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“Mum! I’m going to the shop!” Harry yells, leaning over the counter of his bathroom to anxiously scrutinize his appearance in the mirror once more. He touches up his hair again and starts poking at nonexistent spots on his nose, twisting his head back and forth to make sure he looks the right amount of I didn’t try and well, I tried a little bit. He folds and re-folds the short sleeves of his vintage Rolling Stones shirt, making different oh, haven’t I seen you before? faces, until he finally pushes away from the marble counter and grabs his phone from beside the sink.
“You went last weekend, sweetie,” his mother reminds him as he shuffles into the kitchen, searching the hardwood floor for his Converse. “What do you need?”
Harry mumbles something about Christmas presents, even though he’s already bought them weeks ago and they’re wrapped and ready beneath his bed, and he grabs his sneakers and swings the door shut behind him. It’s Saturday, unseasonably warm, and he really, really hopes that he can 'accidentally' run into that good-looking boy who works in the record store again.
He’s not really planning on saying anything – that’s not ever how Harry operates – but the boy has been in his head for a full week now: ever since he went in there the last time and saw him sorting the Blues section.
This whole I can’t get you out of my thoughts thing is something Harry doesn’t know how to deal with, as he is already seventeen and has still never even had so much as a crush…on anyone.
His mother keeps saying he’s just going through a “phase,” and that love will happen when he’s ready, but Harry doesn’t really know how to know when he’s ready. His mind filled with angsty thoughts, he picks up his bike from the patch of grass outside his front door and starts off down his driveway, heading into the small village that he has just begun to call home.
Harry pushes open the door to Grimey’s Records and immediately scans the aisles for a glimpse of the blonde boy, his green eyes flickering eagerly from one end of the shop to the other. Quickly, though, he realizes that the only one there is the assistant manager, Andy, who’s leaning against one of the shop’s dirty painted-red walls, and Harry’s shoulders slump in disgruntlement.
But he might as well buy himself an early Christmas present since he’s already there.
And, anyway, he’s heard that this record store carries the biggest variety of rock albums in a hundred mile radius.
And he could really use a change of pace from that Coldplay record that’s been on repeat in his room for weeks now.
He buries his braceleted hands into the pockets of his jeans and saunters toward the Contemporary Rock aisle, stopping every few feet to pick up a CD cover, look at it, and set it back down. Finally, he finds an absolute gem he hadn’t really known he’d even been looking for and reaches excitedly to pick up the gleaming plastic cover.
A door leading into the storeroom across the shop is pushed open just as Harry picks up the album, and a head of blonde hair is visible across the tops of the aisles. He thinks he stops breathing for a second.
“Andy, give me hand!” the boy pants, visibly struggling with a heavy cardboard box of CDs while trying to keep the metal door open long enough to get through. But Andy is busy taking a drag on a cigarette behind the counter, and instead waves a tattooed arm in Harry’s direction.
“Would you mind, mate?”
His eyes obviously must go a bit too wide because Andy throws him a strange look before taking another long drag.
“Thanks.”
Harry hurries toward the boy – who couldn’t be more than a year older than himself – while still gripping the CD and dodging around stacks of records. He quickly grabs the other side of the box, noticing with a flutter in his stomach that the boy is wearing a loose-fitting tank top that shows off every single one of his arm muscles. “Got it?” the smaller boy asks, adjusting his own grip and starting to walk backwards toward the counter. Harry nods with big eyes, too nervous to say anything, and lets the storeroom door slam shut behind them. They walk together cautiously, avoiding any and all obstacles, and finally shove the cardboard box onto the end of the counter.
“Thanks, mate.”
Harry nods again as the boy resumes his position behind the counter, and Harry tries very, very hard not to let his eyes wander past the collarbones that are peeking out from underneath the maroon tank top. He sets his album on the counter and looks up. “I think I’m gonna buy this,” he finally manages to say.
The boy behind the counter glances down at the cover before scanning it, laughing in surprise. “The Strokes, huh?”
“Yeah,” Harry says quietly – a little defensively, too, as he’s thinking the handsome boy is laughing at him. “I think they’re great.”
“I’m not saying they aren’t. Favorite band, actually.”
“Oh,” he mumbles. He’d like to say that’s really cool or we should listen to them sometime, but instead he stares in awe at the way the boy’s shoulders move when he reaches for a bag under the counter. His heart beats fast under his thin, tight, shirt, and he’s suddenly paranoid that the freckle-skinned boy can see it.
