“You’re
still here…” Reece trailed off as he walked into the kitchen to see Grace sat
up the table with a mug in her hands.
It was the
morning after and considering Reece had come home in a fairly tipsy state the
previous night, he hadn’t even considered whether or not Grace was in the
house. Instead, he had headed straight for bed and passed out almost immediately.
Therefore, he was a little surprised to see her here this morning.
“Where did
Harvey go?” Grace asked, considering she had barely slept due to the pure panic
she had been in.
He had
stormed out of here drunk and angry, and then ignored every one of her
messages. She had been left here in the unknown while in a state of worry and
still hadn’t heard a word from him since.
“I don’t think
you’ll want to know…” Reece trailed off, now avoiding her eye contact as he pulled
open the fridge door.
It was as
though he was trying to cover as much of himself as possible to hide any body
language that could give anything away. However, Grace was not going to let him
off that easily, not after everything that had happened.
“Yes I do.
Where is he?”
“Just bear
in mind that it was the only option.”
“Reece, just
tell me.”
Finally
shutting the fridge door and allowing himself to glimpse at Grace, Reece gave
in as he knew she wouldn’t drop it otherwise.
“He’s at
Lottie’s.”
“What?” Grace
snapped as she fell into a state of shock at the words that had just left Reece’s
lips.
She had
realised by his reluctance to share, that it wasn’t going to be good however,
Lottie was the last person on her mind.
“We couldn’t
bring him home because we knew you’d be here, he couldn’t go back with TJ
because Max would be there, and Lottie happened to be sober so…” Reece
explained, while Grace just watched him in complete shock. “…she seemed like
the best option.”
“Harvey’s ex
seemed like the best option, really?” Grace bit, crossing her arms over her chest.
She was doing everything to try and remain as composed as possible, but it wasn’t
proving easy. She couldn’t believe these guys could be this stupid and wanted nothing
more than to yell that out loud.
“TJ went
with him, so chill, nothing would have happened.”
“I don’t
fucking care if TJ went with him. Harvey shouldn’t have gone there, pissed or
not.”
Holding his
hands up, Reece began nodding his head as he backed out of the kitchen.
“I know but
this is none of my business so I’m gonna stay out of it, alright?”
“He’s not
answering any of my messages. I was worried sick, yet he was just chilling at
his ex’s place! That’s so fucked up!” Grace continued, not caring that Reece
clearly wanted to end this conversation before he got too involved.
“My advice
is for you to go home and wait for him to contact you. His head is fucked right
now, so just give him time.”
“His head is
fucked and he’s at his ex’s, Reece. How can you not see how bad that is?”
Grace was
not only worrying about how Harvey was reacting to the news about Max, she was
now worrying about what was going on at Lottie’s house. It was about 11am in
the morning and if they were awake now, there would definitely be some more
sober conversations occurring.
The idea of
them two chatting over a hot drink and breakfast made her feel physically sick.
It was wrong, regardless of what had gone down between herself and him the previous
night, it was still wrong.
“Grace, just
go home. I’ll let you know when he comes back but just give him some space.”
Reece replied, in a composed tone yet with slight warning behind it.
Things were
bad enough as it was. Grace kicking off over this would just make things ten
times worse for the both of them.
…
“Thanks for
this, Lottie.” Harvey mumbled as he sipped his tea, feeling soothed by the hot
liquid running down his throat.
He felt exhausted
and his head was pounding. The previous night just felt like a complete blur, with
his memories of it being incredibly fuzzy. It had taken him a few minutes to
process where he was this morning and it wasn’t until he had seen a few photos dotted
around the room, that it clicked.
“It’s no
problem. You need it.” Lottie chuckled, causing Harvey to grin back, knowing
that was her polite way of saying that he looked like shit.
“Sorry you
ended up with the babysitting job. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t how you expected
your night to go.”
“You’re
right, it wasn’t…” Lottie began with a teasing look on her face. “…but you
actually saved me from having to listen to Kiara all night, so I guess I could
be thanking you.”
“You’re welcome
then.” Harvey laughed, knowing that dragging his drunken-self home probably was
the much better option than listening to Kiara trying to start drama as always.
“Do you want
to talk about last night then?” Lottie asked, and her question caused Harvey to
pause for a moment. He knew that she was referring to the Grace and Max
situation, but he also knew that deep down, it was probably the last thing she
wanted to do.
This whole
situation was a mess and talking about it with his ex was just going to make it
even messier. It wasn’t fair to drag her into it.
“I’m fine, I
think I just need to clear my head.” Harvey replied, although he did want to
rant his concerns and frustrations to someone, he also did need to clear his
mind of all the messy thoughts that were currently flying through it. Now was
the perfect opportunity to do that.
