Archive of Our Own

"Twelve days 'til prom!" Daisy shrieks at a volume that’s at least ten decibels too high for 7:17 AM on a Tuesday morning. 

Phoebe squeals beside her, waving her hands. 

"Shhhh-" Fizzy hisses, trying in vain to do last minute review for her spelling test.  

"Show us Eleanor's dress again, Lou," Lottie commands. 

Louis stuffs a heaping bite of cereal in his mouth to delay the inevitable. Chews it slowly, slower than he ever does. He wishes his mom were here to distract the girls, but she had an early shift this morning and he’s been left on child-wrangling duty.  

"C'mon," Lottie says impatiently. “Louiiiiiiiis.” 

She must be done waiting because she reaches for Louis’ phone across the table. He lets her because he just changed the password two days ago and he knows she won't be able to get in. Lottie swipes at the cracked screen to no avail before sliding it back to Louis.  

Because he knows they won't stop otherwise, will keep asking and asking all through breakfast and packing their schoolbags and walking to the bus stop, Louis pulls up his text conversation with Eleanor. 

Did you get the tie yet? Is the last thing in the thread, sent from Eleanor last night.  

Louis hadn't responded, mainly because he hasn't gotten the tie yet, and he was supposed to get it over the weekend, and he knew she'd be less then thrilled.  

Louis scrolled back through their conversation to find the photo of the dress she ordered online. Eleanor's dress was a deep green that definitely didn't match the only tie Louis owned, a hideous orange and blue thing he'd gotten at Bargain Basement two years ago for a skit in English class wherein he wore it tied around his forehead.  

"She's beautiful," Lottie squeals, grabbing the phone back. 

"Like a princess," Phoebe agrees. 

"Cinderella," Fizzy adds, apparently having given up on her spelling. 

"Yep," Louis says, popping the P. 

Eleanor looked beautiful, but it only reminds him that he still needed to get his shit together for the prom. He doesn’t have the tie, he hasn’t ordered the flowers, he misplaced the tickets somewhere in his pigsty of a room, and the ratty suit Mark left when he moved out last summer definitely doesn’t compare to Eleanor’s dress. 

Louis gets up to put his now empty cereal bowl in the sink. It's fair to say that his sisters are more excited about prom than he is. 

Their driveway is a quarter mile long, and by the time Louis has the girls ready to go they need to run. When they make the turn around the last bend, Louis spots Harry leaned up against the old tree that's mostly dead after last summer's lightning strike. His hair is flopped over his face, curls unfairly not even slightly frizzed by the humidity.   

"Harry!" The twins shriek like he's a pop star and not the boy who's lived next door nearly all their lives. Well, as next door as you can get when you live in the middle of nowhere and need binoculars to see your nearest neighbor. 

The twins launch themselves at Harry when they reach him, wrapping their arms around his neck. “We missed you!” Phoebe declares. 

“Never go away again!” Daisy says. 

Harry giggles. “I’ll take you two with me next time.” 

“Me too!” Fizzy says, cheeks pink. 

“Of course, you,” Harry says in that tone that made the senior girls fall for him when he was a freshman. 

Fizzy’s cheeks go even redder. Sometime in the last year she’s developed quite the crush on Harry and it’s obvious to everyone in the Tomlinson family. 

“He was barely gone,” Lottie points out.  

She’s right. Anne, Robin, and Harry have been away moving Gemma out of her college dorm for the last four days, taking Harry out of school Thursday and Friday. Four days shouldn’t have been that long, but when they were used to seeing Harry every weekday and most weekends, it seemed forever.  

Harry untangles himself from the twins just as they spot the bus. As the girls line up, Harry turns to Louis.  

"Miss me?" Harry asks, grinning at Louis and raising his eyebrows. 

“Dreadfully,” Louis deadpans. “Whatever would I do without you, Harold?” 

The girls grab seats in the front with their friends, but Harry and Louis make their way towards the back.  

Harry, Louis, and Liam used to sit three wide on the bus, back when they were in grade school. Liam was the first stop then, and he always grabbed them the last seat which was obviously the best seat. 

Then, at the start of seventh grade Liam moved into town and started walking and Harry and Louis were left by their lonesome, never getting on early enough to grab the last seat. At twelve, Louis had been put out, but at seventeen he doesn’t really care anymore. They’re too big now to comfortably fit three wide on the bus even before Harry hit his last growth spurt over the winter. And, anyway, as nice as Liam is, sometimes it’s cool when it’s just the two of them.  

Sometimes, he and Harry do this thing where they press their knees together. Sometimes, if one of them is feeling particularly brave, they rest a hand on each other’s knee. Once, Harry was wearing these jeans with these huge holes in the knees and Louis reached over and rested his hand just inside the hole so it curled over the bare skin of Harry’s knee.  

It’s subtle, just a silly little thing they do. It doesn’t mean anything, Louis always assures himself. Harry’s been his best friend since the Styles family moved here the summer before kindergarten, which affords them certain privileges like coming over unannounced and being each other’s default history project partner and being able to touch each other on the knees. They aren’t into all that toxic masculinity bullshit Eleanor was talking about once and isn't that supposed to be a good thing?  

Today, though, they don’t have time to play their stupid game because as soon as they sit down a text from Eleanor pops up on Louis’ phone.  

Meet in the cafeteria before hr? 💕 

“What’s she want?” Harry asks.  

Harry doesn’t really like Eleanor much. He liked her okay before Louis started dating her and in fact encouraged Louis to ask her out last August. As the school year has gone on, though, his tolerance for her has waned. Not that Louis can really blame him because she can be a bit much, even for him.   

“It might come as a surprise, but some people actually enjoy my company.”  

Harry huffs. “I enjoy your company.” 

“Yet you went away for years.”  

“Four days!” 

“Same difference,” Louis says.  

Sure! He types back to Eleanor.  

Louis sighs loudly. “I know she just wants to talk about prom. I was supposed to get the stupid tie this weekend and of course I didn’t.” 

“I still have to get the suit,” Harry says dully. “And a tie to match Sarah’s dress.”  

Sarah is Harry’s date to prom. She’s a friend of Eleanor’s, sweet but a bit frumpy. She never wears makeup and always has her hair back in a ponytail and is the kind of person who would stop whatever she was doing to help old ladies across the street and rescue cats from trees. Neither Harry or Sarah had been enthusiastic about going to prom junior year, but Eleanor and Louis had convinced them. Or more accurately, Eleanor had convinced Louis who had convinced Harry because if he had to go so too should Harry.  

“We could go to the mall this weekend,” Louis suggests. “Take care of it all in one run.” 

Harry shrugs, not looking particularly excited. “Sure.” 

Eleanor’s waiting for Louis in the cafeteria, eating one of the whole-grain Pop-Tarts their school sells because they're healthier and scrolling on her phone. She looks up as he approaches like she has a second sense for him and smiles brightly.  

She stands up to wrap him in a hug, and Louis is engulfed by the vanilla brown sugar body mist she always uses. Her brown hair tickles his neck, and Louis kisses her cheek before letting her go.  

“Missed you,” she says, giving his hand a squeeze. 

“Me too,” Louis says even though he didn’t really. Not because he doesn’t like her, but because he just saw her on Saturday and one day without someone really isn’t enough time to miss them.  

Eleanor drags him over to her table and hands Louis half the Pop-Tart without him asking.  

“Soooooo,” Eleanor says, drawing it out. “Did you get the tie?” 

Louis stuffs a big chunk in the Pop-Tart into his mouth to save him from answering. It’s definitely not as good as the normal kind. Louis is pretty sure making a Pop-Tart whole grain defeats the entire purpose of Pop-Tart.  

“Louis,” Eleanor says, tugging on his shirt. “The tie?” 

“What tie?” Louis says, screwing up his face to do an elaborate confused expression.  

Eleanor kicks his shoe. “For prom.”  

“I have to wear a tie for prom? Liam told me I could get away with a bandana.”  

Eleanor looks less than amused. For some reason, she doesn’t find Louis quite as funny as Harry and the girls do. 

“So you didn’t get it?”  

“Harry and I are going next weekend.”  

Eleanor sighs, like Louis is a bumbling idiot that she has to contend with. “What if you can’t find the right color?”  

“Then I guess the world will end, huh, El?” 

Louis knows he’s being a smart ass, but he’s so fucking tired of hearing about prom. If he never heard the word prom again, it would be too soon. Unfortunately for him, prom hasn’t even happened yet. 

“You don’t have to be an asshole,” Eleanor snaps. “I’m just trying to make this a good time for us.”  

Her face twists into a scowl, but beneath the anger Louis can see the hurt.  

Louis tries to look penitent and wraps an arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know, baby.”  

Eleanor sighs. “Just get the tie.”  

“I will. I promise.”  

Louis is saved from further discussion of the tie situation by the warning bell signaling there’s only five minutes until homeroom. He gives her a last squeeze before they split up.  

Louis, Eleanor, and Harry all have health last period health together and today there’s a guest speaker.  

Up until last year, the general theme of health class was saying no. Say no to drugs, say no to alcohol, say no to peer pressure, say no to sex. Classes revolved around filling out worksheets and listening to testimonials from people who hadn’t said no and ended up with lung cancer or Hepatitis C or cirrhosis or some equally incurable disease that would probably kill them.  

Then, last year a tenth grader at their high school got pregnant with triplets and her mother called the school to complain. There wasn’t enough sex education at school, her mom said. It was the school’s fault she was pregnant with triplets and now had to drop out. If only they’d talked more about things, maybe she wouldn’t be doing online charter school while she bottle-fed three infants.  

According to Niall, whose mom was a guidance counselor at their school, there were a bunch of meetings about it over the summer and a lot of debates and finally they ended up adding some “seminar series” lectures for the students in eleventh and twelfth grade that focused on topics beyond abstinence.  

Today’s topic is safe sexual practices, and it’s being given by a guy called Erik if the name written on the board is anything to go by. He’s maybe thirty, with gelled hair and fashion glasses. His black slacks are extra slim-fit and there’s a pride sticker on his laptop. Under his name on the board, he’s written he/him/his in big chalk letters.  

He’s so obvious it makes Louis embarrassed for him. Doesn’t he know this isn’t the city? Nobody is this obvious around here. It sets Louis on edge, a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach because he just knows someone is going to say something.  

“He put pronouns on the board,” Katelyn, the student council treasurer, says. “This is going to be interesting.”  

