nothing worsens, nothing grows (l.s)

0.7

new york

Louis

Louis knows what his kind gesture is going to be.

It wasn't really all that hard to figure it out, once he thought about it. Harry's already forgiven him for everything, but Louis isn't one for leaving a checklist unfinished. He's not quite sure of how he's going to pull it off but his heart is too set on it now to do anything else. It's also going to use up the rest of his money, he's pretty sure, but he thinks it'll be worth it.

Their next stop, and the next place they'll have internet connection, is where they'll be staying in New York. No matter how much he refreshes the page, Louis has no signal, which he does not have time for if he's going to pull this off successfully. For some odd reason he'd thought that Ebay would be immune to wireless connection. It isn't.

After they'd finally woken up that morning, Liam tells them that they're stopping in at another place to eat when they're farther down the road. Louis is forced to pocket his phone when Harry hooks his head over his shoulder when they get there.

He's had Harry's headphones in his ears since the night before, listening to one of his playlists on repeat. He'd told Harry to choose anything he liked for him to listen to, and he hadn't disappointed. He'd fallen asleep during it last night, so he asks Harry if he can listen to it again today to make sure he heard all of them.

As much as the old Louis would've hated to admit it, Harry really did have fantastic taste. Louis can tell why he wanted to study the subject.

When breakfast is over, he has to suffer through several more hours of wifi-less cities before they pull into their hotel, and he breathes a sigh of relief when they finally come to a stop. Clambering over the seats to get out, he has to apologize to Harry for almost kicking him in the face in his hurry.

He glances at the help desk as Liam checks them in. Free Wi-fi! It reads.

Fantastic, he thinks.

"Lou, you coming?"

Harry's voice gets him to turn around, but he shakes his head.

"I think I'm going to check out the store down here and then I'll be up," he smiles in what he hopes is a convincing way.

Liam and Harry turn to step on to the lift, but Niall glances confusedly at him for a few seconds before Louis waves him off and then he goes, too.

Once he's sure they're gone, Louis crosses the hall to the room that has computers lining the walls. He could probably do this on his phone, but it has to be done correctly - he refuses to mess this up. The seat is warm when he sits down in it, but he only cringes for a second before shaking it off and logging in with his guest information. He has to be fast.

Pulling up the page he was looking at earlier, he reaches down for his wallet to get his credit card as it loads, inputting the payment details as soon as it pops up on the screen.

He sets the shipping speed to ASAP and copies down the address Niall had slipped him earlier for Harry's flat. It won't arrive over the next couple of days like he'd been hoping and he won't get to give it to Harry in person, but he'll take it.

When he presses confirm he exhales visibly, his body relaxing more against the chair.

He picks up his bag again and heads to the lift. As he goes, he pulls out his phone and finds the note he'd made days before, putting a check mark next to kind gesture and grinning.

——

"Zayn's going to be a bit late, so we have a little longer until I have to go meet him," Liam says later, when he steps back in from talking to Zayn.