Old Perfume // Larry Stylinson

Chapter Three

“What is that supposed to mean?” Louis sputters in pure confusion, because, what?

 

The boy with the curls turns his head to look back at his friends, and they all just shrug. Louis guesses they all understand each other, all are thinking the same thoughts. “You can stay if you want.” He mutters.

 

“Stay?” Louis asks. He doesn’t understand what this even is, if they all live here, or why.

 

“Yes, stay. There’s room for you.” He says, and he looks sort of annoyed. Which Louis doesn’t really understand why. He feels like he has a right to ask questions.

 

“Do you guys all live here?” Louis asks. And the boy just takes a cigarette from his pocket, lights it with his lighter, and takes a long drag. Louis’ never been one for smoking, but for some reason the way the smoke flows from between his lips is almost mesmerizing.

 

“Yeah,” he says blandly.

 

“Why?” Louis feels like he asked too many questions, but hey, he doesn’t know anything about these people. What if they’re dangerous? They’re appearance just comes off as a bunch of dirty, worn out teenagers. But again, Louis doesn’t know them.

 

He groans a bit, walks over to Louis and pats behind his shoulder. “I’m Harry,” he speaks. “That’s Niall,” he points to the boy who had noticed Louis first, the one with the bleached hair. “Gwen,” he gestures to the girl with purple hair. “Alice,” then points to the girl with the big green eyes Louis envies. “There’s more people here, three more but they’re out doing whatever.”

 

Louis nods, and moves Harry’s hand away from his shoulder because he isn’t sure if he’s ready to be on the level of touching this Harry. He’s not sure how he should feel.

 

Harry just walks in front of Louis and uses his hand to motion to him to follow. Louis does, and together they walk back down the hallway where Louis had crept down just moments ago. Harry leads Louis to a room different but relatively similar to the one he had slipped into through the window. This ones at the very end of the hallway, it’s rather dark inside but Louis can see a twin size mattress pushed to the corner of the wall, covered with a dark blue sleeping bag and a pillow. Beside the mattress is a backpack, and an assortment of clothes covering the cold, concrete floor.

 

“The mattress is mine.” Harry grumbles. And Louis decides that he’s rather grumpy, but Louis can also tell that he’s maybe trying to be nice. “You can sleep in here, though, if you decide to stay. You can lay your sleeping bag by the other wall, put your stuff there too.”

 

Louis’ stomach twists with nerves and his veins pump adrenaline. For some reason this is just exciting but absolutely nerve wracking at the same time. He’s just hoping this doesn’t end up getting him killed. “Okay.” Louis says, and walks to the wall in which Harry had pointed at. He dumps his backpack onto the floor. “Are you gonna answer my questions now?” He says, trying to stay firm and just as aggressive as Harry is being.

 

“No.” Harry says. “You’ll figure it out.” And with that, Harry turns around and shuts the door behind him.