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1800titz · 6 months ago

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HI BESTIES. Trivia!Harry x Shy!Reader part 1 ((based on THIS post))

The one where Harry hosts trivia at a small town bar every Thursday and you just can’t seem to shut up.

WC: 3.7K

This is part one of a patreon exclusive series — the rest will only be accessible through my patreon. You can already find part 2 up on my patreon (✿◠‿◠)

You take a long drink. It tastes like kismet and carbonated nothingness.

(Retrospect will tell you that it's meant to be— tiny town, diminutive ambitions, hulking potential. But now, the twinge of an uncomfortable fever crawls up from your collar and makes you want to squirm in your seat.)

“Alright, alright, alright.”

And the smooth baritone against the head of a microphone makes your insides squeeze. Close. Real close— his mouth is pink, hovering millimeters, and that brass is the kind that seeps over your nape, under your skin. Molasses-heavy, slinking the gaps in the meshed grill caging. You blink up at the portable four-by-eight platform.

It's the kind of squeeze along your guts, the heat simmering in your face the longer you stare, that'll taunt you in the ridges of the night. Boxed into this— tonight, under a parapet— comfort zone hovering beyond your periphery, in the nook of the living room you left behind to wrack your head and stare at sin-in-bulk on a mobile stage.

The lively chatter dulls as heads turn, and then swells in eager increments.

“Alright,” he says, a set of green eyes flickering from the monitor he’s settled over a rejigged high top, bounding sharply to whoever’s just given an overly enthusiastic cry of yes from the horde.

A peal of sparse, scattered laughter blooms in the throng. His mouth quirks.

“Very enthusiastic. How are you?”

His cresting gaze climbs from the glowy screen, casting light and carving shadow over the sultry features of his visage; an evenly straight slope of a nose, cheekbones feathered by long lashes, a bit of curl that traipses over his forehead.

His chin swivels to his left, somewhere closer to the platform where a woman leans over the table— her designated team. The corners of his lips curl in response to whatever she’s said. He smiles. Nods. He tips his chin. Makes a creased face like something playful. Says something else, laughs softly, and turns back, shaking his head.

You tuck the straw into your mouth and take another, long slow sip.

In the heft of his hand, the stem of the mic nearly resembles a toy. A maquette between the thick of his fingers.

“Hope everyone’s having a lovely Thursday. M’Harry, I’ll be leading the trivia— as I do— so if you’re sitting there going, who is this obnoxious cock, talking into the mic the whole night? Hi, Hello. That’s me— I do trivia.”

You get it now. The infamous cynosure is fit.

At first, you had been dubious to desert your romcom reruns and your cross-stitch project mid-way (despite the fact that your thumb now resembles a pin cushion) when your friends had swept you off into their regularly scheduled, mysteriously niche Thursday night schemes. Now, you get it.

The destination— The Black Horse— is a fuggy little space that smells like spilt Michelob and fusty, weathered oak. There’s a no smoking sign pasted in a spare crevice of the backbar, but someone in the far right corner exhales a plume of vapor like they’ve hit their elfbar in the most nonchalantly covert manner imaginable. Shamelessly. It’s a small town— an islet in the heart of an archipelago— and you think you can make out your seventh grade swim team rival perched somewhere off in the front row.

The Black Horse is nothing special. It sells cheap draughts by the pitcher and parallels a barbershop in the crux of the town, two blocks off the boardwalk, which is arguably the chiseled, shiny musgravite of Treah’s core— a roaring green sea that eats away at the borders of the isle, shrouding vibrantly hued cays, glimmering under the beam of the sun. The majority of the holm’s economy is dependent on tourism (a simultaneous bane— said tourists enjoy uprooting foliage, building infrastructures, and partaking in chunks of housing buyouts), but you can tell that The Black Horse has been …preserved to say the least. It’s four stone walls sewn into a plaza with three other natively owned businesses and looks like something straight out of a cinematic piece set in a rural village, planted into Treah long before you had her first wiggly tooth.

The Black Horse isn’t what makes attendance worth it. It’s him—

“We’ve got a crowd tonight. If you haven’t played trivia with me here at The Black Horse before, welcome. S’a little different than your typical trivia, though, because it’s…”

The crowd hollers back, as if scripted, “Dirty trivia!”

