Eight Cakes and Two Eulogies

Chapter 8

NOVEMBER - THE EVE OF NIALL'S STAG NIGHT

Louis' eyes burned fiercely, silently screaming at him to take a break. He had been working on Doppler Effect calculations for almost two hours now and the sums were just not happening. As their new project involved inventing a revolving mirror system it was imperative that the behaviour of the light in relation to motion be taken into account and controlled. He knuckled his eyes but the numbers kept swimming in front of him, haloed and mocking. Shit, Louis sighed to himself, he really ought to bite the bullet and get an eye test. While tiredness was definitely a part of the problem, the straining thing had been an ongoing issue for years. As it was, the pencilled formula he had just written down, Fd = 2Vz / λ, floated across his vision looking more like Fdd- 2Wzz // d. That was definitely not conducive to good accurate work. He was also getting the beginnings of a throbbing headache - right behind his eyes – classic symptoms, or so he'd been told, of eye strain.

Sighing, he dropped his pen to the desk and reached for his tepid tea. The building was silent around him – most workers having long gone home. With only the hallway lights giving the building life it all felt dreary and isolating...

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Louis jumped about a foot in the air and slopped his tea as the conference phone began to buzz - flashing 'incoming video call'. Heart thudding wildly, he leaned forward to peer at the name, "Gabriel's iPad. Accept?"

Breaking into a grin, he hit the accept button and turned his attention to the large conference screen on the opposite wall. It took a second but Harry's face appeared, squinting and ducking as though he couldn't see his screen properly. He'd had the same issue last night so Louis gave him a second to get comfortable - taking the opportunity to save his Document lest he lose any work. Sometimes he just had to look at the monitor and the programme would encounter an error. Sure, he might not be getting anywhere fast tonight but he didn't want to risk losing the small amount of groundwork he'd laid out.

Suddenly the lighting on Harry's end improved and Louis could see he was sitting in his hotel room as the balcony was clearly visible in the background. Although Niall's stag-do wasn't until tomorrow night, Harry had flown over to Dublin early because Nick thought it would be a great opportunity to get some extra promo done. Harry had agreed and had flown out early on Tuesday. He'd spent the last few days hitting up Radio Stations, magazines and TV shows – raising interest in the BBC drama and discussing a potential new series of Men Of Glory. Without having an actual physical contract for another season, he was in that tasty limbo where he could parade around and make himself known to other prospectors by dangling the 'not yet renewed' card for Men of Glory. Louis had to commend him on how he had carefully exploited it so far. Harry's idea was to lightly make himself seem 'potentially available for other projects' in an attempt to unnerve the team behind Men of Glory. If they were worried about him not signing on then they would likely be keen to do whatever they could to encourge him to sign - like negotiate in favour of a shorter location time. It was genius really. 

Things had clearly relaxed for the night on Harry's end; his curls had be scrawled back into a messy ponytail and he was wearing nothing but an old white t-shirt and some trackies. Despite looking comfy, Harry's expression was anything but relaxed. In fact, if Louis didn't know any better he would think Harry was actually angry that Louis had answered the call.

"So you are still at work," Harry gritted out by way of a greeting, "for fuck's sake Lou it's almost eight-thirty. Have you even had dinner yet?"

Oh, okay, so Louis was in for a nagging. Bloody brilliant. Just what he needed. His headache went up a notch, throbbing right behind his eyes. With no energy to fumble up a lie, Louis shook his head and sighed, "Unfortunately not; no." Leaning back in his chair, he felt a rumble of distant hunger resound through his stomach as though the reminder of food was all it needed to start grumbling. "I haven't had the chance yet. I really need to get these calculations done before I leave." He hoped by citing work pressure he would make Harry more sympathetic to his plight. "I've got a meeting with the client first thing on Tuesday and they'll want to see the schematics. If I'm coming to Ireland for the weekend then I'll only have Monday to draw the document up and that's pushing it, even for me. If tomorrow wasn't so important for Niall I would beg off and spend the weekend trying to get it finished. That melt down the other week really buggered the schedule up."