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“Harry! Hey Harry.”
Harry put down his guitar and turned his attention to Jackson, his eleven-year-old godchild sitting on the couch. “What’s up?”
“Did you know Louis Tomlinson grew up here? Like, in our town.”
Harry tried to keep his face neutral. “Oh. Yeah. I did know that,” he said with a disinterested air. He wasn’t sure he was pulling it off.
“Isn’t that cool?” Jackson was perched at the end of the couch, bouncing with excitement. “I can’t believe he’s from here. Wait.” Jackson stilled and looked at him with big eyes. “Did you know him?”
“Yeah.” Harry didn’t like to lie if he could help it. “I knew him. Once.”
“Oh my goooooood.” Jackson fell on the floor in a dramatic heap. Harry didn’t even know Jackson knew who Louis was.
“Are you… a fan?” Harry asked, cautiously. The universe kept shoving Louis in Harry’s face, but thankfully until this moment his house had been a Louis-free zone.
“He’s so cool. I can’t believe you knew him. He’s going to be on The Voice this season. I can’t fuc—” Harry shot him a look. “I can’t wait,” Jackson finished, the right side of apologetic. His parents would roast Harry if they knew they were letting Jackson swear.
“Oh that’s…” Harry was a mess of conflicted feelings. “I hadn’t heard.”
“Could you connect me on Twitter? Or Insta? How did you know him? Was he so cool?”
“You know what? I’m actually coming down with a migraine,” Harry said as he stood up. It wasn’t a total lie. “Can we talk about this later?” He wasn’t prepared to have this conversation, or to admit the reasons why he wouldn’t be able to hook Jackson up with his apparent celeb hero.
Harry scrolled through Twitter as the lead-in to The Voice wrapped up. He was torturing himself; reading all tweets in the LouisOnTheVoice hashtag, many of which were replies to a tweet he wasn’t allowed to see. Because Louis had blocked him. Louis had blocked him on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. His professional Tumblr even had Harry blocked.
Harry had received the message loud and clear.
And he couldn’t even blame Louis. Harry had been a dick about things when they broke up, and hadn’t found a way to make it better before Louis left their small town to ‘make it big’ in LA. Harry didn’t particularly like to think about it. How their best friendship cracked, then shattered into a million pieces and was never able to be repaired. On the darkest nights, when he was the most lonely and the most morose and doubting every choice that ever lead him to where he was, he’d Google Louis’ name, read gossip articles about him, scroll through countless images of him. He was still gorgeous. The most gorgeous man Harry had ever seen. The man he let slip through his fingers because Harry had such a huge stick up his arse.
But that was water under the bridge. Nothing to be done about it, since Louis clearly had no interest at all in rekindling any sort of relationship with Harry. So Harry didn’t allow himself to dwell on it.
Generally though, Harry tried to give Louis his space, metaphorically even, steering clear of his concerts when he came back to the nearest city, avoiding news of his upcoming single releases, changing the songs on the radio when he was in the car, telling Spotify ‘not to play this artist’ in the mixes their algorithms put together for him. But at this moment Harry was feeling weak, and he liked The Voice, at least compared to the other talent-based reality competition shows out there. So why should Louis stop him from enjoying something he liked?
He shouldn’t. Insert metaphorical childish foot stomping here, even though he was sprawled on his bed.
He put his phone down and looked up when the show started. When Louis’ face, in High Def and huge, flashed across his screen, Harry gasped. God, he was so gorgeous, and the tiny thumbnails in the Google image search did not prepare him for the perfectly groomed beard and bright eyes, perfectly styled hair and sinewy muscles. He wasn’t prepared at all.
Harry turned over, and screamed into his pillow. Then composed himself, and turned back to watch the show, impassively, without drooling over his ex best friend. Ex boyfriend. Ex, almost fiance. Ex everything. He let out another muffled scream for good measure.
Turned out, the main problem with watching the season premiere of The Voice was that Louis looked… off. Sad would maybe be taking it a little too far. Not distracted: he was sharp and concise and gave the singers incredibly accurate critiques. But when the cameras zoomed out or panned away, when it wasn’t clear that there was a camera directly on Louis and he was supposed to be ‘on’ he just looked adrift.
That probably wasn’t fair, since Harry hadn’t seen in him in ages, but Harry’s heart yearned for him anyway. To make him a cup of tea and bundle him up under a pile of blankets on the sofa and simply hold him.