A few kids around them laugh. Erik’s still rooting through his briefcase, obviously looking for something. He finds it and with flourish pulls out a huge wooden dick. It’s over a foot long and very erect.  

“Look at this cocksucker,” says Jared, a running back who has the approximate IQ of a flea. “Carries around an extra dick just to get off.” 

It’s quiet enough that the teacher doesn’t hear, but Jared’s cronies laugh. Louis glances at Harry whose entire face is burning under his curls. Of course he heard it too. Louis wishes he could crawl under his seat and die because he knows the class is only going to get worse from here. 

“Anyone want to tell me what I’ve got here?” Erik asks, gesturing to the dick. It’s probably supposed to be a joke, but it’s pathetically humiliating. 

Ellie, a skinny girl in the front who got skipped like three grades and is supposed to still be in middle school shoots her hand in the air. “A penis,” she decares when she’s called on.  

“Right!” Erik agrees happily. "Bonus point!" Where the fuck did this guy come from?  

From his briefcase, Erik grabs a box of condoms and pulls one out, explaining how condoms can prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.  

“Does anyone want to try putting the condom on?” Erik asks, holding up the fake wooden dick.  

Louis wonders if the point of this exercise is to make sex seem so embarrassing and unappealing that they never ever have it.  

Predictably, nobody raises their hand. “Anyone?” Erik asks again, invariably cheerful.  

When there’s no response, Mrs. Simmons is forced to look up from playing Candy Crush on her phone. “C’mon guys. If no one volunteers, I’ll have to pick someone.” 

There still aren’t any takers, so she scans the room, eyes settling on Louis’ table. Not me, Louis thinks, please not me. He already gets the stupid gay jokes, if he has to play with the fake dick it’s just going to get worse.  

“Eleanor,” Mrs. Simmons says. “Why don’t you try?” 

Eleanor shoots Louis a glance that very clearly says I can’t believe this is happening. She gets up, pulling her jean skirt down and heads to the front of the classroom where Erik is smiling at her like she personally volunteered. As Erik instructs her on checking the expiration date and opening the condom, kids around the room snicker and cover grins with their hands.  

“Hey Tommo, bet this ain’t new for her, huh?” Jared, the idiot football player from earlier jokes. “She’s gotta be an old pro by now.”  

His buddy Aiden mimes giving a blowjob and they both crack up as if it’s the funniest thing anyone’s ever done.  

“Fuck off,” Louis hisses because he’s fucking done with the two of them.  

“Language, Tomlinson,” Jared says, wagging his finger. “Don’t know what you’re so mad about.”  

By now, Eleanor’s got the condom on the dick and Erik’s started talking about the importance of keeping it on for the entire time. Her cheeks are flushed, but not as red as Louis is sure he is.  

“He probably knows she wishes his dick was even half the size of that one,” Aiden says.  

This time, it must be slightly too loud because Mrs. Simmons looks back at them. “Guys, this is important. Pay attention.”  

Aiden and Jared nod emphatically, resembling bobbleheads.  Louis glares down at his desk. He looks over at Harry, but he’s paging through his textbook like it’s the most interesting thing ever.  

Eleanor’s finally done and Erik thanks her before letting her go back to her seat. She catches Louis’ gaze and rolls her eyes, as if to say that was so stupid. Louis nods and shrugs in a what can you do way.  

Louis' turned back to the front when he feels his phone buzz inside his shorts pocket. Surreptitiously, he pulls his phone out and balances it on his lap.  

Eleanor: at least it was good practice 😉  

Louis’ stomach hops on a pogo stick and bounces all the way up to his throat. He stares down at the message, trying to think of a smart response before just reacting with a haha.   

The thing is, Louis and Eleanor haven’t had sex yet. They haven’t exactly left room for Jesus either, but they’ve never gotten to point they’d need a condom. Which is okay with him because Louis has this fear in the back of his mind that they’ll go to do it and he won’t be able to get it up and then that will mean something.  

It’s not that Louis never gets hard when they make out. He does, but he’s also seventeen. Mowing the fucking lawn can get him hard so it doesn’t really mean anything. Maybe he’d be more reassured if he knew it was Eleanor getting him hard, but a lot of the time it’s just the physical sensation of someone rubbing against him. Sometimes things flash in his brain – hair, eyes, a happy trail leading down – but they’re not specifically things Eleanor has.  

He’s tried thinking of Eleanor when he jerks off, just as a test, but the results haven’t exactly been reassuring. It always starts off okay, but before long he’s distracted and thinking about porn or big hands on his dick or – stuff. Other stuff. Stuff he’s not thinking about anymore.  

And so when Eleanor told him that her parents were going away for the weekend, he told her he had to watch the twins. When he invites her over, he always makes sure someone (ideally multiple someones) is home. It can’t go on forever, though. At some point, he’s going to have to commit because otherwise Eleanor’s going to catch wind that something funny is going on because what seventeen-year-old boy doesn’t want to have sex with his girlfriend? 

Here’s the other thing: prom would be the perfect night to seal the deal something Louis is keenly aware of.  

 After dinner, Louis goes over to Harry’s house to “study.” That’s what he tells his mom at least, and she smiles and waves him along like she doesn’t know that study is code for hang out and do nothing.  

There’s a path through the woods that Louis and Harry made as kids running back between their houses. It’s not wide, but Louis has used it so many times over the years he knows it by heart. Midway between both their houses, they carved their initials into the biggest oak they could find one hot summer day. Louis always likes to touch them for good luck. 

The door is open because the Styles never leave it locked when they’re home during the day. Anne, still finishing up the dinner dishes, shoos Louis upstairs. Harry’s room is the first on the left, right next to Gemma’s. They have one of those Jack and Jill style bathrooms to share, and Louis’ always been jealous of them for it because he has to share a single tub with everyone.  

Harry’s on his bed, MarioKart cued up on the TV he got when his parents decided to buy a bigger one from the living room. Harry and Louis play MarioKart a lot because it doesn’t require much thought, and they’re about equal ability, so it’s always a toss-up who will win. They’re only a game in when Louis’ phone buzzes, followed in quick succession by two more buzzes.  

“Is that Eleanor?” Harry asks, not looking up from the game.  

“Probably,” Louis says without checking.  

Louis isn’t exactly Mr. Popularity. He has friends, but generally the only people who text him other than his family are Harry and Eleanor.  

“Aren’t you going to check?” 

Louis shrugs and takes the turn too sharply and ends up in the green area beside the track. They’ve got three races left in this cup. “In a sec.” 

He glances over at Harry just in time to see the smirk on his face. It’s only there for a second before evaporating as quickly as it came.  

Harry’s always taken a perverse sort of pleasure in Louis being a shitty boyfriend. Harry’s all girl power and feminism and don’t objectify women, so you’d think he’d want Louis to treat Eleanor well. Except he doesn’t, for reasons that are both as unspeakable as they are obvious. Louis can’t say he’s much better, though, because there’s a distinct part of him that likes that Harry likes that he’s a bad boyfriend which is probably equally perverse.  

“Was she mad about the tie?”  

“Obviously,” Louis says. “Because obviously it’s the most important thing ever that the tie be the exact shade of green as her dress.”  

Harry giggles and elbows Louis and he almost falls off a toadstool he’s hopping on. 

When they finish the cup – Louis in second, Harry in third, and fucking Peach in first – Harry flops back on the bed letting his hair fall over his eyes. When he doesn’t say anything for a couple of moments, Louis lays down on his stomach beside him and pokes Harry right where his dimple would be if he was smiling.  

“Haz? You good?” 

Harry hums, which isn’t a no but also isn’t a yes.  

“Torn up over your loss in the Sunflower Cup? Real upset losing to Princess Peach.” 

Harry barely laughs which is how Louis knows something is bothering him. Harry always laughs at Louis’ jokes, even when they’re not funny. It's probably why they're best friends. 

Louis tugs on one of Harry’s curls. He’s been growing them out for the past year, and they’re finally the perfect length for Louis to tug on. “You know you can tell me whatever, right?” 

Harry sighs and doesn’t look at Louis. His eyes are fixed on the glow-in-the-dark stars Anne glued to his ceiling after his dad left to try and cheer him up. They’d attempted constellations but had given up after the Big Dipper.  

“Sometimes things just feel wrong,” Harry says. “Like they’re supposed to fit and they kind of do, but they kind of don’t, you know?” 

Louis doesn’t really know, to be honest. “Uhh.” 

Which must not be the right response because Harry shifts away from Louis and turns on his side so he’s facing the wall.  

“Never mind. I know I’m not making any sense.”  

Harry looks small, curled in on himself. He passed Louis in height a while ago, but tonight you wouldn’t know it. Louis reaches out hesitantly and puts a hand on his back. When Harry doesn’t pull away, he rubs his back through his thin T-shirt, feeling the outline of his scapula. “What things?” 

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “Fuck, just things. I don’t know.” 

Louis keeps rubbing his back, gentle circles. It’s the way he rubs his sisters’ backs after they have a nightmare. Harry’s still tense though, his muscles taught under Louis' hand. 

“Is this about prom?” 

“Kind of.” 

“Yeah?” 

Louis doesn’t say anything more, trying to leave space in case Harry wants to fill it in. In the quiet, he can hear the TV downstairs where Robin’s watching the news and Gemma in the room over playing music quietly.  

“I don’t want to go,” Harry admits. “Not like this. It’s supposed to be fun, I know, but it just doesn’t feel right.” 

Louis doesn’t say that he’s not excited either. He doesn’t need to because Harry knows him better than just about anyone except his mom.  

“It’s just one night, Haz,” Louis says. “Just one night.” 

Louis feels the way Harry’s lungs expand and contract when he sighs. There’s a hitch at the end, like he can’t get all the air out.  “Yeah,” he says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.  

Last summer, after Mark packed up his old pickup with most of his shit and moved to the next county over, Louis found a couple of bottles of whiskey he left in the top cupboard. They must have been part of a secret stash Mark hid from his mom when she thought he was doing the whole sobriety thing. Louis, never one to pass up a good opportunity, stashed them under his bed for the perfect time.  

The perfect time turned out to be August, when Robin and Anne went to move Gemma into her dorm. Harry was supposed to go, but he ended up staying because someone needed to take care of Dusty and make sure Anne’s tomatoes didn’t shrivel up. That’s what he said at least, but Louis knew a part of him was just too torn up over Gemma leaving.  

