it was real?”

You can’t help a sob that emits from you, feeling like your guts are in a tight grip by his words. This is exactly what you didn’t want to happen.

“No, take that back!” you whine.

“I’m not taking it back! Y/N, what we’ve been doing these past weeks is exactly what a relationship is like and you didn’t seem to have a problem with it until a label was put on it. It doesn’t have to change anything!”

“But it is! And you know I don’t do this!”

“Don’t do what? Feelings? You don’t get to choose that!” he chuckles bitterly.

“I do! I fucking do! And I chose not to have them so… this is ending here, because you clearly caught feelings,” you pant in desperate need of getting out of the bathroom, but when you are about to open the door Harry’s hand snaps against it, keeping it closed. You rest your forehead against the cool surface of it, feeling Harry stand so close to you behind, his chest is touching your back.

“Don’t just walk away, we are in the middle of a conversation,” he growls, his voice filled with anger and warning.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” you whisper, shaking your head as you turn around and face him, your back pressing against the door.

“But I do,” he simply replies. “Why do you think you can just run away from feeling anything for the rest of your life? Why would it be so bad if you fell for someone, huh? I know you do have feelings, I know you well, Y/N. You’re not some cold hearted jerk, you are a caring and loving person, so why won’t you let yourself be happy?”

“I am happy the way I am, have you thought about that?”

“No, you’re not. I’ve known you half my life, I know that you want to be cared for, you want to be loved and cherished, yet you push away everyone who wants to give you that.”

“Because it’s not that easy, Harry!” you snap at him. “It’s never just the lovey-dovey shit! Feelings come with hurt and pain and heartbreaks and I don’t need that! I can’t handle that!”

“It’s not always the case! But if you never put yourself out there, you’ll never find the happiness you’re seeking!”

“Well, for me, it doesn’t worth it! I don’t want to fall for someone, plan my future with them and open up to them completely only for them to fall out of love with me one day and decide they don’t want anything to do with me! I don’t want to give anyone the chance to hurt me like that, because I’ve seen what it does to a person! I witnessed it all, Harry! I will not be a victim to that!”

You’re full on shouting, tears rolling down your cheeks at this point. You are letting everything out that’s been bottled up deep inside of you all this time. Nothing can make you believe in the fairytale that will never become your reality and you rather save the time and pain than experiment with it.

What really hurts is that now you are losing your friend. Your best friend. Because the way Harry is looking at you makes it obvious that you’ll never be like before the deal. The hurt, the shock, the panic and the anger, it all mixes in his wide-eyed gaze and it’s like a knife into your chest.

“You promised me, Harry,” you sob, voice now barely more than just a whisper. “You swore you wouldn’t catch feelings but you lied!”

“I didn’t lie,” he simply answers clenching his jaw. “I said I wouldn’t catch feelings for you, but truth is… I already had them. I was already in love with you, have been for a while. And you know what? I think you love me too, but you’re just too afraid to admit it. I know it because I can feel it. The way you touch me, look at me, the way you talk to me, it’s written all over you, but you choose to ignore it.”

“You don’t know shit,” you shake your head vigorously. “You think you know it, but you don’t.”

“Stop denying it, Y/N! You can’t just switch it off! Loving is not as horrendous as you think it is! Yes, it comes with pain too, but the good is always there to make you forget about it. You have to give it… you have to give yourself a chance!”

“I don’t have to do anything, Harry,” you sass back, pushing him away so you have the chance to sneak out of the room before he could stop you. But he doesn’t let it end that easily. Running after you he catches your wrist before you could get out of the hallway, pulling you back.

“Don’t just fucking walk away, Y/N! We need to talk about this!”

“No, we don’t. And I’m done with this. Done with… you.”

It hurts. The words rolling off of your tongue hurt, but you choose to ignore it once again as you shake his hand off of yourself, marching back to your table to grab your bag and leave.

“What do you mean you’re done with me? Don’t do this, Y/N! Let’s just fucking talk!”

Harry keeps trying to stop you, but you’re determined to leave. Your coworkers notice the little scene, but you don’t pay it any attention as you head out of the room, knowing well they’ll talk shit about you behind your back as soon as you’re out of the building.

“Y/N for fuck’s sake just stop already!” Harry snaps, grabbing your arm once again when you’re outside, pulling you back, but you’ve had enough.

“No! I’m not stopping, you need to stop! Stop trying to make yourself believe this is anything more than just the deal we made! It’s not and it will never be, because you don’t get to have the privilege of hurting me, nobody gets to do that!”