With startling clarity, Harry realized just how badly he had fucked up. Louis probably had a whole team of people who loved him. But, what if he hadn’t broken just his own heart, but had broken Louis’ too? What if Louis was navigating the stupid celebrity world without a strong sounding board, without someone he trusted?
He was sure almost no one else would be able to tell. Even after all this time, there was no way anyone else knew Louis Tomlinson the way he did. And the protective streak in him needed to make sure that he was okay. Really okay. Harry hoped that he had friends who could take care of him, and that no one was running him too ragged and that no one from his label was forcing undue pressure on him. Harry had burned the bridges with Louis’ sisters long ago, avoiding them at the supermarket and trying not to extend his own heartbreak by saying goodbye to them as well. He wasn’t sure if they were even still living in the same place as before… Louis had found such a fantastic level of success that maybe they had moved to a bigger house further out of town or down to London. Harry rarely saw them anymore, something he had been thankful for, until he realised he couldn’t be certain if that was their choice, if they were being shielded from invasive fans and stalkers.
Harry’s anxiety started to spiral out of control at everything he couldn’t fix and all the reasons why he should’ve been there for the Tomlinson family, but wasn’t. He practiced his box breathing through the rest of the adverts, and when the show cut back to Louis and the other judges in the studio, he turned off the telly.
Harry’s heart was breaking all over again, the pain that he shoved down for so long now rushing to the surface, but also guilt that he refused to recognize until now. He had hurt Louis. Louis was still hurting. Probably not still because of Harry, he wasn’t egotistic enough to assume that, but Louis was hurting. Harry knew that, and he couldn’t be there before, but now he had to do something.
He had too many emotions, and not enough outlets for those emotions, so he did what he always did in such times, and he picked up his guitar. He strummed for a bit, trying to get a feel for how his emotions could translate into notes, cleared his throat and warbled a bit of nonsense in a whiny, overdramatic way to get it out of his system, and latched onto a phrase that started looping in his head about where broken hearts go.
The flight out to California was boring. It took entirely too long for Harry to get to the same city as Louis. The food was bland and his seatmate didn’t appreciate his bouncing knee—Harry understood, he’d have stopped it if he could—and he couldn’t even get into The Notebook playing on the tiny screen in front of him since his mind was elsewhere.
He knew this might be the biggest mistake in his life. Sometimes when people go big, they still go home. But he also knew he had to try, and he had to do it now, because Louis was hurting now, and he was afraid fear would get the best of him again. Harry had done a slight amount of research, he knew where The Voice was shot, so that was a start. And he knew that Louis had a house “in the canyon” but that didn’t mean much to Harry. He assumed probably there were a lot of houses there.
So the flight was boring, but he tried to put together a more cohesive plan of winning Louis back. Was that even the plan, really? Getting in front of Louis was really the first step of the plan. There was a really good chance that Louis wasn’t going to want to see him if he even found a way into Louis’ general area. Harry wondered if Louis would even recognise him, or if his found success and rubbing elbows with other celebrities meant that Harry was a distant, hazy memory. That would be the ultimate embarrassment, Harry flying across the world to tell Louis how terribly he fucked up, only to have Louis look back at him with a look of total non-recognition.
LAX was worse than Harry imagined, which, he supposed, he hadn’t thought of at all. Customs was organised and terrifying, and “I’ll be here a week or two” got him a raised eyebrow in response, but he charmed his way into the country and then it was fully up to him… once he was out of the airport. The car rental counters were complete chaos so he went to the one where there was only one person waiting. The lack of people who chose them was perhaps worrying, but he’d get a car faster this way. He didn’t care about the make or model of the car, as long as it got him around the city, but he did need nat sav, and after some Brit/American confusion the guy hooked him up with a GPS.
And then the traffic.
It took him twenty minutes just to get out of the car park. The traffic out of the airport was just as bad as everyone made it out to be. But he had nowhere in particular to go and he was still getting used to driving on the right side of the road thing, so he took his time, peeking into other cars just in case Louis happened to be in one, and looking at the brown mountains and palm trees that were so far outside of his normal landscape. He didn’t have a particular destination in mind at the beginning, so he just drove, picking a direction and following road signs that called out to him, the whole time parts of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” looped through his head.
There was a sign for Laurel Canyon, so he drove there. And then to Santa Monica and then he drove up to Malibu. He was struck by the enormity of Los Angeles, and suddenly felt hopeless. How was he supposed to find Louis in a place like this?
It was hopeless and all he wanted was to fly back to London because it was a stupid idea from the start, flying to America, to Los Angeles, and hoping to just randomly bump into Louis fucking Tomlinson, as though half the world wouldn’t love to just bump into Louis.
