Bloodsport

chapter 46

This time they were on the bed. He remembered Louis’ mouth on him, and he remembered his mouth on Louis. He remembered joking about better condoms that’d taste good and look nicer. He remembered telling him to place his hand on his chest, right over his heart. He remembered instantly regretting it. Then not. Then regretting it again.

…

The last memory was the one Harry wasn’t certain he wanted to remember.

They’d been in bed. Their heads were on the corner of their own pillows, and their eyes roamed over one another. Harry’s heart pounded. His mind was spinning from the alcohol they’d both had too much of.

“Why did you hate me?” he whispered.

Louis moved onto his back. His eyelids fluttered and fell shut. Still, he spoke. “There were things I wanted and I could already see you standing in the way of it.”

“I don’t understand.”

Louis inhaled. His voice was low. “Harry… You’re everything I’m not. And that has always seemed to work out pretty well.”

He rolled over, pushed his face into the pillow, and remained silent. He wasn’t going to say more.

Harry, drunk, mind turning wildly, stared at the ceiling. When Louis seemed to have fallen asleep, Harry was still grappling with the fact that the years of enmity from Louis had never really been about him in particular, but about Louis himself. In the end, he didn’t know what that made of Louis. He supposed it made better of him for telling the truth.

It changed nothing about how Harry felt for him now, he realised. Maybe he understood him just a little bit better, though. At that hour, in that bed, Harry was good with that.

…

“Are you all right, Harry?” Louis’ voice came from outside the bathroom door.

“No,” he moaned, trying not to place his head on the toilet rim but hardly managing. His head hurt. His stomach clenched from vomiting.

“Shouldn’t have brought drinks, Haz.”

“I hate you.”

“Not my fault.”

“Lou, I’m gonna’ die.”

“At least you got to say how much you appreciate my blow jobs first.”

“Fuck off.”

After Harry had finally gotten off the bathroom floor and brushed his teeth, he crawled into the bed. Louis was sitting there, looking better off with two steaming mugs waiting on the nightstand. The tea looked hot, for once.

“I barely remember when Lottie came home, but I do recall her shouting at me,” said Louis. He handed Harry one of the cups and made space for him in front of the laptop he was cradling. “Couldn’t tell you for the life of me what she actually said.”

Harry frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“It was probably when you were in my room, calling Payne.”

He froze. “I called Liam?”

Louis squinted. “Yes?”

“Oh.”

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head. No, he didn’t recall that at all. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and checked the call list. Indeed, Liam’s name was at the top. Harry gnawed at his lip, staring at the name on the screen. He didn’t know what he’d said.

“Did you hear what I said to him?” he asked Louis quietly, not daring to meet his eyes.

He felt him cuddle further down between the bed covers. “Nah.”