Best Friend's Brother

Chapter Eight

A/N: So Here's chapter eight. Don't kill me!

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“Hey, Louis, fancy a drink?”

Louis cringed at the voice, sweet as honey but venomous as the bees that made it. It belonged to Eleanor Calder, or as people liked to call her, Queen Calder.

“What do you want, Eleanor?”

“I just wanted to know if you’d like a drink!” Eleanor insisted, raising her hands in defence. “We could head to the local Starbucks.”

‘No no no, don’t do it, Tommo! This girl is no good’ and ‘It’s one cup of coffee, there’s no harm there, right?’ played through his thoughts. If this was a cartoon, they’d be the angel and devil voices. But this wasn’t a cartoon, and Louis had absolutely no idea what to say. Which voice was supposed to be the angel’s and which was the devil’s?

“Right,” he answered. “Um, I mean, just a cup of coffee? No funny business or anything?”

Eleanor shook her head. “Of course not, Lou, I just wanna talk. We haven’t really spoken with each other since the whole Andy thing.”

Louis nodded, hesitantly stepping out of the library. With exams coming up, he had reason to panic. He spent every night now studying, studying, and even more studying. He was almost glad that he and Harry weren’t exactly on speaking terms right now. There was no way Louis would be able to have a boyfriend at a time like this.

It had absolutely nothing to do with Liam, alright? So thank you very much. He just didn’t have time to do anything with his still-boyfriend-but-kind-of-not.

But Louis knew that was a bunch of bullocks. The time he was spending going for coffee with Eleanor (of all people) he could’ve been spending with Harry, either texting him, calling him, or actually seeing him in person. Louis missed him like crazy, his soft brown curls, brilliant green eyes, long fingers and torso… No, he couldn’t think about Harry. Or the way he’d been sending nonstop texts of ‘call me’ or ‘why aren’t you answering me?’ or worst of all, ‘I love you’. That one was the hardest.

The thought of coming out to Liam though, completely overruled his sense of guilt. Well, maybe not completely. Louis still felt a pang in his chest whenever he pressed the delete or ignore button. Once he’d felt so bad for Harry that he’d answered his phone for exactly one second before hanging up. He cried when he received Harry’s message that night, which was ‘I’ll always love you, Lou. We don’t have to come out to Liam if it makes you uncomfortable’.

So, really, he’d been meaning to talk with him. But his mind was too filled up with school work and studying that he forgot.

Walking into Starbucks with Eleanor felt wrong. He didn’t belong here with her. Actually, Louis didn’t belong with her at all. ‘This was a mistake’, his mind told him. Shit, he’d listened to the wrong voice, hadn’t he?

“El, I need to go.” He stuttered out.

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “We haven’t even gotten our drinks yet! Come on, a cup of coffee never hurt anyone!” Her face was smiling but her voice was determined. Was it wrong of Louis to think she looked like a lion lining in on its prey?