Got the sunshine on my shoulders - by: hattalove

chapter six

The same night, he finally comes face to face with Robin – who's a little stiff, and hovers around mum all evening, but Harry can't blame him – and Gemma, who throws a punch that he only narrowly avoids and then hugs him for over ten minutes.
She doesn't leave him alone after that. She drags him out to Manchester, takes him shopping, insists that he come with her to work and meet everyone there, and forces him on long, quiet walks around the fields. He pretends to dodge her as much as he can, but he secretly loves every minute of it.

More importantly, he forgets all about Louis, if only for a few minutes at a time. Technically, he should be chasing him for a signature, but he kind of prefers it this way.

Four days in, just as he's settling into bed to read, Gemma barges into his room and announces that they're going to the pub.

"But why?" Harry asks, reluctantly taking the clothes that she's throwing at him. He'd like to take advantage of the tranquility here while he can, thank you very much. The pub's not really his scene – not this pub, anyway.

It may or may not have something to do with the fact that his mother-in-law is the owner.

He's avoided it so successfully so far. Leave it to Gemma to throw a wrench into his plans.

"Because," she says, "I finally have a drinking buddy who doesn't live an hour away from here. I'm taking advantage while I can."

"Can we at least go to a different village?" Harry asks, even though he knows it's futile, and slowly pulls a t-shirt over his head. "I'll drive, you can drink."

"Nope," she grins. "I bet it's been too long since you had a pint."

She's definitely right about that. Harry can't remember the last time he drank anything other than fancy wine. He's got a fridge full of it at home – it seems to come with the territory of having moderately famous friends who like house parties.

"What about Barb's, then?"

She looks at him like he's grown another head. "Barb's hasn't served booze for—wow, probably three or four years."

"Oh," he blinks. "What happened?"

"Lost their license," she shrugs. "They had a bit of a, um. A thing. When Liam worked there, I don't know if you remember."

"I do."

"Yeah. I—I don't really want to tell you, even though the whole village knows. He wasn't very well back then."

Alarm bells start going off in Harry's head. Liam was fine when he saw him earlier in the week, if a bit sulky, what could have possibly—

"If you want to know, you'll have to ask him yourself," Gemma says, pursing her lips at her reflection in the mirror and fixing the line of her lipstick. "I don't want to be the next village gossip."

"I think Barbara still has you beat on that," he reassures her, smiling through his confusion. He buttons his jeans, runs a hand through his hair, and sprays on a bit of cologne even as Gemma makes a face. "Let's go, then."

It's just getting dark outside, but the weather's finally decided to be warm, and Harry feels surprisingly comfortable walking in his short sleeves. He's a bit self-conscious about the tattoos, once he catches Gemma looking at them and realises that he didn't have any when he left.

He and Louis used to talk about them all the time, but—well. Nothing ever came of that.

It's an unfortunately short walk. He holds the door open for Gemma, trying to delay actually going in for as long as he can. Once it becomes inevitable, he hunches in on himself, and keeps his head down as Gemma finds a free table and beckons for him to follow. Nobody's actually stopped him on the street yet, or done anything other than ignore him, but paranoia is still prickling on the back of his neck.