Rollercoaster

Books

The boy noticed and glanced up. A very loud swear word echoed in Louis' head.

The boy grinned awkwardly, pulling the notebook closer onto his lap.

"Erm, that's a good drawing," Louis said unwillingly; he didn't want a seem like a creep for staring down at him like that.

"Thanks," the boy replied, grinning a little. "I was just bored and well, yeah." Louis nodded. He just told him that the drawing was good, he didn't need an explanation why. But then again, he was curious about it.

He was curious about a lot of things about the boy. About what the tattoo on the back of his wrist was - half of it was hidden behind his sleeve. He sort of wanted to help the boy. He wanted to be the stranger who he meets and flips his life around. The stranger who gives an amazing piece of advice that causes the boy to rethink his entire life path.

"You should go to art school," he says stupidly. What are you thinking, Louis? End the conversation and go to work!

"I dunno," the man chuckled, creating soft dimples in his cheeks. "Art isn't really my thing, I just like to draw from time to time when I'm bored." Great job. You just gave useless and unnecessary advice to a stranger. Brilliant. "But I'll make sure to keep it in mind."

Louis chuckled awkwardly and the boy smiled back. Maybe Louis had been wrong, he had judged a book by its cover. It was an awfully stupid thing to do, considering he worked in a library and knew a little more than a thing or two about books with bad covers.

"I'm Harry, by the way," the man said. You're not supposed to tell me your name, idiot. We're supposed to be complete strangers, fuck's sake.

"Louis, ends with an s and not e," Louis replied. Harry grinned, his dimples darkening in such a way that Louis almost wanted to hug him. Instead he offered his gloved hand and nodded as Harry's bare ones shook his.

"Erm, well I'd better go to work, er, bye?" He cursed in his head as the last part sounded more like a question rather than a polite farewell, which clearly left Harry with a confused expression on his face. Louis spun around and started to make his way out of the park, his cheeks painted in a dark pink.

"Bye, then," was the quiet response from behind him, and Louis felt the urge to look back and wave. He didn't.

Fuck. It's okay, it was just a random boy who was drawing. It's fine. He's going to forget my name by the time he gets home. Now pull your bullshit together, shift at the library. Books, think about books. New order coming today. Re-organise the crime thrillers. Don't let Liz get away with her next "break". Chill. Fucking hell.

His mind was still bubbling with embarrassment as he trudged through the large sliding doors of his library, and he was pretty sure his eyebrows were glued together in a forever-creased position.

"Oh, good, Louis, you're here," was Elizabeth's first flustered mutterings just as Louis made his way to the reception desk. "I've got an awfully important meeting, would you mind covering? When Alexander comes over could you tell him that I'll be over in a bit."

"Liz I-" but before he could counter, the girl was gone with a flick of her blonde hair to god knows where for her meeting.

Louis sighed and started his day's work by strolling over to the boxes of returns and sorting them by author's surname.

An hour passed excruciatingly slowly, the same, repetitive cycle of picking up a book and placing it in a pile, and then taking the pile to a bookshelf and stacking them. The same thing he did every, single, fucking, day.

Only until another half an hour passed did something interesting happen. Something that made Louis want to disguise himself as an Elvis and sprint to Las Vegas never to be seen again.

Arty-boy walked into the library, rucksack slung over his shoulder in a sort of teenage-jock way.

Louis was just sliding Blue Moon, Lee Child into section C of crime thrillers when he spotted the boy strolling across to the reception desk.

His guts could've popped out right at that moment. Shit. Why. Why him for fuck's sake! Shit, shit, shit, shit.

He continued cursing loudly in his head as he escaped to the children's section: the boy wouldn't be going there.

He pretended to be busy organising the shelves (he was really just pulling out random books and putting them back) whilst trying to catch a glimpse of where Harry was. He was talking to someone by the reception desk, hands in his pockets and the same shy smile he had when he was talking to Louis earlier.

The person he was talking to was an attractive brunette, and that was all Louis needed to despise him. Brown hair styles perfectly and a smile that could easily steal any girl's heart; perhaps even Harry's (no, they look like friends. And even if they are dating I don't care.)

Louis darted his eyes away when the other boy leant towards Harry and kissed his cheek - re-organising books are much more important anyways. He chose to stay hidden in the children's section for the next fifteen minutes or so, keeping his mind on the stack of Biff, Chip and Kipper books in his hands.

Just when his last thought of Harry-the-weird-stranger-I-met-in-the-park vanished from his mind and he actually started to focus on the shelves, a strange whisper hit his left ear.

"Boo," it hissed. Louis yelped and leapt backwards in surprise, his back hitting something and causing him to trip over a pair of feet he was sure that weren't his own.

An almost evil cackle came from above as Louis winced in pain, still sprawled on the floor. Cheeks burning with embarrassment, he sat up and rubbed his injured knee, looking up to see who had attacked him.

"Sorry, I just thought it would be funny," Arty-boy said through a giggle, offering a hand to Louis.

"The fuck was that for?!" Louis yelled angrily, rejecting Harry's hand and pushing himself up, wincing as he stood on his hurt knee.

"Language; we're in the children's section," Harry whispered, a crazy grin still on his face. "Sorry mate, I couldn't help it! You were just standing there and I wanted to say hi but then I thought about scaring you and I couldn't just stop thinking about scaring you so I tried to scare you and you jumped and fell and hurt-"

"I know what happened, thank you very much," Louis scowled, though a lot more harshly than he wanted to. Harry's smile fell and he bit his lip. He had messed with the wrong sort of guy.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," he said quietly, looking towards the floor. "Bad idea, I barely even know your name apart from the fact that it ends with an s and I shouldn't have expected you to act so chill about it." Louis stared at him. What the fuck?

"I'm really sorry and I promise I won't do it ever again and I'm gonna leave now cause this is getting really awkward. Erm, bye."

He smiled briefly and spun around just as fast as Louis had done back at the park, cheeks bright red and hands shaking in his pockets. Fuck, I didn't want to do that.

Louis wanted to grab the boy's shoulder and assure him that all was fine, but couldn't find himself moving towards him. By the time he decided that he probably should tell him that he's alright, Harry had already left the children's section of the library and was walking up to the non-fiction area upstairs.

Fuck, I really ruined his day.

A/N: wassup my ladsssss i have no fkn clue why im doing all these authors notes nobodys even reading this but heyo they seem funnn

Anyways thanks for sticking this far i promise im gonna work on this and yea thanks so much <3