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Friday, June 25th. Rest Day. No Matches. 4 pm EDT.
“Six am, Neil!”
“So ya’ve told me, Lewis!”
“I just—“ Louis channeled his frustration into tearing off a bite of his burger, followed by a sip of beer. He sighed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m just annoyed that I’m not more annoyed, Niall.”
Niall leaned back against the bar and looked at him quizzically. “You’re just … annoyed… that you’re not more annoyed.” He shook his head. “You’re knackered, mate. Not making any sense. Why are you here on your day off again? Ya should be sleeping.”
“I am here because it is 369 degrees in my apartment and I can’t breathe much less sleep.”
“That Celsius or Fahrenheit?”
“Ohh ho, we got ourselves a comedian,” Louis mocked, raising his voice as if to announce it to the rest of the bar, which was completely dead during the after-lunch lull save a family of tourists tucked into a far corner booth. Niall just grinned.
“I’m also here because the food is free,” he added, busying himself with finishing his burger.
The bar they both worked at—Louis more than Niall as it was owned by Niall’s brother, so he tended to… get away with things—made excellent burgers. And they were on the house this month on account of Louis working quadruple overtime or whatever it was. This was absolutely why he was there and not because he had been going out of his mind with the need to complain about the new neighbor. The tall swamp-eyed lemur-faced disaster of a new neighbor that had ruined his day off.
“Your day’s just been filled with free food, huh?”
Louis ignored him in favor of finishing his burger and moving on to the fries. Leave it to Niall to zero in on the part of the story where neighbor Harry had tried to win him over with a box of pastries. Typical. Traitorous bastard's only allegiance was to his stomach.
“Free food… and free aircon…” Niall carried on, tapping his chin in mock pondering. “Where else could ya’ve gotten that, I wonder.”
That caused Louis to raise his head with a glare.
“I mean, you obviously are annoyed,” Niall continued, “because the Tommo I know would’ve been back over there in a heartbeat, enjoying the cool breeze and charming the pants off the new neighbor in the process. Unless the guy was completely insufferable.”
“He is insufferable! Six am, Neil!”
“I have yet to hear an account of this, erm, ‘insufferableness’ related to anything he did besides accidentally wake you up.” Niall gave him a pointed look. “After which, he apologized profusely, fed you, and gave you an open invitation to bask in his air conditioning. I’m a little confused as to why you haven’t asked for his hand in marriage yet, to be honest.”
Louis rolled his eyes and started shredding his napkin. Niall shrugged and moved to wipe down the bar.
Everyone always assumed that Louis was the one with the biggest flair for the dramatic, but really that was Niall. Louis was pretty sure that in his heart of hearts Niall thought of himself as Andy Cohen surrounded by his own harem of neurotic housewives.
And well, if truth be told—and to Niall, it wouldn’t be—Louis had strongly considered going back over there immediately. He’d reawakened around 10:30 am when he’d heard Harry and his friend Liam return, and he’d almost run out the door because his apartment was a sauna and, well, they seemed like nice people.
But he was also a nice person (to strangers at least), and he knew what would end up happening. He would end up helping a stranger move. On his one day off. Something that he should not even be tempted to do and christ, what was happening to him that he’d even consider it? Was this how heatstroke worked? He’d lived in the city for ten years; he was a New Yorker now. Niceness came with hard limits and those limits definitely applied to helping strangers move.
So Louis had hid inside his apartment instead. He sat directly in front of the fan and tried to cram as much work on his beloved side project—a football blog and corresponding Twitter account—into his one free day as possible. In reality, this meant that he found himself listening in on Harry and Liam’s ruckus next door more often than writing.
There was no further use of the fire escape but a lot of stuff was carried up the stairs, at one point “PIVOT!” was indeed invoked (although Louis strongly doubted it was necessary), and at another Harry loudly proclaimed “I am a great baker” in his slow, rumbly voice.
Louis had wondered if they were stoned.
That thought honestly made participating in the whole thing even more tempting. And so, that was the point at which he decided to sneak out in between their trips up and down the stairs to visit Niall at work.
Speaking of Niall, he was still waiting for a response from Louis with all the thinly veiled giddiness of Andy egging on a housewife.
“Fine, Neil. He wasn’t insufferable, he was adorable.”
Visions of Harry’s out-of-control morning-person behavior flashed before Louis’ eyes.
“Adorable and insufferable.”
Louis flailed on his barstool a bit in frustration before tacking on: “I hope you’re happy.”
Niall’s shit-eating grin was enough to tell Louis that he was.
