No Strings Attached

Chapter Twelve

Louis woke up as he had fallen asleep, arm wrapped around Harry’s waist. It must have been a little earlier than the normal time to wake up, because Rosie hadn’t yet cried out for attention and because the light peeking through his window was tinged with the orange of a rising sun. This was a comfortable way to wake up, Louis thought. Comfortable, but certainly fleeting. 

This was a precarious situation with limbs entangled, lips dangerously close to touching. Over the course of the night, the younger boy had somehow gone from looking away to facing him directly, his warm breath on Louis’ cheek the sensation that drew him from his slumber. And in that moment, Louis took a mental snapshot of the other boy, cherishing the instance of silence that he knew to be the barrier between what they used to be and what lay ahead. He knew he missed this face – the face of dimpled cheeks and pink lips – but he didn’t realize just how much until now. 

They had woken up together before, but this was the first time they had done so after falling asleep on their own accord, no sex beforehand. Louis didn’t think he could ever imagine waking up next to Harry like this again. It felt like something torn out of a book, or something stolen from another relationship that simply wasn’t theirs. It was a little too perfect, and the notion that maybe they could wake up like this again and again sent a fluttering lightness coursing through Louis’ veins. 

But he closed his eyes tightly and bade it away. It couldn’t last. 

Harry was on the brink of something greater; he had a fucking shirt with his face on it, after all. And Louis was finally on track to becoming the man he’d always wanted to be. He had a goal in sight, and for once, he felt that it was plausibly within reach. His life was coming together and the more he thought about it, it wasn’t a life that could include Harry. How could it? It simply didn’t have the scope to account for the bigger things waiting for the younger boy. Even attempting to do so…that would have been unkind for both of them. He couldn’t hold Harry back. And when he thought about it a little more, he didn’t necessarily want to be held back either. 

But that didn’t keep Louis’ heart from skipping several beats when Harry’s eyelids fluttered open, his sleepy green eyes blinking back at him with disarming innocence. Everything else around them seemed to melt away and for that second, Louis allowed himself to be pulled into the blissful tides of affection he felt for this boy. Affection, he realized, that shouldn’t even be there at all. 

He pushed away the inexplicable urge to kiss Harry’s cheek as the boy stirred to full consciousness. 

“Morning,” he said instead. He tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, fearing that his tone might give away something more. 

Harry rolled over slightly, bringing his body even closer to Louis’ but pressing his face into the pillow. 

“Mmmf,” he muttered drowsily. 

Louis couldn’t help but smile, in spite of the alarming fact that Harry’s thigh was now grazing his. And while that was all fine and well last night, it didn’t do him any favors in the brighter light of morning when everything was noticeable, when everything had a tendency to go…up. 

He shifted aside as nonchalantly as possible, safely breaking the contact between their lower halves but scooting his face closer to Harry’s so that they were almost lying on the same pillow. Harry’s face tilted upward slightly so that one of his emerald eyes peeked back at Louis. In that brief suspension of time, Louis watched as yesterday’s events came flooding to the fore of the other boy’s mind until he was wide awake, fully alert. 

“Sleep well?” Louis tried. He suddenly became very aware of the fact that his arm was still draped around Harry. But when he made a move to pull away, the younger boy’s body tensed in protest.