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Harry lugs the last box up the stairs to his new apartment. He’s on day two of his lease, day two of living in more than quadruple the square footage of his Airstream camper, and his mom is downstairs with an SUV full of boxes. He feels like a teenager moving into the dorms his freshman year of college, but no.
When everything went to shit with… well, his entire life, he moved most of his things into a cheap storage unit near the RV park, but there were a few boxes that he didn’t feel comfortable keeping in a muggy, hot, metal room for a few years, so he made the trip to his mom’s house and stored them in her spare bedroom. Apparently, she’s anxious for him to have his things back because she drove down with his boxes and spent the day supervising his move.
Nothing is really unpacked yet. His clothes are in his closet, but the whole lack of furniture thing makes it difficult to put away his books and whatever else his mom has waiting for him in the parking lot. The funny thing is that, other than his books, whatever he packed into those boxes four years ago, he hasn’t missed. Maybe he’ll throw it all away; not even open the boxes and just toss it. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes at what he knows his mom would say about that. He should at least go through and donate some of it.
He kisses his mom goodbye and waves as she pulls out of the parking lot, her SUV significantly lighter now that Harry’s new living room is full of boxes. It’s late afternoon and he doesn’t have anything else to do, other than window shop on Craigslist for some second-hand furniture, so he might as well start going through his things.
Four years ago, these boxes of… crap seemed important enough to keep, and now he has no clue what’s inside most of them. Thankfully, all of the boxes are labeled in his neat block lettering. Not that all of the labels makes sense. At least the ones marked “BOOKS” are almost guaranteed to contain books. Step one is to move those into the corner and out of the way. The smaller ones marked “STUFF” and “IMPORTANT STUFF” and “STUFF TO KEEP FOREVER” are less explicit.
Harry sighs and goes to the kitchen for a beer. Something tells him that this is going to be a lot easier if he has a little alcohol in his system.
Six beers later, Harry’s sitting on the floor laughing and opening his last box. The one marked “STUFF TO KEEP FOREVER” is smaller than the rest—the size of a large shoe box, it rattles when he moves it, and it’s taped all around with packing tape, duct tape, and electrical tape. The lettering on it looks a little different than the others, like maybe he used a different marker when he labeled it, and he has absolutely no idea what’s inside. He carefully cuts through what seems to be a thousand layers of tape, pries open the lid, and peers inside.
Film. Dozens of rolls of film.
Harry reaches in and pulls out a handful of rolls to examine. Some of them are black and white and some are color, but they’re all old enough that he wonders if he’ll even be able to get them developed or if they’ll disintegrate on contact. He’s not sure if that’s a thing that could actually happen, but it might be. Still, he figures he might as well try to find out what’s on the rolls. He doesn’t think he’s taken any pictures since the one semester he majored in photography.
The following Friday, when he gets off work and drives to the next town over to pick up the photographs, he expects to find a couple hundred shots of things like old train tracks, broken windows, gravestones, and who knows what else he thought was artsy and cool twenty years ago. He settles onto the new-to-him couch with a glass of wine, ready to laugh his way through the photography skills of his nineteen-year-old self, but almost spills his wine when he pulls out the first stack of pictures and sees what’s on top.
Shit.
Harry’s hand shakes a little as he reaches forward to set his wineglass down on the coffee table, then he leans back and closes his eyes, the stack of pictures held tight in his hands.
After a moment, he opens his eyes, grabs his wine, and takes a sip. Or maybe a gulp. He needs to calm down. His heart is beating out of control and he feels a little sweaty and flushed. He knows what the pictures are now. All of them. The entire box of film isn’t from twenty years ago. It’s from twenty-six years ago. And every single picture that he just paid an outrageous amount of money to have developed, is of a thirteen-year-old Louis Tomlinson.
To be fair, some of the pictures include other people, but as he slowly works his way through stack after stack of photographs, it’s plain who the main subject is.
