#singledad!Harry

[allthelovehes]

Field Day Reunion* | Part 2

Summary: Harry finally takes Y/N home when Charlie is with his grandmother for the night.

Pairing: Singledad!Harry x Teacher!Y/N

Word count: 5K

Warnings: Lovemaking, oral f receiving, eager babies, exes to lovers?

A/N: I imagine Harry and Y/N to be British in this universe, so they went to highschool from age 11 - 16(ish) and college from 16 - 20(ish). Idk why but I felt the need to specify haha ENJOY LOVES

Harry and Y/N agreed to take things slow for the sake of Charlie. This means that they have been going on dates every now and then, but not every weekend because Harry doesn't want to just drop off his kid at Anne's, so he can go out with this woman. That doesn't mean however that they don't see each other.

Y/N started teaching Charlie's class a couple of weeks ago. Ever since then, Harry sees her every day because he is the one who drops Charlie off at school and picks him up later in the day. Those little moments are filled with loving glances and private jokes but also Harry teasingly flirting with the love of his life.

Yes, Harry is absolutely smitten by this woman. Given their history, he now believes that he shouldn't have let her go back then. Yes, being high school sweethearts who are going to different colleges isn't the perfect scenario for two love birds. They didn't want to do the long-distance thing when they were only 17, but Harry now knows it would've all been worth it.

He doesn't regret their decisions though. If the two of them never broke up, Harry would've never become a dad to Charlie and he wouldn't want to miss him for the world. The kid is his life, he'd literally give everything to see that little cheeky smile on the four-year-old's face.

Anne was a big fan of Y/N when they were teenagers, she was the sweetest girl so of course she approved of Harry dating her. So when Harry told his mom how Y/N is now Charlie's new teacher she was excited, to say the least. But when he told his mother that they had been on a date, her heart was filled with love. She was rooting for his son, finally meeting that happiness he was so dearly craving.

So, from the moment Harry announces to his mom about him and Y/N taking it slow, Anne has done anything in her power to help Harry out. Taking over babysitting duty whenever she can and just keeping the little boy out of her son's way. Hinting at her son how she's free next Saturday, in case Charlie wants to come play at grandma's house. Just, everything.

And that's exactly why, this afternoon, he decides to take his mom up on that offer. Harry and Y/N have been on four official dates so far and not once has he taken her home. It felt a bit too forward, too soon. But today was different, Harry invited her over to his house, show her around and make his intentions very clear, she's a keeper.

“Char, come on. Put your shoes on, grandma is waiting for you.” Harry tells his son, picking up the overnight bag he packed for his son.

“Where are you going, daddy? I wanna go too!” The little boy cries, pouting at his dad with such innocence.

“I'm sorry, buddy. But you are staying with grandma.” Harry explains to his son, feeling a bit guilty. But he also didn't want to specify anything about his plans for today. See, Charlie is the biggest fan of Y/N at school and it warms Harry's heart to see him so fond of her. But that only gives him more reasons to keep his love life in the shadows for his son.

“But why?” Charlie whines, but knowing it's already a lost battle, he slips on his shoes in silence. Harry shakes his head, suppressing a giggle. Once a kid starts asking why, you know there is no ending to the discussion.

“Let's go, Char.” Harry states instead, dragging his boy out of their house and into the car.

After he drops Charlie off and Anne's, he drives straight back home. His heart pounding with nerves. He'd be lying if he said that he isn't a little bit anxious right now. He hasn't had a girl over for years on end, not in this context. And he's really hoping she's going to want to stay over. He told her to bring an overnight bag, just in case she wanted to stay. He also mentioned how Charlie is sleeping at his mother's place, hoping it would send the right message, but he wasn't quite sure.

When he arrives home, he finds Y/N just parking her car a little further down the street. She's on time, more like half an hour early. Harry lets out a nervous giggle and he hopes that it isn't too obvious that he's anxious right now.

“Eager much?” He jokes as soon as she reaches his front yard. She giggles slightly embarrassed and Harry simply wants to kiss that cute blush off her face.

“I didn't want to run late. Traffic, you know.” She explains, a small smile gracing her face.

“Relax, babe. I'm glad you are early, actually.” Harry smiles sweetly, pulling her in for a quick hug and placing a quick kiss on her lips. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Y/N lets out a flirtatious giggle, getting on her toes to press her lips on his. Harry instantly melts into the kiss, holding her tightly against his chest.

“C'mon, let's go inside.” Harry whispers, pulling away a bit hesitantly. Y/N softly nods in agreement and Harry loosens his grip on her, only to grab her hand and guide her inside. “Welcome to our home.”

“It looks lovely.” Y/N compliments, letting her eyes roam around the living room. You can tell by the way his space is organised that Harry is a neat person, the room is filled with all things the father and son love dearly. A nice TV hangs against the wall, some family pictures are scattered around the wall above the couch and the wall across the room holds shelves filled with movies, video games and records. It's all Harry and it takes the man's breath away knowing that she likes his place.

“Thank you.”

“Let me give you a tour.” Harry says, tugging on her arm and guiding her through his entire house. She had already seen the small hallway when she first entered the house, and a glimpse of the living room, but there is more. There is an open kitchen concept which leads out into the backyard with big sliding doors. It's really neat and pretty, every one of the rooms in the house has little Harry vibes. The house screams family home, it suits Harry really well.

When they finish the tour downstairs, Harry hesitates to show her his upstairs living space. He feels like taking her upstairs is something very intimate, maybe even too forward, yet he would love to show her around. With an unsure glance at her, Harry points his finger to the stairs, silently asking if she wants to continue the tour.

Y/N nods softly and gives him a sweet, yet excited smile. “Let's go, I'm very curious.” She says causing Harry to chuckle and they continue their walk through his house.

“Okay, so this is Charlie's room and his bathroom.” Harry explains. Y/N takes it all in as if he's giving her the time of her life. Harry is beyond grateful because he really does love her and he hopes that she is going to melt into their lives and live here one day.

They move over to the other side of the hallway, Harry gestures at the next room, rubbing the back of his neck a bit nervously. Y/N opens the door carefully when Harry speaks up. “This is uh- my room.” She pushes the door open further and carefully walks inside.

“This is very you.” She giggles when he walks in after her. Harry doesn't know why, but a blush creeps up his cheeks. Y/N isn't mocking him or making fun of him, her giggle sounds very fond, maybe she is just as nervous as he is.

The bedroom is decorated with warm colours and it features a king-sized bed that looks comfy and cosy. Y/N's gaze is glued to the bed, no doubt in her mind that she'd like to sleep in a bed like that. Especially if that means Harry would be right next to her.

She doesn't ponder her thoughts for too long because she knows that it will end with an almost unbearable aching between her legs.

When they dated in high school, they were only 15 years old. So sleeping with one another was out of the question. They kept dating until they were 16 and 17, but it still didn't feel right for them at that moment to take that step. Now that they are both adults and they want to take things a bit more seriously, Harry would like to finally take the next step in their relationship. Maybe tonight.

“Uhm- so behind you is my ensuite.” He points to the door behind her, gesturing at it with a little nod.

“Oh my.” Y/N's attention is immediately turned to the door when Harry mentions it. She slowly opens the door, stepping into the big room. It's modern and clean, and oh so spacious. There's a walk-in shower and a big tub next to it.

Harry just watches her in awe as she explores the bathroom. She almost seems mesmerised by his place and that makes his heart flutter. It's like she belongs in here and it is her house.

Y/N makes her way back to Harry with a dreamy look in her eyes. She wraps her arms around Harry's neck and pulls him close. She sighs. “Your home looks very lovely, Harry.”

“Not as lovely as you.” He blurts out in a weak attempt at flirting, but it comes off a bit nervous so he might have failed miserably.

“You're cheesy.” Y/N giggles. Harry tightens his grip on her waist and pulls her impossibly closer, flashing her a dimpled smile. Y/N leans in and lets her lips softly brush his in a very gentle kiss. Harry immediately melts into the kiss, tilting his head down to kiss her deeper, but she abruptly pulls away after only a second.

“I- uh- I'll go put my bag in this room, if that's okay?” She asks and Harry crooks his head to the side.

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Depends on what you're thinking.” She winks and pulls away from Harry.

“That you are going to stay over.” Harry flashes her a flirtatious smile.

“Exactly.” Y/N nods in agreement, a smug smile on her face and a glimpse of hope flashing in her eyes. “If that's still alright with you?”

“Of course, you don't have to ask.” Harry reassures, making her grin widely. He squeezes her hand for a second and then releases her hand, letting her step away and put her bag in the room.

Harry is beyond excited now, hoping for them to take their relationship to the next level. If they hadn't broken up back in high school, Harry might've even proposed by now. Yeah, he'd love to be married to her one day. But maybe it's too soon to be thinking about marriage, he remembers how it felt to be with her, back when they were only kids, hopelessly in love. He wants that back, now more than ever. ***

Y/N comes back downstairs to see that Harry is already making dinner. He greets her with a wide smile and places a soft peck on her lips.

“Mmh, what's that smell?” She asks curiously, leaning on the counter in the kitchen and watching Harry move around confidently.

“You, I reckon.” He smirks. Y/N lightly shakes her head, failing to hide her smile. “I'm making you pasta, love.”

“Mmmh, my favourite.”

“I know.” Harry smiles proudly.

Harry lets her know how she can pick a wine if she wants, and where she can find some glasses. She of course doesn't miss the obvious fact that Harry has planned everything ahead. That certainly turns her on.

They eat in a comfortable silence, their ankles playfully tangling with one another. Harry does the dishes while Y/N takes a second in the living room to scroll through her phone. As soon as the kitchen is clean, Harry joins her on the couch. He lifts her legs, placing them on his lap and letting her lean into his side.

“Charlie was a little upset to leave.” Harry says all of a sudden. Y/N chuckles, knowing just how clingy that four-year-old is to his dad. She finds that unbelievably adorable.

“Is he going to be mad at us?” She asks, not knowing how to proceed. She doesn't want the cute and innocent little boy to dislike her in any way.

“Us? No. Me? Maybe. I haven't told him about us yet, don't want him to tell the whole class and make it awkward for you at work.” Harry explains causing Y/N to smirk and nod, loving that he cares that much.

“So what does he think we are?” Y/N pries.

“I've told him you are my friend and that I like you a whole lot.” Harry tells her, making her smile.

“A whole lot, huh?” Y/N giggles and wiggles her eyebrows. Harry flashes her a cheeky smile and runs his fingers through her hair. “Sounds like you have a little crush.” She teases.

“Hmm, kinda do. Can't help it though.” Harry admits and leans into her, planting a wet kiss on her cheek. Y/N squirms under his touch, silently letting him know that this is okay. Then, she dips her head slightly and closes her lips on his.

The kiss instantly deepens and Y/N quickly crawls into Harry's lap, getting a better angle to kiss him passionately. His hands rest on her hips and hold her in place as he slowly kisses his way down her neck. Y/N closes her eyes, taking in the touch and taste of Harry. God, he really does turn her on.

So far they hadn't had the opportunity to make out like this. It's all been dates outside of either of their homes and kisses over the console of his car or at her front door. Feeling her thighs on each side of him and her lips working his like it's her favourite pastime makes Harry understand how badly he wants this to work out.

She lets her arms drape around his neck as her mouth finds his again, this time kissing him hungrily. Her lips sloppily brush against his, her teeth leaving grazes against his already tender bottom lip. He's just as eager to make out with her as she is.

She eventually breaks away, though, just to reconnect with those green gems Harry calls his eyes. He gives her a warm smile and his thumbs run under her shirt.

“You are so beautiful, love. Always been.” Harry murmurs against her lips before going in for another kiss. The gesture takes her back to high school, them sharing kisses on her porch after he walked her home from school. Always ending with a tight hug and whispers that went something like this.

But she's not in high school anymore, and so are her urges. Now, she simply can't get enough of Harry, and by the feeling of a firm swelling in his pants, she knows he is affected as much as she. It's quite the ego boost.

Harry had spent many nights, imagining how his first time making love to her would go. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her heat deliciously dripping, his name leaving her lips in a quivering cry when they both reach the peak of their pleasure. But he always kept the fantasy bundled up in his mind, he knew that it was too soon for that. Not anymore, though, because Y/N makes it very clear to him that she wants him.

“Harry.” She whimpers and rolls her hips into his. Her core grinds against his crotch and she swears she could make herself come from this. Just humping his bulge will be enough to have her reeling.

“I'm taking that as your consent, love.” Harry murmurs, pecking her lips. But she doesn't reply, she just hums in agreement. Enough for Harry to lift the two of them up, causing her to squeal slightly. He carries her upstairs and drops her on the bed.

It's happening.

Harry climbs on top of her, pressing her down with his weight. His lips crash back on hers and she accepts his passionate kisses with just the same amount of passion. She tumbles her hands around his neck, making sure he stays exactly where he is right now.

After a few minutes of more intense making out, Harry needs to come up for air. His chest is rising and falling and his hair is a hot mess, Y/N giggles teasingly, running her fingers through it to arrange it neatly.

“You're gorgeous.” Harry utters and places a delicate kiss on her jaw, Y/N lets out a shaky breath. Her heart soars when Harry compliments her. Her chin tilts towards him, their mouths closing in for more sucking and licking and biting and tugging. “But I'm dying to know how gorgeous you are underneath all this.”

She can't help the blood that rushes to her cheeks, and she can hardly breathe. Harry reaches down, lifting her shirt over her head. He wastes no time as soon as the fabric passes over her body. He's sucking the skin at her shoulder with eagerness.

“Fuck.” She curses as his teeth nip into her, his lips brushing it so faintly as soon as there's the red and purplish proof he's marked her. For a moment he feels guilty, thinking it's inappropriate, but he can't help but want this. He wants to become one with her and claim her as his own.

Harry gently kneads her breast with his hands, eliciting an erotic moan from her. Y/N isn't shy about her body. Her hand reaches to her back and she unclasps her bra, pulling it off and letting her boobs bounce freely. Harry gulps at the sight, they are just as magnificent as he had imagined them a few years back.

Harry kisses his way down her upper body and without a second thought, takes a nipple into his mouth. The man toys with it with his tongue, making Y/N's centre burn with desire. She hisses at the warmth of his mouth sucking and licking and nibbling. He then moves over to the other nipple, giving it equal attention before Y/N groans and speaks up.

“Fuck, I- I can't take it any longer, Harry.” Y/N whimpers, feeling her core starting to pulsate. She needs him there and she needs it now.

“Tell me what you want then, love.” Harry husks, his cock painfully straining in his trousers.

“Touch me. Eat me out, lick me clean. I don't care, but for fuck's sake-“ She heaves, her hands roaming down to the lining of Harry's trousers.

He doesn't need to be told twice, within a few seconds he is standing next to the bed, tugging off her trousers with her panties. Before quickly stripping down, he catches her eye looking longingly at the obvious erection in his boxers. She has been waiting for this to happen.

Y/N smiles as she observes him, he is so beautiful to her. His every flaw is precious. Y/N sees how his veins are straining underneath the thin layer of his skin as his fists clench around his bed sheets. How those plump pink lips are slightly parted, allowing his rapid, ragged breathing to escape.

Harry palms himself through his briefs, stroking his erection while keeping his eyes focused on the woman beneath him. With her lying on his bed in all her beauty, legs spread, his name on her parted lips. She is truly the epitome of sheer loveliness.

Harry kneels down at the side of the bed before he wraps his arms around her thighs to pull her closer to the edge. “You sure, baby?” He asks once more, although Y/N has been very clear with what she wants.

“Positive.” She mutters and in less than a second, Harry gently presses his lips against her folds. Kissing all around her pussy but never quite touching the most intimate parts. This drives her insane and her hands reach out to tangle in his curls, pulling him closer to her center. “Please.” She whimpers needily.

Harry doesn't make her wait, instead, he runs one finger through her folds before spreading them apart as his tongue prods over the heated skin. A loud grunt escapes his lips when he realises how sweet she tastes. It's everything he could've imagined and more. He then gets to work, flicking his tongue over her clit expertly, making Y/N buck her hips in appreciation. She pants, trying not to explode from pleasure at the feeling.

His free hand slides up to her lower stomach to hold her down and withhold her from squirming too much. Her juices are escaping from inside her, soiling his lips and chin and the duvet. Harry just can't get enough. His thumb scratches at her pelvis and as Y/N looks down, she sees him bobbing up and down eagerly, his eyes closed shut as he devours her. She hisses at the obscene sight.

“Ah- f-fuck!” Y/N stutters out, Harry now digging his fingers into her and slightly curling them inside her, hitting her g-spot and bringing her closer to her orgasm. “Harry!” She warns, her eyes practically rolling back at how he licks her, but that doesn't make him stop, no, he speeds up even.