“Knew ya liked him the second you started talking about the hair clip.” Niall looked down to fiddle with the bottles in the well in a failed attempt to hide his smugness. “Haven’t heard you talk about anyone this much since the days of You Know Who.”
Louis threw his shredded-up napkin bits at Niall’s face.
“Okay, Ronald Weasley, his name was Parker, not Lord Voldemort.” Louis scoffed. “We only called him ‘You Know Who’ for the three weeks between my realizing I liked him and asking him out.”
“All right then, but ya talked my ear off about him for six months before you finally got together.”
“And then he moved back to London six months later because his year here was up and it was doomed from the start, et cetera, et cetera.” Louis looked longingly at the top-shelf vodka bottles on the back bar. He didn’t like to drink on his days off (“keeping holy the lord’s day,” Niall jokingly called it), but sometimes the occasion called for it… “I know that sad story already; I lived it.”
“Just saying that was the last time that you really liked someone and it started the same. ‘Why does he take forever to change a keg, Niall? He doesn’t even know how to cut a lime, Niall.’” Niall mimicked in his uncannily accurate Yorkshire accent. “I thought ya wanted me to fire the guy until I figured it out.”
“Well regardless, I definitely don’t like Harry like that, I hardly know him.”
“Ya hardly know anyone you shag.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
When Niall wasn’t busy being Andy Cohen he was perpetually glancing around for clarification like Jim Halpert, Louis decided.
“I meant that I’m not going to shag him; he’s my neighbor. I've lived in that apartment for a decade, Niall. Ten entire years. Cute boys come and go but a rent-controlled apartment in Soho is forever. Can you imagine if I was that stupid? The whole encounter was awkward enough as it is. Ughhhh.”
Louis slid down to rest his face in his arms on the bar. He didn’t want to move or think. Ever again. When he told Niall as much, he helpfully suggested:
“Look if you don’t want to be at home, why don’t you go to Zayn’s? I know you’re not sticking around here much longer because it’s four-thirty pm on a Friday and that front door is a ticking bomb.”
“Can’t. He’s out of town. For a job, I imagine. He couldn’t even offer me the apartment. Said something about them finally fixing the ceiling after that leak. Haven’t seen him in ages and it’s all very inconvenient because today probably would’ve been our one chance to hang out until this bloody month is over.”
“It’s exhausting, sure, but you love this month.”
Louis rolled his eyes internally. Ever the glass-half-full guy, that Neil. Could he ever just spare a moment for the pain of the world?
“No, you love this month, Nialler, because I work all your shifts and therefore you get to play extra music on street corners instead.”
Niall opened his mouth to protest, but Louis cut him off before he had to sit through a monologue he’d already heard one too many times. “No, don’t say it. I know that it’s not street corners, it’s subway stations, and yes, you had to go through a rigorous application and audition process for that privilege.”
“And speaking of which,” Niall added, looking pleased that Louis seemed to have finally learned his lesson about the subway music rant. “I’ve got a big gig early next month—already checked, it’s right after the semis, so you can make it. Maybe you can even bring new neighbor Harry.” He wiggled his eyebrows for emphasis.
“Maybe you’re lucky if I bring myself,” Louis sniped.
“Whoa, is that any way to treat the man that was going to put in a to-go order for your dinner? You can pay Harry back for the pastries. Give you a proper excuse to go sit in the aircon.”
No, he’s not Andy Cohen. Louis took it back. He’s that matchmaker lady. What was her name? Was that show still on?
“What’s it seem like he likes?” Niall was actually going to write down an order on a guest check, that’s how serious this was.
“I don’t know,” Louis sighed. He’d take the food. He could always keep it for himself. “Seems like a vegan. But probably isn’t on account of working in a bakery. None of it tasted vegan, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Vegetarian, maybe?” Niall wondered.
Louis shrugged.
“The avocado toast?” Niall was already writing the order.
“No, Niall, I’m not going to bring home avocado toast. It’ll be brown and disgusting by the time I get there.”
“You live ten minutes away, Lou.” Niall tore off the check and started backing away down the length of the bar towards the kitchen. “Maybe this way you’ll go over right away instead of pacing in front of ya door for another three hours.”
Fuck me, Louis thought. He knows me too bloody well. Perhaps it was time to befriend Harry, start training a new best mate from scratch. Louis put his head back down on the bar again as Niall disappeared behind the swinging door.
“Fucking avocados,” he muttered into the crook of his elbow.
*****
Friday, June 25th. Rest Day. No Matches. 5:20 pm EDT.
