Page 132 of The Sound Between Us
“This is completely mental.” I gesture around the empty restaurant. “How did you even...”
“Called ahead. Mentioned I was Harry Carter and would they mind terribly if we had the place to ourselves for a few hours.” He grins, attempting to navigate his chopsticks with all the grace of a toddler learning to walk. “Turns out they didn’t mind.”
“Just that?”
“Money talks. Fame talks louder.”
The ramen is incredible—rich, complex, the kind of comfort food that feels warming from the inside. I watch Harrison struggle with his noodles, creating small disasters with every attempt, and can’t stop laughing.
“You’re hopeless.”
“I’m charmingly incompetent. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Absolutely. One’s endearing, the other’s just sad.”
I steal a piece of his pork with my chopsticks, executing the manoeuvre with practised precision. “Show-off,” he mutters.
“University. Lot of cheap noodle shops near campus.”
The rain intensifies, creating a cocoon of sound around us. Through the glass, Tokyo glitters.
“Are you going to tell me what Henry was so furious about the other night?” I ask it lightly, and Harrison’s chopsticks still against his bowl.
“Henry’s a bastard. Always has been.”
“Well, I guess he’s been looking after you all a long time.”
Harrison sets down his chopsticks and reaches across the small table for my hand. “He’s been managing us for ten years, Seren. But he stopped caring about looking after us a long time ago. He thinks he knows me, what I’m thinking, what’s real…”
“And he thinks this isn’t?”
“This?” He gestures between us, at the empty restaurant, at the intimacy we’ve carved out of chaos. “This is the first real thing I’ve ever done.”
My breath catches. “He seemed so sure.”
“He’s invested in me staying the same. In me needing him.” Harrison’s thumb traces circles across my knuckles. “But I don’t need him anymore. I need you.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you too. And I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding needing anyone.”
Harrison lifts our joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my palm. “Maybe we can be terrified together.”
Outside, the rain pounds harder against the glass, turning the world blurred.
“What do you want?” I ask suddenly. “After all this. After Elementary, after the tours and the cameras and Henry’s poison. What do you actually want?”
He’s quiet for a moment, considering. “I want to wake up in the same bed every morning. I want to write songs that mean something. I want to watch you become the artist you’re supposed to be and know I get to be part of that story.”
“That sounds domestic.”
“Domestically blissful.”
“What about the fame? The adoration? All those people screaming your name?”
