flower crowns // l.s.

40½

Harry's been off and Louis can't understand why. He figured it was the Mother's Day thing, but it's been a week since that was. Usually Harry gets back in his happy routine by now. When Louis asks about it, Harry just puts on this fake smile and says he's okay. But Louis knows better; he knows Harry.

Harry thinks that if he tells himself that he's okay, that he eventually will be. And maybe so, but in these moments, he's not. Louis just wants to talk about it and understand why. Is it something he's done? He's been taking on a lot of work recently, but is able to ease up a little because of Harry's business going so well.

So today he's off work earlier than Harry. He walks inside the flower shop and Harry smiles out of surprise and kisses him on the cheek. Gabe raises his eyebrows suggestively and winks, which makes Louis laugh. Just a little.

"Gonna make you dinner," Louis tells him.

Harry scrunches his nose up. "Are you?"

"Don't have to seem so disgusted by it!" He loudly says with a laugh.

"Aw, no. Sorry, sorry. Go on. I'll be another hour, though."

"That's all right," Louis says. He leans up to kiss Harry's forehead (he can't help that Harry's a giant) and makes his way up the stairs and to their home.

The house is clean and smells of cinnamon. Has to be those things Harry insists on plugging into the walls so that he doesn't need to use candles. Though Harry prefers candles, he says he's always afraid of burning down the house with them. Poor guy. He is rather unlucky, so Louis could see that happening.

He doesn't really know what to cook. He can grill stuff. He's good at meats (there's a good joke in there somewhere). He finds himself staring at hamburger meat and wonders what he could make besides hamburgers, when he hears his phone go off. He sighs and hopes it's someone that could help him out.

The ringing phone is coming from the bedroom, and it's then that he realizes it's not his phone ringing. He finds Harry's phone on the nightstand beside the bed and sees it's Gemma calling. He's about to answer when the ringing stops, and he's left staring at the missed text messages and voicemails Harry's received. He immediately thinks something bad has happened to Gemma and that she needs Harry, so Louis calls her back and makes his way out of the room to get Harry.

"Harry, thank God!" Gemma says.

"It's Louis, but I'm getting Harry. What's wrong? You okay?" He asks while opening the door to the stairs that will lead him to Harry.

"I need Harry. Or he needs me. Do you know what tomorrow is? He needs someone. He needs you. Okay? All right?"

Gemma sounds panicked and it's making Louis panic. He stops at the top of the stairs and can feel his heart speeding up. "What do you mean? What's tomorrow?"

"It's been seven years tomorrow. Seven years since Mum died."

Louis suddenly feels guilty and frowns. If Harry wanted to tell him, wouldn't he have? But Louis should have known this, right? They're usually so open about this stuff. Louis asks about Harry's mother all the time, and he's finally at a point where it doesn't pain him to talk about her. Maybe it was just too painful to tell Louis. Maybe.

"I'm so...sorry. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she sighs out, seeming relieved that she finally got whatever it was off her chest. "Harry was closest to her, though. He always takes this day hard. Please watch him for me."

"All right, yeah. Will do. Bye, Gem."

Louis hangs up and runs his fingers through his hair stressfully. This is why Harry's been to upset recently. He clears his throat and goes downstairs anyway, because Gemma told him something Harry didn't want to tell Louis. He isn't going to pretend it didn't happen. He finds Harry putting in fresh flowers and tickles his back to get his attention.