He pulled out his phone and booked an Airbnb for the night. It was pricey as fuck and he probably should’ve planned this whole thing better, but maybe a night sleeping with open windows, breathing in the pacific winds and getting a chance to dig his toes in some California sand would clear his head.
It didn’t work.
He woke up the next morning just as confused about how this half concocted plan was possibly going to work. At this point he was going to run out of money sooner rather than later and he still had no idea how all of it was going to work out.
Another day of driving all around the hot city. A destination though: The Voice studio. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t let him drive onto the lot, even when he weakly added that he used to know Louis Tomlinson, they were friends, they were…
The guard looked unimpressed.
So he drove some more. Out to Calabas and to Burbank, and Beverly Hills. East Los Angeles, Echo Park. Hollywood. He crisscrossed the city, letting some force guide him.
When the sun started to set, he realised with a stark clarity that there was no way he was going to find Louis driving around the city like this. It was madness.
He didn’t even believe in fate. He believed in hard work. Planning. Putting in the hours. He hated Los Angeles and everything it stood for.
What was he even doing?
Feeling like a fool, he pulled into a diner. One that reminded him of home, somehow. Maybe it was the architecture, so different than the Spanish-style buildings that were so much of the landscape. He was missing home. He ordered a salad, even though the thing he really wanted was to go back to his local chippy. But he was miserable, he was going to lean into it. No one ever said he wasn’t a dramatic hoe when he wanted to be. That was probably part of why he and Louis had gone their separate ways. It was probably something he should work on.
He left a nice tip—it wasn’t the waiter’s fault that he was a miserable bastard—and went to the toilet. He peed, then took a good long while to wash his hands since he didn’t know what to do next. He stared at himself in the mirror, and decided that if he didn’t see Louis by sunrise, he’d fly back to the UK and figure something else out. He turned to dry his hands by the machine, and the door flew open, startling him.
“Sorry mate,” the guy said. Northern accent. Louis’ voice. Louis.
“Louis?”
Louis did a double take, opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again.
“It’s Harry. Harry Styles,” Harry said a bit desperately, quicker than he’d probably ever spoken.
“Yeah, no, I know… I know who you are. What the fuck you doing here, mate?” He emphasised the mate, with a bit of a bite, as though he wasn’t happy to see Harry at all.
“Um.” Harry needed to pull himself together. “I saw you’re doing The Voice.”
Louis looked at him flatly. “Yeah.”
“That’s… great. It’s really great.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I’m not being sarcastic. I’m happy for you.”
“Right.” Louis clearly didn’t believe him at all. “Well, if that’s all. I’m going to…” He motioned toward the urinals.
“I came here to see you,” Harry blurted. “To try and right things between us. To apologise.”
Louis’ posture dropped, like all the strings holding him up and making him look tough were snipped. He slouched into himself. “Fuck, Harry. You can’t just…”
“I know. Sorry. I really am sorry. I’m sure you’re doing great and don’t need me back your life. But there was something… I needed to check. It’s fine if you’ve moved on.” It wasn’t. He’d fall apart later on the long flight home if that if that was the case. “I just… I had to try.”
Louis didn’t answer immediately, instead he took a long, hard look at Harry’s face. Something in his face must have convinced him, because Louis said, “Fine. Give me your number. I’ll text you.” He pulled out his phone, and Harry recited his number.
And then Harry turned and walked out of the toilet. He couldn’t push it. And fate… that fate he didn’t believe in, had helped bring them together. Maybe it had the first time too. It had to mean something. Either way, it was in Louis’ hands now.
Louis did text Harry, an hour later, as Harry was sat in his car, still in the diner’s car park, wondering if Louis was going to string him along, or had just said he was going to get in touch when he really had no intention. So getting the text was a relief. But then his body flooded with anxiety when he reread and processed what it said. Louis invited him over to his house that night, so they could catch up. He provided an address and a time.
So it was really happening.
He knocked on the door three minutes after the time Louis suggested, he didn’t want to appear too eager, after all. But that might have been negated by the way he thrust the bouquet of flowers into Louis’ hands.
“Oh. What’s this then?”
“Flowers.” The obvious answer. “Apology flowers. Thank you flowers. They’re for—I wanted to make a better impression, after how things ended between us.”
Louis let out a wry laugh. “Haven’t even gotten inside and you’re already tackling the heavy issues. Come in.” Louis opened the door wider, and Harry followed his retreating back into the house. “Let me put these in water. And get us a drink. Beer fine? Or tea?”