They left at 8 AM on a Friday, car filled to the brim with all of Gemma’s stuff, and half an hour later Harry showed up at the Tomlinson’s looking like something the cat dragged in. He was still in his pajama pants, and his feet were stuffed into his tenners without socks. He’d very obviously been crying, something they all resolutely ignored as Jay made pancakes for the lot of them.  

They spent the whole day moping around Louis' house, not doing much of anything. The girls tried to drag them into their games, but Harry was still stuck in his funk, and Louis felt obliged to keep him company. Harry stayed for dinner and when he trudged back afterwards, Louis went with him, the whiskey tucked in his backpack.  

Neither of them drank a lot. Sometimes they went to parties in fields or empty barns or abandoned houses and sipped beers, wandering the periphery. They were well-liked enough that no one questioned their presence, but not popular enough that anyone actually cared they were there.  

Louis remembers the pleasant fuzzy feeling the alcohol gave him, like someone had taken a weight off his shoulders. Everything felt softer than usual, like it was made of marshmallow fluff. Harry seemed funnier and Louis couldn’t tell you what they talked about, just that they were both cracking up. At some point they migrated to Harry’s bedroom and ended up curled around each other on his bed.  

Harry was just starting to grow his hair out then, and Louis twisted his fingers in it.   

“Whatcha doin’?” Harry asked and Louis shrugged because what was he doing? 

“It’s pretty,” Louis said and even drunk he knew it was a weird thing to say. “You’re pretty.” 

Boys weren’t supposed to think other boys were pretty here. Pretty was supposed to be an insult, something you didn’t want to be.  

Except, maybe no one had told Harry that because a big grin split his face open. “Really?” 

“Course,” Louis said and at some point, his hand had gone from Harry’s hair to his cheek.  

Harry’s skin was soft because he’d gotten lucky and hadn’t had the acne Louis had to deal with. Louis touched the groove of his dimple, and Harry giggled, and it sent blood rushing down, down, down. Louis felt himself stiffening in his pants and it sent a jolt through him because since when did that happen because of Harry? 

If Louis was sober, maybe he would have stopped things right there.  Because, yeah, he and Harry were close, but there was close and then there was whatever they were doing now. Except, Louis wasn’t sober and the distance between them was closing and Harry’s cheeks were as flushed as Louis’ felt.  

Louis isn’t sure who closed the distance between them. Maybe they met in the middle, both somehow knowing what the other was thinking. Louis remembers thinking that Harry’s lips were soft, softer than his own had to be. Louis had a bad habit of biting his lips when he was nervous, and it left them crusty and peeling. Except, Harry didn’t seem to mind, not if the excited noises he was making were anything to go by.  

It went on for a while. Tongues got involved, and things started to get sloppy. Harry sucked on Louis’ upper lip, and Louis twisted an arm around Harry’s neck, grabbing a fistful of his curls. Louis could feel Harry’s panting breaths against his neck as they came up for air. It wasn’t practiced, none of was, but that didn’t seem to matter to either of them.  

Maybe it would go on for hours longer, except at some point Harry tips forward, drunk and awkward, and his hand lands on Louis’ erection, now more than a little stiff. Harry jerks backwards as if shocked, eyes wide. Louis scrambles to a seated position, grabbing one of Harry’s pillows. It’s stupid, because Louis could tell Harry’s tenting his pants as much as he is, but somehow calling attention to their arousal had made the entire thing real.  

Harry yawned and stretched and Louis made excuses about having to get home even though he had been planning to stay over and not ten minutes later, Louis was tripping over tree roots as he walked back in the dark. Thankfully, his mom was already asleep, and he didn’t have to explain why he smelled like whiskey and Harry’s body spray and looked like he just made out with someone.  

Afterwards, they hadn’t talked about it. They hadn’t avoided each other either, though. They still hung out almost every day. The differences were subtle. In those first days, they never did anything alone. They took Louis’ sisters to the pool and helped Anne bake cookies for a new neighbor and went to the movies with Niall and Liam. By some unspoken agreement, they watched TV in Harry’s living room instead of his bedroom. It wasn’t distance, per se. It was more akin to holding themselves accountable.  

When school started up again and Niall heard from Zayn who heard from Amanda who heard from Sam that Eleanor thought Louis was cute, Harry was the one who encouraged Louis to ask her out. 

When Louis asks about taking the car on Saturday, his mom agrees right away. It’s not that he thought she’d refuse, but he expected her to make it a whole family affair or at least insist he take Lottie and Fizzy.  

“You’re getting so big,” she says, smoothing his fringe across his forehead. “My little boy, going to prom.” 

“Moooooom,” Louis whines, because really. He loves her and she’s his favorite person in the world, but does she have to be so sappy? 

“Don’t mom me, Louis Tomlinson,” Jay says, flicking his forehead with a finger. “I get to enjoy this.”  

Louis huffs because everyone is enjoying this way too fucking much. The only one not enjoying it seems to be him which isn’t fair at all. Well, him and Harry, but Louis can’t think about that too much.  

His mom counts out three twenties from her purse for the tie and presses them into his hand. Louis pushes them away. “I can pay.” 

“And so can I,” Jay says in a tone that leaves no room for argument.  

“Mom, I have money.”  

Louis knows things have been tight since Mark left last year. Hell, things were tight before that. His mom makes money, but six mouths stretch it thin. They always make it work, but there isn’t a whole lot of extra money left over.  

Jay regards him fondly. “Louis, baby, I don’t want you to worry about these things, okay? Buy the tie and get some food too, alright?” 

“Okay,” Louis says, tucking the bills into his wallet. She smiles at him and pulls him into a hug.  

“I love you.” 

Louis smiles into her shoulder. “Love you too, mom.”  

The mall is a mall in name only, a sad desolate shell of what it used to be when Louis’ mom was growing up. The parking lot is pock-marked full of potholes that could pass for sinkholes, they’re so big. There are only two anchor stores left – Rural King and a department store that’s barely hanging on. They fill up bags of free popcorn at the former before heading to the latter.  

They set out to find Harry’s suit first because it seems like a more pressing problem than Louis’ tie. The dress clothes are upstairs and there’s a whole prom display, long sparkly dresses across from dapper suits. Louis’ never been suit shopping in his life, the only ones he’s ever owned have been hand-me-downs from cousins, and it baffles him that there can be so many. Anne did Harry’s measurements before they left, though, so it gives them something to start with.  

They take over a handicapped fitting room because there’s two of them and Harry has long giraffe legs and what the hell, there’s like twenty people in the store – at least three quarters of them women – so what’s the likelihood any handicapped man is coming? It turns out they picked the wrong fitting room, though, because it immediately becomes clear that the fitting room two away is occupied by a couple who are trying on clothes together and gross.  

Louis hangs up Harry’s suits for him, then makes some excuse about going to find more options because he’s not going to stand there and awkwardly watchnotwatch Harry try on suits. That would be weird, nevermind that their moms used to bathe them in one tub, Gemma squeezed in too and take pictures to coo over. It’s different now, and Louis isn’t interested in looking too deeply into why it’s different now, thank you very much.  

When Louis gets back, the couple is making loud smooching noises and the girl is giggling and poor Harry is having to endure it alone. Harry’s in one corner, modeling in front of a mirror. He’s got on one of the slim-fit suits that outlines his silhouette really fucking well and, well. He looks hot. Definitely hotter than Louis will look in Mark’s hand-me-down suit.  

“You look good,” Louis says, trying to make it sound nonchalant and friendly.  

Harry shrugs, eyes glazed and long-suffering. “Did you get more?” he whines, sounding like a young child whose mom is forcing him to try on back-to-school clothes against his will.  

“Yep,” Louis says, offering up three new suits: one black, one blacker, and one a navy color that looks so black, it’s basically black.  

“How can there be so many suits that all look the same?” Harry asks and Louis shrugs.  

It surprises Louis a bit that Harry isn’t more into the suits. Of the two of them, Harry’s most definitely the more in tune with fashion. Louis is more of a joggers and t-shirts kind of guy, but he knows Harry secretly looks through Gemma’s fashion mags when she’s done with them.  

Harry hangs up the three new suits and pulls off his suit jacket, moving for his trousers and this is really too much.  

“I’ve got to pee,” Louis announces and slips out before Harry can take off anything else.  

It takes Louis nearly fifteen minutes to find the bathroom because the one on their floor is being cleaned and he has to go to another floor. It ends up being tucked in by the travel center – and who the fuck books trips at a department store in the twenty-first century – and is of course in use.  

By the time Louis gets back, Harry’s gone. He can’t have gone far, though, because his hoodie and tenners and about five-thousand suits are still in the fitting room. Louis spots him in the dress section, curly head rising above the clothes. He’s standing in front of a dress – maroon with tulle and lace and a tasteful slit up to the knee – hand wrapped in the fabric. His eyes are far, far away, and Louis feels like he’s intruding on a moment he’s not supposed to see, but Louis already went to the bathroom. He can’t possibly make up another task to go and do.  

“Harry?” Louis says softly. “Haz?” 

Harry turns and seeing his eyes straight on physically hurts Louis. He’s not crying, but he’s almost there, with a sheen over the green of his irises that indicates unshed tears. And yeah, this day hasn’t been Louis’ absolute fucking favorite, but Harry just looks so done. 

Whatever Louis plans to say next is interrupted by a mother daughter duo moving in, carrying more dresses than Harry has suits.  

“Can you move?” the girl asks, frustrated, and Louis grabs Harry’s arm and drags him back to the dressing room, latching the door behind them.  

Harry rips off his suit jacket and lets it fall to the floor before kicking it into a pile with the other discarded suits. He collapses onto the bench seat in his t-shirt and suit pants, bending over so his face is in his hands. “Sorry,” he mumbles into his palm. “’M being weird.”  

“Don’t be,” Louis says. “You’re fine.” 

Except, Harry is obviously not fine, and Louis doesn’t really know what to do.  

Harry’s sensitive, which isn’t a bad thing so long as you don’t live in bum-fuck middle of nowhere with a bunch of neanderthals, which they do. Louis still remembers that one time in fifth grade when they were reading Old Yeller in school, and they got to the part where he died, and Harry just started bawling right in the middle of Mrs. Kaylor’s class.  

