A/N: It took me almost a year but here it is; the next chapter for Acrobat. Yay. As I concluded with my beta reader, BlueMonkeyz8, every time I update something I seem to be either drunk or hung-over. This time I'm just pissed out of my mind (but not drunk on Bailey's, I'm not actually that well-off at the moment) and cannot really see the keyboard so please forgive me my grammar. luckily I have some program to check the spelling. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
The song I listened to while writing this chapter was Elbow's 'Any Day Now'.
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Chapter 11: Any Day Now
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My flat sighed in relief as all the evidence of Kyle disappeared along with his possessions. The dust that had gathered in the corners of my apartment since the last time I tidied it up were also gone now. I was sure there were pictures of him and me together somewhere and on my shelves there were gifts that he had given me. In general, though, it felt like he was never here at all. Memories were carved into every piece of furniture I had and when I took my seat behind my desk, I remembered how I used to write dozens of letters to Kyle back in the days when he was serving in–
'Oh, stop it, Draco!' I told myself, irritated.
I shook my head, somewhat amused, and decided to sell all my furniture along with the apartment.
Only a few hours after Kyle had left, my phone rang.
"Hello?" I was aware of how some might find it rude how I do not say my name but one has to be cautious… I changed my phone number immediately after my father had called me.
"Draco? Hey, it's me, Harry. How are you?" His voice sounded care-free, and I was very happy he wasn't Kyle or Lucius.
"I'm fine, thanks. How –"
"Look, have you looked for an apartment yet? My friend just moved and her flat is free now. I was just thinking you might be interested in it, since the rent is not high and its location is brilliant," Harry interrupted me, and normally it would annoy the hell out of me, but I was just curious. He sounded so excited somehow and I found myself smiling at his boy-like eagerness. "And she's a perfectionist herself, so I'm sure the apartment is in good condition, too."
I stretched. "Is that so?"
"I'm sorry for calling you this early, but you know, it'd be good if you found a new place to live as soon as possible."
"It's okay; I've been awake for a few hours already."
"I know it's not even twelve yet, but would you be interested in having a look at the flat? I could come pick you up in an hour. And if you want, we could, I dunno, go have lunch somewhere?"
I couldn't help but smile and tell Harry that, yes, it suited perfectly, see you then, click.
Indeed, the apartment was perfect for me and I found out that Harry and Hermione, the previous inhabitant of the flat, had gone to the same school together. When I tried asking what school it had been they had given me some very vague answer, and so I didn't press the issue any further. I guess I'll never really find out who Harry really is and where he comes from, and while that thought might have been slightly unnerving, his mysteriousness was highly intriguing.
As planned, I sold all my furniture along with the old flat and moved in a week. I knew that it shouldn't have been possible, not with such a short notice, but apparently Harry had been extremely good at negotiating with my landlord.
'No, Draco, let me help you. I can go talk to him while you pack here, ok? You do remember that the furniture store you talked about closes earlier today?'
The moving process had been very easy. My new apartment was in the seventh floor but luckily there was an elevator in the story building. Harry was there to help me almost every day, and he even offered to help me with taking my new sofa, tables and other furniture to my new place with his van. I don't have a driving license at all so it would either have cost me some extra money or an aching back had Harry not offered his help. I enjoyed his company immensely, and from the way he often gave me that slightly crooked grin, he also liked being around me. Sometimes I got this strange, warm and fuzzy feeling and just wanted to… just wanted to be with him. Not out of gratitude, of course, but because he was Harry and so utterly, indescribably charming and funny, not to forget that he was fucking gorgeous!
Over the last five days he had always taken me to have a dinner with him.
"You've got gorgeous hair, did you know that?" Harry asked me one day when we had been at the Great Wall, a Chinese place, and somehow that conversation had led to hair modelling, hairdressers and eventually I had somehow ended up considering that as my profession. I'd always been outrageously fixated on hair, but never had it occurred to me that I could actually become a hair stylist myself.
I had quit my job at Burger King ages ago already and now I worked at small boutique selling shoes. Courtney, the young woman who owns the shop, was in a need of an assistant and one day when I had walked in to buy black shoelaces she had just asked me if I needed a job. The place was only a short walk away from my new flat, and the salary was quite a lot better than in my previous job. Lady Luck had never been this merciful before and I was over the moon.
The last two weeks had been the busiest and most life-changing weeks of my life. I had almost committed suicide, met a fabulous guy, been killed, I had been – um, I'd left Kyle, I had moved out, decided to become a hair stylist and got a new job. When summarising it all, it might seem that everything had happened so very fast, but I did not doubt the importance of these changes. I threw away all of my nail polishes (except for the translucent one), the dark eye-liners, and left that part of my life behind. The Ziggy shirt only brought back bad memories and so I made a rag of it. The time for faking and drifting was over.
It was a Saturday evening. Harry and I had been at a Nepalese place to eat dinner and while my dish had been the slightest bit too spicy, Harry had absolutely loved the food. Then again, he wasn't exactly picky and ate like a small, hungry village. By the time we got to my place, it was dark and drizzling softly. There were thin rivulets running down the windows of the black taxi and there was some soul song playing on the radio. The street lamps made the puddles on pavements and rain droplets on windows shine yellow. There was a brief, polite debate on who was going to pay for the ride, but in the end it was me, since I outright refused to let him pay both for the dinner and the taxi.
"Want to come inside for a drink?" I asked.
