Slight Pressure

20. Dance of the 7 Cha Cha's

co-written by dirtyyarn & alessandra

Louis and April stare at the doors to Franco's with identical looks of shock across their faces. Louis finally manages to pluck a handful of words out from the scramble of his brain.

"What the fuck did we just witness?"

"That, my darling, was an excellent display of millennial melodrama," April smiles at him slyly. "Not everybody can go toe-to-toe with a bonafide drama queen like that. Harry should be proud. And possibly a little afraid," she added under her breath.

"Proud?" Louis snorts, "Yes, I'm sure the parents of young Dr. Styles would be thrilled that their son managed to tongue a tequila-soaked belly button and win the girl in under five minutes. What an accomplishment."

"I didn't take you for a member of the morality police," April states, and gives Louis a considerable look that he has no hope of fully translating with his current beer goggles.

"I'm not, I just," Louis rubs his eyes. "I know I'm gonna have to talk him off the ledge tomorrow if they don't work out their shit. Riley isn't the only one that can play the drama queen around here."

April nods in full comprehension.

Considering the amount of amature therapy he's provided Harry over the last few weeks, Louis can only imagine what kind of moral support April has given Riley on the flip side of their dumpster fire of a courtship. When a drama queen guarding her damaged heart meets a hopeless romantic coming off a significant dry spell, there are bound to be some bumps in the road. But, Christ on a cracker, Louis is starting to get a chronic eye roll from all the back and forth.

"Well, I responded to your SOS, and got the princess here to save the prince from himself, so he could turn around and save her. It seems the least you could do is buy me a drink."

"Oh," It takes a moment for the fog to clear. Louis suddenly realizes the wide open door that is his evening, now that Riley and Harry are gone. Him. April. The many possibilities of what they could do in the hours ahead flash before his eyes like a sexual buffet. "Of course I'll buy you a..." Louis starts to say, but when he looks up, a smolder ready behind his eyes, April is gone; lost somewhere in the gyrating crowd.

It's post midnight and enough inhibitions have evaporated that the bar moves like an organism, breathing heavy and undulating in a fluid, globular motion. It's a little bit gross, if he's being quite honest, and reminds him of a petri dish experiment he did in advanced bio his sophomore year. The shock of the Harry scenario has sobered him up enough to detach himself from the living body of the bar. Watching everyone now, is like being a fly on the wall of group foreplay. He catches sight of April's curly head of hair bounding over to the bar where a gingerbread man quickly takes her order.

Before following, Louis pulls out his phone and fires off a text to Harry. He's not going to be able to relax if he doesn't hear something from the fucker. Shoving his cell back into the obligatory leather pouch that came with the kilt, he makes his way to the bar.

"Thought I lost you back there. Better stay sharp if you want to keep up with me, Louis."

Was that a wink?

April nods to the bar. "Can I interest you in a ginger kombucha fizz?"

"I'd say yes to anything you offered me, babe."

Louis' phone pings with a response, thank fuck!

All good. H.

"You're worried about them?"