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Harry walks into the living room to find Louis already settled in the corner of the couch with another episode of Bob’s Burgers playing on the TV. He plops himself down on the other end of the couch and slouches down so he can rest his crossed legs on the coffee table and tuck his chin into his chest.
He lasts less than two minutes before he pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through Instagram. After he’s watched all of the stories from people he cares about and has scrolled back far enough on his timeline to see the same posts he saw earlier in the day, he moves on to Facebook, then Tumblr, and then, as an act of desperation, Twitter. When he can’t take the drama and politics and general Twitter-ness anymore, he exits to his home screen and swipes around as he peruses the apps he has downloaded, searching for something, anything, to keep himself distracted and engaged enough to fight off his nightly thoughts about Louis.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to think about his roommate and best friend. It’s just that he really doesn’t want to think about him. Because whenever he thinks about Louis, he ends up thinking about the way his fluffy hair falls so perfectly across his forehead, and how the crinkles by his eyes look especially lovely when his little giggle escapes him before he can stop it, and how the blue of his eyes reminds him of the Caribbean ocean water and the sunniest summer skies, and how he’s just the most wonderful person he knows.
So Harry doesn’t often let himself think about Louis because he could never risk losing the best thing in his life.
(He refuses to admit that he still ends up thinking about him multiple times every day anyway.)
After several failed attempts at getting lost in apps like Airbnb, Hopper, and Groupon, his eyes land on one he hasn’t paid any attention to in months. The little flame icon seems to call out to him and he opens it without thinking twice.
He loses himself in swiping left and right, barely reading through profiles and, admittedly, judging most based on their pictures. More often than not, he’s swiping left. He’s just not that into anyone he’s seen so far and, again, he refuses to admit it might be because they’re not living up to his kind-blue-eyes and perfectly-fluffy-hair and sunshiny-smile standards. He swipes left on another (honestly, Brad, telling people you’re a far-right supporter in the first line of your Tinder bio, in this economy? blegh) and then he freezes.
The next profile to come up shows a photo of an artsy-styled shot, a gorgeous sunset filling the sky with pinks and peaches and purples and periwinkles, a field of sunflowers behind the person who has his arms spread wide, a cigarette in his left hand, a serene smile spreading across his face and his eyes calmly closed.
He takes a slow, deep breath in and quietly lets it out, still staring at his screen. He knows this photo well; he knows it intimately. He vividly remembers taking this photo on one of their more recent adventures, when they were bored out of their minds and sick of watching the same three shows on repeat, when they decided to pack up some sandwiches and Cokes and just drive until they found something that piqued their interest.
He remembers watching as the field came into view as they flew down some back road at least an hour out from the city, the wind whipping through the open windows and ruffling their hair, and he remembers begging please pull over, Lou and look at the flowers and the sunset is perfect for a new profile pic. He hadn’t really intended for him to use it on a dating app, more hoping for Facebook so their mothers could obnoxiously comment on it.
But it’s right here, in his hand, staring back at him and taunting him. His carefully composed image, that he worked so hard to be able to capture even a fraction of Louis’s magnificence, is sitting right here on his phone because Louis decided to use it on Tinder.
He peeks over at where Louis is still sitting on the other end of the couch, zoned out into the next episode, and then looks back to his phone. He goes to swipe left but pauses with his thumb pressed to the screen.
What if, he thinks, I just swipe right?
And really, what’s the absolute worst that can happen? If he swipes right, they simply won’t match and that’s the only way he could ever see this playing out.
So against his better judgement, he swipes right.
Instead of displaying the next person’s profile like he’s expecting, the app shows a graphic of their profile pictures and some text that simply reads It’s a match!
He stares dumbly at his phone, jaw clenched shut and eyes wide. Before he can even form a thought, Louis’s phone pings and lights up with the notification. He desperately wants to whip his head toward him, to fling himself across the couch and stop Louis from looking, to put an end to what will most definitely be the worst conversation and the worst night of his entire life, but he’s just frozen.
He sees Louis reach out for his phone in his peripheral vision, watches as Louis continues to stare at the TV and unlock the phone without even looking at the screen. He waits with dread and lead filling his gut as Louis swipes down on his screen to show his notifications.
Heat spreads across Harry’s cheeks, up to his hairline and down his neck, mortification taking up every available space in his mind as he silently begs himself to think of a viable excuse or a joke or absolutely anything to avoid ruining their friendship.
Harry stares hard at his screen, determined to ignore everything else going on in the room, his knuckles white as he desperately grips his phone to keep himself grounded.
“Harry.” Louis’s voice makes him jump slightly and he squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds.
This is it, he thinks. He opens his eyes, continues staring at his phone, the It’s a match! still mocking him. He grunts out a quick, “Yeah?”
“Did we just match on Tinder?”
“Uh…” He coughs to buy himself a few more seconds, can feel his blush creeping farther down his chest and over his ears. “Yeah. Looks like it.”
He finally tears his eyes from his phone to look at Louis. Rather than the disgust or confusion or generally grossed-out look he expects, Louis’s face is carefully blank. Harry knows him well enough by now to know he’s trying to figure things out before revealing any feelings he has himself. Harry does his best to match him, but he knows he wears his heart on his sleeve.
“Is this a joke?”
Harry’s eyebrows furrow in confusion and his head tilts slightly to the right without his control.
“No? It is a joke to you?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Harry replies.
Louis looks back down at his phone, a small smile crawling across his face, the bow of his lips pulling down and the corners sliding up in an imitation of a V. Harry looks back to the TV and locks his phone, not sure what’s happening or where to go from here.
“Cool,” Louis says just above a whisper.
He turns again and finds Louis already looking at him. Louis’s smile shifts into something softer, something similar to what Harry’s only seen when the littlest twins are around, and it takes him a few seconds to decipher that Louis is fond; bashful and maybe a little shy.
He offers a shaky smile in return and tucks his chin into his chest again. He turns his phone around in his hands a few times, mind surprisingly quiet and content even though he’s not entirely sure what’s happening still. All he knows is that the air between them is comfortable, a little charged but sparkling softly, not dangerously.
“Should I send you a message or can we skip the small talk?”
Harry huffs a laugh and directs his growing smile at his lap.
“I think small talk would be kind of pointless since we already know each other pretty well.”
“That’s true.” A few more seconds pass as the episode on the TV ends and fades into the next. “So can I kiss you now? Or are you going to keep me waiting even longer?”
Harry can’t stop his smile from splitting his face. He turns again to find Louis still watching him and their eyes meet. He can feel his dimples carving deeper into his face and can see them reflected in the way the crinkles by Louis’s eyes spread and deepen, too.
He pulls himself to sit properly on the couch, his back releasing the tension that had built up from his slouching, and pulls one leg up on the seat so he can turn to face him. Rather than answer, he scoots forward a bit and leans in. He watches as Louis does the same and takes a deep breath as they close the distance between them.
A twitch of insecurity flashes in the back of his mind and his gaze flickers between Louis’s eyes and mouth. His tongue comes out to wet his lips and Louis repeats the move subconsciously.
On his next exhale, Harry quietly murmurs, “Are you sure?”
Louis smiles again and moves his hand to rest over Harry’s knee. He leans in closer and their noses softly brush against each other.
“Very.”