“Dirty Trivia,” Harry echoes, and when the edges of his lips crook, dimples burrow beside the corners, “Right, Dirty Trivia. This one’s rated R, so if you’re not old enough to be here, I dunno how you got here, but this is going to be your cue to head out. Any— any children in here tonight? …No? Wonderful.”

He huffs into the mic, shaking his head and jostling his halo of curls. A jaundiced, warm beam catches on them. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but m’not even joking— a couple of weeks ago someone was sitting in here with, like, a little kid.”

It’s Harry, with the divots burrowing into his cheeks, the croon into the mic, lighting the crowd alive on an introduction. Incandescent (speckled in stars, spelled out— you don't get that bit, yet.)

You cross your legs. Your friend raises her eyebrows from across the teak table top and says it with her eyes. Told you so; Trivia Man is a cream dream.

“Yeah,” Harry confirms over the dispersed, appalled eruption of laughter, nodding down at someone seated at a table closer to the stage, “I was, like, …shit,” he blinks back up and motions out, a slow sweep with his free hand, “Friendly reminder, this is not a form of sex ed.”

Pausing, (lips twitchy over the sown mirth), he brings the microphone back with a newfound seriousness and tacks on, nodding slowly, “…That kid won it for the whole team.”

He smiles. It's a lopsided spall of a ruddy seam that shows teeth, and that's when you recognize the heinous, gurgling froth of a new addiction. Incipient, blooming along your shimmery, star-struck eyes.

“No, m’joking,” he clears his throat. “M’gonna pass out a sheet and some little note pads for your answers. You’re gonna use one of those little notes to jot down a clever team name, do the same in that team name spot of the sheet, and then pass the note up to me.”

Pussy Posse. A pre-established moniker you have had no jurisdiction over, merely perched as an addition to a settled cadre. Still, you gnaw into your cheek when you watch a friend beside you scribble in the title with a ballpoint.

“I’ll be coming around between questions to pick those answers up, have a chat, whatever. We’re all here to have fun, yes?”

You swear he sweeps you with his eyes, like a passing tide gliding the sea. Probably just the way the green in his sockets meets everyone else in the throng, but the moment it happens your molars chew in harder.

“On the topic of fun, let’s keep it nice and fair, yeah? Phones put away— no cheating— you’ll have plenty of time to check those when we have our break midway.”

It feels ignoble to eye-fuck him from behind the sheathes of your empty irises as he paces the stage— after all, this is just a wholesomely clad, virtuously upstanding guy leading trivia, but. The gears behind your skull are mottled with the amalgam of a fawning affliction— cerebrospinal fluid and sticky tar. It leaves you in a goop of thoughtless ogling that renders your head empty. Even when he makes his way to the bar-height table your team curls around, when his eyes linger on you— “A new face.”— you just...

Mindlessly stare.

Dirty trivia, you learn, is dirty.

It hits you when Harry quips (dare you note, mischievously), “Hoo-hoo-hoo. Starting off strong with the first one.”

He states, talc flickering from the LED display ahead to the bevy of trivia-players, “What country,” and pauses for emphasis, “has—“ pits grub at the smooth of his cheeks, beside the grin that splinters to show ivory teeth, “the highest average, in the world, for penis size?”

There’s no source of entertainment like that of trivia held, on a Thursday, on a remote islet, in a poky bar that smells like stale beer and dust-coated, chipping leather. Evidently.

“I actually don’t know this one,” Harry chimes, raising a wry shoulder, “So it’s trivia for me, as well.”

“England,” Marina stamps a blow that the teak hasn’t warranted, whisper-shouting over the staggering peals of guffaw and chatter, “He’s hung, I bet you.”

“He’s not going to fuck you for writing in England,” Beth’s chortles clash with your scorned, “Marina.”

“That’s not even an answer,” Bee waves towards the flatscreen framed over the man’s head.

Senegal, Haiti, Ecuador, and Gambia.

“Where the fuck is Gambia—”

You settle on Gambia.

You watch Beth scribble it in and dot the i with an open sphere. The edges don’t meet. When Harry winds the rows of tables, plucking answer cards and making small-talk, you cast your inkpools into your glass, pyrexia across the bridge of your nose, brain-rotted with the insinuation of him being …hung.

“Lots of Haiti, lots of Senegal,” Harry states, once he’s smoothed the cards out with his colossal, ringed paws, and looked them over.

You stare at the bob of his throat as he swallows, directing the mic back to his lips.

