Page 47 of The Sound Between Us

10

if you stay

Harrison

“I should probably go to bed. I’ve got work in a few hours...” Her voice trails off, but she doesn’t move from the piano bench.

I nod, even though everything in me—every muscle, every bone, every reckless part—is screaming don’t. “I should probably ring Henry.”

But neither of us moves.

The flat’s gone quiet, just the hum of London outside and the ghost of our song still hanging in the air. We’re surrounded by wreckage—scribbled lyrics, voice notes, cold mugs of tea. Her phone’s still recording nothing but silence. We sit in the eye of it, dumbstruck by the aftermath.

I reach out without thinking. Tug a strand of her hair between my fingers. It’s soft and floral and her, and suddenly I want to lose myself in it—wrap both hands in the mess and drag her toward wreckage we both probably shouldn’t want.

The silence between us pulses. A held breath; a heartbeat. The moment just before a car crash.

“Seren.” It sounds desperate. Don’t go. Stay. Save me.

She turns. And fuck me, the look in her eyes—drowning and thinking about letting it happen.

“Harrison...”

“Harry.” Because I need her to call me that.

She breathes it out. “Harry.” And it knocks the air straight out of my lungs.

And then she’s kissing me, or I’m kissing her, or maybe we both crash into it at once, and it’s not sweet this time. Not careful or considered. It’s frantic; heated. Hungry. She tastes of sugar and late-night regret; of tea and temptation and the exact kind of mistake you make on purpose.

My hands are in her hair, and she makes this sound—low and aching—and it undoes me. I fist her shirt; she fists mine. We’re clinging, afraid we’ll fly apart if we let go.

“Fuck.” Against her mouth.

“Yeah.” She pants, pulling me closer, lips messy, desperate, determined.

We stumble toward the bedroom, crashing through the doorframe. I press her against the wall, and she arches into me, her fingers dragging down my spine, making my brain short-circuit.

“Are you sure?” Even as my hands find the hem of her T-shirt.

“Shut up.” She tugs me back into her mouth.

She peels off her shirt, and fuck me, she’s beautiful. Wreckage and perfection all at once; freckled skin, soft dips and curves I want to spend the rest of my life tracing with my mouth.

“Jesus, Seren.”

She blushes, full body. “Don’t look at me that way.”

“What way?”

“As though I’m unreal.”

I shake my head. “I can’t not.”

She pulls my shirt over my head, and her fingers brush the scar just above my hip.

“We match.” Quietly, almost surprised.

And it shouldn’t hit me the way it does, but it lands hard.