Louis was saved from needing any of the conversation starters he'd concocted on the brief (but blissfully ice cold) subway ride back to Soho by Liam opening the door to Harry’s apartment at the same time that Louis reached the top of the stairs.
“Louis!” Liam boomed like they’d known each other for years, which was unexpected.
“Erm, hello,” Louis replied, slightly thrown by how friendly these people were.
And by Liam not wearing a shirt.
He supposed the former could be chalked up to their shared British ex-pat roots, which Liam had chattily touched on earlier that morning. Louis had learned that Harry and Liam had been best friends since being assigned roommates in uni. Liam had moved to the States after graduation for a girl that he’d met while she was studying abroad. He’d ended up loving NYC—and men (which enabled Louis to come out in return with a wink and a fist bump, no mention of Neymar needed, thanks)—far more than her. Needless to say, his visa and excellent job as a personal trainer in Tribeca had long outlasted that relationship. Harry’s story, on the other hand, was still a bit of a mystery, with Louis only finding out that he’d arrived two months prior after accepting a job transfer.
The latter half of the above, however, caused Louis to blurt out: “Did you end up not getting an air conditioner?!”
“Oh no, we got one,” Liam reassured, untangling his t-shirt and struggling to find his way back into it. Louis couldn’t quite tell if that was due to a lack of coordination or an overabundance of muscles. Either way, he bit back the rude jokes that were threatening to escape his dangerously big mouth. “Just, ehm,” Liam considered his next words carefully, “trying to be mindful of the environment with its usage.”
Now that Louis wasn’t distracted by surprisingly tattoo-free pecs and abs, he noticed that Liam had the slightly manic look of a parent who was in desperate need of a few hours of childcare to restore his sanity. (A look Louis knew all too well from the experience of growing up with four younger sisters.) Louis figured that probably had to do with the assembly of flat-pack furniture. They’d been at the moving process for closing in on twelve hours now, after all.
Fucking hell, how do morning people do it, he marveled. He wondered how much beer was in his fridge just thinking about it.
“All right then, well, I’m off,” Liam chuckled nervously. “Been a long day, and I’ve still got some other things I need to do.”
“NOT THINGS. PEOPLE.” A muffled voice intoned from inside the apartment. Harry.
“What?” Louis asked reflexively.
A light blush was settling across Liam’s cheekbones as his face scrunched up.
“A PERSON. HE’S GOT A PERSON TO DO.”
“The boyfriend,” Louis remembered out loud.
“Right, yup, it’s um, it’s pretty new,” Liam said shyly. He lowered his voice. “We’ve got a date tonight, one month anniversary, I can’t really skip even though we’re not quite done here. I feel terrible, but… “
He trailed off and Louis felt a sinking weight in his gut. Hiding this morning now seemed like it had just been delaying something inevitable and unavoidable.
Like delaying fate.
“I’ve got avocado toast.”
Liam looked confused by the sudden change of subject.
“I mean, I’ve just picked up some extra food. From the pub. As thanks for breakfast. I can, um, if Harry wants some…”
Liam’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“H! Louis brought food! Avocado toast!” He opened the door wider and yelled back into the flat. All the shouting seemed a touch over the top for the one-room studio.
A non-committal “UHDUNUHHMEH” was the only response.
Louis looked back at Liam for an explanation.
“He’s fine, I swear,” Liam chuckled nervously. “Just a little, ahh, overwhelmed by unpacking and getting things set up. We tried to, um, what’s it called? “Marrykondo?”
“KONMARI.”
“Right! We tried to Konmari.” Liam shrugged his big personal trainer shoulders sheepishly. “It’s a work in progress. I’ve really got to go, though. It was lovely to meet you today, Louis. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
And with a final wave, Liam was jogging briskly down the stairs. As Louis watched he thought perhaps he really ought to work out, recalling what it takes to him to get up the stairs after an eight-hour bartending shift. He shook his head to himself, not sure why Liam’s mere existence was causing him to reconsider his habits and routines. The bartending shift was the workout, after all.
Liam had left the door ajar, so Louis pushed it open a bit further and poked his head in. “Harry? I’ve got extra food if you want,” he called. “And maybe I can… help.”
The last word died on his lips as he took in the state of the flat. Oh, how he immediately regretted the offer. And maybe hated Liam for horribly downplaying the situation.
Every inch of the small studio was covered with… something. Half-unpacked boxes were taking up most of the real estate, followed by an enormous mattress on the floor spanning the entire width of the bedroom area.
Truthfully, Louis himself wasn’t what anyone would call a tidy person, but this was on another level.
