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The school put on a Festival every year on the Saturday before Halloween and Harry was so excited for it to begin. On the football field, they had dunking booths, all sorts of carnival games, and bounce houses. There was even a hayride that carried festival goers around the track that encircled the field. He’d been volunteering for years, ever since he started his job as a history teacher, but this was his first time running a booth of his own.
He and Niall had decided to put together a ring toss game for the smaller kids. They glued two dozen child sized witch hats to a large piece of orange foam board, then set the board on top of one of the folding tables that had been borrowed from the school cafeteria. For tossing, Harry purchased a number of plastic pool diving rings on clearance at the end of the summer. He and Niall had planned everything for their booth in detail and had even purchased all of the good Halloween candy in advance.
It was an hour before the Halloween Festival began that Harry discovered the disgusting mess in the trunk of his car.
After they finished setting up their booth—complete with an assortment of small stuffed animals as prizes, and decorations like fake spiderwebs, plastic spiders, jack-o-lanterns, and talking skeletons—Harry realized they hadn’t filled the big buckets with the candy that he intended to give away. He didn’t want any of the kids to feel left out, so even if they didn’t win at the ring toss, they’d get some candy—good candy!
“Niall, where’s the candy?” Harry asked as he finished hanging the string of pumpkin shaped twinkly lights.
“It’s in your car. Told ya I put it there.” Niall was underneath the table, tightening a loose screw.
Harry bent over and peeked at him under the table. “Thanks, man. In the back seat?”
“Nah, it’s in the trunk. Left it there after you bought it.” Niall crawled out from under the table.
Harry straightened and offered Niall a hand up. “What?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
“The candy’s in the trunk of your car, man. I left it there because there wasn’t going to be room to store it in the kitchen when we brought it home from the store.”
It had been mid-September when they’d bought the candy. The daily temperatures had still been in the eighties. Harry spun on his heel and hurried across the football field toward the parking lot where he was pretty sure he knew what he’d find.
He never really used the trunk unless he was going on a road trip; he preferred to put his groceries and other things in the back seat. The trunk of his car was a mess of melted chocolate—some of it was still in bags, some still in wrappers, but in the month and a half that it had been rolling around in the trunk of his car, most of it had melted and gotten everywhere.
Harry closed his eyes, put his hands to his temples, rubbing small circles to keep the tension headache he could feel creeping up at bay, took a few deep breaths to calm himself, and decided there was only one thing he could do. He sent a quick text to Niall before starting his car and heading to the nearest grocery store.
H: Going to the store to replace the candy that is melted all over my trunk. Will kill you later. Liam should be there soon.
He hurried into the store and immediately turned toward the candy aisle, silently begging the Halloween candy gods that there would be enough candy—good candy—left for him to fill the buckets at his festival booth. He rounded the corner and bumped into someone. “Oops!” He stumbled backwards, but caught himself.
“Hi. In a rush? You alright?” The man asked. Harry nodded. He’d bumped into the most beautiful man, with caramel colored hair hiding under a black snapback, and an absolutely gorgeous face, bright blue eyes, a scruffy beard—Harry’s thoughts screeched to a halt when he noticed that the man was holding bags and bags of candy. Almost all of it, from the looks of the mostly empty shelves behind him.
“What are you doing?” Harry demanded, flinching slightly at his own rudeness.
The man’s expression went from kind and concerned to glowering in a split second. “What’s it look like?”
Harry looked from the bags of candy the man was holding to the bare shelves behind him. “Are you buying all of the candy?”
“Nope. There’s a few bags of lollipops down there on the bottom shelf.” The man gave a cheeky smile and made to step around Harry.
Harry stepped with him in the same direction. “You’ve got all the good candy. You can’t do that! I need that candy.”
“Nah, man. I have to buy this candy. You get that candy.” He nodded toward the bags of lollipops, side stepped Harry and carried his loot to the cash register.
Harry was dumbfounded. He stood there staring at the few bags of cheap lollipops before dejectedly picking them up and making his way to the front of the store to pay. At the register area he found a few full sized candy bars and bought them as well.
He was going to murder Niall, but not until after he made him clean the trunk of his car.
—
Harry returned to the festival frazzled and with a slight headache. He couldn’t believe that guy had bought all of the good candy, even though he’d been about to do the exact same thing. Still, he was angry about it, upset with Niall, and worried about the chocolate staining the trunk of his car.
