Falling

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

(LOUIS POV)

I didn’t know how I passed the next few days. I kept feeling that Niall’s sudden departure back to California was partly my fault. I was the reason behind it all. I was the reason he’d come back, the one person he wanted to be with, and then I told him it couldn’t happen, before making him feel like I didn’t trust him.

Harry was always there for me though. When Niall didn’t answer my calls or texts, when I got upset, even when I called him in the middle of the night, waking him up so rudely, he was always there to listen to me whine and cry and just to talk to.

He came over almost every day too; it was almost becoming a routine. Just sitting on the couch, curled up in his embrace, feeling his arms wrapped around me and my face pressed into his neck, breathing in his scent, was fast becoming like the best feeling in the world. That, and sitting together talking about nothing in particular.

There was nothing bothering me anymore now that there was no more of those conflicting, confusing feelings about Harry to deal with. Being with him felt like the most right thing in the world. Funny how just a while ago I was so confused and overwhelmed, maybe, by all the feelings and I didn’t know what to, except turning to ice cream.

I hadn’t gone back to the Frozen Ice since then. I’d called Joe to take some time off work for the moment, and he’d told me to “enjoy and have fun”. I was pretty sure there was a suggestive tone in that and suppressed laughter behind it. I had hung up the phone on him, not even bothering to say goodbye.

It was after that that I had brought up the question to Harry. As usual we were sprawled out comfortably on the couch, me lying with him, watching some boring aimless programme on television. I tugged on the hem of his shirt. “Don’t you ever go to work, Haz?” 

I looked up at him, shock seeming to register mildly on his face. “Well…actually I…” He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. I frowned. “What does that mean? Are you actually the heir to a huge fortune that I don’t know about?”

He chuckled. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just a poor, unemployed and lazy young man who just lives off some odd jobs.” Harry’s voice sounded faraway and distant, coming from somewhere above my head.

Was he being serious? I didn’t think he was such a person. But it puzzled me as to why he always had so much free time on his hands. I wasn’t a strong believer in fate or anything like that, so it was kind of weird that we’d bumped into each other so many times on the street. Maybe things such as fate or destiny did exist.