The coffee shop shop is always warm and humid with milk steam and brewing tea and shots of espresso.
harry loves to just sit at one of the little tables and observe, small and unassuming like a smell that you’ve gotten used to. there’s always such interesting people: an old man who can’t hear and the barista who has to shout “do you want a pastry?!” about three times before he finally understands; a toddler boy in a plaid beret and tiny knitted sweater who has to strain to look up at his dad when asked “what color straw do you want?” for his juice box; the uni students who sit outside in the frigid dusk, drinking a redbull and lighting cigarettes and exchanging cd’s and music videos with a middle-aged man in a Ramones shirt. just little splotches of painted life that blur together into something like an impressionist monet painting.
today is december 3rd and harry’s on christmas holiday from university. he knows he should be at his flat baking with louis and zayn and niall and liam.
he sighs into his tea, something called “solstice spice black tea” written on the chalkboard behind the counter: “assam and golden monkey tea blended with citrus peel and spices for a festive, spicy brew” it describes in swirly white handwriting. he didn’t add any sugar; harry loves sugar in his tea. as a child he’d shovel whole spoonfuls in until his mum grabbed his hand and shrieked at him to stop or he’d “get fat and have cavities.”
he really should go home. he peers out the slight frost on the window and hones in on the fairy lights nestled in bushes and pinned along the roofs of nearby shops. he thinks maybe he could put up some lights at his and louis’ flat; multicolored ones though, not the dull old yellow ones that everyone else seems to love and that remind him of his ex-girlfriend who always wrapped them around her bed.
right now harry’s shaken out of his nostalgia by a rather loud chair screeching across the slate floor tiles. he avoids looking up, not wanting to look as if he noticed and thereby embarrass the person, so instead he takes a long gulp of his tea and burrows a little into the book of poems (that louis teased him for stuffing in his satchel):
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
…
"you’re back!" niall cries as soon as harry’s clicked the front door shut and is kicking off his boots.
"yes, and i’m freezing my nuts off," he huffs on a laugh, purposefully brushing some of the sleet off his black wool coat and onto niall’s hair.
"hey, ya bloody wanker!" niall shrieks, scurrying out of reach and into the kitchen. "just ‘cause you decided to go freeze your nuts off doesn’t mean you have to get me all wet too!"
harry just chuckles and follows him into the kitchen where he assumes everyone else is. “all wet,” he drawls, winking at niall mischievously. “i see what you did there.”
liam and louis are standing by the stove and both look up when harry wanders in, tossing his bag on the table and nosing over to see what they’re making.
"you’re such a pervert," tosses niall from his perch on the counter, safely behind the other two boys as he licks what seems to be a cake-batter bowl.
harry just smiles, distracted by the sight of louis carefully shaking red and green sprinkles onto a pan of unbaked sugar cookies. his honey-brown hair pokes everywhere, fluffy and soft like a baby hamster and harry wants to pet it.
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Larry fics
FanficIn no way whatsoever, to I hold copyright, or own and credit into which the stories that are contained in this book. I give full credit to all the writers of these stories.