“Yeah, sure, I’m not picky,” Harry said, closing the door behind him. He followed Louis into the kitchen, where Louis was on his tiptoes, trying to pull a vase down from a cabinet above the sink. “Want some help?” Harry asked.
“Yeah,” Louis stepped away, granting Harry access and opening the fridge. Harry reached up, he had to balance on his toes too, but he got hold of the vase and brought it down, filling the bottom with a few inches of water.
“You have scissors?” Harry asked.
“Of course. Uh, there, I think.” He motioned to a drawer to Harry’s left.
Harry cut the flowers in silence, nothing but the snip snip snip filling the kitchen, as Harry cut the bottom of the stems, and placed them in the water. When he was done arranging them, Louis handed him an open beer.
“Well, cheers,” Louis said after a few seconds of silence.
“Thanks, again, for inviting me over,” Harry said.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Louis said, flat. He had lost some of his shine. He was beautiful, of course, he had the kind of face meant that he was always going to be beautiful, but his eyes were duller than Harry remembered. Harry always remembered the way Louis shone.
“You’re not a sell out.”
“I know,” Louis said, even as he straightened his back, puffed up his chest.
“No, I know. Of course you know. I just… uh…” Harry pinched his lip. “Wanted you to know that I know? I guess?”
“Oh.” Louis looked confused, his brows and mouth all knitted tight. “Is that all? You came all this way to tell me that you know I’m not a sell out?”
“No. Well. Yes. No. I.” Harry brought the can to his lips, took a long drink to help clear his mind. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Harry didn’t believe him.
“You’re not. You look… I mean, obviously you’re still fit. Fittest boy ever. But I saw you on the telly and…” It all sounded patronising in Harry’s head. “Look, I fucked up. But I assumed you’d moved on, that you had a better, happier, fuller life now. I assumed because of all of…” he waved his hand around the magazine-quality kitchen that he was sure Louis never used, “this, your fame, everything you wanted, that you were happier now. But then I saw you, and… I wanted to be there for you, if you needed someone.”
Louis’ face twitched. “Not much I’m wanting for, these days.”
Fair enough. Harry shouldn’t’ve expected to just waltz back into Louis’ life and be his best friend again. “Anyway, I wanted to apologise too.”
Louis looked him straight in the eye and asked, “For what, exactly?”
He used to be able to read every mood that crossed Louis’ face. He can’t now, he still can’t get a read on why Louis let him back into his life. He’s got so much to apologise for, that he doesn’t know where to start.
“For uh, well, thinking, back then, that going to America to try and,” Harry uses finger quotes for the next part, “make it,” he put his hand down, digging it into his pocket, “meant that you were less authentic than like, staying poor and playing the same three pubs.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think you were entirely wrong about that.” Louis rolled his eyes. “It’s a lot more writing by committee these days, not like when it was just us and our guitars and no one could tell us we were wrong.” Louis pulled his sleeves down over his hands. Harry knew he wasn’t totally okay. “I try though. There’s like, images and stuff now to think about. Like, images coming down from marketing teams, about like, what they think will sell.”
“Do you get any say in it?” Harry asked softly. He itched to reach out and hold Louis’ hand.
“I fight when I can, when it matters. Try to do better at picking my battles these days, you know? I’m not going to pretend it isn’t hard, trying to keep my integrity intact. Sometimes it’s really fucking hard. But I’m not about to let this business change who I am.”
“I love that about you,” Harry said in a rush, without thinking, until Louis started to blush and Harry thought he might be pushing things too far. But he had more to say, before Louis said goodbye to him for good. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t believe in you. In us. But I was a scared little shithead and the idea of being a huge star felt impossible, and so far away from the life we were living. I should’ve known you’d succeed. Of course you would, and that I said that… Fuck, I can still remember your face so clearly, the disappointment, and the way you just shut down, when I told you not to come crying back to me when you failed. I was such a dick. And so clearly wrong. And just so, so scared of losing you.”
Louis scoffed. “You had a funny way of showing it.”
“I know. I… that ultimatum was a terrible idea. I lost everything.”
Louis averted his eyes. “Let’s go have a proper catch up. Move this to the sofa?”
“Yes! Please.” Harry jumped at the chance.
There was an awkward silence when they sat down, Harry could do more groveling, but it didn’t seem like Louis was totally comfortable with that. As he waited for Louis to make his next move, he looked around the airy living room; it looked expensive, but there were hints of the Louis he knew, the messy pile of Playstation games, the stray socks on the floor, the blanket from his mum’s sofa.
