CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Did I tell you my family is coming in town?” Harry asks while we are watching old reruns of The Inbetweeners and eating potato crisps and cheesy crackers because even Harry decided that eating healthy isn’t quite as satisfying as eating junk food.
“I’m pretty sure if you would have told me that you would have remembered.” I say, too occupied by the show until the words fully sink in, “Wait, your family?” I then ask and he laughs.
“Yeah, they’re coming to visit London next week. They’re not staying here, of course, God, wouldn’t that be horrible?” Harry ponders, going off track but then he goes back on track by saying, “I just wanted to warn you because the last time I had company you gave them nightmares for weeks, so.”
I laugh, shaking my head and sitting up next to him on the couch, pressing pause on the show. “Your friends are wimps.”
“Can’t disagree with that.” He shrugs, causing my lips to upturn slightly, “They may be buff and they may look cool,” He pauses, “But they’re about as threatening as puppies.”
I nod once more, agreeing with him, but the fact that his friends are not very scary but get scared easily is not the most important thing here. “Harry, you do realize that your family is coming to your flat and there is a ghost in that very flat.”
“You are the ghost in my flat, though.” I give him a confused look and he explains by saying, “I don’t know, you just made it sound like it was haunted or something. You’re not haunting the flat, you’re—living here.”
I try to ignore the statement by not talking about it, but it still makes me smile. “Right,” I nod, and Harry grins a little more, “I’m just saying, you need to be careful about, like, what you say.” He nods along.
“I’m not stupid, Vi.”
I roll my eyes, “I’m not saying you are, I’m just saying—I don’t know—just be careful.” I try to convince him that it will be more challenging than it looks. He can see more than anyone else and it’s a little difficult.
Harry seems to understand my pleas and asks, “Okay, what are things I need to look out for.”
I hold up one finger on my hand out in front of Harry, “First, do not mention me at all. Don’t say you know a girl named Violet, don’t talk about anything that we’ve done or what I’ve said and play it off like someone else said it because they’ll ask more questions and it’ll get harder to lie.” I explain thoroughly.
Harry nods, taking in the information, his eyebrows crinkled slightly in concentration. “Okay, so don’t talk about you in anyway.” I say something of agreement back and Harry breathes in deeply, “But that’ll be hard.”
I smile at his small struggle, “Just talk about your job or—talk about Elizabeth!” I suggest.
He seems to ignore the part I said about his job and skips right to what I said about Elizabeth. Which—is pretty typical now.
But he doesn’t discuss his fondness of her, instead he says, “Elizabeth isn’t quite as interesting as you.”
I just grin widely—wider than a normal person would smile—but I don’t say anything on the topic even though on the inside I’m exploding with fondness for Harry because he is just so—happy. He’s one of those people that’s happiness makes other people happy and has such kind words for anyone.
“Right.” Is what I do say, and then remember more things that Harry should and shouldn’t do when his family is here, so I put up two fingers on my hand and say, “Second, you shouldn’t look at me. I mean, you can look at me, but like, not too long, you know?” I try to explain, but my stops and awkward hand movements don’t really help.