He surveyed the space again to see if they had managed to acquire any furniture and all he could spot was a kitchen table, several bookshelves, a half-assembled bed frame, and an egg-shaped armchair that didn’t look very comfortable.
Missing from the scene seemed to be Harry himself.
“Harry?” Louis called again.
“Sorry about the mess. It’s all gone a bit pear-shaped.”
Louis followed the sound of the voice until his eyes rested on a lump on the mattress. At first glance, it had appeared to be just an oversized teddy bear. At second glance, it was in fact an oversized teddy bear being spooned by a Harry.
A Harry that wasn’t wearing any clothes as far as Louis could tell from the bareness of the limbs wrapped around it.
“Are you—?” Louis’ voice rose considerably in pitch with that, much to his deep chagrin.
“No, ‘m wearing pants,” Harry replied without lifting his face from where it was buried underneath the head of the bear.
“Well, if you want my food and my help you’re going to need to get your kit on.” Louis forced down a vision of Niall cackling gleefully at this turn of events.
“I like being naked,” Harry whined.
“We literally just met,” Louis countered flatly.
“That is fair,” Harry replied.
He unwrapped himself from the bear, standing up on the mattress and stretching his arms up, which caused an awful lot of popping and creaking from someone who looked like they worked out. Harry glanced around at the boxes, and Louis could see a fresh wave of despair come over his face. The hair clip was still there, but barely hanging onto its small tuft of curls.
It wasn’t adorable.
“I don’t know which boxes have clothes.” Harry flapped his arms down to his sides in a fit of exasperation.
Louis could feel his “deescalate the tantruming toddler” muscle memory kick on like riding a bicycle.
“All right,” he said softly and slowly. “What happened to the clothes that you were wearing earlier?”
“In front of the air con,” Harry remembered, moving in that direction. Louis watched him go and debated whether mostly naked Harry was incredibly fit or a bit like Frankenstein’s monster in the way he plodded across the apartment in long strides.
“Right, okay,” Louis shook himself out of that line of thought, heading to the small kitchen area that he was already well acquainted with. “I’ve got avocado toast, as I said, fajitas, and fish and chips. They’re not bad, for an Irish pub in America.” He sat the bags down on the counter and had started unpacking them before noticing something.
“Hang on.”
Harry paused in the act of scooping his clothes off the floor.
“What is that thermostat set to?! It’s fucking boiling in here and I’m not wearing much more than you,” Louis gestured to his loose black tank top and shorts.
“Erm, I don’t know, what does eighty-two degrees mean?”
Louis rolled his eyes.
“It means it’s too hot.”
“That’s what Liam said,” Harry countered, “but that was the default, and I think we could all stand to be mindful of the environment. It’s all right if it’s a little hot. I want to experience the proper summer weather they have here. Besides, I don’t mind not wearing clothes, but as you said, it bothers you.”
He turned to Louis with his green eyes as big as lily pads and the bundle of clothes clutched to his stomach.
There was a moth on his chest.
Dear lord.
Louis’ eyes locked onto it while his brain short-circuited at the contradiction between his usual hatred of quirky hipster tattoos and the indisputable fact that the design worked on Harry.
“It doesn’t bother me, I just, you know,” he sputtered.
Harry shrugged. The movement caused the pile of clothes to rise up to cover the moth and reveal a symmetrical set of laurels outlining each hip bone.
At a future point in time, this story will diverge at that moment, with Louis insisting he did not, under any circumstances, whimper, and Harry insisting that, oh yes, he did.
At any rate, however, any lingering childish exasperation was replaced by a slow smirk stretching across Harry’s face. “You know, if we hadn’t just met, I might be so bold as to say that I bet you often encounter naked men that you’ve only just met.”
A glimmer of regaining the upper hand caused Louis’ brain to stop glitching.
“Mate, I don’t think you actually just said what you meant to with that sentence.”
He tore his eyes up to Harry’s face to track the response and was pleased to see that now it was Harry’s brain running on overdrive trying to work out the riddle of his own poor grammar.
Crisis averted.
Not going to shag a bloke that can’t even string together a sentence, Louis chuckled to himself. And just to prove the point to himself and Harry, he looped around the kitchen counter and shouldered right past him to stand in front of the air conditioner.
“Sixty-two ought to do it.” Louis pressed the down arrow repeatedly. “Think I’m a bit underdressed for that though.”
He crossed his bare arms and rubbed them as the cool air blasted over him. Perfect. He was bloody sick of tank tops and shorts and sweating his bollocks off.
