Don't know yet

Chapter 23

Louis gets out of the car first and starts heading for the entrance of Zayn's house. When he's about to ring the doorbell he feels Harry's hand pull his arm back making him turn around and face him.

"Are you sure they don't mind me coming?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine. Plus, Laura invited Niall and Liam's coming so it won't be awkward."

Harry inhales and nods and Louis turns around to ring the bell. Zayn opens the door a minute later with a big smile on his face.

"Finally, I was third wheeling over here."

"Sorry mate." Louis gives him an apologetic look before he lets out a chuckle.

"He is fine, you on the other hand, have a lot to explain. What in the world were you doing to forget about us?" Laura comes out of the living room with a cup on her hand and an eyebrow raised. Louis looks down embarrassed.

"It was my fault. I distracted him." Harry smirks and winks at Louis making him blush.

"Excuse me? I'm going to have to give you the talk Lou." Laura walks back into the living room and the three boys follow her. Zayn sits down on the couch and Louis sits down next to him. Harry sits on another couch where Niall was already sitting and Laura sits in Niall's lap.

"You, sir, have a lot of explaining to do." Louis looks at her confused, eyebrows furrowed. "What's all this about getting distracted."

"It's not something you have to worry about, Mum."

"I just want to make sure you're being safe and responsible. You're my best friend, you deserve to be respected and protected."

"Can we stop talking about this? Please." Louis looks at her with a begging look while the others in the room seem to be enjoying his embarrassment.

"I also have a great playlist for it. I could send it to you if you want." Louis covers his face with one hand. He loves his friend but right now he just wants to kill her. Zayn is no better either, he could say something but instead he sits there smiling and enjoying the show. "Actually, I shouldn't send it to you. You should wait until you're married to do that."

"Lau, we're definitely not married." Niall chimes in with a playful tone.

"Well, this just got a lot more interesting." Zayn says as he sips from his beer bottle.

"Anyone order pizza?"

"Liam's here." Laura says pointing at Liam who's standing in the door frame with three boxes of pizza.

After that, they all eat pizza and talk for hours. Louis is really happy to see that Harry gets on well with his friends and now that he's gotten to know Niall a little more he figures he's not that bad, although his only reason for not liking him was that he was friends with Harry so it wasn't really a surprise that he was actually a pretty great lad.

About three hours go by before Harry's phone rings making everyone stay silent. As soon as Harry looks at the screen his face goes pale and his shoulders stiffen as if whoever is calling him is already making him nervous before he even picks up. He stands up and goes to the corridor to answer and everyone goes back to the conversation except for Niall and Louis. Louis doesn't know what is going on but whatever it is is clearly bothering Harry and even though he's too stubborn to admit it he cares for the boy. When Harry comes back his face looks even more worried than it did before. He sends a troubling look to Niall and he nods quickly before getting up. Louis looks at both of them confused.

"We have to go. It was nice hanging out with you guys." Niall says while heading for the door where Harry is waiting for him.

"I can drive you home if you want." Louis says, starting to get up.

"No." Harry says quickly. "Niall's taking me, don't worry."

Harry gets out of the room quickly and Niall follows him after he kisses Laura and waves everyone goodbye.

"Ok, I need to know. Are you and Niall dating or not?" Liam says looking at Laura.

"We haven't made it official yet but if he doesn't ask me soon, I'll ask him." She replies casually.

Louis can hear his friends talking but it's as if they were far away and their voices were just a faint sound in the background. All he can think about right now is what happened to Harry for him to look that worried. What if his father did something to his mum? Maybe some relative just died or something? Why did Niall know exactly what it was without any explanation? Is Harry ok?

Louis goes down a spiral of unanswered questions until one of his friends pulls him out of it by shaking his shoulder gently. It was Zayn asking him about watching a movie or something; Louis just nods but doesn't pay much attention to them.

**

Is everything alright? You seemed worried when you left.

Louis sent that message hours ago and Harry hasn't replied yet. Somehow, Louis can't help the pile of worry building up inside him. He's been staring at his phone for hours now and still no text from Harry and it's silly but he really thought for a moment that if he kept staring at it maybe a text from him will appear but that is clearly not the case. He's also considered going to his house to check on him but he doesn't even know if he is there, plus, if something happened with his father then him showing up at his house would probably make things worse so he decides that the best thing to do is just wait for Harry to text him back. Just as he's putting the phone down on his ight stand, it lights up showing a new text message on the screen. Louis grabs the phone again and is actually taken aback when he sees the text message is from Harry.

Can you come over?

Louis really doesn't know what to say. He wants to know what happened but Harry clearly doesn't want to tell him. Does that mean he doesn't trust him? Either way right now he doesn't seem to be too well so Louis' insecurities can wait until he knows that Harry's fine. He drives over to Harry's house and texts him to let him know he's there. He was going to knock but he doesn't know if Harry is home alone or if his father is around. Harry texts him to go in so he does so and heads straight to Harry's room where he finds the curly boy sitting on his bed with his legs bent, knees closed to his chest and face buried in them.

"Hey, what's going on?" Louis sits in front of him in the bed and reaches out to stroke his leg gently. Harry looks up at him and Louis is relieved to see that the other boy hadn't been crying because his eyes look normal.

"Just, didn't want to be alone." His words are almost a whisper and his voice sounds tired and kind of broken.

Louis wants to ask him more questions, wants to know why he's like this, why he left so early and in such a rush. But he doesn't ask him, instead he sits next to him, putting his arm around his shoulders and pulling him in so he rests his head on his lap. He figures that for now is more important to be there for him than to know everything he wants to know. He runs his fingers through Harry's hair until he falls asleep and soon after that he falls asleep as well.