Archive of Our Own

The ferry terminal is packed. While they sit in the car waiting to disembark, Harry counts no less than four children already screaming for ice cream, one lost couple asking for directions while they’re still on the boat, and seven girls crammed into one huddle for a group selfie.

“It doesn’t usually take this long,” he tells Zayn, who looks close to dozing off in the passenger seat. Figures.

He goes back to staring out the car window, at the commotion ahead of him. Oak Bluffs Terminal usually isn’t this busy on a Tuesday morning. It was why they’d booked the tickets for this date instead of over the weekend. Maybe the summer season is beginning earlier this year. Stranger things have happened.  

Eventually, they’re told to start the car and drive off the boat. He breathes a sigh of relief when he pulls out of the terminal and onto solid ground. “Welcome to Martha's Vineyard,” he tells Zayn, echoing what he’d said up on the boat deck. He rolls down the window and breathes in the salty air, letting it fill his lungs, and he can’t help but grin.

He’s home.

“Jesus, look at that house,” Zayn says as they pull onto Seaview Drive, the ocean on their left and the houses on their right. “It’s massive.”

Harry knows the one he’s talking about without even having to look, but he does anyway. He smiles in satisfaction when it’s the exact one he was picturing. “Yeah, imagine owning that? Supposedly the owners bought it like fifty years ago, and the very night that they closed the deal, it burned down. And then they got a shit ton of money and used it to build that monstrosity.”

Zayn raises an eyebrow. “Suspicious.”

“Right? Anyway, this whole area is prime real estate. They have a huge celebration here on this big grassy area at the end of the summer, with fireworks and a live band in the gazebo and all the kids running around. It’s the best. I can’t wait for it.”

“Slow down, Styles. It’s only May.” He pats Harry on the arm. “Don’t go wishing the summer away.”

“Right,” Harry says, exhaling a bit as they carry on down the road. He points out various sites to Zayn — “there’s the spot where I passed out on a run one time, that’s the ice cream place where I got stung by a bee, that’s the section of beach where I got the worst sunburn of my life.”

To his credit, Zayn listens eagerly, soaking up the information like he’s going to be left alone for the whole summer. Ha, as if. Harry’s going to spend the entire summer glued to Zayn’s side; by the end of the summer, Zayn might be so sick of him that he never wants to speak to him again, let alone room with him next year.

It’s going to be the best summer of their lives.

--

“Home sweet home,” Harry says when he pulls into the pebbled driveway of his parents’ house in Edgartown.

“Holy. Shit.”

He looks over at Zayn, who’s open-mouthed, staring at the house in front of them. “This is… this is where you live?”

“It’s my parents’ house,” he says weakly, pulling at the collar of his t-shirt.

“It’s huge,” Zayn says. Harry rolls his eyes. He’s been dreading this moment since they first decided to live on the Vineyard for the summer. Zayn’s not the first friend to be astounded by the house and he won’t be the last. It's a family house that's been passed down, no reflection on his immediate family. All the same, Harry gets embarrassed each and every time. “Styles, how have you kept this from me all this time?”

“Less talking, more walking,” Harry says, shutting off the car and opening the door. He takes his first suitcase out of the trunk and helps Zayn get his too. They can come back for the rest once they’re settled in the house.

Walking up the short path to the door feels like coming home, and as he fits the key into the lock, he takes a deep breath and opens the door.

It’s exactly how it was that day he left last August: pale yellow couches in the living room, bright blue art on the walls, the gleaming kitchen just out of view.

“Home sweet home,” Harry repeats, and then he ushers Zayn inside.

--

They spend the morning cleaning the house from top to bottom at Harry’s mom’s insistence.

“Can’t believe that you’re not going to be four feet away from me all summer,” Zayn says when Harry shows him to his room - his own room. “Who am I going to talk to if I wake up in the middle of the night now?”

“Yeah, thank God I won’t be woken up by you at three in the morning anymore. The last time you did that you told me that you were dreaming about cheese and then went back to sleep.”

“I didn’t!”

“Sorry to say that you did, pal. But anyway, if you get lonely, we can always have a cuddle session.”

“That was one time!”

Harry scoffs. “Sure, if by one time you mean ‘once a month,’ then it was one time.”

“I’m never speaking to you again.”

“Sorry, I gotta go call the cops, there’s a strange man in my house,” Harry says, heading down the stairs as if he’s about to do just that.

Eventually, with the kitchen scrubbed, rooms cleaned, and the little bag of groceries put away, they collapse on the living room floor, sweaty and exhausted.

“Well, at least that’s done for the entire summer,” Harry says, like he’s not planning to clean the house every two weeks.

“I’m exhausted,” Zayn says, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead. “Can we take naps? Or swim in the pool? Actually, I wanna do that.”

Harry hesitates. They really should go grocery shopping, start off the summer on the right foot. But Zayn looks so eager go swim and the pool is right there and he won’t need to put on real clothes if they do that. “Yeah, let’s go swimming,” he says. They’ve got enough food to last them until tomorrow morning anyway.

--

That evening, after they’ve showered and dressed and Harry’s cooked them each a pair of burgers on the grill in the backyard, Harry and Zayn watch the sun go down from the back deck.

“It’s gorgeous here,” Zayn says quietly.

“You haven’t even seen any of the island yet! And no, the drive here doesn’t count. That was like, ten minutes.”

“I know, but I can just tell,” Zayn says. He’s got a knowing glint in his eye, like he’s planning something. “I feel like there’s gonna be some great creative stuff to come out of this summer.”

“I hope so. No one deserves it more than you.”

It had been Zayn’s idea to come out to the Vineyard for the summer, all the way back in February. He’d found out about this internship that combined photography and modeling and fine art, and without telling Harry, he’d applied on a whim.

And then one day:

“Hey, H, don’t your parents have a house on the Vineyard? Are you going this year?”

“Yeah, we usually go every summer, why?”

“Any chance you want to get a job there and I’ll come out and live with you? I got accepted to this really sick internship.”

And that had been it: Harry had sent out applications for retail jobs, for internships, and for restaurant work. In the end, he’d gotten a job at Vineyard Vines, the island-born retailer known for selling preppy clothes for men and women.

Gemma had laughed her ass off when he’d told her.

“You, working at Vineyard Vines? Haz, you wear backwards snapbacks unironically. There’s no way someone will possibly buy ties with printed whales on them off you and take that seriously.”

“Oh fuck off, Gemma,” he’d said, and hung up the phone. The truth was, he was a bit worried about how he was going to fit in there. But that was a problem for the day after tomorrow, when he went in for his first day of training.

“Gonna be a good summer, I think,” Zayn says.

“I hope so.”

They stay outside, talking until the sky is dark and the mosquitoes are out in full force.

“We should go inside,” Harry says after he’s swatted away the twenty-eighth bug that’s tried to bite him. They’ll really need to go get one — or nine — of those citronella candles that his mom uses to keep the bugs away. They should have gone back into the house an hour or two ago, but it’s so nice, sitting here with Zayn without the stress of their first year of college hanging over them.

After a year of being roommates, they probably should have run out of things to talk about by now. They haven’t.

“You wanna watch a movie or something?” Zayn asks, getting to his feet and clearing the dishes off the patio table.

“Actually, I have a better idea. You’re not too tired, are you?”

“Not particularly,” Zayn says slowly. “What are you planning?”

Harry merely grins.

--

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Zayn hisses. “Like, what if—”

“Zayn, please be quiet. Of course it’s a good idea. ”

They approach the front door of the OD – officially named The Ocean Drive, though it’s called that by precisely zero people – and Harry tells himself to be confident. Walk tall, be bold, pretend like you’ve done this dozens of times.

The name of the bar is painted above the door, the peeling navy paint giving it a tired feel. It was probably stenciled on years ago when the bar opened. And Harry’s mom used to come here in college, so the bar is pretty old.

He takes a deep breath and pushes the wooden door open. Pretend you’ve been here a hundred times. Act natural.

The bouncer greets them with a half-hearted hello and asks for their IDs. Harry doesn’t look behind him to see Zayn’s face, but he can bet that he’s about three seconds away from peeing his pants. He takes another breath and pulls the license out of his wallet.

They’d gotten fake IDs from the older brother of a guy on their floor back at NYU, someone who knew a guy who knew a guy. They’d paid $100 for them, handing over the dollars in a dark hallway like some kind of back alley deal, and when the IDs had been delivered weeks later, Harry hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry. They looked like preschool library cards.

They’d just blown a hundred bucks; there was no way anyone would ever think these were real.

Well, time to find out.

He hands the license over and scans the interior of the bar in the meantime. It’s smaller than he imagined. Dingier, too. In all of Gemma’s stories about nights out, she never once mentioned that the floor was sticky and the windows in need of a good cleaning. The bar itself is on the left and the dance floor area to the right. A number of tables line the opposite wall. The walls are covered in advertisements for alcohol brands and shows for live bands and island events, many of them peeling off the walls. There’s a group of older men playing darts, cheering each time one of them lands a dart on the board. It’s not particularly crowded, and everyone looks about ten years older than Harry and Zayn.

It’s the best place Harry’s ever been.

“Kid, are you in there? I said you’re fine,” the bouncer says. Zayn pokes him in the back, and Harry snaps back to attention. He takes the ID with a grateful smile and steps to the side. One glance at Zayn’s license and they’re both ushered inside.

“Fuckin’ New Jersey,” Zayn mutters, slinging an arm around Harry’s shoulders. The tension is gone out of his body, a grin plastered to his face now that they’re inside. “Who’d’ve thought?”

“Not me,” Harry says with a grin. “Alright, what are we drinking?”

Harry wants a cocktail but Zayn insists they get beers — “Bro, we have to at least pretend to be cool!” — so Harry gives in and figures he can convince Zayn to switch to liquor a drink or two from now.

“Gemma never told me this place was so tiny,” he says when they’re settled at a table next to the wall. “She made it sound like the best place on the island.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not. Just seems a bit sketchy, is all.”

“It’s fine, the whole island’s pretty safe. And we can get a cab home when we’re done.”

“Huh?” Zayn asks.

There’s a group of young women in the back corner celebrating a Bachelorette weekend and it’s obvious that Zayn’s got his eye on them, hasn’t heard a word Harry’s just said. If Zayn gets distracted, Harry will be alone all night. He can’t have that happen.

“Hello, earth to Zayn.” He snaps his fingers. “Focus. You’ve got a whole summer of flirting ahead of you.”

“Fine, you’re right,” Zayn says, tearing his gaze away with a reluctant sigh and turning it back on Harry. “Hey, didn’t you want to do some cheesy ‘goal setting for summer’ thing?”

Harry slaps his forehead with his palm. “Fuck! I totally forgot.”

“That’s fine, we can do it now.”

“Here? At the bar?” Harry raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, why not? You said it needed to be the first night for like, maximum posterity or whatever, right?” Zayn waves a mocking hand in the air.

“I don’t have a pen. Or paper.” He does want to do goal setting, but he’d intended it to happen somewhere that wasn’t a grimy bar. Like his house, maybe.

His psychology professor had suggested the idea, probably not thinking anyone would actually do it, but Harry had latched on. He doesn’t know exactly how this summer is going to go, but he knows what he wants to make happen. And so he’s going to write those goals down and make them a reality.

“Be right back,” Zayn says, and he scoots off the chair, drink in hand, and makes a beeline for the girls in the back corner. Harry rolls his eyes and drinks the rest of his beer in one go.

A folk band kicks off in the corner near the door, and the atmosphere of the place changes immediately: the darts game is abandoned in favor of the music, and a number of couples make their way to the floor to dance.

There’s one couple that catches his eye almost immediately, and once he sees them, everything else falls away. He spends a few minutes just staring, watching as they glide across the dance floor and put everyone else to shame. That’s what he wants: the way they’re dancing close together, no space between them, the familiar way one of the guys bends down to speak in the other guy’s ear, the way they both throw their heads back and laugh. He wants that kind of intimacy. He wants it so much that it hurts.

When Zayn returns, he’s holding two fresh beers and a ballpoint pen between his teeth. “Here ya go.”

Harry blinks, startled out of his reverie. “Thanks. Where’d you get the pen?”

“Girls in the corner,” he says, tilting his chin toward them. “And here—” He pulls out a napkin from the dispenser on the tabletop, and places it in front of Harry, settling the pen on top. “—is your paper. Pen and paper, there ya go. Let’s get started.”

Thirty minutes later, they’ve got a third round of alcohol — Sex on the Beach, per Harry’s request, because make your intentions known to the universe, and all that — and a trio of paper napkins, covered in water stains and covered in Zayn’s chicken scratch with their goals for the summer.

“You need to change this one,” Zayn says, pointing to number six. “It’s unrealistic.”

“What the fuck? How?”

“It needs to be something you can actually achieve.”

“What’s unachievable about a summer romance?” Harry asks, offended.

“Nothing, it’s just… what if it doesn’t happen?”

Harry pouts and determinedly does not look at the dancing couple from earlier, who are now kissing at the bar. He can totally have a summer romance. It’s just about finding the right person. “What about… kiss a stranger?”

“Perfect.” Zayn writes that down instead, and then he turns the list around for Harry to approve.

HARRY + ZAYN’S KICKASS SUMMER

1. Use our fake IDs
2. Go to the beach every day
3. Crash a wedding
4. Get a tattoo
5. Throw a house party
6. Have a summer romance Kiss a stranger
7. Read 10 books
8. Kiss in the rain
9. Spend a night under the stars
10. Skinny dip in the ocean

“Why are there two about kissing? This is why we should keep number six summer romance,” Harry says with a frown.

“There’s no way either of us can make that happen. And definitely not both of us.”

“I don’t think it’s goals for both of us to each complete. It’s a collective list of intended… intentions,” Harry slurs. His head is starting to feel a bit spacey. “What about have a one night stand?”

“Kissing a stranger is much more likely. And...no. What if you get a disease? We should stick to the kissing.”

“Sure, whatever,” Harry says, waving his hand. He doesn’t care anymore. The goals are done. Plus, he’s going to prove Zayn wrong.

“I’m done with my drink. Will we get another round?”

“Sure,” Harry agrees easily. He’s gotten happy, cheerfully drunk, at the point where everything makes him laugh and laugh and laugh. “I’ll go get them.”

He slides off his seat and grabs his wallet without another thought.

“Don’t get me another Sex on the Beach!” Zayn yells. “I want a beer.”

Harry gives him a thumbs up over his shoulder and doesn’t look back. He’ll be getting Zayn a Sex on the Beach.

He waits the corner of the bar, which has gotten weirdly busy as the night’s gone on. The bartender is a guy who looks about Harry’s age. He has dyed blonde hair and brown roots. It’s a bit weird, but who is Harry to comment on someone’s fashion choices? He wore a heart-printed shirt to his nineteenth birthday party and ignored everyone who said it looked bad. Harry watches as the bartender helps the numerous customers before him, and he bobs his head to the beat of the music coming from the speakers.

“Treasure, that is what you are, honey you're my golden star. You know you can make my wish come true, if you let me treasure you,” he sings under his breath as he taps his credit card on the bar. Waiting, waiting, waiting. The bartender is talking to two women from the bachelorette party, possibly flirting with them, and Harry wants to yell at him. He has drinks to order.

He suddenly notices a guy at the far end of the bar sitting all alone. There’s a lot of people in the way, so Harry can’t see him all that well, but he can see that he’s about Harry’s age, thus lowering the average age of the patrons in the bar, and very good looking. Zayn’s comment rings in Harry’s ear. It needs to be something you’d actually achieve. Well, he can totally achieve kissing a stranger tonight.

He can’t tear his eyes away from this guy, who throws his head back and laughs at something the second bartender says. Harry can’t hear it, but he knows the sound is beautiful.

“What can I get for you? Hello?”

Harry blinks and suddenly the bartender is right in front of him, looking impatient. “Right, sorry. Uh, two Sex on the Beach. Sex on the Beaches? Sexes on the Beach? What’s uh… the pluralization of that?”

“Can’t say I care much, pal. That’ll be fourteen dollars.”

“And a drink for that cute guy at the end, too. Whatever he’s drinking,” Harry sputters. Where did that come from?

The bartender raises an eyebrow. “Cute guy at the end?”

“Alone. The, uh, the one that’s alone,” he says. “The one with the cheekbones.” He wants to punch himself.

The bartender glances down to the end of the bar and nods. Harry might be imagining the way his face turns to approval. “Dark and Stormy, okay, that’ll be twenty even.”

Harry hands over the money, waits for his drinks to be made, and then walks back to the table before he can watch the guy react.

“What took so long?” Zayn said. “All those girls left, I was all alone and couldn’t even waste the time getting them to pity flirt with me! Also, I specifically said not to get me a Sex on the Beach.”

“Zayn, I hardly think anyone pity flirts with you,” Harry says, sipping his drink and ignoring Zayn’s second comment. “I think they’re real flirting.”

This isn’t the first time he’s told Zayn this. He seems to be a bit oblivious to his own beauty.

“Whatever,” Zayn says, shaking his head.

“Z, you won’t believe what happened—” he takes a long sip of his drink and cranes his neck to see if he can catch sight of the cute guy at the bar.

“Fuck, I forgot to give those girls their pen back.”

“I’m sure–sure it’s fine,” Harry slurs. He clicks his teeth together and can’t feel anything. He’s officially drunk now. It feels good. He grabs hands on top of the table with both of his own hands and squeezes tight. “Z, we’re gonna have the best summer ever.”

Zayn laughs. “We are.”

“I love you, you know that, right?”

Zayn laughs again. “Yeah, love you too.”

Harry squeezes his hands tighter. “No, I love you SO MUCH!”

Zayn tries to tug his hands out of Harry’s grip, but Harry holds on tight. “I said it already, I love you too.”

“No, Zayn, you’re supposed to say I’m your favorite roommate ever! In the whole world! Say it back!”