“Just going to pop to mine and get changed and grab any beers that are in me fridge. You just help yourself to whatever food you like; I’ll be back.” And with that he squeezed back past Harry to the door, avoiding eye contact at all costs.
*****
Friday, June 25th. Rest Day. No Matches. 5:40 pm EDT.
Louis re-entered the apartment ten minutes later. Five of those minutes had been spent having a mild panic attack, four and a half changing into his softest hoodie and sweatpants tucked into his coziest socks, and the remaining thirty seconds in grabbing the four beers from the back of his fridge.
He opened the door without bothering to knock and found Harry sitting cross-legged on the mattress in the same state of undress, hunched over a plate of food.
“Sorry,” he said by way of a greeting. “I decided I needed to eat immediately. Realized I was probably a lot hangry.”
“S’all right,” Louis shrugged, not entirely able to remember why he’d complained about a fit man in his underwear in the first place. He helped himself to a plate of food (hard pass on the avocado toast, though he was pleased to see it wasn’t brown yet) and opened beers for the both of them.
Glancing around for a place to sit, he saw that the uncomfortable armchair was free of debris and already conveniently located near to the aircon, so he slid it over until it was directly in front of it and curled up with his food.
“This is more comfortable than it looks,” he commented.
“S’why it’s called a womb chair,” Harry supplied, in between bites of food. Louis couldn’t help but notice the tongue thing, was, well, a thing.
“A womb chair, eh?” Louis snorted. “No offense, mate, but you do seem a tad posh for a fifth-floor walkup.”
“It was close to work.” Harry shrugged one shoulder without offering any further information.
“So this morning you said you’d transferred here? Where from? London?” Louis prompted. He recalled the first time that Mrs. Martinez had him over for dinner and pumped him for information, the building gossip that she was. Apparently now the shoe was on the other foot.
“All over really, mostly London, but we also have locations in Los Angeles, so I‘ve spent quite a lot of time there. And here—shorter-term usually. I stayed with Liam a lot. Also Hong Kong as well.”
A proper jet setter then, Louis mentally patted himself on the back. His bartender's spidey senses rarely let him down.
“Well, I figured you hadn’t moved here to work in a mom and pop shop, but that’s quite the operation. But here I was led to believe that you were personally responsible for baked goods, at least on some mornings… “ He shook his fork in Harry’s direction. “So what do you do then if you’re not the one baking?”
“Oh, you know…” Harry seemed to be biting back a smile, glancing up under his lashes at Louis. “Ring up customers, sweep the floors…”
“Cheeky,” Louis observed. “C’mon, s’just a job. Unless this ‘bakery’ is a front for some kind of spy ring, James Bond. Hang on! Why do I know the name of your bakery? I recognized it on the note paper this morning.”
“Erm…. cronuts?” Harry offered, with an innocent grin and a small shrug.
“Oh my god, the cronut bakery?!” Louis marveled. “Is that still a thing?”
He hadn’t thought about cronuts in ages, even though he had once spent a good chunk of a year of his life rolling his eyes at the line each time he walked by.
He wondered if Harry had ever been there.
“Well, um, now we’re mostly focusing on just croissants,” Harry replied, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “Reinventing the breakfast sandwich and some other experiments.”
“God, cronuts were so—,” Louis paused on the word, not wanting to be rude, but knowing he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself, “—overrated.”
“Heyyy, I helped invent those.” The furrow was now paired with a frown.
“Did you now?!” Louis, much to his chagrin, found himself almost… impressed. The cronut was a global phenomenon after all. “I mean, as far as ideas go, it was actually quite a cool one. I just meant… Well, there was a lot of hype.”
“The hype was sort of my doing too.” Harry had the nerve to look adorably sheepish, even though it was Louis that was being rude.
“Ok, you definitely have to explain your job now.”
“Well, my official title is Chief Product and Marketing Officer. I am a trained pastry chef, but I also kind of have a knack for starting trends. See we used to be a lot smaller, but once the cronut took off I was kind of allowed to, like, run with a lot of things. All kinds of marketing, scavenger hunts, mystery products, that sort of thing. Like, for example, we just did a secret pop-up at our new test kitchen here to debut our new olive oil croissant.”
Harry paused for a minute, mulling something over as he chewed his toast. “My job’s like… biz dev… for a bakery.”
“Biz dev for a bakery?!?!”
Louis lost it at that, laughing until tears threatened to arrive. Laughter was so much more enjoyable snuggled up with a cool breeze on you, he noticed. He truly was a terrible person.
