Just Let Me Adore You

XII

   "How do you know Louis?" It was almost midnight when Harry trudged his way into his sister's apartment. Gemma sighed, then sat heavily on the couch patting it slightly inviting Harry to sit as well.

"It's kind of complicated." His sister shuffled into the corner of the couch nervously, "If I tell you, you have to promise you will not tell our father."

"What does dad have to do with this?" Harry asked, not surprised that he would be mad, though. Most things made Desmond Styles mad these days.

"Just promise me you'll keep it to yourself, ok?"

"I won't tell a soul, Gem." Harry sounded exasperated, "As long as you don't tell him I'm sleeping with a boy."

Gemma chuckled, "If he knew it was Louis. He'd lose his mind."

"Does he know who Louis is?"

"Not exactly, has Louis ever told you about his older brother?" Gemma looked tired, and Harry felt guilty. Like he ruined some small tenuous thing he didn't even understand by storming into that dinner. Like a bully stomping all over an anthill.

"No, I didn't know he had an older brother. Is he dead or something?"

"No, he's not dead. His brother is two years younger than me and I first met him when I was twenty one at a bar." Gemma shook her head, like the story hurt to tell, "That must have been nearly ten years ago now."

"What's his name?" Harry asked and then immediately connected the dots, "Liam?"

"Liam." Gemma nodded in agreement, "He was nineteen and he was raising Louis and Niall on his own. Their parents are selfish terrible people, and he was just so different. The first night we met something just clicked and I started seeing him more and more until it had been six months and I was living with them."

"In that house?" Harry couldn't see it. As long as he's known his sister she's always been put together, even her apartment now screamed luxury. All clean white lines, and soft decorative pieces.

"Yep I wasn't just living there." Gemma sighed, "I was walking the boys to school, cooking them dinner, sleeping with Liam every night I was... raising them."

"Did mom and dad know?"

"Dad definitely didn't know at first. I really want to believe that mom didn't know but the two of you actually ran into Niall, Louis' little brother, and I one time, downtown." She bit her lip at the memory.

"Wait, I met Niall before? How old was I?" Harry tried to dig through his memories looking for a little boy that looked like Niall.

"You were nine at the time and Niall was five. It was the day dad broke your arm. Mom took us all to get ice cream and by the end of it I think she realized that the boy wasn't just one of my patients, like I claimed. After that she started sending me gifts for children, but we never really talked about it." Gemma looked off into the distance, "I think dad affects her a lot more than we know."

It was an unspoken rule in their house. Dad was an asshole to everyone but no one mentioned it. If Anne saw Des yelling at Gemma in the hall or pushing Harry around, she'd look the other way. Harry was the only one to defy the rule for a short time until he realized it made his mother feel worse, so he stopped. He bottled it in. That's what they do best.

"So what happened, then? Where is Liam now?" Harry didn't see a trace of a brother in that house, not that they really had any personal touches. No picture frames on the walls, nothing in that house that would point to who lived there.

"Liam is in prison."

"Wait? Prison." Harry gawked at her words. He didn't know anyone in prison, and that's not to say he didn't know anyone doing illegal things. When his friends got caught with weed or coke they'd get community service or, more likely, a small bribe to make it go away. That's the way his world worked.