Common Knowledge it's surpassed 4,500 reads!! You guys are amazing!!

I'm overwhelmed!

I'm extremely thankful for your support and appreciate every single one of your reads, votes, and comments.

Here's an extra update this week. It's the least I can do. You're being so lovely!!

I do not have a book or author recommendation this week. I do however want to express my gratitude to my lovely friend Rhodareads who encouraged me to post my writing in Wattpad.

Twenty-one

When we arrived home, Harry said goodbye quickly to the security staff, thanking them for their time.

He then turned to me and said: "Allow me to walk you to your door, Bliss."

I accepted, was there anything else for me to do?

He reached for my hand again, and we walked in this fashion until we reached my bedroom door.

"If I ask you something, do you promise to be totally honest with me, Bliss?" He said, turning to look at me, with a worried frown on his face.

"Of course!" I automatically replied.

"Would you say this was a successful first date?"

"Harry, it was fantastic. But you know it wasn't a date."

"Oh, Bliss, believe me, we're on a date. We absolutely are, so I'm going to do this." He said kissing the top of my hand and then took a step forward closing the distance between us.

He cupped my face between his palms and placed tiny kisses on my forehead, on each one of my cheeks, on the tip of my nose, on my chin and then he pressed his lips to mine for a fraction of a second.

"Thank you for a wonderful evening," he said and started walking down the hall, as I watched him go open-mouthed.

The following day I woke up to a glorious sunshiny LA morning. As I rolled over my pillows, I remembered last night's events. Was it even true? Had I been really on a date with Harry Styles? Hadn't it all been a dream?

I was inclined to believe it was true, and it had actually happened because somehow the morning seemed to be brighter than any other morning. The sky was bluer, the clouds whiter, the sunlight brighter. The air smelled nice. I swear, I could even hear birds happily chirping away. You know, a Disney movie kind of morning, where everything looks just right, dreamy, ethereal, perfect. If you closed your eyes you could hear a soundtrack playing somewhere.

I forced myself to get out of bed and make my way to the bathroom, to wash my face and brush my teeth. Truth be told, last night I had to make use of every bit of strength within me to wash my hands because it meant washing the hand that Harry had held, the one he had kissed. The same applied to my Harry kissed face. In the end, I reasoned that if I didn't remove my makeup, soon I would be covered in spots.

So if I wanted Harry to kiss me again, cleanliness was the way to go. Have I mentioned before how lovely Harry smells? I don't think he'll appreciate it very much if I stopped washing.

I debated whether to swim a few laps on the pool or do a gym workout. I chose the latter. Harry had said he was swimming in the mornings, and I had only brought a couple of bikinis.

As glorious a sight as Harry is in his swimming trunks, I was still not ready to share the pool with him, with me wearing only what amounted to knickers and a bra. Let's face it that's what a bikini is, an excuse to go around in your underwear.

Oh, don't mind me, I'm not really a prude, this is not coming from a place of deep moral outrage but from the huge part of me that suffers from low self-esteem and body image anguish.

I put on my gym gear. Still not coming to terms with what had happened. My optimist mother, who devoured new age books, would say that after I removed The Duck's ring, I had allowed energy to flow freely and the universe was aligning in my favor.

I opened my bedroom floor to find a huge Toblerone on the floor, with a note attached that read

"Can't wait for our second date tonight,

H, xxxxx"

I must admit that as I picked up the chocolate, I teared up a little. Toblerone is a great chocolate bar of course, but it wasn't the chocolate that made me emotional.

Allow me to explain.

When we were in the airport in London to take our flight to LA, I had stopped before a candy store mesmerized by the huge Toblerone bars they had on display. For some reason, I'm at a loss to explain, the really massive Toblerones are sold exclusively at airports.

If you never travel, or do travel but take the train, the ferry, the bus or drive you'll miss out on them.

I thought about buying one of those huge Toblerones, but was embarrassed to do so in front of Harry.

By now this is a recurring theme in my life "The things I'm embarrassed to do in front of my gorgeous rocks star boss,"

To save face, I walked to the counter and bought a pack of sugar-free gum.

I thought I had gotten away with it. How naive of me.

Harry had, of course, noticed and managed to buy the massive Toblerone bar without me even noticing.

