not in love || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to @champxynepapi for being a regular reader and voter/commenter. Thank you for the support!

I'm glad I got this chapter done early. My friends put me in charge of our annual New Year's gathering even though I can't plan a party to save my life, so I have less time to write this week than I thought.

I've also been reading this book called A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is insanely good. I'm obsessed with it. It brings me nothing but pain but I love it more than anything. It's devastating and beautiful and you should all read it. /rant

Okay, this chapter picks up right at the end of last week's chapter. Harry is en route to Louis' hotel!!!!! It's all in Harry's POV.

HARRY

I held my breath almost the entire ride to Manhattan, pressing my damp forehead against the window, watching my breath fog up the glass. Streetlights zipped past like fireflies and the moon was full, hanging so low in the night sky if felt like we might crash right into it. Every day with Darby was marked by joyful normalcy and taking pleasure in the little things, but having Louis here was like a fever dream and I never wanted to wake up.

I popped the collar on my jacket and hid my face as best I could heading into the hotel. I thought someone in the lobby might have recognized me but I managed to scurry past undetected.

I leaned across the front desk and whispered to the concierge, a neatly pressed brunette with a high bun, "I'm here to see one of your guests."

"Name please?"

"Louis Tomlinson." I said under my breath.

"And your name?"

"Harry."

"You're full name," she retorted in a clipped tone.

"Harry Styles."

Her eyes flew up at me with a flicker of recognition.

"Can you be discreet?" I added.

"Of course, Sir," she said kindly, lowering her voice, pretending not to know who I was as she rang his room.

"Mr. Tomlinson, Harry Styles is here to see you. May I send him up?"

I could hear Louis' raspy voice yelling through the receiver from where I was standing all the way across the desk.

The concierge blushed and put down the phone. "He'd like to see you immediately, Mr. Styles."

I smiled in spite of myself. "Thank you. What room?"

She gasped a little as she looked at her computer. "He's in the Ty Warner Penthouse."

Leave it to Louis to stay in the most expensive suite in the entire hotel. I guess when he wasn't spoiling me he was happily spoiling himself.

I got in the mirrored elevator and examined my reflection. My hair looked flat. I shook my head forward and flipped it back and off to the side. I undid and redid a button on my silk shirt, undecidedly. I pursed my lips and shifted from one skinny leg to the other. Were the sparkly boots a bit much? No, I looked fine. I tapped my foot nervously. I couldn't help but think of the thousands of trips I'd made up to Louis' hotel room over the years when we were on tour, when we were teenagers, with too many hormones and too much money. I could never get enough of him and he could never get enough of me. Now like then, every second in that elevator felt like agony until I could be alone with him in the sanctuary of his room.