Pretty Boy || larry

one

{all credit goes to the original author}

this story was not originally divided into chapters but I found it a little difficult to read so I have split it where the author has put dots

one

His Royal Highness Prince Louis of England, heir to the throne, has a philosophy on how to treat your coworkers, much to his coworkers’ dismay. According to him, if you aren’t making your peers consider other career options at least once a week, then you aren’t being sufficiently problematic and you ought to try a little bit harder at keeping everyone on their toes.

It’s not that he particularly enjoys making men go grey at an early age, it’s just that when you’re the head of one of the most influential nations in the world, things get a little stiff. People get stuck in their ways, get caught up in convention, and get, well, boring. So when you’re the head of one of the most influential nations in the world and you’re twenty-two and mischievous, it’s almost categorically your job to keep things interesting.

That’s precisely why Louis has given his entire security team the slip tonight -honestly, who needs ten bodyguards? That’s just excessive- and has come to this private club all by himself. It’s not that he can’t get a drink in privacy at home, because certainly there are enough liquor bottles and private corners in an entire palace to get the job done, it’s simply that he hasn’t broken any basic rules of monarchical decorum in over twenty-four hours and that simply won’t do. A complacent staff is a boring staff, and Louis Tomlinson does not do boring.

But he’s not an idiot, certainly; he hasn’t taken this game of cat and mouse to a strip joint or a dive bar or someplace else that the crown might be disgraced were he seen there. This is a classy establishment, with a black-tie dress code and tab figures far too high for all but the very richest to even afford. Looking around as he nurses his second whiskey, he can even recognize all but a few faces as parliament members, ambassadors, and some of London’s most successful businessmen. He may not remember their names -that’s really the job of Liam, his personal assistant- but at least later on when he’s getting an earful from Liam he won’t have to get one from Niall, his personal PR consultant, as well.

Not that anyone here recognizes him. Throw on a pair of the thick-framed glasses he only wears when he’s alone in his room and his contacts are being irritating, and it’s like he’s had reconstructive surgery. Not even the bartender who he’d looked in the eye to order his drink had bothered genuflecting appropriately, much to Louis’ delight. Although, he thinks as he tries not to suck the liquor off the ice cubes in the bottom of the glass, it probably has more to do with the fact that no one expects to see their future king out and about without any security or staff whatsoever casually leaning up against the bar and trying to build a teepee out of toothpicks.

It makes him free, to be so well hidden even in plain sight, makes him feel bold. It means that when he glances down after a dropped toothpick and sees a fantastic pair of legs walk up to the bar beside him, he feels powerful enough to follow the line of those perfectly tailored trousers up over a perky little bum, narrow waist and broad shoulders, right up to a head of long, curly dark hair and bright green eyes that are staring straight back at him. “Cosmopolitan,” the handsome stranger says calmly.

He doesn’t take his eyes off of Louis, and after a moment the prince raises an eyebrow. “Are you telling me or the barkeep?”

“Well you took about fifteen minutes to drag your eyes up my body like a man who’s thinking about buying me a drink, so I figured you might be interested in knowing what it is I drink.” A little smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, but he’s a little too dimply and cherubic to look properly cocky. “The answer is a cosmopolitan.”