“Big reveal?” He pauses, as if for cataclysmic emphasis, riling the crowd enough for you to note restive shoulders and juddering feet.

“Patience,” Harry says softly into the microphone, raising his eyebrows. It's a muted word that clicks in the speaker with a thump. Throbs between your ribs, under your cold hands.

With paltry warning, he reveals, “Ecuador! At,” squinting at the blue-toned LED, “—a whopping 6-point-nine-three. Solid for the average. Do we have any Ecuadorian men in the audience tonight? Anybody who’s added to that average? Congratulations. You beat us. You beat everyone.”

There’s a dissonant slurry of responses, some ripostes flung along tables, some bouts of clapping, hollering over the rows, sloshing mugs raised in triumph.

Harry’s deltoids climb in a shrug, and his head wags from side to side, “Some valiant contenders, those Ecuadorians.”

“I told you it wasn’t Gambia—“

You ogles the way Harry tilts over the platform towards a table, brows kinked as if trying to pick up something audible he’d missed. In your periphery, Marina prods into Beth’s direction with a palmful of something claret in a pellucid martini glass.

“What was that?” Harry coaxes into the microphone.

The corners of his mouth have caved up, and by the time the majority of the trivia-players sink into a piqued lull, he’s slanted over toward the table. A brunette with long, shiny hair arches up out of her seat into her directions, braced to the teak high-top with planted, elbow-locked arms.

“Where do you fall?” is undeniable the second time.

Harry blinks. His mouth paints over with a smile.

“Where do I fall?”

He blatantly bridles a sputter when he winds toward the laptop he’s set up, culls his glass of a golden, pale straw beer that’s lost its layer of foam, and takes a long drink. Clears his throat. “Wouldn’t you like to know. Very forward. Take me out to dinner first.”

You discover that, despite the ubiquitously crude sexualizing, Harry is sort of like a bird. An Indian Peafowl, preening with its neatly arranged plume— he likes it. The flattery. His tongue peeks out and swipes along as he stares down at the screen. Little dimples pit when it tucks back in— ones he blatantly can’t contain.

He chuckles and states into the microphone, “…Below. Don’t worry about it.”

Somehow, you doubt it. -

You plait yourself into the Thursday Fawn Sessions as a regular attendee, curling up at the same high top to ogle the same man pace a platform with a microphone. Watch him make jesting comments and ask things like, “Axillism is the act of using what strange body part during sex?”

You find yourself learning a thing or two from each session, and you find that the emeralds seated in his sockets linger on you, sometimes— this absolute clam shell taking up a spot in the bar and chugging fizzy water (ogling his frame in lull every time he approaches your table), too. Pussy Posse is no good at the trivia, more often than not wheedling in second-to-last, but you find yourself much too entertained to mind.

Franks is a self-explanatory hot dog cart. It stands midway on the boardwalk and operates through sunny mizzles and borderline hurricane cloudbursts, when the green salt chuck is choppy. High tiding. Those are the days you stand out in your jaundiced poncho, salty rain spittle beating at your cheeks, and watch the waves eat at the ipe in a nasty, wet hunger, no customers in sight.

Midsummer afternoons, though, are good. Busy. When Treah morphs industrious and bustling — tourists like Franks on the boardwalk.

It’s a slow coda for June. The sea is planate, swaying over steel supports mantled by barnacles. Gulls chortle, gliding low in the ether— it oozes yellow, something balmy like the goo of an egg yolk. You've sold two hot dogs, tallied three joggers (one eager speedwalker), and noted one couple pushing a baby in a stroller, who offered tight-lipped smiles and veganism. You don't entirely mind a slow day, because setting shop on the boardwalk means spending the day on the boardwalk. Breathing the sea until your lungs are full of salt and your eardrums reverberate the crash of the water behind your skull. You taste it at the back of your throat— something like home as home could get.

There’s another jogger loping— a moving blip of skin color in chiaroscuro against wood paneling. In the distance. Drawing closer. You imagine him passing the cart, the soles of his trainers padding over the row of planks until he’s just another form of lines and shading, faced away. You check your phone.

The jogger is still a good bit away. You swipe open Wordle. You're on your third attempt of elucidating something that goes blank, I, blank, E, blank (with a P that doesn’t quite fit where you've slotted it)—

“Hi.”

Your eyes crest.