His lips are locked on her clit, sucking as his fingertips massage her inner walls and let her slick seep out. She can't keep her legs still if she tries, her toes are curling and her thighs are shaking.

“Mmmh.” Harry moans lowly, tasting her juices as they keep flowing, signalling she won't last a second longer. “Come for me, darling.” He releases for a split second only to murmur those words, causing her body to respond with a shattering climax.

“Oh-ffu-Harry!” Y/N cries out as the burning knot inside her undoes and explodes. It's nothing like she's ever felt before, men never really seemed to know how to satisfy her, but Harry is all it takes for her to let go and forget about all the bad sex she ever had. She gasps loudly, riding out her orgasm as he keeps working her gently with his fingers and mouth. “Jesus fuck.”

Her legs fall to her sides. Harry comes up and wipes his mouth clean, chuckling at how Y/N is gasping for air. Her chest heaving as she does her best to try and breathe. “Good?” He hums and kisses her collarbone as he awaits a response.

“Too good.” She chokes out a laugh as soon as she can catch her breath again. She reaches down to caress his cheek, causing him to glance up. “Need a taste.” She huffs, as her hand goes down to his cock. Harry smirks and stops her. Gaining her attention with a quirked brow, indicating she doesn't understand.

“I desperately want to be inside of you, and I won't be able to last as long as I plan to if your puffy lips would work their magic on my cock right now.” He tells her bluntly, keeping his lust-filled gaze on her. And honestly, that might've just been the sexiest thing anyone has ever told her. She gives him a coy nod before he props himself up. He pushes his boxers down his legs and hovers over her.

Harry reaches for his nightstand to grab a condom while Y/N finally has her tiny fingers wrapped around Harry's erect and dripping cock. It's long and hard, the tip glistening and soft. Her hand runs down his shaft, paying close attention to the pattern of those prominent veins. His big hand reaches for her wrist.

“Hate to stop you, love, but you'll be the death of me.” Harry breathes as he slowly rolls the condom down his shaft. Y/N smiles adoringly, holding back laughter. Harry shakes his head amused, glad he brings that same childlike chuckle to Y/N's face that he used to adore when they were younger.

Then Y/N's face changes to surprise as Harry wraps his arms around her upper body to place her further on the bed, her head now resting on his soft pillows. Harry takes his position above her and cups her chin as he gently kisses her.

“Are you ready for me?” He asks. His cock now directly at her entrance, he holds it with his hand, teasing her.

“Yes, H. Please, yes.” She eagerly replies. So Harry presses a firm kiss on her mouth as he carefully pushes himself in. Just the tip before he pulls back again, teasing her incredibly slowly. Y/N groans in annoyance but lets him. Instead, she circles her arms around his neck and lets her fingertips draw nonsensical doodles on his scalp.

Her eyes shut when he finally thrusts himself forward, inserting his cock fully and feeling her pussy clenching around him. At first, he moves slowly, deliberately waiting for the satisfying burn to fade. His palms are pressed flat next to her shoulders as he secures his balance above her. She just can't keep her moans inside, not when he fucks her with all the love in the world.

“Fuck.” Harry grits, noticing how tight she is. Y/N keeps her eyes closed and lets him take control, simply doing what she feels is right, and that is responding to Harry's pace and needs. She finds solace in his sweet scent and she's sure she's addicted to it from now on.

As his hips rock, he slips his tongue into her mouth. Y/N's walls clench around him as his pace picks up. Her slick dripping out of her, coating their inner thighs as he slowly dips in and out.

“Give me your leg.” He says as he taps his fingers on her right thigh. Y/N obediently pulls her leg up and Harry positions himself a bit differently, the tip of his cock hammering against her cervix, reaching spots she didn't know could feel so good.

He places her leg on his shoulder and holds it in place with his arm wrapped around her knee. The newfound angle allows him to fuck her deeper and Harry can't hold himself back anymore. He slams into her, she moans in pleasure when he picks up the pace, making their sweaty bodies become one.

“G-goddamn, love.” He grunts, loving how they move as one. The muscles of his abdomen tense up under his skin with every hard thrust he delivers, he simply can't bear to slow down his movement. Harry continues to rut in and out, bringing both of them higher.

His left-hand reaches down, pressing down on her pubic bone for extra stimulation as his thumb finds her clit. Harry then knows he won't last long. Feeling her pussy already milking his cock, he knows she is close too.

Y/N squeezes her eyes shut, feeling the butterflies in her stomach building up again as Harry hits her G-spot every time he slams back into her.

“H-Harry- shit.” Y/N pants rapidly. She can feel how her juices are dripping from her and covering Harry's dick, definitely creating a wet spot underneath her bum on the duvet. She rolls her eyes back. She can't hold out for much longer.

“Nghh, yeah? Come for me, again, baby.” Harry groans as his pace starts to get sloppy. Y/N loves how his brows furrow and his jaw tightens up every time he pushes in.

“Aah- I'm-“ She starts and her walls clench around him, squeezing his hard cock inside her as she comes. The sensation is too much for Harry to bear. His hot liquid explodes into the rubber as her warm pussy milks him.

“Mmph.” Harry moans and with the last bit of power in his limp body, he slowly rocks back and forth to ride out their orgasms until they both collapse, tired and sweating messes.

“God, I can't believe that just happened.” Y/N puffs as they lie next to each other for a few moments. Harry hums, rolling to her side and pulling out of her in the process. Y/N catches his glance, seeing how his green eyes look like they shine even in the dark, love and affection radiating from them.

“I finally had sex with the girl of my dreams.” He murmurs, scooting a bit closer as Y/N feels him reach to her hand to twine their fingers together. She giggles at his sweetness before opening her mouth to speak.

“I now understand why you didn't want Charlie here today.” She remarks, earning a playful look from Harry. She brings her fingers up to brush the hair off his forehead. “I love you.” Y/N suddenly utters, surprising herself. “I mean it.”

“I love you too.” Harry says without a second thought before placing his wet lips on hers. It's not like they hadn't said I love you to each other when they were younger, but adult I love you's are different, stronger, more meaningful. Y/N grins, nudging her nose against his cheek and pecking his lips.

“We should do something about the stickiness, shouldn't we?” Harry says running his finger on the inside of her thigh. Y/N chuckles as she nods her head in agreement, slightly ashamed but just couldn't care less right now. She's happy, Harry's happy and that's all that matters.

Harry picks her up from the bed again, gaining another squeal as he carries her to the bathroom. They hop in the shower and their touches remain gentle. Just soft kisses and long glances. Once they're all washed up, they slide back between the sheets in an after-sex, shower-fresh bliss.

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Summary: Rosie is fuzzy all day and she wants to see her dad

Wordcount: +1,4k

Trigger warnings: mention of anxiety

Today is one of the usual days when she babysits Rosie, she sits with her on the couch. Rosie has been fussy all day, and Y/n can’t calm her down. She rests her head against the couch cushion. She can’t even call Harry, she can’t ask him what she should do.

“Rosie, come sit with me,” she pats the seat next to her. She refuses to sit down, she doesn't cry yet. She was happy about that.

“Daddy,” she mutters.

“What’s with daddy?” She picks her up and rests her on her hip.

“Miss him,” she hides her face into the crock of her neck.

“Wanna see daddy?” She nodded her head. Y/n knew he lives near the campus, he once told her if something happened.

Rosie walks next to y/n hand in hand. Her hair is in two little ponytails. On the way here she cried, y/n doesn’t know why she cried. It took them away longer to get here.

Rosie walks next to y/n hand in hand. Her hair is in two little ponytails. On the way here she cried, y/n doesn’t know why she cried. It took them away longer to get here.

Y/n picks her up and slowly opens the door from his office. Rosie cocks her head in her dad’s direction. Harry looked exhausted, he leaned back into his chair, his glasses on the top of his head. On Rosie’s lips from a huge smile as she sees her dad.

“Daddy,” her voice is now high-pitched. Harry’s eyes open, he puts his glasses back on.

“Surprise,” y/n says.

“Hi Angel,” he smiles. Y/n let Rosie down and she walks over to her dad. Harry picks her up and places her in his lap. Harry takes one more look at her, “Did you cry?” He raises an eyebrow. Rosie nodded her head.

“Why are you two here?”

“She is fussy all day and she also missed you,” y/n sits down on the opposite of him and Rosie.

“I missed you too Angel,” he kisses the top of her head. “Did y/n make them?” Rosie nodded her head proudly.

“What are you doing right now?” Y/n looks at some of his papers. She was always curious, she always wanted to be a teacher but she couldn’t study because it was too expensive. Now she’s working in a bookstore and it also makes her happy.

“Waiting for Samantha and grading some papers,” Rosie leans her head against his stomach. Harry wraps his arm around her.

At this moment the door opens. Y/n stands up and sits down somewhere else in his room. Rosie is still in his lap, she hides herself in Harry’s stomach.

“Does it bother you when my daughter is here?” On his lips from an insecure smile. His students don't know he has a daughter. “She missed me that’s why she’s here, I’m sorry, I really am,” he apologizes for his daughter.

"No, not at all. She’s really cute, what's her name?” Samantha lies her papers on his desk so that he can explain it.

“That’s Rosie, she is shy when I’m around. Otherwise she would ask you anything, what's possible, right Angel?“ Rosie nodded her head.

Harry tries to explain to Samantha how the assignment works. He told her if she has trouble reading she should check YouTube. There are some helpful videos about the book. He also knows some of his students never read the book, they look for a summary on the Internet and write the assignment with that.

“Daddy,” Rosie whispers. Harry looks into his lap, he humps in response. “Wanna home, I’m tired,” she mutters. Y/n wanted to take her and she immediately started crying. She sits her back down onto Harry’s lap.

“Excuse me for a minute,” he says to Samantha, she nodded her head. “That is going on all afternoon, Rosie never acts like that. Sure she is fuzzy sometimes but that’s new,” Harry is going through his hair. He doesn't know why she is like that, he guesses she is tired and wants to stay in his lap.

“I know she’s usually the sweetest kind on the planet,” y/n shakes her head.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, are you Rosie’s mom?” Samantha is curious because she is the first person who knows Harry has a daughter.

“Mama agent,” she mumbles lazily. Samantha looks confused at Harry.

“Her mom is an agent, I’m taking care of her and y/n helps me with babysitting when I’m at work. Could you come tomorrow before class to me so I can explain it better. I was distracted and I really need to get home.”

“Yeah of course Mr Styles, see you tomorrow,” Samantha closed the door behind herself. He sits Rosie in his office chair down, so that he can pack his stuff together.

“You’re a little princess you know,” he smiles at her.

He has Rosie in his arms with his free hand and he has to lock his office. He walks down the hall, there is already whispering. He knows this would happen, it doesn’t bother him to be honest.

“Mr Styles is a dilf, it makes him even hotter taking care of his daughter. I would do everything for him,” a girl in the hall said.

“I’m sorry H, I didn’t know any better. She cried all day about you. Daycare called me and asked if I could pick her up,” Harry looks at Rosie for a short moment with her arms around his neck, she hides her face into the crock of his neck.

“Daycare called you?” Y/n nodded her head. “You didn’t tell me,” he says.

“You were busy so I thought I could tell you later,” she shrugs. It was a long day for y/n too, she tried to lie Rosie down for a nap, but that didn’t work. “I forgot to mention she didn’t nap today, she’s probably tired because she was awake all day,” Harry nodded his head.

“Mr Styles is such a dilf,” he knew this voice was one of students Aimee, she’s kinda obvious, she wants his attention, but she never gets his attention. Y/n and Rosie are his number one Priority.

“I’m really sorry,” she mumbles.

“It’s okay, I kinda figured that I’m the ‘hot’ single Professor, so don’t worry. Now they have something new to talk about,” he leans with his back against the door and opens it.

One of his students came over to him, she never really talked to him. She is the shy smart girl in his class. “I’m sorry to bother you, but is there an option that I don’t have to talk in class tomorrow? I am dealing with anxiety and I don’t know if I can talk,” she shutters. She pushes her glasses back on the bridge of her nose.

“Yeah of course. I didn’t know about your anxiety and I don’t want to make it worse. If you write every step you would do down and hand it to me I will grade it. Ask your roommate if they can help you with it.” He smiles at her. Harry never really Talks with her but he knows it must be hard for her to ask something like that, he also knows there are Professors who don't believe in the whole mental illness thing.

“Thank you so much and I’m also sorry about the comments you’ll get now,” she looks down at Rosie.

“It’s fine, see you tomorrow in class,” she waves him goodbye.

•••

“It was an exhausting day, “ y/n falls onto Harry’s couch. She shut her eyes and sighs.

“Let’s go to bed, I can see how tired you are,” he mumbles. Harry hands her one of his shirts. Get into his bathroom, she puts her jeans off and her sweater. She throws his shirt over her body and walks back into his bedroom. Harry also threw a shirt on, usually he sleeps without a shirt but today y/n is with him in his bed.

“I’ll go back onto the couch,” she mutters lazily.

“No, you can sleep here, my bed is huge,” she agreed. Harry wraps his arms around her body and holds her close to him. He has an unusual feeling in his stomach, everything tickles like butterflies. He could smell her. He loves the way she smells.

“Night H,” she mumbles into his duvet.

“Nights night y/n,” Harry can’t explain how happy he is that Rosie doesn’t wake up. He wants to be close to her right now. He hasn't felt that way about anyone in three years.

[atlafan]

She Was There - Part One

a/n: This fic has everything: single dad!harry, psychiatrist!harry, a live-in nanny, a slight age gap (she/s 27/28 and he’s like 37), Harry is a dom, but also a switch, and the slowest of burns! There are 11 parts of this up on my Patreon. The series is officially done, so I’m posting the first part here for yall to get a taste. If you want to read the other 10 parts, it’s only $5.00 on my Patreon. My peeps on there really enjoyed this story, so I hope you do too! Please reblog!!! Leave me notes and comments!!! Come to my inbox to give me your thoughts!!!

Warnings: none! this is only the beginning 😈😈😈

Words: 2.8K

Pairing: Harry x OC (Aubrey Williams)

Being a single father is hard. It’s even harder when you work more than sixty hours a week, and your three kids are all under the age of ten. It’s karma. It has to be. Harry only had to be a dad every other weekend because the children lived three hours away with their mother, but she recently passed so now the kids are living with him full time. He was able to take a sabbatical from work, thank God, but he’s due to return in a few weeks and he still hasn’t found a nanny for the kids.

He thought of just finding an after-school sitter, but he knows that when he goes back to work, he won’t have the time in the morning to make breakfast and lunches, and get the kids ready for school. His ex-wife was getting enough alimony and child support so she didn’t have to work. The kids didn’t need anyone extra.

It was difficult at first. Harry mourned the loss of his ex-wife, but he needed to stay strong for children. She was gone now, forever. They got divorced for a reason, but she was still the mother of his children. The ache he was feeling was normal. Luckily, the kids didn’t mind moving in with Harry. He enrolled them all in a private school, he figured they could use a little extra structure, and he also just wanted to give them the very best. He felt guilty for basically being an absentee father since the divorce.

Maddie is ten, she’s the oldest, Cole is eight, and Sean is six. Each child an even bigger surprise than the last, but a blessing nonetheless. That was the one thing Harry and his ex-wife agreed on the most. No matter how much they fought, they made sure to put the kids first.

But now Harry has to get back to work because he would like to continue to provide for his children without eating into his savings. He can’t exactly do his work from home now that they’re living with him, so he has to go to his office. Many of Harry’s patients have been seeing Niall while he’s been gone. Niall’s been a wonderful help to Harry. It’s not easy being a psychiatrist, nor is it easy to take on someone else’s patients for an extended period of time.

Harry’s been interviewing plenty of nannies, but he wants to make sure the kids feel comfortable with the hire, and none of them have clicked yet. Most days, the kids whine that they don’t want Harry to go back to work, which breaks his heart. But he didn’t spend four years in undergrad, four years in medical school, and another four years in a residency program to not be a practicing psychiatrist. He and Niall own their practice together, and have a few other colleagues that they’ve hired on. They do quite well.

After another failed interview, Harry’s not sure what he’s going to do. He contemplates maybe doing telehealth appointments, but he really doesn’t want to do that kind of work at home.

Later that night as he makes his way up to bed, he finds his three children fast asleep on his mattress. He pouts at how cute they are all snuggled up together. He gets in on his side after washing up, and Sean makes his way to cuddle up close to him. Harry sighs and puts his arm around his son. He needs to figure something out, and soon.

***

Burning the candle at both ends isn’t sustainable. But Aubrey isn’t sure what else she can do right now. She’s been living in a hotel for the last two weeks, and that isn’t exactly cheap. She barely even has time to enjoy the soft mattress with how much she’s been working. But when you catch your boyfriend cheating on you in your own home, you leave before he has a chance to give you some bullshit excuse.