He’s about to pinch Zayn’s cheek across the table when he hears the opening notes of a familiar song. He freezes, yells “OH MY GOD!” and then climbs off the seat and drags Zayn to the dance floor.

His drink is still in his hand, the orange liquid sloshing off the edges as he pulls Zayn in by the waist and dances with him. He’s drunken and uncoordinated as he sings, “You think I’m pretty! Without any makeup on!”

“You think I’m funny! When I tell the punchline wrong!” Zayn yells.

Zayn spins him around and more alcohol falls to the ground, splashing his shoes. “No regrets, JUST LOVE!” they scream.

“Zayn, this is our song!” Harry says in his ear, cheeks pink and face feeling hot.

“I know!”

“It’s our song! It’s fate. This is gonna be the greatest summer ever!” Harry shouts, and then he spins out of Zayn’s grip and continues to dance in the middle of the floor. There’s a dozen pair of eyes on him but he doesn’t notice, too thrilled with this night and the alcohol in his veins and the prospect of a summer with his best friend.

--

Harry wakes with his face pressed into a pillow and something sticky stuck to his naked stomach. The light that filters into the room is blinding, and when he squints his eyes open, he has to shut them immediately lest the pounding in his head get worse.

“What the fuck happened last night?” he mutters, turning onto his back. He dares to bring a hand down to see what’s on his stomach. It’s sticky, like sugar… is that a marshmallow? He opens his eyes slowly, drags his finger through it, and brings it to his mouth. Yes, definitely a marshmallow. “What the fuck?”

When he’s had a minute to adjust to the light and the pounding in his head and confirms that he’s at least wearing boxers, he realizes that he’s in Gemma’s room. Well, it’s Zayn’s room for the summer, really, since Gemma is studying abroad in Paris for two months — which is code, he thinks, for sunbathing on the Seine and tromping through vineyards — and won’t have any need for the space. And fuck, that means he fell asleep half-naked in Zayn’s bed. Not the first time, of course, but he’d thought he could go at least the first night without snuggling up to Zayn. Zayn’s nowhere to be found. Harry waits a minute and then hears a crash downstairs, followed by some loud swearing. Missing roommate: found.

He plants his legs on the floor and considers it a victory when the movement doesn’t make him want to throw up. He really should shower, but he picks up the purple NYU t-shirt that’s laying on the floor and pulls it over his head before heading downstairs. Food first, shower later. On the way down, he finds his cell phone in the middle of the stairway. Quizzically, he pockets it and keeps walking.

He finds Zayn in the kitchen, wearing a bright pink apron and flipping a pancake on the stove. He’s singing to himself, like some kind of proper 1950s housewife, and Harry wants to fight him. How is he so cheerful? How does he not feel like his brain is being ripped from his head with tweezers?

“Morning!” Zayn trills when he sees Harry. “Want some pancakes?”

“I feel like I’m going to die,” Harry grumbles as he shuffles over to the breakfast bar and takes a seat. He immediately crosses his arms and rests his head on top of them, forehead resting against the cool marble of the counter. Maybe if he stays like this for the next three hours, he’ll feel a little better.

“I’m gonna take that as a not right now, then,” Zayn says. “How much do you remember from last night?”

“Z, I can’t even remember my own name right now.”

“Fair enough. Here, have some water. I’ll make coffee.” He slides a glass across the counter and Harry lifts his head to take a small sip.

“Thanks. I want to cut my head off. I think it would hurt less.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m not. Also there’s a bruise the size of my fist on my thigh. And a marshmallow stuck to my stomach. And oh yeah, I woke up in your bed. What happened last night?”

“Oh, is there? That’d make sense. The marshmallow is from when we got home and you insisted we make microwave s’mores. You started to fall asleep halfway through eating the second one and a bit got stuck to you.” Zayn crosses the kitchen to peer at Harry’s leg. “Ouch, the floor got you good.”

“The floor?”

“You were spinning around during a particularly… inspired rendition of ‘Dirrty’ and you slipped on beer and fell.”

“Oh no.”

“It’s okay. Nothing embarrassing happened. Except for when a cute guy helped you up and you tried to propose to him.”

“Oh God.” He buries his face in his hands. “I’m never drinking again.”

“Sure, whatever you say. Pancakes?”

--

Harry is contemplating possible plans for the day — a shower, a nap, more food, possibly not in that order — when his phone rings.

He’s not in the habit of answering calls from unknown numbers, after an awkward encounter with a sort-of boyfriend’s father a year ago, but he answers this one anyway.

“Hi, this is Harry Styles.” He stands and looks out into the backyard. After breakfast, some painkillers, and two cups of coffee, his headache has lessened a bit and he can handle looking at the sun without wanting to die.

“Hi, Harry. This is Kyla from Vineyard Vines. I know you were supposed to come in for training tomorrow, but we wondered if maybe you could come in today instead? No big deal if not, but it’d really help us if you could.”

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose and watches as a sparrow lands on the surface of the pool, casting ripples through the water, and then flies away. “That’s, um. Yeah, that’s fine. What time do you need me?”

Kyla’s voice is far too enthusiastic when she speaks again. “Great! That’s really awesome. Can you be here in 90 minutes?”

He leans forward and smacks his head against the sliding glass door. “Sure, I’ll be there.”

“That’s amazing! Looking forward to seeing you then.”

--

Work training is… fine. He gets paired up with a girl named Ainsley, and together the two of them have to watch endless videos about how to fold shirts ‘the Vineyard way’ and how to encourage customers to add a silk tie to each and every purchase. When they break for lunch, he and Ainsley duck into a sandwich shop three doors down and scarf down a grilled cheese and turkey sandwich, respectively. She’s from Philadelphia and also goes to college in New York; he likes her immediately.

When they return to the training room, there’s a gift basket at Harry’s seat. It includes a Vineyard Vines water bottle, a navy hat, a whale keychain, a pale pink koozie with the logo in navy, three whale stickers, a car decal, and a $250 gift card. On top of it sits a bar of chocolate, wrapped in a navy bow.

“What’s all this?” Ainsley asks, looking at her gift basket, which contains the exact same thing.

“It’s our employee welcome basket!” Kyla chirps. “We want our employees to have the resources promote the company even when they’re not at work!”

“Alright,” Harry says quietly, taking a seat and looking at the spread in front of him. Is he really supposed to use all this? He’ll be a walking billboard.

“So earlier we talked about how important it is that all employees love our clothes as much as our owners do! That’s why employees are expected to wear our clothing at all times. We do offer a generous 65% discount, after all. So come on, grab those gift cards and let’s go shopping!” She claps her hands three times, her tight curls bouncing with the movement, and when Harry exchanges a wide-eyed look with Ainsley at Kyla’s positivity, he wonders how he’s going to survive a whole summer in this place.

“I think this would look absolutely amazing on you, Harry,” Kyla says, holding up an orange short-sleeved shirt with pink lobsters all over it. “Maybe with a pair of orange shorts?”

Ainsley snorts.

Kyla furrows her brow. “You don’t think so?”

“I’m just, er, not sure it’s the thing for me right now,” Harry says diplomatically. “Can I have a few minutes to look around by myself?”

Kyla’s face falls. “But I thought I could help you shop!”

“I think I need a moment to really… feel the outfits. You know, think about how they’ll look and visualize the sales I can make while wearing them. Do you get me?”

“Sure,” she says, still confused.

“Great! I’ll see you in a bit then.”

Ainsley hides a laugh behind her hand and follows Harry to the back of the store. “What did we sign up for here?”

“I have absolutely no clue,” Harry says, shaking his head and picking up a blue ombre long sleeve shirt. “But I guess we’re in it for the long haul. But there’s so many fucking whales in this place.”

“I know,” she laughs. “Time to get shopping, Styles.”

By the time he’s done, he has a number of outfits that are Kyla-approved: the ombre shirt in two different colors, a pair of navy canvas shorts, three pairs of shorts with various repeating patterns (all of which are nautical, of course), a pale pink hat, three t-shirts, a pair of green dress pants he’ll probably never wear outside of work, two polos (with whales above the heart, obviously), a second hat with a rainbow whale, a sweatshirt, a belt with an anchor as the clasp, a bathing suit with turtles on it, and brown flip flops.

“Whew, you really did a number on it, didn’t you?” she says cheerily as she rings him up. “No chance I can convince you to get that orange shirt with the lobsters?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Harry says. That shirt is maybe the ugliest thing he’s ever seen. “I have a fear of lobsters.”

“Oh no,” she says, face very serious. “That must be horrible then, living here.”

“Why are you scared of lobsters?” Ainsley asks a few minutes later, when they head back to the training room for another round of inane videos. This sucks. They haven’t even gotten to do any real training. The whole reason Harry wanted to work in retail was so that he could interact with customers. Instead, it’s just been him and Ainsley stuck inside this tiny, windowless room, staring at the projector screen.

“I’m not,” he says with a shrug. “It just got her off my back.”

She chuckles. “You’re something else, Harry.”

Three hours later, he and Ainsley are set free and told to return tomorrow for a second round of training.

“You both did ah-mazing today,” Kyla says, high fiving each of them. “I’m so excited to work with both of you this summer!”

“You too!” Harry says, forcing some cheer into his voice. He likes Kyla fine. She’s just… too enthusiastic for him. She cares about the whales too much. Maybe he won’t get roaring drunk tonight and then tomorrow will be better.

He and Ainsley exchange numbers and then part ways until tomorrow. “I’ll bring coffee,” she promises, and he’s never heard anything better.

He sits on a bench at the end of Circuit Ave for a few minutes, just outside the sandwich shop where he got lunch earlier. It’s less busy now, mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, and Harry considers all the hours he’s going to spend on this street this summer. It’s going to be a lot.

He stands up after a few minutes, plastic Vineyard Vines shopping bag in hand, and decides that he deserves an ice cream. He starts heading up the street, and after a few minutes comes to a stop in front of the ice cream parlor.

Nickety Splitz is named after the owner, Nick Grimshaw, who isn’t from the island but just appeared one day, opened an ice cream place, and never left. Harry’s pretty sure he’s the local weed dealer, but he’s never been brave enough to ask a year-round islander.

Issues with the pun of the name aside (wouldn’t ‘Lickety Splitz’ have sufficed?) it’s Harry’s favorite ice cream place. A little expensive, sure, but still the best ice cream on the island.

He pushes open the rickety wooden door, and with the blast of cold air comes a flood of memories: being too short to look over the counter, pointing to the different colors he wanted, spending too much money on sundaes to impress a cute boy he met at the beach, Gemma offering anything he wanted the summer after sophomore year when he got his heart broken for the first time.

It seems fitting that this would be his first stop on his first real summer here as an adult, responsible for himself and free of parental supervision.

“Hi, welcome to Nickety Splitz!” calls the girl at the counter, her smile bright. Her name tag identifies her as Annie, and as Harry looks at her, he’s pretty sure he recognizes her from last summer. Actually, now that he takes in her wavy hair and the rainbow bracelet on her wrist, she might be the one that gave him a free sundae last summer just for the hell of it.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he asks, waving. He immediately cringes.

“Doing well thanks! What can I get for you?”

“Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one, won’t I?”

“Take your time,” she says with a grin. “Though don’t take too long, there’s lots of people waiting.”

The store is empty. He snort-laughs, and watches as Annie laughs in relief that the joke landed properly.

“Well in that case, I’ll take two scoops of chocolate peanut butter brownie in a sugar cone, please.”

“Great! Louis, do you wanna take this one?”

The boy behind her turns around, still tying the strings of his apron behind his back, and he grins at Harry. “Hi! How are you?”

“Hi, doing well. How are you? I’ll have, uh… what did I say again? Chocolate… chocolate brownie. Please.” Harry flushes pink. Never has he been so embarrassed in the face of a cute boy, never in his life.

“Think it was chocolate peanut butter brownie, yeah?” He smiles at Harry, bright and wide, and there’s a flash of recognition. Does Harry know him?

“Please,” Harry says quietly. He looks around at the ice cream parlor for something to do, anything to keep him from staring at the careful way this guy — Louis, apparently — is scooping ice cream. Of course he can’t help but look, though, and he’s got really nice arm muscles. Probably from all the ice cream scooping. Makes sense.

He hands the ice cream to Harry with a smile while Annie rings him up. For a moment Louis looks like he’s going to say something, and then he closes his mouth and looks at the floor. He kind of looks like someone Harry used to see in his college cafeteria sometimes. That’s probably how Harry recognizes him. Though one would expect him to recognize a face like that.

There’s a question about where he goes to school on his lips when Annie speaks.

“That’ll be six fifty, please.”

He hands her a ten dollar bill and tells her to keep the change. With a little wave at both of them, he shoulders open the door and steps outside, intent on continuing down the street to get to where he parked his car.

The ice cream is really fucking good, possibly better than he remembers from last summer. He nearly moans at the taste, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to give it a few more licks before continuing to walk.

“Hey! Wait!”

He turns and Louis is running toward him, arms flailing like he’s trying to wave him down. He’s still wearing his brown apron.

“What’s wrong? Did I forget my wallet?” He pats his pockets with his free hand, but no, the wallet’s still there.

Louis comes to a stop in front of Harry. “You’ve got a, um, a bit of—”

Harry looks to where he’s pointing and sees the melting ice cream is leaving a brown rivulet across his hand and threatening to drip onto all his brand new work clothes in the bag below. His tongue is out of his mouth and licking it off before he can even think that maybe he shouldn’t be doing that in front of a cute boy.

“There ya go,” Louis says. His face looks a bit pink. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Harry’s still thinking about how he fucking licked his hand with his entire tongue in front of this guy — there’s a napkin in his hand, for God’s sake, what else is that for — so he blankly says, “Remember what? Do you go to NYU?”

“NY… what? No, I go to school in Michigan.”

Okay, so not New York. Well, there’s a lot of people at NYU. Maybe he just looks like someone Harry knows. “Alright, then I have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.”

Louis chuckles, brings his hands together in front of his waist, and looks up at the sky for a moment. “Right, of course. Last night, at the bar… nothing?”

“At the… no, I don’t, did we talk? I’m sorry, I— holy shit.”

“There we go, now it’s clicked.” He’s grinning happily now, and Harry has never wanted to disappear more than in this moment.

“Holy shit. You’re—you’re cheekbones!” He points directly at Louis, flinging a few droplets of melting ice cream onto the sidewalk. Fuck the ice cream, fuck anything that isn’t Louis smiling at him like he just hung the stars in the sky.

“Apparently so. Thanks for the drink last night.”

“God, I can’t believe I… I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? Would’ve loved to talk to you when you were a bit more sober, but the proposal was a nice touch.”

“Proposal?” Harry asks softly, and then it hits him. Zayn had said he’d proposed to a cute guy while drunk. Scratch his earlier assessment, this is the most embarrassing moment of his life. “Don’t tell me that I—”

“You did.”

“God, I’m so sorry. I was really, really drunk.”

“I know,” Louis says, scratching the side of his face. “It was pretty cute, all things considered.”

“Well, I’m Harry, officially,” he says, shaking Louis’ hand. He tries not to blush.

He fails.

“Nice to meet you, Harry Officially. I’m Louis. Officially.”

“Right, I can tell.” When Louis furrows his eyebrows, Harry points to the nametag.

Louis looks down and groans. “This nametag is cramping my style.”

Harry laughs. “If it helps, I heard Annie call you that earlier, so you should really blame her.” Against his better judgement, he takes a few licks of his ice cream. Cute boy or not, he’ll be pissed if he wasted six fifty with no pay off.

“Right, well I’ll have to have a word with her. Speaking of, I should probably get back to work. My break is only a few minutes.”

“Did you take your break just now so that you could come talk to me?” Harry asks, suddenly suspicious.

“I … may have. And speaking of, hey, you may have no memory of it but you bought me a drink last night. So rules say that I owe you one. You wanna come back for a milkshake?”

“A milkshake?”

“That’s the only thing I have handy right now. Since I’m on the clock and all. By the way, are you really old enough to drink? How did this baby face get into a bar?”

He tugs at one of Harry’s curls, watching as it springs back into place. Harry doesn’t know if he’s supposed to like it or be embarrassed.

“I am, er… possibly not,” he hedges. “Are you?”

“Just barely. And don’t worry, I’ve had my fair share of, shall we say… alternate identification?”

“That’s a good way of putting it,” Harry says, brazenly licking around the sides of the ice cream cone. The whole thing’s going to be mush by the time he gets to it properly. “But I think I’m going to have to pass. Can only handle one dairy treat at a time.”

“You want to come back for it tomorrow? I work from two until eight. It’s on the house.” He looks so eager that Harry can’t say no.

“I’ll see you then.”

“Excellent.”

--

Nickety Splitz is busy when Harry gets there the next day. Annie’s at the register and next to her, Louis is scooping ice cream at a furious pace. He catches sight of Nick in the back, phone pressed to his ear as he winds the cord around his wrist again and again. No one says hi when he enters, but even if they did, he wouldn’t have heard them over the noise of a dozen elementary schoolers yelling at once.

“Hold up, hold up,” the teacher says. “They only have four kinds today: vanilla, chocolate chip, Oreo, or chocolate. Raise your hand if you want vanilla.”

Some of the kids look suddenly distressed.

“They have more than that,” a cheeky looking boy pipes up. “Look, I can see peanut butter chocolate chip right there.”

Now it’s the teacher’s turn to look distressed.

“We have to save those,” Louis says with authority. Harry's impressed at the quick thinking. “We’re not allowed to give them to you. I’m sorry.”

“That’s right,” the teacher says, shooting him a relieved look. “Only four kinds for us today. So raise your hand if you want vanilla.”

Harry stands at the back of the shop, watching as Louis interacts with each and every child as he hands off cups to each one. He makes a big show of pretending they’ve run out, causing the kids to yell that he hasn’t, and he grins before producing it from behind his back. It is, in a word, adorable.

He doesn’t catch sight of Harry until there’s two kids to go, and he gives him a big smile and then turns back to the kids, an embarrassed blush rising to his cheeks.