“Who said I want to hurt you?! That’s the last thing I would want to do! It’s not as cruel as you imagine it, Y/N. I know that your mum had a terrible love life when you were younger, but that’s not the only side to love! There are so much good about it, so much to fight for and endure with the bad sides, you can’t just throw all of it out the window because you decided love is just not for you!”

“I can and I will. Watch me!” you bite back, tearing your arm out of his hold as you step to the side of the pavement and wave a taxi down.

“Please don’t get into that car, Y/N, let’s talk!”

“We talked enough,” you huff as the car stops in front of you and you hop inside, but just as you are about to close the door Harry once again stops you.

“Y/N, I love you. Please don’t do this!” he begs, so much sorrow and pain radiating from his face and for a moment you fall weak. You almost reach out to him, because part of you hates seeing him like this, especially knowing that it’s because of you. You just want him to be happy, but you know it’s not gonna be with you. You can never give him what he wants and needs. He’ll be better off without you.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out before pulling the door closed and the car drives away. Turning around you see him stand on the pavement, completely broken and shaken, his hands tangling into his hair as he angrily kicks at the dirt before the car melts into the traffic and he falls out of your sight.

You did it for your and Harry’s sake. It had to be done and you are both better off this way. At least that’s what you’ve been trying to convince you to believe.

But why does it hurt so badly then?

Harry tried you calling a million times after you left him at the party, he even came after you and banged on your door for thirty minutes straight, begging you to let him in and just talk, but you didn’t even answer him. Just waited until he left before you curled up in the shower and cried for about an hour.

The calls and texts kept coming in the next few days, but after a while he gave up. He got nothing but silence from your side and one last, long ass text that you didn’t even read because you knew you’d just start crying again, he finally gave up.

You were left alone with all the pain and emptiness and you realized how big part of your life Harry played before. Somehow, everything reminded you of him and you couldn’t do anything without wishing he was with you.

You truly believed that time will heal you, that soon you’ll realize that you made the right decision, but days turned into weeks and nothing changed, you just learned to live with the pain. You stopped going out with your friends and not just because you were afraid of seeing Harry, but because you genuinely couldn’t get yourself to leave the house. Your evenings consisted of binge eating all the ice-cream you could find in your freezer and watching reruns of your favorite shows, but nothing could really take your mind off of Harry.

Day after day you cancelled on Leticia as well until she had enough of your hermit life. She got fed up watching you sink into your pit of sorrow and decided to take things into her own hands and not let you run away from her.

A Friday evening you’re doing what you’ve been doing for weeks now, lying on your couch in sweatpants, scrolling through Netflix when there’s a knock on your door. You wait, hoping whoever it is will think you’re not home and go away, but another obnoxious knock rips through the apartment and you growl.

“I know you’re in there bitch, open the fucking door!” Leticia shouts from outside and you curse the day you became friends with her. Maybe you would have been better off as enemies.

“I’m busy!” you call out, but make your way to the front door anyway, opening it to reveal her.

“Yeah, I can see that. Busy with being a bag of trash,” she comments on your appearance, walking inside without an invitation.

“Jeez, you really did wake up today and chose violence,” you mutter under your breath as you shut the door closed.

Leticia is quick to turn the TV off and open up the windows as you just stand there, not sure what she is doing here.

“When did you clean this place? And when was the last time you took a shower?” she asks, her nose scrunching when she takes a better look at you.

“Okay, did you come here to offend me? Because I don’t need that so please leave.”

“No, I’m here to beat some sense into you.”

“Good luck with that,” you scoff, taking your spot on the couch once again. You reach for the remote with the intention of turning the TV back on, but Leticia stands in front of the screen, blocking the device completely as she stares down at you with a disapproving look, arms folded on her chest.

“You’re acting like a child, Y/N. Avoiding everyone and being mad at the whole world, are you an emo teenager now or what?”

“I’m not mad at the whole world!”

“Okay, then you’re mad at just Harry, still, it’s a mistake.”

“I’m not mad at only Harry either,” you admit truthfully.

“Who else then?”

“Myself?” you mumble, eyes falling closed as you slide lower down on the couch.

“That makes the two of us, but why are you mad at yourself?” she asks, finally moving from her spot in front of the TV as she sits next to you on the couch, crossing her legs as she waits for your answer.