“I told you, you can crash on my couch for as long as you need.” Sidney tells Aubrey over coffee on Sunday morning.

“No, I don’t want to put you out.”

“You know…my boss’ associate has been in the market for a live-in nanny.”

“That sounds like it could get messy. I feel like the wife always gets jealous.”

“He’s a widower.” Sidney whispers. “And on top of that, they were divorced, so it’s not like he’s sobbing over how much he loved her. He’s been at home for months taking care of his kids. They lived with the mom full time and only saw him every other weekend.”

“How many does he have?”

“Three, all of them are in elementary school. My boss has been taking on all his clients to help out, but I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep helping. You’re so good with kids, Aubrey. You were always the most sought-after babysitter.”

“Babysitting and being a nanny are two different things. Especially if I’d be living there. What if the kids hate me?”

“Aubrey, who could ever hate you?” Sidney asks flatly. “Do you want me to ask my boss for more information? He thinks very highly of my opinion.”

“That’s because you suck his dick every other day.”

“Shh!” Sidney swats at her friend. “I told you that in confidence. No one knows, and no one needs to know.”

“Mhm.” Aubrey rolls her eyes. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to have more information. It would be a better job than working at a 24-hour diner.” She sighs.

“I’ll see what I can do. As good as the coffee and the free breakfast is here, you deserve better.”

“Thanks, Sid.”

***

A few nights later, Niall brings over Chinese food for Harry and the kids. Harry’s eternally grateful, and the kids are overjoyed about the food.

“So, Sidney, you know Sidney…” Niall starts as he and Harry clean up in the kitchen.

“She’s your assistant who gives the good head.” Harry smirks.

“Exactly.” Niall nods. “But don’t say that out loud again. Anyways, she has this friend Aubrey who needs a job. She caught her boyfriend cheating on her, and they worked together, so she had to quit her job, and it was this whole thing. She’s been living in a hotel, and it’s starting to add up. Sidney told me Aubrey’s great with kids.”

“Does she have any experience as a nanny?”

“Well, no, but-“

“Then how could I trust her with my kids?”

“Could you just give her an interview? She and Sidney are close, and Sidney’s been worried about her.”

“And you care because…?” Harry smirks.

“Don’t make me say it.” Niall groans. “Please, H?”

“Alright, I’ll give her an interview. But if the kids don’t like her, I’m not hiring her.”

“Deal.”

***

Aubrey’s mouth is agape as she pulls up to Harry’s home. It’s fucking huge. Sidney should have prepared her more. She takes a sip of water before getting out of her car. She makes her way up to the door and takes a deep breath. She rings the bell, and a moment later, an older woman opens it.

“Hello.” Aubrey smiles. “I’m here for an interview.”

“Hi.” The woman smiles. “I’m the kids’ grandmother. Harry had to go into the office today.”

“Oh.” Aubrey nods.

“He said it would be alright if I conducted the interview, please come in.” She steps aside and lets Aubrey in. “My name’s Millie.”

“I’m Aubrey, it’s nice to meet you.” Aubrey shakes her hand. “This is a gorgeous house.”

“Isn’t it? Harry bought it after the divorce. Believe it or not, when he was married, the house he had was even larger. His ex had extravagant taste.” Millie shakes her head. “God rest her soul.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, that must have been really hard.”

“It was a total shock, but that’s life.” She sighs. “Anyways, Harry asked me to give you a tour of the home, and then you can meet the kids. They’ll be home from school soon.”

Aubrey nods, and politely follows Millie around the home. She wouldn’t have her own section of the home to herself, but she’d have her own room and bathroom, so that would be good. Millie explains that the job would include some light housework, mostly for the children. Laundry, afterschool snacks, breakfast, and lunches. Aubrey would also need to help with homework, baths, and bedtime. It wasn’t anything that scared Aubrey. It all seemed pretty standard.

Around 3PM, the kids get home from school. Millie tasked Aubrey with making a healthy snack for the kids while she greeted them at the door.

“Okay, kids, this is Miss Aubrey Williams.” Millie smiles.

Aubrey pouts at the three children. They’re way cuter than she was expecting.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you all. What are your names?” Aubrey asks softly.

“I’m Maddie.” Maddie hops up onto the stool at the kitchen island, and grabs one of the slices of apple covered in peanut butter that Aubrey set up. “That’s Cole, and the one clinging to Mimi’s leg is Sean.”

“They call you Mimi? That’s adorable.”

“Grandma didn’t have the right ring to it.” Millie laughs and helps Cole and Sean up onto the other stools. “Maddie is ten, she’s in fourth grade, Cole is eight, he’s in second, and Sean is six, he’s in first.”

“Wow, you all are so close in age.” Aubrey smiles. “That’s nice. Do you like your school? I know it’s still new.”

“It’s okay.” Maddie shrugs. “Could I have some juice, please?”

Aubrey looks at Millie, and Millie nods, so Aubrey grabs three Capri Suns out of the fridge. Maddie automatically helps Cole and Sean with their pouches.

“Do you like the uniforms?” Aubrey asks.

“I like not having to think about what I’m going to wear when I get up.” Maddie answers.

“Oh, I bet. Do you still get to do what you want with your hair and stuff?”

“I think so.”

“What do you say after you finish your snacks, you all go change into something comfier? You all can watch a little TV to unwind until dinner.” Aubrey tells them.

“You’re not going to make us do our homework right away?” Cole asks, his eyes widening.

“You guys were just in school for, like, eight hours. Your brains need a break. We’ll eat dinner around five, then we’ll do homework, then we’ll wash up before bed. How does that sound?”

“Works for me.” Cole shrugs.

“What’s everyone’s bedtimes?”

“I’ll answer that.” Millie says. “Maddie is allowed to stay up until 9:30, while Cole and Sean go to bed at 8:30.”

“I like to read before bed.” Maddie says. “That’s why Dad lets me stay up later.”

“Yeah? What do you like to read?”

“Babysitter’s Club.”

“Oh, I love that series!” Aubrey beams.

“Kids, go on and change, yeah?” Millie tells them. “And I don’t want to hear anyone fighting over the remote, understand?”

“Yes, Mimi.” The three say in unison before hopping down from their stools.

“They’re so cute.” Aubrey says to Millie.

“Aren’t they?” Millie gushes.

“How have they been doing after losing their mother?”

“As good as they can.” Millie sighs. “Luckily, since Harry’s a psychiatrist, he knows a thing or two about helping children deal with their grief.”

“May I ask…how did she die?”

“It was abrupt. One second, she was fine, and the next she wasn’t. Maddie really stepped up apparently. She’s taken on a lot. I think she’s resentful towards her mother. The boys look up to her, which is good. Honestly, I think it’s been the toughest on Sean. He was a clingy baby, didn’t like to be put down at all. It’s carried over a bit. He’s so sweet, the poor thing. When the kids first moved in with Harry, they slept with him every night. They’ve gotten better, but they still have their nights.”

“Rightfully so. I couldn’t imagine losing one of my parents at such a young age, and then having to move and start all over somewhere new.” Aubrey sighs. “What would get them really excited for dinner?”

“I went shopping earlier this morning, I was planning to make a baked ziti. Would you like to help me make it?”

“Yeah.” Aubrey nods.

The ladies get to work on dinner while the kids watch television. When dinner’s ready, they all sit at the table together and eat. Aubrey asks the kids more questions to get to know them better, and they ask her questions too. Maddie does most of the talking.

Aubrey helps the kids with their homework after dinner while Millie cleans up. She observes her grandchildren as they work with their potential new nanny.

“I was hoping Harry would be home by now, I’m sorry.” Millie says to Aubrey before she leaves.

“It’s okay.”

“I think things went well. I’ll get the debrief from the kids in a bit.”

“Thank you for having me over with them today. I had fun.”

“We’ll let you know one way or the other soon.” Millie smiles, and opens the front door for Aubrey.

Harry doesn’t get home until around nine. He apologizes profusely to his mother, but he explains that he needed to get some writing done and catch up on emails. Maddie stayed up in the living room with her book so she could talk to her father. She comes shuffling into the kitchen where Harry and Millie are talking things over.

“There’s my sweet girl.” Harry smiles and lifts Maddie up to sit on the kitchen island. “You look exhausted.”

“I had gym today.” She shrugs.

“How come you’re not up in bed? I thought you liked to get cozy with your book.”

“I do, but I was waiting up for you.”

“Oh?”

“Hire her.” Maddie says. Harry and Millie look at each other, then back at her. “Cole, Sean, and I talked it over. We like her. Hire her.”

“Just like that?” Harry chuckles.

“Dad, she treated us like people. She asked us questions about things other than what our favorite subjects in school are. She let us watch TV after snack, she helped us with our homework, and she even got Sean to sleep without having to cradle him like a baby.”

“You all felt comfortable with her? Remember, she’d be living with us.”

“Hire her.” Maddie hops down from the counter. “We haven’t liked anyone else, and we won’t like anyone else you bring in. We want Aubrey.”

“Mimi?” Harry looks at his mother.

“I liked her a lot. I looked over her resume, same as you, and I think she’s more than qualified. She was sweet with the kids. And as much as I’ve loved being here, I’m itching to get back to Florida. So, I agree with Maddie. Hire her.”

[hazgoldenstyles]

I want my ex back

[loversipod]

Perfect Storm

Summary: Niall is a single dad who, when the train is late, accidentally meets y/n who falls asleep on his shoulder. You always meet twice in life, this time it was pure luck.

Pairing: single dad!niall x reader

Wordcount: 843

Trigger warnings: none

A/N: I’m sorry that I disappeared for so long with my writing. Just a lot is going on and work is so stressful. I would appreciate it when you share it :) I’ll try my best to get more out soon.

The spring night is cold, with a gentle breeze and a small rainstorm. The night sky was often clear and you could see the stars shining, but not today. It was a beautiful spring day. Parents were in the park with their children, he wished he could do it too. Their parents watched their children and they looked so happy, some of them were walking with their dogs.

The train was stuffed full of people with barely enough space to move properly through the crowd. His phone died so he watched the people around him. He was glad he had a seat. He is claustrophobic and passes out when he doesn’t have enough space.

He was torn from his thoughts, by a woman who tapped his shoulder. One seat was free next to him, only his backpack was in the way. “Is this seat free?” The first thing he noticed was her red cheeks and nose. It must be cold outside. The brown scarf hides a lot of her neck and chin. Her hair was beautiful, the colour was perfect and her skin looked flawless. Her voice is sweet and quiet, she talked gently.

It was embarrassing he just stared at her, he still hadn't answered her. He moved his backpack and nodded. “Do you have a charger?” He asked shyly with a soft voice. He doesn’t want to scare her. It’s weird to ask a stranger you just met. She searched her backpack and gave it to him, “thank you.”

Ten minutes passed and the storm got stronger. A lot of people left the train when they reached the city. Now some get inside their home and some leave the train to meet up with friends.

The raindrops started a race, the drops run the glass faster down and more joined their competition.

His ocean-blue eyes wander around, the strangers were interesting enough to observe. Especially the woman next to him. She had a hard time staying awake. He couldn’t watch her the whole time.

What would she think of him?

He fixed his eyes on his phone. He saw that he missed four calls, so he called immediately. Something must be wrong, at home. When someone picked up he heard the sweetest voice talking to him. She always sounds like honey, “I’m sorry sugar the train is delayed. I know I promised—” he stopped talking.

Her soft hair tickles a bit on his smooth skin. His gaze fixed on her. She fell asleep on his shoulder. The small voice said, “be safe,” he forgot he talked to her.

“I will be,” he said.

The brown-haired man started to watch the woman. Her breathing is calm and small puffs of air leave her mouth. She even snores quietly. What if she got a cold, after standing outside so long, on a cold evening?

“Excuse me,” he touched her arm gently.

She opens her eyes and you can see the shock in them. Her pupils are blown big out of fear, probably. She raised her head. “I’m sorry— I—” she started to talk but he immediately stopped her.

He flashed her a gentle smile, “it’s okay, I need to go, my station, it's next.” The beautiful woman stood up and was embarrassed.

“Have a good night,” she told him.

“Thank you, you too.”

.⋆｡⋆˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.

The next couple of days he always wondered what if he asked her for her phone number. What was her name? Maybe he got a little crush, but that was over, after four days. He doesn’t have time for dating. He had his hands full with his job and his daughter needs a lot of attention too.

He heard the doorbell and saw behind the door the woman from the train. “Hello,” she whispers embarrassedly.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

He opens the door wider, “please come in.” He took a deep breath, “so you must be my new babysitter?” He was surprised to see her again. You only get your chance once. If you don’t ask, you never know what would happen, what could have become of it? And sometimes you get a second chance and it stands on your threshold.

“I’m y/n, sir,” today her hair was curly and her cheeks were again red but this time not from the cold. This time it was out of embarrassment. She couldn’t stop playing with her rings.

His pink lips left a chuckle, “I think we can both agree that sir is not the right thing to call me after you slept on my shoulder,” she looked into his face. He teased her about it, “please call me Niall,” he had a big smile on his lips.

After the interview, he decided it was y/n new job to take care of his little one. He liked her the most and she’s the youngest that applied for this job so he knew she isn’t strict with his daughter. He wants her to like y/n, and see her as a friend.

Who knows how their story will continue?

[gumballavocadoharry]

I imagine when River is dealing with those big emotions and he feels so lost in them and becomes overwhelmed, Harry will just scoop him up in his arms and hold him tightly.

"My little dino, you're always safe in daddy's arms."

[harstyle]

the styles’ nanny

Summary: Y/N is a twenty-three year old uni student and Harry is a thirty-six year old single dad. Y/N is a part-time nanny and Harry is her employer. Y/N thinks Harry is hot, and Harry… well, he’s a bit confused.

Pairing: plussize-nanny!yn + older-singledad!harry

Word-count: 7.3k

Warnings: age gap (13 years), mentions of alcohol and drinking and lashing out during an argument, no happy ending yet

A/N: I don’t know why I keep writing characters that start out insecure but I swear it’ll get better later!! Let me know if you want to read more, I’m thinking maybe three parts? Also, the fact that y/n is plus-size doesn’t really become a big deal in the story, but that was how I originally had her in mind so I’m leaving it that way. Hope you enjoy!

Y/N was twenty three. She was twenty three, and she used to love being twenty three. She used to love going out to party, the feeling of alcohol burning down her throat, the rush of palpable excitement when having sex with people she’d never met before. She used to love that. But she didn’t anymore.

And the reason for that? One Harry Styles.

It was ridiculous, of course; Harry had other companions he could turn to before ever settling on her— oh and not to mention, he was her boss. Yet, it felt daring, like that time she’d fallen in love with her biology teacher or looked differently at her camp instructor in high school. Authority figures did something to her brain, and Harry was no different.

But of course there was a lot at stake and she would never actually approach the idea; it was a fantasy at most. And she thought… as long as she didn’t act on her brain’s poisoning, it would be fine.

“Y/N, did you hear me?”

“Oh,” Y/N was snapped back following a short distraction, the butter knife in her hand now seeming more dangerous than when she’d held it seconds before. “Sorry, Harry, what was that?”

She swore she could see an amused smile tugging at his lips for a brief second. She’d always wondered what he thought of her.

“Are you free next Thursday? I have this meeting until late and I doubt I’ll be home for dinner—I was thinking you could maybe put Jamie to bed? You can stay the night if it’s too late to catch a train, or just take the other car?”

Y/N’s work day at the Styles’ house ended at five pm most days in time for Harry to get home, but she did adore Jamie, so staying longer wasn’t remotely an issue.

“That’s okay, I can just stay the night like I did last time, if that’s alright?”

Harry had insisted when she’d begun working for him that she have a room in the house where she could take naps to rest or stay the night all together when it got too tiring to catch the train home, and the notion of it had pulled at her heartstrings. He was very considerate and that was rare in bosses.

Harry shook his head, waving her off with ease, “course it’s okay.”

“Great. I should get home, I have an important test coming up tomorrow. Am I good to go?”

He glanced at the clock, noticing how late it had gotten (he’d offered to cook dinner and Y/N had never been one to reject hot men’s company) and cursed quietly to himself. “I’ll drive you.”

“Oh no Harry, really, it’s okay!”

“It’s almost eight and I feel uneasy whenever I send you away in the dark. Sides, I’m sure Jamie will love a late road trip to your flat,” he reassured with a smile, standing up as if to restrict her getting a choice and starting to load the plates into the dish washer. “Grab your coat and I’ll wait by the door. I’ll get Jamie.”

Y/N did love the way he asserted his wishes to her, kind but dominant in his decisions. He never let her deter him and she, for one, didn’t mind it at all.