Somebody in the back row had started sniggering and pointing, and Harry’s face turned bright red. Louis remembers balling his fists under the desk as Mrs. Kaylor took Harry out into the hallway for a drink. The next day on the playground, Louis punched the kid so hard it broke his nose which led to Louis' first and only suspension. He didn’t regret it and not just because he got to skip school for two days. 

Louis only wishes this situation could be fixed that easily.  There’s no one to punch, and Louis isn’t even sure what the problem is. Except, Louis thinks he kind of does know because he knows Harry inside and out. All his little quirks and idiosyncrasies and the things that make him mad and sad and lost.  

“Haz,” Louis says in the voice he used last year when Lottie didn’t get picked for the cheer team. “Hey.” 

Harry’s face is screwed up, like he’s trying to push everything down. He doesn’t say anything.  

Louis pushes aside one of the suits Harry tried on so he can sit next to him on the bench. He still hoping that nobody comes in who’s handicapped and needs this changing room and sees their four feet here and wonders what the fuck they’re doing. 

They don’t say anything and for a long moment the world stretches like taffy. Harry rubs his nose, and Louis picks at a hang nail until it starts bleeding, and he’s forced to suck up the blood like a vampire. 

Maybe the silence would go on like that, except Louis has never been good at keeping quiet even when it would serve him to. Maybe especially when it would serve him to. 

“Do you like the dresses?” Louis asks. 

Harry shrugs, his shoulder bumping Louis’. “They’re pretty.”  

Which, yeah. Louis may not be an expert on women's fashion but having four baby sisters, he knows a pretty dress when he sees one. The girls would love those dresses.  

That’s not really what Louis’ asking though, and they both know it.  

Louis shifts so his forearm is pressed against Harry’s own. Not hard, but just there. If he’s going to ask this next part, he needs Harry to know the answer won’t scare him one bit.  

“Do you, like, ever wish you could wear one of them?” Louis’ voice cracks halfway through in a way it really should have stopped doing after middle school.  

The words hang in the air. Neither of them moves. There’s a shuffling in the changing room two over and the girl's giggle again and then a rustle, and Louis is pretty sure they’re full on making out now. Hopefully they’re only making out and there’s no naked bits involved, because Louis can’t survive that.  

“Not all the time,” Harry says finally, voice barely above a whisper. “Just, like, sometimes.” 

“Well, baby, you’ve got the figure for it,” Louis says, and it’s such a cheesy line Harry elbows him hard in the ribs.  

“Fuck off,” he says, but despite the words Louis can tell something in him has relaxed.  

Harry picks one of the suits seemingly at random. He doesn’t try them on again, just plucks one up from the floor and finds the matching pants. While Louis hangs up the others, he shuffles back into his jeans and hoodie. 

They make their way over to the tie section, and Louis pulls up the photo of Eleanor’s dress, and they try to match it to one of the ties. There are somehow literally a million ties in dark green, and they all look basically the same, yet none of them seem to match the dress. Then, Harry points out that the dress might be a different shade in person, and Louis decides to throw in the towel. He finds one on the discount rack that’s mostly green with blue squiggles for $10.  

Afterwards, they walk around the mall a bit. Most of the stores have gone out, giving the mall the appearance of a toothless smile. Metal grates are pulled down to block out the eerily empty stores. Other stores have been replaced with things that really don’t belong in a mall – someone turned the old Forever 21 into a kickboxing gym and possibly more disconcertingly, the Justice Louis’ mom used to take Lottie to when she was little is now the new headquarters for the county Republicans.  

The food court is similarly empty except for a Chick-fil-A and a pizza stall. It’s Sunday so Louis and Harry order slices and cokes. If Louis were with Eleanor, he’d pay and she’d let him. Louis’ not with Eleanor, though, and it’d be weird for him to pay for Harry’s pizza. Not that he even wants to pay for Harry’s pizza, it’s just something he’s thinking about.  

It turns out the pizza is really cardboard covered in cheese cosplaying as pizza, but they’re teenagers so they wolf it down anyway. They don’t talk as they eat, and they don’t talk in the car either. Or, they do talk, but not about anything that matters. 

They’ve turned off the highway and have about fifteen miles on a country road before they get to Harry’s driveway when Harry says, “Louis?” 

“Yeah, Haz?” 

“Do you think I’m weird?” 

“Obviously.”  

“I’m serious.” Louis can hear the eye roll in his voice without even having to take his eyes off the road.  

“You’re seriously one of the weirdest people I know.” 

“Can you be serious for once?” Harry asks because apparently serious is their new favorite word.  

Louis sighs and tightens his grip on the steering wheel to take a turn. The last rays of the sun are fading over the horizon. He can see miles and miles, it’s so flat. He can probably see to the next county over. Maybe the next state over. 

“I think there’s probably a reason we’re friends,” Louis says finally.  

“Yeah?” 

Louis thinks about how last year the youth group brought in this speaker to talk about the sanctity of marriage. It was supposed to be about chastity and keeping it in your pants but somehow veered into homosexuality. Louis can’t remember who excused himself first, but somehow, he and Harry both ended up in the bathroom, avoiding eye contact in the mirror.  

“We’re kind of similar, you know?” 

Louis chances a glance over at Harry. He’s smiling a small, relieved smile.  

“Are we?” Harry asks. Louis hears the unspoken, please, say it, please.  

Louis’ never had the urge to grow his hair long or wear a dress. He’s always felt at home in his body. But, if he’s honest with himself, he knows he wants things that this town can’t give him. Things that aren’t a picket fence, Eleanor in the kitchen cooking dinner, and a brood of children watching TV in the den.  

(Or, possibly more frighteningly, Louis does want those things. He just doesn’t want them with someone with Eleanor’s curves and softness.) 

“Yeah, Harry.” 

Louis expects saying it to send off alarms. He’s waiting for a wave of fear. Instead, something in the car relaxes. Harry shifts beside him, sinking deeper into the passenger seat. It all feels so fucking natural.  

When they get to Harry’s house, he leans in to give Louis a hug over the center console. The car is dark, and Louis can feel Harry’s curls against his neck and his breath on his cheek. He feels like something is buzzing down to his toes, up his nerves, right to his heart. Even after Harry gets out and goes inside and Louis goes home and hugs his mom and brushes his teeth, he can still feel the buzzing.  

When Louis gets up on Sunday morning, Lottie is waiting to pounce. 

“Louiiiiiiiiiis,” she yells. “I need you!” 

“Don’t tell me there’s another one of those furry bugs in the bathroom?” 

“NO!” Lottie says, wriggling as if just mentioning them grosses her out. “I hate those things!”  

They are, in fact, not Louis’ favorite animal either but being the only guy in the house, the duty of getting rid of them always falls to him.  

“I have a project due tomorrow, and I really really need a poster. Please, please, please! You’ll be my favorite brother forever,” Lottie says, giving him her best little sister angel eyes.  

“I’m not already your favorite brother?” 

Lottie sticks out her lip in a pout. “Not yet, but you could be.”  

Which is silly and stupid because Louis is her only brother and warrants retaliation, so Louis throws a couch pillow at her. Needless to say, twenty minutes later they’re in the car on their way to CVS to get Lottie’s posterboard.   

Lottie takes about five seconds to find a neon yellow poster board and then beelines for the makeup section because she needs new mascara right now.  

“You don’t need any of this shit, Lottie,” Louis protests as she compares dark brown to medium brown mascara. They both look about the same to him for God’s sake.  

“I’m telling mom you said shit,” Lottie announces without looking up.  

“Sure, tell her. I’ll tell her you called Mr. Simmons a dickhead yesterday morning.” 

“Mr. Simmons is a dickhead, Lou. You had him too.” 

Lottie chooses normal brown and moves on to lip gloss. There are even more colors of lip gloss then there are mascara, and Louis wanders down the aisle, knowing trying to rush his sister will be futile.  

He ends up in front of the nail polish. His mom keeps a huge box of nail polish that they all share at home. Last summer, when the girls were despondent over Mark leaving, Louis let them paint his nails because he knew it would make them smile. They picked traffic cone orange, and he kept it on for a week before he took it off just because it made them happy.  

Today, Louis’ eyes are drawn to a color in the middle of the rack, a dark maroon that’s almost the exact shade of the dress he and Harry were looking at last night. The one that Harry liked. Louis picks up the nail polish. It’s a good brand, nicer than the ones they have at home. Almost $12 for a little baby container.  

Louis is halfway to the register before he really thinks about what he’s doing. 

When they were little, Gemma used to paint Harry’s nails sometimes. He’d come over to the Tomlinson’s with blue or pink or silver sparkle nail polish, happy to show them off. Gemma was little then too, and there was almost as much polish on his skin as his nails. That was a long time ago, though. Louis hasn’t seen him so much as look at nail polish since, like, second grade.  

It’s probably stupid, but Louis wants to make Harry’s eyes light up like that again. He remembers the glimmer that flashed in Harry’s eyes just for a moment yesterday when they were looking at those dresses and he wants to bottle and nurture it.  

Stop being weird, a voice is saying, but for once Louis doesn’t listen. He’s thankful they put in self-checkout a couple of months ago because it means he doesn’t have to face the middle-aged cashier.  

“Is that for El?” Lottie asks when she spots the nail polish on the drive back. “It’s pretty.” 

Louis clenches the steering wheel harder and takes the turn a bit too sharply. “It’s a good color.” 

Eleanor: 

Missing you <3  

Did you get the tie?  

Yep! :) 

Send a pic! 

tmrw

pleaaasssee  

It's downstairs :( 

I’m in bed 

Ok  

Eleanor doesn’t like the tie. Of fucking course Eleanor doesn’t like the tie.  

She doesn’t come out and say it because she’s not a bitch, but Louis sees it in the way she purses her lips and raises her eyebrows.  

“That’s... interesting,” Eleanor says.  “But Louis, I thought you were going to pick a solid color.”  

Louis smooths out the tie in question. He brought it to school to show Eleanor in person, and it’s slightly wrinkled from being stuffed in his backpack. That’s okay, though, he’ll just get his mom to iron it before the dance.  

“I thought this one would look better,” Louis says. “It’s more fun, you know?” 

“It is pretty fun,” Harry supplies helpfully. He grabs the tie from Louis and holds it up to his own chest like he’s planning on wearing it with his sweatshirt. “Super fun.” 