That summer was an awakening, really. Puberty was a rough ride for Harry. His voice started changing before any of his friends’ did and he spent the last month or so of that school year being teased relentlessly for it. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
There were times leading up to that summer that he thought it was quite possible that he was gay. He didn’t like girls the way his friends liked girls, but he didn’t really like boys that way either, and he remembers being so thankful for that at the time. Turned out he was just a late bloomer because the crush on Louis came on fast and strong and essentially took over his entire summer and most of the next school year as well.
Louis climbed out of that minivan under the beach house and Harry thought he might have to go find a place to lie down. It was as if he was hit by a big gay freight train.
Objectively, the photos are not bad. Thirteen-year-old Harry had quite the eye, though it was probably more that the subject of his pictures was so photogenic. Some of them are posed shots like the ones where Louis is sitting on the couch holding a toddler Lottie and an infant Fizzy. But, wow, apparently he was a creep back then.
Probably half of the pictures are sneaky shots of Louis: talking to other people, reading in the hammock on a rainy afternoon, there are three of him sleeping in his bunk for fuck’s sake, and so many pictures of him from behind that Harry chokes on his wine when he realizes that it was an ongoing theme. He must have spent half of that summer trailing behind Louis just to take pictures of his bum.
Things were so easy between them when they were kids. They always slipped back into being best friends as soon as they saw each other, they were inseparable every summer, but they never kept in touch the rest of the year. It was harder, he supposes, without cell phones and email and computers and social networks.
Harry left that summer half in love with Louis, and spent a good part of the next year pining for him. He started so many letters—in an effort to restart their pen pal correspondence—but never finished them. He didn’t really know what to say other than “I think you’re totally awesome and you have a nice bum!” so he never got more than a few sentences in before throwing them away.
All of the film that he used that summer ended up in a paper bag in his closet because when he finally convinced Gemma to drive him down to the Fotomat to drop it off, he found out how incredibly expensive it was to have it developed. He didn’t have the money and eventually he forgot about it. And now he remembers boxing it all up and shoving it under the guest bed before he went off to college for his freshman year. It must have still been there when he moved all of his storage boxes in a few years ago.
They didn’t see each other the next summer and then the year after that, well, Harry’s crush came back at super teenage hormone strength. And when Louis whispered from his bunk one night that he was gay, Harry almost died right then, but managed to whisper back, “Me too.”
They talked about almost everything at night, in the dark, but during the day, things went back to the way they’d always been. That last night… Shit. Harry carried that memory through his early college years until it was replaced by new fantasies from the week they spent spring break together. Of course, he fucked that up royally with his jealousy and his temper.
Fuck. Harry sighs and gets up to rinse his glass in the sink. It’s been four years since he… He sighs again and carefully dries his glass. It still hurts to think about it and he’s still so ashamed that he let Louis use him like that. He was disgusted with himself for a long time afterward, but at least he had the presence of mind not to let Louis manipulate him anymore than that. Most of the time, he just avoids the memory. But it’s coming for him anyway, with Fizzy’s wedding around the corner.
It wasn’t really a question, when Fizzy asked him to be an usher in her wedding, he answered with an immediate ‘yes’ without even considering it. And he would never back out, but now he can’t stop thinking about Louis and their disastrous last encounter. It’s stupid, really, but he doesn’t want Louis to know what’s happened to him since then. He’s always tried to impress Louis and he doesn’t feel like there’s anything impressive about his life at the moment. He doesn’t even have a boyfriend anymore, since his last relationship ended a few months ago. Though maybe he can convince Greg to accompany him to the wedding. They’ve only been out on a couple of dates, but if Harry plays his cards right…
First, he has to find out if Louis is bringing anyone.