"Sure," he smiled, and I smiled back.
Yes, I liked walking to the building in the rain, because I was with him. Yes, I liked being unnecessarily close to him on the elevator. Yes, I liked it how he laid his other hand on my hip as I fumbled with my keys and cursed silently as I still didn't immediately recognise the one that fit into my door. And OH, YES, I liked how he politely helped me out of my coat. Genuine chivalry is totally lost to most of the men that one meets nowadays.
"So, what would you like?"
He went to sit on the new, white sofa and looked around approvingly. "Depends what you have."
"Do you like Bailey's?"
"Yeah, thanks."
I went to the kitchen and took a bottle out of the cupboard, put some ice cubes in two glasses and poured the delicious, creamy alcohol onto them. The mere sight was enough to make my mouth water. I'm not an alcoholic, but for someone who loves sweetness and chocolate, Bailey's is probably a somewhat natural choice, or so my logic tells me.
I handed Harry his drink and slumped down next to Harry, not caring how elegant I looked or how very plebeian it was of me to just let myself half lay and half sit on it with my legs in a generous v. With a glass of Bailey's in one hand and the other resting on the arm rest, I felt incredibly satisfied and at ease.
"Cheers."
"Cheers." Clink.
"So you actually went to the first lesson?" Harry asked, and I inclined my head towards him slightly but didn't look him in the eyes.
"Yeah, I did, and I really think this is going to work out. I'm quite convinced this is my thing."
He took a sip. "That's good to hear. Not many want to make a career out of working at Burger King for their whole life."
"It was just convenient. Nothing very ambitious, but I got by and that's what mattered."
"I know. I used to work at a warehouse for canned beans when I was 14 or 15. Haven't been able to look at canned beans since."
"Strange to think of you working at a warehouse, what with you and your fancy BMW's and shiny Fords." I took the remote control from the table and put Elbow on to play in the background.
There was a moment of silence in the room. I have no idea what Harry was thinking, but I couldn't help but wonder what it was that he did nowadays. All those expensive cars… his sudden appearance on the roof… the air he carried and the reactions he got from other people… whatever it was, I wasn't going to ask.
After a couple of more sips, I had finished my glass. "Would you like some more? I also have some interesting sal ammoniac liquor if you want a shot. It's imported."
Harry stretched on the sofa, making me shift unconsciously as he groaned. "No, thank you," he said, and placed the empty glass next to mine. "I ought to cut down on my alcohol consumption. I haven't even smoked for weeks now."
"Right, um…." I sat back on the sofa, moving unnoticeably closer to Harry. "That's… good. Good for you." I noticed that as Harry had stretched, the shirt had run up a little and hadn't settled back to its place; there was a strip of delicious, tanned skin showing. "I ought to stop smoking as well; I don't want to ruin my teeth. But then again, I guess it also prevents me from gaining weight. Of course, I'd rather be fat than die of cancer. Perhaps. I don't know. I don't know how difficult lung cancers are. But if I was fat I might – Why are you looking at me like that?" His eyes were glinting with amusement, which might have made me blush if my skin tone allowed that. "I'm babbling, aren't I? Alright, I'll just – um."
'Draco, what the fuck? Yes, you're babbling. Stop it, stop it, stop it right this instant!'
I snapped my trap shut, embarrassed, and heard Harry chuckle lightly.
"True, true."
Our knees bumped and I looked up. He was sitting with a little bit more posture than I was as he looked down at me. His arm was perched on the back of the sofa, and I could feel the warmth radiating from him as I sat very, very close to him, almost touching but not quite.
As those cool eyes of his observed me, a tender smile graced the corner of his mouth.
Sliding up a bit, and turning slightly sideways, I laid my hand on his stomach and felt how it was delightfully flat under the beige sweater he was wearing. The small sparks the little touch created were alive, warm and…wonderful.
Harry's hand dropped from the back of the sofa and I felt it press the small of my back, finders playing with the hem of my black button-up and occasionally touching my extremely sensitive and ticklish skin. None too hesitantly, my hand crawled up his stomach and chest, settling on his shoulder. His left hand slowly moved to my side and he shifted to cup the back of my head with the right.
That's when I lost the little control I had. In a blink of an eye I was straddling his lap and pressing my lips into his, forcing his head backwards so it rested on the back of the leather sofa. Soon I felt his hand travel up and down my back, bringing me closer to him.
"Mmh…" I felt him lift his hips a bit, and I smiled as Harry squeezed my arse gently.
Grabbing his shoulders tightly, I continued ravishing his mouth like a hungry lion. Suddenly his fingers were on the buttons of my shirt and swiftly he fumbled them open, sliding the garment off my shoulders and smoothing my sides lightly with his fingers. I leaned back and tugged at the sweater he was wearing as he lifted his arms up.
"Oh, fuck me!" I panted as I laid my eyes on the glinting small ring piercing his left nipple. With wide eyes, I looked at Harry in the eyes. "You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
"You have no idea." Again, he gave me that disarming smile of his, eyes narrowing mischievously. "There's only one way for you to find them out."
Not giving any warning, Harry flipped me over and I was lying on my back, staring at my darker companion, who lay between my thighs, hands perched on either side of my ribs.
"Got lube?" he asked, once we were both naked as babies on my sofa.
Heart pumping in my chest wildly, I answered, "Yeah, in the bedroom."
TBC
A/N: Want more?