“Yep,” the boy says, flapping open the plastic bag. “I haven’t seen you around before. You new?”
“J-just moved from Cheshire, yeah. Um, England.”
The boy’s blue eyes twinkle with laughter again. “Posh boy,” he says teasingly. “That’s twelve-fifty.”
Harry counts the change in the palm of his hand and drops it into the boy’s waiting fingers. “Thanks,” he says sheepishly, picking up the CD. “See you later.” And then he rushes out of the shop with a burning face and butterflies in his stomach, clutching onto his purchase with sweaty hands, because the boy’s voice is a thousand times prettier than he could have possibly imagined.
- - -
The next time he sees the boy is exactly one week later, a few days before Christmas.
Harry wakes with a jolt that Saturday morning, already trembling with nerves and covered in a light sheen of sweat. He skips breakfast and dresses quickly, spending a little more time than he should inspecting his teeth and applying his sister’s spare chapstick (not that he’s ever used it before, of course) and rummaging through his drawer to find a nice matching pair of socks.
The thing is, though, is that he knows everything is just in his head and that the boy at the record store probably won’t even notice him when he walks in, let alone speak to him, and, despite knowing this, he practically falls over his feet in his haste to get his bike out of the garage.
On the way across town, Harry thinks he’s practiced at least a hundred different sexy and appealing ways to say hello.
He knows it’s pointless – the boy probably won’t even remember him – but there’s something about a first crush that just makes reason not seem to matter.
He deposits his bike outside the shop and straightens his attire, breathing in deeply to calm himself.
“Back again, posh boy?” a thick Irish accent asks with a grin the minute the curly-haired boy stumbles in. Harry’s wearing a tan, suede jacket (its sleeves are almost too short for him since his last growth spurt) and his long, clumsy legs are suited in yet another pair of dark jeans, and he glances up with excited eyes at the thin, muscular boy who is sitting atop the counter and flipping through a guitar catalog.
A blush spreads across the younger boy’s cheeks, both from the cold outside and from that sort of irrational embarrassment of being noticed.
Harry mumbles something unintelligible, unable to take his eyes off those upturned lips, before awkwardly stalking off to the farthest corner of the shop and leaving the boy’s full-blown smile unreturned and faltering.
“Can I help with anything?” the boy asks, hopping off the counter and trotting over to the aisle that Harry was now perusing.
Harry angles his head down, his long fingers flicking through a stack of CDs, and shakes his head quickly without looking up. He doesn’t want to risk losing his train of thought by glancing at the boy’s incredibly big, blue eyes. And come on, does he really have to have such long eyelashes?
“Those are just in,” the boy says, waving an unseen hand toward the pile that Harry is searching through. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
He turns around to head back to the cash register when death metal suddenly starts blaring from the speakers, and both boys clamp their hands over their ears in shock. Tripping on his shoelaces a little, the boy falls backward into Harry’s side and grips his arm tightly from behind. Harry stiffens at this, because oh my God, they’re touching.
This is not supposed to actually happen anywhere but his dreams.
“Turn it down, Andy!” the boy shouts over the not-so-dulcet tones of the band – which Harry recognizes as, weirdly, Abhorrence, a Finnish group that broke up in the 90s - as Harry gingerly sets him back on his feet. “We got customers!”
A laughs rings out from one of the back rooms, and the volume is only decreased slightly: Devourer of Soul’s guitar intro is still shaking the windows. The boy rolls his eyes and gives Harry, whose nerve endings are firing because the boy’s calloused hand is still clutching onto his arm, an apologetic smile. “Sorry about him,” he yells, loudly enough so Andy can hear. “He’s got a few mental issues!”
“I’m on my meds, get off my back!” comes an angry shout.
Unable to act like conversations such as these are natural parts to his day-to-day, Harry’s eyes go a little wide at the exchange.
But the boy just laughs. “Only joking, Andy’s safe. Usually.”
With a nervous half-laugh, Harry nods and returns his gaze to the CDs, walking a little farther down the aisle and away from the boy – who had unthinkingly moved a few centimeters closer to him while he’d been speaking.
Out of the corner of his eye he can see that the boy is just about to turn away again, and he suddenly panics, realizing it’s basically now or never. He opens his mouth and decides – without really deciding – it’s time to actually introduce himself. “I’m Harry.”
