Something in the World Today

9

“Ignore it,” Harry says, keeping one hand on Louis’ arm as Louis twists around to stare at the door.

“What if it’s Paul,” Louis says. The thought is mildly terrifying. This is the kind of thing that Paul would walk in on and assume that it’s something else and god knows that they don’t need another talk like that.

Although, come to think of it, Paul hasn’t given them one for a while. He still side-eyes them suspiciously sometimes, but he’s always done that. It’s tragically unfair, considering that he’s never done it to any of the other boys, but there’s moments where Louis can understand where he’s coming from.

This is one of them. If Paul walked in on this he’d definitely be giving them a talk, and Louis probably wouldn’t even be able to blame him. This definitely doesn’t look innocent.

“It’s not Paul,” Harry says, but he doesn’t sound sure of that. The door knob starts turning slowly, like they’re in a horror movie or something. “It’s not Paul?”

“You’ve got five minutes to get your stuff together and get down to the bus,” Paul says, before he’s even finished swinging the door open.

“Told you that it would be Paul,” Louis says. He manages to put enough distance between them that it doesn’t look suspicious by the time that Paul’s head comes into view, peering warily around the door.

Paul looks between the two of them, eyes narrowing. “If you’re not down in five minutes I’m giving the okay to leave without you,” he says, and Louis breathes a little easier. Looks like there won’t be an uncomfortable talk today.

He doesn’t wait for a response before he’s letting the door click closed behind him, leaving them alone in the room. He’s probably not serious about leaving them behind, but Louis isn’t sure that he wants to take that chance. It sucks, because his head has been seriously messed up lately, and it seems like every chance they get to do something about it someone walks in on them.

They just need like, an hour to themselves. That’s it. Just an hour.

That’s not going to happen anytime soon, by the looks of things. They were supposed to have another three hours before they hit the road, but apparently the schedule’s been moved up. It’s only a three hour drive, but they’re spending the night on the bus and their day tomorrow is already jam packed.

It just sucks.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Harry says, pressing his thumb into the corner of Louis’ mouth. He looks regretful, like he knows how much Louis needs this right now. “We’ll figure out something, yeah?”

Louis isn’t sure what he thinks they’re going to be able to figure out, being stuck on the bus with the boys, but there’s really no other option, so he just bites sharply at Harry’s thumb and then lets him carry both of their bags to the lift.

It’s whatever. It’s not like Louis is going to burst out in tears because there’s no time for Harry to put him on his knees.

They get to the bus without much of a hassle, and it’s not like Louis is tired or anything, but he still kind of wants to curl up in his bunk with his headphones on and just wallow in his own misery for at least an hour. Maybe he’ll even steal one of Harry’s shirts and see if that helps any.

He’s not congratulating himself on coming up with a good plan, because that would be weird, but he is in the middle of thinking that it might actually work when Liam lets loose the puppy dog eyes and begs him to play video games in the lounge with him and the rest of the boys.

Louis means to say no, because his plan is sounding better and better by the second, but Liam’s puppy dog eyes are pretty damn sad, and he finds himself in front of the telly ten minutes later with a cold bottle of beer in one hand and a controller in the other.