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“When I say I’m Northern, people usually don’t understand that I’m literally from so far north that I’ve literally ridden on a cow,” Nick says, nodding his head toward the cows grazing on their left. “All eight of those guys.”
Harry smiles, and Nick thinks he would quite like to build a nest inside of his left dimple and live out the rest of his life there – where he could be cozy and warm and free from the worries of being mad for a teenage popstar.
“Once I brought the boys up to stay at my stepdad’s place,” Harry begins. Nick’s used to Harry’s stories by now – they take ages for him to get out and the pay off usually isn’t great. Words aren’t easy for Harry like they are for Nick, and Nick knows that this should annoy him – but it doesn’t.
“Liam thought a cow mooing…” Harry pauses, his brow furrowed in concentration as he mulls over his word choice. He starts again, “There was like a cow mooing in the field, but Liam thought it was someone calling for help. So we went to look, only it was really dark.”
Harry pauses again, looks over at Nick – probably to check for approval (Nick can practically hear Harry’s voice saying “Was that okay?” in his head – after Nick had interviewed him for the first time and after Nick had gone to the One Direction concert in Manchester). Nick smiles and nods – not to patronize Harry, but because he could genuinely listen to Harry talk all day, low and slow and meandering.
“So he was, like, stood on the fence asking this cow if it needed help,” Harry continues, mouth curling up into a smile. “And obviously no one answered, so we went back to the house, but they were all to scared to sleep in their own beds.”
Nick’s laughs, “Not cut out for the wild terrain of the North, then?”
Nick has always kind of attributed his connection with Harry to their both being from around Manchester – they both know you have to put on Wellies before you go for a walk even if it’s not rained, and they both ask for gravy with their chips at restaurants, even if the waiter looks at them like they’re crazy. And it obviously didn’t hurt that Harry’s literally the fittest person he’s seen in his entire life.
But lately he thinks it might be something more – like he might properly like Harry Styles off of One Direction. Honestly, he should’ve known it was worse than he’d thought when he’d accepted Harry’s offer to go on a walk after dinner. Nick’s whole family collectively raised their eyebrows when he agreed, as it’s a very well documented fact that the only post-Christmas dinner activities Nick condones are napping on the couch and eating leftovers.
But here he is, freezing cold and sloshing through the mud, making small talk about cows. Nick thinks he should suggest turning back, but Harry is smiling at him – cheeks rosy from the wind and hands tucked up inside the sleeves of his jumper – so Nick thinks maybe he can brave the cold for a little bit longer.