“Okay, thank you.”

“No problem, love.”

—

“Can I please just get one scoop? Please?”

“I’m sorry, buddy, we just don’t have any ice cream! I would let you have it if we did, but we don’t. Is there any other snack you’re interested in?”

Jamie was being fussy today and Y/N couldn’t figure out why. He’d been happy when she’d picked him up from school, raving on about his art teacher’s praise on a drawing he’d done with the widest grin resting lazily on his small lips. It had been at around three that he’d started whining at her, not wanting to eat even though he’d requested the grilled cheese and flicking through about twenty channels until he’d finally settled on not watching anything at all. Y/N had figured he was tired, but he didn’t want to sleep either, so she was left thoroughly baffled trying to find ways to tame his mood.

But he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop whining and crying, wouldn’t stop flailing his tiny arms and legs, wouldn’t stop pouting at her. Jamie had the best behaviour Y/N had ever seen on a boy, really, so this outburst worried her. “I just want ice cream!”

“Jamie, we don’t have any ice cream. How about I get you ice cream tomorrow, hm? And today we’ll have something else? Come on, remember how we learned about compromise?”

Y/N was trying, pulling Jamie into her lap to comfort him even though he didn’t care for any of it. His face was red and angry and nothing she said registered in his brain. He cried into her shoulder instead, gripping at her sides in terror. “You’re being mean to me.”

“Hey, that’s not very nice, I’m trying to help you bud.”

“Please, I just want ice cream.”

It was kind of cute how even in his state of devastation, he still managed to be polite to her.

“And I hear you, Jamie, but we don’t have any right now. Will you settle for Oreos? Or chocolate?”

He merely shook his head.

Y/N breathed a grateful sigh when she heard the front door being unlocked, still bouncing Jamie up and down in her lap in hopes that he’d settle down just a bit. She was sure Harry’d heard the crying from the front door because his steps were fast and his expression of concern clear.

“What’s wrong, bub?”

Jamie reacted with a devastating whine, calling for his dad and reaching his arms out begging to be carried. Harry shot Y/N a look of mixed confusion and apology, leveling the boy out from inside of her lap. He mouthed the question she knew he’d been thinking and felt bad when all she could offer in return was a shrug because she knew it wasn’t the ice cream anymore

Harry sung in whispers into his ear in the hopes of calming him, bouncing him around on the spot. He pressed kisses to his forehead, drawing circles on his back. It worked better than when Y/N had done it, Jamie’s sobs having soothed into few hiccups and sniffles.

Y/N couldn’t help but admire how naturally skilled Harry was at being a father. She knew a little bit of the history— his fiancée at the time leaving him for another man months after having given birth to Jamie and having to raise him by himself. He was a busy man and Y/N could tell that he felt bad about being unable to do things like pick up his son from preschool or spend all day playing in the den, but he was still a better father than hers had ever been. He was a great father.

Not long after his crying had died down, Jamie fell asleep in Harry’s arms. Y/N finally breathed a sigh, relieved to catch a break. She loved taking care of Jamie, but jesus had today been hard. Harry carried him up to his bedroom, careful as to not bother him and advised Y/N to wait for him to come back.

Whilst Harry was putting Jamie to bed, she decided to clean up a bit. She went through the array of toys Jamie had taken out and discarded after a short minute of playing with them, and placed them back in the drawers. A smile tugged at her lips when she saw the dino plush toy she’d gifted him when she’d first started working for this family months ago— he still played with it all of the time. In fact, Harry had once sent her a photo of it sitting next to him in the car when they’d gone on vacation in the summer. She recalled tearing up because of it.

“Hi, sorry for taking so long.”

She swore she almost jumped in reaction to his thick voice, gripping the plush tightly against her chest in shock. Harry allowed himself a chuckle, raising his hands just enough to surrender. “Sorry, should’ve knocked.”

Y/N’s only response was a forced chuckle. It still felt weird to be in a room with him by herself, without the presence of a cute five year old to tend to. It was moments like these she felt guilty about fancying him. Most of the time Harry was merely a ghost around the house and whenever he settled back in, she would leave. She rarely ever had time to utter more than a quick ‘see you tomorrow’ and rush off home. It wasn’t like he was there, so her thoughts about him didn’t seem too off putting— now, with the company of awkward silence engulfing them, she couldn’t help but feel disgusted by herself.

“Think he’s getting sick,” he then added.

“Probably,” she agreed. “I don’t think I’ve seen him like that before so it was just a bit worrisome.”

“Yeah, he only really gets like that when he’s sick, so I think it’s safe to say… you’re alright, though?”

“I’m fine, just a bit worried, as I said.”

He smiled like he found that amusing, “he’ll be okay. Are you hungry? I was going to make pasta for dinner.”

“Oh, are you sure?”

Last time she’d had dinner here, Jamie had sat next to her. It hadn’t been just her and him.

“Yeah. Why don’t you put the dino down and we’ll go make it together?”

In an instant, her cheeks heated up. She hadn’t even noticed she was still clutching to it for support and figured he must��ve thought she looked so stupid welcoming the comfort of a plush toy. Another awkward chuckle escaped her as she threw it gently into its container, bucking down to lock it away as well as her memory of these last two minutes, hopefully.

Harry was a good cook, but that wasn’t really surprising at all— in fact, she couldn’t imagine there were many things he wouldn’t excel at. Y/N, on the other hand, she was terrible. She’d burned so many things in her apartments kitchen that she couldn’t keep count even if she tried. So naturally, he took the lead in every task she did, from cutting onions to seasoning the salmon.

“Wait, no, y’can’t— here,” she couldn’t help but giggle as he took the knife from her hands, cutting into the flesh himself. He huffed, but she knew it was teasing. “You’ve gotta learn how to cook.”

“I know how to cook basic things, just not some five star gourmet meal. I think you’d be surprised what I can do with some seasoning, eggs and tomatoes.”

“I have no choice but to take your word for it, do I?”

“Guess not. Can I do something else? I feel so useless.”

He clicked his tongue, not even sparing a glance her way. “Go sit on the counter and look pretty.”

And at first, Y/N didn’t know how to respond to that. Did she just… literally sit on the counter? Probably not. It was… a joke, right? How did he expect she would react to such a bizarre request? For a second the guilt she’d been feeling about potentially being unprofessional subsided in a flush.

Then he finally let his eyes settle on her and she just about fainted at what he had to say, “what? Do you need help getting up?”

She was 99% sure at this point that he just got off on pestering her, what with the dino, and now this? Prior to these last two weeks he’d never even spoken more than five words to her, and now he was inviting her to dinner. He probably found the confusion written all over her face amusing.

She could probably indulge a little then, right?

“Yeah, I do.”

He didn’t just laugh, though, like she’d expected him to— no, he ran his hands under hot water, wiped his hands on his (very) expensive trousers and walked toward her. He motioned to the counter as if asking her to get closer and—

“Wait, no, I can do it.”

He immediately stepped back, hands dropping from her waist and smirk molding his mouth.

“You can now?”

“Yes.”

He held eye contact for a few more beats before moving away with a solid nod.

What the fuck was that?

Y/N had expected him to dismiss her, uttering something along the lines of ‘I was only joking’, but that? Never would she have thought that that would be the response.

It was funny, too, because he never could’ve carried her up without at least a bit of struggle. She knew what he was used to— thin women, supermodels even, and she was neither.

So despite the confusion, she got up on the counter like he’d asked. On her own.

And when he’d started asking her about normal things like family and uni, Y/N slowly eased out of her awkward stance. She told him about her mother, her brother, and left her deceased father out of it. He smiled, nodding along to her words whenever the situation allowed it and kept his eye on the food.

A blink was all it took for him to announce dinner and the two of them sat at the table together, peacefully quiet.

It was around six thirty when the patter of tiny feet sounded through the house, from the stairs to the kitchen. Both of the adults waited patiently, eyebrows raised in surprise that the little gremlin had decided to wake up after only having slept for two hours.

“Daddy?”

Y/N almost melted at his sweet, buttery voice.

Harry hummed, “is that you, bub?”

He finally poked his head into the room, carrying a plush toy in one hand and rubbing his sleepy eyes with the other. He studied the room before settling his green irises (clone of his dad’s) on Y/N.

“Y/N, you’re still here.”

She smiled, a pity smile, and answered in a sweet tone, “I am, bud. Is that okay?”

He merely nodded, stalking closer. Harry pulled him up into his lap, kissing his forehead before letting him rest against his front.

“I wanted to apologize for being mean before.”

Her stomach did another flip.

Was this a dream, or did a five year old just apologize to her on his own incentive? She swore these Styles boys surprised her every day!

Her eyes flickered to Harry and she watched as a proud smile stretched his mouth. He met her gaze, the grin undeniably wide, and shrugged as if to say didn’t tell him to.

“That’s okay, Jamie, I understand you were frustrated. Are you feeling better?”

He nodded again, although it was weak and subtle, “my throats itchy.”

Harry’s smile faded with his confession and he pressed the back of his palm to his son’s forehead, “why’d you get out of bed, then, silly? You need to rest if you’re sick.”

“Missed you, daddy.”

She could see that same guilt she’d seen so many times before manipulate Harry’s features again, and her heart broke a little bit for him. She couldn’t keep track of the amount of times she’d wanted to just break and say you’re a wonderful father to him, but stopped herself in fear of overstepping.

Knowing he wasn’t going to say anything soon enough, too lost in his own thoughts, she went on for him. “Tomorrow is Saturday, Jamie, how about you go rest so you can have a full day with your dad tomorrow? S’not nice spending weekends sick in bed, as you know.”

In a manner that was so much more than cute, Jamie’s fingers trapped his chin to appear deep in thought, and then he nodded. “That makes sense.”

Y/N almost laughed, “doesn’t it?”

“Will you be here too, Y/N?”

Jamie knew very well that Y/N wasn’t here on Saturdays, so she guessed he was only implying that she should be. An invitation of sorts.

But she really couldn’t handle being around Harry on the weekends as well as on weekdays, so she shook her head gently, “no, but I’ll be back on Monday, is that okay with you?”

To show his dismay, he jutted his lip out in a pout. “Can’t you come over for lunch?”

Harry nudged him, “Jamie, remember how we talked about what Y/N does when she isn’t here with us?”

“School. But there’s no school on Saturdays!”

“She does school, you’re right. When you get older, there’s so much you have to do for school that it never stops, not even on weekends. And you know what else she does? She meets up with friends, she plays tennis, she goes shopping for groceries. There’s tons she has to do besides spend time with us, yeah?” He never met her gaze as he spoke to Jamie, and it was better that way— he’d probably have caught her loved up eyes if he dared to do it. He remember details about her she didn’t recall telling him about. As if it hadn’t been enough, he added onto it, “plus, I reckon she’d appreciate a break from us, huh? We’re definitely not the only boys in her life, so we should share once in a while. No matter how much we like having her around.”

It was almost magical, the connection Harry and Jamie shared with each other. Nevermind what he’d said to make Jamie understand (she definitely hadn’t missed that last sentence— or the idea of ‘other boys’ altogether), it just made her happy to listen to them converse. It was healthy, a bit serious when need be but mostly light and protective. He did everything in his power to preserve Jamie’s innocence, especially about his upbringing and the whole mother issue.

After a long train of thought, Jamie slowly nodded his small head, “okay. Fine. But I get you Monday! No other boys Monday through Friday.”

Y/N couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled from her mouth, incessant and silly. “Okay, Jamie, I promise I won’t let other boys come between us Monday through Friday, okay? Is that good for you?”

“Me and daddy, though. He’s the only other boy allowed.”

She giggled again, avoiding Harry’s gaze but nodding nonetheless, “sure. Daddy too.”

She felt Harry shift out of her periphery.

“Okay,” he finally settled, outstretching his arm across the table, “pinky promise?”

She did the same, but just before Jamie had a chance to interlink his much smaller finger with hers, she pulled back. “If I pinky promise you on this, will you pinky promise me that you’ll finally go rest?”

He hummed in agreement.

She welcomed the promise, letting her finger link with Jamie’s for a few seconds until he felt ready to let go.

“Now go lay down. I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

“Kay. Can I have a hug?”

“Of course,” she cooed at him, arms already outstretched the moment he’d climbed down from Harry’s lap. Jamie gave the best hugs, so she figured Harry would as well. She’d never gotten to test that theory, though. “Okay, good night.”

“Night.”

Jamie took slow steps (he was much like his father that way, taking his time in everything he did) and slowly disappeared into the main room, eventually stalking up the stairs as both Y/N and Harry listened for it.

“Thank you,” Harry then broke the silence. Her eyes flickered toward him, eyebrows drawing together in confusion, but a nervous smile playing on her mouth. “You’re so good with him.”

“It’s my job to be good to him.”

“It’s your job to take care of him, but you’re not… you’re doing much more than just be nice to him and I appreciate that. So thank you.”

“He’s a great kid, so… not a very difficult thing to do.”

The air had somehow become thick and unwavering, unspoken words wafting between their bodies across the table and back. Harry looked like he wanted to say more but his jaw stayed shut in place and she certainly wasn’t going to pester him about it. It was already difficult to keep in mind that despite the lighthearted dinner, he was still her employer, and that the boundaries they had been practicing since the beginning of her time here were slowly being blurred and tested.

So it didn‘t really matter what she felt whenever he spoke to her, she had to preserve herself and her position here.

She feigned a glance at the clock to justify looking away and sat up in her chair, “I should go home.”

His nod was curt, “okay. I’ll get the keys.”

“No, don’t worry, I have to stop by somewhere else before. I’ll manage.”

It was a lie, of course it was.

“Fine.”

As Y/N made her way back outside, she regretted declining his offer and the farther she walked away from the house, the more she thought about the things they could’ve talked about had she let him grab his keys and escort her home. If he would walk her to the door like last time, without Jamie in the car of course, and bid her a proper goodbye. How maybe, if they’d inched close enough, they would share a moment of hesitation before kissing. Her imagination ran wild with it and she knew that it wouldn’t really happen, but the chances would’ve been greater had she just been bad.

Shit.

—

Y/N was crying.

She was bursting into tears outside of a bar looking like a pathetic, lost idiot— and it just wouldn‘t stop. She couldn’t recall anymore what exactly she‘d expected before going into the date she‘d spontaneously agreed to as a result of her mother‘s pleas, but it certainly hadn‘t been such an embarrassing let down. Her shoulders slumped as she thought back on her date‘s words: I don’t see this going anywhere, but you’re a really nice girl. Friends?

And why was she crying? She was crying because she knew what he’d really meant was: you’re not my type at all, and this was a waste of my time. How did she know? The way he’d looked at her, with a sparkle of disgust in his eyes, the tone he’d used; pitiful and mean. How he’d looked at other, skinny girls while Y/N had been planted directly in front of him and lastly, how he’d left before the date had even ended.

Y/N hadn’t left the bar as soon as he had, no, she’d stayed until now; closing time. She’d drunk herself to exhaustion, pulling shot after shot and even worrying the barista who went to her psych class at uni. Before she’d known it, the clock had struck three am and four hours had passed since what’s-his-face had left her to rot in there.

She had no idea what to do, she could barely even form a thought. It didn’t matter that she’d been rejected— this wasn’t about that, it was about something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Since the beginning of time relationships had been sparse and dreadful, so another notch on her belt couldn’t have mattered so much as to bring her to a multitude of tears, but she did feel unlovable and undesirable in the way she had throughout all of her life. People had told her things would get better if she waited it out, but they’d lied. Guys were still assholes.

There was really only one person she felt like contacting, and that was Harry. He’d been on her mind all weekend. She’d been wondering if she ever crossed his mind, if for a sliver of a second he allowed himself to think about her in the way she thought about him, and felt a disgustingly sour taste in her mouth when she realized the answer had to have been no.

But Y/N was drunk, and people did stupid things when they were drunk— so without much afterthought, she used the remainder of her battery on dialing his number. He answered after the first ring and her mind wandered to question the plausibility of him being awake at this hour.

“Y/N?”

She was struck watching the road in front of her, unable to answer. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

What had she done?

“Y/N, is everything okay?” another wave of tears overwhelmed her senses and as a result, she sobbed right into the speaker, and heard shuffling on the other side. “Sweetheart, where are you? What’s happened?”

“This guy— he just— he was so mean and he left me here—“

“Where? Where are you? Who left you?”

“The viper.”

“Y/N, that place closed twenty minutes ago. Are you inside?”

“No, she… she said I need to get out, so I did, but I didn’t know where to go cause m’drunk, and I…” there was a pause in which she realized how stupid he must’ve thought she was, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, listen to me. Please stay there, don’t move, and send me your location. I’m coming to get you.”