He carried his bags of lollipops and handful of full sized candy bars to his booth and unceremoniously dropped them into the buckets. He was definitely going out for a drink after the festival. “Ni, I’m trying really hard not to throw this bucket of cheap lollipops at your head. You’re cleaning the mess in my trunk and if you can't get it clean, you're paying to have my car detailed. That chocolate better come out.”
Niall and Liam were attaching the sign to the front of their booth that read “I’m Melting! Toss a ring on what’s left of the Wicked Witch of the West to win a prize!”
Liam looked up. “What’s up, H?”
“Niall left about thirty pounds of chocolate in my trunk for over a month. It’s a mess. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Niall rubbed Harry’s shoulders as he apologized, “I’m really sorry, man, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll take care of the cleaning. Let’s get finished setting up, okay?”
Harry took a deep breath and tried to relax his shoulders. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, too. You’re not going to believe what happened—”
“I’ve got something for your head, H.” Liam interrupted as he reached into his backpack for a bottle of pills.
Harry swallowed the headache tablets dry and stretched his neck from side to side.
“What were you saying, H? Something happened?” Niall asked as he opened the bags of lollipops and dumped them into the buckets.
Harry sighed. “Yeah, some guy took all of the good candy. All of it! He had at least seven or eight big bags of the Hershey’s miniatures and I don’t know what else. Bought them all and I was stuck with those.” He gestured to the candy in the buckets.
Liam whistled and looked away. Niall placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m really sorry about the candy, man. Tonight will be fun though. Look at all this! So many fun games and things for the kids to do. They’ll get their fill of candy.”
Liam hummed. “It’ll be good, Harry. But, uh, listen. Remember me telling you about my friend Louis?”
Harry nodded. “Yeah, your old college roommate. He's moving here to work with us. Replacement drama teacher, right? Because Marie decided not to come back after her baby was born.”
“Yeah, he’s staying with me for a few weeks until he finds a place. Supposed to start work on Monday. But that’s sort of what I’m trying to tell you. Last night we had a few drinks and got bored with the PS4, so we started playing truth or dare, but it was kinda boring because we know each other pretty well, so we just ended up daring each other to do dumb stuff. He, um, he dared me to eat an entire block of cheese.”
Harry stared at him. “Sounds fun? Is your stomach upset from all that dairy?” Liam shook his head. “This is a weird story, Li.” Harry squinted his eyes and tilted his head.
“Look, Harry, please don’t be mad, but, when you tried to replace the melted candy, did you go to the store around the corner?” Harry nodded, willing Liam to get on with it. “The guy who bought the candy, was he about Niall’s height? Light brown hair? Black jeans, snapback?” Harry nodded again and Liam closed his eyes and continued on quickly. “Last night, after I ate the cheese, I, well, I dared Louis to go out today and buy all the candy at the store. It had to be Louis that you ran into.”
“You’re serious?” Harry laughed as Liam nodded. “You know, Mr. Payne, as assistant principal, you should be a little less ridiculous. Truth or dare? How about you help Niall clean up the mess in my car and I won’t be too mad at you?”
Liam’s face split into a relieved grin and he nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, man. I can do that. Could you maybe not hold this against Louis?”
Harry chuckled. “No way. Is he here? I’ve got to plot my revenge.” Harry wasn’t all that mad. He’d been on the receiving end of many of Liam’s dares in the past, but he was still annoyed. He knew that Liam expected him to be friends with Louis. He’d even suggested more than once that he wanted to set them up on a date, and Harry was definitely attracted to the man. He was gorgeous, even if he had practically stolen all of his candy. Revenge was his only option.
“He’s here. He’s actually got a the candy with him, so I can probably get him to just bring it here. But I dropped him off at the locker room so he could change. He’s, well, he wanted to work the Messtival. Figured it was a good way to get in everyone’s good graces since he’s the new guy.”
The Messtival was the small section of the Halloween festival that consisted of the Dunking Booth, the Slime Bucket, and the Pie Toss. The students loved it and whoever worked those booths ended up dirty, slimy, sticky and disgusting before the festival was half over. The teachers had started calling it the Messtival and the name stuck. They usually decided who worked it by drawing names out of a hat, and all Harry knew was that he hadn’t been chosen this year. Apparently, Louis had volunteered, which was unheard of.
