two hearts in one home, wherever i go you bring me home

2

"Wait!" Harry called as he stepped off the bus, dodging the old people as they picked up their luggage from the underbelly of the bus. Louis was the first one off the bus so he had already grabbed his luggage and had made it to the door of the coffee shop next to the Greyhound station. The bus station was situated between the coffee shop and what appeared to be a laundromat on Main Street in Kingston. So they had arrived in the forgettable city. It was a red eye express bus, Harry remembered.

Louis hadn't heard Harry's call and disappeared inside the building. Harry took long strides up to the door to catch up with him. But when he entered the artsy coffee shop -- just like the ones that he used to love going to when it rained to read one of his paperback novels with a steaming vanilla latte, before the rockstar fame, of course -- and his eyes adjusted to the dim light, the flighty lad was nowhere to be seen. How did the one person who Harry sort of knew in this random town disappear into thin air?

In all seriousness, Harry didn't need Louis at all. He could easily walk up to the counter and tell the barista who he was, if he didn't recognize the famous rockstar in front of him at first. But it was the mystery that drew Harry to Louis, how Harry didn't know anything about this lad other than he was a footy player and lived in this town and yet he was an enigma. It was the fact that Louis didn't recognize Harry and thought his name was Alec. That was why Harry was so disappointed Louis had vanished.

"Can I get a, uh..." Harry paused at the counter, as the perky barista stared at him expectedly. It was like 5 in the morning, the sun hadn't even risen yet. There was only one other person in the shop besides Harry and, he peered at the barista's nametag, Liam: an older man wearing a black fedora sipping coffee from a steaming ceramic mug hunched at a table in the corner. The other passengers on the bus were still acquiring their luggage, but Harry knew the shop would be bustling with customers in a few seconds.

"...coffee black," Harry finished his thought.

"Of course! Where are you from, if you mind me asking! We don't get a lot of people with accents in this part of the state!" Liam chirped.

Harry stared blankly at the boy.

"Alright, nevermind then. Well, anything else for ya?!"

Harry was getting slightly annoyed at the perkiness of the barista as he himself was still slightly drunk and very much so hungover. But something smelled so deliciously amazing that, for a moment, Harry's pounding headache all but disappeared, just like Louis had.

Liam must have noticed Harry lift his head as he said, "Can I interest you in one of our freshly made chocolate croissants?!"

"Fine," Harry grumbled as he pushed his hands into his pockets, empty except for his phone.

Liam smiled warmly. "Alright, I'll pop that croissant in the oven for ya!"

Harry nodded, then said, "I"m going to run to the loo, I'll be right back."

He swung a stall door open and quickly locked it behind him. The bathroom was too cute to be a bathroom, just the kind of decor you would expect from a homey kind of coffee shop. Sitting on the closed toilet seat to catch his breath, Harry ran his fingers through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh just as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Fumbling to pull it out, it dropped on the checkerboard floor. Gross, Harry thought, but he had no time to worry about the germs that now lived on his phone. He did a once-over swipe with his jean jacket before accepting the call and putting the phone up to his ear.

"Charlotte," he started speaking into the phone.

"Harry," she said urgently on the other end of the call. Harry could hear cars beeping in the background and the whizzing of early morning traffic only meant one thing, she was in New York. "I'm sending a car to Kingston for you. It should arrive in two hours," she pauses. "Hopefully."