Treah is a really small town. Not in a prudishly, bible-bashing form of a pastoral village, sheathed in a bosky, wooded moat of thicket and then plains of nothingness for hundreds of miles. But it is an island enveloped by the sea from all sides, sequestered without a boat or a little plane, whose wheels bumpily kiss the asphalt of anearly comically small airport. Even the tourists lodging up in their summer homes, all the same months like annual clockwork, make reappearances. The faces are, nearly always, the same, and you see the same faces often. It was only a (limited) matter of time before you'd coalesced beyond the borders skirting The Black Horse.

In hindsight, you didn’t envisage that you'd be wearing a baseball cap emblematized with a weenie when it happened. Or that his tits would be out and about.

“Have you got water?”

He’s panting. Casually slippery; coated in sweat that glimmers in the sun and carves the well-toned sinews of his torso, with sunglasses tucked up over his curls like a makeshift headband. He ogles expectantly with a set of jade that puts the hues of the lapping, green sea behind him to shame. A parted mouth, sculpted and cushiony, sucks in breaths from the liminal space divvying their atoms while your own become clogged, somewhere midway an esophageal prison, in limbo toward your lungs. A shaded lepidoptera scored over his tummy flutters, batting its wings in the swell and sink of his diaphragm expanding.

His shorts are teeny. Tiny, little things. Cobalt. Mirroring laurels carving alongside his V-line peek from the waistband, and a happy trail climbs to kiss his navel.

You blink. “Yes. Yeah. We do. Yes. …Is bottled okay?”

“Bottled is perfect.”

He sticks a hand into his pocket, eyes flickering to your face, away, back. Slow-like. You trace the wisps in the sky with your eyes, heat searing up your neck and pooling in the flesh of your face. It’s a sudden, unforeseen stuffiness sweltering for such a beautiful day. You recognize your horrid blunder in his next words.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

You should have ducked your chin, tucked the visor lower, and hoped for the best. Instead, now, you blink, dazed and wide-eyed like a Red brocket saturated by blinding headlights.

“Oh. I’m not sure. Um. Small …town— maybe?”

“You come to, uh—“ a nudge with his chin in your direction as you arduously regulate the stuttery pace of your respiration. The jitter in your fingers, like a lovesick school girl. You cache them behind the cart and let them judder. “—trivia nights. At The Black Horse, yeah? I couldn’t forget a face like yours.”

Harry grins, the way he does. Lopsided, so the left corner turns up a little higher— dimpled with a long flash of teeth. Except now, he’s slippery and half-naked.

Folie. Miscalculated gaffe in a weenie cap. Your smile is tight.

“Oh—“ again, “…Yeah.”

“Right,” Harry nods. Smiley. Lingering, looking you over. He buries an enormous hand back into his pocket then, brows creasing like he’s remembered something, and pulls out a little rectangle in cardboard paper. “Hey, actually. I’ve got this coupon here. S’what I do all the other days of the week, ah—“

He extends it out.

Harve-y a free drink, on us!

“M’a bartender over at Harvey’s. S’close to The Black Horse, if you’re in that area. Monday and Saturday mornings. Wednesday and Friday nights. If you come by, I’ll fix you up with a drink.”

It feels impolite to leave him hanging, so you swipe out at the offering, cradling it with slow fingertips.

“We can do some one on one trivia. Train you up,” Harry tacks on.

You swallow. Harry is an attractive man. His allure is apodictic— a sort of conventional, objective quality that leaves your throat parched when it becomes paired with his unfaltering eye contact. You're not a virgin, and you're an adept swimmer, but his presence feels like viridian saltwater that’s waiting to swallow her whole. The nerves that bubble, a fizz of chagrin, remind you why exactly you enjoy fawning from a distance. Because he makes you feel nervous, and when you're nervous, the dialogue spumes like miasmic word vomit.

He’s got a thin sheathe of sweat that glimmers in the seat of his cupid’s bow, but it’s not in a gross way. In fact, it reminds you that the rest of him, his denuded skin, is slick, because he’s been jogging along the boardwalk. It reminds you how hard it is not to openly ogle the tattoos he’s got on show. You should have called out from your weenie gig, and you should have refilled her alprazolam prescription weeks ago.

“Oh,” you tell him, slowly, face creasing, “I don’t— I don’t drink.”

Harry blinks. It’s a weird confession, considering you're a Thursday night regular at a bar that’s really only good for anything that has enough alcohol to shroud the stale taste perfuming the air. Still, nothing beyond open expectancy erupts along his features, and that’s worse. You feel them crawling up your throat, clambering up the back of your tongue like the words have knobby joints. They meet the backs of your teeth, waiting to spew.