The next week, as soon as he gets home from picking up his new suit for Fizzy’s wedding, he calls Gemma. While the phone rings in his ear, he tries to figure out what to say, but she answers after the second ring and he ends up making conversation about trivial things until she calls him out on it and he has to scramble to come up with a believable reason to call her on a Thursday evening when he normally calls her on Saturday mornings.
“You realize I’m missing my book club meeting right now,” Gemma says with a quiet laugh.
“Sorry, Gems.”
“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t read the book anyway and Abigail is hosting. She always has cheap wine and shitty snacks. What’s up?”
“ Um... I just picked up my suit for the wedding.”
“Oh, how’s the fit? The blue and white seersucker is so ‘deep south’ but the bride gets what she wants, I suppose.”
“Fine. It’s fine. The bow tie’s a little… I don’t know. What’s your dress like?”
“I told you. It’s the same pale blue as your suit with a fucking hoop skirt. I look ridiculous. Lottie and I found these cute sundresses in the same color and we’re all changing into those for the reception.”
“How’s Lottie?”
“She’s fine. Or was last time we talked. Those boys of hers are a handful, but other than that…” Gemma chuckles. “She says they’re just like their Uncle Louis. Sweeter than you can imagine and so fucking cute, but obnoxious as hell.”
“Oh… um… Will Louis be there?” Harry cringes at his stupid question and tries to fix it. “In the wedding, I mean.” That’s really not any better.
“Of course he is. He’s one of the groomsmen. Why? Hmm?”
Even though she can’t see him, he rolls his eyes. “Just haven’t seen him in a while. Wondered if he’s still the same asshole he’s always been or, um, if maybe he’s one of you old married people now.”
“You’re not smooth, Harry.” Gemma sighs exaggeratedly. “No, he’s not married. You’d have been invited.”
Harry snorts. “I think not.”
“His mom would probably invite you whether he liked it or not. Anyway, he’s had a boyfriend for a couple of years, but as far as I know, he’s still the same old Louis.”
“Right. Okay. Thanks, Gems.”
“Why do you care? Thinking of asking him to be your date?”
“No way! I’m not… No. I was just wondering.”
“Mmhmm. Well, now that you got what you wanted, I’m going to go drink Abigail’s cheap Chardonnay and not talk about the book. Love you.”
She hangs up before he can say goodbye.
Harry dries his hands on a wadded up napkin he found in the glove compartment of his truck and dabs it across his damp forehead. It’s not even that hot outside, and he’s sitting in his air conditioned truck, so he can’t blame the weather. Nope. He’s nervous and on top of that, he feels stupid for feeling nervous. At least he has a date.
They climb out of the truck and Harry meets Greg by the passenger door. “Thanks for coming with me. I know we haven’t been seeing each other long.”
“It’s fine, Harry. I mean, it’s a bit weird. I didn’t realize you were in the wedding party until you mentioned the matching suits, but…”
Harry smiles self consciously. He knows he should’ve mentioned it, but he chose not to. Things are already going south with Greg. Not that he’s a bad guy, because he’s not. Just that he’s kind of boring and, to be honest, they’re just not compatible. Harry wants someone with more… something.
It would help if he could figure out what that something is.
As more of the guests arrive, Harry is back and forth, politely guiding people to their seats, then almost rushing back to the vestibule. Every time he walks through the big double doors, he holds his breath, expecting to see Louis. He’s so nervous that he almost trips while leading his mom to her seat because she asks if she can meet Greg. With a shake of his head, he whispers, “Later,” and heads back up the aisle. He passes a very bored looking Greg in the back row, but can’t make himself stop to speak to him. He has to keep an eye out for Louis.
The ceremony begins and Harry sits down with a quiet sigh. He hasn’t seen Louis at all so far, which he supposes is a good thing. All of Louis’ siblings are in the wedding, along with the groom’s family and friends, Gemma, and Lottie’s twin boys who are sharing the responsibility of ringbearer. It’s a huge wedding party and it seems to take forever for them all to make it down the aisle and up to the dais where the minister is waiting.
