Tattoos Together || Larry Stylinson

Chapter 12

Embarrassed, I stood in front of the open apartment door after I got up on my feet again and wiped my hands, which were a little dirty from the dust on the stairs, on my jeans.

I smiled to cover up my insecurity and gave the woman in front of me, well behaved, a hand in greeting.

"So, you are Louis?" She asked as she took my hand in hers and pulled me lightly to hug me as if I were an old friend.

I was a bit surprised, but I didn't find the warm welcome intrusive.

"Yeah." I answered-

"Nice to meet you, Louis. Harry told me a lot about you during our calls. My name is Anne."

I wondered what Harry should have said so much about me, since we haven't known each other for long, but accepted the statement with a smile and a nod.

I saw Harry blush a little and push past his mother to put his shoes on the shelf and take off his jacket. Obviously, he wanted to keep the subject of the phone calls as brief as possible.

"Harry, could you set the table and let Gemma know? I'll bring the kids in."

Anne asked her son and gave me a lively smile. "I'm really happy to meet you, Louis. You talk a little bit about yourself over lunch, okay? Hope you like Lasagne... it's Harry's favourite." She winked at me and was gone a few moments later. Only her footsteps echoed down the hall.

"You can come in further, Lou. You are standing in the door frame as ordered and not been picked up." Harry chuckled his cute, childish laugh.

"Sorry, I should have warned you that she is very fond of hugging and generally has a special way of being." He seemed to have noticed that his mother's appearance had overwhelmed me a little, but it wasn't a thing to apologise for.

"No problem, at least now I know where you got your need for body contact from." I giggled.

Harry made a face and I ran a loving hand through my hair.

"So, how can I help?" I asked, waiting for instructions.

"Um, you can put plates and cutlery on the table. We eat at the big table in the living room, diagonally across from the kitchen."

I nodded and had a pile of porcelain put into my hand, on which the metal cutlery lay dangerously wobbly and unattached. I wasn't sure whether I would be able to get everything in place undamaged, but in the end, I was all the prouder to have made it.

I heard footsteps behind me as I leaned over the table and assigned a fork to each plate. Slender arms wrapped around my waist and a soft cheek pressed tentatively against the crook of my neck. The person I directly identified as Harry looked over my shoulder without a word.

"Am I doing something wrong?" I asked into the awkward silence.

"No, you're doing it perfectly."

He giggled in irony against the sensitive skin on my neck, which gave me goose bumps.

"Do not lie to me." I growled offended.

"That was the truth... -It's perfectly wrong."

I stopped what I was doing and waited for him to say what I had to do differently.

"The fork must be on the left, Lou." He whispered in my ear.

"Oh yes, I'm bloody sorry that I haven't ever gotten trained in gastronomy." I answered in my natural sassy manner.

Harry responded with a light touch of his soft lips on my ear before letting go of me and, his lower lip tugged between his teeth to retouch a big grin, corrected my mistake himself.