Where We Belong

Chapter 28

Louis spends a few days with friends after that. He goes with Eleanor and Idris to a fancy dinner - functioning as Idris' social babysitter while Eleanor networks -, spends an entire day playing video-games with Stan, has lunch at the pub with Niall and goes out gay clubbing with Zayn and Gil. Once he's already there, he finds out he's been lured into a double blind-date with one of Gil's friends, Anthony. Who is nice, really, and would've been total dating material if he hadn't been forty fucking five. He looks all right, though, definitely fuckable, but Louis still ends up alone in the lift at the end of the night. He just wasn't up for it.

In New York, he spent the first two months completely celibate, not as much a conscious choice as a side-effect of being utterly and completely heartbroken. Once things began to clear up a bit on that front, he decided, very consciously, to fuck all of the city. Might as well properly whore out for once in my life, he'd told himself when he downloaded Grindr and hurt his back twisting in the mirror trying to get a good angle on his bum.

It didn't take long for him to realise, though, or rather remember, that he just isn't wired for one night-stands.

He had a few anyway, because he certainly isn't wired for celibacy either, and they were fine, but shitty compared to anything with Harry still. Then, one day, all of a sudden, standing in his stairway, he got chatting to Mick from 40C. Five minutes later, and many months after that, they were fucking. There weren't ever really any feelings involved, at least not any that couldn't be attributed solely to the smooth tunes streaming from Mick's surround-sound system or the post-coital snuggles they engaged in every now and then. Whatever it is that triggers something more in Louis, it wasn't there with Mick. Which was probably why it ended like it started; quick and easy.

As opposed to this, Louis thinks, stepping into the flat, trying to stay quiet, but knocking his drunk self into the console-table first thing and then dropping his key-chain and phone to the floor. He doesn't have to worry about Charlie, because Marie picked her up yesterday, Friday afternoon, to take her to her gran's birthday party, but he still doesn't want to wake Harry either.

After the moving out-talk, things were tense and disgustingly fake-polite between them for a few days. Then something happened, Louis thinks it was an incident with Charlie, in which he made her laugh so hard she screamed and fell over and Louis ended up in fits too. Harry walked in, gave up on trying to understand what'd happened, and then ended up on the floor with them, laughing harder than Louis' heard him do in fucking— ages.

When Charlie left, Louis feared they might get tense again, that the only reason things had seemed all right was that she was there as a bit of a barrier; a perfectly valid excuse not to look each other in the eye or, god forbid it, talk. But, earlier today, before Louis went out to meet with Gayn and the forty fucking five-year old, things were fine. More than fine. They ate breakfast at the table together, chatted about whatever, and it was so fucking nice - just chatting about whatever again, not even having to think or to try.

So, Louis doesn't want to risk pissing him off. They were doing all right now.

"Hello?" he whispers anyway, tip-toing into the livingroom.

Harry looks up from where he's sitting, in his writing-corner, face lit up by his laptop-screen. "Hey," he whispers back teasingly, "are you drunk?"

"Little bit," Louis says, swaying his way to the couch before he collapses back on it.

"How was clubbing with Zayn and Gil?" Harry asks, and Louis can hear the grin in his voice.

"Fine," he says, looking up anyway, and reciprocating the wide smile he finds, "fine. They set me up with a very nice gentleman."