“How can I help you?” Louis asks once the kids have left and Annie’s resting with her head on the refrigerator, mumbling about how children are a specific kind of torture inflicted on the adults of the universe. It’s certainly an interesting perspective, given that she makes a living scooping ice cream for kids all day.

Harry would comment on it aloud, but he’d rather focus on the way Louis is grinning at him, and so he saunters forward to the counter. “I just heard there was a guy here who was giving out free milkshakes. Thought I’d come and see it for myself.”

“Oh yeah?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Think that special’s done for the day.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Alright, see ya never,” Harry says, turning to walk out of the ice cream parlor.

“Wait, wait!” Louis calls, laughing through it. “Come back. I think I just found one more coupon for a free ice cream.”

Harry turns back and raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, pretending to read off the plain napkin in his hand. “Says the bearer must send a drink to a handsome man at a bar, and then completely disappear off the face of the earth.”

“I’ve done that,” Harry says. “Do I get bonus points for a drunken proposal?”

“You might just.”

Annie pulls her head off the refrigerator and stares at the two of them in confusion. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Nothing,” Louis says immediately. “Don’t worry about it.”

“So does that mean I get my free milkshake after all?”

“I think it might,” Louis says, grinning wide. “What can I get for you?”

“The biggest chocolate peanut butter cookie dough milkshake you’ve got,” Harry says. If he’s getting a free milkshake, he’s going to make the most of it.

“Louis,” Annie says, her tone a warning.

Louis exchanges a loaded look with her, and Harry feels a bit tense. “It’s fine. It’s on me.”

“I can pay for it if it’s a problem, really.”

“You won’t,” Louis says immediately. “Put your wallet away.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent,” Louis says, glaring at Annie, who shakes her head and goes back to cleaning the ice cream machine. “We’re just not supposed to give away free food so early in the summer.”

“So you’re saying if I come back later in the summer, I can get another?”

“One step at a time, Curly.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Annie says with a smile. “Otherwise it’d be no free milkshake for you.”

“She’s right. I’ve only worked here for two weeks, but I already know that you shouldn’t cross Annie. Be careful.”

“Well, thank you very much,” Harry says, taking the milkshake Louis offers him and reaching for a straw. It is possibly the largest milkshake he’s ever seen in his life. He’s not sure how he’s going to manage it. “Can you—”

He tilts his head to the door and is about to ask if Louis can take his break for them to chat, but he’s interrupted by the door swinging open on squeaky hinges and hitting against the wall. There’s a trample of children’s feet followed by a man running after them, telling them to slow down.

“Sorry,” Louis says, throwing him an apologetic smile even as he goes to assist the kids. “Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll try to take my break after I’m done?”

“Alright.”

The crowd never disperses, only grows larger, actually, as families leave the beach for the day and head out for ice cream. One family turns into three which turns into five, and then all of a sudden Harry’s been sitting at a table in the back for forty-five minutes.

He doesn’t mind it, actually. It’s nice to just sit here and watch Louis work. He’s so patient, never rushing anyone despite the crowds. He has a joke or a kind word for everyone. He seems to recognize people and remember their orders. He’s so funny and has a quick mind and Harry has only spent a handful of hours - barely that, really - in his presence but he knows he needs to get to know him.

Zayn calls and asks when he’s coming home for dinner, so with a reluctant last look at the line, which doesn’t show signs of thinning any time soon, he scrawls his name and number on a napkin and passes it over the counter to Louis.

He takes it with a confused expression, but Harry tilts his head to the door and makes a sad face. “I gotta go. Text me?”

Louis nods and then blows him an air kiss that makes Harry laugh. He shakes his head as he walks out the door, exchanging the safety of air conditioning for the warm sun, and heads to his car.

--

His phone finally rings at eight fifteen, when Zayn is loading the dishwasher and Harry’s taking the trash to the garbage cans out by the back deck. They’ve only been here three days. They shouldn’t even have garbage to throw out.

He drops the bag into the can and throws the lid back on as he fumbles in the pocket of his basketball shorts for his phone. The number that flashes across the screen is unfamiliar.

“Louis?”

“How did you know?” Louis’ voice is strong and clear across the line.

“Only gave my number to three cute guys today, and they all called earlier. I’ve been waiting all day.” Harry takes a seat on the steps of the back porch, and rests his elbows on his knees.

“Right. Well, forgive the delay. Some of us have jobs.”

“Some of us do,” Harry agrees. He wonders what Louis is doing right now, where he is on the island, where he lives. Behind Harry, a cricket chirps, and another joins in.

“Yeah, where do you work anyway?”

Harry coughs, suddenly sheepish. “Uhh, Vineyard Vines. Right down the street.”

“Ah, that explains the outfit.”

“The outfit?”

“Why you were dressed like an Easter egg.”

“I was not dressed like an Easter egg!” Harry protests.

“Ummm, you kind of were.”

“Alright, I’m hanging up right now. It’s been nice knowing you, Louis… uh…”

“Tomlinson,” Louis supplies. There’s a screech of tires in the background. “And you’re Harry Styles.”

“The very one.”

“Sounds like a fake name.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Anyway, Harry Styles, what do you do when you’re not selling overpriced clothes to rich people?”

“That’s a bit of a rude assumption, don’t you think?”

Louis laughs. Harry wants to make him make that noise again and again. “But you didn’t deny it.”

“Because it’s the truth. I don’t know. I go running and go to the beach and hang out with my roommate, I guess.”

“That’s it?”

“I’ve only been here three days!”

“Right, okay. Well in that case, what do you say I take you out to dinner tomorrow night?”

Harry stands and moves to the pool, taking a seat on the edge so that his legs dangle in the water. It’s cold, now that the sun has set and the heaters haven’t had enough time to really warm it up yet. “What makes you think I’m free?”

Louis hesitates, just a beat, but Harry hears it anyway. “You just got here. You probably don’t have plans.”

“And you really want to see me four days in a row?”

“Why not?” Louis asks. “Is there a rule against it?”

This time, it’s Harry who hesitates. “D’you have a place in mind?”

“Down the street from Nick’s, there’s an Italian place, right on the water. How’s that sound?”

“Italian for a first date, huh?”

“Do you...do you not like Italian?” Louis stammers. Harry wishes he could see the blush that he’s certain is rising to Louis’ cheeks.

“I do, I was just being a shit,” Harry admits. “I know where it is, been there a few times. What time are you off work?”

“I’m working til four and then I’ve got a few things to do for my internship. Does it work to meet there at seven thirty?”

“I will see you then, Tomlinson.”

“Not if I see you first,” Louis shoots back. Harry’s still laughing when Louis ends the call.

He sets his phone on the side of the pool and kicks his legs through the water.

He’s got a date with a cute boy from the ice cream shop tomorrow night.

--

It’s seven fifteen, and Harry is stressing out. He’s at least ten minutes away from the restaurant, speeding down Beach Road, and he’ll still have to find a parking spot and walk to where he’s supposed to meet Louis. He’s absolutely, one hundred percent going to be late. And he hates being late.

Work had been stressful and he’d had to stay late to help with a shipment of new inventory, despite the fact that he was technically still in training. Sure, he and Ainsley had laughed and joked while they worked, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the fact that he needed to get home, pay the pool maintenance guy who had been there in the afternoon, shower, and get back to Oak Bluffs in time for his dinner. He’d kind of been pushing it as it was.

Being late had thrown it all out of whack.

He finds a parking spot on the far side of the ferry terminal, parks, and jumps out of the car. He wonders if he should text Louis and tell him that he’s very close, but then figures it’s better to just show up.

Slipping his phone into his pocket, he sets off down the street at a half-jog. Jeans aren’t the best clothes for running, but he makes do.

He bursts into the restaurant, expecting to see Louis standing there, hair perfectly done and probably looking ten times more put together than Harry feels, but the only person that greets him is the young blonde waitress.

“Hi, table for one?”

“I’m actually—” he breathes in and out, chest heaving “—looking for someone. Is there a Louis here? He texted earlier and said he made a reservation.”

She peers at the sheet, and Harry takes advantage of her distraction to catch his breath again. God, he really needs to start running. Good goal for tomorrow.

“There is a Louis written here, but it doesn’t look like he’s arrived. Do you want me to seat you?”

“I’ll just wait for him to get here, thanks.”

He runs his fingers through his hair and then balls his hands into fists to stop himself from doing it again. He peers out the glass of the doors but doesn’t see anyone standing outside.

And then his phone rings.

He sees that it’s Louis and then pushes the door open. He’s probably right outside, likely having trouble finding a parking spot.

“Hey! What’s up?”

“Harry, hi. I… there’s been a problem.”

Harry feels his heart sink. “What kind of problem?”

“Um. A dog problem.”

Harry scratches an itch at the side of his neck. A woman rides her bike past him and smiles. He smiles back, the gesture halfhearted.

“Harry, are you there?”

“Yeah. What does a dog problem mean?”

“I’m so, so sorry. I would’ve called earlier but I got locked out of the house and my phone was inside and the dog ran away and—”

He sounds panicked, and Harry wonders if he’s the type to pace the room or to sit tight and worry.

“Are you okay?” Harry interrupts.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I just have to cancel dinner. I feel so bad, I swear that I wouldn’t do it if I had another option.”

Harry lets out his breath in a whoosh of air. “Yeah, I figured.”

“I’m so, so sorry.”

Harry takes a seat on the bench just outside the restaurant, letting his limbs sink into the unforgiving wood. He picks at a piece of forest green wood that’s peeling off the edge. He feels suddenly, oppressively lonely. There’s a weird kind of sadness building inside of him that has him wanting to call his mom. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s alright.”

“I was looking forward to it,” Louis says, voice earnest, and it’s that statement that gets Harry’s blood going again, pulls the sadness out of his stomach.

“Me too.”

“Can we reschedule? I’m working at my internship all day tomorrow but I’ll be at Nick’s again the day after, if you want to stop by. And I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

Harry closes his eyes, reviews his mental schedule, and can’t figure out quick enough if he’s working the day after tomorrow. Whatever, he'll make it work. “Sure. I’ll be there.”

He hears Louis let out a sigh of relief. “Great. Thank you so much. I promise I’ll be there and we can figure it out. It’s these dumb dogs, I’m sorry again.”

“Right,” Harry says. He still can’t exactly figure out what the issue was. Something about how Louis works as a dog walker a few nights a week and got locked out and the owner nearly ran over both Louis and the dog when she got home? It’s a bit unclear.

Louis hangs up with a promise to see Harry the day after tomorrow. Harry pockets his phone, sits on the bench for a few minutes, and then proceeds to drive home and get very drunk with Zayn.

--

The next morning, he wakes up hungover again, but at least he’s in his own bed this time. He also doesn’t feel quite as shitty as he did that first morning. All the same, he’s grateful that he’s got the day off.

“What’s the gossip?” Harry asks by way of greeting when he gets downstairs.

Zayn’s laying on the couch, a newspaper held in the air. He folds it and sits up when he sees Harry. “Hey! Not much. Seems to be the same old. How are you feeling?”

“Hell of a lot better than the last time we did this.”

“Good. I think drinking only three beers this time helped.”

“You mean instead of the millions of strong cocktails I had last time?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. There’s coffee there. And bagels. I biked to Mad Martha’s.”

Harry catches sight of the paper bag on the counter. There’s an iced coffee next to it, perfectly medium brown, the condensation sweating onto the napkin below.

“Zayn Malik, you are the best roommate I’ve ever had in my life. I owe you big time.”

“As long as you’re aware,” Zayn says, unfolding his legs from beneath himself and crossing into the kitchen. “You have the day off, right?”

“Yeah, thank God.”

Work is going fine, but a day where he doesn’t have to think about company policy and the proper way to fold a whale-imprinted tie sounds heavenly.

“Great. I don’t have to work until tonight. I was thinking we could go to the beach. We should start crossing things off that list, you know?”

Harry’s eyes go wide right as he bites into the breakfast sandwich. His mouth is full but he yells, “The list! I forgot about the list.”

“It’s been pinned to the wall for two days,” Zayn says, pointing to the cork board that hangs by the fridge. When Harry follows his finger, he sees that there are indeed three paper napkins pinned there, Harry’s messy scrawl visible from feet away.

“Oh.” He doesn’t know how he missed it.

“I guess we better get started. Unless you don’t care anymore…”

“No!” Harry interrupts. “No, we should do it. My professor said that it’s not enough just to set the intentions, you actually have to do the work to follow through.”

“Alright, then I guess we better head to the beach.”

It takes a bit of coaxing from Zayn to get him out the door — he’s tired, alright? — but an hour later they’re set up at State Beach, towels spread out on the sand and a bag of snacks between them. Harry’s brought a book and so has Zayn, to aid with the goal of reading ten books over the summer, but he’s got a feeling neither of them will even get taken out of the bag.

“So how’s work going?” Zayn asks, passing the sunscreen to Harry. “I feel like you haven’t talked about it much. Last night you were all Louis this and Louis that. How’s the rest of it?”

Harry tells him about passing his folding test yesterday and getting the chance to ring up a real customer, not a fellow trainee for practice. “Took about twice as long as they’d like it to take and I fucked up my spiel about the summer sales, but otherwise they said I did a great job.”

“That’s so great. I’m so proud of you. How are the whales?”

He stops his sunscreen application midway through one arm to shove at Zayn’s shoulder. He leaves an off-white handprint of sunscreen on his skin, which is exactly what he deserves.

“Shut it. You and Gemma, I swear.”

“What? It’s just hilarious to think of you there.”

“Aren’t you the one who’s always talking about me being a frat bro?”

“Well if the backwards baseball cap fits,” Zayn says with a smirk, and gestures to the bright yellow one Harry’s wearing right at that moment.

Harry flushes pink. “Fine. So I like backwards hats. Sue me.”

“They look good on you, I’m not attacking,” Zayn says, hands up in surrender, and Harry knows it’s a joke because they’ve had this conversation dozens of times. “I just mean it’s weird now that you have to sell clothes to rich people and pretend you love wearing shirts with whales on them.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Time to shut up about the whales now. How’s work going?”

“It’s great! We went to our first shooting location yesterday. We go to one a week, and then the other two days we work at the studio down the street from the house.”

“Short commute.”

“Yeah, I’m so glad that worked out. Means I can just bike places. Anyway, we went to this fitness studio in Oak Bluffs and worked with some of the people in a workout class there.”

“Nice,” Harry says. “I’m pretty sure I know the place. It’s by the donut shop, right?”

“I have no clue. It’s not that far from where you work though.”

“Yeah, by the donut shop.”

“Alright,” Zayn says, tone edging slightly on 'stop interrupting me it’s annoying.' “Anyway, the place is sick. I ended up going for a class later in the day. The guy who works there gave us all free passes to go back as much as we want next week.”

“That’s sick! What kind of gym is it?”

Zayn shrugs. “Bit of everything, I think. They’ve got boxing, I know you’ve always wanted to try that.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll leave that to you and you can teach me later.”

“Whatever you want. But it’s a good group of people, I like them a lot. Most of them are our age, some a few older.”

“That’s good! Makes it easier to make friends.”

“I still can’t believe you came here every summer and don’t have a solid group of friends.”

Harry slings an arm around Zayn’s shoulder and pinches his cheek. “Why would I want old friends when I’ve got you?”

The truth is that most of the kids Harry knows from summers the Vineyard are all off living their own lives. They’ve got cool internships or are studying abroad or moved away. He can’t help but feel a little bit stuck that he’s back for another summer, working a job to pay for college, not off exploring the world.

And then with one laugh from Zayn, he snaps out of it. How fucking lucky is he to be here, getting to show a place he loves to his college roommate-turned-best friend, someone he never expected to get along with so well, someone he hopes will be in his life forever. He’s not exploring the world, but he’s making memories.

That’s important too.

--

A while later, Zayn dares Harry to get in the water and it’s freezing but Harry’s never been one to turn down a dare. Zayn ends up following in shortly after and the two of them splash around in the water, racing each other while they swim.

“I’m gonna go read for a bit,” Harry says when he starts to get bored. “Should probably put on more sunscreen. Some of us are pale white kids.”

Zayn laughs. “Alright. I’m gonna keep swimming. ‘S good exercise.”

“Kay. Holler if you see a shark.”

Zayn goes pale. “Fuck. I forgot about Jaws.”

“Filmed right on this very beach,” Harry says with a grin, stretching his arms wide. “But hey, face your fears. It’s healthy.”

“I hate you,” Zayn says, and then he kicks off for another swim.

Harry towels the water off his body and then carefully applies sunscreen to his skin. He settles down on the beach towel and pulls out his book, but two pages in he decides he’s ready for a nap instead.

He’s just dozing off, thinking about how cute Louis is when he laughs and wondering if he should be worried that he hasn’t heard from him all day, when something hits him in the forehead.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” a guy yells, and Harry opens his eyes to see a bright orange frisbee in the middle of Zayn’s towel.

“I’m so sorry,” the guy says again, running toward Harry. “My friend has really shitty aim.” He gestures to a guy standing a few yards away, and the guy waves apologetically.

“Right,” Harry says, rubbing his forehead.

“Are you okay?” The guy squats down in front of Harry, and for a moment all Harry can do is focus on his very distracting abs.

“Should be. Just startled, I think. I was nearly asleep.”

“Harry, are you okay?” Zayn yells, emerging from the sea and running toward Harry. “You guys need to watch where you’re throwing—Liam?”

The guy turns to face Zayn and nearly topples over. He gets to his feet shakily. “Zayn?”

“You’re the one who just threw the frisbee at my best friend?”

“Actually, it was me,” says the blonde guy, who’s made his way over to the group by now. “I’m sorry. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Harry says. “You guys know each other?”

“Liam works at the gym I was telling you about. And wait, are you the guy that works at the bar? Liam, you guys know each other?”

“Yeah, I am,” says the blonde guy.

“I thought you looked familiar. Haz, this is the guy that wondered if we needed to call you an ambulance after you slipped on the bar floor that first night.”

