In Too Deep (Dancing With The Shadows)

two

Louis stirs out of his sleep the next morning when he hears a bang on his door, the creak of it opening, and Peter's yelling voice. Not to mention the way Clifford gets overly excited seeing his grandpa and begins wagging his tail that hits Louis in the face from where he slept on the bed the night before.

"Louis, come on get up! Why are you still in bed? Barry is on his way as we speak!" Peter exapserates, throwing Louis' covers off his bed.

Louis groggily lifts his head up, trying to search for his covers with a hand which come back empty.

"Jesus, what time is it?" Louis whines, looking toward his phone and slapping the screen to get it to light up.

He stares at the picture of him and Clifford for a bit too long, and he's quick to catch the time in big white letters. He groans exasperately, choking out an over dramatic fake sob, flopping back onto his pillow.

"It's not even five!" he howls, brows creasing, nosing his cotton pillow and sighing deeply.

"I can read the time, Louis. Just, come on, mate, please, this'll be good for us if we take on a new client like Barry. He's here for four weeks, we want the first impression to be a good one." The tone of Peter's voice has Louis swimming in guilt for not getting up in time.

He lifts his head up once more, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the balls of his palms. "Alright," he huffs. "Okay, give me like, thirty minutes and I'll be down."

Peter's phone vibrates and he's whispering swears under his breath. "We have no time, he's just got into the village, he's five minutes away." With that he storms out the room, letting the door close shut behind him.

Clifford crawls further up the bed and licks Louis' sweaty hands. Louis slides out of the bed after pecking Clifford on the nose. He has no time to shower, so he drowns himself in antiperspirant and cologne to make him smell less like a troll's armpit.

It's already a warm day, and when he opens his heavy duted curtains, he has to squint his eyes shut against the light that shines brightly through the room. It's not exactly the sun itself blinding him, because it hasn't even reached half up the treetops yet. The sky is splashed in corals and primrose, the light baby blue chasing away the majority of the darker shades of the sky from the night.

He watches the flock of pigeons flap over head and disappear over the roof of one of the cottages.

He turns to his wardrobe, letting it fall open and scans with his mouth pursed in thought. He grabs some red cotton shorts, pulling them on. He's too clammy to add a tshirt just yet so he quickly brushes his teeth and goes for a wee before he frolics down the stairs. Well more like falls down the stairs with his disoriented head, but details details.

He enters his dad's office to find Peter printing out some new contracts and documents. He glances up over his reading glasses, looks Louis up and down and shakes his head.

He points with the biro pen in his hand up the stairs. "No. Nope, go get changed for Christ sakes! You're not walking around half naked."

Louis frowns, looks down to his small tummy and prods it with a finger. "But it's too hot for a tshirt, I'll die!"

Peter shakes his head again. "You won't 'die' for goodness sake. We're meant to be a professional family run business, what do you think Barry would do seeing you with your nipples on display?"

"With any luck he might want to suck them," Louis whispers under his breath and he's thankful that Peter didn't catch it.

"In fact put a shirt on, first impressions is everything." It's probably why Peter is dressed in some white chinos and a loosely fitted grey shirt, the two top buttons undone, sleeves rolled up to the elbows to expose his fairly hairy skin of his arms.