Stupid, he thinks to himself almost immediately, that was so stupid. Because even Harry can barely hear his soft voice over the death metal that’s blasting from the speakers, and he sees the boy in front of him hesitate for a second, obviously thinking that maybe he’s imagined it altogether. Looking back over his shoulder, however, the blonde boy is greeted by Harry’s bright green, embarrassed eyes waiting for a response.
“Niall,” he answers. The boy – Niall, he remembers, committing it to memory – quirks an eyebrow up and grins, pointing a thumb to himself. “Was wondering when you’d tell me your name, mate.”
“Oh.”
Harry ducks his head back down and continues flipping through the records, something less like butterflies and more like gigantic pterodactyls soaring around in his stomach because Niall had been wondering about him. The words come out before he can really think.
“I like you–your shirt.”
Niall glances down to the black lettering of the Ramones logo across his chest, and swipes his hand through his messily quaffed blonde hair. “Thanks, man! Andy’s early Christmas present for me, actually.”
“He seems nice,” Harry offers quietly.
Niall sputters, clearly amused by just the thought of it. “You don’t mean Andy? Naw, he’s a dick. But I love him.”
The pterodactyls disappear as suddenly as they’d come, leaving a sort of awkward emptiness.
‘I love him.’ He loves him. He’s taken.
“Oh. I’ve got to go,” Harry says abruptly, dropping the CD back into the pile and instead rubbing a hand up and down his arm, making his way toward the entrance of the shop. He passes quickly by Niall, who’s standing at the end of the aisle and looking a bit confused as to how he’d lost a customer so quickly, and their shoulders accidentally brush and Harry can’t help himself from pausing for a moment. A noticeably conflicted expression passes across his features before he finally blurts it out.
“You smell nice,” he says, looking down at the boy. His eyes go wide again and he shakes his head before rushing out the door.
- - -
“Already? You’ve lived in Mullingar barely a month, and you already have a crush?”
“He’s sweet,” Harry argues, lying on his back and listening to a pair of toddlers fight over a swing. There’s a light frost on the ground in the town park, but Harry doesn’t mind the ice crystals entangling themselves in his curly hair as he watches the gray clouds move sluggishly across the winter sky. Holding the phone a little closer to his ear to block out the shrieks of the little girls, he sighs contentedly. “And he’s blonde.”
“Harry, I don’t even know who you are anymore,” his friend says on the other end. “Where’s the, I’m never going to understand relationships even if they come up and hit me in the face Harry that I know and love?”
“He likes the Strokes, too,” Harry continues, lost in his daydream. “And he smells good. Like…manly.” A single snowflake drifts down and lands at the tip of his nose, hovering for a moment between ice and liquid states before finally succumbing to the warmth of Harry’s breath. More start to fall from the heavy clouds above. “I think he plays guitar, too.”
“Oh, well, if that’s the case, full steam ahead, I say.”
“I’m serious, Liam. I think he’s perfect.”
“Do you even know his name?”
“Niall,” he admits happily. “He told me yesterday.” “
Oh my God, you’re already on first name basis? I think I hear wedding bells, my friend!”
“Shut up!” Harry sits up and crosses his legs, little flakes of snow flying off his suede jacket and swirling around him. Annoyed at the casualty with which Liam’s handling the situation, he watches his breath fog up in front of him as he sighs again. “He doesn’t even like me, I’m too weird. And shy. He’d never like me.”
“Ha! Harry, you - of all people - wouldn't be a good judge of whether he likes you or not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean,” Liam explains, exasperated, “remember when I was trying to be nice and be your friend and offered you some of my cream pasty in primary school, but you thought I was trying to poison you because I had said it was vanilla and it actually turned out to be chocolate? You threw a fit.”
“That never happened,” Harry says quickly, hiding his reddening cheeks behind a gloved hand as he remembers the incident, along with the accompanying trip to the principal’s office (he'd turned over some tables in his haste to get away from the fatal threat of the infamous chocolate pasty). But of course, both his friend and old Mr. Oswald are about two hundred miles away and therefore can’t see his embarrassment, and he drops his hand. “Don’t know what you’re on about.”
“Oh right, I’m lying. Made it up. Sorry.”
“But he has a boyfriend, though,” Harry grumbles, unable to stop thinking of Niall for more than even a few seconds. He shakes his curls to disperse of the accumulating snow, and he climbs up onto his feet, starting to head back toward the road. “And he’s hot, too,” he says as he searches for the bike he’d ridden to the park on. The snow’s falling more thickly now, and Harry finds his two-speed chained to a lamppost and dusted in white. “The bad boy type, you know? Tattoos, smokes, the whole lot.”