“—Not because I’m a recovering alcoholic or anything, I just don’t like the way it makes me feel. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or drinking. I actually think it’s so admirable. You know? Like, to be brave… and… and a lot of times those people will attend support groups—“

Harry blinks again.

“—And they talk about it. I can’t imagine sharing something like that— not that there’s anything wrong with it! But. Um. I always get virgin cocktails at The Black Horse. Or club soda. Or juice.”

Her lips seal over. You entrap the rest behind your traitorous teeth — a drawbridge that never should’ve sunk open. Despite your overly candid, overstated explanation, you don't stick the coupon back out in his direction. You harbor it in your hand, blinking slowly and gnawing into your cheek.

“…S’okay. We do orange juice, too,” Harry tells her, entirely casual despite your discomfited speech, raising his brows.

There’s the curbed efforts of a bemusedly mirthy grin at the corners of his mouth, and his nonchalant bearing only makes your face hotter. You feels like you're broiling under the shade of the awning.

“And club soda.”

“…Cool,” You settle on, tightly.

“Sick.”

“…It’s, uh… two dollars,” you tell him when the reticence starts to suffocate you.

You're going to go home and ram your head through a window.

“Oh,” Harry casts his gaze to the water (it has the average, entirely typical proportions of a water bottle, but in his hand, it’s nearly miniature), as if he’s forgotten the chilly source of condensation coating his palm. That he’s in arrears. He sticks his free hand into the same pocket where the coupon was stuffed, “Right. I think I’ve got two dollars in here, somewhere.”

Instead, when he stretches a bill out towards you, it’s worth ten. You avoid eye contact. You reach for the cash box tucked below, and you pry the lid up to delegate his change.

“Oh,” Harry echoes, raising his enormous hand in effort of halting you, “S’alright. S’yours.”

“Oh. I… can’t take tips. It’s, like. Against the code of conduct.”

“Code of conduct at a …hot dog stand?”

As if you needed to be reminded that you're donning a silly cap with an animated frank, standing on a boardwalk that’s practically empty of prospective patrons. The chagrin churns in your stomach and surfaces in the set line of your mouth.

“…Yes.”

Harry pauses, brows kinked like he’s ruminating, and then he inhales and decides, “Well. It’s not a tip, yeah? It’s just… you break it up, put two in the box, and then put the rest in your pocket.”

“Oh. No. You— you’ve already given me the coupon—“ you argue, frenziedly waving out a mismatched wad of cash.

He raises his hands and ambles in one suavely, lengthy step back. “I’m going now.”

“No!”

He’s three away that would fit five or six of your own gait when he declares, “Yes! I hope to see you for that orange juice. On the house. Have a good one.”

This is a patreon exclusive series. If you'd like to read more, part 2 is already up on my patreon! <3

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jarofstyles · 8 months ago

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Buttercream

Hello my loves! This is the first part to our Patreon exclusive series, Buttercream. The ready is available on Patreon (over 18 parts) and is still being updated. You all asked to see what’s available to read and I’m giving you sneaks of it!

A series featuring an Alpha Architect Harry, a bossy bakery owning omega Y/N, the sweetest treats taste tested and some steamy smut.

Check out our Patreon for all parts of the series and 150+ exclusive writings.

——-

The smell kept him coming back.

In his life, Harry had been to a quite a few bakeries. He could be considered an expert on fudge brownies, a specialist on cupcakes and the swirls of icing, a connoisseur of croissants. He treated himself a bit too often, if his mother had anything to say with it. His sweet tooth had always been prevalent in his life.

The new bakery down the road from his job, though? That had made him a true problem.

Every day before work, he stopped. Suit and all, pulling into the parking lot and nearly drooling the moment he got out. His feet carried him towards the door and the smell hit him immediately. Sweet buttercream, frothy vanilla, spiced cinnamon, and… something else. That something else that had him nearly vibrating, and now on a mission to have the whole menu to figure out just what the hell that scent was.

It was intoxicating. Mesmerizing. If Harry didn’t have work, he would spend hours just sitting here to smell it. It had a weird hold on him, and he didn’t quite know how to ask if it was an air freshener. That was unlikely for anywhere but restrooms anyways considering how offensive it could be for the noses of alpha’s and omegas alike. A bad scented one could send them into moods. Or even sickness. The sense of smell was very important.