Harry blushes as he stands up.

“Fairly injury prone, aren’t you?” asks the blonde guy with a laugh. “You alright?”

He rubs his forehead again but it doesn’t hurt anymore. He’s probably in the clear for any injuries. “I’ll probably survive. I’m Harry.”

“Niall.”

It turns out that Niall and Liam are also college roommates. Liam grew up on the island, and his dad owns the gym that Zayn photographed the day before. Liam invites them to play frisbee — “if you’re not too worried about Niall’s aim, that is” — and by the time they leave the beach, they’ve got a set of phone numbers and two new friends.

“Plus,” Zayn adds as they get back into the car to head home, “Liam’s from here, so he probably know where to get really good weed.”

--

Louis texts him that afternoon, apologizing for not reaching out earlier in the day. Harry, who’s cooking pasta and getting twitchy with nerves of whether or not he should text him, launches himself across the counter to get to his phone.

“Whoa, chill out,” Zayn says from his place at the table.

“It’s Louis,” Harry says, already swiping the text open, and he can’t hear what Zayn says in response.

Will you stop by tomorrow though? I might have a present for u

Harry smiles. What could Louis possibly have gotten him?

Yeah, maybe. If you promise to make it worth my while :)

Promise it will be. I’m sorry again about last night.

It’s okay. I’ll forgive you if you make it up to me.

Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got plans.

Harry takes a seat on the kitchen counter, heels kicking at the cabinets below, and with one eye on the pasta and the other on his phone, he proceeds to text Louis for the rest of the night.

--

All through his work shift, while folding clothes and helping customers choose outfits and picking up after a group of high schoolers that tore through the store without any regard for the human employees who have to clean up their mess, he thinks of Louis.

He tries not to — they’ve barely spent any time together, for God’s sake — but he can’t not think about how the hat at the front of the store is the same blue of Louis’ eyes. There’s a customer who cracks a joke at the register, and he thinks, “Louis would probably like that.” He’s spent only a handful of hours talking to Louis and spent even less in his presence, but he still feels like the guy has wriggled in under his skin and lodged himself in deep.

He’s not really complaining.

On his lunch break, he skips past Ainsley with a “sorry, have to run an errand!” and runs up the street. He’s going to see Louis again. Finally.

He bursts into Nickety Splitz, the blast of cool air on his face a welcome break from the heat and humidity, and immediately looks for Louis. He’s not there.

Neither is Annie. Instead, the two customers in line are being waited on by Nick, who’s dressed in a garish rainbow-printed short-sleeved blouse and making small talk with the couple about day trips to take around the island. There’s not much to do here, other than the beach and eating lots of food, but Nick still does a great job at selling the place as a great vacation spot. He even jogs a few of Harry’s memories from growing up - he’d forgotten about the time that his family biked to the Gay Head Lighthouse in Aquinnah and got stuck in a massive thunderstorm. That had actually been a really fun adventure, all things considered. Maybe he can convince Zayn to do it with him this summer, provided they check the weather first.

Nick catches sight of him and finishes his conversation with the couple, ringing them up happily and sending them on their way.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

Harry hesitates. He can’t exactly tell Nick that he’s there to flirt with one of his employees. That doesn’t seem like it’ll go over well.

“Do you know what you’d like to order?” Nick’s tone is a little less patient this time. Harry doesn’t know why; he’s the only customer in the shop and it’s not like he’s holding up a line.

“Not yet,” Harry says, trying to stall for time. Maybe Louis is just in the bathroom and he’ll be right out.

“Okay, well let me know once you’ve made a decision. Lots to choose from, I know.”

“Okay,” Harry says, hands in the pockets of his shorts as he pretends to stare at the large menu board hanging on the back wall. There’s a lot of different ice cream flavors, all of them handwritten. Some have been crossed off or have a sign that reads ‘SORRY, OUT’ next to them.

They all sound delicious, but what he really wants is Louis.

He’s in the middle of trying to decide whether to order ice cream to buy some time, or cut his losses and leave, when the phone rings. Nick holds up a finger to tell Harry that he’ll be right back, and then he picks it up in the back room.

Harry can see him standing there, phone pressed to his ear as he winds the cord around and around, a serious expression on his face, and he knows that should be his cue to leave. Louis isn’t here, for whatever reason, and Harry has a job to get back to.

He waves to Nick and gets ready to leave just as Nick hangs up the phone.

“Alright, what’ll it be?” Nick asks gregariously, and Harry halts on the way to the door. He’s trapped.

“I’ll have a chocolate sugar cone, one scoop,” he mumbles.

“All that decision for a simple chocolate?”

Harry tries to crack a smile. He fails, too busy wondering where Louis is.

Nick tells him how much it is and Harry hands over the cash, depositing a few coins of the change in the jar labeled “College Fund!”

“Is Louis Tomlinson working today?” he blurts out.

“Oh, so that’s who you were here to see,” Nick says with a wry grin that only gets wider when Harry tries to stutter out a denial. “I sent him home early. You just missed him by fifteen minutes or so actually. We’re not busy today.”

“Right, okay. Thanks for the ice cream!” Harry says, all but running out the door.

When he gets back to work and checks his phone, he sees that Louis had texted him to tell him that he’d been sent home early.

Come visit me tomorrow, Harry texts back. I’ll have lunch around 1:30.

--

The next day, lunch doesn’t happen around 1:30.

Instead, the founders of the company, who are apparently seen only a handful of times over the summer, appear and announce that they’re taking the new hires from the three stores across the island out for a catered lunch on the beach.

It’s a total surprise, and Harry has no time to grab his phone to tell Louis that he’s not going to be there.

When he gets back to work a few hours later, he feels ridiculously guilty. He enjoyed the lunch, and even managed to snag himself a $100 gift card — “More whale clothes for you, goodie,” Ainsley whispers in his ear — but he hates that he didn’t get to make any other arrangements with Louis. He has plans to hang out with Zayn, Niall, and Liam in the evening, so this was the only free time he had all day.

He heads to the locker room under the guise of going to the bathroom, intending to grab his phone from his locker to quickly text Louis and explain the situation, but Kyla stops him at the cash register.

“Hey, Harry! Congrats on winning beach volleyball! Jack said you did an awesome job! The one to watch this summer, he said.”

Harry balks. “Oh. Is this, er, a regular thing? These lunches?”

“Not with the founders. That’s usually just the start and end of the summer. Oops, I don’t think I was supposed to tell you it’ll happen again.” She laughs guiltily. “But for the lunches, yeah! We usually have beach volleyball competitions and games every two weeks. There’s a league and everything.”

“A league,” Harry repeats.

Kyla must mistake it for enthusiasm. “Yeah! It’s great. But hey, before I forget. Someone stopped by to see you earlier today.”

Harry suddenly finds the conversation much more interesting. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. A little bit taller than me, blue eyes. Seemed pretty disappointed not to see you here.”

“Oh, was it his boyfriend?” Ainsley croons from behind. He turns and sees her standing there with a grin on her face, hands on her hips. He frowns.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is there or is there not a boy up the street you’re interested in?”

“I plead the fifth,” Harry says, still frowning.

Ainsley ignores him. “Well, Kyla, was it?”

“I don’t know,” Kyla says, “but he brought you a present.”

Harry’s attention is immediately piqued. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Pretty cute, actually. All things considered.”

“All things considered?”

“All things considered,” Kyla repeats, producing something from beneath the register.

It’s a… plant.

“Is that a plant?” Ainsley asks.

“It is,” Kyla says proudly. She all but shoves it in Harry’s hands. He looks down at it. It’s a small, green plant in a clay pot. There’s a red bow tied around the center of the pot. “Can you open the envelope already? I’ve been wondering for hours what’s inside.”

“The envelope?” He asks, feeling around for it, and it’s then that he notices that there’s a little envelope stuck to the bottom. Setting the pot on the register, he rips open the little envelope with shaky hands.

It’s a white card, square, no bigger than his palm.

This green made me think of your eyes, xx

Harry sets the card on the counter and looks at the sky with a little laugh. He can’t believe Louis.

“What does it say?” Kyla asks, grabbing for the card and closing her hand around only air. Ainsley beats her to it just by a split second, holding it high in the air to stop Kyla from getting it.

Ainsley reads the card out loud and Harry blushes.

“I want to make fun of you for that, but that’s actually pretty smooth,” Ainsley admits. She turns to Kyla. “Was he cute?”

“So cute,” Kyla says. “Really nice cheekbones. Long eyelashes.”

“Dateable?”

“Very,” Kyla confirms. “If I wasn't taken, I’d probably ask him out.”

“Don't you dare,” Harry interrupts. “Don't even try.”

“Oh, so you really like him then,” Ainsley says, a wicked glint in her eye.

“We've only hung out twice. And even then, it doesn't really count. He was at work.”

“What does that mean?” Kyla asks, prodding for more information.

“It's none of your business. I'm taking this plant to my locker and the two of you are going to get back to work. We have customers to help.”

He takes the succulent and the little card and strides off.

--

Harry is cooking breakfast for himself — Zayn is off at a photoshoot — when Louis calls the next morning.

“Hi, Louis. I’m so sorry about yesterday.”

“That’s alright,” Louis says. His tone sounds like he means it. “You texted me, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

Louis laughs. “Did you already forget?”

“No, no. I just was out with some friends last night, we went to one of their houses and had a lot to drink. Was a bit preoccupied.”

“Oh, okay. As long as you didn’t forget about me.” He sounds momentarily nervous, and Harry tries to settle him with a small laugh.

“As if I could ever forget about you. How was your night?”

“It was fine, I didn’t do much. Watched a movie with one of my roommates, worked on something for my internship. That’s pretty much it.”

Harry flips a pancake for the second time and then shuts off the stove, immediately depositing the three pancakes onto a plate. “Tell me more about this internship that seems to be taking up all of your time.”

Louis explains that he’s interning for a local newspaper, one that caters to tourists. “We’re basically assigned a place and we have to go interview the owners. It’s basic journalism shit. Except that there’s a bit of a catch.”

Harry tucks the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he cuts up some strawberries and drizzles syrup over the pancakes. “Yeah?”

“We’re not allowed to say anything bad, because the people we write the articles about are essentially paid advertisers. Like they’re paying for us to write about them, basically.”

“That sounds… unethical.”

“Every journalism professor I’ve ever had would say the same thing,” Louis says. “Anyway, it’s bullshit. But it’s what I came here to do, so I’m kind of stuck with it.”

“That sounds shitty.”

“It is. It’s been going on for a week and I already feel like it’s the most unprofessional place I’ve ever worked.”

“I’m sorry. That blows.”

“It’s alright. Well, it’s not. But what can I do now? It is what it is.”

“So that’s what you’ve been so busy with?”

“That and working at Nick’s and dog walking in all my non-existent free time to save money.”

“Busy guy,” Harry says.

“Incredibly. But anyway, how are you? How was your lunch?”

Despite Louis’ claim that he’s busy, he still manages to find the time to spend an hour on the phone with Harry. By the time they hang up, Harry’s got a cold plate of food in front of him, a happy heart, and a plan to get dinner with Louis the next night.

--

Louis has to cancel dinner. He calls and sounds incredibly sorry about it, claiming that his boss is making him go cover an a cappella show since the original writer is sick.

“I swear, I tried to get anyone else to take it. But apparently I’m the one that Colin’s decided to pick on today.”

Harry takes a seat on the edge of the curb. The bench where he last had a similar call is taken by a couple. The girl is practically sitting on her boyfriend’s lap. Is she… licking his face? They don’t seem to notice or care that they’re being kind of gross. But no, Harry isn’t jealous or bitter whatsoever.

“I’m really sorry,” Louis repeats for what might be the fifth time in as many minutes.

Harry feels tears pricking the back of his eyes and he squeezes them shut. Maybe he needs to let Louis go. Not that he’s ever had him, of course, but emotionally. Louis has no time, said so himself, and Harry can’t keep getting played like this. Maybe he needs to set Louis free, end this thing between them before it even really starts.

That’s what he would do if he were smart.

“How can I make it up to you?” Louis asks, voice serious with intent. “A boat ride? A pony? A lifetime’s supply of ice cream from Nick’s?”

Harry’s not smart.

“Another date,” he decides. “One more shot. Same restaurant, same time, two days from now.”

“You sure you want to try that place again? I feel like it’s cursed.”

“Third time’s a charm. Just…” He swallows, trying to buy some time to rid his voice of the vulnerability he feels. He doesn’t know what it is, but something about the boy from the ice cream shop has him captivated. They’ve only spent a handful of hours in conversation, but it’s enough that Harry knows he can’t let Louis go. Not yet. “You better show up.”

“I promise,” Louis says earnestly. “I’ll be there.”

“You better be.”

When Harry hangs up the phone, he wonders if he’s just made a mistake that’s about to ruin his summer. He really fucking hopes he hasn’t.

--

Louis had initially promised that they could go get donuts after dinner, so Harry walks up the street to Back Door Donuts to buy himself a pity donut for the cancelled date.

Back Door Donuts is a veritable institution on the island. For as long as he can remember, Harry’s lined up in the parking lot at the back door of the bakery after dark. He’s always loved the forbidden, speakeasy feel of the whole thing: after dark, they sell donuts and pastries straight from the oven, hot and fresh and smelling heavenly. He’s pretty sure his mom could unearth a few official Back Door Donuts t-shirts from the pile of clothes stored in their attic.

Their apple fritters are the absolute best thing in the entire world. Harry would probably raze a city to the ground for one, should the opportunity arise. He’d been looking forward to sharing one with Louis, was anticipating the moment their hands would brush over the paper bag. Louis would get a bit of sugar stuck to his lip and Harry would stop him in order to brush it away with his thumb, would lean in and place his lips where his finger had just been.

But Louis isn’t here, so after waiting in line for twenty minutes, he orders a cinnamon sugar donut, and throws in a chocolate one to bring home to Zayn.

He takes a picture of the Back Door Donuts sign and posts it to his Instagram as he heads back to his car. He’s just feet away when he hears the swell of the ocean and decides to take a seat on the beach to enjoy his donut. He and Zayn have been slacking a bit on their list, and he needs to start making up for it. They can’t have the summer of their dreams if they don’t try to make those dreams come true.

The beach is completely empty, so he plonks himself down a few feet away from the water and listens to the sound of the waves. It’s been his comfort sound for as long as he can remember. Sometimes when he’s stressed, he puts on ocean sounds on YouTube just to feel better. He wants to treasure this opportunity for a whole summer of his favorite sound.

Halfway through his donut (which is, naturally, the best thing he’s ever tasted) he decides to send Louis a picture and tell him what he’s missing. He holds up what’s left of the donut and snaps a selfie, and then a second and a third. He scrolls through them, deciding that the second one is the best: a hint of a smile, his eyes shining in the moonlight. He looks good, and he knows it. That’s the one that he sends to Louis.

He fumbles through a message about how he wishes Louis was here with him, and he doesn’t give himself time to think about it. He just sends it.

Setting, his phone face down on the sand, he stares at the ocean, breaths timed with the ebb and flow of the waves, and tries to think about anything other than what Louis will say.

Louis is probably busy. He likely can’t check his phone at the concert, and he won’t respond until Harry is home, and it’ll probably just be a smiley face. There’s no point in analyzing—

The phone vibrates and he snatches it up, eyes squinting at the bright screen in the dark.

You have sugar on your lip, if I was there I could get that for you.

Harry flushes red. It’s not like Louis has bothered to hide his attraction to Harry, but this is the first time it feels like they’re on the same page at the same time.

It doesn’t take him long to decide what to say back.

I wish you were, because now I have to do it all by myself :(

He doesn’t mean for it to be explicitly sexy, but it’s an invitation. If Louis wants to, he can push it further. If he doesn’t want to, there’s an easy out.

Go home and touch yourself and pretend it’s me, says Louis’ text, and Harry chokes on his donut.

He sits the phone aside and falls back against the sand, groaning loudly in the night.

Louis is going to be the death of him.

That’s what I’ll be doing, except I’ll be pretending it’s you, reads Louis’ second message, and Harry grabs the bag with Zayn’s chocolate donut and scrambles to his car. He can’t get home fast enough.

--

“Let’s go skinny dipping today,” Harry announces when Zayn wakes up and comes downstairs. Zayn is shirtless, a pair of boxers slung low on his hips, but Harry doesn’t bat an eyelash.

“Harry, it’s nine in the morning. I’m hungover from that party Liam dragged me to last night. Can we please talk about this later? Like maybe a time when the clock has four digits?”

Harry pouts. “You’ve had worse hangovers before. You didn’t even get home that late.”

“Late enough,” Zayn grumbles, pouring himself a mug of coffee and settling onto a stool at the island. “Why d’you want to go skinny dipping anyway?”

“The list!” Harry cries, pointing to the napkins on the wall. He keeps intending to rewrite it into a proper list, one that’s contained to precisely one sheet of paper, but hasn’t found the time. “We have to get going on the list!”

“You and that list,” Zayn says. “It’s gonna be fine. We have plenty of time.”

“It’s nearly June,” Harry argues. “We should be doing at least one thing this month.”

“And you want to do skinny dipping? Why can’t you just go kiss a stranger?”

Harry groans. “I keep trying and he keeps ditching me.”

“What happened to dinner last night?”

Harry tells Zayn the story, conveniently leaving out the second and third of Louis’ texts and the way that he’d come home and immediately got off in the shower. What Zayn doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

“He better show up tomorrow,” Zayn warns. “Otherwise I’ll have to fight him.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Please do not fight him.”

“I will if he keeps stringing you along like this.”

“It’s fine, Z. You haven’t met him. He’s… he’s everything.”

Zayn gives him a weighted look, examining him for a moment, and then he nods. “Alright. Fine. But if he hurts you—”

“He won’t.”

Zayn sighs. “Alright. Hey, what do you say instead of skinny dipping we go over to Liam’s and play FIFA?”

Harry nods. “Might as well.”