“Blondie’s got a man?” Liam asks, entertained. “Harry, only you would make your first crush this difficult.”
“I didn’t fall for him on purpose!” Harry exclaims indignantly as he enters the combination for the lock. It’s purely coincidental that the letters happen to spell out ‘Niall,’ of course, and Harry swings a leg over the seat and pushes off toward home. “You should see his eyes, though…they’re like…like…you should just see his eyes.”
There’s a loud laugh through the speaker.
“You’ve got it bad, mate.”
- - -
On the floor.
That’s how Harry wakes up on Christmas morning, his sister home from college and deciding to make his life a personal living hell. “Morning!” she shouts gleefully in his ear while he rubs his sleep-ridden eyes.
“What the hell, Gemma.” He swipes a blind hand in her general direction, and it catches on her pajama pants.
“Mum said to get you out of bed. So I did,” she smirks, jumping out of the way of another of Harry’s flailing arms. “Now get downstairs, Curly, you’ve got presents to open!”
The fire is crackling happily in the fireplace of Harry’s living room, spitting off occasional sparks and giving off that comforting smell that’s always synonymous with Christmas morning.
Both he and his mother are sitting cross-legged on the floor, alternating between stuffing their faces with cinnamon rolls and chocolate Santas, and taking turns opening each other’s gifts. Gemma, with her nose slightly upturned at all the sugary treats – she’s watching her weight, she keeps saying – is bundled up beneath a blanket on a recliner by the television and sneaking a Hershey kiss.
Tossing the wrapping paper of his next present aside, handed to him by his mother, Harry finds himself staring down at two shiny paper tickets. Before he can say anything or look any more closely, his mother is already explaining. “It’s in Dublin, on the twelfth. I thought you needed to get out of town for a bit…there’s another one there, if you wanted to bring a friend along.”
“Mum.” His green eyes rove over the two pieces of paper, and his mouth falls open. “This is for the Strokes.”
“I know,” she smiles, understanding his shock.
“But this concert has been sold out for months!”
“I know,” she repeats, ruffling his hair. “It was really your father’s doing. He was the one who found them.”
“Oh my God,” he breathes. “I’ll tell him thanks when he calls. Oh my God! Who ought I bring? Liam? Can we fly him over in time?”
“Well, I was actually thinking maybe you could ask one of your friends from here, sweetie. You’re always out on the weekends, aren’t you?”
“You can bring me,” Gemma pipes up from her place on the recliner.
“Not a chance,” Harry shoots back, his side still throbbing from where he’d fallen on it earlier that morning. “I don’t know, mum, I still don’t know that many people. I guess I’ll find someone. Oh my God,” he says again. “The Strokes.”
- - -
“You really like music, then, don’t ya?”
It’s almost lunchtime, the weekend after Christmas, and Niall’s leaning on his elbows on a stack of records and staring up at Harry. Johnny Cash is crooning on about some ‘ring of fire’ over the speakers.
Harry clears his throat, distracted by the view down the smaller boy’s teal tank top – he keeps telling himself that his eyes are just drawn to the boy’s silver clover charm necklace, but he knows that’s a lie – and continues looking through the pile for nothing in particular.
“Sorry?” he says vaguely. Stop sounding so stupid, Harry. God.
“I said you must really like music. In here every weekend, all that. You in a band, or something?”
“Nope.” Way to be rude.
“Play any instruments?”
“Not much more than the kazoo.”
Niall laughs at this, and Harry relaxes a little bit. “Well, I do. Play the guitar, I mean. Taught meself,” he says proudly. Harry’s suspicions are proved – and it also explains how such a skinny boy could have such toned biceps. “Wanna see her?” he winks. “She’s a beauty.”
“Um…alright, I suppose,” Harry answers quietly, furiously blushing, because oh God, Niall just winked.
“You suppose?” the boy exclaims, feigning offense and holding a hand against his chest. “You mean you’d be honored! Come on, I keep her in the back room.”
Harry follows Niall away from the stack of records and toward a metal door across the shop that he remembers as being the one that the Irish boy had come stumbling out of the first day they’d spoken – nearly a month ago now.
Harry’s weekly visits to Grimey’s Records are beginning to become more routine, and he and Niall are starting to strike up a sort of casual acquaintance – they say hello when he walks in, Harry smiles (albeit timidly), they both get on with their business.
Nothing more, though: Harry can’t bring himself to try and come between Niall and Andy – not that his feeble and awkward attempts at flirting would get him anywhere, anyway.
