I Hate You ~ Louis Tomlinson

LOTS OF TALKING

Louis bursts through the door panting, making a grand entrance. He eyes Natalie and Harry, they're sitting quite close, but that's not unusual. It does make him a little jealous, but he figures that will change. Now he can hold her happily all he likes.

He smirks and comes next to her, standing on the couch and cupping his hands around his mouth.

"Attention, attention everyone." He looks down at her and winks cheekily.

"Get down," she hisses trying to pull his leg out from under him but failing.

"No," he says and bends down to kiss the top of her hair. When he stands back up he messes it up because he is still Louis.

"Now, I'll start again since I was so rudely interrupt-" he starts but can't finish because she punches him in the shin – "OW! Shit, Natalie." He says but she just smirks up at him.

He leans down and picks her up in his arms, still standing on the couch and making her stand with him. "Okay losers, news time. She likes me, she told me. And I like her." He says matter-of-factly.

She looks up at him with wide eyes, but he just smirks at her. It falls silent in the room everyone staring at the two of them.

"Fucking finally," Niall says, and the rest of the boys bust out laughing.

"Yeah, saw that one coming, we knew Tommo had a thing for you since the day you started here." Liam says.

"WHAT?" Natalie exclaims loudly. "Are you kidding me? Did you all know."

"Well yeah." Zayn shrugs in his causal manner he always seems to have.

"Wow, you too Zayn." She starts mumbling, "You guys could have told me."

"I tried!" Zayn exclaims.

She rolls her eyes and soon enough they all break into separate conversations, falling back into their normal with only a little less fighting from Natalie and Louis. She can tell something is bothering Harry though, he just has a certain face he's trying to hide, but she knows him better than most.

A little while later, Harry's hand finds hers, giving it a squeeze and gently pulling her up with him. She figured this was coming. 

She lets go of Harry's hand to lean over to Louis, whispering in his ear, "I'll be right back." He reaches his hand up and gives her hip a gentle squeeze nodding to her.

She follows Harry out of the building and to their little bench. The bench where she complained about Louis, gushed over his beautiful blue eyes, talked through their fights, and that saw more than its fair share of tears, but laughs too. It holds a lot of memories but it feels heavier now. 

She sits down with a sigh.

It's quiet for a while, she knows Harry is taking his time to think of how to say what he wants to say. He is a man of few words after all.

"You know I'm happy for you right?" He says looking at her sideways.

She nods and he continues, "And you know I love you and all, and I know you've wanted this. And I want this for you, but I don't know how to put it." He sighs and she takes his hand.

"You do and you can tell me. Lay it on me."

He smiles at her, knowing he can be honest with her no matter what, "Just, have you thought this through? I don't want to see you get hurt is all."

"If I'm being honest, no, I haven't thought it through and I can't promise that I won't get hurt, but it's not like we're getting married. We have time to talk and work things out and if it doesn't-" she trails off, but she knows he knows what she's thinking so she might as well say it. "-If it goes wrong, I don't know what will happen, but we can talk that out too and deal with that later. I don't know, maybe I should have thought it through."

She leans into him and he holds her. She starts to feel weird, and he can feel her tense.

"Probably won't be able to do this as much either," Harry says sadly. "It might look a little different, but it will still be okay. We can work around it, just don't forget me, okay?"

She sits up and looks him straight in the eyes, "Never. Never ever for never ever."

"Okay." He says, but he doesn't feel sure. He knows their relationship is bound to change and he's sad. Maybe it's selfish, but he is sad. He'll no longer be her shoulder to cry on, the one she tells everything to first, he's going to lose his best friend.

All the same, he knows that's not where her mind is going right now, he is looking to the past, but she is excited about her future.

"Want to talk about it?" She asks.

"No, I just want to sit with you."

She smiles and agrees. She makes it a point in her mind to not let her relationship with Harry fade away. It may change, but she won't be one of those people who loses all contact with everyone, but their boyfriend. If Louis ends up being her boyfriend that is.

They come back inside, and Harry leaves to go take a shower. She's in the kitchen, making a cup of tea for herself when she feels Louis come up behind her.

"Is it okay if I ask what you guys talked about?" He asks and she turns to him.  She places her chin on his chest looking up at him. His hands find their way to her waist.

"You." She says with a shrug.

"Oh boy." He says puffing out air.

"No, no. He just asked if I had thought us through, which I haven't or if we talked about what we're looking for," she says trailing off, eyes daring away from his for a second.

"Which we haven't," he's looking down at her, his face squishing up cutely.

"We probably should at some point if that's okay with you." She says shyly, she has no idea how this is going to work and for the first time in this whirlwind she's overwhelmed.

"Of course," he replies softly, but she stays quiet. "Hey, what's going on up there?" He taps her forehead.

She shrugs. She doesn't know what to do, this is so unlike them, they don't talk about feelings or hug each other sweetly or anything relatively like this at all. "I think we have to take this slow."

"Oh," he lets go of her and starts backing up slightly.

"I don't mean that I'm not interested, I just think we can't go from what we were to, I don't even know what."

He stops moving away from her, but looks down at the floor, "Oh, that makes sense."

She steps closer to him and grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers.

"But, hey, I like you." She says. 

His eyes meet hers with a big grin as he leans down to peck her nose.

"Okay, so what are you comfortable with? I know everyone has a different definition of slow so I want to make sure were in the same page. We have plenty of time to figure out what we are later, but what are your boundaries?"

And in that moment, she knows they will be okay.