“I knew you would laugh,” Harry whined, but he was smiling.
Louis felt awful about that, he really did. But he also felt really, really awful when he was woken up at six am, so…
He told Harry as much, and it caused a wry smirk to replace the petulant pout.
“All right then, my turn,” Harry countered. “How did a bartender at a midtown pub end up living in Soho? No offense, but this flat costs a fortune for what it is.”
“Are you saying that I don’t make good money?!” It was Louis’ turn to feign offense, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’ll have you know that there’s a reason that I’m scheduled for all the tournament matches and it’s not just my charm—”
“No, no, I’m sure it’s your knowledge and understanding of the football game,” Harry supplied with a smirk.
“Right.” Louis nodded in agreement. “And my charm. Plus, as far as job perks go, would you believe that it’s much easier to pull when you’re the most attractive gay man for a ten-block radius. And with lads who want to talk football, too. Much better than working at some posh club downtown.”
Harry threw back his head and honked out a laugh that was highly disproportionate to the caliber of that quip. It would’ve gotten a soft cackle from Niall and a snort from Zayn, at best, Louis guessed.
This was much better.
Once he’d gotten a grip on himself, Harry looked up with actual sparkles in his eyes—a thing that until this moment Louis was sure only existed in the pantheon of fairy tales his sisters had raised him on.
“I’m sure it’s more than ten blocks.” Harry beamed, pleased with his compliment, his smile looking like it could light up the room.
That might be necessary, Louis surmised, because it was going to be dark soon and as far as he could tell Harry didn’t own any lamps.
For a moment they just sat there, smiling like idiots at each other.
Shit. This is proper flirting now, Louis thought.
“Well go on then, cheers mate.” He tipped his beer bottle towards Harry and broke away from the unsettling amount of eye contact by setting his half-finished plate down on the floor. “All right, I’ll tell you and it’ll be your turn to laugh at me.”
He cleared his throat and settled deeper into the chair.
“So I studied drama at uni, right? Played a bit of footie too, but that’s not really relevant.” Louis waved a hand. “And then when it came time to decide what was next, I decided that what I had to do was get out of the house. I practically raised my siblings growing up, right, and I love ‘em more than anything, but I needed to do something for me. So I came here to try to put my degree to use. I know I could’ve gone to London, but there’s just something about New York. Anyway, I moved here to go on auditions, to try to make it as an actor, and I reckoned that Soho was where the theaters were? Because of London, yeah? And obviously, I was wrong, but in my idiocy, I managed to find this place and it was rent-stabilized, and ten years ago, well, it was a proper steal. Sorry,” Louis shrugged, although he wasn’t terribly bothered. He figured Harry’s fancy bakery job paid him well. “There’s a reason that Mrs. Martinez before you stayed here twenty-five years.”
Harry, to his immense credit, merely smiled at the story and tipped his beer in Louis’ direction. “To rent control.”
There was that eye contact again.
“I have so many more questions,” he said. “But you go.”
“Well,” Louis thought it best if they got down to the elephant strewn all over the room. “I’ve been here ten years, so my messy flat has that excuse. But if you move around so much, how have you managed to accumulate so much stuff?”
“Oh, that’s definitely because I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the last seven odd years. Doesn’t give me much of a chance to ever go through anything. Most of this was piling up at my mum’s and I finally had her ship it since I’m here to stay for a while. I hope so at least. It was more stuff than I expected. That’s why Liam was trying to help me Konmari.”
He glanced around, taking it all in as if remembering it existed. Louis feared that another meltdown might be around the corner if he didn’t intervene.
“I’ve got an idea. Let’s play a game.”
Louis climbed to his feet, planting his hands on hips and surveying the mess of boxes. From what he could see there were mostly books and random items spilling out of the half-unpacked ones surrounding the mattress. He had no better guess than Harry as to where the rest of his clothes were.
“What sort of game?” Harry sounded wary, but his eyes were still sparkling.
“Something to help you unpack and—whatever you called it—get rid of some of this.”
“Konmari,” Harry supplied. “It’s when you only keep what sparks joy.”
“So all this ‘sparks joy’ for you, does it?” Louis raised an eyebrow and gestured across the room.
“To tell you the truth, most of it I don’t even remember owning, but as soon as I see it, yeah… “
“Well, since you’re so environmentally conscious and apparently an amateur nudist, why don’t we say... for everything that you donate you can turn up the thermostat one degree and for everything that you keep you have to put on an article of clothing?” Louis suggested.
It was a rather strange idea, he thought, but then again, Harry seemed like sort of a strange person.