Still, that doesn’t mean he can’t admire the view of Niall’s strong shoulder blades underneath the loose cotton straps of his shirt as he walks behind. He fights the urge to reach out and grab one of Niall’s hands, which are swinging back and forth beside his small waist.
“It’s an eight-fourteen C.E. Taylor Acoustic,” Niall explains to Harry as he pulls open the metal door and disappears into the darkness of the storage room. Harry follows tentatively, feeling his hands along the chipped drywall for a light switch. Finding one, he flicks it on and his eyes land on Niall, who’s bending over a leather guitar case lying on the concrete floor across the closet-size storage room. He steps over some popped bubble wrap and the door swings shut behind him, flickering the light of the single light bulb hanging from ceiling.
“Here she is,” Niall declares, heaving his guitar out of its case and holding it out to Harry’s curious gaze. “See the shine on her? That’s a UV-cured finish, that is. Mahogany neck with a satin finish, too – gives it a better sound, I think. Not as good as the nine-fourteen C.E., course, but no way was I gonna pay an extra fifteen hun-“. He stops at the look on Harry’s face. “You haven’t got a clue what I’m saying, have you?”
Harry bites his lower lip. “Not one.”
“Thought as much,” Niall giggles. The sound of it makes Harry’s heart speed and hands go clammy, and he has to avert his eyes to a cardboard box of cassette tapes on the shelf to his right. “I should teach you sometime, maybe. I mean,” the blonde-haired boy amends quickly, “only if you want to. You’ve probably got better things to do than spend your time with a cashier.”
“I’d love to,” Harry says instantly, despite the fact that the only interest he’s ever had in music is listening to it, not playing it. There was a reason he stuck to the kazoo – clumsiness and musical instruments generally did not tend to bode well.
But Niall’s smile lights up the otherwise dim room, and he pats Harry on the shoulder. “Cool! So, when would you want to start?” he asks, dropping the guitar back into its case and sidling by Harry to get back to the door. Their proximity makes Harry shiver a little, his heart doing little back flips as Niall’s hip brushes against his. “Tomorrow’s no good for me, but maybe next-“ but then the boy stops, his hand on the knob. He shakes it a little.
“Niall?”
“Door won’t open,” he explains, tugging on the handle with both hands now. “Let me help,” Harry says. He comes up behind Niall and wraps his arms around the smaller boy to get to the doorknob, and holds him against his chest without thinking.
“What ya doing,” Niall laughs as Harry’s body presses closely up against his.
Finally regaining his common sense, Harry pulls back and lets go fast, mentally slapping himself for his stupidity. Boyfriend, boyfriend, he has a boyfriend – who can easily beat you up, Harry, what were you thinking!
“Nothing,” he mumbles, eyes trained on the floor like a guilty child. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and shuffles his shoes. “I’m sorry, I know you’re with-."
“Well, come on then,” Niall says, amused, grabbing one of Harry’s arms from behind his back and pulling him back around. “Let’s get this door open.”
It’s no use. The door is well and truly locked, and with Andy being the only person with a set of keys and out at lunch, the two boys are stuck.
Harry tries hard to hide his exultation with the situation, having to bring his face down to a grimace every few minutes, because he's stuck in a room with the best looking boy he’s ever seen and there's no one around to bother them – if only he could find some words to say.
“You have blue eyes,” he finally manages after about two minutes. Oh, Congratulations, Sherlock. Any more revelations?
“I do,” agrees Niall, leaning his back against a row of shelves and sliding down to the floor. “Yours are green.”
“Blue’s my favorite color,” Harry nearly whispers.
“You’re quite weird, posh boy,” Niall observes, quirking an eyebrow up again – it seems to be a habit of his. “I like it.”
“Thanks.” Harry clambers down onto the floor beside him.
“Why’d you move to Ireland, again? I forget.”
“I never said.”
“Aye, you’re a smart ass, know that?” Niall teases, flicking Harry’s arm.
Harry’s lip twitches upwards at this. “I guess my mum just wanted a change of pace, or something like that,” he says slowly. “My parents got divorced a few years ago.”
“Ah, sorry, mate.”
“It’s alright,” Harry says reasonably. “I’m not too bothered by it, actually.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m in the same boat.”
“Really?”
“Yup, that’s why I got this job at the store. Help my old man pay the bills, all that nonsense.”
“Oh.”
There’s a pause.
