With Lips Like Fire He Burns Me

3. I Touch On You More And More Every Time

Sweat dripped off Harry's brow and slid on the strong line of his nose. He wiped it away and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He slid his bandana from his neck into his hair to keep it in tact. He decided against taking the elevator and instead ran up the stairs to his apartment.

When Harry reached his floor, he noticed one of his neighbors, a blue-haired girl named Emma, was struggling to open the door with her arms occupied with grocery bags.

"Here, let me help you with that," Harry said, taking the bags from her.

"Oh, thank you," Emma said, politely smiling at him.

Emma took out her keys and unlocked the door, taking the bags back from him.

"Thanks, Harry," Emma called out, waving at him and closing her apartment door.

Harry smiled at her and stopped at his apartment door. Was he hearing things? The smoke alarm was sounding off and pots and pans were clashing around. He pushed the door open, a cloud of gray smoke puffing into his face.

"What..." Harry said, waving the smoke away. "What the hell?"

Niall was running around trying to fan the smoke away from the smoke alarm with a wet rag. Pots and pans were cluttered on the floor and the faucet was running, water spilling over the overflowing sink. Louis on the other hand, was calmly typing on his laptop, his eyes fixated on the bright screen in front of him rather than the chaos around him.

Harry sighed. He shut the door behind himself and opened the closet, taking out the ladder. He placed the ladder underneath the blaring smoke alarm and climbed, unscrewing the smoke alarm and taking out the batteries.

"Thanks, Harry," Louis mumbled, his focused eyes not straying away from his laptop.

Harry blinked at him, no trace of humor detected on his face, not that Louis noticed anyway. Niall stopped running and bent down, gripping his knees with his hands.

"Thank fuck," Niall breathed out.

Harry climbed down the ladder and shut off the tap. He unplugged the drain cover, allowing the water to drip into the sink. He ran his hand through his sweaty hair and leaned against the kitchen counter, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth in distaste. Louis, who was sitting atop the counter and writing, looked at him. Glasses perched atop his petite, upturned nose.

"You wear glasses?" Harry asked, wonder lacing his words.

"You wear bandanas?" Louis mocked back.

"It's a good look," Harry replied, touching the bandana wrapped around his curls self-consciously. He looked at Niall, who was busy scraping burnt scraps off a pan. "What the hell happened? I was gone for twenty minutes."

"In my defense, I was left unsupervised," Niall said.

"Louis was here with you."

Louis shrugged his response.

"I was trying to be a good roomie and make you lads breakfast," Niall explained, continuing to scrape burnt pieces of food off the equally burnt pan. "But I burnt the pancakes because I forgot I was cooking."

"Done!" Louis exclaimed, hopping off the counter and shutting his laptop closed. "Now I don't have to worry about that shit."

"Great," Niall said, placing the pan into the sink and rinsing it quickly with hot water. "You can start decorating for Liam's birthday party while I'll go buy the snacks."

"Sweet," Louis said, walking over to the closet they kept as a storage room and hauled the door open. He pulled out a box labeled Christmas Lights in big, bold Sharpie writing. "Harry, you can stay and help me out."