She had no fight left in her, so she nodded to herself. Harry didn’t see, obviously, but he hung up with the hope that she’d understood him clearly.

When he arrived not fifteen minutes later, he put his car in park and hopped out to find Y/N sat on the floor, a lazy smile pulling at her lips when she laid eyes on him.

“Harry, hi! I was just thinking about you!”

He said nothing, a tick in his jaw as he helped her up on her feet, grounding her stature. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder and he kept a steady beat to bring her to warmth as quickly as possible. Y/N got the idea, aimlessly buckling up and failing miserably until he offered assistance.

“Thank you,” she murmured to him, though he refused to give a verbal response. He merely nodded, jaw still locked in place before he closed the door. Y/N watched as he walked over to the other side and opened the door.

He drove in silence and Y/N tried to be okay with that. She stared ahead, mind still gloomy, with her lips jutted out in a pout. The silent treatment made her feel like a scolded child, like Harry was her angry father who refused to speak to her because she’d come home past her bedtime. She looked over to scan over his features, make sure the crease between his forehead had subsided at least a little, but it hadn’t.

After the longest minute of her life, she finally asked, quietly, “are you mad at me?”

And when he didn’t say anything, her heart dropped.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Y/N didn’t dare to say anything for the rest of the ride. When they got back, Y/N opened her own door and hopped out, refusing to wait for Harry to help. He sighed, she could hear, but she just slowly trailed after him.

“Up on the counter,” he grumbled, grabbing a glass of water to help sober up. She took it from his hand.

“Harry, I’m sor—“

“Drink the water.”

She almost flinched at his angry tone.

Y/N was halfway done with the glass when he scoffed, unable to bite his tongue any longer, “I’m angry because you were irresponsible. First you go on a date with some dickhead—“ she opened her mouth to protest, but failed to when he put up a finger to halt her, “then you get yourself drunk and sit outside of the bar alone in a stingy area. Something could’ve happened to you, then what?”

All Y/N could say was, “it didn’t,” and it was the weakest argument she could’ve thought of.

“It very well could’ve and you’d have your stupidity to thank for it.”

Her heart banged again. She didn’t like getting reprimanded by Harry, nearly at the end of her rope anyway. She‘d never seen this side of him before, stern and miserly. Clearly Y/N had only really seen one version of him and had gotten lost in the illusion of it all.

In a last attempt to make him understand, vulnerable and naked, she let herself sniffle, “I don’t think anyone is ever going to love me.”

She‘d expected it to pull at her heartstrings more than it ended up doing— ironically enough, she felt fine confessing to him. Maybe it was the fact that she‘d bottled it up for so long that it was nice to finally admit to it, to allow somebody else to step into her shoes. Of course, every confession came with a tinge of embarrassment (it wouldn’t be a confession otherwise), but this one was still manageable. And yeah, maybe it was the alcohol coursing through her system, but who cared?

“What?”

“No one loves me. I’ve never… guys have never liked me enough to want to brag about it, or keep me around for longer than a month, and… and I do get it, cause I come with a shit ton of baggage, but it just… it takes a lot to be motivated about things that way. I’m twenty three and I’ve barely experienced what it means to love someone and actually have them love you back.”

The display of vulnerability floated heavily through the air.

He was silent for a second. He did that sometimes, she noticed, especially when he was processing things.

Once he did open his mouth, though, he knew exactly what to say, “you can’t let some immature boys get to you like this, you hear me? Tell me one good asset the guy you went on a date with had.”

Y/N shook her head, not because she couldn‘t have if she‘d thought about it hard enough but because she had no energy to continue this conversation any longer. He wouldn’t get it

“See? No guy is worth crying over, especially not on some dirty pavement outside of a bar.”

He truly did have a point there, she supposed.

But it wasn’t just about that, so she told him exactly that�� well, at least tried to, “it’s more than… I don’t… I don’t feel good enough.”

“You’re being a bit silly, sweetheart.” She registered how sweet he’d gotten again, finger brushing against her knee and features softening just enough to convince her of safety. He probably felt bad for her. “You’re plenty good enough.”

“Y’don’t get it,” she murmured, “you don’t understand what it feels like to get rejected solely because of your looks.” Y/N had always felt slightly weird talking about her appearance with people who weren’t her closest friends, and even then she felt judgment coming from them. Each time they asked if she would come clubbing with them to score boys, she was never able to honestly express that she‘d never wanted to go because it was always her who was left riding home in an uber alone. And it wasn’t like she felt ugly— in fact, there were instances she felt so confident nobody could’ve told her anything, but then there were those few others… and her whole system came down crashing.

“What do you mean?”

He couldn’t be so daft, could he?

“You’re— you just don’t fucking get it, okay? It’s… whatever, I don’t care.”

That took some courage too, courage she only registered after having uttered the words, but she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t mutter the words this guy didn’t fancy me because I’m fat, because she still had more class than that— even drunk. Ever the childish, pouty person she was, she had more shame than that.

She buried her face in her hands, breathing out, “I’m sorry. Sorry, that was rude of me.”

“It’s fine,” he placed a warm hand on her thigh, thumb stroking soothingly. With a sympathetic look in his eye (confusion too, she guessed), he tried to pacify her concerns, “you need sleep, everything will be better when you wake up.”

He was probably right about that.

“Okay.”

As he escorted her up the stairs, she couldn’t help but let her eyes trail over his features, watching as they hardened and softened based on the turmoil occurring inside of his mind. She wanted to reach in there and grab onto clues, grasp an understanding of the workings of him, but he made that nearly impossible. She would look away if he caught her eye, cheeks heating up every time she was captured by his darkened green irises.

He opened the door, allowing her to take the first step. She didn’t really need the help, but she couldn’t complain when his hand posed on the small of her back so he could maneuver her onto the sheets.

“Do you want a change of clothes, Y/N?”

“Um, if you have something?”

She doubted there was anything in his huge closet that would fit her in the way she preferred, but the idea of spending the night in jeans was just as dreadful, so she took the chance and nodded.

He came back later with a stack of clothes perched on his left hand, the other holding another glass of water. “Anything else?”

Y/N paused for a moment to think and shook her head, “no. But just—“ she swallowed around the lump in her throat, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She couldn’t believe the words she spoke next, no thought invested into them: “will you come into bed with me?”

Time refused to pass, the ball was in his court.

When he gave a subtle nod, it was like god and the universe were sending good karma her way. Her compensation for the night. “Just until you fall asleep.”

Y/N scooted to the other edge of the bed, reaching down under the blanket to rid herself of her jeans and pull on those grey sweatpants. Surprisingly enough, they fit extremely well. Harry laid down over the blanket (to prevent getting too comfortable, probably) and perched himself onto his forearm.

Another bold wave met with Y/N’s courage as she reached out her hand to trail over his chest. Harry swallowed thickly.

“You’re really nice t’me.”

“You deserve to be treated well.” The snort that left her was completely involuntary, but it still made Harry frown. “You do.”

“Everyone does,” she later mumbled in agreement. He seemed to dislike the way she’d surrendered, though, because he did that thing with his jaw whenever he was ticked off.

What he didn’t like was the implication behind her tone that she only deserved respect because everyone did, regardless of her own character. She was disregarding her beauty and her kindness, her character, and reducing it to a commodity when it wasn’t.

He’d always had difficulty expressing his feelings, though, so he stuck with silence. Stone cold silence.

It pertained for five more minutes until he watched as sleep slowly overtook her figure, peaceful breaths cascading from her mouth. She looked so pretty asleep; relaxed, void of concerns and the crinkle in her forehead from tonight’s events dissipating into its initial form.

He wondered if she’d ever given him other implications of being an insecure girl— if she had, he’d caught none of them. He never would’ve thought somebody so effortlessly beautiful and kind as her could think to deserve less on such extreme levels. It made him wonder if anyone had ever treated her as she deserved; he noticed once that whenever she spoke about her family, she failed to mention her father. It seemed men had disappointed her in more ways than one.

There was inner turmoil bothering him. He didn’t know what he was feeling for his child’s nanny, but there was surely no other woman he felt as eager to take care of— picking her up, driving her home, clearing a room for her.

It was terrifying to allow himself these few minutes of observation because he feared the impure thoughts which would cross his mind. Not perverse, but intimate. She deserved more than him, he was sure of it.

He left the room after another five minutes, trying to be as subtle as possible as he walked to the door. It was later than four am, so he stopped by his son’s room to check on him. When he saw nothing out of the ordinary, he finally carried himself to his own bedroom.

He would lie awake until sunrise.

—

Y/N had never woken up so panicked before, chest heaving and mind elsewhere entirely. Her head was pounding and her heart rate palpable, she was sweating all over and she could only recall last night in small, blurry tidbits.

God, and she had to face Harry. On a Monday morning.

After maybe ten minutes of lying around and procrastinating, she finally moved herself out of bed. She pulled on her clothes from last night, drank the water that was situated on her nightstand and tidied up in the bathroom before going to search for him. She looked upstairs— no trace of him, so she cascaded down the stairs and made her way to the kitchen. On the way there, his office caught her eye. The door was cracked opened and at a closer peek, she saw him sitting at the desk with his hand buried in his hair, mumbling something. She knocked, he flinched.

“God, Y/N, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” she gave a sheepish smile, “are you busy?”

“I—“ he sighed, shaking his head. It was when he spoke into the phone lying on his desk that she realized he’d been one a phone call. Before she could backtrack, he’d muttered an ‘I’ll call you later, Stace’ to them and hung up for her. She stood there, fingers interlaced in front of her body and balancing on the balls of her feet in intimidation.

He didn’t look happy either, and that was probably because ‘Stace’ was Jamie’s mother. She would call every few months, he’d told her, and cause some sort of havoc— from wanting to talk to Jamie on the phone to wanting to see him in person. When asked why he didn’t like letting her see Jamie, he’d given Y/N a very vague answer; wouldn’t do any good. She’d settled with that back then, having sensed the energy shifting.

Y/N felt bad for him now, the stress assuming control of his features almost overwhelming to look at.

He was already glancing up at her expectantly, but the words disappeared from her brain and all she wanted to do, really, was comfort him.

“I— are you okay?”

It was a visceral reaction he had to those few little words, the furrow in his eyebrow deepening, “yes, why?”

“Because… well because you were talking to Stacie on the phone—“

His scoff interrupted her pity stutter, “so you’re listening in on my conversations now?”

Oh, she was no longer sorry; she was scared. “No! No, I’m not, I swear! I was walking past looking for you and I heard you mumble something, I don’t— I would never…” and he must’ve known that. He must’ve known that she would never, ever listen in on his conversations, nor try to overstep the line by doing that (obviously she’d fucked up last night, but aside from that). He knew her, he’d trusted her for long enough for her to know that he knew that, so his accusation ticked her off.

But he looked terrifying right now; eyes dark, eyebrows furrowed, closed off stance, and nothing like the Harry she’d gotten to know well. And she had no idea if it had been last night or this that had finally pushed him over the edge.

“So why bring it up?”

“Because you— because you’ve talked about it before and I was just— I wanted to check on you!” She was stuttering like an idiot, she was aware, but with her comfort bubble gone, her speech wasn’t a reliable asset anymore. She’d always been terrible at communication and even worse at confrontation. And he must’ve known that because he was using it to his advantage— and that was mean, because he knew she would never. He knew. Didn’t he?

“It’s not professional, Y/N, but I’m sure you know that. I’m sure you know that last night wasn’t either, but you keep fucking pushing me.”

And that… well, was partly right.

“I know last night wasn’t…” she shook her head, “it wasn’t professional, I know that. I don’t know why I called you, I don’t get it either, it just happened, really, and I wanted to apologize. I understand if you—“ she peered down toward her hands, swallowing the lump in her throat, “if you don’t feel comfortable with me being here anymore. With your son, I mean, I’d totally understand.”

Y/N thought that was quite sensible of her. Of course, if she could get a chance to have a repeat of last night, she would take it in a heartbeat— but she couldn’t, so this was all she could do. She loved working here, giving it up would hurt, but she understood if that was what needed to be done.

“You just… you can’t fucking call me at three am in the morning drunk off of your arse—“

“I know that—“

“Clearly you don’t!” And she detested how his voice raised. “And clearly you don’t get that there are things you just can’t talk about; like Stacie, or your own relationships, or whatever the fuck else you’ve brought up to me.” If she felt like a scolded child yesterday, then she’d had no idea how bad it could get. “I’m your— I’m your employer, not your fucking therapist. I’m not here to clean up your fuck-ups, pat you on the head and tell you it’s alright.”

Her eyebrows furrowed because she knew that too, and she found it borderline preposterous that he would imply she didn’t.

There was a 180 here, and she was becoming less and less understanding.

“I told you I don’t know why I called you, Harry, I don’t know! What am I supposed to say? I was terrified and sad and don’t ask me why, but you’re the only person who actually gets what I’m talking about half of the time, so it just happened!”

“You act like I’m somehow responsible for you.”

Her frown deepened; she hated the notion that he had to take care of her in some way, as if she was incapable of it on her own account. “On what basis? I think you might be pressuring yourself into that, Harry, because it’s fucking ridiculous. I never made you be any type of way.”

He released a frustrated breath, “you have to stop worming your way into our lives— you’re our nanny, that’s it. You don’t ask me about my personal life, you don’t call me in the middle of the night to make me worry and you don’t ask me to get into bed with you.”

“You act like I don’t know that!”

“Evidently you don’t.”

“Yes I d—“

“Just—just stop. Stop talking.”

It shut her up. It did not only that, the increase of his volume had made her flinch on the spot. She wasn’t a fan of confrontation, as mentioned before, but what she despised even more was yelling. She couldn’t stand yelling, fighting, accusations being thrown in the air with no regard to anyone’s feelings. It was an extremely sensitive thing for her and she definitely hadn’t expected to experience it with him today.

Y/N saw him a little differently in this light. The sternness with which he delivered those words, strict and mean, reminded her of her childhood. He saw her weakness, saw the stress she was under, and did nothing to relieve the situation. Instead he’d yelled at her.

Her hand was shaking a little and tears were forming in her eyes. She couldn’t let him see it, though, the weakness. She couldn’t allow him to see that a simple instruction had made her want to cry.

“I can’t deal with you today, Y/N, so please just… just go.”

She left without another word— straight up turned around and closed the door behind her with shaky hands. She couldn’t stand him right now, but even more she couldn’t stand herself.

She’d fucked up so badly.

And maybe… maybe she needed to quit.

-

part two!

And there we have it! don’t hate me for that ending it was necessary!

[veesstar0555]

barista!reg: hello, can i take your order?

singledad!james: please could i get a peach iced tea? harry?

harry *peeking over counter*: a cookie!!

barista!reg: im so sorry there sweetheart, i didnt quite see you! of course you can have a cookie!!

singledad!james: ill also get your number- i mean, i mean just the cookie is fine also.

barista!reg *smiling*: right away for you.

*

later when james stumbles out of the cafe shrinking in his embarrassment, he notices the cute barista wave to harry and signal to his cup. a number is printed onto the order sticker. “text me”

[allthelovehes]

Care and Connection* | TEASER

Summary: Y/N has been babysitting Harry's daughter for a couple of months now and the two of them grew rather fond of each other. Harry can't help but swoon when he comes home to find his daughter wrapped up in Y/N's arms, both asleep on the sofa.

Pairing: Singledad!Harry x reader

Word count: 2.8K TEASER of a 9K Patreon Exclusive!

Warnings: Smut, lots of love and care, cutest girl ever, oh right back to the smut: protected sex, oral both f and m receiving, swallowing (iykyk), taboo relationship(?).

Taglist: @justmystyles @bitchybabyharry @harrysslut7 @swiftmendeshoran @lucasandharold @harrysbabycherry @htaylor18 @rose-garden-dreamz @myalovesharry @mellamolayla @hsonlyangelxo @yousunshineyoutempter @heartateasee @blueheisenbergtragedy @bikestyles @bohemianrhapsody86 Let me know if you want to be added to my taglist! 🤗

Support my work by joining my Patreon!

Four months into getting her master's degree, Y/N stumbled upon a babysitting gig for a wealthy single dad. Harry Styles promised the opportunity of a lifetime. After graduating she could use him as a reference and would even have a chance to be head of her own department in his corporation. All she had to do was keep his kid alive and act like their best friend. This shouldn't be too difficult.

Her boss was nothing like she had expected. Y/N loved children and had babysat through her undergrad years so Harry was definitely on board with the resume she put in. What he didn't count on was the temptation the beautiful girl brought with her. His three-year-old daughter adores her and seeing his daughter so happy made him weak as well. But Y/N too wasn't prepared for the tension that'd soon build between the two of them.

