Eight Cakes and Two Eulogies

Chapter 6

For being a high-end airport, London City was dark, cheerless, featureless and not somewhere you wanted to spend a long amount of time. For being a business that catered towards, well, business and those that were rich enough to afford charter flights, they didn't really reflect it very well. There wasn't a lot of spend on luxury here. Louis shifted uncomfortably on the hard bench and adjusted his book as he took another sip of scalding hot tea. A quick glance up at the screen told him Harry's flight was finally on the approach. He forced himself to refocus on the book though and ignore the giddy skip of his heart at having Harry back home again – this time for more than two weeks! The anticipation had been building for the last fortnight but it was only over the last few days he'd allowed himself to finally acknowledge it. The floodgates of excitement that were opened when he did had unleashed a frenzy fit of house tidying; mass washing of sheets, scrubbing of bathrooms, whole housevacuuming, window washing, shelf dusting, DVD organising – you would think royalty was popping around, rather than – for all intents and purposes - a squatter. He glanced up at the screen again but it hadn't changed in the last seven seconds he'd last looked. Sighing, he lifted his book higher and started to read again, barely taking in a word.

Fifteen minutes later there was motion near the arrival door and Louis quickly put his book into his inner jacket pocket, no longer able to pretend. The screen now said Harry's flight had landed so this could very well be him coming through. Biting his lip and feeling giddy again, he stood up and threw his empty cup into the nearby rubbish bin before set off towards the gate to wait with the other handful of greeters. The first passenger to enter through the door was a young women and a group of three girls shrieked happily. Smiling, Louis watched them all embrace before turning his attention back to the door. The next two were business men, followed by a bikering couple. Harry ended up being the sixth person to step out and Louis let out an embarrassingly loud squeak of delight. Dressed in a gaping white shirt, navy three quarter length chinos and his celeb-stye black Raybans, Harry looked every inch the mega-TV star. He also looked twice as tanned as the last time he'd been home. How the hell, Louis had no clue considering the amount of rain the island had supposedly had recently. "Haz!"

Spotting him, Harry shoved his sunglasses up into his hair and strode towards him, beaming from ear to ear. They met in a tight hug, city-polluted Versace melding perfectly with stale airline Boss. "Ugh, it's so good to see you," Harry groaned, burying his face in Louis' shoulder.

"Likewise," Louis sighed as he slipped his fingers into Harry's curls. After a few long moments they pulled back and Louis asked how the flight was.

"Eh, not so great," Harry admitted, adjusting his shoulder bag, "there was quite a bit of turbulence half way through - made me feel a bit queasy, especially when the kid a few seats back spewed up."

"Ugh, I hate that," Louis sympathised, "although I usually find the transatlantic crossing a lot smoother than heading into Europe. I take it there was some bad weather?"

"Yeah, there's a big summer storm brewing up. It's heading west though so we probably won't see it."

"Good," Louis grinned, "I want a nice long hot summer."

It didn't take long for the luggage to be churned out – it had been a small flight with less than fifty passengers and the terminal wasn't exactly Heathrow either. Louis gathered the cases while Harry said goodbye to some of the filming crew who had also been on the small charter flight. Then, between them, they dragged Harry's four heavy suitcases out to the car, pausing only to bicker over who should pay the parking fee, "No, let me get it," Harry argued, trying to hold Louis away as he dug out his wallet, "you've already done me a big favour by fetching my car from Niall's and coming to pick me up so I didn't have deal with public transport. The least I can do is pay for the car-parking." Although Louis had a parking permit for outside his house, which Harry had taken advantage of when living there, both had agreed it was best the car was off the road in his absence – hoping it would be less of an attraction for thieves or clumsy drivers. BMW X6s were not cheap cars to run, replace or get fixed. Even if money wasn't exactly an obstacle for Harry the principle was still valid, or so he thought anyway. Niall had long ago offered a space in his double garage when Harry was still living in his flat and had first gone out of the country on location. The car would probably return to Niall's garage in a few months when Harry left the country again. While it was technically Harry's vehicle, Louis, who actually had his own car (which he kept out of the city at his Grandfather's holiday home), had been added to the insurance last year for the sake of practicality. He rarely took advantage though because he hated driving in London with a passion.