No Strings Attached

Chapter Eight

“This is a thing, then?” Zayn asked after taking a healthy swig from his soda. 

Louis sighed. He had hoped for a nice day in the park with Rosie and Zayn, one that included an hour or so on the playground before moving to a patch of grass beneath the shade, where they could enjoy their picnic without any heavy-handed questions that dealt with…whatever his situation with Harry involved. He knew that telling Zayn was inevitable because they told each other everything, but he wistfully thought that he could drop the news without so much as a follow-up conversation. 

He handed a strawberry to Rosie, who was sitting on the edge of their blanket and grabbing handfuls of grass, still making the most of her time away from the swing sets and slides. She accepted eagerly, gnawing adorably at the berry until red drops of juice stained her cheeks. Louis wiped them away with his thumb.

“What exactly do you mean by thing?” 

“Like, this is going to continue?” Zayn said as he helped himself to a handful of chips. “You’re going to keep sleeping with each other?” 

“I suppose so,” Louis said casually, handing Rosie another strawberry that caused her to squeal in glee. “It’s happened on more than one occasion already, and neither of us is complaining.” 

“Yeah, that’s because you’re both too busy shagging each other,” Zayn suggested with a laugh.

Louis shrugged, popping several grapes into his mouth. “I’m just doing what you suggested in the first place, and I’m enjoying myself. That’s it.” 

Zayn thought about that for a minute, and Louis took advantage of his silence to lift Rosie into his lap. Ever since his thing with Harry began two weeks ago – two weeks too long without bringing it up, Zayn reminded him – he found that he missed Rosie even more whenever they were apart. Fortunately, she had gotten more comfortable at staying with a sitter, but that didn’t mean that Louis avoided those pangs of guilt that accompanied every time he dropped her off for several hours at a time. Granted, Harry had only texted him four times in the last fortnight, but it was enough to compel him into acting like a better father. Hence, this picnic. 

Rosie giggled as Louis bounced her gently, patting her round belly as he did so. Louis was thankful to have such a happy baby; he didn’t know what he would do if she were the type to shriek and cry every other moment. 

“Bug,” she mused quietly as a butterfly flitted past them. “It’s bug!”

“No, you’re the bug!” Louis teased, diving down to kiss her several times on her rosy cheeks. She flailed ecstatically in her father’s grip, tugging at his hair in retaliation. Zayn looked over at them with a smile, glad to even be considered a part of their family. 

“You’re being safe, aren’t you?” Zayn finally asked. 

Louis perked up, raising a brow. Rosie quieted down as well, looking repeatedly from her father to her godfather. 

“You don’t mean…literally, do you?” 

Zayn almost spit out his mouthful of sandwich, caught halfway between a laugh and a choke. 

“Christ, Louis, no! What I mean is,” he said slowly, as if he was figuring out the proper way to form his thought. “You’re not getting attached, are you?” 

Louis didn’t have to think that one through, perhaps because he might have been expecting Zayn to ask the question. But two weeks and four bouts of meaningless sex later, he knew the answer before he even got a chance to say it. 

“Of course not.” He put his hands to Rosie’s ears, and the little toddler looked up at him with an adorable expression of confusion. “It’s just sex. That’s all. We both know what we’re in this for and we’re not looking for anything complicated.” He dropped his hands from Rosie’s ears and apologized by kissing the top of her head.