“That’s why I’ve never seen you in school?” Harry asks cautiously. Despite all of his thoughts having been entirely on Niall for the past month, Harry had, in fact, been attending the local private school for boys.
“Dropped out end of last year, yep, after my mam left.”
Another pause.
“Oh.”
They sit next to each other for a few minutes, and Niall playfully knocks one of Harry’s clean white Converse shoes with his own dirty sneaker. His easy resilience - they'd just been having a fairly heavy conversation about one of his parents leaving him, after all - is suprising and quite nice. Not the dramatic type, then. Harry thinks he likes that.
He looks over at Niall, whose face is close enough that Harry can actually see the faint beginnings of stubble on the older boy’s chin, and Harry can feel his next words bubbling up before he can even think. Like they usually do when he’s in Niall’s presence. “
Do you want to see the Strokes with me?” he says, not able to stop himself. “It’s in Dublin, on the twelfth,” he elaborates. Parroting exactly what his mother had told him just a few days earlier.
From the expression on Niall’s face, which appears to be a good mix of what the hell and you’re such a freak, Harry immediately knows the answer.
“Sorry, you don’t have to come,” he backtracks, tripping over a few of his words on the way, “it’s just, I-I had an extra ticket and my mom was like, saying she wanted to meet my new friends and I was just like, dammit, now I need to find some friends and I guess, I guessed since I thought you liked them you might want – but you don’t have to come, sorry I asked, I’m such a...sorry.”
It’s the most he’s probably said to Niall in the entirety of having known him.
“Harry.”
“Sorry,” he says once more, “actually, let’s try and get this door open again, we probably weren’t pulling hard enough the last time…let’s just…what?” Because Niall’s now looking at him as if he’s never really seen him before.
“Harry, course I want to come!”
“Really?”
The pterodactyls are back, and Harry feels his insides squirming around with jubilation. If the excitement that’s coursing through him were instead electricity, his curly hair would be standing on end.
“Are you crazy?” Niall cries. “Favorite band, remember? I’d do anything to see them!”
His shoulders fall a little. “Cool,” Harry says faintly, blinking a few times. 'Anything.' He’d go with anyone.
“Glad it’s you, though,” Niall beams. “I quite like you, posh boy, even if you are a bit…classy for my tastes.” He pulls on the sleeve of Harry’s spotless suede coat to accentuate his point, and Harry laughs a little awkwardly.
“Thanks?”
“You betcha,” Niall grins.
“So, about that guitar lesson, then. This time next Saturday work?”
Before he can respond, the door to the storeroom swings open and the (very large and very muscled) figure of Niall’s boyfriend, Andy, is suddenly towering over them.
“What you two doing down there?” he says, reaching down a (very large and very muscled) hand to Niall, who gratefully grabs it and pulls himself up. “Searching for spare change?”
“No, we were stuck here, mate, for nearly an hour, while you were taking your lunch break!”
“Well, you should’ve called, then, shouldn’t you have?”
“I…I didn’t have my phone,” Niall says. "Neither did Harry."
That part's true, but Harry glances down at the boy’s jeans and notices the clear outline of what looks exactly like a phone in his left pocket. He's surprised he didn't notice it before, actually.
“Yeah, you have," he says softly, unaccusingly, pointing to the boy's pocket. It’s right there."
If he’s not imagining things, he swears he can see a rosy flush forming beneath the Irish boy’s pale skin.
“Oh, look at that,” Niall says a bit excitedly. “I did have it, then. Whoops.”
Andy and Harry share a puzzled look, and then Andy reaches over to mess with the blonde boy’s hair. “Honestly, man, getting crazier by the day.”
“You know you love me, Andy.” Harry’s mouth draws into a thin line, unseen by the other two boys, and he fumbles his long fingers on the zipper of his coat. Trying desperately to avoid having to see his crush interact with his boyfriend, he turns away to examine a display of guitar picks.
He ends up falling face-first into the rack.
His accidental spill seems to regain the boys’ attentions, though, as Niall turns away from Andy and grabs Harry’s hand instead, trying to steady him. “Alright, man?” he asks, his toughened hand holding Harry’s for what he thinks is a second too long before letting go.
Harry has trouble speaking for a moment and can’t look the boy in the eye. “Yeah,” he mumbles finally, before murmuring, “you two are cute.”
“Cute,” echoes Andy in disgust, flexing his arms a bit, “what do you mean, cute?”
Harry’s eyes widen at the intimidating display of force and he can’t help but stutter. “I-I just mean, you’re a cute, um, couple-."
