nobody shines the way you do » l.s.

part nine

Louis saw his family once or twice a month, but it was mostly them coming down to Brooklyn to see him since they had a car and it was a hassle to travel one hour to go over to theirs. On Thanksgiving, however, he took the trip and had a big dinner with his family.

He caught up with his sisters; Lottie told him about her new job at the mall, Fizzy gushing about her new boyfriend, and the twins were going through a phase where they wanted to be treated as individuals so they did the exact opposite of the other. His mom and her new boyfriend, Dan, were faring well, too. He'd recently just moved in with them and Louis was happy that his mom always found it within herself to be so optimistic about love. She always was and it astounded him.

He only stayed one night and the next day, the girls and his mom drove him back to Brooklyn, but not before a quick stop at Union Square. Since Louis was making good money, he wanted to treat them to a nice lunch, which they really enjoyed when he took them to L'Express, a French Bistro.

After lunch, while the girls giggled off to Forever 21 to shop with some money Louis gave to them as a gift, Louis and his mom went to Whole Foods to do some grocery shopping since he was shit at it and always had his mom come by and help him stock up for him and Zayn. When they got to the fruit aisle, his mom was about to completely skip over because she knew it would only rot and never get eaten since Zayn and Louis hated any kind of fruit.

"Wait," Louis said to her, stopping by the bananas, and eyeing them curiously. "We should get some of these, don't you think?"

She looked at him completely bewildered. "You want to get bananas? Since when do you eat fruits, let alone bananas? You always hated it growing up no matter how much I tried to trick you into eating them."

"It's for Harry, Mom. God," Louis whined. "Can you just help me pick some out, please?"

"Harry doesn't live with you," she pointed out with a knowing smile as she picked out some good ones from the batch. "Is he over so often that you're starting to shop for him?"

Louis decidedly ignored her, knowing where this was going. His mom was always on him to start dating Harry because, in her eyes, he was the perfect boy for Louis. Louis couldn't say he disagreed with her, but life just wasn't fucking fair, was it?

The two of them continued to shop, going through all the aisles they needed things from and building up their cart to last the two boys a good month.

"What kind of pasta do you want?" she asked him when they were in the pasta aisle.

"I like the curly ones," he told her, smirking at his own pun. She nodded her head, completely missing the point, and grabbed the box with the curly pasta.

"Louis?" he heard a male voice say from behind him.

Louis turned around and was sad to see it was Peter, of all people, standing at the other end of the pasta aisle. He tried not to sneer at him and gave him an awkward wave, instead. They always ignored each other when they all met up, but Louis was taken aback by Peter's smile and enthusiasm as he walked over to him then. Was this the same guy that he'd been hating all this time? He looked way too happy to see Louis, so he was starting to doubt it. It was a little alarming.

"How are you?" he said once he reached Louis while his mom walked over to get some sauces for the pasta.

"Fine?" Louis responded, more as a question than as an answer.

"That's good," Peter responded enthusiastically. "It's crazy bumping into you here. But good because I just--I wanted to apologize for the other night. Harry must have told you."

This was so weird, but Louis was going to roll with it since it meant that Peter was going to apologize to him. "He did."

"I've obviously got a lot to apologize to you for," he continued and Louis tried not to grin at him obnoxiously. "I understand I haven't been the nicest to you and I just--I want to start over with both of you. I realize things got a bit heated the other night and it took me by shock, but I'm slowly starting to accept it."