mutuality | wroetoshaw

eleven

DECEMBER 20TH, 2022

The last two and a half weeks had been the busiest of my life. Every single day, for hours on end we'd been at the studio, or out filming in a remote location. Management was insistent on giving everyone a proper Christmas break, which I knew was going to be so great, but they'd really cracked down on the workload in the run up to Christmas.

My alarm had been consistently set to six in the morning, where we'd arrive at the studio by seven, to start filming at eight, sometimes not finishing until eight in the evening. It was usually shorter, but sometimes even longer.

Safe to say, I was completely knackered. My body was begging me for rest, and after this Christmas party tonight, it was going to have a well deserved rest for just over two weeks.

My parents were driving up tomorrow, which meant I was finally going home to see everyone. It really had been too long, and whilst I'd managed to keep the excitement at bay, it was really beginning to set in now.

"Daydreaming again?" Harry's voice pulled me out of my head, and back into reality which was the studio, all set up for the party happening right now. Everyone had agreed it would be a hell of a lot easier if we held it here tonight, instead of going through all the channels to book a separate venue.

"You know the drill," I grin, not ashamed of being caught out once again. Especially by Harry.

"Penny for your thoughts?" He asks, helping himself to the food that had meticulously been laid out very neatly on the table. It was all actually very fancy.

"Just thinking about Christmas. And my family. Especially Eliza - I can't wait to see her reaction for the present I got her," I grin. I'd bought her a massive toy playhouse - Charlotte had been messaging me about how much Eliza had been going on and on about it. It was the perfect present.

"Oh! I actually meant to say - I got Eliza a present. Is that weird? I feel like that's weird now," he rambles, as I'm caught very off guard. Why on earth would he -

"Okay, I can tell by the look on your face it's probably a very weird thing, but it's not big or anything, I - I just listen to how much you love her and what she likes and I wasn't even looking for a present, I just saw it when I was out and knew I had to -" he rushes, then stops because he notices the huge smile on my face.

"Harry, that's insanely sweet of you. Whatever it is, I'm sure she's going to love it," I tell him, and his shoulders relax, and he looks a lot less tense.

"Okay, okay good. I didn't want to freak you out, or anything," he says hesitantly.

"I promise that you could never freak me out. I think we've embarrassed ourselves enough in front of each other already, don't you think?" I ask, and we both laugh in memory of the last few times we'd been allowed alcohol.

"Alright, alright. When are you going home? Just because - the present is at mine. So I'll need to give it to you before you go."

This was something we hadn't actually talked about yet. Neither of us had told each other our plans over Christmas - time had gone so quickly and it was just something I'd sidelined over the past few weeks.

"Tomorrow. My parents are driving up," I tell him, and I honestly couldn't keep the smile off of my face knowing I would get to see them again.