“Couple! I’m not gay,” Andy squawks, “I’ve got a girlfriend!”
“But – sorry, I just –."
But it doesn’t really matter to Harry any more what he says. Because thank the Lord, thank everything, thank Andy and thank his girlfriend, because his prayers have been answered.
Niall’s single.
- - -
“The other one. No, the other string.”
Grimacing, Harry stretches his index finger farther up the fret board and strums a chord that sounds as if the guitar itself were dying.
“I suck.”
Niall doesn’t say anything, but Harry can see the smile he’s trying to hide.
“Don’t even try,” he giggles, shoving the boy’s arm away as he attempts, yet again, to mend Harry’s finger placement. “I suck and you know it.”
Harry doesn’t really care for guitar, anyway – it’s just the best guarantee of an hour more of Niall’s time than he would have had otherwise.
“Okay, you’re not the best student I’ve had…”
“You’ve had other students?”
“Maybe,” Niall says ambiguously, placing his own hand over Harry’s and making him form the right position to play an E chord.
Harry raises an eyebrow, imitating Niall’s usual facial expression, and Niall snorts.
“Okay, maybe you’re my first student. But I have to admit,” he says as Harry nearly breaks the string with the force of his strum, “you really do suck.”
Harry throws his head back with a loud outburst of laughter at this, nearly falling off the counter, and he scrambles quickly to regain his balance. Then Niall starts laughing at his clumsiness, and it’s a few seconds before either can stop, both of them getting all red-faced and elated and a little bit closer to each other in the empty room.
“What song am I trying to play, anyway,” Harry chortles, shaking his head, “dying cat symphony?”
Niall chuckles and jumps up onto the counter with him, the midday winter sunlight from the window hitting his face. Harry can’t help but gasp (really loudly, too), seeing the kaleidoscope of Niall’s eyes light up into a thousand different shades of blue, with the slightest hint of gold around the pupil.
“What?” Niall asks, leaning his head a bit closer, his shaggy blonde hair poking out from under his backwards baseball cap.
“Nothing, nothing,” Harry lies, glad his cheeks are already red from the laughter so Niall can’t see them blush. He seems to blush a lot in Niall’s presence. “What song, again?”
“Under Cover of Darkness, of course, what else? Figured since we’d be seeing them in a week, might as well…learn a couple…” he trails off, looking up at Harry from under his lashes and seeming lost for a minute. “A couple songs from the Strokes, I mean. Alright, now the next chord we want is a B…”
Harry actually breaks the string this time.
“Jesus, do you have any musical talent?” Niall says in amusement, grabbing the guitar back from him and muttering something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like ‘my baby.’ Harry hangs his head.
“I’m useless.”
“You’re not useless,” Niall says, sincere this time. He moves his head under Harry’s so he’s looking up at him and smiles widely enough that his eyes crinkle. “You’ve got great taste in music, at least. That’s one thing.”
His light pink lips are tantalizingly close, and it’s all Harry can do to stop himself from grabbing the smaller boy’s face right there and then and smacking one on him. Instead, he squeaks a little. The other boy laughs.
“Never met anyone like you,” Niall says, pulling his head away from Harry’s and resting his guitar gently against the side of the counter. “I thought you were just this really, well, quirky kid at first, but you’re actually…” he trails off again.
“Actually what?” Harry prompts, tilting his head a bit closer to Niall’s.
“Actually…” Niall says, eyes flickering down to Harry’s full lips momentarily.
And then his lips are brushing Harry’s and it’s as if the entire world is exploding and disappearing at the same time, and Harry is stock still for a second with wide open eyes before he realizes he should probably move his lips, too. Niall sighs into their kiss once he feels Harry react and leans in a bit more, his hand reaching up to caress Harry’s face and stroke his skin a little with the rough pad of his thumb. Feeling a tongue start to trace his lower lip now, Harry doesn’t know anything except that Niall is kissing him and what was going on because Harry’s supposed to be the one with the crush. And all too soon, Niall pulls away with a jerk.
“I shouldn’t have…” he starts, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand and using his other to nervously play with his cap. “I’m sorry, you’re probably not even…oh God, that was stupid.” But before he even finishes his sentence, Harry’s leaning in and taking Niall’s face in his hands exactly the way he imagined it, and he presses his mouth to his with a little more vigor than last time.