And sure enough, he seemed to be seriously considering it as he looked around at the boxes, reaching out to pick a coffee table book of black and white photography off the top of the stack.
“So like…” Harry drawled, flipping idly through the pages. “Reverse strip Konmari?”
Louis barked out a laugh.
“Sure, mate, guess you could call it that.”
“What about you?” Harry asked, looking up from the book.
“What about me, what?” Louis replied.
“How are you going to play?” Harry looked Louis up and down, before jerking his chin to acknowledge how fully clothed he was from hooded head to socked feet.
“Erm,” Louis hadn’t really thought of that. It’s not like any of this was his mess to clean up. “Well, I guess I’d keep track of the points.”
“That hardly seems fair,” Harry said lightly, returning to the book with what Louis would have described as a cunning level of casualness. “I think I deserve a reward for the things that I decide to part with.”
Louis knew what he was getting at. Louis so wished he did not know what he was getting at.
Louis wished that he was actually oblivious to when he was being flirted with or at least could pretend to be. Could convincingly play dumb and just plow on through as though Harry wasn’t being outrageous. (Liam seemed like the kind of person who could do that, perhaps that’s why they’d been friends for so long.)
But Louis wasn’t and he couldn’t. Louis handled things with directness (at least he did when he wasn’t hiding in his apartment). “Harold. Are you asking me to play not-reverse strip Konmari with you?”
“It’s just Harry, actually.”
JustHarry closed the book and carried on speaking before Louis could interject with a statement on the ridiculousness of that. “And before you say again that, like, we’ve only just met—remember, s’not like it’s not anything I haven’t seen you in before.”
And then, he… winked.
It wasn’t?! Louis blanched. Sure, it felt like he and Harry had known each other for longer than a few hours, but had they? For a moment he thought wildly that maybe they had met before and he’d been drunk or forgotten or—
“This morning,” Harry prompted. The confusion must have been plain on his face.
“Oh!”
Oh.
Louis had gotten dressed so quickly after Harry had tumbled through his window that he hadn’t really thought Harry had noticed that he was laying in bed in his pants. He hadn’t really thought that Harry had been looking.
Apparently, he was wrong.
And completely screwed if the over-the-top lip-biting pout and batting eyelashes Harry was throwing his way were any indication. He couldn’t even see the green of Harry’s eyes in the early evening light, but the fact that they were as wide as saucers (or a lemur’s, he recalled) seemed to be enough to cause him to cave.
Fine. So he would cave, but it would be by his rules. And he would stick to them.
The full onslaught of Harry’s charm was a lot to contend with for sure, but keeping his home of ten years drama and awkwardness-free was very, very motivating.
“All right then, if we’re upping the … stakes,” Louis amended, “then we’re upping all the stakes. Counting each item individually is going to get out of hand, so let’s say for every box that’s unpacked, the thermostat can go up a degree. For every box of stuff that goes in the maybe pile—you know there’ll be one, don’t argue—you put on an article of clothing. And for every box you donate,” Louis sighed as though this was a terrible inconvenience (it was, just for all the wrong reasons), “I shall remove an article of clothing—of my choosing. Do we agree on the rules of engagement?”
Harry’s ear-to-ear grin said it all.
“Now, where would you like to start?” Louis asked.
*****
Friday, June 25th. Rest Day. No Matches. 10:08 pm EDT
“Louuuuu,” Harry whined, giggled, tripped on his feather boa, and toppled over.
Louis wondered firstly, when exactly they’d reached “Lou” territory and secondly, if it would be possible for Harry to go everywhere with a mattress underneath him, for safety reasons.
He presumed the first bit was several hours ago when he’d popped back over to his flat and grabbed the emergency vodka from the back of the freezer.
The second bit… well. At least for now, Harry had the mattress safely under him. Louis was fairly certain that at some point soon he might just pass out on it surrounded by random ephemera and still clad in the unbuttoned patchwork cardigan, blue headscarf (“Oh my god, I used to wear these all the time, Lou!”), and purple feather boa that he had chosen as his “articles of clothing.”
But they had made some progress. The bookshelves (“CB2, isn’t the white lacquer gorgeous?!”) were now filled with books that had been sorted through and deemed to spark joy.
A small pile also sat by the door for Louis to take home. Harry was someone who read, much to Louis’ chagrin, as that was something he always meant to do more often, being a writer and all. (Sure, his writing was about football, but his readers always said such lovely things that made it feel like, well, writing was something he was good at.)
