The Suburbs

f o u r

c h a p t e r   f o u r

m i d n i g h t

h a r r y

Harry couldn't stop looking at the messy writing on the inside of his wrist the whole walk back to the cottage, his mind caught up in Louis and everything about him. He had the most soft, beautiful eyes Harry had ever seen, and they were in stark contrast to the harsh way his eyebrows seemed to sit, and the way his lips turned down ever so slightly, making him look a lot less happy than his eyes let off. His caramel coloured locks were slicked back like a 50's movie star, and he dressed like he was attending a semi-formal event even if he were just running a few errands.

Louis was like nobody Harry had ever met, and as he walked up the path towards the cottage, Harry already had it set in his mind that that evening he was going to don his boots and make his way to the address on his wrist.

It was barely close to midday when Harry stepped into the cottage, and he knew he had to keep himself busy for the rest of the day. There were boxes scattered throughout the cottage, some that needed unpacking and some that would wait until Harry's renovations were underway, but he figured he might as well get some of them out of the way now.

The first box he dealt to was the one topped with kitchen things; plates, cutlery, canned foods and things like that. Harry had made a list in his mind of the rooms he was going to fix up, and the kitchen was the first thing on that list, so instead of finding drawers and cupboards for the items he unpacked to hide in, he made a tidy home for them on the bench top. 

Once the few kitchen items were unpacked, he moved onto his limited clothing items which he stored in the chest of drawers he'd brought from back home in Cheshire. It was one of the things he hummed and hawed about for a long time, but he couldn't imagine not seeing it for a long time, so he'd had it put in the back of the moving truck.

When midday finally rolled around, Harry had worked up a sweat, his shirt discarded carelessly hours ago, and his hands were grubby and sore from the amount of work they'd been doing, but Harry liked how they tingled and ached, giving him the feeling of accomplishment. Everything that could be put in a new place was, and all the boxes that had temporarily housed his things had been flattened and stored under his bed in case they were needed any time in the near future.

Harry made himself a poor attempt at lunch, with peanut butter and a chopped up banana thrown between two pieces of bread, and after his last mouthful, he was out the backdoor and heading for the shed where all his tools were. There were still hours before he was going to rap his knuckles on the door of Louis' home, and the longer and harder he could distract himself, the better, so he was making a start on fixing up the creaky, broken and dismal kitchen.

He wanted to paint the walls a bright colour, and even add some kind of colour to the floor to brighten the place up, but he wasn't sure what shades or colours he wanted yet. That was another job for him to add to the list: to go paint shopping.

Tool belt sitting low on his hips and his arms full of timber, Harry walked back through the cottage and into the kitchen. He raked his eyes over everything, deciding where to start, and the dreadful floorboards seemed like a good place. 

As he tore the old floorboards out, colours swirled through Harry's mind, a few sticking out as bright, happy kinds of colours that would be perfect. Shades of yellow, blue and pink swam through his thoughts, but he got distracted when he thought of a certain shade of blue that reminded him of the shirt Louis had been wearing when he'd first laid eyes on him in that small cafe on his first night, and how beautiful he had looked with the dim lights causing shadows to be left on his cheeks by his impossibly long eyelashes, and Harry let out a yelp as he realized he'd cut himself on something, thick red oozing slowly down his forearm, and he swore as he staggered back from his work station.