Y/N's schedule is perfect for her job, she takes three classes a week at the university which are all morning classes leaving her plenty of time to watch Grace in the afternoon so Harry can go to the office. Being the CEO allows him to work from home and they agreed upon the three mornings, as long as she's finished by 1 PM. Her master's requires a lot of self-study but Harry promised her the use of his office, whenever she needed it.

After finishing her classes, Y/N steps in her car and drives to the Styles residence. She clicks the button of the remote control so the gate to Harry's property opens. Whenever Y/N wonders how her boss can afford such a beautiful home, she reminds herself that she really shouldn't pry too much into people's personal lives. She shakes the question away every time because truthfully she doesn't want to know.

“Y/N!” Grace shouts excitedly when the front door opens. Her little feet slide against the wooden flooring, while the small girl is making her way over to her.

“Hi, Gracie.” She smiles brightly, crouching down so she can wrap her arms around her. “You can actually run a marathon now.” She pokes her tongue out.

“Daddy said I hafta put on my shoes first.” The small girl points at her bare feet. “Then you can race.”

“Daddy is smart, you'd be way faster with your shoes on!” Y/N agrees. Grace's favourite activity is definitely running. Ever since the day she found out how fast her legs could carry her, there was no going back.

“Y/N, I am so glad you're here.” Harry walks into the entrance and the Y/N can't help but bite her lip. He wears a tight black turtleneck sweater, showing off his chest and when he turns to close the door, his trousers fit very nicely. Y/N shakes her head, chastising herself for once again admiring the beauty that is her boss. “You are early.”

Y/N gets up, looking at her wristwatch. “By two minutes.” She can feel the blush creeping up her cheeks because even though they've been doing this babysitting gig for a couple of months, she is still caught off guard when they talk. “My professor ended his lecture earlier than expected.” She explains.

“I should reward your punctuality.” He smirks mischievously. If she hadn't fallen in love with his daughter first, it would've probably been him.

Grace slides into her purple Converse shoes and looks up at the pair while attempting to tie her shoes.

“Come here baby.” Y/N reaches a hand out. “Let me help you.” She watches as the girl makes her way to her with a bright smile. She's definitely taken after Harry. Her brown hair covers a good part of her back when it's down, which always has Harry insisting that she does a half ponytail. Her small chubby hands roam around with any and everything making it all the more impossible to grasp properly. But if there's one thing Y/N has learned in these last couple of months it's that it doesn't take a lot of effort for Grace to grasp hold of someone's heart. Y/N finishes tying her shoe before wrapping the little girl's hair into a ponytail, using the band on her wrist to secure it into place and picking up the toddler.

“Is it a race?” Grace asks curiously.

“I was thinking that we can make french toast.” Y/N suggests, laughing at herself as she proposes something completely different from what Grace insists on.

“French toast?” Grace scrunches her nose up in disapproval.

“Yes, Grace!” She exclaims. “We need to eat first.”

Harry watches their interaction and doesn't even attempt to hide the amusement that crosses his features.

“Ok.” The three-year-old girl answers. “I guess.”

“It's only until lunch.” Y/N reminds her. “Then afterwards we can go running. You and me?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“Daddy's not gonna come?” Grace mumbles a soft pout on her face.

“I have to work, baby.” Harry reminds his daughter. “Y/N will watch you today while I am at work. She is gonna make sure you eat and sleep and she'll play with you until you tire her out.” He smiles. “Just like every other Thursday.” He wraps his right arm around Y/N's waist, leaning in so he can kiss the top of his daughter's head. “Now be nice.”

“I don't want to sleep, daddy.” Grace frowns, the disappointment and resistance clear on her face.

“Later.” He smiles. “Daddy is late.”

“Did you eat?” Y/N looks at him. “I can make you lunch too.” She offers.

“I already ate, don't worry.” He chuckles. “Besides I know it's not in your job description to care for me.” Harry smirks.

“But if your baby doesn't get the proper attention and you're too weak from starvation, I will be liable.” Y/N offers nonchalantly and feels her cheeks warm when his gaze meets hers.

“Can I go jump on the bed?” Grace interrupts them.

“Absolutely not!” They both scold in unison before turning their heads to stare at the other. Harry chuckles as he sends her a wink.

“I'm going to go now. Be good.” He says looking at Grace. “You too, Y/N.” He winks at her.

“I am always on my best behaviour, Mr. Styles.” She teases.

“I know.” He hums satisfied. “That's the problem.” ***

Y/N walks out of Harry's office, making sure to quietly close the door behind her. Grace peacefully fell asleep after running for thirty minutes straight in the backyard and Y/N took the opportunity to use Harry's home office to study for her classes. She just found out she had an exam on Monday and it was way too close for her comfort.

When Grace wakes up from her nap, Y/N gets her changed and ready for the rest of their afternoon together. Y/N keeps busy to get through Grace's demanding behaviour, so she figures some baking will be a good activity. She's wearing Harry's apron, her hair has come undone with all the frustration she has with measuring the dry ingredients but honestly, she couldn't care less about anything else. She's covered in flower and possibly milk but she prides herself on the fact that the smell of banana bread has taken over the house.

“Grace?” She calls but receives no answer. “Grace!” She calls again, a bit louder this time but still nothing. Where is she? Y/N steps out of the kitchen and into the living room where she finds the little girl laying down on the sofa. “Are you hungry?”

“Mmhm.” Grace shakes her head.

“No? Are you sleepy, love?” Y/N sits down next to the toddler and runs her hand over her back.

“My tummy hurts.” Grace frowns, holding her stomach.

“It hurts?” She frowns, pressing her hand down against Grace's belly and rubbing circles on it with her thumb. “Come here.” Y/N gently lifts Grace onto her lap. “Where does it hurt, baby?”

Grace pulls a pout on her face, her eyes looking at Y/N for a second before pressing her lips into a thin line. She pushes her cheek against the babysitter's chest and points to her stomach.

“Is it a big hurt?” Y/N feels worried for the child. She doesn't want Grace to be in pain and what's worse is that it's the first time something like this happens. “Gracie?” She whispers, and the little girl merely nods her head.

“Oh, come here baby.” Y/N coos and lays down with Grace in her arms. She covers them with the blanket from the back of the sofa, keeping them warm.

Grace settles between the crevice of her neck and chest, clinging to Y/N as her fingers softly graze the nape of her neck. Her fingers twirl a strand of Y/N's hair around them while the thumb of her free hand is caught between her lips.

Y/N curls her hands over Grace's head as she begins humming a tune for the little girl. She closes her eyes, allowing the smooth melody to come out and waits patiently for the girl to fall asleep. It doesn't take much longer for Grace to relax and after one more round, Y/N is certain the toddler has succumbed to her dreams. She lays with the little girl, not wanting to wake her up and keeps humming and soothingly patting her back.

Eventually, she opens her eyes as she feels a soft pressure on top of her head and sees Harry standing there caressing her hair, quietly staring back at her. How long has he been standing there?

“You fell asleep.” He whispers, his voice full of amusement.

“How did your meeting go?” Y/N keeps her voice at a low level as not to startle her little sleeper.

“You had a tough day, sweetheart?” He asks, sitting down on the other sofa in front of them. His dimpled smile breaks out as she nods her head at him. Harry is genuinely touched at seeing the closeness between his girl and the woman who has brought so much happiness to his family.

Y/N turns her head, nuzzling her nose against Grace's hair and taking a deep breath. The little girl moves to press a leg between her knees and pushes her feet against her thigh, feeling the warm embrace.

“When did this happen?” He motions to Grace.

“She said her tummy hurt.” Y/N explains. “I thought we could keep snuggling a bit. Besides if I laid her down she'll probably wake up.”

“A wise decision.” He assures her, letting his head rest on his palm.

Y/N smiles for a moment before her eyes fall to his lap. “How was your meeting?” She asks.

“Exhausting.” Harry sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Kept thinking about my girls at home.” He looks at her and she bites her bottom lip trying to hide her shy smile. She loves how he said girls, as in plural.

They stare at each other a bit longer, neither one wanting to break their eye contact, in a sense begging the other to be the first. Grace lets out a small cough, startling Y/N into looking away. She turns to see the small girl's forehead all bunched up.

“It's ok, honey.” She whispers, pressing a small kiss to her temple. She begins her lullaby again and it doesn't take long for Grace to settle into a deep sleep.

“So beautiful.” He hums after a while, looking at the way Grace falls at ease in Y/N's arms. “Let's put her to bed so we can have dinner.” Harry offers and takes the small child in his arms and carries her up the stairs.

Y/N stays behind and cleans up the mess they made in the kitchen, thankful that she let the food she planned on cooking for dinner stay in the fridge. She glances up as she sees Harry strolling down the staircase. His long legs carry him forward in a few strides and she rolls her eyes at herself for finding such a stupid activity exciting.

“Is she asleep?” Y/N asks.

“Mmhm.” Harry stretches his arms above his head and Y/N catches a sliver of skin beneath his sweater. It only lasts a moment but it's enough for Y/N to release the breath she didn't realise she was holding in.

Harry lowers his arms and reaches the kitchen, taking a seat on a stool on the other side of the counter. He had his hands pressed on top of it as his eyes look down. After a small sigh, he looks up at Y/N.

“I was thinking-” He pauses. “-me and you, we should talk.” He keeps his hands pressed on the cold marble, balling them into fists at the fear of her rejection.

Y/N's face shows an expression of worry. “Oh no, was I not meeting the needed requirements of my job?” She questions, folding the dish towel on her shoulder. “I've tried to give as much love and care to Grace as possible. I promise that I will not abandon her or neglect her or her well-being.”

Harry smiles lovingly at her. “You are amazing with her.” He remarks, leaning his elbows on the counter. “But that's not what I was talking about.”

“It's not?” Y/N pouts, now very confused about what he really wants to say.

“This babysitting thing, Y/N.” Harry begins. “We both know that this is more than that.” He waits for her reaction.

“Ok..” She drags out the 'o'. “I mean if you've been-“

“Can you please sit down?” He interjects.

Y/N smiles politely, afraid to show too much of the happiness that has taken over her. Harry can see her hesitancy and can tell she's trying her best to remain calm while she takes her seat next to him. She turns her stool a little bit so she's directly facing him.

Harry stares at her for a moment, taking her in and how natural it seems for them to sit down like this. His fingers reach out, brushing her cheek lightly but pulling his hand back when she frowns. It's too soon. It's inappropriate. But he wants her so much.

“I care for you a lot.” He starts again, with a newfound confidence and strength. “I think it's more than just Grace at this point. You have become a part of my family in such a short amount of time. You've shown me the joy of welcoming another human in my home and offering them safety and love.”

“I love being here.” Y/N swallows the lump in her throat. “Grace is so perfect and I- I care for her immensely. I would do anything for her.”

“You also happen to be exquisite.” Harry remarks. “Possibly the prettiest woman I have ever laid eyes on.” Y/N ducks her head and he can sense the heat radiating from her skin. “It's not my place to cross any boundaries but I can't deny the chemistry and connection we share. I am so attracted to you.”

She bites her lower lip. This is going all wrong. “But, Harry.”

“Y/N.” He interrupts her. “Let me finish.” He tilts his head to the side.

“I've seen the way you've been looking at me.” Harry reaches out, lifting her chin with his fingers. “It's the same way I look at you when you're not looking back.”

“It's true.” She admits. “I just-” Y/N frowns. “I thought that maybe, and please don't hate me for thinking this, I thought that perhaps I was seeing things that weren't actually there, delusional daydreaming.” She scoffs and Harry licks his lips, a smirk visible.

“Allow me to clear the confusion.” He whispers, running his fingers along her jaw, towards the right side of her neck. “I want you.” He reveals, slightly tilting her head back with a gentle push, so her eyes meet his. “And I will wait until you decide you're ready.”

She tenses up, a hand on her thigh as the other grips at the hem of her blouse. “What if I'm ready now?” Y/N muses.

Harry leans back, pushing himself off the stool and stepping forward as the gap between him and Y/N lessens. “Then I'd say we skip dinner.” He says, his voice a bit deeper and definitely surer than before. Her eyes travel his face, holding the gaze of his bright green eyes for a second longer.

“We definitely should, Mr. Styles.” Y/N decides to call him by his last name as she sees the spark ignite in his eyes. “After all, you are the boss.” She chuckles.

“That's right, love.” He smirks. “I am.” Harry wraps his arms around her, pulling her off the stool and holding her securely against his frame. The younger woman wraps her hands around his neck and her legs around his waist, giving him all the assurance he needs. “God, look at you.” He murmurs before pressing his lips to hers.

[calliopesdiary]

Hi lovely! I love your writing! Can you do a single dad! james one shot where harry is in kindergarten (lily isn’t in the picture) and you’re harry’s teacher and james has a crush on you? No pressure if you don’t have time! Thank you!

hi dovie!! thanks for much for requesting! i was on holiday so i couldn’t respond quickly but i hope this was worth the wait 😊

-

Paper Rings~💌

singledad!jamespotter x fem!kindergartenteacher!reader

summary; Harry is a charming kid, but his dad might be even more charming.

a/n; no hate to my girl lily! i just like to imagine that she’s with mary or pandora (:

wc; 1.2k

warnings; none (:

contents; muggle au, james sirius and remus co-parent harry, lily isnt in the picture

YOU WERE NERVOUS, i mean, rightfully so.

Monday, August 23rd. the first day of school, and the first day of your new job.

in the past, you thought you’d be anything but a kindergarten teacher. but after volunteering with a local daycare over the summer…

you were smitten.

besides, you knew one day you’d actually have kids. but that was about… seven years down the line. (yes, you had your future all mapped out)

and it’s better this way, really. you get to hang out with the kids, paint with them, read with them, talk to them, and then at three o’clock you can just return them back to their parents and not have to deal with kids all night.

perfect plan, right?

wrong.

after pacing your well-decorated classroom back and forth about sixteen times in the past twelve minutes, a fellow teacher came in to chat.

“Hi, you’re Y/N, right?”

you spun around to the source of the greeting.

“sorry, yes, i am.”

you shook his hand with an anxious type of firmness.

“it’s nice to meet you, i’m Remus. i teach seventh grade.”

his smile lit up the awkward mood in the room.

“i assume you’re a bit nervous, yes?”

“a bit more than a bit.”

you admitted embarrassingly, they were just kids.

“well, you’ve definitely gotten the best age group to start out with.”

“i have?”

“mhm, all you have to do really is teach them their ABCs, and make sure they don’t eat the non-toxic paint.”

you let out a soft chuckle at that.

“i’ll certainly try my best, Remus.” he smiled.

“well, you’re about to get some kids in here so i should probably leave. just be careful, when i started out i was so much taller than the kids that some of them climbed onto me like i was a tree.”

he chuckled, definitely easing your nerves.

“that sounds like hell.”

“it was.” he nodded, closing your door with a soft thud, leaving you to your own thoughts and feelings.

until a young boy walked in with his dad, nervously clutching onto his big hand.

“hi… you’re ms. L/N, right?”

the dad spoke in a soft spoken manner, clearly not wanting to spook his son. (totally not because he was absolutely astonished and terrified that his sons teacher was maybe the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen)

“yes, i am.”

you answered with the same tone, swallowing down your anxiety.

“well… this is harry.”

Harry ducked behind his legs.

“i’m sorry, he’s not usually shy.”

“it’s alright, everybody gets nervous the first time they try anything.”

you crouched down to the boys level.

“hi, Harry. i’m Ms. L/N.”

“h-hi, Mrs. L/N."

the boy smiled cheekily as he held his little hands.

"we're gonna have so much fun today, so don't be scared." you returned his smile, yet you were probably about as nervous as he was.

you stood back up to face his dad, he was tall... very tall, and his eyes a hazel hue.

god, was he handsome.

no, that was not a good thing to say about someone who was definitely married with a kid.

but... maybe just sneak one more glance..

but, of course. the kids began to pile in, and the handsome young dilf dad waved goodbye to his son, and turned to leave.

little did you know he was thinking of you too.

your first day on the job was incredible, and time had flown by to Christmas Break.

your classroom was lovingly decorated for the holidays, and you had gotten to know your peers a bit better.

Remus was definitely your teacher buddy, you'd get coffee every Friday after school to discuss the past week and your plans for the next.

you had come to find out (through these coffee debriefs) that Remus was actually roommates with James- Harry's incredibly hot father.

and Remus was practically Harry's uncle, along with his long-time boyfriend, Sirius,

"So you're the Moony Harry is always talking about." He chuckled, blushing embarrassingly at the nickname.

"Moony was a nickname from High School, but Remus is difficult for Harry to pronounce so we went with that to make it easier."

You smiled, Harry was a very smart kid for his age.

"so.. James, is he-?"

