Before Christmas

Thirteen

Louis POV

I woke up and instantly felt terrible. My head hurt and when I opened my eyes the light in the room was like torture. I groaned and rolled onto my side where Harry was sitting up in bed, scrolling through his phone.

"Morning." he said.

"Uh, morning." I replied. 

What was he doing in my bed, sitting there with no shirt on and wait- no, it was fine, I still had my shirt on and my boxers, my jeans were hanging off the bed, one pant leg stuck under my body.

"Don't worry nothing happened, you just wanted me to stay here. You actually kicked your jeans off in your sleep." Harry said.

"Wow, that's actually pretty talented of me." I said, laughing. Then I stopped though because it hurt my head even more.

"Yeah, um, I'll get you some medicine and some water, hold on." Harry said and he pushed back the blanket covering his waist and legs and got up. Good lord, did anyone ever look that good in underwear before.

Harry left my room shutting the door behind him. I laid back on my pillow and sighed, wondering what the hell I'd done last night and why I'd asked Harry to stay with me. What if I had tried to do something and he didn't tell me about it because he was embarrassed.

After a few minutes Harry came back with a glass of water and some painkillers. Damn, he'd decided to get dressed and was wearing some sweatpants and a hoodie.

"Are you sure I didn't try to do anything last night? Because I get stupid when I'm drunk and-"

"It's fine Louis, you just cuddled me a lot." Harry said with a laugh.

I nodded and took the two tablets, finishing off the glass of water.

Harry was sitting on the side of the bed he slept on, fiddling with the sheets. He looked nervous.

"Look I'm sorry I got so drunk last night, I was just going through stuff. And I had my first cigarette in like a year and I think it kind of made me reckless. I'm sorry if I ruined your night." I said.

"Louis it's fine-"

"No, I should have had more control, now your friends are going to think I'm crazy because I was way more drunk than everyone else and you were probably embarrassed having to drag me out of there and-"

Harry suddenly leaned over and kissed me, his hand on the back of my head, his soft, amazing, sweet lips moving against mine. Then suddenly he was pulling away, looking mortified.

"Fuck Louis, I'm sorry. You were just panicking and I wanted to calm you down." Harry said.

He was about to ramble on just like I'd been doing and I leaned into him this time, reconnecting our lips. We both melted into the kiss and gently moved our lips against each other for about five seconds before Eleanor's face appeared in my mind.

I pulled away, coughing awkwardly, my head still pounding from my hangover.

"We shouldn't." I said, looking anywhere but Harry's face.

"Yeah, we really shouldn't. Let's just forget about it yeah?" Harry said, getting up.

"Yeah." I agreed.

"There's breakfast downstairs if you want it. I think I'm going to go for a walk." Harry said and he left, closing the door behind him.

Harry POV

I almost ran down the stairs towards the front door where I pulled on some running shoes and my coat. I let myself out of the house and started walking, not really noticing where I was going. I ran my fingers gently over my lips, thinking about the feeling of Louis' lips touching mine.

I barely thought about kissing him until I was reaching for him. He was worrying and stressed and didn't stop rambling but he looked so fucking adorable with his hungover messy hair and that crumpled white shirt with the rainbow apple that he slept in.

And then, just when I was freaking out he did the same thing to me. I wondered why he did that, he has a girlfriend and clearly loves her. 

I walked for a very long time, nearly three hours, just walking laps around the streets near my house. When my legs started getting tired and my fingers and face were getting numb with the cold I decided I had to go home and face Louis.

I went into the house and hung my coat up and put my shoes by the door, going into the kitchen where Gemma was scrolling through her phone.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"Walking." I replied, switching on the kettle to make a cup of tea.

"Well, do you want to go shopping in like an hour? I just want to get out of the house." Gemma said.

"Yeah, sure." I agreed.

I made my cup of tea and took it back up to my room, sitting by the windowsill and reading for a while. 

After about half an hour Louis knocked on my door and poked his head in.

"Are you alright? You kind of ran out after, um, before and you were out for ages." he said.

"I'm fine, just wanted some exercise." I replied.

"Okay, well I think I'm going to have a bath and try and ease this bloody hangover." Louis said.

"Alright, there's bubble bath and stuff in the cabinet in the bathroom." I said.

"Cool, thanks." Louis replied with a grin and he left.

Louis POV

I grabbed some clean clothes from my room and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I found some scented candles on the shelf and lit them, setting them around the bath and turning off the lights, leaving the room in darkness.

I started running the water, turning the heat up while I found the bubble bath in the cabinet Harry mentioned and poured in a generous amount. It smelt amazing mixed with the candles.

Then I filled a glass of water and drank that simply because I was thirsty. As I was tugging off my shirt my phone pinged and I checked the notification.

@ aaron_taylorjohnson has started following you.

I accepted him and his account wasn't private so I followed him back and scrolled through his posts without liking any old ones like a creepy person. I found a picture of him and James at a football game and followed James too, along with Ed and Jack. Something stopped me from following Nick when I saw a post of him with his arm so tightly around Harry and his lips pressed to his cheek.

I turned off my phone after liking a recent post from Niall at a pub and a picture of Zayn and Liam cuddled together, which was posted by Liam.

I finishing undressing and sunk into the hot, foamy water, turning off the tap so the bath didn't overflow.

It was so relaxing, listening to the silence. I shut my eyes and leaned back on a towel on the back of the bath, enjoying this time for myself without thinking about Harry fucking anyone else.