“Mr.Styles.” The teen manning the cash register saluted him. He came in every day and was known to the cashiers, so he had ruled out it being one of them. Thank god. They were either young enough to not have a scent or too old for it to be possible. “What will it be today? Y/N’s been whipping up a storm for the holidays. New recipes. We’ve got a peppermint bark brownie that would go well with the peppermint mocha you like.” She chirped, watching as he scanned the cases.

Harry was a little intimidating but he was exceptionally charming. He smiled, he conversed, he tipped well, but he always seemed to be looking around. Trying to find something that no one could really place. The bakery was empty besides a mum and her friend with their kids, munching on treats and coffee as they watched the traffic go by. It wasn’t them. Harry’s ears did perk up when he heard an unfamiliar name.

“Y/N?” He asked, tilting his head as his attention went back to the cashier. “Who’s that? The owner?” Harry had never met the owner. For some reason, every time he came in the morning she had stepped out for her own break. It didn’t bother him so long as his compliments to the baker got passed along, but hearing her name stirred something in his chest.

“Yep.” She popped the p in her word. “She’s awesome. She started this all on her own after she went viral on the internet. She got the funds from online orders. You see the custom cakes and stuff but she does awesome experimental flavors. She doesn’t care if they’re hits or misses and let’s us go home with leftovers.” There was obvious pride to be working for someone like Y/N. It peaked his interest.

“Oh?” He asked, leaning his body against the counter. “That’s incredible. I’d be very happy to taste some of the new things.” He flashed a smile, tapping his card against the wood of the counter. “What would you think Y/N would suggest?” And why did saying her name make him feel silky and hot? Like it was meant to live on his lips? They tingled as the word left his mouth, making him shift his stance slightly. His skin was buzzing slightly as he heard someone else come from the back.

“She would suggest the peppermint bark brownies, the s’mores donut, the lemon cream cookie and the chili chocolate cupcake. Spice and sweet work surprisingly well together.” The airy voice went to his bones.

Harry could smell it fully now. The scent that laced the bakery was now engulfing him. Filling the space, making him inhale it with each breath. His hand tightened on the card, curling into a fist at his side as he caught a glimpse of her. She had been the source. It wasn’t a baked good or a cashier, but it was the baker herself that was making him addicted to the sweets laced with her scent.

He was silent as he observed her, a smile quirked on her lips. Slightly glossy and deliciously plump as she greeted the cashier with a simple hey and asking her to go to the back to grab the other new tray of cinnamon buns. Sliding them on to the rack, she used her hip to gently nudge the counter open and grabbed one for Harry.

“Here. On the house.” She slid the bag over to him with her soft simper, hands tapping on the wood.

She was marvelous.

Harry was speechless. Something he never usually was- the alpha could talk to a brick wall if he needed to- but this sweet little omega has been slowly hypnotizing him with her scent over the course of a month and now he was finally seeing her. He loved delayed gratification, a fan of edging, but this? He wished he had seen her far earlier.

“Hi.” He peeped. His face looked like he saw a ghost. The woman in front of him was like a mirage- and he wasn’t trying to be dramatic. He swore she was familiar to him in some way. Some how. She was all omega in the ways that called to him. The curve of her face and her soft voice… he could have started purring if he didn’t have some semblance of self control in his body.

“Hi.” She returned the greeting with a soft chuckle that heated his chest. “I hope you like the suggestions. I recognized your voice. You’ve been in here every morning we’re open and I figured it was about time to meet the loyal customer.” She chirped, brushing the stray hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ears. The adorably disheveled look added to her appeal.

A candy apple red apron was dusted with various baking material, tied around her waist snug. It showed the curve of her waist went deeper than what he could tell under her sweatshirt that appeared to have the bakery name printed on it. A swipe of flour was decorating her forehead, like she had wiped hair from her face and simply forgot about flour coated hands. Little details he was memorizing to think about later.

“I love the smell.” He blurted out. Immediately, he winced. That hadn’t been what he had meant to say, at least how he had meant to say it. Heat crept up further under his cheeks as he opened and closed his mouth, watching her giggle a bit as he tried to find his bearings.

“Fucking hell- I meant to say, I love your bakery. It smelled amazing when I went past it so I decided to stop in a few weeks ago and now it’s become a part of my daily routine. I bring in pastries for the office.”