"single? yeah, he chased after his highschool crush for about seven years at our boarding school, and once she finally gave in they got married quickly. but she eventually realized that she didn't like James that way, and had a thing for our close friend, Mary. so they broke off, luckily it wasn't a nasty divorce but Mary wasn't ready to take on the burden of a child, so James took Harry and now he lives with us."

Remus quickly explained before realizing that was probably a ton to drop onto you all the sudden.

"i-.. sorry, i didn't mean to drop that all on you at once."

"it's alright, and i'm sorry for James."

"he's alright now, the divorce took a large blow onto all of us, since... you know.."

"from the outside it looked perfect, didn't it?"

"couldn't have explained it better myself."

He smiled, sipping on his tea.

"besides, i think he's got his eye on someone."

"oh really? who?" that was a selfish question.

"you."

"w...what?"

you deadpanned, thinking he was joking.

why hasn't he said he was kidding?

where's the punchline?

"he wont stop bloody rambling about you, Y/N."

"what?!"

"yes! he wouldn't stop talking about how you had these braided pigtails two or three weeks ago and how adorable you looked-"

his rambling about James' minute obsession with you faded into the background as you attempted to process-

James, James Potter, James Fleamont Potter, your favorite students father.

likes you, his sons Kindergarten teacher who probably has black circles under her eyes because she barely sleeps anymore cause she stays up and thinks about him-

"Y/N!"

"WHAT?"

Remus broke you out of your thought jail.

"i said that you need to set something up with him, because i know you like him too and i cant keep being the monkey in the middle and trying to get you both to finally wake the fuck up and date eachother!"

You'd never heard Remus so insistent, he was always so calm and collected.

"Remus... i've never asked anyone out before."

"And? it's really not that difficult."

you sighed, pinching your nose bridge softly.

"fine, fine. I'll talk to him Monday."

and you dreaded Monday, but it also couldn't come soon enough.

after finishing up your classes for the day, you walked Harry to James.

"Hey.. Y/N."

"James."

"Daddy!" Harry went running to James, gripping onto his leg with all of his toddler force.

"He did great today, as usual."

"That's great to hear..."

You accidentally stared into his eyes for moments longer than you should have, but it didn't feel awkward.

"Y/N, I have something i need to tell you."

"i have something i need to tell you too..."

"I like you, alot."

you blushed furiously, why wasn't this easy?

"i-i-i like you too.. alot."

"would you... want to go out for dinner, sometime?"

"I'd like that."

"FINALLY!" shouted an exasperated Harry.

[smilesstyless]

Birthday boy

Summary: it’s Harry’s birthday, and Rosie and y/n baking him a cake. They fool him in coming home

Wordcount: 750

Trigger warnings: mention about throwing up

Today was another day where Harry had to work longer than usual. He said he doesn’t want to come home earlier.

Rosie is today such an Angel. She listens to whatever y/n is telling her. She is sitting since she picked her up at her little table and draws.

“Rosie, what are you drawing?” Y/n asks sweetly, she sits down next to Rosie.

“For daddy,” lies her pen down. “His birthday cake, me, you, and daddy,” she points at everything she just said.

“Wanna bake cake,” she says softly. “A birthday cake,” she looks with puppy eyes at y/n. She knows this works, she always does it with Harry, so it has to work with y/n. She often forbids her things because Harry said so. He said he can’t spoil her so much.

“Wanna bake cake,” she says softly. “A birthday cake,” she looks with puppy eyes at y/n. She knows this works, she always does it with Harry, so it has to work with y/n. She often forbids her things because Harry said so. He said he can’t spoil her so much.

“What’s his favorite cake?” She sighs. Rosie smiles happily.

“Chocolate,” she says.

“Now I know why you love chocolate so much,” she giggles.

Y/n helped Rosie to put her apron on. She looked for everything they needed. Rosie looks already like she baked five cakes. Her whole face is covered in flour.

Y/n helped Rosie to put everything into the bowl, but she isn’t allowed to mix the dough.

“Daddy come home,” she has a bright smile on her lips.

“We call him and tell him you’re not feeling good, but you have to be quiet,” y/n tells her. She puts her hands over her mouth. “I’ll call him,” she tells her.

“Hey h, Rosie isn’t feeling well. Could you come home?” Rosie giggles with her mouth covered. Y/n gives her a mean look.

“Yeah of course. What happened?” He sounds worried. Y/n is now feeling bad for lying to him, but it’s for the best. They have to celebrate his birthday.

“She had a fever and earlier she threw up,” Rosie giggles once again, and shakes her head this time.

“I’m coming as fast as possible,” Harry is already packing his things together. He hung up and locked the door of his office. He sounded concerned.

Y/n helped Rosie to clean her face and get changed. She said she wanted to look pretty for her dad.

She put the cake onto the balcony to get it cold. She couldn’t buy him a present so she also drew a picture for him. It’s stupid, but maybe he likes it.

•••

Y/n put the cake on the dining table, and Rosie told her she can hear the keys from Harry. They also put some balloons in the room.

Rosie sits in her chair, as Harry opens the door, Rosie yells, “surprise daddy,” she giggles.

“Everything was her idea, we just baked a cake,” she points at his daughter.

Harry sighs, “So she isn’t feeling sick?” Y/n shakes her head.

“So you two,” he points at y/n and his daughter, “make me come home to celebrate my birthday?” He raised an eyebrow. He puts his stuff down. He walks over to Rosie and picks her up.

“You’re a little devil,” he pokes her cheek.

“No, I’m pretty,” she pouts and looks down at her dress.

“My pretty little devil,” he kisses her forehead. “What cake did you make?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Chocolate,” Rosie throws her arms in the air, she sounds excited.

•••

“Thank you for all this,” he helps y/n to clean up the table. He already put Rosie to sleep. “I haven’t had a good birthday in years,” he admits.

“You’re getting older,” she teases him. Y/n places the plates on the kitchen counter. Harry does the same with the cups.

“I’m not getting older,” he mumbles lazily.

“You are,” she says.

“Maybe I am, but I’m feeling good. I have a daughter and I can meet hot single mums,” he teases her. It hurts Harry to see her smile fade. “Sorry,” he mutters under his breath.

“It’s fine, I get it,” she grabs the plates and puts them in his dishwasher.

“Can I make a wish, it’s my birthday,” he asks. Y/n nodded in response.

“I want you to sleep here, I wanna cuddle,” he says softly. Harry raises an eyebrow, one curl falls into his face. Y/n puts his curl back onto his hair.

“Fine if you want to,” she mumbles.

[mouthfulloftoothpasterry]

Singledad!Harry catch up Valentine’s Day blurb coming tmrw! ❤️‍🔥 sorry for so many dadrry things back to back but this blurb is way overdue since I haven’t written for him in over a year

[eds6ngel]

Hello lovely I was hoping you could do a Steve with a kid fic! Reader is Steve’s kid’s teacher and they have a parent/teacher meeting and Steve falls for her!

Love you and your writing 💋

✎ when i kissed the teacher | part one

firstly, thank you so much for the compliment darling!! secondly, you are one lucky person as i've decided to make this into a multi-part series! i've always been a massive fan of dad!___ x reader, so i've taken it upon myself to create a series out of it! i'm aiming for four or five parts, but we will see where it takes us <33

warnings: dad!steve. singledad!steve. 90s!au. fem!reader. mentions of bad mother. deep talks about life. swearing. slow burn. mutual pining. pet names. fluff. comfort. steve's daughter is the cutest. more warnings as the chapters commence! [4.9k].

“All right my loves!” you yell calmly to the children, them waving at their parents from the glass window, the group excited to head home after a tough day of school. “Come and sit on the rug for me, I have one more thing for you all before you get to go home!”

A bunch of chatter and pattering feet can be heard as the six-year-olds bounce over to the colourful, spotted rug, each plopping themselves down and crossing their legs as they look up at you with eager eyes.

You cross your arms and put your finger up to your lips, the children copying you and nudging their friends to look up at you and replicate your action. The final kid finally turned his eyes towards you and copied you, you shaking your head and smiling, “What took you so long Harry?”

He frowns slightly, “I’m sorry Miss, I wasn’t paying attention.”

If there’s one thing you could call a success in your teaching, it would be the ability for your kids to reflect on where they went wrong. It was one of the most important things they could learn as they grow.

“It’s okay honey, just remember to use those listening ears to hear your friends quieten down next time, okay?”

He nods as all of the kids sit with their hands tucked between their crossed legs, you now knowing that everyone was completely focused. “Firstly,” you smile softly, “You have all made amazing progress today, I’m very proud of each and every one of you.”

You can see each of them smile brightly, bouncing in their sitting position, especially the less-able kids, they deserved some extra love with all the hard work they put in to improve.

“Secondly,” you say, leaning over and grabbing a neat stack of papers, “Next week is your parent-teacher meetings! So, I’m each going to give you a letter and I want you to give it to your mommy or daddy, okay?”

The children nod, you smiling and standing up, giving each of them a letter. Once you put the spare sheets on the side, you say to them, “Okay, as always, stay seated and I’ll call you up if I see your mommies or daddies, okay?”

You walk over to the window, peering out to see two different parents stood next to each other: Mr. Byers and Mr. Harrington. Mr. Harrington, who from day one insisted you call by his first name Steve, waved at you, you giving a small smile back as you turn towards both dad’s daughters, “Okay, Ashley! Alena! Your daddies are here!”

The two girls stand up, toddling over to their tables to grab their backpacks, you giggling to yourself as you see how huge they look on their small figures. Ashley is the first to stand in front of you, smiling as you open the door, “Go and see daddy. See you tomorrow!” you say, the girl rushing over as Mr. Byers picks his daughter up, grabbing the sheet she was holding in her hand and heading out of the gate.

As you turn your back, Alena is standing there, grinning at her dad through the open door. Alena was a spunky character. She was super friendly, always willing to help out the other kids and almost always had her hair styled in two un-even pigtails. But, she wasn’t fussed, her hair usually a mess by the end of the day after tumbling around on the grass in the playground. The amount of times you had to bring in the poor girl when she had scraped her knees or elbows was insane, but she always put a brave face on. She was a very cute kid and you were lucky you got to teach her.

“Hello!” you say, pretending to jump at her sudden presence, making the young girl giggle, “Oh, come here my love, your backpack strap is twisted.” You lean down and un-twist the purple backpack strap, swiping the few bread crumbs off of it as you signal to her dad. “There’s your dad, honey. Have a great rest of your day!”

She bounces over to her dad, smiling as she passes him the letter, him taking a quick glance over it as he realises what it was.

He had to spend time talking with you. Just you, him and Alena. Alone.

It was no doubt that Steve knew of his little crush on you. He tried his best to push it to the back of his mind, but with seeing your gorgeous face five times a week, how could he ever forget about your beauty?

Now, he had to practically spend time alone with you. Sure, it was still under professional circumstances, but how was he supposed to concentrate? It was a meeting to talk about his daughter’s school progress, yet his mind treated it like a first date.

Steve looks up from the sheet to see your back turned attending to the other students, Alena tugging at his leg, “Daddy, come on! I wanna go home!”

“Yeah, okay, okay,” he replies, waiting for the moment for you to turn to face the window again, which you do. He can’t stop staring at you as you give him a small wave, Alena waving back at you as you giggle, the girl not knowing that you were in fact waving at her dad, who weirdly couldn’t stop looking at you. Strange.

You divert your eyes to attend to the next kid, Steve snapping out of his trance as Alena continues tugging at his jeans. “Okay pumpkin, I’m going, I’m going.”

He grabs his daughter’s hand as he heads out to the gate, him trying to compose himself at the inevitability of you two talking in private. Hopefully his daughter being there would be enough of a distraction.

Until she wasn’t…

You were setting up your classroom for the day. It was the start of a brand new week, so you knew it was going to be a little bit more tough on your end to get the kids to be quiet. They had curious minds, so they would definitely want to go into excruciating detail about their weekends to their friends.

A knock on the door can be heard as you lay out a worksheet full of math problems on the children’s desks. You turn around, smiling as you see Alena standing there with her dad, sheet of paper held between her small hands. “Good morning Mr. Harrington, and good morning to you too Alena!” you brightly say, her dad replying, “Please, just call me Steve.”

“Well,” you chuckle, “Good morning Steve and Alena. How was your guys’ weekend?” you ask, turning your back as you put out the final worksheets.

“Daddy and I went to the aquarium!” she beams.

“Ooh, that sounds like fun!” you smile widely, “Did you see lots of fish and sea creatures?”

“Uh huh!” she chirps, “I saw clownfish and seahorses and turtles and octopuses!”

“That sounds like you had a great time! But, remember, what do some plural nouns end in?” you ask her, trying to correct her on her simple mistake. Even you didn’t have the answer to why some end in ‘I’ instead of ‘Us,’ it was just another weird variation of the English language.

“Um…” she thinks, “They end in ‘I?’”

“Good job! So, it wouldn’t be octopuses, it would be…”

“Octopi!” she smiles brightly.

You put your last worksheet down as you walk over and ruffle her hair, “Well done!” You look down to the sheet of paper in her hand, “And what is this?” you ask, taking it from her delicate hands.

“Parent-teacher meeting letter,” Steve tells you, “Is it alright if I bring her along? I chose some of the earliest slots as it’s just easier for me to come straight from work to here instead of hiring a babysitter. But, if you just want parents alone, I’ll get a friend to pick her up.”

“No, it’s totally fine Mr. Har— Excuse me, Steve,” you reply, “I’m sure a lot of parents are in the same position as you. You can totally bring her along! It’s also an opportunity for her to hear how she can improve first hand, which is great. So…” you mumble, walking over to your computer and opening up Excel, “Alena… 3:45PM. Is it just you coming or is your wife coming also?”

He freezes up at the mention of his ex. His ex-girlfriend’s name wasn’t on the school system at all as he frankly has nothing to do with her. But, you’re Alena’s teacher, how were you supposed to know his life history? Steve stutters as he thinks of a reply, “I, um… I don’t have a wife…” Shit. Not the answer.

“Oh my Gosh,” you frantically say, looking up at him where he had now entered the classroom and was stood in front of your desk, “I am so sorry. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the chance to go through the student’s personal files yet. I apologise for assuming, I really am.”

God, you were too kind. It just made you all the more attractive.

“It’s okay,” Steve sighs, “It’s not even on the record. Well, her mother isn’t mentioned on there for… reasons, so it’s fine really.”

You sympathetically smile, “I may teach children Steve, but I know when an adult is hiding a pain too. Whatever happened, I truly am sorry, and you shouldn’t have to pretend that everything is okay to make others feel comfortable.”

He knew you were right. But, you were the first person to ever say it out loud. To be completely honest with him. No beating around the bush and just accepting his passiveness, you understood how he felt about Alena’s mother, even without the backstory. You’re exactly the kind of person he needs in his life.

You turn your head, sighing with a smile, your head leaning against your intertwined hands. Alena was sat at her desk, grabbing a piece of paper and a couple of crayons from the centre and doodling away. It was a rule in your classroom that no kid was to start their early morning worksheet before the bell rang. That way, no kid felt left behind.

“She’s such a good kid,” you smile, “She’s kind and brave and always completes her work. I’ll obviously tell you more of that on Wednesday, but you’ve done an amazing job raising her, especially as a single dad. I hope you know that.”

Steve looks into your gorgeous eyes, fumbling over his words, stunned at the comments that easily flow out of your mouth. You weren’t afraid to be kind, and that was a beautiful quality. “I try my best,” he awkwardly says, not used to the compliments, “I have a hard time accepting that, but, thank you anyway.”

“Of course,” you softly reply, “You deserve to hear it.”

The two of you stay in silence, the quiet sound of Alena’s crayons scraping across her paper being the only noise in the brightly decorated classroom. Steve rubs the back of his neck and coughs, “Well, I should get going. Head to work and all…” he says, pointing his thumb behind him towards the door.

“Uh, yeah…” you awkwardly reply, “Don’t want you to be late,” you quietly laugh.

“I’ll see you later,” he finalises, referring to when he would pick up his daughter at the end of the day. You nod, Steve heading over to Alena and asking for a kiss which she gives him, before he turns around and heads towards the door, exiting the classroom.

You sit there in contemplation, how did you compliment him so easily? You didn’t do that to other parents, and you knew that a few of them were single moms. Why just him? Why did you feel different towards him?

Steve was feeling a similar way as he pushed the door open out to the main entrance. He swore he wasn’t going crazy, he felt something between the two of you. It couldn’t have just been his crush on his daughter’s school teacher convincing him that. He’s dated women in the past and even they haven’t complimented him to that extent. Even the women he tried to date as Alena was growing up hadn’t dared say anything complimentary about his parenting skills. You were different. You showed him the kind of praise he always wanted.

He was falling in love with his daughter’s teacher.

