The Rusty Old Minivan

Chapter 19

"All right. All right. Yeah, all right. S'all right."

"You know, you've said that about fifty times since we got in the car and I'm starting to suspect that that word might carry a different meaning to you than it does to me."

Louis sighed, wringing his hands around in his lap. He glanced out through the car-window once again, trying to put together some sort of speech that'd make Frank agree to doubling Louis' hours in the next three weeks. His mind was in shambles. They'd been parked outside Frank's for over seven minutes now and Louis still hadn't even unbuckled his seat-belt.

"Why don't you just play the sympathy card like we discussed?" Harry said, moving his hand from Louis' thigh up to the back of his neck and giving it a squeeze. "Tell him that you're in big money trouble and really put big emphasis on the whole 'seven-children-in-a-trailer-home'-thing. If he's not a complete sociopath he'll at least want to try and help you out, won't he?"

"Yeah. I guess so." But it wasn't really about that. Frank wasn't by far a heartless sociopath, in fact Louis was pretty certain that the only reason he'd even gotten the job to begin with was out of sympathy. The issue wasn't whether Frank wanted to give him the extra shifts. The issue was whether he had any to give.

"You're sure he's in today, yeah?" Harry asked when they'd been people-watching for a while.

His thumb was rubbing lightly at the crook of Louis' neck, probably meant comforting, but it only made Louis more anxious.

"No, yeah, he's in today. Always on Tuesdays," Louis said, gently taking Harry's hand off his neck and moving it to his own cheek. He looked over at him, giving the inside of his wrist a small peck. "All right. I'm going in."

"D'you want me to come with you?"

"No, that'll just- no. Can't have him thinking I've got some sort of superhot boyfriend having my back, can I?" Louis said, unbuckling his seatbelt and forcing a little smile. "He's got to think I'm utterly fucked."

Louis moved to open the car-door, but he only got one leg outside before Harry grabbed him by the shirt-sleeve and dragged him into a kiss. "You'll be all right, babe. I'll be out here."

"Yeah. Cheers, Haz." Louis stole another kiss before Harry moved away, just for good luck and karma and all that.

To Louis' luck, the diner was short of costumers as he walked inside that Tuesday noon. He found Zayn and some new girl behind the counter, chatting idly.

"You don't work Tuesday's," Zayn said with a frown, as Louis walked in behind the counter.

"Yet," Louis replied, pushing the doors to the backroom open.

He found Frank hunched over his desk in his 'office', which was basically a renovated closet re-furnished by a white Ikea-table, a plastic-chair and the constant presence of a stained coffee-mug.

"Hiya." Louis said, giving a weird half-wave even though Frank hadn't looked up from his laptop yet. He suddenly felt awkward. Unsure of what to say.

"Oh. Louis. Hi." Frank said, then did a belated double-take. "You're not working today, Louis."

"Yeah. Well... I know, but- I sort of wanted to talk to you."

Frank looked at him blankly. "About the fact that you skipped out on my birthday party?"

And. Shit. Louis had forgotten about that. "Uhm, well, I-"

"Relax, Jesus," Frank barked a laugh, "you look like I just sacked you or summat. Come on, don't be daft. What can I do you for?"