Given a Chance (Larry Stylinson)

Part Five

Sunday morning, Louis found himself sitting on his couch finishing off a bowl of cocoa puffs, Reggie sitting on the floor in front of him whining pathetically every now and again. Louis rolled his eyes. "You can't have cocoa puffs, Reg. Sorry, mate. Dogs just don't eat cereal." Reggie huffed, raising back up onto all fours and staring at Louis, before finally giving off a breathy woof.

Louis glared at the dog, who instantly huffed again and then finally laid down.

"Big baby," Louis chuckled quietly to himself.

Louis had a busy last couple of days; he had somehow been convinced to help volunteer for the Habitat for Humanity build project that was taking place in Chance, by a very persistent Tammy Hallstatter who rudely pointed out: "What else ya' got to be doin', Lou?"

Um.

Louis was a very busy man.

He was busy, you know, um... making his way through Game of Thrones... and besides! Louis loved charity! He would have happily donated money towards the cause, but Tammy (equally as rudely) pointed out that the only currency she would accepted was "good old-fashioned elbow grease."

So after three days of physical labor, Louis could officially say he had helped build a house.

He was basically a carpenter now.

He would make a joke comparing himself to Jesus, maybe something along the lines of "We would have been carpenter buddies!" but, maybe it'd be best if Louis laid off the Jesus jokes for a while to improve his karma.

Really, he had nothing against Jesus or religion! No matter what it seemed like. He just didn't like to pass up a joke opportunity.

That was his cross to bear.

Louis snorted aloud at his own thoughts. Damn he was funny.

Regardless, Louis's muscles were achy and he was relieved to know he had nothing on his schedule today except the third season of Game of Thrones, which he had never gotten into back when it was on the air. He liked to be fashionably late to pop-culture things. (Same way he hadn't caught the Pokémon bug as a kid until all of his friends had already moved on to other, cooler, things. But that was fine. Louis was totes fine being the only bitchin' lad in all of Yorkshire still proudly displaying his Poké cards in page-protected binders).

Louis hadn't heard from Harry yet this morning, which was--strange.

It was only mid-morning in Chance, but, like, that was mid-afternoon in England, so Louis wasn't quite sure what Harry was up to. Or who he was up to. But no matter how many times he checked his texts, the last message in their thread was sent by Louis and he wasn't going to be that guy.

Even though Louis was a notorious multi-texter, he didn't want to seem desperate or obsessed or anything.

Because he wasn't.

Because they were just friends.

Pals.

Laddy dude bro pals.

Nothing more.

And they wouldn't be anything more. Because--that's what "friends" were. Look it up.

Louis locked his phone, sighing grumpily to himself and smoothing over Reggie's back with the flat of his foot from his current slumped position on the couch. He couldn't help but secretly wonder, in the darkest pit of his mind, if maybe Harry realized how weird it was that they had been texting so much and had decided to distance himself altogether.