The entire church is turned in their seats, facing the back door, and watching as the attendants walk past them. When Gemma comes through the door, she sees him and he closes his eyes and scrunches his face at her in an attempt to make her lose her composure. He knows he looks stupid, but no one else is paying attention to him, except that when he opens his eyes to check if she’s laughing, she’s not. And neither is Louis. Who has her arm linked with his. They’re both scowling at him, so he quickly drops his head and doesn't lift it again until he hears the music change for Fizzy’s entrance.
Throughout the entire ceremony, Harry sits stiff and still, focusing his stare on the bride and groom and absolutely refusing to look at Louis who, he thinks, is glaring at him the entire time. While everyone applauds for the bride and groom as they make their exit, Harry tries to get lost in the crowd, but it’s impossible since he’s on the outside of the row, and it’s especially difficult to be inconspicuous when his own sister pinches his ass—hard—when she walks past him and he jumps and squawks like a fucking chicken. His face heats so quickly, he’s amazed that he doesn’t catch fire right there in the middle of the church. It would probably serve him right.
Eventually, the room empties and Harry finds Greg and leads him towards the parking lot so that they can drive to the reception. It’s not far, and they don’t really speak other than to make small talk about how lovely the bride looked and how silly the hoop skirts are.
The reception would be an absolute blast if Harry wasn’t craning his neck to search the room for Louis every few seconds. It gets to the point where Greg asks him what he’s looking for and when Harry says, “Nothing,” Greg suggests that he see a chiropractor. After that, Harry makes more of an effort to stay engaged and ends up having a fairly decent time. He forgets about Louis, or rather he pushes him to the back of his mind and thinks about other things. Greg excuses himself to the restroom and, as soon as he’s alone, Harry starts to think about Louis again. Fuck. He needs a drink. Something stronger than the wine that was served with the meal.
After dinner, the little bar is pretty packed with guests trying to get a cocktail before they wheel out the wedding cake for the bride and groom to cut. Harry stands at the end, waiting patiently, and eventually makes his way to the center and leans over, propping himself up with his forearms. The bartender is pouring his scotch when someone bumps into Harry’s back, causing him to stumble sideways.
Harry’s already talking before he fully turns around to see if they’re okay. “You alright?” He reaches out to gently grip the man’s arm to steady him and recognizes him at the same time.
Louis tugs his arm free and straightens his suit jacket. “I’m fine, thanks. Sorry—” He glances up and his eyes go wide and he looks like he’s about to say something else when a rather tall, blond, handsome man seems to appear from nowhere at Louis’ side.
The man wraps his arm around Louis’ waist and says, “Did you trip? You okay, sweetie?” He’s clearly speaking to Louis, who rolls his eyes.
“I’m fine,” Louis mumbles and starts to step away.
“Who’s this, sweetie?” He says and turns to look at Harry. “Nice suit.” He winks and extends his hand, which Harry gingerly takes in his own. “I’m Jacob, Louis’ boyfriend.”
Louis sighs and rolls his eyes again. “This is Harry. Old family friend. Say goodbye, Jake.” Louis unwraps the hand around his waist and pulls Jacob after him.
Harry turns and picks up his drink, downing half of it in one go, letting the scotch burn his throat. He snorts and shakes his head, muttering to himself, “Sweetie? Must not know him very well…”
There’s a party at the beach house after the reception and, since Harry’s had a bit too much to drink, he rides with Gemma. Greg takes Harry’s truck home because he has to work early the next morning—Harry’s pretty sure that he’s had enough of the evening anyway. The entire concrete area under the house is packed with cars when they arrive, so they park on the street, and Harry can hear the music coming from inside the house as soon as he steps out of the car.