“Are you
sure?”
“Yeah, I’m
sure.”
As a
comfortable silence filled the room for a moment, Harvey took that opportunity to
glance around. They were sat in Lottie’s kitchen, which looked over onto her
open planned living area. The whole place was decorated much like the house
they had shared together because Lottie had always been the one to choose what
was what.
Harvey had
never cared too much about what things looked like, so had been more than happy
to leave it down to Lottie. So, with the help of his mum, Jess, Lottie had been
in her element decorating the place when they had first moved in.
Although
this apartment was much smaller, it was cosy and welcoming. It’s similarities
to the house they had shared before instantly made Harvey feel comfortable and at
home.
“I’d love to
do that all over again.” Harvey suddenly spoke up, startling Lottie’s train of
thoughts and causing her to frown at him.
“Do what?”
She asked before following his line of vision to a photo frame situated on her
wall.
It was a
photo of her with an elephant in Thailand. It was a photo that Harvey had taken
when she and him had been travelling together. Not only did it hold many amazing
memories from that particular day, it also held many from the whole trip. It
had been where Harvey had proposed, and where they had made many life plans
together.
“Thailand…
and that whole trip really.” Harvey replied as Lottie began nodding her head,
with her eyes now focused on him.
“It was
amazing, completely unforgettable. I can’t believe we actually did it though,
my dad was adamant we would chicken out half way through.” Lottie smiled as she
thought back to the long lectures her dad had given her before going. She knew
he had been worried but unfortunately for him, that hadn’t rubbed off on her.
“I think my
parents thought that too to be honest. It was an achievement for sure.”
Lottie just
watched as Harvey continued to stare at the photo across the room and she desperately
wanted to know what he was thinking. She wanted to know whether he was thinking
the same as her or if she was just being pathetic, which she guessed was more
likely.
“I wish we
had gone for longer really and seen more places.” She spoke up, remembering how
it felt that day when they finally arrived home. At first it had been exciting
getting to see everyone but that was short-lived when they very quickly began
to miss it.
They were
carefree with no responsibilities. They were able to just focus on themselves
and enjoy one another’s company. While many had worried it would ruin their relationship,
it had actually made it grow stronger. Lottie had grown to love Harvey much more
deeply, more than she ever thought possible.
“So do I. There
was still so many places I wanted us to go.” Harvey replied as he finally
turned his attention back to her.
As his gaze captured
hers, Lottie felt locked to the spot she was sat in. For those few seconds that
Harvey looked at her, she couldn’t help but feel like nothing had changed.
There was
that familiar look of intensity in his dark eyes. The one that she would see
right before he was going to say something serious and meaningful.
Lottie felt
a swirl of emotions running through her body, one of them being a sickening
feeling but another being an intense longing. After what had been a messy
breakup, this felt like a relief, like something she had desperately needed as
each month had passed.
However, all
of that very quickly came to an end when Harvey’s phone began chiming with many
messages coming through.
He reacted
by instantly turning his attention away from her and down to his phone, which
was situation on the table. As Lottie’s own gaze shifted to the screen, her stomach
had already dropped as she expected the messages to be from Grace. However, she
was partly relieved when she saw Kian’s name across the screen instead.
“Shit.” Was
all Harvey muttered for a moment as he read the messages in front of him.
“Is
everything okay?” Lottie asked, not wanting to come across nosey but slightly curious
due to his expression.
“Yeah, it’s
fine…” He began before looking up at her with a smile on his face. “…Leah’s
pregnant again though. They’re over at my parent’s house now.”
“Wow! That’s
amazing!” Lottie began chuckling as the expression on Harvey’s face did not
need explaining. She knew what that meant, she knew them well enough to know
the consequences. “Leah will not be settling now until she finds out the
gender.”
“That’s
exactly what Kian just said.” Harvey chuckled. “It’s going to be hell for him!”
“Let’s hope
it’s a girl then, or those boys will have as many siblings as you do.”
Lottie’s
comment made Harvey nod knowingly because he knew that was very likely to
happen. Leah would not stop until she had a little girl and Kian would comply because
in Harvey’s words “he was an absolute melt when it came to Leah and she always got
whatever she wanted.”
“I’ve gotta
go and see them. Kian’s going to be drowning in this baby talk.”
“Of course.”
Lottie beamed, instantly standing to her feet as he did. “Go, go!”
Although
Lottie was urging Harvey with a positive look on her face, she was also trying
to hide the slight disappointment trying to fight through too. She was happy
for Kian and Leah, of course, she knew that Leah was dying for another baby… a
girl in particular. However, Lottie was also gutted to let go of the moment she
and Harvey had just shared. She wasn’t sure what it was or what it meant, if
anything at all, but it had felt nice.
**
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