--

For only having hung out with Niall and Liam a few times, he feels like he knows them incredibly well. It’s nice that the four of them get along so well, two sets of college roommates-turned-best-friends, all spending the summer together.

It’s exactly the plot of the summer romance novel Harry dreamed this summer would be. Now he just has to make the actual romance happen.

Louis texts him a few times throughout the day, sharing a few funny stories from Nick’s and a complaint about his internship. He’s quick to clarify that he will still be at dinner tomorrow night, that that’s not going to change.

It settles something within Harry that he hadn’t quite realized he was still worried about.

While they play video games and Harry tries not to text Louis too much, he learns more about Niall and Liam. They met as roommates at the University of Southern California, where Niall studies history and Liam studies music production. After Liam went to stay with Niall at his house in San Francisco for Thanksgiving, the two of them decided that they should come back to Liam’s home for the summer.

“So you’re like, a real Vineyard kid,” Harry says.

“Born and bred," says Liam proudly.

“Nice.”

“And you grew up coming here?”

“Every summer,” Harry confirms. “Not like those kids that just come for a week and rent a vacation house. Those kids are the worst.”

Liam shrugs. “Eh, the tourists pay the bills around here. You know that almost all the stores here make almost all of our money in the three months of the summer? The tourist season keeps us going.”

Harry nods contemplatively. “I guess I never thought about it like that.”

“Yeah, it’s different when you’re working here, not just vacationing. My dad’s gym gets a huge influx of clients over the summer. It’s exhausting, but it pays the bills.”

Niall smacks Liam on the shoulder. “Can we please stop talking about work? When I’m not at the bar, I don’t want to be thinking about the bar. Let’s get back to FIFA.”

Harry laughs. “Yes sir.”

--

Harry stares at himself in the mirror and then runs a hand through his hair, regretting once again that he put some product in it. He probably should have left it to air dry. It’s gotten to the point where the curls have started to grow out and he isn’t quite sure how to handle it. Now it looks like he’s got a mop on top of his head, and he needs to leave for the date in fifteen minutes. There’s no time to fix it.

He hears his phone ring across the room, and dives across the bed to get it. If Louis is calling to let him down, he’d rather hear it before he gets in the car and drives to Oak Bluffs.

It’s not Louis. It’s Gemma.

Despite knowing that he shouldn’t because he doesn’t have time, he answers her FaceTime call anyway.

“Harry!” she cries. “Nice of you to answer one of my calls. How are you getting on up there?”

He fights not to roll his eyes. “I talked to you last week. I’m fine. How’s Paris? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

“Paris is great, but I want to talk about your life. You talked to me through the messenger of Mom. That’s not enough. I want the real gossip, the stuff you can’t tell her. How’s the Vineyard? How are the whales?”

He actually does roll his eyes this time, and then gets off the bed to set his phone on the dresser to continue getting ready.

Gemma’s talking about something dumb their stepdad Robin said to her last week (he thinks, he’s kind of stopped listening in favor of getting ready as quickly as he can) when she squeals.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Harry Styles. Are you putting on cologne?”

Harry halts doing just that. “Ummm. No?”

“You are! Oh my God, do you have a date? You totally do, you only do that when you have a date. Holy shit. Who is he?”

“It’s nothing, Gemma. Aren’t I allowed to just look nice?”

“Of course you are, but you don’t do that. Oh my God, I can’t wait to tell Mom.”

He points a scolding finger at the screen. “Do not tell Mom, Gemma. Please.”

She sounds positively giddy when she speaks again. “Well, you’re three thousand miles away, so you’ll never know if I do.”

“You wouldn’t dare. You’re twenty two years old, not nine.”

She grins. “You never know.”

“I have to go,” he says, shaking his head. “Goodbye, Gemma.”

“Enjoy your date!” she trills, and he rolls his eyes and hangs up the phone.

Older sisters are the worst.

--

The fifteen minute drive to the restaurant feels like thirty. Nervous energy fills him up to the top, causing his skin to buzz and his head to pound. He’s never in his nineteen years of life felt this nervous before a first date.

But the thing is that this doesn’t feel like a first date. He and Louis have spent hours on the phone, laughing and sharing secrets and getting to know each other. Louis isn’t a stranger. He knows that he likes him. But what if it’s different in person?

There isn’t much time to think about it by the time he parks close to the restaurant and sees Louis waiting through the window. He smooths down the pockets of his jeans, makes sure that his t-shirt isn’t tucked in the back, and runs a hand through his hair.

Louis is standing by the hostess stand, sleeves rolled to his elbows and a bouquet of pink flowers in his hand. But that’s not what Harry notices first. No, what he sees first is the way Louis’ face transforms into a bright smile the second his eyes land on Harry.

“Hi,” Harry says, the word barely an exhalation, and then he wraps his arms around Louis and holds on tight.

“Hey, you made it,” Louis says, and then he presses a kiss to Harry’s cheek and hugs him back. “It’s nice to see you.”

“You too,” Harry says as he pulls away. Louis smells really good, better than he remembers. It’s not the smell of ice cream and smoothies anymore. It’s something better.

“These are for you,” Louis says, and as he hands over the flowers, Harry finally gets a good look at them. They’re peonies, which Harry had mentioned was his favorite flower.

Louis remembered.

Harry shakes his head, almost a little disbelieving. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Figured you deserved something nice after putting up with so much from me. Now what do you say to some dinner, before something else comes along to push it back another few days?”

They’re led to a table in the center of the busy restaurant, and as Louis pulls Harry’s chair out for him, he wonders what he was ever nervous about. There’s a current of giddiness between them, excitement at the fact that they’re finally here doing this.

“This is nice,” Harry comments as the waiter drops off a basket of bread.

“The bread?”

Harry catches Louis’ cheeky grin and he knows that Louis knows exactly what he’s talking about. “Being here. Together.”

“I figured,” Louis says, a blush rising to his cheeks, and Harry has to bite into a piece of bread before he does something stupid like confess how much he likes him.

They decide to split an appetizer (bruschetta, Harry’s favorite) and are arguing over who should eat the last piece when the waitress comes over to ask what they’d like to order for their meals.

“Oh, I haven’t gotten a chance to look yet,” Harry says, suddenly startled. He’d forgotten that he’s supposed to figure out what he wants, too distracted by talking with Louis to think about something silly like main courses.

“Can we have a minute?” Louis asks politely, and the waitress nods.

Louis is just opening his menu when a shadow falls over the table. Harry looks up, assuming it’s the waitress.

“Look who it is,” Zayn says happily. Cheekily, like he’s up to something.

“What the… what are you doing here? Did something happen?”

“No, we just thought we’d stop by and say hi,” Zayn says, and it’s then that Harry notices Liam and Niall standing behind him. They’re all wearing brazen grins on their faces, and Harry smells trouble.

“Niall?” Surprisingly, it doesn’t come from Harry, but from Louis. “Liam?”

“Holy shit, Louis, hi,” Niall says, waving.

“Wait, you’re Harry’s date?” Liam says.

“You know Louis?” Zayn asks. “Hi, I’m Zayn, by the way. Harry’s best friend. We met that one time at the—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Harry says, silencing them all. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Zayn convinced us to come hijack your date," Liam says. "We’re on the way to the OD and passed by and he said it’d be a funny prank. Except it turns out that me and Niall know Louis, and now this is mostly weird.”

“Weird?” Zayn asks, waving over the waitress. “Seems like more of an opportunity to me than anything else.”

Harry’s too stunned to say anything as Zayn convinces the waitress to bring over three more chairs. He looks between the boys and Louis as the unwelcome visitors squeeze themselves around the table and promptly order their food.

Harry looks at Louis helplessly, and all the two of them can do is burst into laughter. They laugh so loud that they catch the attention of other patrons, and when Niall tells them to shut up, they just keep laughing.

It’s comical. Third time’s a charm, sure, but third time seems to bring trouble of its own. They might as well make the best of it.

“So, guys,” Harry says, flashing Louis a grin before opening the menu and turning to Zayn. “What are you treating us to tonight?”

--

“I’m so sorry,” Harry says for the third time in as many minutes. They’ve escaped the restaurants with full stomachs — after making the others pay for both dinner and dessert — and Harry just feels so bad.

“I told you already, stop saying that,” Louis says, swatting at Harry’s shoulder. Harry has to fight to stop himself from grabbing onto Louis’ hand. It’s possibly a bit soon for that.

“I just feel awful that they ruined it.”

“Not just your fault. They’re my friends too. Or at least, Niall and Liam are. Zayn seems like he’s ready to force himself into my life whether or not I say it’s okay, anyway.”

“Provided you don’t break my heart,” Harry adds, shooting Louis a weighted glance.

“Not planning to.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Good.”

They walk in silence for a few minutes. Louis never asks where they’re going, just seems content to follow Harry wherever he leads.

“I still can’t believe you know them,” Harry says.

“I can’t believe you know them. What a weird coincidence.”

Meant to be floats through Harry’s head, just a whisp of a thought, and he lets it go in favor of leading Louis over to the stairs that lead to the beach.

“This is where you’re taking me? The beach is the grand adventure you promised?”

Harry nods. “Mmhm. We’re gonna watch the sunset.”

“I love sunsets,” Louis says, suddenly giddy.

“I know. You told me.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, just stares at the ocean in quiet contemplation. Harry thinks he can see him fighting to hide a smile.

“Come on, what are you waiting for? Let’s go sit on the beach.”

It’s the same beach that Harry sat on the other night, eating that donut and dreaming about all the things he wanted to do to Louis. His shoulder bumps Harry’s as he takes a seat on the sand, and Harry bumps him right back.

The sun is just beginning to sink under the horizon, painting the sky in swaths of orange and pink and blue that look like they came straight out of Harry’s childhood art kit.

“The sunsets here are some of my favorite things,” Harry says, fiddling with a twig he found on top of the sand. He tries to bend it as far as he can without breaking it.

“They’re gorgeous,” Louis says quietly. “I’m always trying to take my dinner break at Nick’s in time to catch the best part of them.”

“Pretty lucky we get a whole summer of them, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. We are.”

The sky is turning a deep red. Harry sets the twig back on the sand, and turns his full attention to Louis. “Thanks for taking me out tonight.”

“Thanks for being patient. I’m sorry it took so long.”

“S’alright,” Harry says. “Was worth the wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely,” Harry says. Louis is looking at him with a strange sort of awe, and before he can give himself even a second to overthink it, he leans in and kisses him.

It’s quick, just a press of lips, but when he pulls away, they’re both grinning like idiots.

They stay on the beach for a long while after the sun has set, both sharing stories from work and home and growing up. There’s never any awkward silences or moments when he doesn’t know what to say. The silences that do fall between them are entirely comfortable, both of them lost in their own thoughts and appreciating the sound of the waves.

“As much as I want to say here all night,” Louis says after a while, brushing his sand-covered palms on his thighs, “I should get going. I have work early in the morning.”

“Alright,” Harry says, taking Louis’ hand as he pulls himself to standing. “I’ll drive you home.”

“You really don’t have to. I’ll take the bus.”

“I’m bringing you home,” Harry says definitively. “Just tell me how to get there.”

It’s fifteen minutes to Vineyard Haven, the town on the island where Louis lives. It’s not quite as touristy as Oak Bluffs, where they both work, nor is it as nice as Edgartown, where Harry’s family’s house is, but it has its own charms.

“How’d you end up living here anyway?” Harry asks. Louis hasn’t told him much, but he knows that Louis has got a gaggle of roommates and a stray cat that’s always peeing on their stairs.

“That, young Harold, is a long story. I’ll have to tell you another time.”

“Alright,” Harry says after a moment. “Thanks for a great night. Sorry that my friends showed up to ruin it.”

“What did I tell you about apologizing? Not your fault,” Louis says with a frown. “Besides, they’re my friends too.”

“Right.”

“But I’m glad you had fun. I did too.” Louis unbuckles his seatbelt and they sit in the car for a minute. Harry feels like they’re hovering on the precipice. As suave as he likes to think he is, he doesn’t know how this is supposed to go. Louis saves him the agony. “You gonna walk me to my door?”

“Yes,” Harry says, launching into action, grateful to be given some kind of step. As he gets out of the car, all he can hear is the very loud singing of cicadas. It’s like they’re taunting him, a soundtrack of insects the background to his ineptitude.

Their pinkies brush on the walk up the front steps, and Harry bites his lower lip to hide his grin.

“Thank you again,” he says quietly. “I really did have a great time.”

“Me too,” Louis says, voice earnest, and he leans up and presses a soft kiss to Harry’s cheek. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

When Harry gets back in his car and is certain Louis is safely inside, he drops his forehead to the steering wheel and inhales a shaky breath. He’s in so deep, and he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing.

--

“You know,” Harry complains to Zayn, “when you suggested this idea, you failed to inform me that you’re a really shitty bike rider.”

“That is not true!”

“Excuse me, who made us stop no less than five times to make sure your tires were okay? And the chain? And the seat?”

“That’s the fault of the bike, not of me.”

“My dad’s bike is fine. It’s your lack of bicycle riding skills that are the problem.”

“Well, we can’t all be good at riding,” Zayn says, with an exaggerated wink in Harry’s direction.

Harry throws a grape at him, but it hits the towel and bounces onto the sand. “How dare you! There are innocent ears present.”

In reality, the beach is nearly empty, the closest family dozens of feet away, but Harry isn’t going to settle for Zayn making fun of his sex life.

“Hey, isn’t being good at it better than being bad at it? It’s a compliment, really. Not that I’d know,” Zayn says with a shrug. “But just a guess.”

“Exactly. Not that you’d know.”

“But I have seen things, Styles. Things I really didn’t need to see.”

Harry blushes and collapses back onto the towel, throwing his forearm over his eyes. “Yes, we don’t need to go over my freshman sexual exploits right now, thanks. Wake me up when you’ve decided to talk about something more interesting.”

“Hey, hey,” Zayn says softly, forcing Harry’s arm away from his eyes. Harry squints up at him. He does look genuinely apologetic. “Does Louis know how good you are at riding? Not bike riding. The other kind.”

Harry’s mouth falls open in shock.

“No, he does not, thank you very much.” His face feels hot, and it’s not from the sun.

“But you want him to.”

“No comment.”

Zayn can’t stop laughing. “Your face! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“We’re not having this conversation.” He rolls over onto his stomach and turns his face to the towel so that he’s turned away from Zayn.

“No, I’ll stop, I’m done,” Zayn says. When he speaks again, it’s softer. “You really like him, don’t you? You’ve never cared when I made fun of anyone you hooked up with before.”

Harry rolls back to his front and sits up, resting his forearms on his bent knees and his head on top of them, face tilted to look at Zayn. “I… yeah. I do.”

“I’m sorry,” Zayn repeats.

“S’alright,” Harry mutters. Zayn is right: they’ve always talked about the people Harry’s hooked up with. It’s not that he was unhealthy about it freshman year of college, but he had a fun time. He knew what he wanted, and he’s not sorry for it.

And now he wants Louis and it feels different. Like he wouldn’t just sleep with him once or twice and then never talk to him again. He doesn’t know what it’d be, but he feels like he’s already too close to Louis for it to be like that.

“Sorry again for crashing your date,” Zayn says. “Like I said this morning, we thought it’d be funny.”

“It was. Bit annoying at first, but honestly Louis didn’t seem too bothered. ”

“Good,” Zayn says. There’s a moment of uncharacteristic hesitation, and then he scooches over and wraps his arm around Harry’s side, hugging him tight. “Love you, H. Only want the best for you.”

“Love you too.”

--

“Here’s the size you were looking for. I’m sorry, it looks like we’re out of the pink, but if you decide you want it, let me know and I can order it for you.”

Harry hands the dress to the customer who asked for it, and she accepts it gratefully. He turns in a circle, looking to see if there’s anyone else who needs his help before he goes back to the dreaded task of folding button down shirts. Unfortunately there’s no one, not even when he does a loop of the store. Everyone’s at the beach.

He settles himself in the back corner of the store, by the men’s shirts, and gets to folding a stack that’s been upended by a group of young boys set on causing trouble.

“Excuse me, how much for the shirt you’re wearing? It’s cute.”

Harry bites back a grin and finishes folding the shirt he’s working on before he looks up. Louis is standing there, hands held behind his back, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“It’s 45 dollars, you can find it at the front of the store,” Harry says, acting professional for all of eight seconds before his face splits into a grin.

“Alright, and how much for the boy wearing it? He’s cute too.”

Harry shakes his head in fond exasperation. “You’re awful.”

“Come on!” Louis protests, voice getting higher. “That was a good one!”

Abandoning his folding, Harry rounds the table and approaches Louis, not wasting any time before he wraps his arm around his waist in a tight hug.

“Hi,” Louis says, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder. “Missed you.”

“You saw me two days ago,” Harry says, pulling away.

He did miss Louis, in a weird way: missed the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs at a joke and the way his eyes always linger a moment too long on Harry’s lips and the way he’s such a warm, solid presence whenever Harry’s with him. It’s probably dumb to admit, but… fuck it, Louis said it first.

“But I missed you too. We’re a bit of a mess, aren’t we?”

“A little bit,” Louis says. “I’m gonna blame it on the fact that I still haven’t gotten to wine and dine you.”

Harry licks his lips, eyes trained on Louis’ face. “Is that… er, is that something you’d still be interested in doing?”

Louis reaches up to knock on the top of Harry’s skull. “Hello? Is anyone in there? I don’t think I could be more obvious if I tried. I like you a lot, Harry Styles. Will you please go out with me again?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, his face splitting into a grin. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Excellent,” Louis says, taking a step back, like he’s about to run out the door. “Meet me at the beach tomorrow night. Bring your friend Zayn. Liam’s throwing a bonfire.”

“That’s the date?”

Louis shakes his head. “That’s the pre-date. Then we’re gonna see if you’ve earned a real date.”

“But you just said that you wanted to—” Harry sputters.

“See you tomorrow night, Styles!” Louis yells, apparently forgetting they’re in a store, and then he runs out the door.