“Aren’t you a star coworker.” She cooed, turning from him with a wink as she grabbed one of the red boxes and began to construct it. “They must love you at the office. I have on good authority that the one that brings the snacks, gets the pats on the back. Especially hand made, beautifully crafted baked goods.” She teased, opening up the case and beginning to place some sweets into it.

“I’d hope they like me. I’m their boss.” He laughed quietly, scratching the back of his neck. Never has he felt more like a schoolboy talking to a playground crush. He was head to toe in a suit good enough to meet his best clients, and a girl with flour on her face was sending him to his knees. Each time she moved, a gentle waft of her scent was given his direction and made that ever loved self control hang by a thread.

“Ooooo. Bossman.” She grinned, wiggling her brow as she placed another iced brownie with crushed peppermint bark sprinkled on top into the box. “Should have guessed. Love the suit, by the way. You look very handsome.”

That little compliment made his day. The pretty omega with the prettier smile and mouthwatering scent thought he looked handsome. That would be lingering in his brain all day. How she thought he was handsome. The casual compliments.

“Thank you.” He preened. “We do interior and exterior design for businesses. Up and coming places and remodels. So if you ever need a guy- I’m here.” He placed his hands in his pockets and lifted up on his toes rocking back and forth.

“Oooo. Is it that bad in here? Do I need a renovation?” She sucked her teeth, tilting her head. It had him freezing, mouth falling open to grovel. He hadn’t meant to offend her at all, hadn’t tried to insinuate it needed a remodel.

“Shit- no, I’m sorry. It’s very cute in here, I didn’t mean to insinuate it needed any help. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how it would sound-“

“Cool it, bossman.” She cooed, laughing at how he had nearly fallen over himself. “I’m just messing with you. The place does need some exterior work, actually. I hadn’t had the budget when we first started, nor the time. But I didn’t take any offense to it. You’ve got to market yourself. Don’t worry.” Her reassurance made him melt into relief, leaning into the counter. This whole encounter had him feeling a bit on edge in the weirdest way. He wanted to snuggle this woman, yet he was almost afraid of her. An omega. He was afraid of an omega.

Anyone else would laugh at him, perhaps, but he felt the nervousness creeping in his bones. He wanted her to like him. He wanted her to think he was cool and want to know him better. Y/N, Y/N, Y/N. She had unarmed his normal charm and made him feel like a nervous bundle of sweat and it was exhilarating.

“I’ll take a card, though.” She placed her hand out flat. “If you’ve got one. I’m gonna check out your website.”

Harry fished one out of his wallet, thankful he kept them on hand. It had his office number, and part of him wanted to offer his personal cell but he knew that would be a bit weird. Especially if she wanted to use his services. He almost hoped she didn’t- asking a client on a date wasn’t good for the image, was it? He wasn’t sure.

“If you’ve got any questions you can reach out on the email there, it’s a direct line to me- or uh, I come in every day so.” He shrugged. “Around this time. You’ve got very good coffee too. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good hazelnut. People put a lot of syrups and things… but your shop does it the best.”

“Thank you.” She seemed chuffed with his praise. “I taste test everything with the crew here. You’ll be in for a treat. If you’re coming in every morning, do you think you’d want to be a bit of a guinea pig for me?” She slid the box across the counter. “I’ve been experimenting like my lovely employee was saying. But I’d love a real customers opinion. Even if it’s bad. I want to know what the consumer likes.”

Harry was shocked. Y/N was kind of treating him like a friend, like she valued his exact opinion. He couldn’t deny he felt exceptionally special. Having not only the owner of the bakery but an omega he had some sort of crush on suddenly want to sample the new things she sells and get his opinion on it.

“Oh- uh. Alright. Of course! I can do that.” He grinned shyly, handing his card over for her to pay for the things she had put into the box. “I come in every morning during the week so… you can just let me know what’s new to taste.” There was a giddiness in his stomach. An excuse to talk to her every day. Or at least a few times a week. He’s never really reacted this way to an omega before, the scent craving, the shyness he suddenly felt, all of it was so new to him and he was unsure how to navigate it but he didn’t want to stop. He only wanted more.

“Perfect. What is your name, by the way?” The card was handed back to him and there was slight disappointment their fingers didn’t brush, but Harry took today was a victory.

“Harry. Harry Styles. It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Y/N. I’m glad to meet you too. I hope to see more of you soon.”

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