When Louis told Harry he was going to show Eleanor the tie, Harry insisted he wanted to see her reaction. Louis, knowing moral support might be required, was all too happy to agree. 

Eleanor sighs and squeezes the bridge of her nose. “It is fun. I just thought we were going for something a little more serious. Maybe something solid.” 

Louis shrugs. “Well, I got the tie, didn’t I? Isn’t that what you wanted?” 

Louis knows he sounds like an asshole and wishes he didn’t, but he can’t seem to help it.  

“Were there other options?” Eleanor asks even though she has to know there were.  

“This one was on clearance,” Harry supplies unhelpfully because he’s evil. Louis steps on his shoe. “It was eighty percent off.”  

Eleanor turns on Louis. “Did you just pick the cheapest one?”  

“Noooo,” Louis says, which isn’t a lie. There was one with pink flamingos and palm trees that was half the price. 

He glares at Harry because could he be a little more helpful? Harry shrugs, all faux innocence but looks too smug for Louis to believe it.  

“Whatever,” Eleanor says. “Whatever, Louis. I’ve got to get to math.” 

She strides off, not waiting for either of them even though they both have classes in B wing with her.  

“Fat lot of help you were,” Louis says, elbowing Harry in the side.  

Harry shrugs. “I think it’s a cool tie,” he says, handing it back to Louis.  

The thing is, Louis isn’t totally unaware of the line he’s walking. He has an idea of where the path he and Harry are following is leading even if it’s grainy and unfocused. And then there’s Eleanor, clinging to his arm and waving from the sidelines. Eleanor, his girlfriend. Eleanor, who he’s supposed to love.  Maybe once he loved the idea of her, with her sweet smiles and easy giggles and brown curls.  Maybe he loved the idea of who he could be with her, a normal guy with a normal girlfriend who didn’t stay up half the night worrying about things he couldn’t even say out loud.  

So, yeah, he knows, and he knows he needs to do something about it, that he can’t exist in the margins and creases forever. The right thing – the thing anyone with any sense would tell him to do – is to stop messing with Harry.  He has Eleanor and he has prom in less than a week and if there was a worse time to poke shit better left alone, Louis can’t think of it.  

But, also, there’s Harry. Harry, who laughs at Louis' jokes and leans his head on Louis’ shoulder when they watch movies and swings Louis’ sisters around until they can’t stop laughing. Harry, whose touch simultaneously feels intoxicating and comforting, exhilarating and stable.  

It’s too much, so Louis keeps ignoring it, but it all keeps not going away. Louis is starting to realize that maybe it never will, because it’s not really about Eleanor or even Harry. It’s about who Louis is.  

Louis has the nail polish in his backpack for three days before he gives it to Harry. He keeps chickening out because what if he’s wrong? What if Louis is so off base, he’s not even in the Milky Way anymore?  

Logically, he knows Harry wouldn’t be mad. Even if Harry had no desire whatsoever to wear nail polish, he wouldn’t make Louis feel silly or stupid or worse, weird. He’d do the thing Louis does every year when his grandma gives him some misshapen knitted item two sizes too large: smile and nod and say how thoughtful it was and then hide it in the back of his closet, never to emerge.  

Except, Louis doesn’t want to be wrong. He wants to know Harry, all the parts other people don’t see. He wants to give Harry something he wants but would never buy for himself. He’s going to give it to Harry – really he is – he's just waiting for the right time.  

The right time happens to be Wednesday afternoon when they’re in Harry’s basement doing all the homework they’ve been procrastinating on. Louis is writing notes on The Scarlet Letter because his teacher wants ten pages by Friday. Since Louis has read exactly two pages of the actual book, he has SparkNotes pulled up on his phone. The longer he writes, the larger his handwriting gets, but he’s still only on page three when his pen dries up. 

Louis rifles in his backpack looking for another pen and then he spots the nail polish wedged in by his graphing calculator. Well, now is as good a time as any.  

“Hazza?” 

“Yeah?” Harry says, not looking up. His English class is somehow reading The Catcher in the Rye, which is objectively an easier book because it wasn’t written a million years ago and they only have to do five pages of notes. 

“I, uh, got you something?” Louis says, and it comes out more like a question.  

“Can I eat it?” Harry asks because they’re both hungry, and Anne needs to go to the grocery store, so there’s literally no good food in the Styles household. All they could find was one measly single serving bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. Harry opens his mouth and pretends to chew noisily. 

“Not if you don’t want me to have to call the poison control hotline.”  

When Louis doesn’t immediately produce anything, Harry raises an eyebrow. “Louiiiiis, I want my gift,” he whines.  

“So impatient. You literally didn’t know about it a minute ago,” Louis says. “Maybe I won’t give it to you.” 

Harry pokes Louis in the knee. “Stop being mean.”  

“Okay,” Louis says. “Close your eyes.” 

Harry’s eyelids flutter closed. Louis has never paid attention before, but Harry has long eyelashes, like a girl. They’re pretty.  

“Don’t get mad,” Louis says and places the nail polish on Harry’s palm.  

Harry blinks his eyes open and stares down at the nail polish. He wraps his fingers around the top and runs his thumb down the side. Louis can’t read his expression. It’s not mad, but it’s also not happy exactly. It’s vulnerable, like Louis just cut out part of Harry’s heart and is holding it out to him, see look what I found?  

“I was at CVS with Lottie,” Louis explains to swallow the silence. “And I saw it and I thought it looked like, you know, that dress at the mall. And I thought it was a good color, you know? And maybe it was something you’d like.”  

Harry doesn’t say anything, just keeps stroking the nail polish. Upstairs, Louis hears Gemma playing music in the kitchen, rustling around, probably realizing that they don’t have any snacks.  

“But it’s okay if I’m, like, way off base, you know?” Louis says because Harry isn’t giving him anything. “We can just totally forget about this.”  

Louis has to bite his tongue to keep from saying you know? again because that’s apparently how he ends every sentence now.  

“Um, no,” Harry says haltingly, still not looking at Louis.  

“No like you don’t want it or no like we shouldn’t forget it?  

“Uh, that,” Harry says. “Second one, Lou.” 

Harry looks up to meet Louis’ eyes. He looks scared, but also happy underneath it all. It makes Louis’ heart do that little excited dance it likes to do around Harry.  

“Cool,” Louis says. “I think you’d look really good with your nails painted.” 

“Really?” Harry asks skeptically. 

“Yeah, really.” 

Harry gives him a half smile, and Louis tugs on one of his curls. “Totally badass, Haz.” 

Harry rolls his eyes and nudges Louis. “Don’t know about thaaaat.” 

It would be totally badass, though. Guys around here don’t paint their nails. Maybe in New York or LA they do, but they’re thousands of miles from either. There was some goth kid who used to paint his nails all black when they were freshmen, and he was picked on relentlessly for being gay even though he had an equally goth girlfriend. It takes serious bravery to do that.  

“You don’t believe me? I’m wounded.”  

Harry laughs and pokes Louis in the stomach, hard. Louis wants to grab Harry’s fucking dimple, but settles instead for pinching his upper arm. Harry eases up on Louis abdomen, letting his palm rest flat on Louis’ stomach. In turn, Louis lets go of Harry’s arm and slowly, so slowly, wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulder.  

“Lou?” Harry asks, looking down so he doesn’t have to make eye contact. 

“Yeah?” 

Harry traces a design into Louis shirt, the straight lines of an H followed by the curves of an S. “Do you think about that thing?” 

“What thing?” Louis asks, even though he’s pretty sure he knows what thing Harry is talking about. 

“The thing from last summer,” Harry says. “The thing we did.” 

Harry has always been the braver of the two of them. He was the first to jump off the high dive and the one always convincing Louis to go on the upside-down rides at the carnival even though he knew he’d puke after. He sings at the school talent show every year, and Louis’ hands shake just watching him. Harry has always been brave, and Louis has always been a coward, so maybe it makes sense that he’s the one who had to bring it up.  

“Um,” Louis says, the words getting stopped somewhere around his epiglottis. “Um. Yeah.”   

“Oh,” Harry says very deliberately. “Okay. That’s cool.”  

He says it cautiously, like he might scare Louis away, and Louis can’t help but wonder if Harry expected him to deny it ever happened.  

Do you ever think about it? Louis wants to ask, except he knows the answer. Of course, Harry thinks about it. Of course, they both spent all year thinking about it and then freaking out because they were thinking about it too much and then forcing themselves not to think about it and then realizing that when you’re purposely not thinking about something it’s basically the same thing as thinking about it. 

The ball is in Louis’ court now. Harry did his part by bringing it up. If Louis wants something to happen, if he wants something to change, he has to do something.  

Louis shifts on the couch, reaching out to grab the bag of chips Harry brought down. In the process, he moves closer to Harry so that their thighs are almost on top of each other. He pops two chips in his mouth and while he’s swallowing realizes that his lips must taste like salt and vinegar.  

“I liked it,” Louis admits, turning to face Harry.  

Their faces are too close and also not close enough. Harry’s eyes are wide and green and Louis wants – well, Louis wants a lot of things, all of them with Harry. 

“Harry!” Gemma yells. “Harry!” 

The basement door bangs open, and Gemma clomps down the stairs loudly. Louis and Harry spring apart so there’s at least a cushion between them, and Louis starts stuffing chips in his mouth for plausible deniability.  

“Did you see the clicker?” Gemma asks, a hand on her hip. “I can’t find it anywhere and last I saw it was right by the TV.” 

Harry scratches behind his neck, cheeks pink. “Uh, no?” 

“Weren’t you watching something last night?” 

“Dunno?” Harry says. “I think Mom and Robin were watching something after.”  

Gemma sighs. “It’s always missing.”  

“Maybe it went out for a stroll,” Louis says. “Met a nice female clicker and now they’re on honeymoon.” 

Gemma laughs half-heartedly. “Haha.” 

She looks around as if the clicker might appear out of thin air. Her eyes zero in on the nail polish instead, and she picks it up. “Is this mom’s?”  

Panic flashes in Harry’s eyes and his face reddens. Harry might tell his sister most things, but this obviously isn’t one of them.  

“I bought it for Eleanor,” Louis says, like that explains why the nail polish is in Harry’s basement. “Thought she’d like the color.” 

Gemma hands the bottle back to Louis. “Fancy. She’ll definitely like it.” 

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, glancing over at Harry.  

“I’d like it too,” Gemma says. “In case anyone is taking notes for what to give their favorite sister.” 