A few more boxes of discarded books sat by the door, many of them in foreign languages that Harry hadn’t had the time to learn. This had kicked off a spirited debate about whether something that made you feel guilty could also spark joy, which ended up with Louis volunteering to take his tank top off to settle the matter because “we’re going in circles and I’m not getting any younger, Harold.”
(At which point they’d learned that Harry was two years younger than Louis, and “Harold” became “Young Harold,” and fine, Harry had all the justification in the world to call Louis, Lou, by now.)
Three previous boxes of things to be donated had seen Louis’ socks (“taking these off one at a time, ta.”) and hoodie removed, and Louis didn’t know whether to be pleased that he was still wearing his sweatpants or disappointed with Harry’s lack of progress.
What he wasn’t disappointed with, however, was Harry.
Hilarious, tipsy, nostalgic Harry who had a story for absolutely everything that he owned, which he told to Louis in great detail in that voice that oozed like a gooey marshmallow crackling over a summer campfire.
Maybe Louis was tipsy, too.
“It’s past my bedtime,” Harry commented from where he lay starfishing on the mattress with his eyes closed, as if on cue.
Louis had been taking the opportunity to shamelessly examine his tattoos from where he was curled back up in the so-called “womb” chair.
Swallows. Moth. Ferns. Louis was practically used to them by now, he thought. Imagine that. Miracles do happen. Somehow the evening of mutual shirtlessness had turned out… fine, and... platonic. Louis could keep this up, he was sure of it. He could simply be friends with this utterly bonkers feather-boa wearing director of biz dev for a bakery.
Without shagging him.
He glanced at his phone to check the time, ignoring the string of nosy messages that he was surprised Niall had managed to send during a Friday night happy hour rush.
“Ten pm?!” Louis was exhausted too, but found a burst of energy for one more rant. “Ten pm is your bedtime?!”
“Nine, usually. I don’t have to, but I like to keep bakery hours.” Harry shrugged, which was an interesting feat while horizontal. “Luckily, I don’t have to work this weekend. So I can get all this done. I think. The sofa and the rest of the furniture is coming Monday so I’ll have to.”
“Lucky for you then. I have to be back to work at…” Louis flicked open his calendar app, “...ten-thirty am. Kickoff is at noon tomorrow.”
“Suppose we ought to call it a night then,” Harry yawned. “This situation clearly isn’t getting resolved tonight.” He waved his hands around, which from flat on his back looked like he was conducting an orchestra.
Christ, his hands were large, Louis observed.
Right, so, definitely tipsy. But still. It was fine. He was fine.
“Too right you are, Young Harold. If you keep going in this state, you’ll probably just strangle yourself with that feather boa. Or be crushed by an avalanche of small household appliances. It’s simply too dangerous to go on.” Louis yawned too. Bloody yawns, always contagious. “I should head off to bed myself, make up for the missed sleep.”
But there wasn’t any sharpness to that barb, and there wasn’t any bite to Harry’s responding “heyyyy,” either.
Louis would get up in a minute, he thought as his eyes drifted closed. Mostly to make sure Harry didn’t fall asleep with that feather boa on. It was dangerous. Like leaving string around newborn kittens. Or something like that.
Tipsy and sleepy.
“Louuu,” Harry was calling again, but lower, softer than the giggles a few minutes earlier. “I just wanted to say that this was really nice. Thank you. I mean, don't tell Liam, but it was much more fun doing this with you. I’m still sorry about waking you up, but I’m really glad we met.”
At that, Louis, for once in his life, was speechless.
Who was this person, and what spaceship had he arrived on?
Luckily Louis didn’t have to reply, because Harry was still going: “And like, I know you probably don’t want to sleep in that chair, but you can stay here if you want. If it’s cooler with the aircon and all. I trust you. Obviously. And like, I know where you live.”
Oh.
Shit.
Louis had gotten so acclimated to the glorious, glorious a/c (now set at a reasonable seventy-two degrees Farenheit after the unpacking of ten whole boxes), that he’d straight up forgotten how horrifically uncomfortable his own apartment must be.
Alas.
“S’fine, Harry. Thanks, but I’ll go. Obviously. In just like, a minute…”
“Up to you,” Harry murmured, but it sounded more like, “Snurfooshoo.”
Louis cracked an eye back open to see that Harry had shoved his face back into the stuffed bear.
Mr. Cuddles, he now knew it was called.
Louis sighed. At least he had actually unwound himself from the feather boa first.
Louis would get up in a minute.
It couldn’t be that hot in his apartment. He’d point the fan at himself again. He’d be too tired to tell.
He’d get up in a minute.