“Knock! Knock!” Liam called out cheerfully, pushing open the front door. “You ready to go mate?”
Harry jumped and knocked his knee against the underside of the breakfast bar. “Hey!” he called out, rubbing his throbbing knee ruefully. “I…” he shook his head to clear away the fog from his previously spiralling thoughts, “I’m ready - just grabbing my coat!” He quickly snatched up his house keys and wallet off the tabletop and got, a little shakily, to his feet. His heart was racing. The significance of what had just taken place, a mere twenty minutes before on the phone, wasn’t lost on him one iota. Lottie Tomlinson, a sister that Louis had thought he had lost forever, had just gotten in contact with him. And he had, quite categorically, fobbed her off until after Christmas citing half-baked notions of them needing time to plan this reacquainting right. Realistically, it was probably more a personal selfishness that had him not wanting her appearance taking away or overshadowing any of the hard work he’d already put in to try and make this Christmas the best he could for Louis. Of course, there were some genuine good intentions for forestalling the reacquainting too but he couldn’t help but feel guilty that there was a selfish streak there too. And now he felt incredibly nervous and unsteady at the thought of having to look Louis in the eye and pretend he knew nothing of the recent turn of events. But he’d honestly rationalised that today was not the right day to bring Louis’ family back into the equation and he was going to stick to his guns.
After Stephen had turned up yesterday, out of the blue, Louis needed a few days to recover from that unpleasant surprise before hitting him with another emotional hammer. While Lottie wasn’t an unpleasant surprise, unlike the ex, Harry thought the shock of two ghosts from the past might be a little too much for his friend to cope with in such quick succession. Plus Lottie had agreed that, while she was desperate to see her brother again, Christmas day was probably not the best day to choose to say ‘surprise’ – especially as they didn’t know how Louis might react and Lottie had little ones of her own expecting her full attention and efforts. She was quick to realise too, and with no help from Harry, that Louis might possibly be upset that she had waited so long to try and find him; alive or dead. He hadn’t known where she was – the world was a vast place after all, where was he to start - but she had always known that this would be the place to start looking for him. Even if she had thought he had died, she had never come back to pay her respects at his grave. Harry didn’t know the reasons why; he had stopped her, told her that it was Louis who had to hear the explanation first, not him, when she had started to try and explain. He couldn’t reassure her that it would all be okay because he honestly didn’t know how Louis was truly going to take it. Louis was kind and forgiving by nature but his family had abandoned him and ruined a good part of his life. Sure, the girls had been young at the time, yes, but Felicity and Lottie had been legal adults for at least 8 years now and neither had attempted to come back to the village to look for him. It would be difficult to speculate how Louis might react to that – it really depended on the reasons Lottie gave as to why.
So it was agreed that she and Harry would talk again shortly after Boxing Day and come to some arrangement. It also gave her time to think about whether she wanted to add her sisters into this straight away or wait until she had seen Louis’ reaction to her. In the meantime she would give Harry her address and phone number and promised to call on the 27th.
For the last ten minutes Harry had been trying to figure out how the logistics of thise were going to work. For starters, he had no idea how he was even going to broach the subject without having Louis be upset at him for not telling him straight away or for being the instigator of more turmoil in his life. As though mocking his thoughts, Louis’ voice called out way too cheerfully, as though defying him to ruin his mood, “I’m just going to put my bags up in the room Haz, if that’s okay?!”