Harry gets a talking to about visitors and the importance of focusing on professionalism, but he doesn’t care, not when he’s got a cute boy who looks at him like he’s some kind of wonder to behold and a plan to see that same boy tomorrow night.

--

“Harry, this is my friend Scott. Scott, this is Harry. And this is his friend Zayn. And you already know Louis, of course.”

There’s a chorus of ‘nice to meet you’s and then Scott leads them over to the cooler where the beers are kept and then disappears, promising he’ll catch up with them all in a bit.

“Scott and I have been friends since we were kids. Aw fuck, I totally forgot that he goes to school in Seattle. Zayn, I’ll have to reintroduce you guys later,” Liam says.

“Lou, what d’you want?”

“Corona, if it’s there,” Louis says, peering into the cooler. “Yeah, look, there’s a few of them in the corner there.”

Harry takes one out and then grabs a Harpoon for himself and a Bud Light for Zayn. The cooler is fully stocked, and there’s another just like it at the side.

“Big party,” Harry comments to Liam as they twist off the caps and clink their bottles together.

“Start of summer bonfire,” Liam says with a nod. “Annual tradition. Locals only. And friends, of course.”

“Where’s Niall?” Zayn asks.

“Should be here any minute. He had to work. And speaking of, I just saw my friend Jen get here. I’m gonna go say hi to her.”

They all wave goodbye, promising to see him later, and then Zayn mentions that it seems like Niall’s always working when ever they try to hang out.

“Food industry sucks,” Louis says, off hand. “The hours are shitty and the customers can be even worse.”

“I thought you loved Nick’s,” Harry says. “Thought it was fun.”

“Yeah, and word has it you make the best pina colada smoothies on the island,” adds Zayn.

“It’s a hell of a lot better than my internship, that’s for sure,” Louis says. “Plus the tips are good. Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about work right now. Wanna go make s’mores?”

The group standing at the bonfire waves to them and introduces themselves. It seems like Louis already knows a few of them, and Harry expects Louis to strike up a conversation with them, but instead he stays stuck to Harry’s side, taking small sips of his beer and gazing into the fire. Zayn’s quiet on Harry’s other side, and then says he’s going to get s’more supplies for all of them.

“So you and Zayn are roommates, huh?” Louis asks. The crackle of the fire is loud next to them.

“Yeah, random roommates at NYU. He’s from Seattle, and we just hit it off right from the start.”

“That’s great,” Louis says, enthusiastic. “I hated my roommate last year. I ended up getting a single this year.”

“Zayn and I are doing singles next year, but in a suite.”

“Won’t stop Harry from crawling into my bed anyway, I bet,” Zayn says, slinging a loose arm around Harry’s waist. “Here’s your s’mores stuff. I’m gonna go talk to Niall. He just got here.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

“Behave,” Zayn says, looking between the two of them with a wiggle of his eyebrows. He presses a kiss to Harry’s cheek and then darts away, running through the sand.

“He’s an idiot,” Harry says, rolling his eyes.

“He’s your best friend,” Louis says, taking a long swig to finish off his beer, and the utter simplicity of the statement settles something within Harry. Louis doesn’t seem  to care that he and Zayn are attached at the hip. He’s had guys he was interested in think it was weird, their easy proximity and comfort with one another.

He’s glad Louis doesn’t see it that way.

“He is,” Harry confirms. “Now, enough about him. Let’s roast some marshmallows.”

The sticks that Zayn’s brought them are long and pointed, almost like they came from one of those toasting kits that Robin never let them buy growing up, claiming that the only true marshmallow stick was one that you whittled yourself.

For a sharp moment, Harry really misses his parents. This place is filled with memories of them, and as much as he loves navigating his own way, it’s not the same without them. He should call them tomorrow.

But then Louis pokes him on the cheek with a marshmallow-sticky finger and that falls away, his full attention back on Louis.

“Hey, Harry. How, uh… how do you roast a marshmallow? Can you show me?”

Harry rolls his eyes and can’t hide his smile. There’s no way Louis made it to age 21 without learning how to roast a marshmallow over a fire. But Louis is holding the stick out and gesturing for Harry to wrap his arms around his body to show him, and so Harry isn’t going to say no to an opportunity to get closer.

“Alright,” Harry says, both arms bracketing Louis’ shoulders. His crotch is dangerously close to Louis’ ass, and he has to hold it back a bit to stop them from making contact. He doesn’t think he could handle that right now. “Grip the stick like this. No, a little looser. Yes, right there. And then you lean forward and let the marshmallow hover above the fire. No, Louis, not in it—oh God, that one’s caught fire. Pull it back, pull it back. Let me have it, watch your hair.”

The marshmallow is actually enveloped in flames, and Harry blows it out, leaving the entire thing covered in black soot.

“Delicious,” Louis says, reaching around and plucking it off the stick. He pops it in his mouth, and Harry wishes he had a camera trained on his face as it cycles through a dozen expressions. “Ouch,” he finally says, fanning the air by his mouth. “That was a little hot.”

Harry shakes his head fondly. “You’re a dumbass.”

“I don’t care. Pass me another marshmallow, Curly. Please. Gonna give it another shot.”

When Harry does so, Louis shrugs out of his hold and proceeds to toast a perfect marshmallow, lightly browned all the way around. Harry watches as he slaps it onto a graham cracker topped with chocolate, and adds another cracker to complete the sandwich.

“Perfect,” he says once he takes a bite.

“You lied to me,” Harry says, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Louis says, grinning, his mouth filled with chocolate. “But you knew that. You want a bite?”

He reaches out for it, but Louis pushes the s’more toward his mouth and forces him to bite down. There’s a wicked glint in his eye when Harry does so, and his stomach feels tight with how much he suddenly wants to kiss him.

“Hey, guys,” Scott says, bounding over to them with his arms full of beer bottles. “Take another. We’re gonna start singing soon, it’s better if everyone’s drunk for that.”

“Right,” Harry says, pulling his eyes away from Louis and grabbing another Harpoon. “Thanks.”

He expects Scott to leave and pass out drinks to everyone else, but instead he starts up a conversation with Louis about the University of Michigan. And sure, Harry wants to know about Louis, wants everything he’s willing to give, but he’d kind of like it to be when Louis is focusing fully on him.

Louis isn’t his. He knows that. And yet, Louis keeps shooting him little glances, biting his lip and looking down at the ground, and it’s that attention that keeps Harry’s eyes on him.

He wants to slip his hand into the back pocket of Louis’ jeans and pull him close, wants to take his thumb and stroke the skin of his hip underneath his shirt, wants to press a kiss to Louis’ neck and feel the warm skin beneath his lips.

He wants a lot of things with Louis.

They finish the second round of beers and go back for a third, leaving Scott behind to talk to someone else. Harry feels a sweeping sort of pleasure in his gut at the way Louis waves him off and clings to the sleeve of Harry’s sweatshirt as they walk.

The group has now spilled out beyond the campfire, dozens of people. Music blares from a set of speakers by the coolers, some kids are playing beach volleyball by the illumination of iPhone flashlights and some tiki torches, and there’s a circle of people passing a joint around. He loves it.

There’s still a whole summer stretching ahead of them, full of opportunity and potential. There’s so much that can happen, and he’s excited to meet it.

Louis releases his hold on Harry’s sweatshirt when they get to the coolers, but it’s alright because Niall hugs them all tightly and tells them how glad he is to see them.

“D’you wanna play volleyball with some of my friends?” Liam asks, bounding up to them. “Zayn, I think you met most of them the other day at the gym. Everyone’s drunk so no one’s good, it’s great.”

“I’m a bit hesitant to play a sport where you’re going to throw things at me,” Harry says. “I haven’t forgotten that you hit me in the face with a frisbee the first time we met.”

“What?” Louis asks, voice indignant. “Are you alright?”

Liam laughs and shakes his head. “That wasn’t my fault. That was Niall.”

Before Louis can turn his anger on Niall, Harry pulls him back with a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, I’m fine, it was weeks ago. Now let’s play some volleyball, and we’ll get Niall back.”

Louis holds his hand out and their palms connect in a perfect high five. “Dream team,” Louis says, and Harry smiles.

A half hour later, Niall has to concede that he has some pretty shitty aim. After Harry has to get into the ocean to retrieve a ball for the third time, he lets Niall know that he’s bowing out.

“We should have a singalong!” Liam yells. “Zayn, you said you could sing, right? Matt’s great at the guitar. Come on!”

They leave the few remaining volleyball players to their game and head back to the bonfire. The distance can’t be more than a hundred yards, but Louis sticks tight to Harry’s side. Harry could easily lean in and kiss him right now, could stop Louis with a simple tug of the wrist and have him folding into him in no time.

That’s pretty much all he wants.

“I love the way it smells,” Louis says, distracting Harry from his thoughts. “It smells like summer.”

“It is summer, Lou,” Harry teases.

“I know. I love it.”

“Good,” Harry says, and he files the information away. If he ever comes across a campfire-smelling candle, he knows who to get it for.

There’s only one chair remaining when they get there, and Harry barely hesitates before plopping down and gesturing for Louis to sit on his lap.

It’s a low chair, and if Harry leaned back far enough he could topple then, could have Louis’ lips on his in just a few moments. It would take hardly any effort at all.

He should think about something else.

“So you like the Vineyard?” he asks, mentally smacking himself immediately. That’s his conversation topic?

“Love it,” Louis says happily, legs dangling over the side of the chair. He’s got one arm wrapped around Harry’s shoulder and he keeps it there, holding him close. “Better now that I’ve made friends,” he continues. His gaze is focused on Harry’s lips, and it takes a minute for Harry to remember what they’ve been talking about.

Before Harry can respond, Matt pulls out his guitar and starts playing an energetic rendition of Wonderwall.

“The favored song of every college hipster boy with a guitar,” Harry mumbles in Louis’ ear, like he isn’t a college hipster boy with a guitar.

Louis laughs, his whole body shaking with it, and then he leans back fully into Harry’s hold. It’s nice, having him sitting there, safe and warm, trusting. He’s heavy and solid on Harry’s lap, but it’s comfortable, like they’ve done this dozens of times.

Maybe they will. Maybe this is the first of many times to come.

Matt finishes the song and gives a big flourish as everyone applauds, bending at the waist in a bow. “Thanks so much. Next up is Sweet Caroline.”

Louis gives a whoop and claps wholeheartedly. “I love this one,” he says.

As the songs continue, from Sweet Caroline to The Kinks’ Lola to Weezer’s Say It Ain’t So, Harry finds that Louis’ enthusiasm is contagious. He shouts out songs and gets everyone clapping. If a casual campfire gathering could have a de facto leader, it’d be Louis.

Harry has never been so happy to have a front row seat to anything in his life.

After he finishes Hey Jude, Matt decides he’s going to take a quick break. “I’m gonna grab a beer, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Harry nudges Louis and points to the guitar. “You should do a few.”

Louis shakes his head. “No way.”

“Aw, come on. I know you know how to play. And you’ve got a great voice.”

“Not tonight, Curly,” Louis says, and he twists in Harry’s lap so that they can see each other better.

“Alright,” Harry says, placated as he becomes much more interested in the fact that Louis is running a hand through his hair.

“Have you always had curls?” he asks quietly.

He shifts on Harry’s lap as he runs another hand through it, scratching at his scalp. If Louis doesn’t tone it down right now, he’s about to find out just how much Harry likes it.

“Um, not always. Was curlier last year, actually,” Harry says, willing Louis to stop what he’s doing immediately. “Hey, do you want a drink?”

“Nah, I’m good right here,” Louis says with a grin, and it’s then that Harry realizes he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“You’re awful,” he mutters, wrapping his fingers around Louis’ wrist and pulling his hand away from Harry’s hair. He settles their entwined hands on Louis’ lap.

“What, I’m not allowed to appreciate your hair? Not allowed to make you feel good?” He pouts. All the same, he stills on Harry’s lap and gives Harry a minute to get his wits back.

There’s something about Louis, the easy way with which he talks over text, that confident bravado that told Harry to go home and think of him crossed with the nerves he has in person. It’s a combination that shouldn’t work, yet it does.

He’s a pile of contradictions, Louis Tomlinson is, and Harry wonders if that’s what he finds so sexy.

Matt comes back before Louis can cause any trouble. This time, instead of being perched on Harry’s lap, Louis is much closer, squished in next to him. Harry wraps his arms around Louis’ waist, hands resting on his stomach, and his chin hooked on his shoulder. That’s why Harry can feel it a little while later when Louis starts shivering.

“You cold?” Harry asks.

“No,” Louis says immediately, and then his face softens. “Well, maybe a bit.”

“Want my sweatshirt?”

Louis shakes his head. “It’s fine. Don’t want to take it from you.”

“‘Kay.”

A few minutes later, the girl sitting next to them gets up and hands over the blanket she’s been sitting on. “I think this is Matt’s. Just make sure he gets it by the end of the night. Nice meeting you guys.”

“You too,” they say in unison. Louis takes the blanket and shakes the sand out of it before starting to wrap it around himself.

“There you go,” Harry says happily, like he was the one that personally arranged for that to happen.

Louis extends one end of the blanket to Harry. “Get in, we can share.”

“It’s fine, I don’t—”

“Harold,” Louis says, tone determined, and Harry doesn’t waste another second before he moves to comply.

There’s something weirdly intimate about the two of them wrapped in one blanket, like they’ve just woken up from a nice nap tangled together, like they’re not surrounded by dozens of strangers.

“Perfect,” Louis says, and then he settles back in against Harry’s front. Harry tries not to seem like a creep when he leans in and sniffs Louis’ hair, which smells like a combination of ice cream and campfire smoke, and he tries to figure out how he’s going to finally kiss Louis. Tonight is the night.

--

“If either of you interrupt my date tonight,” Harry tells Zayn and Niall, who are sitting in the living room playing a video game, “or in any way stop me from getting to kiss Louis, I will cut off your balls and feed them to the shark that they’re reporting is off the coast of the Vineyard.”

“Whoa,” Niall says. Zayn, who’s been on the receiving end of many of Harry’s threats, just rolls his eyes.

“I mean it. We didn’t get to kiss at the bonfire because Zayn decided that he needed to be a lightweight and vomit, and the time before that you crashed our dinner. I am getting kissed tonight no matter what, and I’d rather it not be one by of you. You hear me?”

“Okay,” Zayn says with a worried nod. “You already kissed him though…”

“What?” Niall asks, turning to look at Harry full-on. “Louis didn’t tell me that.”

“It doesn’t count,” Harry says, his tone on the edge of a whine. “It was like zero point two seconds long.”

“Okay,” Zayn says quizzically.

“Great! I will see you two later,” he says definitively, and then walks out the door.

He and Louis had decided that a return visit to the Italian place wasn’t the best idea, so Harry suggested a little seafood restaurant in Edgartown, one that’s within walking distance of his house.

At the rate they’re going, they’ll probably get served bad clams.

It’s awful and funny and heartbreaking all at once, but something about Louis has him sticking around.

It might have something to do with the way that he’s waiting outside the restaurant when Harry arrives, dressed in denim skinny jeans and a blue and white striped t-shirt.

“Very nautical tonight,” Harry says, leaning in for a hug. Louis squeezes him tight and lingers there for a minute longer than socially acceptable. Fuck social acceptability. Harry wants Louis surgically attached so that he can be close at all times. It’s been nearly 48 hours since they said goodbye at the beach, and that’s about 47.5 hours too long. Desperate? A little bit, but Harry doesn’t care.

“And you’re looking great as well, Harold. Love the shirt.”

Louis reaches out to fix Harry’s collar, and Harry wants to say fuck the dinner and drag Louis off to somewhere they won’t be interrupted. He’s really very hungry, though, and he’s been looking forward to this for weeks, it feels like.

“I called ahead and got us a table,” Louis says. “It’s ready now, if you’re good.”

“I’m great.”

“Good,” Louis says, and then he leads Harry inside with a hand on his lower back.

The restaurant is lovely, with the exact ambiance Harry’s been looking for. It’s quiet and romantic and the waitress doesn’t bat an eye when he shows his fake ID and orders a bottle of wine.

“You are definitely not old enough to be drinking that,” Louis says when the first glasses are poured, and Harry fixes him with a dangerous look.

“And you will definitely not be getting to kiss me if you keep going like that,” Harry says. He just throws it out there, trying to be brave, seeing if it’ll stick.

“Well, I wouldn’t want that, guess I better behave,” Louis says, looking contrite.

After that, everything feels easy. The buzzing in his stomach reduces to a gentle hum, and knowing how much Louis wants him in return makes it easier to concentrate on actual getting to talk to Louis, rather than what’s coming after.

They split an order of clams and an order of chicken alfredo. Louis doesn’t think it’ll be a good combination, but Harry’s happy to prove him wrong.

“Which would you rather do? Eat peanut butter — and only peanut butter — for an entire week, or lick the length of a city block once?”

Harry sputters into his wine. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Are you telling me you've never played the versus game?”

“I have not,” Harry says with a grin as he sets his wine down on the table, placing it in the same exact spot it was in before, the ring of condensation marking the spot. “But I suspect you’re about to tell me exactly how you play.”

A half hour later, he’s learned that Louis would go on an upside down roller coaster on an endless loop for an entire day rather than swim with sharks, would eat donuts for a whole month instead of pizza, and would rather ride a possibly dangerous horse than pet a snake (which brings to mind Zayn’s comment about riding).

“This game is ridiculous,” Harry says, after he’s forced to choose between a year of eating only cereal (“but think of all the different kinds you could mix in!” Louis says) and eating a diet of only cheeseburgers for three months.

“It is. I used to play it all the time with my sisters. My mom would make us play it when we were bored in the car or waiting for food at a restaurant.”

Harry smiles. Anytime Louis mentions his family, his voice turns uncharacteristically soft, like they’re something to be protected. He loves that about Louis, that he’s not afraid to admit that he would do anything for his family, no matter how uncool that may make him seem.

