That Sounds Fake But Okay

Chapter 12

Six months later...

Shit . The WiFi's gone out again. Harry shakes his battered iPhone up and down, as if that will somehow magically restore the connection. Louis had seen him do this once, not long after they'd met, and had given Harry hell about it. That won't work, dumbass. It's not a goddamn Etch-a-Sketch.

Harry sighs and pockets his phone. A 15-minute walk into the village for five minutes of spotty WiFi. Happy Fucking New Year. He hands Suraj, the shopkeeper, ten rupees for his tea and zips up his jacket. He really needs to stop feeling sorry for himself. He chose this, after all. He wanted a clean break, and he got one.

He just has to stay focused. The food security initiative here in Nepal is important, and even on the worst days, it feels good to be a part of it. It's hard, dirty work, exhausting in a really satisfying way. Harry lives with a Nepali family in the hills outside the village, and the Peace Corps literature wasn't kidding when it told him to pack "flexibility and a sense of humor." At least he has his own small bedroom with a sink and a door to the outside, which is more than most of the other volunteers here can say. Electricity and running water are no guarantees from day to day, but Harry finds he doesn't mind it all that much. He tends to rise and set with the sun, spending six days a week working on projects from organic farming to building cookstoves for local families.

He's learned so much since arriving here, and everyone on the team is really cool, though he hasn't really opened himself up to new relationships, even friendships. His host family has been kind, and he communicates with them and expresses his gratitude the best he can, but the language barrier makes it difficult. Occasionally, he'll walk into the village with some of the other volunteers to eat dinner at one of the two options there, but most days he heads home after work for a quick, cold outdoor shower, a plate of daal bhaat , and collapses onto his mattress.

When the electricity is on, he sometimes reads for a while if he can stay awake. He brought a few favorites with him - The Giver , A Wrinkle in Time , and of course, The Heart of Compassion . Gemma sent him a few more in his Christmas care package - The Corrections (terrible!), Pride and Prejudice (gets him every time), and Big Little Lies (he has to read it so he can watch the TV series with Liam when he gets home).

Mostly, though, he tries not to think about Louis. Some days it works, and some days it doesn't. Harry swore to himself that he wasn't going to search Louis online during his precious few minutes of Internet access each week. And at first, he succeeded. He scanned world news headlines, sent email updates to his mom and sister, checked in with Liam, and smiled over photos that Ben sent of him and his new boyfriend. After all that, he'd congratulate himself for staying strong, then go back to his tiny, lumpy bed and dream of Louis all night.

Before long, Louis started invading Harry's waking thoughts as well. He told himself it was a strictly biological need- material for jacking off. His go-to is the first time they ever had sex, that night in St. Louis. The way it felt to finally be inside him after so long- Louis felt as good as Harry had imagined. Better, actually. Louis spanking him and then fucking him against the window in New York is a close second, though. Then there's riding Louis in St. Lucia...

The problem is that one thought always leads to another. Soon enough, Harry started drifting to the kiss on the riverbank, or the rain-soaked run through the woods with Louis carrying little Mia on his hip, or the wild pounding in his own heart when he showed up unannounced before the premiere. He just had to see Louis one more time. So many memories that make him ache with loneliness and certainly don't qualify as wanking material. He just thought it would be easier by now.

The first day after New Year's is particularly grueling. There's less outdoor work to do during the winter months, so the team sits through nearly six hours of training on fruit tree propagation- a newer program that has been receiving unprecedented levels of donor support. After a late dinner in the village and a little too much ayla , Harry finally breaks down and does it. He checks Louis' Twitter.