After The End: Book 1

37. Things Are Different

Louis POV

"I don't want to be involved," Harry said plainly. He was standing in front of me in the supermarket holding a large fruit I couldn't identify. "Tell Melvin to eat shit."

I shook my head, noting the woman a few feet away who was picking up her child and shooting daggers in Harry's direction. "Language."

Harry rolled his eyes and set the weird lump of fruit in the buggy. Then he noticed the woman and made an apologetic expression. I had just asked him for the 3rd time at Melvins request, if he'd be willing to write music with me. He wasn't. According to Harry, his only goals were to "grow up and enjoy retirement." I wasn't even sure I knew what that mean. So far, it looked like cooking and trying to remember how to play the guitar. He told me that was just to impress Lux.

He actually told me a lot about Lux, now that he was willing to talk to me about it. I was the same way about Naomi. I wasn't sure exactly when it happened, but it seemed after the second break in and the subsequent feelings of safety following the arrest, Harry had snapped out of whatever stupor he was in. He spoke to me freely now. His tension seemed not entirely gone, but greatly lessened. He appeared more clear headed. We hadn't had rapport this good in a long time.

I'd asked him to go to the store with me, because I had missed him. I missed being able to talk to a sober version of him. He had agreed stating that I sucked at grocery shopping. Normally I just ordered them but according to Harry, the delivery people rarely got it right either.

"I don't want to work," He reiterated. "I don't know why everyone seems to have an issue with that. Being unemployed is great."

I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. "Even Naomi works."

"Lux doesn't," Harry retorted. "Because she's smart, like me."

I threw his weird fruit thing back into the pile, earning me a dirty look while he dug for a new one.

"Don't be grumpy just because Naomi would rather work than hang out with you," Harry muttered grabbing the same piece of fruit and holding it safely in his arms away from me like a baby. We continued on in the store in search of the next thing on Harry's list. This one was more legible than the last few.

"You know it's not like that," I muttered looking at the floor. Harry had broken the tension on our first argument about what the future was supposed to look like for us, but the past two weeks had been littered with avoidance and less than pleasant conversations about what we both wanted. The answer was glaring and difficult. We both wanted different things. Compromise had to happen.

Harry frowned slightly. "No, you're right. I'm sorry. I know your baby mama isn't exactly super cool with the fact that teenage girls wore our face on T-shirts."

I glared at him. "I think it's more like she's dealing with a very sudden loss of personhood since she's pregnant, losing anonymity and facing complete dependence on a guy she met a few months ago."

Harry nodded looking a little embarrassed. "That too."

We walked in silence for a moment. Harry finally set his fruit baby down back in the buggy and started grabbing other random odds and ends off the shelf. I'd given him his list but it looked like he was going off book.

"I told you she's anti marriage, right?" I asked feeling defeated.

Harry nodded. He gave me a hopeful expression. "That could change though. Or you could learn to be cool with it. People change."

He was the perfect example of people changing. In the years that I'd known him, he'd changed before my very eyes frequently.

"And if not?" I questioned.