Gemma goes back upstairs, but the moment is ruined. The Eleanor of it all comes rushing back to Louis all at once. He was about to do something with Harry. Something that would be very much cheating on his girlfriend the week of fucking prom. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s a complete asshole.  

Louis hands the nail polish back to Harry, and he takes it wordlessly, stuffing it into his jeans' pockets. He’s embarrassed, though whether about the nail polish or the moment between them, Louis isn’t sure. Probably both.  

“’M gonna see if Gems needs help,” Harry says and Louis follows him upstairs, feeling like the air is suddenly heavy and dense.  

Louis forgot the fucking flowers. Of course, Louis forgot the fucking flowers.  

He doesn’t remember about the flowers until he’s standing in the lunch-line on Thursday, listening to two senior girls in front of him talk about prom and fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Louis freezes, hands clenched around his tray, heart beating fast. He must be there freaking out for a good minute because finally a scared-looking freshmen behind him has to poke him to move since he’s holding up the line.  

Thank God he and Eleanor don’t have the same lunch period because she’d surely read it all on his face. Mindlessly, Louis navigates to his usual table and takes a seat beside Oli wordlessly.  

“Alright, dude?” Oli asks, eating his mac and cheese with gusto.  

“Fine,” Louis says monotonously and Oli raises an eyebrow as if to say really, but he doesn’t push.  

Louis stuffs half his chicken sandwich into his mouth, then sneaks away to the bathroom to see if the only flower shop in town is still taking orders. It’s no luck though – they can’t have them ready until next Wednesday, which isn’t any use to Louis. Unless, of course, Eleanor murders him – which is a distinct possibility – and they can use them at his funeral.  

Louis returns to his lunch to see that Oli ate the other half of his chicken sandwich and only his smiley face shaped fries are left, laughing up at him. Fuck his life.  

Louis was already supposed to go over to Eleanor’s to study together, so he figures he’ll just tell her there instead of in the hallway where everyone will hear. It goes about as well as Louis expected, which is to say terribly.  

“What the hell, Louis?” Eleanor yells. “How could you forget the flowers?” 

Louis holds his hands out placatingly. “I’m so sorry, El. It just slipped my mind and now they aren’t taking orders anymore.” 

If anything, Eleanor just looks angrier now, face turning red up to the roots of her dark hair. “It just slipped your mind?” 

Obviously, that wasn’t the right thing to say. “There’s just been a lot going on, you know?” 

Louis could point out that the flowers really aren’t that important in the grand scheme of things, but he’s pretty sure that would just dig his hole deeper.  

Eleanor wipes away an angry tear that smuggles her mascara. She’s still sitting on her bed, pre-calc book limp in her lap. She scrubs at her eyes some more, before something in her face retracts, and Louis knows something is coming, and it’s probably not what he wants to hear.  

“If the flowers were for Harry, you would’ve remembered,” Eleanor says pointedly, crossing her arms over her chest, another tear tracing down her cheek.  

“What? I don’t even -” Louis starts, chest suddenly beating very fast. “That’s not -” 

Eleanor’s not done though. “You act like he’s your girlfriend, Louis! How can this work when you treat a friend better than me?” 

Louis wants to protest that it’s not true, but it kind of is true, which makes him feel like a huge asshole. Louis tries to grab Eleanor’s hand, but she jerks it away. “Eleanor -” 

“I think we should break up,” Eleanor says, not even worrying about wiping her tears anymore because there’s too many now.  

Louis should feel distraught and desperate; he should be protesting. Instead, he just feels like someone dropped him a lifeline. 

“Okay,” Louis says, and it’s quite obviously not the response Eleanor was intending.  

“Okay?” she says in disbelief. “Okay!?” 

“You’re the one who suggested it!” 

Eleanor is staring at him like she doesn’t know him anymore, and maybe Louis doesn’t know himself either. “I didn’t mean it.” 

“Then why did you say it?”  

“Because -” Eleanor starts and stops. “You know what, we’re done. I don’t even care anymore. I should have ended this months ago.”  

“El -”  

“Because obviously you don’t care.” 

“That’s not true,” Louis chokes out and it’s not a lie. He does care about Eleanor; it’s just that it’s never been enough.  

“Get out,” Eleanor says. “Go to prom with Harry for all I care. I don’t want to see you again.”  

Eleanor throws her pre-calc book down onto her bed and without another word goes to the bathroom and locks the door. Louis’ vision is blurry with tears as he stuffs his notebooks and mechanical pencils into his backpack on autopilot. Fuck, what has he done?  

He gives Eleanor’s room one last look before he shuts the door softly behind him. Outside, the sun has almost completely set, the last rays visible over the western horizon. Louis pulls his phone out of his pocket, but it’s completely dead. He had planned on getting a ride from Eleanor’s mom, but that’s not an option now.  

Eleanor lives in town in the exact opposite direction of Louis' house. It’ll be a long walk.  

By the time Louis gets home, it’s almost two. Any other night, the house would be dark but tonight the kitchen light is still on. Lottie opens the door before he can fumble for the key, wearing pajama pants and an old band T-shirt that was surely his once.  

“You’re dead,” she whispers. “So, so, so dead. Six feet under. What music do you want played at your funeral?” 

“Don’t care,” Louis says because it’s the middle of the night and he doesn’t have the energy right now for this. He kicks off his shoes at the door without untying them. 

Lottie must be able to tell that something is very, very wrong because she deflates.  

“Louis,” she says, grabbing his arm. “Are you okay?”  

“I don’t know,” Louis says, tugging free of her grasp. Except he does know, and he’s not okay.  

Before Lottie can ask any more questions, Jay rounds the corner, a fuzzy pink robe pulled over her pajamas. Some of the concern in her eyes fades when she sees Louis in one piece, but it’s quickly replaced with anger. “Lottie, go to bed.” 

“Moooom -” Lottie whines because she never knows when to press her luck.  

Jay gives her a soft push towards the stairs. “I said you could wait up for your brother, and you did. Now it’s time for bed because you have school tomorrow.” 

“So does Louis.” 

Their mom glares at Louis. “Your brother and I are going to have a talk and then he’s going to go to bed too.” 

Lottie sighs loudly in the way she perfected sometime since turning twelve but must realize further argument is futile because she trudges back upstairs. She shoots Louis one last glance, worry wrapped up in curiosity, and Louis knows he’ll have more explaining to do later.  

When Lottie’s gone, Jay turns to him. “Do you know what time it is?” 

Reflexively, Louis glances at the wall clock. Almost 2:10. “I’m sorry, mom -” 

“After two, Louis. On a school night!” His mom crosses her arms.  

“I know, okay?” Louis says. He’s acutely aware that he has school tomorrow where he’ll have to face Eleanor and Harry.  

“I was worried! Your sisters were worried, Louis. I barely got the twins to bed, and now Lottie’s up half the night.”  

“I’m sorry,” Louis says again and rubs his eyes because he doesn’t want to cry.  

The thing is, Louis doesn’t get in trouble often. He’s no star student, but he’s passing eleventh grade. He helps around the house without being asked and is always willing to watch the girls. Usually, he feels like he and his mom are a team – like it’s them against the world.   

“You have to tell me where you are, Louis,” his mom says. “I nearly called the hospital worried you’d been in an accident.” 

Louis winces, remembering the teens the town over who’d died two summers ago. Warm summer night on a pitch-black rural road, they’d missed a turn and gone over a ravine. The cops hadn’t found them until morning and by then there was nothing anybody could do.  

“My phone was dead,” Louis says, which isn’t a lie. It’d died before he even left Eleanor’s house.  

“You could’ve borrowed someone’s.” 

“Yeah, I should have,” Louis says even though there wasn’t anyone’s phone to borrow. What was he supposed to say, Hey Mrs. Calder, I know I just broke your daughter’s heart, but can I please borrow your cell phone so my mom doesn’t worry? “I messed up.” 

“You always text, Louis,” Jay says. “This isn’t like you. Is something going on?” 

Louis shrugs and blinks so that no tears come out. It’s not that he’s a baby that can’t take getting in trouble with mom, it’s just everything. “Not really.”   

His mom deflates and some of the anger leaves her. “Lou, if you tell me, I can help.” 

Louis wishes more than anything that his mom could help, but he’s not sure how. He just keeps fucking everything up and ruining everyone’s life. Maybe if she could go back in time and prevent herself from ever getting pregnant with him, it could make things better.  

“You can’t.” 

“Try me,” his mom says, grabbing his hand and that’s the last straw.  

“Fuck, mom, I’m a horrible person,” Louis says and promptly bursts into tears.  

Louis doesn’t think he’s cried in front of his mom since he was fourteen and broke his arm falling out of a tree, but he’s so fucked up he’s not even embarrassed.  

“Baby,” his mom says, and suddenly her arms are wrapped around him so tight it should be suffocating, except for some reason it’s not. “Don’t you dare say that.”  

“It’s true,” Louis chokes out against her shirt. It’s a nice shirt, and he’s getting it all gross and snotty, and he should move, but he’s positive she would just pull him right back. Anyway, he doesn’t really want to move. 

Jay rubs his back and presses a kiss to the side of his face, under his ear. “It’s not true,” she says, so confidently she could be saying the sky is blue.  

It should feel comforting that she has so much faith in him, but it just makes him feel gross, like maybe she misplaced all her love and kindness. “You don’t know what I did.” 

His mom grabs both sides of his head and pushes him back so she can see his face. “Did you murder someone?” 

“Of course not.” 

His mom smiles and strokes the side of his face. “See, everything else we can fix, okay?” 

Louis snorts. “Okay,” he says, but it comes out wet and blubbery.  

His mom leads him over to the table and makes him sit down like he’s a small child. “Let’s get you something to eat,” she says without asking if he’s hungry.  

She grabs the dinner leftovers – mac and cheese and broccoli – from the fridge and heats them up in the microwave. All the while, she tells him about Fizzy’s play rehearsal and the twins’ upcoming spelling bee and the pre-algebra test Lottie aced. It’s all so mundane and normal that Louis’ heart starts to slow, which is probably the point.  

Jay puts the food in front of Louis, and he finds that he is in fact hungry, somehow. It’s likely part of his teenage boy superpowers. His mom lets him eat half his plate before she grabs his hand from across the table. “Want to tell me what happened?” 

