not in love || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER TWO

LOUIS / PAST

Everything about Harry annoyed the fuck out of me. His stupid dimples, his stupid curls, his stupid growly voice that was way too low for a kid that looked about twelve. I hated the way he could never hide what he was really feeling. If he was sad he cried like a fucking baby; happy and you couldn't wipe the grin off his face.

I hated the way he was so openly homesick, the kittenish way he leaned on Liam's shoulder when he played Candy Crush, or how he hugged Zayn after he forgot his solo in rehearsal.

His love of organic baked goods enraged me.

On the road Zayn turned to me and said, "remember that gluten free lemon tart Harry made?"

"Remember when we didn't eat things like fucking lemon tarts," I snapped.

"It's a pastry. Chill."

None of the clothes the stylist bought for Harry worked. They all looked like a costume and he was rock band Barbie. We finally settled on black skinnies and a white v-neck shirt. It was literally the only outfit that didn't make me want to stick his head in a toilet.

We just finished filming our first music video on a shoestring budget because our label hates us, and now we were on an old rickety bus to play the smallest stage at a music festival in Leeds. Everyone was asleep but me. I was writing a song on my iPad, or trying to.

Harry wandered out sleepily in pajama pants.

"Watcha doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I was trying to be nicer to him but it was impossible when he did nothing but pepper me with questions all the time.

Harry teetered over to me. He had not quite mastered the art of walking in a moving vehicle and his long spindly legs wavered like a baby deer on ice.

The bus jolted to a stop and Harry fell on top of me head first knocking my iPad to the ground.

"Can you not?" I said pushing him off of me to retrieve my device.

"Sorry, I just want to watch you work. I'll be quiet. I promise."

He was quiet for about a minute, tapping his socked feet on the ground. "So, the song you're writing is about clouds?" he said peering at the lyrics.

"It's a metaphor."

"I like clouds."

I took a breath. "This--this is what's so annoying about you."

"That I like clouds?"

"No, that you say shit like 'I like clouds.'"

"Why is that annoying?"

"Jesus Christ. It just is. You don't have to say every goddamn thing that pops into your head."

I had to give it to him. He took my insults in stride. Sometimes he winced and I saw the start of a tear at the corner of his eye but then he would blink really fast and snap out of it.

He drew his knees up under his chin, his eyes lazily watching me from behind his curls. I was dreading walking out on stage with this toddler. Couldn't he at least look his age?

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"No, I just can't focus." I crossed one leg over the other and rested my iPad on my thigh as though putting distance between me and the lyrics might help. It didn't.

"Nervous about the gig?"

"You could say that."

Harry searched my face his lips parted. He had no qualms about staring.

"You shouldn't be nervous, you sounded great in rehearsal."

"Yeah, I know."

Harry was taken aback by my confidence. "Then what's the problem?"

I waited for him to put two and two together.

"Oh," his face reddened.

At that exact moment the bus hit a pothole and one of Harry's gangly limbs knocked over the glasses we'd left out on the table. They fell to the ground with a clatter.

"Oh, great. Thanks for doing the dishes, Niall," I mumbled to myself. I got on my hands and knees and Harry leaped down to join me, scrambling to help pick everything up.

"Here, I got it," I said.

But Harry helped anyway, eager to please. He was groping under the linoleum table for broken glass when I heard him yelp out in pain.

He'd cut himself and was gripping his hand like he'd just been shot. Naturally I thought he was being a dramatic little bitch, but when I took a look at the cut and saw the blood spill out over his palm, I knew it was bad.

I grabbed a bar towel from the sink and wrapped it tightly around his hand. "Jesus, hold still."

The blood soaked through the towel and I removed it to get a closer look. Harry leaned down at the same time, his forehead pressed to mine, crowding my view.

"Back up," I barked. My fingers grazed his as I spread them apart to get a better look. His hands were soft and pale and delicate and pretty as his face. I hated them. "Ugh, you're going to need stitches."

His eyes watered and I knew I was moments away from a torrential downpour of tears.

"Shut up. It doesn't hurt that much."

"It does hurt!" he yelled, taking back his hand and rewrapping it in the bloody towel. "Why do you have to be so rude to me all the time? You don't want me in the band. I get it. But why do you hate me? I haven't done anything but exist."

His existence was kind of the problem, though I didn't want to say that while he was bleeding out in front of me.

"Look, it wasn't my idea to hire a cute frontman to placate the masses. I'm trying to write music I actually care about and—"

"Wait, I'm cute?"

"Stop it."

He stuck out his bottom lip, his tears stifled by this seemingly new information.

"I thought you were 'the cute one,'" he said all too seriously.

I blushed. "I'm warning you, Styles, I'll cut your other hand."

"Aren't I the mysterious one?"

I burst out laughing. "You? Okay. You're about as mysterious as a basket of kittens."

He laughed at himself but then grew serious again cradling his hand. "You don't think I'm good enough, do you?"

I reached under the seat and pulled out the First Aid Kit, taking Harry's hand back into my own so I could clean the wound properly. I couldn't trust him to do it himself. The last thing I needed was our lead singer getting amputated due to blood poisoning.

"I hate that you think that," he said.

There was a smug retort in me somewhere dying to get out but all I said was "prove me wrong."

He winced as I swabbed the antiseptic directly over the wound. I placed a thick cotton pad over the cut and wrapped his hand slowly in gauze, securing it in place with medical tape. I turned his hand over in mine, back and forth to examine my work. His wrists were small but I could tell from the line of his jaw and his broad shoulders that he was still growing into himself and that he might actually turn into a man at some point, a very handsome young man.

Harry cleared his throat, "Can I have my hand back?"

"What, oh yeah." I let go and Harry stood up.

"I'll let you get back to work. I think I've caused enough wreckage for one night," he said pointing to the broken glass and bloody towel.

I watched him and his pajama bottoms leave and waited until he was in his bunk before settling down to work again but I was even less focused than before.

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