Your day had gone pretty well. As predicted, the students were extra chatty because of their busy weekends, but you didn’t mind. All of them getting along with minimum bullying in your class is what made you most proud. If they were kind to each other, a little extra talking was good for the mind. They were developing, which means their brains were super busy. It was a sign of healthiness.

All of the parents had shown up on time to collect their kids, which was the biggest accomplishment for you. Usually, at least one parent was running late, so you had to take on the task of guiding them to the front desk to wait for their mom or dad. But, today you were free, meaning you got to go home a little earlier, or so you thought.

As you led the last kid out to their parent, you shut the door, beginning to tidy up the classroom before you drive home. However, a faint knock can be heard against the glass, you turning to see Steve and Alena patiently waiting outside, his larger hand holding her smaller one.

You open the door, you smiling and saying, “Hi guys!” Steve speaking up, “Hi, um… I know you’ve probably filled up a lot of your slots by now, but is it okay if I could change the time for our parent-teacher meeting? Work asked me to stay an extra two hours.”

“Of course!” you reply, walking over to your desk, “I’ve shut down the computer for now, but I’ll make a note in my planner, okay? I keep everything stored twice in case this thing decides to play up.”

“Sounds great.”

You flip through the pages, finding Wednesday’s date and opening the cap to your pen, “Okay. How late are we talking?”

“You have anything after 6PM?” Steve asks, “I can do slightly earlier if it’s a problem for you, but I don’t want to accidentally run late and mess everything up.”

“Not to worry,” you reply, “I’m pretty sure I have after six,” you look down through the list, finding some empty slots after 6PM, “Yes, I do. I have 6:15 and 6:25. Any preference?”

“6:15 would be great, thank you,” he says with a sigh, thankful that his change of work schedule hasn’t messed up yours. You cross out Steve’s 3:45 appointment and re-write him in for 6:15, making sure to update that in the school system tomorrow.

“Also,” he starts, “Is it alright if I get my friend Robin to pick up Alena on Wednesday?”

“Um…” you think, “If you could give me a description of them, that would be helpful. You know, keeping the kids safe and all. Don’t want to give your daughter to any stranger who claims they are your friend, you know?”

“No, I totally get it,” he replies, “She has a dirty blonde coloured hair that, I guess is shoulder length? She has a fringe too, slight wave to her hair. A little shorter than me, so I guess like 5’9-ish. Blue eyes, freckles on her face, she had black painted nails the last time I saw her which was like three days ago. Is that good enough?”

“Yes, let me just write it down so I don’t forget. I’ll confirm with Alena on the day anyway, she’ll probably be excited to see her,” you say, making a note underneath your column of parent-teacher meeting times.

“Oh yeah,” Steve chuckles, “She calls her Auntie Robin, so if she yells that, you have the right person.”

“Great,” you smile, mumbling out, “Okay… Alena picked up by ‘Auntie’ Robin — short, dark blonde hair with fringe, blue eyes, freckles, black nails. Okay, all written down.”

“Thank you,” Steve breathes out, “I’m still on for dropping her off tomorrow and Wednesday, it’s just picking her up Wednesday afternoon that’s the change. Hope it’s not too much of a fuss.”

You wave your hand, “You’re fine, trust me. It’s only one day, you pick her up every single other day on time. Plus, you told me in advance, which many parents have failed to do in the past,” you softly laugh, reminding yourself of the endless days of random people claiming they’ve come to pick up a certain child, you having to go through the endless hassle of contacting the parent to confirm the stranger is who they claim they are.

“Yeah, well, I thought it was best you should know. Hawkins is a scary place, I’m sure you’re well aware,” he awkwardly smiles, trying not to focus of the events that happened just under ten years ago.

“Yeah, not got the best reputation around here,” you laugh, brushing your hair behind your ear. “Well, I guess I will see you in the morning.”

Steve smiles, lifting Alena up onto his hip, “You will. And again, thank you for letting me change the time.”

“No problem at all,” you smile, “Bye Steve. Bye Alena!” you shout, her giving you a big smile and a wave from over Steve’s shoulder. God, she was a cute kid. And her father… Well, he wasn’t bad-looking either.

The parent-teacher meetings had been going well so far. You had conversations with parents that were brave, their kids little mini-me’s of them, to kids you just wanted to save from the inevitable attitude they would someday inherit from their parents. As a teacher, it sometimes felt that you were becoming the mother that the children wish they had.

No parent had actually booked after 6:15, so Steve was your final parent to speak with, and you couldn’t wait to gush about how beautiful of a girl Alena was.

As you bid farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell, you sigh in your seat, leaning far back and placing your hands on your face. A voice interrupts you, “Not the nicest, huh?”

You move your hands away, leaning forward once again and softly laughing, “Yeah, bit of a silver spoon shoved up there.”

Steve enters the classroom and takes a seat in front of your desk, “I hate parents like that. I heard them from outside saying that you were lying about Rhys. Like, come on man, just accept that your child has flaws. You didn’t even say anything bad!” he exclaims, arms flailing up in the air.

“Right?” you smile widely, “All I said is he needs to improve on his spelling and suddenly I’m the worst person in the world. I never even said it was a bad thing, they came to that conclusion. I don’t expect every child to be perfect at everything, I wouldn’t even say that about Alena, it’s normal for children to have a few tough spots in their education.”

Steve softly smiles, “Well, you’re lucky I won’t complain even if Alena was bad at everything.”

You laugh, “I certainly won’t be doing that. Speaking of, shall we start?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” you say, flipping through your grade sheets and coming across Alena’s name, “Firstly, grades. I don’t really do a typical grade system, your A-F kind of thing, I actually do it in stars. A bit weird, I know, but it actually helps the kids understand their current learning levels, so I just adopt it as well,” you smile.

Steve grinned at your explanation, actually preferring your way of grading. So what if it was weird? It was different, and he liked that.

“Her spelling is spectacular, 10/10 on her spelling bee last week, 9/10 the week before. Pretty consistent in the top levels there. That would land her in adult talk around an A, so that’s five stars in child’s talk,” you say, turning the page over to the reading section, “Are you aware of our reading levels?”

He furrows his eyebrows, “I can’t remember what the highest level is again.”

“Not to worry,” you reply, looking him in the eye, “So we do levels 1-6. One obviously being the lowest, six being the highest. Six is very rare in this class, just for warning. I think I only have two students on level six, so don’t panic that Alena’s not there yet. She’s on level four, which is just above average, a B grade if you will. Plenty of room for improvement, so I’m not overwhelmingly worried.”

Steve laughs, “Definitely a change from me. I can’t spell for shit,” he freezes, “Sorry, I shouldn’t curse, should I?”

You chuckle, “We’re technically out of school hours, curse all you want honey.”

Honey. That was new.

“Now,” you say, flipping over to the next page, “She is struggling a little with math. I’ve noticed that she gets her numbers confused around a little. When counting on her fingers, sometimes she skips a number or goes ‘3, 2, 3.’ And that has sadly affected her in other subjects. We sometimes do timelines in history, and her switching up of numbers means she’ll put a date from the 1500’s in front of the 1600’s. So, she’s currently on two stars, which is sadly a D in normal grades. But, it is only simple mistakes. If she doesn’t get those numbers mixed up, she’ll naturally bump herself up to a B, possibly even an A. I was wondering if you could help me out with this next part.”

“Of course,” Steve replies, “Anything to help my pumpkin.”

You smiled to yourself. What a cute nickname.

You pass him over a couple sheets of paper, “Since I have fifteen kids to teach, sometimes it’s a little hard to notice the mistakes Alena is making before I mark her work, and the markings do equate to the grades. So, I have some math problems here, and I was wondering if you could maybe help her at home? Try and get her out of the habit of skipping numbers or mixing them up. That way, if you know they’re right, you can bring them in, I’ll mark them, and they’ll bump up her grade. Also, the affect of you getting her out of the habit will probably help her in class too.”

He takes the sheets off of you, “Totally, I’m on it. She’s still doing better than I ever did at school, so that’s always a bonus,” he slightly chuckles.

You smile, shaking your head, “To be honest, as humans, we’re not supposed to be good at everything. I shouldn’t really tell you my thoughts on this, but the education system is designed for competition. The idea is that kids are supposed to be good at everything, which is utter bullshit to me. Alena is probably just not gifted at math, and that’s okay.” You sigh, “But, because of the system design, if she wants to graduate first grade, she’ll need to get at least a C in math.”

Steve smirks, “Ain’t that the truth. But, I understand. Math homework will be on the agenda for this weekend,” he smiles.

You close your book, “That’s the main grades done. Writing is also very on point, she can trace the letters almost perfectly. It’s just removing that guide now and seeing how she does without it,” you smile.

“Great,” Steve agrees.

“Now, I’ve done this with every parent tonight, so I’m just going to talk about how Alena is as a growing human, because no amount of grades will ever outweigh personality, and it definitely won’t for Alena. She’s is such a sweet girl. She’s always willing to help others, easily makes friends due to her kind persona and has really respectable manners,” you explain, “I mean, you saw what she was like on Monday morning. Instantly came in, followed my rules about not starting any tasks until the bell rings, and just sat there drawing. She’s amazing at being honest and respectful, but also has just enough spunkiness to set her apart in a crowd. What I’m saying is, you’ve done an amazing job raising her Steve, and I’m sure she gets her beautiful personality from you.”

Steve can’t help but let a small blush rise to his cheeks at your compliments. Again, it was just something about you. You take notice, but don’t point it out, smiling widely at his reaction.

Steve sighs happily, “Well, I’m glad she’s like that. I wasn’t the most… nicest person at school. I let the popularity get to my head, all that shit. Treated everyone lower than me like they were a second-class citizen. Even did that to Jonathan, Mr. Byers, for a while. His wife is actually my ex,” he chuckles, “She pretty much got me out of that shitty popularity ordeal. So, I think I just want my daughter to be the opposite of me. Be the me I could’ve been when I was younger, you know?”

You nod, “I get that. I’ve learnt that parenting can either be one of two things: you don’t want your kids to end up like you, or you want them to be exactly like you. Based on how you described yourself, I’m glad you chose the first option. Although,” you shrug your shoulders, “I would give yourself some credit. It seems like you’ve done the inner healing and reflection to give your daughter a chance to become a kind human being. A shit person can’t create a nice one.”

“Yeah,” he thinks, “Maybe you’re right. I do still say mean stuff every now and again. Judge people before knowing them, all that kind of shit. I’m not proud of it, but it’s just engrained into me by now.”

You look into his eyes, “I think that’s more a generational thing. I mean, I try my best to see why people act the way they do, but even I judge people. What I said for Alena also applies for you too, Steve. Humans aren’t meant to be this definition of perfect. We’re always gonna have a flaw. You can try and work on it as much as you want, but there’s only so far you can go. Sometimes, it’s just easier to accept that’s who you are and it’s actually doing you more harm than good the more you critique yourself for it.”

You were so goddamn smart. You couldn’t have been more than twenty five years old, and yet, you had a better understanding of life than he ever did. Maybe it was seeing life through a kid’s lens, but he feels that can’t be all to the intellect. Life experiences make you understand the world. It sure helped him understand it. He was intrigued. He wanted to understand your mind, get to know you better than just his daughter’s teacher. You were such a beautiful soul and had such a fascinating mind.

Steve has no words as he stares at you in awe, unaware that he hadn’t even said anything as you clear your throat, “Um… anyway…” you begin, grounding Steve back to reality, “Do you have any questions for me?”

His mind did go to asking you out on a date. But, you were his daughter’s teacher, was that even allowed? Was that breaching any rules or codes?

And little did he know you were asking yourself the same questions. Your brain was itching to research into the questions. Why did he have to be one of your student’s dads?

“Uh, no, no I don’t,” he stutters out, taking this as a queue for him to leave as he raises from his chair. You hold out your hand, him taking it as you shake it, each basking in the warmness of the other’s palm.

“Well, thank you Steve for being here. I usually do another one of these around March time, so I hope to see you here for one of these again then!” you smile.

“Of course,” he replies, “But, really I should be thanking you. Supporting me and all when I basically rambled about my life.”

“Just because it’s a parent-teacher meeting doesn’t mean I have to lose all my kindness to be professional,” you sympathetically say.

Steve hums in agreement, you weren’t completely wrong. He’d take you any day to compliment and uplift him. If only he could somehow have that…

“Yeah… Well, see you tomorrow morning,” he smiles, turning his back and heading out the classroom door.

You stand up and start to pack away your folders and planners into your bag, thinking about Steve. You could tell that he wanted to change, wanted to shape his daughter into the man he never was. Give her the opportunity he only wished he had. But, there was something about him. Sure, he had a gorgeous mop of hair and the prettiest hazel eyes, but there was something inside too. A sense of kindness, warmth, comfort. Something you’d never felt so intensely with a man before.

Shit. You were falling for your student’s father.

thank you for reading!! i can't wait to write for the rest of it! i'll try and get a chapter out every few days amongst other smaller fics, so please be patient <;33

→ next chapter.

[haarrrys]

Hey could you do another Harry and his daughter blurb. Like Harry being clingy to her and being affectionate?

of course i can! it’s a little short but i hope u enjoy ~

your my baby say it to me

w.c - 300+

🏷️ tags - dad!harry , singledad!harry , mitchrowland , dad!harry x amani, and of course, fluff.

summary - harry being a *little* clingy towards his daughter when he’s supposed to be getting ready

pairing - singledad!harry & daughter!amani 🍪🥛

more harry & amani

“harry, shows starting soon, you really gotta get your suit on man.” mitch sighed, rolling his eyes at his friend, who has his almost one year old daughter in a makeshift swaddle (although she’s getting to old for it). harry was supposed to be getting ready ten minutes ago— but of course once amani awoke from her nap he couldn’t help but coo at her puffy face, and show no hesitation to cuddle her when she cried for him.

long forgotten was the pink suit he was supposed to be wearing.

“can’t, she wants to cuddle with her dada, right mani?” harry said, kissing his daughters cheeks, and earning a little nod from her, though harry knows she doesn’t understand what he said. he also knows jeff will have his head once he finds out he still hasn’t gotten ready, but he can’t make himself care no matter how hard he tries. post-nap time is one of his most favorite things, his daughter wakes up clingy and cuddly and harry loves it. he gives her all the cuddles she could want, and anyone who tries to tear them apart during this time is most likely to fail.

mitch knows this, so he accepts his defeat and finds a nearby concession stand to occupy himself.

once harry and his daughter are alone again, he smiles at her, sitting her up in his lap. “mani?” he says, getting her attention. the little one looks up at him and smiles around her dummy. “i love you,” he coos, tickling her tummy. amani copies him, attempting to say it back but it comes out as incoherent blubbering.

“oh my— baby, did you just tell me you love me? you love dada?” harry gasps, searching for his phone if she says it again. he’s sure he would look crazy to anyone else, but his baby finds it endearing.

it’s only until sarah enters the room and forcefully pulls amani away from him and lets jeff coerce him into his suit that he finally gets ready.

ps- to all the lovely anons who sent in requests, im working on them! i don’t have much time to do them but i try to do what i can :) sorry for delays &lt;3

as always , requests are open! ty for reading 📖 ☕️

[yellowbrokenblue]

SingleDad!Harry AU

Harry grieves the loss of his wife, while raising their daughter alone

———

It was the silence that hurt the most. The empty hallways, the second car in the driveway that hadn’t moved in nine months, the cold other side of the bed. Sometimes he still thought she was there, he’d expect her to walk through the door at 6pm and she just wouldn’t.

He couldn’t bring himself to get rid of her clothes. Her dresses still took up half of the wardrobe and her makeup still lay on the dresser the way she last left it.

The sound of the school bus in the afternoon was the only thing keeping him somewhat sane.

“Daddy!” He heard the door opening, slamming shut as his little girl ran towards him with a bright smile on her face. “Daddy, daddy! Guess what?”

Harry scooped his daughter into his arms, lifting her up.

“What is it, princess?”

He smiled at her as she waved a picture in front of his face.

“What’s this?” He asked her.

“A drawing a made at school! We had to draw our families!”

Harry held the picture in front of him. A number of wiggly lines made from crayons resembled a portrait of Harry holding his daughter’s hand, and next to them was her… with a halo above her head.

“I made her look like an angel because she’s in heaven now.” She said quietly to Harry.

A soft smile formed as he looked at the drawing, his eyes glassy with tears.

“I think it’s beautiful, honey.” He said, “Your mom would’ve loved it.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course, princess. My beautiful little artist.”

His daughter grinned. Harry grabbed a magnet and put the picture at pride of place on the fridge, before he watched as she slipped away to her bedroom, her cute little backpack still on her back.

Waking up without his wife next to him every day was the worst kind of pain. But he was forever thankful that he got to see her in their daughter every day, because he didn’t know what he would do without either of them.