After a few seconds, he pecks the side of the boy’s mouth and pulls backward, staring down at the shocked boy. Like he always seems to do in front of Niall, he opens his mouth without thinking. “Thank God you kissed me,” he says, a bit breathless. “I didn’t have the guts to do it.”
Niall grins widely at this, before grabbing a fistful of curls and bringing Harry’s mouth back down onto his.
- - -
It’s the day before the concert.
Friday.
The entire contents of Harry’s closet are scattered on the floor of his room, Liam’s on the phone, and Harry’s sitting on the edge of his bed, defeated.
“I literally have nothing to wear,” he says, glaring at the glossy band posters that are decorating his navy blue walls. “Like, oh my God.”
“Have you become a teenage girl while you’ve been away, or what?”
“What do you think of that white button down?”
“Boring,” Liam answers. Being friends for so long now, Liam can genuinely picture every article of clothing in Harry’s closet. He thinks for a second. “What about that plaid button down one that you bought last summer?”
“The red and blue one?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know, doesn’t it make me look like I have love handles?”
“Like you have whats? Haz, I’m sorry to inform you, but I don’t actually check out your bod on a regular basis. I don’t know.”
“But Niall might check out my ‘bod,’” Harry groans, bending down and picking up a shirt at random.
It’s another button down.
Harry’s finally had it. “WHY DON’T I OWN ANYTHING BUT BUTTON DOWNS.”
“Christ, Harry!” Liam yells in surprise. “Blow off my ear, why don’t you? Just wear a blazer!”
“But to a concert? I’d feel stupid.”
“But you wouldn’t look stupid.”
“Should I? I don’t know…Niall won’t be, like, fancy, you know, the way he’s like.”
“Just wear the damn blazer, Harry.”
“Alright, fine! Now, should I wear the gray or the white shirt underneath? Like, the white says fun, but I think the gray says, like, we’re on a date, you know?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“No, wait! Okay, the white one, the white one. What trousers, though?”
There’s a snort, a click, and the line goes dead.
Harry starts grumbling to himself as he tosses the phone on his bed, glancing around for his scoop neck t-shirt, which he finds draped across the back of his desk chair.
“Some friend you are,” he mumbles, folding the shirt and placing it on top of the pile of clothes-for-tomorrow on his floor. “When you get a girlfriend, just wait, Liam. Just wait.”
- - -
The doorbell rings as he’s hurrying down the stairs in search of his wallet, and he slips on the front hall tile in his haste to get to the door, snatching his wallet off the center table on the way. He stuffs it into his pocket and rips open the door, plastering a huge and blinding smile on his face, expecting to see the boy of his dreams on the other side of the threshold.
“Oh.”
“Hello, sweetie,” says his mother, shoving an overflowing paper bag of vegetables into his open arms and pushing by him with another bag. “Help me with these groceries, would you?” She glimpses at her son’s outfit over her shoulder. “You look nice.”
“That’s because he’s going to be here in a minute.”
“Who is?”
“Niall,” he groans in impatience, poking his head out the door. He sees an old car sputtering down the lane, a familiar tuft of blond hair behind the wheel, and he gasps embarrassingly loud. “Mum, he’s here! Act normal!”
“You’re quite jumpy for me to be meeting a friend, aren’t you?”
The car comes to a halt in front of Harry’s mailbox and Niall jumps out, smilingly hugely and whacking on a pair of Raybans. Even though it’s January.
His heart pounds.
“Mum,” Harry whispers anxiously through his teeth, smiling back at Niall, “he’s not my, um, friend…he’s actually my…”
“Boyfriend?” Harry whips his head around and stares at his mother, astonished, because, well, he’d only ever told Liam.
“How did you-”?
“Mother’s intuition,” she says quietly, eyes twinkling. “You two have fun.”
With that, she grabs the grocery bag from Harry’s slackened hands and retreats to the kitchen, leaving Harry smiling faintly in shock.
“Hey,” comes a voice from behind him.
“Hey,” Harry grins, turning back around and taking a step closer to his – oh my God he can’t believe he can actually say this – can he say this? I mean they haven't actually officially discussed the exact - oh, what the hell - boyfriend. “How’re you?”
“Good. Excited for tonight?”
“You’ve no idea.”
Niall laughs and tilts his head up to reach Harry’s, and Harry leans down as they both smile into their kiss. He feels the vibrations of Niall’s next words against his lips as the older boy murmurs them quietly.
“I quite like you, posh boy.”
Harry’s insides squirm with happiness, and he grabs Niall’s hands tightly, intertwining their fingers as they race to the car.