After The End: Book 1

31. Coming out of Hiding

Louis POV

He was just 5 weeks out of the hospital and just over 6 weeks clean and sober the day of Melvin Greens party. I wondered how Harry was counting the days. Technically he could add another month on there if he wasn't counting the break in or the alcohol, but I did. I wondered how terrified he was to be attending that party with me, knowing the position he was putting himself in. He'd been slightly more open with me in that last week. He'd told me that he was confident in his ability to survive one night and I'd conceded that he could bring his resident freeloader (Lux) as his plus one.

I was less worried about her now than I had been before. All at once, the day after we had been to see my family, Lux had stopped openly flirting with Harry throughout the house. They still spent much of the day together but now Lux spent more time on the balcony drawing and Harry started coming to bother me at the piano more frequently. I wondered if they'd had a falling out, but by all other observations they were fine. They still played board games at least once a day. She still wandered into the kitchen to watch him cook and they still seemed to laugh. They even went to the store and bought supplies together before patching and painting over the hole in the living room wall. Harry had told me in passing that it had been the idea of Lux, but it still felt healing to not have to see the offset poster any more. Regardless, whatever I thought had been growing between them seemed to have ceased.

Naomi had told me that I shouldn't ask either of them about it. I had disagreed at first but the more I thought about it, the more I agreed. I had to start trusting Harry to navigate his own things. Whatever else might be there, Harry had a good relationship with Lux. She was his friend first. That much had always been obvious and he deserved to have a friend.

Naomi had originally agreed to come to the party at Melvins as my plus one. I'd worked really hard on the music and after hours of writing and retraining my fingers to play the piano after such a long hiatus, I was proud fo show it off. The morning of the party however, she woke up violently ill and it persisted throughout the day. She'd been lucky thus far with the pregnancy. She hadn't had any morning sickness, just fatigue and nausea, but that day seemed pretty brutal. She had been bent over the toilet more times than I could count and Lux spent most of the first half of the day sitting bedside her on the ledge of the bathtub drawing and trying to lighten the mood.

Harry had spent the morning sitting with me at the kitchen table. We had my laptop set up with a flash drive and he was reviewing my work a final time, asking me questions he already knew the answers to and pushing me to defend my work. He told me that Melvin was typically an asshole for no reason. He didn't want to work with whiny artists and he weeded out people who needed someone else to baby them by pushing them to get tough. I wasn't a tough person by any means. My music was definitely more emotional than anything else but I could defend it effectively by the end.

My favorite track on the flash drive was the third one. I had convinced Harry to let me record him for the soft track just for fun and because there were a few notes better suited for his tone. He'd made me close the door and turn around which I'd found hilarious for a guy who used to sing before thousands of people. To his credit, the recording had turned out fine. Lux had teased him for the rest of the day.

They were just concept copies anyways. The goal was to sell them, or at the very least consult with the producer about what to do next in my quest back into gainful employment. The goal was just to put myself out there. No matter what, I hoped for a valuable experience.

At 7 pm that night, I stood in my bathroom before the mirror, looping my tie awkwardly and trying to remember the nice "valuable experience" line as if I wasn't completely terrified. Harry told me that Melvins mansion parties were black tie fancy always so there I was wearing my black slacks that Harry normally stole and a dark purple button up. Naomi had surfaced once from the bedroom to comb my hair neatly. I hadn't had a reason to dress up all the way for a while and I felt awkward and out of place in it.