She phrases it like a question, but it’s also not a question. Louis’ mom is lovely and the best mom in the whole world, but she also doesn’t take shit from anyone.  

Louis isn’t sure where to start because it’s all a fucking mess in his head, so he just starts with the thing that just happened. “I broke up with Eleanor." 

It's not quite true, but it's true enough. Eleanor was the one who suggested it, but Louis was the one who meant it.  

His mom sucks in a breath. “Okay,” she says, her voice carefully neutral.  

Louis swallows down more mac and cheese. It slides down slowly and he’s worried for a second it will get caught, so he drinks a big gulp of water. “That’s all you’re going to say?” 

His mom huffs. “What do you want me to say, baby?” 

“I don’t know,” Louis says. “That I’m being stupid and horrible and probably breaking her heart. That I’m the biggest idiot ever. That this is a huge mistake.” 

“Is that what you think?”  

Louis shrugs. “Nobody’s asking me to join Mensa.”  

Jay shakes her head, expression still giving nothing away. “I mean, do you think you’re making a mistake?” 

Louis stares down at his plate. It would be easy to say yes. Maybe he could even convince Eleanor he had a brief psychotic episode, and she’d take him back. Maybe he could even call the flower place, and they’d be able to put an order together really quickly for prom if they heard this sob story.  

Except, Louis would still be Louis. It would still feel like trying to stick his left shoe on his right foot and there would still be the whole thing with Harry.  

“I think it was maybe a mistake getting together in the first place,” Louis says, and it fits like a puzzle piece sliding into place.  

“Baby,” Louis' mom says, rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb.  

“Mom,” Louis says, feeling his voice choke. “I think...I think I got with her for the - the wrong reasons.” 

Jay studies him like she can see through him, past his bones, down to the atoms that make up Louis’ every molecule.  

“Louis, you know you can tell me anything, right?” she says carefully, like she’s worried she might scare him off.  

It’s that opening. Louis has fucking seen that opening used before on TV shows, shows he totally watched because he was interested in the plot and not because he knew they had that storyline in them. He knows what it’s supposed to be leaving room for.  

She does too, Louis realizes. She knows.  

“Mom -” Louis starts but trails off. He’s pretty sure there’s still stupid macaroni stuck in his throat.  

Louis isn’t sure when she figured it out. Maybe it was when he was nine and wanted to marry Harry someday. Maybe it was when he was thirteen, and she found those magazines under his bed, the ones he was totally reading for the articles. Maybe it was when he was fifteen and she found him and Harry asleep in the same bed, curled around each other like puppies. Maybe it was all those times and every day in between. Maybe she just has magical mom powers.  

“Even if I killed someone?” Louis asks, trying to stall.  

“We’ve established already that you didn’t,” Jay says patiently. 

“Oh,” Louis says. “Right, yeah.” 

Louis can’t get the fucking words out. They just won’t come out and the seconds tick and it feels like when he gets called on in school and he isn’t paying attention and now he has to make up some bullshit for the class.  

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, baby,” his mom says so gently, and Louis isn’t sure why she’s being so nice to him when it’s nearly 3 AM on a school night and she has to get the girls off to school in four hours.  

It’s an out, but suddenly Louis doesn’t want to take it. He’s so tired of all this. Of being alone and pushing all the thoughts down and fencing them off and refusing to touch them. Of the space that hiding yourself puts between you and those you love. He just wants his mom to know and tell him it’s going to be alright like she did when he was six and fell off the swings and skinned his knee.  

“I think maybe it’s not just Eleanor, Mom. Like. Uh – you know,” Louis closes his eyes. “I don’t really think I like girls at all.” 

Louis still has his eyes closed, and he’s gripping the mac and cheese spoon so hard he’s worried he’s going to bend it. In his head, he’s counting one, two, three, four, five because he’s waiting for something to happen.  

He doesn’t have to wait long, though, because his mom wraps him in her arms, holding him like he’s still little. She smooths out his fringe, soft like she’s feeling for a fever. She presses a kiss to the side of his head, above his right ear. It’s the same way she kissed him half an hour ago, before she knew. “Shh, it’s okay. Nothing to cry about, love.” 

Louis hadn’t realized he was crying again, but he supposes that’s just the theme of the night. “Mom -” he starts and his voice comes out like a croak.  

His mom pulls back. She gently untangles his fingers from the spoon he’s still holding and takes his hand in hers. 

“I love you so much, Lou,” his mom says, rubbing the top of his hand. “Everything is going to be okay.” 

Something in Louis unclenches because even at seventeen hearing his mom say that makes him believe it a little more. “Did, uh,” he starts and forces the rest of the words out. “Did you know?”  

His mom sighs. “You just told me, baby.” 

“But you weren’t surprised,” Louis argues, wiping at the tear tracks on his face. “Right?” 

His mom looks like she’s deciding whether to say anything. “I wondered, sometimes. I never wanted to pressure you, love,” she says, squeezing his hand. “I didn’t mean for you to carry all of this on your own, though.” 

Hearing her say that, Louis wishes he’d told her earlier. Maybe if he came clean last summer, it wouldn’t have felt like an invisible elephant was sitting on his chest all year, just daring him to acknowledge it and all the while suffocating him. 

It’s another half hour before they shuffle off to bed, eyes bloodshot and drooping. Louis’ mom gives him a long hug and kisses him one last time. “We’ll talk about your punishment in the morning,” she says with a wink. 

Louis is about to collapse into bed in his clothes when he realizes that it’s already occupied. Lottie’s leaning against the headboard, head balanced on the stuffed duck Louis has had since he was four. Lottie blinks at him and smiles, and Louis realizes she heard.  

Louis knows she must have been waiting on the stairs because it’s what he would have done. It’s what he did do, all those nights Mark came home drunk, and his mom raised her voice. Sometimes Lottie’s too much like Louis for her own good.  

Wordlessly, Lottie wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. She comes up to his shoulders now, and Louis is reminded that she’s not a little kid anymore.  

“I’m sorry I worried you,” he says, petting the back of her hair.  

“Don’t be sorry,” Lottie says, his shirt muffling the words.  

“Did you hear what we were talking about?” Louis asks, even though he knows the answer. 

Lottie shrugs. “Some.”  

“Oh,” Louis says. 

“But if you wanted, I could pretend I didn’t,” Lottie offers generously. She’s still wrapped around him, arms not budging.  

“Uh,” Louis says. “You don’t have to.” 

He takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes. He feels kind of light-headed. Maybe it’s not the best idea to do this standing up. Hopefully, Lottie can catch him if needed.  

“So, I broke up with Eleanor,” Louis forces the next part out. “Um, I think I’m gay.” 

Lottie’s arms tighten around his middle. She doesn’t move back, doesn’t pull away. Louis is hyperaware of his heart pumping and the blood rushing in his ears. He’s never said it aloud before. He’s always avoided even thinking about it.  

“I thought she was kind of a bitch,” Lottie says.  

Louis giggles a bit hysterically and butts her head with his chin. “She wasn’t that bad.”  

“I like Harry better,” Lottie says slyly.  

“Oh my god, Lottie.”  

“Just saying,” Lottie says, pulling back to smile at Louis. “He’s hot.” 

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”  

Lottie sticks out her tongue. “Wasn’t it past your curfew?”  

Louis shrugs. “Extenuating circumstances.”  

Lottie's giggle turns into a large yawn, and she rubs her eyes. It’s enough to put Louis back into big brother mode.  

“Go to bed, Lotts. We’ve got to be on the bus in four hours.”  

It’s a testament to how tired she is that Lottie doesn’t protest. She just nods and gives his hand one last squeeze. “Love you.” 

“Love you too,” Louis says, and the elephant on his chest shrinks even more.  

Except Louis isn’t on the bus the next morning because his mom sends him back to bed when his alarm goes off at half past six. She gets Fizzy and the twins on the bus and by the time she wakes Louis and Lottie up at nine-thirty, she’s made pancakes and potatoes and bacon for them.  

Despite eating in the middle of the night, Louis is starving and eats two full plates. He washes it down with three glasses of water because his throat’s been dry since he woke up which he attributes to crying out half his body water last night. They don’t talk about Eleanor or Louis’ sexuality or prom which Louis is so grateful for, he could hug them both and never let go.  

After breakfast, his mom sends him and Lottie out to weed the garden and water the flowers. Louis mows the grass which takes two hours because Mark hauled away the riding mower when he left, but he doesn’t complain. Afterwards, his mom has him wash the car with the hose instead of taking it into town to the carwash. By the time he’s done, his mom has put together a late lunch of tomato sandwiches and Crystal Light lemonade. There’s going to be a delivery soon, so she’s needed at the hospital, but leaves Louis with a prepared casserole and instructions to put it in the oven at 350.  

Jay kisses the top of Louis’ head before she leaves, running a hand through his hair gently. “You’re a good boy, Lou.”  

Louis is not quite sure that's true, but he doesn’t correct her.  

When Fizzy and the twins arrive home from school, they have Harry in toe, shepherded between them like they're cattle dogs.  

“Look who we found!” Phoebe declares happily, like Harry is a rare gemstone and not someone they see every day.  

“He says maybe later he’ll play Barbies with us,” Daisy announces.  

“Or maybe Chutes and Ladders!” Phoebe suggests.  

“No, he’s going to help me with my math homework,” Fizzy says. “Right, Harry? Louis is no help. He sucks at math.” 

“Hey,” Louis says. “That’s not true.”  

He may be shit at whatever the fuck he's supposed to be learning in class right now, but he can absolutely help with whatever Fizzy is doing in fourth grade.  

“Is too.”  

“We can both help,” Harry says placatingly. “Two heads are better than one.” 

Fizzy seems assuaged by this, and she follows the twins to the pantry to search for an after-school snack which leaves Louis and Harry alone in the entryway.  

“The girls said you were sick?” Harry asks, sitting down to untie his shoes because he’s Harry, and he can’t just pull them off like everyone else. Maybe his shoes last a few more months because he doesn’t break the backs, big whoop. Secretly, Louis has always found it endearing though.  

Louis shrugs ambiguously which could mean yes, the girls said that or yes, I am sick. Harry stands up, now just in his Maruchan ramen socks Gemma bought him as a gift last year and reaches out to feel Louis’ forehead. His hand stays there longer than is strictly necessary to assess temperature, and Louis stands very still. He wonders if their proximity is going to artificially elevate his temperature.  

