Harry met Louis Tomlinson in the toilets in the X-Factor.
At the time, it had seemed like he'd been meeting people left, right, and centre: he'd been introducing himself to the hosts and producers and directors and stagehands and the camera crew and other auditionees like himself for almost eight hours, and he needed a break. Meeting new people was fun, yes, but this amount of people could get overwhelming sometimes.
But Louis was different though.
Not only had he simply laughed off Harry's weeing accident with a giggly 'hi', he was also cute and sweet and funny and had the prettiest blue eyes Harry had ever seen. He had gently teased Harry as he washed the spot of Harry's wee off his trousers, and Harry had done nothing but blush and stammer and ramble at him.
Louis seemed to have been charmed, though, enough to reassure him about his audition and give him hug. He even got Harry's autograph and had a photo taken with him, because, in his words, "you're gonna be famous one day, Curly, and when that happens, this'll be auctioned off for a lot of money. The first autograph Harry Styles ever wrote."
To which Harry replied (rather suavely, if he'd say so himself), "do you want my number as well?"
Louis had paused, tilting his head. "Nah," he answered. "But I can give you mine. 'S a fair trade, innit? Your autograph for my number."
And on that day, Harry had left the toilets with Louis' name programmed into his address book.
He'd never seen him again, but even then, he'd never thought to delete the number. Why would he? It's a nice enough memory.
. . .
"It's your turn now, Harry," Nick Grimshaw says on air, looking over at Harry from across the table. He waggles his eyebrows and smirks. "Whose number are we going to land on, hm? What juicy Harry Styles scandal will we discover today?"
"Heyyyy," Harry says, affronted, but he plugs his phone into the patch line dutifully. It was, after all, his idea to play Call or Delete on Grimmy'sshow, he might as well be a good sport about it.
Although it might have been not a very good idea. Everyone is expecting lothario womanizer Harry Styles to land on one of his rumoured flings' numbers, and Harry doesn't know to tell them that they're going to be severely disappointed. He's never, ever, ever going to call Taylor Swift . Or getting back together with her. They were never together in the first place. Weee.
He'd also never dated Kendall Jenner. Or Caroline Flack. Or Nadine Leopold. Or Cara Delevingne. Honestly, if the general public is expecting something scandalous, they're not going to find it here. He has more of a chance of landing on his mum's number than any of these girls'.
"Come on, Harry," Nick pleads, batting his eyelashes. Harry makes a face at him. "Whose numbers have you got, eh?"
"Not telling," Harry singsongs. He opens his address book and hovers his thumb over the screen. "Okay, I'm ready."
"Close your eyes," Nick says, and Harry covers his face with his hand. "No peeking. And, go."
Harry pushes his thumb to the screen and starts scrolling. He scrolls down really quickly for a few seconds, and then scrolls all the way up really quickly, before scrolling down really painfully slow.
"This just in," he hears Nick say into the microphone. "Harry Styles does not know how to scroll down his phone properly."
Harry sticks his tongue out at him. Or at least, tries to. It's kind of hard when one of his hands is on his face. "I'm making it more interesting for us, Grimmy."