“So you still playing?” Louis asked, eventually.
“Yeah, wrote a song for you, actually, earlier this week.”
Louis looked suspicious, so Harry jumped in, without a vocal warmup or his guitar to help him through. He got through a few bars, before Louis interrupted him with a loud clearing of his throat.
“Is that what this is about?” Louis asked. “You want me to help you get a record deal or summit?” He bit his lip and challenged Harry with his eyes.
“Oh. Fuck. No. Shit, no no no. That’s… the song’s for you. Like, just, what I was thinking about with you. With, like, how much I missed it. It’s a song for you. Personally, not like, to sell. Or for me to sing to anyone else. Or whatever. I didn’t… no ulterior motives. Just. Okay. One. I want you back. I know how much I fucked up, and I want a second chance.”
Louis downed the rest of his drink. “Um. Oh.”
“You don’t have to decide now, obviously, but you know me, like to have my cards on the table.”
“Do I know you, though? We haven’t talked in ages. I wrote you out of my life; I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
It hurt, but Harry deserved it. “I hope I’m the same guy. I maybe broke my own heart worse than yours. Still love my family. Still love music. You’re the only boy I’ve ever loved. None of that has ever changed.”
“I… Harry, this all really sudden.”
“That’s okay. I mean, I don’t need an answer now. You should think about it. Let’s make sure it’s right before starting down that path again. But I’d be open for it. You even thinking about it is a huge chance, like, I never ever thought I’d get this far. You blocked me everywhere.”
Louis shrugged. “I was mad. Then I got busy.”
“I don’t blame you. I was an arse. But I’m older now, wiser.”
“You probably love this idealised version of me, like how I used to be when were were kids and stupidly in love. My life is complicated now. That doesn’t change, because you came waltzing in here.”
“No, of course not. I know. But it hurts too much, still, to be without you. It’s supposed to have stopped by now, if we were just stupid kids.”
“Can I just… I’d need to take this slow. Harry, you obliterated my heart when you walked away from us. I can’t just hand it back over to you. So if we do this, and that’s a huge if, if we do this, it’d be like rebuilding from the start. Friends first.”
“Yes, totally. That’s fine. That… it makes perfect sense. I’m surprised, actually, that you’re open to the possibility. It feels too good to be true.”
“Well, it was a dickhead move. And I felt guilty for leaving at first, but I needed to do it. I was a stubborn little shit, and I would’ve resented you if I stayed. And I think you would’ve hated things, with me, in the beginning, so it was probably better that we were apart.” Louis took a sip of his drink, and Harry let him collect him thoughts. “I never got over you, to be honest. Blocking you was, well, mostly self-preservation. Not wanting to see you happy or whatever, moving on with someone who had, uh, a normal life. But maybe this time...” He cleared his throat and swiped at his fringe. Still nervous, then. “Maybe this time it could work.”
“It feels worth it to try, at least.” It might be a huge mistake, but Harry had to know. He owed it to both of them to try.
“No one’s going to trust you. My sisters and my manager and… everyone. You’re going to have an uphill battle.”
“You’re worth it.” He was. Harry would do anything Louis asked if given this chance.
“How much longer are you in town?”
“Oh.” Harry shrugged.
“Harry Styles, what does that mean?”
“I may have flown out here on a whim—”
“On a whim. Jesus Christ.”
“No, like, coming out here was a whim. Not, missing you. Wanting you, knowing I fucked up. That’s been years. But like, I had no idea how to find you, until Jackson—Will’s kid, you’ll meet him—mentioned you were on The Voice. So, boom, I had a city, at least.”
“And you bought a one way ticket? Hoping we’d cross paths?”
“Sounds stupid. But, look at us now. It actually worked. Like fate.”
“Fate,” Louis said under his breath. “This whole thing is crazy.”
“I can leave, if you want. If this is like, too crazy. Stalker crazy or whatever. Like, if I crossed a line.”
“No. Well, yeah, it’s insane, but it’s you. You’re at a hotel?”
Harry shook his head.
“Oh, right, of course. No hotel. You’re what? Sleeping in your rental car?”
“Airbnbs. Like, where ever I get too tired to keep driving.”
Louis let out a long sigh. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
Harry bit his lip. “There’s no way you can regret anything more than I regret ending things with you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Do you need a place to stay, Harry?”
“Do you mean it?”
Louis motioned toward his huge mansion. “I’ve got the space. A spare bedroom, of course, but if you need a place to crash, we might as well start now.”
And just like that, Harry knew that he’d be able to fix up the heart that he let down.