“Can I leave my jacket in your car?” Harry asks even though he already took it off in the church parking lot right before he removed his bowtie and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Gemma nods and Harry follows her across the street and up the stairs, unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt and rolling his sleeves up on the way. As soon as they left the reception, he pulled his hair up into a bun. He does it more and more often lately and it’s getting to the point where Harry’s not sure why he even has long hair anymore. He should just cut it short. Would cost less to keep the gray covered, that’s for sure.
It’s not nearly as crowded as Harry expected it to be when he walks inside. Of course it’s loud and there are more people in the living room than he’s possibly ever seen, but it’s not too bad. He doesn’t see Louis anywhere, so that’s a relief. Maybe he and his boyfriend went back to their hotel. Harry walks around the counter into the kitchen and reaches down to pull a beer out of one of the sand buckets full of ice that are on almost every surface. He smiles and rolls his eyes fondly. He loves Fizzy. She’s amazing. They all are, the whole family… well, except one, but that’s the way these things go.
“Hey, man,” Liam smiles and leans against the counter next to Harry. “How long did it take you to lose the jacket and tie?”
“Jacket came off the second I walked out of the reception.” Harry taps his beer bottle against Liam’s. “Tie was right behind it.”
Liam looks him up and down. “Leave it to you to make seersucker look good.”
“Thanks, man.” Harry grins and spins around.
Liam laughs and tips his beer back. They’re both quiet for a while, listening to the music and watching Fizzy try to maneuver through the crowded living room in her gown. Liam asks, “Seen Louis?”
“Briefly.” Harry rolls his eyes and continues, “He just about knocked me over at the reception.”
“Really?” Liam asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Not like that. Though I wouldn’t put it past him. He tripped or something. It was an accident.”
“Right.”
Harry huffs and rolls his eyes again. It seems like he’s always doing that when Louis is involved. “I grabbed his arm to keep him from falling over and from his boyfriend’s reaction, you’d have thought I’d saved his life or something.”
“Jacob? He’s alright. They’ve been together for a couple of years now, I think.” Liam stops and waves at someone across the room. “They stayed here last summer.”
“Don’t care, Li.”
Liam hums, grabs a bucket of beer bottles, and opens one for each of them. “Where’s Greg? Thought he was with you?”
“Went home.” Harry sighs and adjusts the bun on top of his head. “That’s probably over soon anyway. He’s not looking for anything serious.”
“And you are?” Liam asks.
Harry shoves his shoulder. “I fucking told you that, man. I’m…” he looks around and whispers, “almost forty. I don’t want casual.”
“Aww it’s like you’re growing up.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Never.”
Several drinks later, Harry is tired and a little bit drunk and ready to go home. It’s almost one in the morning and he’s starting to think he’s too old for this.
A crowd of people decide to go skinny dipping, but Harry and Liam stay behind. Shortly after that, Liam leaves, with most of the rest of the party guests slowly following him out the door, and then Harry’s pretty much alone in the house.
Gemma’s sober, so she took a car full of people to drop them off at their hotels. She should be back any minute. Harry cleans up a little bit, and heads for the bathroom at the end of the hall. As he passes the door to the back bedroom, it swings open and Louis steps into the hall, the expression on his face morphing from a confused pout to a scowl in a split second.
Before either of them can say something snarky, Jacob follows Louis out of the bedroom and says, “Hey… Harry, right?”
“That’s me,” Harry answers, tearing his eyes away from Louis’ face.
“Is your boyfriend here? I didn’t get a chance to meet either of you properly at the reception.” Jacob smiles.
“Yeah... He left.” Harry’s eyes flicker back to Louis who’s still scowling at him and managing to look bored at the same time. “Right… I need to…” he gestures towards the bathroom and quickly disappears behind the door.
He’s such an idiot. What was he thinking, staring at Louis like that. It’s good that they’re so rarely forced to spend time in the same room. Harry stays in the bathroom longer than necessary, hoping that Gemma will magically appear to drive him home. She doesn’t. But when he finally opens the door, the house appears to be empty.