“Because…” you start with a sigh, opening your eyes, but you avoid looking at her, instead, you stare at the wall across you. “Because I can’t fucking stop thinking about him,” you admit and your lips start trembling instantly, just like every time you think about him. “I miss him so fucking badly, Tish! I miss our conversations, I miss his stupid jokes, I miss him raiding my fucking fridge and I miss…”

You bite your tongue, not wanting to admit the next thoughts loudly. Because you miss kissing him, you miss holding him and be held by him. You miss sex too, but you miss the tiny things even more, the way his lips feel against yours, how he smiles against them when you whimper his name and you miss the awkward little things the most. When he accidentally bumps his head against yours or when say random shit right before he pushes into you just to make you laugh, or when he leans in for a kiss but misses it and ends up kissing your nose or just the corner of your mouth. You miss everything about him and you hate him for that, but you hate yourself even more. It feels like your own conscious has betrayed you.

Shutting your eyes closed you let the tears roll down your cheeks as Leticia scoots closer and wraps her arms around you, cooing soothingly at you.

“It’s alright. It’s totally normal, Y/N.”

“It is not! Not for me at least!” you protest pulling back, wiping your cheeks with the back of your hands.

“Stop with the bullshit already!” she growls in annoyance. “You are not some kind of ice queen who is incapable of loving! You love me, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s different,” you roll your eyes.

“Not really. You love your other friends as well, right?” You nod. “And you love your mom,” she adds and you nod again. “Would you do anything for these people?”

“Of course.”

“Do you like spending time with them? Do you care about them in all kinds of ways?”

“Yes,” you sigh, fumbling with the hem of your shirt.

“Do you feel the same way about Harry? Do you care about him, would you do anything for him to make him happy?”

“Yes,” you whisper truthfully.

“Then don’t complicate it. You love him, no big deal! And he surely loves you back, because he told you, right?” You nod. “Then pull your head out of your ass and just let yourself be happy for once.”

“Why are you coming with this too? I was happy on my own too!”

“No, you were getting by,” she points it out. “You were doing good, but you weren’t… a whole. Harry gave you everything you missed, but for some fucked up reason you think it’s the end of the world to depend on someone else partially when it comes to your happiness. Which can be a smart thing, it’s important to be your own person and be independent, but sometimes we need some help from others. From people that love us and we love them back. It’s not a crime, Y/N.”

“No, but it’s gonna end up with me being heartbroken.”

“You already are,” she ruthlessly replies, bringing your attention to what you’ve been trying to ignore all this time. “Hate to break it to you, but this is what that feels like. So why not just go with it, you already felt the pain, now you could go for the good parts as well.”

“I don’t know if I can do it, Tish,” you breathe out, resting your head against the back of the couch. “Even if I did it, I know I would mess it up and hurt him or maybe he’ll do something stupid and hurt me and I don’t think I can handle that.”

“So what? It’s part of the deal. And besides, you’re already hurting each other, so you better get your shit together,” she scoffs, poking your side playfully.

It’s part of the deal. Are you ready to make a new deal? One that you’ve been avoiding your whole life? Are you ready to cut yourself open for someone else and just hope for the best?

Probably not. And probably you’ll never be. But your tactics didn’t succeed so far, you still ended up in pain so why not give it a chance? Even if it’s gonna be the hardest thing you’ve ever done?

“Do you think he hates me now?” you ask quietly, peeking at her scared of her answer.

“He is a bit mad at you for shutting him out, but he could never hate you. That man loves you so much, it’s almost disgusting,” she admits, making you chuckle. “Just… be honest with him and talk to him. You need it. You both need it.”

Harry’s fingers strum against the chords again, trying to get the tune right, but he fails again, a frustrated growl leaving his lips as he lets his head fall forwards. He’s been trying to finish the song for hours, but it still hasn’t come together the way he imagined and his patience is running short.

It’s been hard for him to focus on writing, with you on his mind all the time, everything seems like a hard task. He has written plenty of songs since the night at the party, but he could never use them for his job. One, because they are so fucking sad and depressive and they asked for upbeat hits from him, and two, because they are all so personal, he could never give them to someone else. He can’t let anyone else sing the lines he wrote to you, but you’ll probably never hear them.

Giving up on finishing the song today, he puts the guitar aside and calls it a day. Walking into the kitchen he opens the fridge and realizes that it’s completely empty aside from a bottle of ketchup and a single banana. He’s been such a mess lately, he forgot to go grocery shopping yesterday. Huffing to himself he grabs the banana and reaches for his phone to order something right when his doorbell rings. He is not expecting anyone, but Mitch has been popping in every few days to check in on him since everything that went down with you, so Harry is convinced it’s him again.