“So is that what you’re doing now? Passing time while you’re bored?”

“I am not,” Louis says diplomatically as the food arrives and the waiter proceeds to pour them each a second glass of wine. “I’m actually introducing you to one of my family traditions. You should do better to appreciate it.”

Harry reaches across the table to grip Louis’ hand. “Thank you. I love it.”

“I’m glad,” Louis says. “Because we’re about to play another round, and it gets harder this time.”

“Alright,” Harry says with a laugh. “Bring it on, Tomlinson.”

“Okay. But first: clams.”

Louis is forced to admit that the combination of clams and chicken alfredo, while unusual, is delicious. Harry tells him that he should have known to trust him, and Louis concedes that he will the next time.

Back and forth they go, bantering like they’ve been friends for ages, until their plates are empty and their bellies are full.

“Dessert?” asks the waiter, and Harry looks at Louis. He could go for some dessert.

“I think we’re all set,” Louis says, and when Harry questions it, he just says that he’s got a plan.

“A plan?”

“A plan,” Louis repeats. “I said that I would trust you, which means you have to trust me in return.”

They fight over the check, predictably, and in the end Louis ends up covering it, insisting that because he’s older it’s his responsibility.

“Fine, but I’m paying for dessert,” Harry insists as they push in their chairs and leave the table.

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“I don’t care. It’s my treat.”

“What if it’s a cake made by the Queen of England?”

“Is the Queen awake right now?” Harry asks, holding the door open for Louis to leave.

“What does that matter? She could have made it earlier in the day.”

“Do you think the Queen knows how to bake? Actually, forget about the Queen. I used to work in a bakery. I’ll make you something.”

Louis stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and turns to Harry with his lips quirked into a smile. “Has anyone ever told you how absolutely ridiculous you are?”

“A few times. You love it though.”

“You don’t know that,” Louis protests, but he links his arm with Harry’s as they walk down the street and that tells Harry everything he needs to know.

Harry has absolutely no idea where they’re headed, but he chooses to trust that Louis does. Whether he’s got a plan or not, Harry is learning that everything with Louis is an unexpected adventure. He’s bound to get a good story out of it, if nothing else.

They come to a stop about fifteen minutes later in front of an ice cream shop.

“In you go, Curly.”

“This is the place? Ice cream?”

“Yes, Harold, that is where we are. Why, what’s wrong?”

Harry shakes his head. “No, nothing. I just thought, you spend all day in one, d’you really want to go to one now too?”

“I do,” Louis says, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him close. “You said you’d trust me, yeah?”

“I did,” Harry says reluctantly. He’s fine with ice cream, really, but he’d thought Louis had something different in mind. Drinks at a bar, maybe, or splitting a brownie cake from the bakery around the corner.

“Great,” Louis says, releasing his hold on Harry to open the door. “In you go then.”

The ice cream place turns out to be nothing like Nick’s at all. In fact, it’s more of a sundae bar. From the signs, it looks like they don’t do regular ice cream at all, just massive creations of ice cream and candy and sauce all mixed together. When Harry sees this, he stops short, causing Louis to bump into him from behind.

“Louis. You brought me to a sundae bar.”

“Yes,” Louis says, pulling his hand off Harry’s shoulder and coming to stand in front of him. “Is that okay?”

“I love sundaes.”

“I know.”

“You remembered that I told you I love sundaes? What the the fuck?”

“You talked about them for like, a full ten minutes. It was hard to forget.”

“I can’t believe you remembered,” Harry says. “You’re amazing.”

“It’s no big deal,” Louis says sheepishly. “But I’m glad you like it.”

They end up getting a large triple chocolate threat to go. When Harry pulls out his wallet, Louis pushes him away.

“You are absolutely not paying. My surprise, my wallet.”

“Louis,” Harry says, shaking his head, but the server is swiping the card and he can’t do anything else.

“You’re too good to me,” Harry says quietly, but Louis is engaged in conversation with the server and doesn’t hear.

“What’d you say?” Louis asks, turning back to him.

“Thank you,” Harry says instead. “You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to,” Louis says, putting an end to the discussion. “Come on, I’ve got two spoons and I think there’s a bench overlooking the water with our name on it.”

They cross the street and sit on the bench, watching the boats in the water as the sun starts to set. Harry lets Louis have most of the sundae, finding that he can’t really eat it, too consumed with whatever feelings are happening in his brain right now.

“I love that we always end up watching the sunset together,” Harry says. He scoots over and snuggles up next to Louis, who lifts his arm to pull him in close. Harry tilts his head against Louis’ shoulder and watches a seagull try to pick up an abandoned ice cream cone a few feet away.

“Me too. It’s one of my favorite things,” Louis says quietly.

A few hundred feet away, a band starts up under a gazebo, and they watch as a few couples start dancing to the music. Harry considers asking Louis if he wants to jon, but something compels him to keep them rooted in this spot. This is where they’re meant to be.

“I really like hanging out with you,” Louis says a few minutes later, just as the sun has sunk beneath the horizon and what’s left of the sundae is a melted puddle in the plastic tub.

“Me too,” Harry says softly. He lifts his head to look at Louis, and he just knows that this is the time. “I’m gonna kiss you now, if that’s alright.”

“God, finally,” Louis says, the words barely a breath, and then they both lean in.

It’s soft, tentative, but after the initial brush of lips, Harry gets back a bit of confidence. He’s kissing Louis, all he’s wanted to do for weeks. Louis is kissing him back.

Louis tastes like ice cream and white wine, but Harry can’t focus on anything other than the feel of Louis’ hand cupping his cheek. He laughs into it and pulls away, bumping Louis’ nose as he goes.

“Finally is right,” Harry says, feeling a bit dazed. He brings two fingers to his lips, just to confirm that yes that did actually happen.

He takes a breath and then doesn’t waste any time before kissing him again.

Louis coaxes his mouth open with his tongue, reaches a hand up to pull at Harry’s hair, and laughs into his mouth, like he knows exactly what that does to him.

“I hate you,” Harry mumbles against his lips, but he’s smiling and then goes right back to kissing him, so he can’t really mean it that much.

“You smell good,” Louis says a minute later. “Like… I don’t know, some kind of cologne.”

“Thanks,” Harry says. “You smell good too.”

“What a creep, have you been smelling me?” Louis says, his grin wide. Harry goes cross-eyed from looking at it, because he refuses to pull his mouth any further from Louis’ than strictly necessary.

“You want to stop being sassy and put your mouth to better use?” Harry asks, and Louis rolls his eyes and kisses him again.

Harry doesn’t know how long they sit there kissing, but when he finally pulls away, the band has announced they’re taking a break and the sky is completely dark. There no boats on the water.

“Been waiting a long time to do that,” Louis says. “Now that we’ve started, I might never stop.”

“Good,” Harry says. “I don’t want to.”

“That said, I do need to get home some time soon. I’ve got work early tomorrow.”

Harry pouts. “Stay here. The people don’t need ice cream at nine in the morning.”

“Ah, so you would think. But apparently, they do.”

Harry sighs. “Five more minutes?”

Louis huffs, like it’s a hardship. “Yeah, alright. If you insist.”

Harry grins into the kiss, and if they don’t stop kissing for another ten minutes, no one has to know.

--

Louis refuses to let Harry drive him home, so Harry waits to make sure he’s safely on the bus and insists that Louis text him the minute he gets back.

“Worried about my safety?” Louis says, leaning in to brush his nose against Harry’s. God, an hour since they first kissed and they’re already insufferable. If it were anyone else, Harry would mock them mercilessly.

“Just want to keep you around a while longer,” Harry says, patting Louis’ hip and leaning in for a kiss.

When Harry gets home, he kicks his shoes off in the front hall and checks his phone for the ninth time to see that no, Louis has not yet texted him, and probably won’t for another twenty minutes.

“Hello? Anyone here?”

“Hey,” Zayn calls from the living room. Harry finds him stretched out on the sofa, reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while hanging upside down. “How’d it go?”

“Good,” Harry says casually, curling up on the opposite sofa. “How was your night? Where’s Niall?”

“Went home a few hours ago. So…”

“So.”

“Spill the beans. Did you get your kiss?”

“I did,” Harry says happily, and then he touches two fingers to his mouth again, just to remind himself that thirty minutes ago, Louis Tomlinson really was kissing him.

Zayn slaps the book shut and rights himself, jumping off the couch to high five Harry.

“Excellent work! How was it?”

“Amazing,” Harry says, and he has to fight to stop his voice from getting like that of a dreamy thirteen year old girl. “He’s great.”

“That’s it?”

“He’s just… he’s a lot. I like him a lot. He’s really funny and he made me laugh a lot and he told me all these stories about his family. And when he kissed me, it was like—hey!” He jerks his head up, and then unfolds his limbs as he runs to the kitchen.

He starts rummaging through the drawers. “Why don’t we have any goddamn pens—oh, here’s one.”

“What are you doing?”

“Crossing ‘kiss a stranger off the list’, duh,” Harry says, uncapping the pen with his teeth.

“You can’t! He’s not a stranger.”

“He is!” He removes the cap from his teeth, holding it in his clench fist.

Zayn shakes his head. “Nuh-uh.”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t even know his middle name.” Zayn doesn’t say anything. “Exactly. I’m doing it.”

And then, with one swipe of a felt-tip pen, he crosses ‘kiss a stranger’ off the list.

“Harry, just…” Zayn hesitates.

“What?” Harry asks. He recaps the pen and drops it back into the drawer, bumping it with his hip so it shuts.

“Just be careful. I know how you can get, and you just want to remember it’s a summer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean summer romances are rarely all they’re cracked up to be. That’s all. Just remember it’s supposed to be fun.”

“I’m not in love with him,” Harry protests, feeling a sudden need for sleep. “Don’t worry. I’m not under any illusions.”

“Alright,” Zayn says after a moment, and then Harry hugs him and darts up the stairs for bed.

--

“Do this one,” says Liam, pushing the booklet at Harry and jabbing at a line with his pointer finger.

“I am not doing a song by The Wanted for karaoke, Liam.”

“Ew, no, don’t do them, they’re shit,” says Louis, returning to the table with a drink in each hand and passing one over to Harry. “Here you go, Harold. Do something more-rocky.”

“Thanks. By myself?”

“No, get Niall to do it with you. He’s always game,” Louis says as Harry takes a sip of the orange cocktail. It’s his third one of the evening, and he’s feeling just tipsy enough to get up and perform.

And that’s how he ends up on stage, belting out the words to Champagne Supernova with Niall by his side.

“Someday you will find me,” he yells, tragically out of tune halfway through the song but having the time of his life, “caught beneath the landslide! In a champagne supernova!”

“In the skyyyyy!” Niall yells.

The crowd is sparse but enthusiastic, and as Niall continues to sing, Harry feels emboldened. He starts dancing, large exaggerated moves that have nothing to do with the beat of the music. He shakes his hips and as Louis gives a loud whoop, he dances over to Niall. He crowds in on him from behind, extending his arms and yelling in his ear. Niall collapses into giggles, abandoning the song while the music continues.

“Who do you think you are, Mick Jagger?” yells Louis, and Harry just blows him a kiss and finishes the song.

When they tumble off the stage, handing the microphones to the facilitator, Louis presses a cold drink in his hand and a soft kiss to his sweaty forehead. “You’re really good, you know? Should start a singing career, I think.”

Harry laughs and shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

He contemplates the idea of asking Louis if he wants to do a duet — his duet song of choice is Endless Love — but by the time he gets his wits about him to ask, Liam says that they’re all doing one together.

“But they only have three microphones,” Harry says dumbly.

“Me and you can share,” Louis says, throwing an arm around his waist. It’s warm and Harry cuddles in next to him, because he’s too drunk to care about boundaries tonight.

They end up singing Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) by the Backstreet Boys, and when they’re done, Louis cups Harry’s cheeks in his hands and kisses him right there on stage, in front of everyone.

‘Everyone’ is about twelve people and the bartender, but still.

Niall whoops and Zayn covers his eyes and Liam groans, but Harry shushes them all, his cheeks flushed with a happy glow. “Be quiet, all of you.”

“A round of drinks to celebrate the two of you finally getting your shit together?” offers Niall, and Harry says no, he can’t, he’s had too much already, but of course he ends up having another drink.

They part ways ninety minutes later, heads pounding and clothes sweaty, they stand out on the curb, waiting for their Ubers.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Louis murmurs, his mouth close to Harry’s ear as they stand a few feet away from the others. Niall is still singing, a song Harry can’t make out but that he thinks is supposed to be Mr. Brightside, but he has no brain space for that right now.

“I have to work,” Harry says with a pout. He brings his thumb to caress the smooth skin of Louis' hipbone.

“I’ll come see you for lunch,” Louis says. “We can get sandwiches, it’ll be fun.”

“Alright,” he agrees easily.

“Styles, we gotta go!” Zayn yells, and Harry gestures that it’ll just be a minute. “No, we gotta go now!”

“You better go,” Louis says, kissing him once quickly. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you,” Harry says, blowing him a kiss as he turns away.

“About time,” Zayn says with a frow when Harry gets in the car.

“I was like thirty seconds, it’s fine.”

Zayn sighs. “You’re right, sorry.”

“No worries, I think we’re all a bit drunk, yeah?”

He leans his head against the window and watches as the oceans whips by, the dark water all he can see for miles. He loves this drive home, loves that he gets to see the beach every day. He and Zayn haven’t been here long, but he’s already so glad Zayn convinced him to do this. New friends and new opportunities are doing him good.

“Zayn, the beach,” he says, jerking his head up and tugging at Zayn’s sleeve. “We gotta get out, we gotta go to the beach.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, words slightly slurred.

“The list! We haven’t gone to the beach yet today.”

Zayn groans. “It’s fine. We get a pass once a week.”

“No we don’t.”

“We made the list, we get to make the rules too.”

“That makes no sense. God, this whole thing is a failure,” he groans.

“If you want to get out, you can,” Zayn says, “but I’m tired and I’m going home to bed.”

Harry stays in the car.

--

When he wakes up the next morning, head pounding, he stumbles downstairs and finds that the list is missing.

He shrugs, makes breakfast, and eats it sitting on the back porch.

Zayn makes an appearance an hour later, just as Harry is thinking about how he needs to shower and get ready for work. “Good morning. I don’t know how you’re functioning right now, I feel like absolute shit.”

“Drank a lot of water last night,” Harry says. “Plus, I do feel like crap. I just have to go to work anyway.”

Zayn makes a noncommittal sound.

“Hey, just wondering. Where’s the list?” Harry asks.

“Oh, I put it away. We should forget about it.”

“What? Why? We’ve already used our fake IDs and I already kissed a stranger—” Zayn snorts at this “—and we were doing so well.”

“I just think you’re getting kind of obsessive about it. Kiss whoever you want and read all the books you want and crash a wedding every week if it speaks to you. But you shouldn’t base the worth of the whole summer on a dumb list that we made up.”

“Fine,” Harry pouts. He'll just find it again later. “Whatever.”

“It’ll be good for you!” Zayn calls as Harry picks up his dishes and heads inside. “I promise!”

--

“Oh my god, I’m never eating anything else again,” Louis mumbles. “Try this.”

He hands Harry his sandwich, and he takes a bite. It’s grilled turkey with melted cheese and arugula, plus some kind of chipotle mayo, and Harry tries to stifle a moan.

They’re sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean during Harry’s lunch break, and indecision over what to order had caused them to get a sandwich each and split them.

“Here, try this one,” Harry says, taking half of his sandwich and handing it to Louis. He expects Louis to grab it with his hand. Instead, he opens his mouth and takes a bite.

“Mmm, that’s good,” Louis says through a mouth full of food.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“What?” Louis says with a grin.

“I’m not gonna feed you,” Harry says.

“Looks like you just did though,” Louis says with a smirk. Harry swats his shoulder.

He likes spending time with Louis. They haven’t known each other that long, and he doesn’t know all the deep, essential details of his life, but he like that it feels like they’re already best friends. He doesn’t have to feel embarrassed, or like he’s ever too much. He can just be himself when he’s with him.

Their dinner date the other night was their first proper just-the-two-of-them date, but it didn’t have any of the awkwardness of a first date. It just felt like two friends getting dinner who also kissed a lot after.

It’s pretty perfect, actually.

“Hey, come here, you’ve just got a spot of—” Louis uses his thumb to tilt Harry’s chin so that he’s looking at him. His face is the picture of perfect concentration, tongue poking out from between his teeth as he wipes it across the edge of Harry’s mouth. “Mayo.”

Harry intends to respond, he really does, but then he’s transfixed as Louis sticks his thumb into his mouth, raises his eyebrows, and removes his thumb with a wet pop.

“You okay?” Louis asks, snapping his fingers in front of Harry’s face. “You good?”

“I need to get back to work,” Harry says, face hot as he scrambles to pick up the trash and get off the bench.

“So soon?” Louis says, looking sad. It’s an act; he knows exactly what he’s done.

“Yes, you bastard. I’ll see you later.”

Louis blows him a kiss as he walks off, and Harry spends the walk back to work trying to think about anything other than how much he wants Louis Tomlinson.

“Uh oh,” Ainsley says when he clocks back in from his lunch break. “You look like you’re in trouble. It’s that boy, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Look at your face! You’re in so deep.”

Harry flips her off and then gets back to work.

--

“Harry! My favorite roommate! The best person I know!”

Zayn is standing at the front door when Harry unlocks it, a wide grin on his face, and he’s immediately suspicious.

“What did you do?”

“Me? Nothing.”

Harry kicks off his shoes and leaves them in the hallway. “I don’t trust you.”

“Yes you do. When have I ever lied to you?”

“Um, that one party the first weekend of freshman year? Or that time on Halloween when you said it was a costume party and it wasn’t? Or right now, when you’re buttering me up to get something you want?”

“Fine, fine, I’ll just come out with it. Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

Harry coughs. “I’m kind of, um… sort of seeing someone at the moment.”