I figured I had squeezed a decent amount of sweat after forty minutes on the treadmill, completely alone in the gym, which gave me the freedom to choose any setlist I liked and sing along, out loud. Something I would have avoided doing in front of Harry, at all costs.

He was a relentless tease; he would undoubtedly find something to mock about my music tastes. Come on! Don't tell me you've never sung along to any of ABBA's songs?! I dare you!

Making my way to the kitchen for breakfast, the usual round of worrying and self-doubting began.

I would be seeing Harry.

After last night it would be awkward, no doubt about that.

The tricky part was trying to gauge the level awkwardness?

Just a tad? Say, a three on a scale of one to ten.

Or massive awkwardness? Like a twenty on said scale of one to ten.

Would he be acting normal?

Would he want to hold my hand, or kiss me?

Would he want to call the whole thing off?

What would calling things off entail?

Would it be just the dating thing or would I be out of a job?

I wanted to go back to bed.

As a matter of fact, I wanted to go back a whole day and prevent the whole coffee at Chateau Mormont affair for happening, so I wouldn't be here today standing in the hallway, too afraid to go into the kitchen.

Voices were coming from the kitchen.

To be more precise, WOMEN voices were coming from the kitchen.

And Harry's booming voice could be heard distinctly "I love you, too."

Whom did he love?

Hadn't last night meant something?

The bastard!

"Calm down!" the voice of reason said within my head, "he said his mum and sister were coming from London today. Remember? It's probably them."

I was starting to hyperventilate, this was so hard.

I loved going on a date with Harry, I was giddy with excitement at the thought of a second date with him. I very much doubted there would be a third date because Harry was no fool and by then he undoubtedly will realize what a basket case I am. I don't know how other people had managed to do it, that is date Harry and retain their sanity. But of course, he had dated singers and supermodels so maybe they were more confident than I was.

Harry's voice carried across from the kitchen saying "Bliss should be here by now. I wonder what's keeping her. We had a bit of a late night, maybe I should check on her."

The angel! He was worried about me. Bless him.

"Good, I'm dying to meet her," a female voice answered him. Probably Gemma.

The agony. I wasn't ready to meet her.

"For fuck's sake, just go on and talk to them. They're not gonna eat you alive," The voice or Reason, talked again within my hair. "Besides, it's the professional thing to do."

"Yeah, I might even help. But you know I'm out of practice, as I'm hardly ever used," Courage chipped in, in a weak voice.

"You lot are wearing me thin, making me work twenty-four-hour shifts lately" Patience groaned.

This was extremely odd, Patience had never groaned before. It alarmed me a little, to be honest, and propelled me into action, because if Patience quit on me I'd be lost.

I pursed my lips, took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, lifted my chin up and marched into the kitchen.

Harry was sitting at the table, with Anne and Gemma.

I mean, I met Anne before so I was sure it was her.

The same didn't apply to Gemma, but I had seen plenty of photos of her over the years and the girl sitting there bore a remarkable similarity to those pictures.

"Good morning," I said coming in, going for a cheery air in my greeting that would hopefully mask the nervous state I was in.

I was immediately engulfed in a massive cuddle, Anne's way of saying hello.

"So nice to see you again, love."

Gemma followed suit "So nice to meet you, Bliss. Heard so much about you."

And Harry joined in "Good morning, Bliss."

"Really happy to see you again, Anne." "Honoured to meet you, Gemma." "Good morning, Harry" I managed to say.

I was made to seat at the table with them and a bowl of granola and vegan yogurt, with a mug of matcha tea, were placed in front of me.

"Sorry for running off after just saying hi, Bliss. But Gemma and I are knackered after the flight." Anne said apologetically.

"Yes sorry, but we are in dire need of a shower," Gemma confirmed.

"That's quite all right, those long flights are terrible," I told her.

"Yeah, off you go, the two of you," Harry said, shooing them away with his hands, "My girl and I have some work to do."

Gemma cocked her head when she heard Harry's words, and glanced suspiciously from Harry to me, but followed her mum out of the room without uttering a word.

"Thank you for the Toblerone," I said to Harry, as soon as I was sure we wouldn't be overheard by his family.

"My pleasure, love," he answered, smiling "hopes you enjoy it."

"It's lovely." I said, and switched to work talk, it felt safer "I finished the London to LA flight blog. I think I can have the Nova Red Room one later today."