“Great timing, do you want Italian or Chinese?” he asks, walking up to the door, but as he swings it open he freezes when he sees you standing on the doormat. “Y/N…” he breathes out as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Hi! I-I hope I’m not bothering you o-or anything…” you ramble nervously.

“No! No, come on in!” He snaps out of his trance and steps aside, letting you walk inside. A feeling of nostalgia hits you right away as you think back at the last time you were here. Just a few days before the party, when everything was different.

“I’m sorry I came without asking, I just… I would say I was nearby, but that’s not true,” you chuckle anxiously as the two of you walk into the living room. You notice that his place is a little messier than usually, but it’s not nearly as bad as yours was before you did a deep cleaning yesterday after Leticia’s comments on it.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. What… What brought you here?”

“I, uhh… I’ve been thinking. A lot. And I have a few things I need to tell you.”

For a moment Harry’s stomach drops, because he thinks you came here to tell him off one more time for breaking your deal, for everything that happened at the party. He is already bracing himself to just let you lash out on him, but it never comes. And when you speak up again, he nearly faints.

“I love you.”

It’s a strong start, definitely a surprising one. Harry’s lips part and his eyes widen, his look almost comical, but you’re not laughing, not now. You have a lot to tell him and you can only hope he won’t throw you out after everything is said.

“I love you and I’m sorry it took me so long to stop ignoring it, but I promise you I’m done with that. And I’m sorry for everything I said to you that night, I was… mad and confused and I didn’t know how to deal with everything at once. I was delusional and ignorant and… a fool for thinking that I could just choose to never have feelings, especially for you,” you add with a tiny, nervous chuckle. ��You were right. About everything. That I can’t live without ever putting myself out there and risking it. And I think deep down I knew that, but I was so afraid of getting hurt that I made myself believe I’m good on my own, but I’m not. Not entirely, to be precise. Because sometimes it is worth risking it and… and I realized that you are the person for me who is worth this risk.”

The tears are already blurring your vision, for the millionth time these past weeks, but it feels right now. Opening up to Harry and telling him all of this is hard, but with every spoken word you feel lighter and more relieved.

“I’m sorry if I made you think that I don’t love you, because I do. I really do. You are my best friend and these past weeks have been hell for me without you. I was so keen on avoiding a heart break that I ended up breaking my own heart,” you chuckle bitterly, the first tear running down your cheek.

Harry reaches out and wipes it away with his thumb and you involuntarily melt into his touch. You’ve been starved for it and now it feels like home. When you look up and your eyes meet his, you see that they are red too and it just makes you want to cry even more.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just thought that I was doing the right thing, but I was so far from that. So I’m really sorry and I understand if you don’t want to see me again for the way I acted. I was… a horrible friend and… an even worse girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah. Because you were right, we were more than just the deal and… if you choose not to throw me out after this, I would… I would love to give it a try with you. I want to be the girlfriend you deserve and though I’m sure I’ll mess it up a lot of times, I promise I’ll try my best, becau—“

He makes your rambling stop in the best way possible, lips smashing against yours as he cups your tear-soaked cheeks in his warm palms, pulling you close to him, your arms curling around his waist immediately.

Harry has kissed you several times before, but none of them compares to this. It’s messy and salty from both your tears, but you wouldn’t change a thing about it, the way his lips move against yours, tongues meeting, devouring each other, making up for the lost time and full of promises for the future. You hold onto his shirt at his back for dear life as he just keeps kissing you over and over again until you both run out of breath.

“So, does this mean you’re not throwing me out?” you joke, breaking the silence once you’ve pulled back.

“Fuck no,” he laughs, pecking your lips a few more times before his lips meet your forehead. “You are not leaving this place, ever. You’re trapped,” he adds to the joke and you break out in a relieved laughter.

“Wait, so I’m stuck with you now?” you whine playfully, but all you get is another kiss on the lips, hard and demanding.

“Yeah, forever, baby. You won’t get rid of me now, not after the speech you just gave me,” he smirks down at you, his arms coming to curl around your shoulders as he keeps you pressed against him tightly. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you reply, your heart soaring as you hear those words again from him, this time, not even trying to dodge them in any way. In fact, you just want to hear him say it every minute over and over again for the rest of your life. “And I’m happy to be stuck with you,” you add with a shy smile as his grin widens at your words.

“Yeah? So we have a new deal then?” he teases, kissing the corner of your mouth.

“Absolutely.”

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