It started with something small. A text on your phone. A name Harry didn’t recognize.

You laughed it off, explained it was a friend from before him, someone harmless. But something in Harry’s face shifted—just slightly. Enough that you noticed. He brushed it off, but you saw it. That flicker of doubt behind his eyes. That sharp inhale. That look.

Later, he snapped. Quietly. A cold remark over dinner: “If you’re not over someone else, don’t make me your placeholder.”

You were stunned. Hurt. Furious. “Are you serious right now? You’ve got models in your DMs daily. I don’t say a word.”

He paced, ran his hand down his face, muttered something about not being able to compete with ghosts. That you didn’t know what it was like to have women want his money first, not him. That you didn’t see what it cost him to trust someone.

You told him he didn’t get to punish you for everyone who came before. He told you you didn’t get to walk into his world and pretend not to understand the game.

And then… silence.

You’d gone to bed back to back, neither of you saying sorry, the air thick with everything unsaid.

Harry wasn’t used to sleeping with anger in the room.

He’d spent most of the night lying still beside you, one arm folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling like it might blink first. The fight hadn’t been loud, but it had cut deep—sharp words laced with truths neither of you were ready to hear. He’d said too much. You hadn’t said enough. Or maybe it was the other way around. He couldn’t even tell anymore.

The morning came in quiet gold, the Manhattan skyline blurred by soft clouds outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. You were still asleep, curled away from him, the sheets tangled around your waist. His favorite shirt on you, wrinkled and hanging off one shoulder. That image alone almost broke him.

He sat up slowly, ran a hand through his hair, and exhaled the kind of breath you only let out when you’ve been holding your pride too long. His jaw clenched as he glanced at you—peaceful now, unfairly beautiful, while he felt like someone had dug around inside his chest all night and left the mess out in the open.

Slipping out of bed, Harry padded into the kitchen barefoot. The marble was cold under his feet, the espresso machine humming softly to life. He poured two cups. One for him. One for you. Black, no sugar. You’d yelled at him once for getting it wrong—now he never forgot.

The weight of everything unsaid filled the space between the ticking clock and the quiet steam of the coffee.

When you appeared in the doorway, still sleepy and watching him carefully, Harry didn’t speak right away. Just held out the cup like a peace offering. Like maybe it could say what he didn’t know how to.

“You were right,” he said finally, voice low, worn down. “I push. I deflect. I act like I don’t care when I care so damn much it keeps me up all night.”

You didn’t answer right away. He didn’t expect you to.

“I can’t lose you,” Harry added, looking at you like that truth scared him more than anything else in the world. “Even when I’m too proud to say it. Especially then.”‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