Fake It Until You Make It Real

Six

I got my new monitor and I finished editing this and decided to post it.

Louis lasted all of two minutes under his mother's stare before he was trying to look busy. Usually if he looked busy, she'd leave and wouldn't stick around but not this time apparently.

"Who's Harry?" Louis froze only a second before he continued his organizing of children's books.

"Who?" He asked.

"Freddie mentioned him a lot over the weekend. Said you were getting married?"

"I am?" Louis asked trying to feign innocence, but he knew he failed when his mother didn't budge. "We've....discussed it."

"And I haven't even met this young man. Or heard about him."

"Fine. When we started discussing marriage, we decided it was time for him to meet Freddie. He has a daughter, and she doesn't know anything. We kept it a secret from everyone to see where it went. He's a doctor, works weird hours and we only see each other a few times a month. We've restricted ourselves to texting and the times when I don't have Freddie we see each other as much as we can." Louis said looking at her, she was sitting on the couch with her leg crossed over the other and her arms crossed across her chest.

"How long have you two been together?"

"Over a year." She narrowed her eyes at him, and he swallowed turning away chewing his lip as he focused on the books.

"Were you with him over the weekend?"

"I was. We...um..." Louis pressed his lips together tried to suppress a grin, "we looked at venues." He spoke quickly before he turned away and headed to the kitchen grabbed random objects just to misplace them somewhere else.

"Venues? Like Wedding Venues?" Louis nodded grabbing a napkin and cleaning off the dry erase board for the month. September was ending in a few days anyway, so he didn't need it anymore. "So, you're getting married to a man we haven't met yet?"

"I've met him. Freddie's met him." Louis tried to defend himself.

"Has Zayn met him?"

"No."

"Is he...a criminal?"

"I just said he's a doctor. He works weird and long hours. We're getting married January nineteenth." His mother stared at him, but he refused to back down as he looked back at her.

"Are you pregnant? Is this your way of tying someone down?" Louis' eyes widen and his jaw dropped before he laughed shaking his head.

"No. He proposed to me. I'm not pregnant this isn't like that." Louis said.

"Fine then tell me what this is like? You've been together for a year Louis...what if you don't like his personality in the morning...what if he treats Freddie badly after he gets comfortable...what if he traps you into a loveless marriage popping kids out...what if-" Louis sighed and headed to the table sitting down across from her as the sounds of Freddie playing with his train set could be heard. He grabbed his phone and opened the video of Harry and Freddie as they built that set then gave the phone to his mother.

Her eyes widen briefly when she saw him, and she looked at him making him roll his eyes. The video played and he could hear Freddie's consistent chattering and questions and Harry's calming voice answering his questions and telling him not to do something repeatedly. Harry's endless patience impressed Louis and his parenting style despite not having a child to parent all the time was also calming and nothing like Louis could have ever hoped for in a partner. He knew the moment his mother finally let some of her worries go, it was same moment he allowed himself to trust Harry with Freddie. Freddie had been jumping on Harry's lap only stopping a few seconds at a time when Harry told him to. Freddie was a toddler still however, so he chose to play over listen more often than not and as a result had ended up accidentally hitting Harry in the head with his own. Harry, unlike most people even parents themselves, Louis included sometimes, didn't even react except to calmly make sure Freddie was okay then set him on the ground beside him and told him to stay there or go play. Freddie had sat beside Harry without comment. Harry didn't look angry, didn't let the injury make him lash out, didn't even look to be annoyed at all. It was one of the many things that came with Toddlerhood unfortunately, Louis has had many bloody gums and lips because of Freddie. Later Harry had explained that he had many patients head butt him on the daily and Freddie's head wasn't as hard as a grown man's was. He had also been preparing for it and it wasn't that big of a deal. Injuries happen in the parenting journey and how the parent reacts can reflect on the child. Harry made Louis feel stupid and inadequate a lot, but he never meant to, and Louis made sure to never actually tell Harry he made him feel like a bad parent more times than not whenever he got into his doctor mode.