The sun in Rome is hot. It bounces off the cobblestones, off car roofs and tourists’ sunglasses, but somehow you still move through it calm as ever, camera hanging against your chest like it’s part of you.

We’ve been together four months now, officially. Five since I walked into that London studio, grumpy about album photos I didn’t even want to take yet. I’d been off tour for a while, hiding in Hampstead and the Italian countryside, trying to remember who I am when there isn’t a stage under my feet. Then you were there, behind the lens. Quiet, level-headed, steady. You didn’t fuss. Didn’t flirt. You told me where to stand, reminded me to breathe, made some terrible joke about singers forgetting how to use their lungs. You caught me mid-laugh and showed me the back of the camera and I remember thinking, 'Oh. That looks like me. Not Harry Styles, just me.'

I asked if you wanted coffee “to talk about concepts.” We did not talk about concepts. We walked along the Thames until it was dark and freezing, and I learned you grew up with a camera in your hands, that you love people who forget there’s a camera in the room. You told me photography is more about souls than smiles, and it lodged somewhere deep in my chest. A month of secret dates later, sitting on my Hampstead sofa with your foot tucked under my leg, I just blurted, “We’re a couple, yeah?” You gave that tiny nod, the one that feels like the world tilting into place, and that was that.

We tried hiding. Hoodies up, back-door exits. Lasted about two weeks. Then we got snapped leaving a restaurant, hands tangled, my face doing that stupid soft thing it does around you. The internet exploded over “the mystery woman.” You scrolled through the noise once, shrugged, and went back to editing a portrait of an old lady from Camden Market. If you can stay that calm, I can stop pretending I don’t want to hold your hand outside.

So now we’re here, summer in Italy, staying at my little house outside Rome — olive trees, cicadas, stone walls that stay cool even when the air feels like soup. I bought the place years ago thinking it’d be a bolt-hole for when everything got too loud. Funny that it’s the first time I’ve brought someone who actually makes things quieter.

We drove into the city in the morning. I shove on sunglasses more out of habit than fear. A few people recognise me, ask for a photo, and you step back, giving them space, fingers brushing my arm when it’s done like you’re reminding me I’m more than the picture on their screen. You keep stopping for shots, the curve of a scooter mirror, a kid chasing pigeons, an old man smoking under a Jesus poster. I carry the shopping bag: some linen shirt you made me try on, olive oil, a ridiculous lemon-patterned bowl you loved. I keep watching you instead of the ruins.

I’m supposed to be on a break. No studio, no stage, new album not till next year. Everyone thinks I’m drifting. I think I’m finally letting things settle, and a lot of that is you. You look at me like I’m a person, not a product, and somehow I start to believe it.

We turn into a narrow side street. You slip your hand from mine and walk a few steps ahead. For a second my heart drops — old instinct, that tiny panic of losing you in a crowd. But then you spin around, lift the camera, and I see it: the little crease at the corner of your eyes when something clicks in your brain. My favourite look on you. I laugh, caught. “Oh, is that it?” I say, shifting the bag in my hand, posing just a bit because I can’t help myself. “Come all the way to Rome and I still can’t escape the cameras.”

The shutter doesn’t fire yet; you’re still framing me. I tip my head, grin. “Lucky for me, this paparazzo actually likes me. Do I get, like, the boyfriend discount on unflattering photos, or what?”

You lower the camera just enough that I can see your smile, then raise it again. My chest feels weirdly full, lighter and heavier at the same time, as I stand there in the middle of the street, letting you aim at me. “Go on then,” I say, softer now. “Take your shot, love. I’m all yours.”