We immersed ourselves in writing talk until Harry declared it was time to start getting ready to leave for the Grammy Museum, where he was being interviewed and would perform tonight.

********************************************************************************************

I dressed simply in ripped black skinny jeans, a plain gray tee, and on a whim added a pair of black biker boots I had picked up at Next. They weren't Harry's fancy Gucci buckle boots, but they were nice enough for me.

I also added a Zara faux leather yellow jacket, suggested by -you guessed it-Allegra ("trust me, Bliss, yellow/mustard is going to be big this season").

I must say it did look nice. I decided to go for plain gold hoops and no more jewelry, as the jacket's shiny gold buttons were enough. I also took a small black cross body bag.

The four of us (Anne, Gemma, Harry and I) left the house in two massive black cars, with tinted windows, in the same mode as yesterday.

When we arrived at the Grammy Museum, Lambert and Lou squealed joyfully as they cuddled Anne and Gemma. In fact, CHASM as a whole joined in one collective huddle. Harry, included as it seemed he never let an opportunity for a cuddle pass him by.

They were all excitedly exchanging greetings, and flight stories. As they began to talk animatedly about tonight's performance and the tour opening night tomorrow, I took advantage of their attention being otherwise engaged and quietly made my way to a corner where I could plop my laptop and get some writing done.

One of the venue's employees was closed by and very kindly provided me with their Wi-Fi password, which enabled me to check my emails. The amount of incoming mail on my inbox was massive; ninety-nine point nine of it was related to Common Knowledge. Surely it was caused by The Duck's decision to prolong his trip. Reid must be freaking out.

During the early days of Common Knowledge I had recruited Reid, he was just fresh out of design school, had impeccable taste and penchant for gossip. He always managed to scoop out the spiciest tidbits of information before anybody else.

The Duck was opposed to the idea of hiring him because Reid was gay. But I pleaded and pleaded until he agreed.

Pretty soon Reid was running the online magazine's daily business whilst The Duck tended to bigger things.

Reid despised The Duck, but he loved Common Knowledge and he loved me. "I don't quit because of you Bliss, girl" he would say on an almost daily basis.

When he heard about The Ducks and mine upcoming marriage, he flat out refused to attend the wedding "I won't be there whilst you hammer the nails in your own coffin. You can do much better than him." True to his word, he booked a trip to Paris for the weekend of the wedding.

When Reid learned about The Duck jilting me at the altar and me being hired as Harry's blogger he rang me immediately telling me "Go on and see the world with that gorgeous guy and don't worry about a thing. I'll hold down the fort until you come back. And if you don't come back because Harry falls madly in love with you, as any straight guy in his right mind would, I'll kill The Duck and take over." All this whilst he played me Sign of the Times in the background.

I should have told you about Reid before, I know. Please don't hate me. But as you know I was treating the whole failed wedding subject with an unhealthy mixture of denial and procrastination. '

The huge amount of forwarded emails was not going to go away, so I took my phone and punched in Reid's number. He was delighted to hear from me, wanted expansive details about Harry, I provided a few and then he went on to explain the bills were piling up and he couldn't get hold of The Duck.

We quickly settled this, when I gave him the password for the magazine bank accounts, so he could make the necessary money transfers. Reid had been working in Common Knowledge for ages, he had landed some huge sponsor contracts for the magazine, secured massive discounts from suppliers, never taking a penny for himself.

He was totally honest and trustworthy.

I would totally trust my chocolate secret chocolate stash to his keeping. He wouldn't take a bite.

After I hang up with Reid, images of The Duck and Julia in a yacht in Sydney crossed my mind. But they weren't as upsetting as I thought they would be.

Somehow it all seemed to be happening really, really far away and it didn't seem to have much to do with me.

Maybe it was due to the fact that Harry was standing across the room from me, looking amazing in skinny black jeans and a black tee, with the black cap he had taken to wearing covering his curls.

When he saw I was looking at him, he cheekily blew me a kiss and winked.

My heart missed a few bits, he must've noticed because he laughed delightedly.

Harry and Bliss's first kiss!!! Did you like it? Would you have changed anything?

Please let me know!!

I'm beyond myself with happiness for your support. Next Tuesday Chapter 22 will be posted.

Hope you have an amazing weekend,

Love,

E xoxo