Harry rubbed his hands together and attempted an evil laugh. “Bwahahahaha! I shall have my revenge!” He looked at his friends. “Was that too much?”
Niall raised an eyebrow and giggled. “You are not a convincing bad guy. What was that? You sound like the Count from Sesame Street.”
“So, revenge, huh? This was partly my fault, so maybe I can help.” Liam poked Harry in the tummy. “Let’s plot. Bwahaha! Right? Mr. Horan,” he turned to Niall. “Teacher mode activated. The kids are starting to arrive, can you handle the booth for a while?” Niall nodded his assent and waved them away.
As they made their way to the opposite end of the football field, they discussed their plan. “Evil plan, Liam. It’s more fun that way. Otherwise it’s just a plan and that’s boring.” Harry knocked their shoulders together.
Their evil plan really wasn’t much of a plan at all, they decided to buy as many tickets as possible and try to get Louis as disgusting as they could. Liam and Harry were pretty equally matched when it came to throwing a ball, so they decided to take turns and see what happened.
As they approached the pie toss booth, Harry caught sight of Louis. He was dressed in black swim trunks and a royal blue t-shirt, the official school colors, and was good-naturedly taunting a student who was about to throw her first pie.
“C’mon! Throw it! That pie looks delicious!” He shouted, just as the girl took aim and let her pie fly. It connected with Louis’ chest. “Good shot!” He laughed. “You got me!”
Harry giggled. Louis was cute. Really cute. He turned his head and watched them approach. Then shouted, “Assistant Principal Payne! You next?”
Liam moved aside and answered, “Nope. I think Mr. Styles wants a go.”
Louis’ eyes lit up with recognition. “Mr. Styles, is it? Well, go on then.”
Harry picked up his pie and took aim. Louis opened his mouth to taunt him, but before he could get the words out, Harry’s pie hit dead center on Louis’ face. Louis blinked and spit whipped cream.
Harry cackled and slapped his knee. “Ah, that felt good. Mr. Payne, you want a go?” He picked up a pie and handed it to Liam, who immediately tossed it and connected with the side of Louis’ head.
Louis threw his head back and laughed. “Had enough, fellas?”
Harry was bent at the waist, trying to catch his breath and Liam’s eyes were wet from laughing. Harry stood up and replied, “We’ll be back.” He turned to Liam. “Slime Buckets in an hour or so?” Liam nodded and they walked back toward their booth.
—
The boys had a good time running their ring toss. When Liam and Harry got back to the booth, Niall was pretty busy and they didn’t have time to talk. Most of their players were the younger kids and Harry gave away quite a bit of candy. It turned out that Louis had left the good candy with the principal and asked her to deliver it to Liam, so Harry was pleased and spent the evening with a sizable grin on his face. In fact, he almost forgot about the Slime Bucket until Niall asked how things had gone at the Messtival earlier. They filled him in on the Pie Toss and told him they wanted to try the Slime Bucket too. He shooed them away. “Slime him, boys. Get him good. I’ve got the booth. Have fun!”
Liam and Harry hurried down to the other end of the football field. When they arrived, Louis was already pretty slimy and he didn’t look happy. “This is disgusting, Mr. Payne!” Louis shouted when they arrived. “You said it wasn’t that bad! This stuff smells rotten!”
Liam shrugged. “If I’d told you it smelled, you wouldn’t have volunteered, Mr. Tomlinson. There’s nothing bad in it, it just smells weird.” He turned to the volunteer in charge and passed his tickets over in exchange for three baseballs.
The Slime Bucket was a pretty basic carnival game, similar to a dunking booth. Louis was standing in an enclosed booth with clear plastic walls. There was a bucket on a pulley assembly above the booth that would tip if the trigger arm was hit with enough force. Another volunteer stood on a platform to refill the bucket every time it was emptied.
“I’ve only got a few more minutes, Payne. You better get your throws in now!” Louis challenged.
Liam turned to look at Harry and said, “In that case, the honor is all yours, Styles.” and handed him the baseballs.
Harry aimed, threw and hit the target; Louis let out an undignified shriek as he was doused with thick blue slimy goop. Harry couldn’t control his giggles. The wait while the Slime Bucket was refilled seemed eternal. Louis shouted at him, mild child-appropriate insults, calling his throwing skills into question. Harry stood by with a smile on his face. “You know, you’re pretty rude for someone I’ve never properly met before.”