Harry goes outside to wait for her on the porch, sits in one of the rocking chairs, leans his head back, and closes his eyes. There’s still a decent sized group down on the beach and Harry can hear them when the breeze blows, their voices floating through the air. They sound like they’re having fun and he smiles, remembering the last time he stripped naked and ran full speed into the ocean in the dark. It’s been almost twenty years.
The wind carries the sound of laughter up from the beach, but it’s drowned out by the sound of voices much closer to the house. Harry sits forward slightly, considers getting up and going back inside so that he doesn’t accidentally eavesdrop, but stills when he recognizes the voices.
“I don’t see what he has to do wi—” Jacob cuts himself off and complains, “You know that we haven’t spent this much time together in months? I miss you.” Harry listens more intently.
He can picture Louis—arms crossed, looking away as he says, “Yeah, well, I’m really busy with work.”
“You don’t have to work all summer. You could take the occasional weekend off from the restaurant. And you don’t have to volunteer to teach summer school.”
“I don’t—”
“I know you volunteer to do it, Louis. Don’t lie about it.”
“The money’s good.”
“Yeah, well, it’d just be nice if you put as much effort into our relationship as you do into literally every other thing in your life.”
“Jake, I don’t… I don’t want to talk about it.”
Harry hears a weird scuffling sound and thinks for a second that they’re either fighting or making out and he’s trying to decide if he needs to go downstairs and break it up or run back inside the house to hide in the bathroom again, when Louis says, “Sorry. Sorry, Jake.”
“You’re really wasted, sweetie. We can talk about this tomorrow, I guess.”
There’s some mumbling and Harry can’t make out what’s being said, so he closes his eyes again. He could very well fall asleep out here if Gemma doesn’t hurry the fuck up.
Harry’s eyes shoot open when he recognizes Louis’ groan and he thinks he has to get the fuck out of here, but before he even has the chance to hate himself for knowing what sorts of sounds Louis makes, he hears him say, “Fuck him though.”
“Fuck who?” Jacob asks, clearly confused, and Harry whispers the question along with him.
“Harry!” Louis almost shouts and Harry frowns. What the fuck. He didn’t even do anything.
Louis is such an asshole.
“Fucking staring at me. Like a fucking frog. Did you know he doesn’t even want this house? So why’s he here?”
“Harry seems nice enough. Gemma’s brother, right? I thought you guys were all friends.”
“He’s not my friend. He’s a fucking dickhead. Piece of shit person, really.”
“Jeez, I thought he was alright.”
“With you maybe. He saves up his shittiness for me. Always awful with me. Fucking hate him.”
“Let’s not… Let’s talk about something else… How drunk are you?”
“Fuck off. I’m fine.”
“Want to head back upstairs? If you suck me off, you can fuck me after. Hmm?”
Harry feels his face start to heat and tries to quietly stand up out of the rocking chair. He’ll just sneak down the stairs and walk down the road a bit. He’s bound to see Gemma before he gets to the stop sign.
It’s still quiet and Harry’s almost to the stairs when he hears Louis say, “No, I’m too drunk. And I’m tired.”
“You just said—”
“I know what I said,” Louis snaps. “Fucking asshole up there hanging out in a house he doesn’t even want anymore. Can he just leave? That’d be great…”
“You could just ignore him. He’s probably already gone by now.”
Harry tiptoes down the stairs and hurries as silently as he can away from the house. He doesn’t know what he did today to piss Louis off or if he did anything at all. Louis probably just hates him on principle or something. After everything that’s happened, the feeling should be mutual.
Gemma pulls into the driveway a few houses down from their beach house and backs into the road facing the other way. She yells, “Come on! Let’s go, Harry!” out of the open window and Harry cringes, hoping that Louis can’t hear her.
He falls asleep that night and dreams about the Louis in the pictures he just had developed, the Louis from the summer when they were thirteen, when Harry thought he was in love, and when Louis was everything.