“You don’t feel warm,” Harry says skeptically. 

“Thanks, Dr. Styles,” Louis says, sighing in relief theatrically. “Do you think I’ll survive the night?”  

“Perhaps,” Harry says, grinning impishly, and it does something to the nerves in Louis’ body that a real doctor should probably investigate.  

There’s an intensity between them that wasn’t there before. Maybe it’s only on Louis’ end, but it feels like a live wire, fraying cords escaping the insulated covering. It’s as if before, when everything between him and Harry was merely hypothetical because of Eleanor, there was glass separating them and now it’s gone leaving an open window.  

“Um,” Louis says eloquently. He takes a half step back and starts to trip over Fizzy’s converse because with five kids there’s always shoes everywhere. Harry grabs his arm to steady him even though Louis is really okay and then he just doesn’t move his arm.  

“You didn’t text,” Harry says, but it’s not an accusation, just a statement.  

Louis’ phone is still in his room, as dead as it was last night. He thought about charging it, but if he charged it then he’d never be able to keep himself from looking at it, and he didn’t want to see what people were sending him.  He was – perhaps irrationally – worried that Eleanor had told people at school and now they all knew and were spamming him with texts.  

“Phone’s dead,” Louis says. 

“There’s this thing called a charger, Lou,” Harry says. “I can show you how to use it if you want.”  

Louis rolls his eyes.  

“I think I’ll be able to figure it out,” Louis says, picking at a hangnail. “Hey, um...did you talk to Eleanor today?” 

Harry shakes his head. “She wasn’t in health last period. I thought maybe you guys were, uh, together somewhere.”  

It’s a relief that Harry doesn’t know, but it’s also a disappointment. There’s a part of Louis that really wishes Harry already knew because that would mean he didn’t have to tell him, except now he does.  

“No,” Louis says abruptly. “We’re kind of not going to do that anymore.”  

Harry’s eyes widen and his Adam’s apple bobs. He tucks a wayward curl behind his ear. “You mean-?” he trails off, leaving room for Louis to finish.  

“Yeah. We broke up. For good, I mean.” 

Harry nods, processing it. He’s frowning which is what you’re supposed to do when your best friend breaks up with his girlfriend, but the frown doesn’t meet his eyes.  

“Shit, Lou, I’m sorry,” Harry says. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Louis says and realizes he means it. He feels more okay than he’s been in a long time, actually. “Uh-” 

Louis starts but finds the words are gone. He needs to tell Harry everything. He needs to fix things with Harry and see if maybe, just maybe, they can go back to that moment from last summer and make a different choice.  

“Yeah?” Harry says and he sounds...God, he sounds hopeful. That fucking does it, Louis needs to tell him.  

“Hey,” Louis says. “Can you show me how to use the charger in my room?” 

Harry’s looking at Louis like he might have actually lost his mind, but Louis definitely isn’t going to explain this all when he can hear his sisters digging through the pantry ten feet away.  

Harry follows Louis up to his room, and Louis shuts the door, grateful that as the only boy, he’s never had to share a room.  

Harry grabs Louis’ charger from off his desk. “So, here’s what you do.” 

Slowly, like Louis just time-traveled from 1846, he plugs the charger into the wall, then plugs Louis’ phone into the charger. “Tada!” 

“Amazing, Haz.”  

“I know,” Harry says smiling, and it sends a rush of heat through Louis gut. “I’m so cool.” 

“You are,” Louis says, and it comes out more genuine than he means it to. “Hey, can we talk?” 

Harry flops down on Louis’ bed. “’Course.” 

Louis sits down next to Harry and spreads his fingers out on his comforter. His heart is beating too fast and he wonders if Harry can hear. Why the fuck is he so nervous?   

“Uh, so I just need to say some things and if you don’t like them, we can just pretend I never said them, okay? In fact, maybe we should just do that either way. That’s probably better, actually -”  

“Louis,” Harry says firmly. “Say the things.”  

Louis rolls his eyes. “Stop being so impatient. I’m getting there.” 

“Okay,” Harry says, covering up a laugh. 

Louis finds a string on his comforter and tugs on it, watching the seam unravel. If he has to do this coming out thing anymore, he might need a new comforter.  

“I like you,” he says. “Like I want to make out with you and go on dates and shit that I was supposed to do with Eleanor. And I guess, I mean, I am gay so there’s that. And Eleanor and I broke up because of all this shit and I was a fucking terrible boyfriend so I don’t know why you’d ever want to do anything with me, but I just thought you should know because -”  

Louis is interrupted by Harry putting a hand over his mouth. “Oh my god, Lou.” 

Louis tries to say I thought you wanted me to say the things, but it comes out more like Umphumphumph because his lips have to move against Harry’s hand.  Louis could push Harry away if he really wanted to, but he doesn’t really want to.  

“Can I kiss you?” Harry asks and oh, look, Louis’ heart is in the wrong place again. Isn’t that a cool trick?  

Louis nods and Harry grins, happy and relieved and maybe a little hungry and then Harry Styles’ lips are on Louis’. Harry’s lips feel so much better then his hand.  

The last time they did this, they were both drunk, and it was soft with fuzzy edges and bleeding colors. Sober, it’s completely different – sharper and brighter and just overall more. It’s too much, but in a good way. Harry presses forward, tongue asking to enter Louis’ mouth and Louis lets him. Louis draws him even closer, looping his hand in Harry’s long curls and, fuck, Harry should never cut his hair ever again, it’s so soft.  

They both fall back on Louis bed, Harry half lying on top of Louis, legs tangled. Louis can feel the hard planes of Harry’s chest and legs, his dick digging into his thigh, already half-hard and it’s so fucking sexy it’s not even funny. Harry leans back to giggle breathily against Louis’ neck. “Really wanted this, Lou.” 

Louis arm is wrapped around Harry’s shoulder, and he gives it a tight squeeze. “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” 

“Just a bit,” Harry says and gives Louis’ neck an experimental lick like he’s surveying for a spot to put a hickey. “I told you to go out with Eleanor, so I guess it’s my fault too.” 

“Why did you do that?” Louis asks, moving his hand to the small of Harry’s back. 

Harry ducks his eyes. “Wanted things to stop being weird between us.” 

Louis thinks about the strange distance that sprung up between them after the kiss, the way they’d avoided being too close or too alone. At the time, it felt like protection. Now, Harry pressed against the length of Louis’ body, it just feels stupid.  

“’M sorry,” Louis says into Harry’s ear.  

“S’okay, Lou.”  

It’s not really okay, though, but then Harry juts a thigh between Louis’ legs and starts trying to give Louis a hickey, and Louis really stops caring.  

They have to stop before things go too far because Louis needs to go downstairs to throw the casserole in the oven. Lottie’s at the kitchen table, and she raises her eyebrows at Louis as soon as she sees him.  

“What were you and Harry doing?” Lottie asks innocently.  

Louis is sure his hair is sticking in twenty different directions, and his shirt and shorts are wrinkled, and probably Harry left a mark on his neck. He really doesn’t have much to say in his defense, so he just flips Lottie off.  

Harry’s still on Louis’ bed when he gets back, and Louis sidles in beside him. The twin really isn’t big enough for them both, but Louis is actually glad for that because it means they’re pressed so close together he can feel Harry’s heartbeat through his shirt.  

“Okay, Haz?” Louis asks because Harry’s got an expression on his face like he’s thinking about something hard.  

It scares Louis, because what if Harry’s realizing this whole thing was just a big mistake? That Louis is an idiot and an asshole, and he should really be running the exact opposite direction and find some guy who’s sensitive and emotionally intelligent and shit.   

“Uh,” Harry says. “If I tell you something, will you not freak out?” 

Louis pokes Harry in the stomach. “I know you like boys, Haz.”  

Harry giggles, but it’s tinged with nerves. “Something else. Um, you know the nail polish?” 

Louis nods, reaching out to tangle a hand in Harry’s curls. “Bet it looks beautiful.” 

Harry's cheeks flush a few more degrees. “It doesn’t bother you, right?” 

“’course not,” Louis says. “I got you it, didn’t I?” 

Harry nods, but he doesn’t look entirely convinced. “Harry?” 

“Just, don’t you want someone more, I don’t know, manly, Lou?” the words come out jumbled, tumbling over one another.  

“No.”  

“No?” Harry repeats.  

“I like you, Harold,” Louis says, the childhood nickname rolling off his tongue easily. “Just the way you are.”  

It feels so thrilling to finally be able to admit it out loud, not just to Harry but also to himself.  

Harry looks down at his feet. He twists his hands together. “What if I don’t know who I am?” 

Louis smiles. “I know who you are, Harry,” he says firmly. 

Harry looks like he might say more, but then he decides against it. Instead, he rests his head on Louis chest. Louis thinks about asking what Harry was going to tell him but decides against it. If it’s important, Harry will tell him someday when he’s ready. What matters right now is that they’re them, and they’re here together.  

(They’re too caught up in being them together that the casserole starts burning, and Lottie screams, and the smoke alarm goes off, and Louis needs to open the back door to let smoke out. Everything’s fine though because Louis just scrapes off the burnt part and bribes the girls with candy.) 

Louis doesn’t end up going to prom. Neither does Harry because Sarah called off their date as soon as she realized Louis and Eleanor weren’t together anymore. 

“Was she mad?” Louis asks, and Harry shakes his head. 

“I don’t think she wanted to go any more than we did,” he says and something in his voice tells Louis that there’s more to the story, but he doesn’t elaborate.  

Harry comes over instead, and Jay orders pizza, and they do a Spiderman movie marathon with the girls. Harry and Louis are sandwiched between the twins which Louis honestly can’t complain about because there’s something really nice about having his entire left side pressed up against Harry’s right. Jay brings them ice cream halfway through Far From Home, big fat scoops in the ceramic bowls she only pulls out for special occasions.  

Once the bowls are empty and stacked, Harry’s hand slides up by Louis' under their blanket, and Louis moves closer, and then Harry bites the bullet and entwines their hands completely and, well. It’s pretty cool.  

Maybe next year, when they’re seniors and the world has hopefully progressed one more year, they’ll go to prom together. Maybe Louis will get Harry flowers or Harry will get Louis flowers or they’ll both get each other flowers – that would be nice. Maybe Harry will wear the suit he bought or maybe he won’t. It doesn’t matter to Louis as long as they’re together.