Louis sputtered, “Rude? You were rude to me at the store earlier and now you’ve apparently made it your mission to throw pies in my face and dump slime on me!”
“You bought all the good candy, Louis! I mean, Mr. Tomlinson.”
Louis laughed. “But I gave it all to Liam! You can’t be mad about it now!”
Harry stilled, the ball in his hand, halfway through his pitching windup. “Hmm, maybe not. But maybe I can. Bwahahahaha!”
Louis snorted. “What was that? Are you the Count?”
“That was my evil laugh! We have an evil plan, Mr. Tomlinson. You know what, why don’t I just get this over with and throw the ball?”
Louis waved his hands in front of his body. “Wait! C’mon, no more slime, please.”
Harry shook his head and took aim.
“Please. I’ll, um, I’ll buy you more candy.”
Harry huffed a laugh. “No, thanks.”
“Okay, how about… I’ll buy you coffee?”
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll buy your groceries! No, dinner! A nice dinner!”
Harry paused. “Really? Am I supposed to go to dinner alone? Assistant Principal Payne, is he buying you dinner too?”
“No! No, I’ll, uh, I’ll buy you dinner and I’ll come too. I’ll eat with you. And I’ll clean up your festival booth for you!”
Harry dropped his hand to his side, but before he could agree, a horn blared.
“Time’s up, Mr. Tomlinson!” The principal shouted. “Move on to the dunking booth, but could you hose off first?”
Oh, well. Harry put the baseballs back into the bucket, then turned to Liam who was standing by with a little smile on his face. “Game over, I guess. Back to the booth?”
Liam reached up and scratched his chin before pointing at something behind Harry. “I think you ought to stay here for a bit. I’ll head back to the booth to help Ni. See you in a few?”
Harry nodded and turned to see what Liam had pointed at. Louis was approaching. He had rinsed most of the slime off with the hose. His shirt was clinging to his chest. Harry could see his chest and ab muscles through the wet t-shirt. Louis’ nipples were hard and Harry had to look away.
“So, Mr. Styles, huh?” A lovely, lilting voice said. So far, Harry had only heard him shouting and taunting him at the Messtival, and he’d been too preoccupied to notice at the store earlier.
Louis’ face was smeared with the remnants of blue slime and there was still some pie in his hair. “Yeah, I’m, um, I’m Harry Styles. History teacher. Sorry, I kind of got carried away, I guess.”
“You guess?” Louis laughed. “Well, alright. So, when do you want me to buy you that dinner?”
Harry’s head whipped upwards. “What?”
“I said I’d buy you dinner. When are you free?”
Harry shook his head. “You don’t have to buy me dinner, Louis. The timer went off.”
“Well, maybe I want to anyway. After all, I did upset you earlier with the candy.”
Harry scratched the back of his neck and smiled. “No, that’s okay. You don’t owe me anything. I guess, well, it’s nice to officially meet you. Liam loves you a lot, so I think we should be friends.” He held his right hand out in front of him.
Louis grasped hold and shook his hand. “Nice to officially meet you, too, Harry. Liam’s said a lot of nice things about you. In fact, he said he thought we’d get along really well. So. I know I don’t owe you anything, but what if I just want to take you to dinner? Would that be okay?”
“Yeah, okay. That would be okay.” He looked around. “So. Dunking booth? I’ve got some tickets left.”
Louis grinned and led him away from the Slime Bucket. “Yep. I’ll be up there for about half an hour. Then I’m done. How about you?”
“Well, someone offered to clean up my booth, but if we work together, we should be able to finish up by eight o’clock. Just in time for a late dinner.” Harry smiled. “Think you’ll be hungry?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’ll, um, meet you in a bit then?” He climbed into the dunking booth and sat down.
Harry nodded and backed away. He handed his tickets to the little girl who was waiting patiently in line. He lifted his hand and gave a little wave. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Tomlinson.”
Louis waved and opened his mouth to say something, and nothing but bubbles came out. The little girl had hit her mark expertly and Louis was completely submerged under water. He climbed up and called out, “See you later, Mr. Styles!” then settled on the seat to wait for someone else to hit the target and send him splashing down into the water.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!