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“Don’t answer it, Haz, please.” Niall’s shouting over the dull roar of the pub they’re in, but it’s almost like Harry doesn’t hear him. All he notices are the vibrations of his phone and the name on the caller ID, and picture on the background, and the way his heart beats a little bit faster even though he knows it shouldn’t.
He doesn’t actually come back to Earth until the phone stops ringing. Harry’s head jolts up like he’s snapped out of a dream and his companions are smiling happily at him. (Well - Niall’s smiling happily at him; Nick Grimshaw doesn’t really smile happily unless it’s at the expense of other people in a bad way. He does look somewhat less annoyed, though.)
“‘M proud of you,” Niall says, clapping him on the shoulder the way a proud father would. “Next round’s on me. Small victories!”
As soon as Niall disappears into the crowd, Nick leans in close across the table and practically spits it out. “You’re going to go call him back, aren’t you?”
And - well - shit. It’s not that Harry actually wants to call him back, it’s just - It’s confusing for him, why Louis called after everything went down the last time they spoke. A lot of things had been said, Harry recalls, on both sides, and he -
He can’t ignore Louis.
He can ignore Nick’s face, though, as he gets up from their table and makes his way out of the pub, passing Niall (and also successfully ignoring his disappointment, though it’s a bit like a punch in the gut) and hitting into people and things and who-knows-what-else in his need to get out the door. He’s barely made it out before he’s hit the call back option on his phone.
It rings for an eternity. The ground could probably open him up at swallow him whole.
When he does answer (finally, finally, but Harry still can’t quite breathe), Louis’ voice is light, but there’s the slightest hint of edge to it. “Oh, so you do have your phone then?”
Harry flinches like Louis’s thrown something at him. “Louis I’m -”
“No, Harry, I get it, new friends, don’t need me anymore, which is fine. Moved on myself, haven’t I, Liam?” There’s a muffled voice in the background and Harry is wishing the ground would open up again. “I was more concerned for you, really.”
He can’t breathe. It would be easier if Louis was here, he thinks, maybe, but they haven’t seen each other in a month and maybe it wouldn’t be easier. Maybe Louis would have his arm around this Liam person, or the Zayn he’d mentioned last time they spoke, or Selena, or any of the names he’d ticked off in the month since he’d tossed Harry away without even thinking.
Maybe they’d been tossed away, too, he tries to tell himself, to make the situation easier. (It doesn’t.)
“Harry? You there?” He didn’t realize he’d gone quiet. He opens his mouth to try and say something, anything, but it’s all silence. “What the fuck, he hung up on me, fucking -”
Click.
He doesn’t know how much time goes by - it’s like he’s paralyzed there on the street, staring at his phone again. Right back where he started.
Niall comes out after ten, twenty, thirty minutes, who knows, and tries to shepherd him back in for a drink (to forget, he says, or maybe to mend) but Harry can’t follow. He’s stuck, glued to the spot, and Niall stays with him until it’s last call and Grimmy is leaving with some bloke with very full eyebrows (but gives him the most pathetic look as he walks by - when he pulls his face away from the guy long enough to do so).
They call a taxi. Niall gets him home, assures him everything will be okay after he sleeps. Harry knows it may take more than one sleep, but it will be okay.
That is - until Louis calls again.