“You’d get by, I promise,” I said, patting his chest over his salmon-pink shirt.
I switched back to fiddling with his collar so he couldn’t feel my shaking hands. “It’s me who worries about what my life would be like without you.”
As I finished his collar, a worn piece of sea glass slipped out from the folds of my loose white shirt as if it was cresting from stormy waves.
I felt like I needed to hide it from him, like I didn’t deserve to wear it. The only time I took it off was when I fucked someone, but I always made sure I had it when I stroked myself to him.
I suggested the holiday when he bought it after his grandmother’s funeral, to drag him away from all the crap hismum was pulling with the press. His sisters had each other, but I wanted to be the one he leaned on.
It was amazing. Two weeks of sun in Thailand, just lazing around, laughing, drinking, a proper escape for us. Harry plucked it from a kind old woman on a beach, with so many necklaces hanging from her arms that she jangled as she walked. It was bound by a cheap piece of leather and barely had any sparkle to it. Harry said it was the same colour as my eyes that day. And, fuck, if that didn’t hit hard.
“I wish you wouldn’t wear that thing so much,” he said, still smiling anyway. Despite our ups and downs over our long years of friendship, I always kept it with me.
“How could you say that, Harry!?” I clasped my hand to my chest, giving a mock gasp. “Don’t you know this is my most treasured possession?”
He rolled his eyes, biting his lip as he looked up at me, and it took everything I had not to groan.
“You have far better things than an old piece of glass from Thailand.” He chuckled.
“I really don’t,” I replied, my voice low, too serious.
And then he reached out to touch the necklace.
Like the embers of a fire, the moment his fingers brushed my bare skin, they caught.
I sucked in a dry breath as he laid his hand over the space between my collarbones. My skin warmed under his palm, the same temperature as his.
“Harry,” I said his name like it held the weight of the world. I wanted to respond to his sigh so fucking badly, but I couldn't fuck him up before he went out there to perform.
I tried to school my fucking face and not give away the need building within me, but his hand twitched and he craned his neck, looking up at me, blinking at me too purely.
I was a fucking mess.
He had to see it. He couldn’t not see it because his gaze snapped to my lips as my tongue creased them, and his fingers dented my flesh.
My senses fled as my eyes widened, the sparks lighting into a fire that raced over my skin when I leaned in closer.
“What’s wrong, handsome?” I asked softly, my voice naturally lilting as I tilted my head to the side.
I thought nothing would break through his ‘business face’ at such an important event, but I could see it there, splashed over him, plain as day.
He wanted me too.
Harry’s hand trembled against my chest, and he pressed his fingers harder, like he was searching for my heartbeat. But he wouldn’t find it there; it was too busy pounding along with the sick lump of guilt in my throat.
His lips parted as he moved closer, and another shaky breath confirmed it.
If he made the first move, I couldn’t be blamed, right? If he touched me, it was only right I returned the favour.
He gave me a shy smile as his hand vanished, flying downwards to suddenly brush over my hip bone, and I flinched back.
I was two seconds from grabbing his shoulders and finally kissing him.
Until I heard a clink behind me, along with a rattle by my hip, and he pulled back with his bloody cufflinks resting in his palm like precious little jewels he’d mined from behind my fucking ass.
Because of course. I was so wrapped up in my dick that I forgot about the cufflinks.
He never went to a Fischer event without them. His grandmother had gifted them to him in her will, his most prized possession, the one object he always wore at any event and they had just saved me from making a terrible mistake.
