Desire | Larry Stylinson

Epilogue

Louis and Harry had kept their relationship a secret from their friends for a total of three weeks. Throughout the three weeks, they had had a wonderful time getting to know each other and had even went out on dates. Harry had showed Louis around New York City during a lot of their dates, but that was just as fun as a traditional dinner at a fancy restaurant, if not more. The city was so big and Louis never really had taken it upon himself to explore it when he was visiting Liam.

How they kept their relationship under wraps like that was beyond Louis. He didn't think that they could hide something that big from Liam and Niall for anything - well, maybe Liam, but certainly not Niall. The Irishman had a tendency to be very curious and was easy to catch onto things that were meant to stay hidden. Sure, he had teased Louis about it because he thought it got under his skin, but Louis just broke out his best acting skills and pretended like it still bothered him. He didn't know if it was convincing, but it must have been since Niall hadn't seriously interrogated him about him.

They were all back in London, getting back to life as they knew it and not living on vacation time. Harry had been a frequent at Louis' apartment, spending at least 90% of their time together. Harry brought over his guitar and songbook and they just wrote together for the most part. Harry wasn't even writing for his EP anymore - it was just for fun now. Louis' favorite part about it was listening to Harry sing. His voice was beautiful and sounded like velvet felt. He took back everything negative that he had ever said about Harry's singing and his career. The man was an absolute legend.

However, today was different. It was Valentine's Day and their friend group decided to have their annual friendship dinner at Harry's place. Louis was going to try and make it feel like a romantic dinner date as much as he could, but he knew that it was going to be a little difficult. The two had volunteered themselves to make the meal, which would give them some alone time to celebrate, thankfully. It was going to be a little harder because they had to act like friends and not like lovers celebrating the lover's holiday.

"They are so oblivious, it's concerning," Harry whispered to Louis as he stirred the brownie mix.

"Or we're just amazing actors," Louis hummed, hugging Harry from behind and planting a kiss on the boy's cheek.

"That could very well be. Even so, I know that I'm not that good of an actor, so I'm surprised that at least Niall hasn't caught on," Harry pointed out.

"That's why I say that we're grade A actors. The Oscars are shook," Louis told him.

"If I walk in there and you two are snogging over my food, I'm going to be pissed," Niall announced through the door.

While he was just saying it to be a dick, there was actually truth to it - truth that Niall didn't even know existed. Louis and Harry quickly moved apart. They were hoping that the guilt on their faces wasn't apparent because that is not the way that they wanted to expose themselves. The two of them had a plan and they weren't in the mood to go against it.

Niall walked into the kitchen and eyed the two of them, pretending to be suspicious - or at least, they hoped that he was pretending. "Is the food almost ready?"

"It's pretty close," Louis relayed to him.

"What do you want me to do so it gets done faster?" Niall asked, popping an apple from the fruit bowl in his mouth.

"Go back and hang out with Li," Harry prompted with a slight smirk on his face.

Niall just raised his eyebrow and look between the two of them. "Yeah? And why's that?"

"Because there isn't anything more to do," Harry said flatly. "We just have to wait until the timer dings."

"If we just have to wait until the timer dings and there isn't anymore to do, why are you two still in here? Why don't both of you come out and hang out with us? Hmm?" Niall interrogated, determined to get tea that he didn't know was actually there.