Zayn’s face is a cloudy stare, which clears a moment later. “Ew, gross, no. I mean, no offense, obviously, you’re hot, but… no. I have seen too much. I just thought we could eat dinner together tonight.”

“Oh! Okay, sure. What did you have in mind?”

“Well I got steaks and vegetables and a few other things at Stop-N-Shop earlier. Thought we could eat outside, I can grill them if you want.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “I’m still a little skeptical of this.”

“There’s really no ulterior motive. I just want to hang out with you.”

“Okay, I can do that. But not now, I wanna be lazy,” he says as he collapses onto the couch.

He flicks on the television and settles on an infomercial about kitchen products. He has no need for a mixer that doubles as a blender and comes with a cutting board, but he gets suckered into wanting one anyway. He’s pretty sure that when he has his own place, he’s going to have a kitchen full of infomercial products he purchased at one in the morning.

He goes in and out of a daze, blinking his eyes open repeatedly to try and stay awake. It’s too late for a nap. But one would be so nice.

Eventually it’s his phone that startles him to full alertness. The picture that pops up is a goofy selfie that Louis took when they were having lunch together earlier in the day, one where he’s got his eyes crossed and his tongue poking out.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” says Louis.

“Right, I figured. Caller ID and all.”

Louis sighs heavily. “It used to be so easy back in the old days, when you could just call someone and they didn’t know who was on the other end of the line.”

“Back when you had to walk uphill both ways for running water, right?”

“Be quiet. Just because I’m older than you doesn’t mean you get to make jokes about it.”

“You’re barely older than me. Two years. And only a year in school. We’re basically the same age.”

“Alright, Curly. I’m only letting this one go cause you’re cute. Anyway, I was calling to find out if you want to hang out tonight? My internship stuff got cancelled.”

Harry’s about to say that he has plans with Zayn when Louis continues.

“Was thinking sunset and donuts, if you want.”

“Yes,” Harry says immediately, rolling off the couch and jumping to his feet. It’ll be fine. Zayn will forgive him. It’s not like they had any real plans anyway, nothing that can’t happen again later.

“Where do you want to go?”

“The usual spot? Actually no, let’s meet at Back Door Donuts and then we can bring them to the beach.”

“Ok great. I’ll see you there in 20 minutes.”

“Not if I see you first,” Louis says, hanging up the phone before Harry has time to get him back with another snarky remark.

He runs upstairs to grab his sandals and a sweatshirt, brushes his teeth in the bathroom, and runs a comb through his hair. He wishes he could figure out how to style it better than just pushing it back. Maybe he needs a bandana or something.

There’s a bowl on the kitchen counter where he keeps his keys and other random odds and ends, and he rifles through it to find his car keys. His hand is just closing over them when Zayn strolls in.

“Hey, are you ready to start—oh. What are you doing?”

“Louis’ internship interview got cancelled for tonight so he asked me to go hang out. You don’t mind if we reschedule dinner, right?”

Zayn mumbles something that Harry can’t quite make out as he drops a kiss to his cheek and runs out the door.

The drive feels like eons, though it’s only three or four songs before he parks his car at the beach and crosses the grassy area by the gazebo at twice his normal walking speed. Louis is standing at the corner, turned toward the square, where a guitarist is playing a tune Harry vaguely recognizes.

“Hey, stranger,” Harry calls. Louis whips around and rushes toward him, wrapping his arms around his neck.

They meet in the middle for a kiss and Harry sinks into it, not caring that they’re on the sidewalk in a busy area. Everyone else can just deal.

“Hi,” Louis says happily. “Missed you.”

“Missed you too.” He probably shouldn’t have missed Louis quite so much when he last saw him just a few hours ago, but he doesn’t care.

“Ready to get some donuts? Nick’s been talking about how good this place is for weeks.”

“I can’t believe you still haven’t been here yet,” Harry says as he wraps an arm around Louis’ waist and they walk to join the line in the parking lot.

“This guy I met told me he wanted to take me here. Figured it was worth the wait.”

There’s a tender quality to his voice that causes something to twist in Harry’s heart. Just for the summer, he can hear Zayn saying, and he shrugs off the reminder.

The line moves slowly but Harry doesn’t once think of complaining. There’s no need to, not when Louis provides all the entertainment he needs.

They each order a donut—chocolate for Louis and cinnamon sugar for Harry—and an apple fritter to split.

“We’re gonna die,” Harry says as he slips his wallet into his back pocket. Louis had, of course, tried to fight him on paying for it by saying that it was his idea. “This is too much food.”

“But what a way to go,” Louis says with a cheeky grin.

They’re at the beach in no time, sitting in the sand in what Harry has come to think of as ‘their spot.’ He’s come here before work a few times, to think and relax and prepare for the day, but more often than not his mind ends up wandering to Louis.

“So why didn’t you have your internship?” Harry asks just before he takes a bite of his donut.

Louis groans. “My boss took the article away from me. He’s an asshole.”

“What? Why?” Harry frowns.

“He said that my review of the food last time wasn’t good enough and that Stacy could do a way better job. Stacy’s a jerk. And she’s a shitty writer. But he doesn’t care, because she flirts with him to get what she wants.”

“I’m sorry.” He puts a hand on Louis’ back, trying to be comforting. “Can you talk to him about it?”

Louis shakes his head vehemently. “No, he doesn’t give a fuck. It’s bullshit.”

“I hate that you’re slaving away and they don’t even care about you.”

“Me too,” Louis says. “But what can I do? I need it for my resume.”

“Still, that’s bullshit,” Harry says.

“It is. But anyway, I don’t really want to talk about it right now. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure. Like what?”

“Hmmm. What about….the fact that you’ve had cinnamon sugar on your lip for the past five minutes and all I’ve wanted to do is wipe it off for you?”

Harry pouts, embarrassed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Yes, wipe it off please.”

He expects Louis to wipe it off with his thumb, but instead he leans in and swiftly. presses his mouth against Harry’s.

Harry makes a little oomph sound in surprise, and then giggles when Louis’ tongue darts out to lick the side of his lip.

“Got it,” says Louis with a smirk as he pulls away. “Tastes good.”

“Yeah?” Harry says softly, his reaction delayed. He can’t help it; Louis is licking his own lips, and the sight of it makes him want to combust a little. He’s been fine taking things slow so far, but he just wants more with Louis. Whatever he’s willing to give.

“Yeah. But let me just try again, just to make sure.”

That’s how the end up missing almost the entire sunset, kissing as the sun sinks low beneath the horizon. By the time they stop to take a break, Louis is straddling Harry’s lap and Harry’s hair is all messed up from Louis running his fingers through it.

He finds he doesn’t mind much.

Louis eventually turns around and settles himself in the vee of Harry’s outstretched legs, bringing Harry’s arms to curl around him so that his back is pressed against Harry’s chest.

Harry hooks his chin on his shoulder and breathes in. He feels wholly, entirely calm. They listen to the sound of the ocean for a few minutes, and Harry thinks that if the entire world were to go up in flames right now, he’d be alright.

“You cold?” The question is redundant, because Louis is shivering, but he asks it anyway. He’s already released his hold on Louis temporarily to get his sweatshirt from his bag. “Here, I brought this. You can have it.”

“Are you sure?” Louis asks. Harry nods. “Thanks, you’re my hero.”

“I’ll take a kiss in payment,” Harry says, lips puckered. Louis laughs and then gives him a peck.

Harry pouts and then draws Louis back in for a longer kiss.

“Alright, alright, at least let me put the sweatshirt on first,” Louis says. The sweatshirt is too big for him, the sleeves dangling past his fingers. Harry tries and fails to avoid thinking about how good Louis looks in his clothes.

“Looks lovely.”

“It smells like a campfire. Is this the same one you wore—”

“Yep,” Harry says with a nod, and then he pulls Louis back against his chest once more.

He’s about to ask Louis if he wants to play another round of the versus game when Louis speaks.

“Can I ask about your tattoos? What they mean, I mean.” His voice is quiet, and he must take Harry’s silence for a negative, because he quickly corrects himself. “But if it’s too personal, no worries. I get it.”

“No, no, it’s okay. It is… they are personal, but I don’t mind you knowing. I want you to know.”

“Yeah?”

Harry can only see the side of his face, but he can tell that Louis’s smile is wide. “Yeah. Which one do you want to start with?”

“Hmmm. This one,” Louis says after a minute, tracing the shape of the anchor tattoo on his left wrist. His finger is cool against Harry’s warm skin.

“That one,” Harry says. “That one is to cover up this tattoo I got when I was sixteen and had just come out to my mom and dad. It said ‘I Can’t Change’.”

Louis twists around so that he can see Harry’s face. “Why’d you cover it?”

Harry shrugs. It feels like there are butterflies in his stomach. “Seemed silly, looking back. Like a thing I got when I was a dumb kid.”

Louis snorts, but it’s fond. “Right, cause you’re so old.”

“I’m nineteen, thank you very much.”

“Exactly. So old.”

Harry wants to smack him, but instead he pulls him closer, rests his chin on Louis’ shoulder again. “I covered it because it didn’t seem necessary anymore. I already know I can’t change. But I’m okay with that now. I wasn’t so okay with it when I was sixteen.”

“So why the anchor?”

Harry pauses. He doesn’t really want to talk about that, not when things are so good today.

Louis must catch on, because he says, “Or you can tell me about the star.”

He pokes at Harry’s upper arm, where there’s a star just on the inside of his armpit, fully colored in black ink.

“Oh, that’s just a dumb one I got my first week of college. Felt like I was free to whatever I wanted, and what I wanted to get was a tattoo. My mom freaked out when I got the ‘I Can’t Change,’ you know. My stepdad was the one to take me. But then for this one I was old enough to go alone and it seemed like a fun thing to do.”

“But why a star?”

Harry shrugs. “Dunno. Just felt like it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Louis repeats faintly. “Right, just tattoo random things onto yourself because you can.”

“Do you want to talk about how I got ‘big’ written on my big toe?”

Louis giggles. “You did not.”

“I did.”

And that’s how they spend the rest of the evening, talking about all of Harry’s fake-deep tattoos. He thinks that maybe one day in the not-so-far future, he’ll end up telling Louis all about the real-deep ones too.

--

Harry peers into the water. It’s dark, and it’s got to be at least fifteen feet down. His friends are off to the side, treading water as they wait for him to join them.

“Come on, jump!” He doesn’t know who yells it, but he feels panic at the words anyway.

It’s the Fourth of July, and Harry’s standing on top of a bridge and looking down at the unforgiving water below. It’s the bridge the shark swims under in the movie Jaws, which was filmed on the island, and there’s a reason he’s never jumped off it before. He’s afraid of heights. He’d actually forgotten about that until now.

“I can’t,” he says weakly, and Zayn boos.

“Come on, Harry, you can do it!”

“Give him a few more minutes,” Louis says. “He can do it. Right, Harry? You can do it.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he says, chest feeling tight. He’s been standing up here for a few minutes, and at least a dozen people have jumped ahead of him. It’s so far down and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t make himself jump.

A car driving by beeps multiple times in quick succession, a staccato pattern that sends his heart racing all over again. It’s not the first time it’s happened since he’s been standing on the bridge; it’s tradition for cars to beep at would-be jumpers standing on the Jaws Bridge.

It just feels like another reminder that he can’t do it.

“Harry, come on, I’m getting cold in here,” Niall says.

He watches as a girl climbs up the railing, hoists herself onto the top, and jumps into the water like she doesn’t have a care in the world. She screams on the way down, and when she emerges from the water, she’s beaming.

Why can’t he do that? Why can’t he stop the block in his brain and just jump?

“I’m getting out,” Liam says. “Sorry, Harry. But I want to jump again.”

Slowly, they all follow. Louis is the only one who stays in the water, calling up to Harry once again that he can do it.

“I can’t,” he yells back. “And I can’t get down either. I’m stuck here now.”

“You’re not,” Louis says, and Harry is very aware of the fact that there are dozens of people privy to this conversation. “Just jump in, Harry, come on.”

He tries, he really does. He’s closing his eyes and is about to bend his knees to jump off the ledge and then—nope. He can’t do it.

“Harry, if you don’t get in the water soon, it’s gonna be dark and we’ll have missed our whole barbecue,” Zayn says. “And it’s not the Fourth of July without a fucking barbecue.”

“Excuse me, language,” says a mother, who’s supervising a group of pre-teens that are loudly squealing each time one of their friends jumps in.

“Sorry,” Zayn mutters. “But really, Harry, come on. It’s gonna be fine.”

“Want me to push you?” offers Niall.

“Niall, be nice,” yells Louis.

“Just come back up,” Harry tells him. “No point in you getting old and wrinkled in there.”

Liam and Niall jump in holding hands, and Zayn asks him if he wants to do the same before he jumps in as well. Harry is quite literally going to die here, standing on this stupid bridge.

“Hey, hey,” Louis says softly behind him. Harry turns around and looks down at him. Louis is standing on the ground and he feels very far away, but Harry can still see the concerned look in his eyes. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“I don’t know if it is,” Harry admits quietly. “I can’t get down, not after all this.”

Louis brings his hand up to cup Harry’s calf, his touch comforting. “There’s no shame in it. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. We can still go to your house and get really drunk and make out in your pool. Which, by the way, I still haven’t been in yet.”

Harry scoffs. “You’re not going to get to swim in it, because I’m going to die here.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Hurry up, Harry!” Liam and Niall yell it at the same time, and Harry sighs.

Louis tugs on his hand and intertwines his fingers with Harry’s. “Hey, hey, don’t listen to them. You’re doing great.”

Harry feels tears prick the back of his eyelids. “I feel like such a baby. I should be able to do this. I shouldn’t be so scared.”

Louis shakes his head. “So you’re afraid of heights. It’s alright.”

“I want to do it, I do. I just can’t figure out how to get past the block in my brain.”

“I have an idea,” Louis says, and he starts climbing the railings of the bridge. He stops on the second to last one, hovering just below Harry. “C’mere.”

“Louis—” He bends down so that Louis can speak into his ear anyway.

“If you jump,” he says, voice husky. “I’ll suck you off when we get back to your house. D’you think you can be quiet? If everyone else was in the next room and you had to stay really still, couldn’t make a sound? Do you think you could do it?”

Harry chokes on air.

Louis shoots him a self-satisfied smirk and climbs back onto the ground.

Harry jumps.

Four minutes later, Harry climbs out of the water, shivering from the cold as much as from Louis’ words, and he strides right up to Louis and pinches a nipple. “You are. The. Worst.”

“Got you into the water, didn’t it?” He wraps his arms around Harry in a hug. “Proud of you. And by the way, I would’ve done what I promised either way. Was more fun this way though, wasn’t it?”

Harry reaches up to pinch both nipples at the same time, and Louis just laughs and drops a kiss to his hair.

--

“Niall, if you don’t watch yourself you’re gonna burn those burgers, pal.”

Harry watches from across the deck as Liam pats Niall on the hip. Niall’s been a bit busy loudly singing to the music blaring from the speakers to focus on the task at hand.

“It’s fine, look, they’re not even on fire yet!”

“We want burgers, Ni, not hockey pucks.”

Harry doesn’t catch Niall’s response because Louis presses his cold beer bottle to Harry’s upper arm.

“Fuck that’s cold,” Harry hisses, flicking Louis on the hand to get him to pull away.

“Thought you might need to cool down,” Louis says casually, taking a bite of watermelon. “You know, because you’re really hot.”

Harry snorts. “Tell me, has that line ever worked for you?”

“Seems like it just did,” Louis says, raising an eyebrow, and then he pulls Harry closer and draws him in for a kiss.

It’s nearly dark, and Harry’s excited for dinner and fireworks and beer, but he also really wants everyone to go home so that he can drag Louis upstairs and get him into bed. And hell, he hasn’t forgotten what Louis said earlier. Maybe they don’t need to wait for the others to go home.

But he also really wants to see the fireworks, and he doesn’t want to rush it with Louis. Not this time. There will be time for fast and rough later. Not this time.

They’ve spent the afternoon splashing around in Harry’s pool, having water fights in the backyard with Nerf guns that Zayn unearthed from the hall closet, and laying around doing nothing. Being at work this morning feels like a whole other life, something that happened to a different version of him.

“I am getting pretty hot, actually. You want to get in the water again?”

Louis grins. “Race you.”

Harry’s up and out of his chair before he can think about it, feet slipping on the wet grass as he heads for the pool. He jumps over a stray nerf gun and bypasses the sprinkler, cannonballing into the water.

“Hah! Beat you!” he crows, pumping a fist in the air in victory.

“By like, two seconds,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “Besides, you lost something along the way.”

He points to a piece of fabric floating in the water. Harry can just make out the blue and white stars that dominate the pattern, and his hand flies up to his head. It’s his American flag bandana, the one Louis presented him with this morning as a gift.

“Thanks,” Harry says, swimming over to it, but of course Louis gets there first.

“You want it, you’re gonna have to catch it.”

Louis swims to the deep end of the pool at a furious pace, but Harry is just as quick. He catches up to him and they reach the wall at the same time.

“Gimme the bandana,” Harry says, reaching for it, but Louis holds it high in the air. At this angle, with both of them treading water, Harry’s height gives him no advantage.

“I told you, you’re gonna have to catch it.”

“Fine,” he says, and then he twists his body so that he’s pinning Louis against the wall, one leg in between both of Louis’ and one hand bracketing his shoulder, keeping him against the wall. It’s hardly more than a light touch, but Louis stays there nonetheless. “How’s this?”

Louis inhales sharply when Harry angles his leg so that he’s rubbing against his crotch, just the gentlest touch of friction, but then he smirks. “You still haven’t gotten it yet.”

“Don’t need to,” Harry says, and then he winds his hands into Louis’ hair and kisses him.

He can feel Louis smirking, but neither of them are laughing by the time Harry coaxes Louis’ mouth open with his tongue and pulls him closer. They kiss like the boys aren’t fifty feet away, like the music blasting in the distance isn’t there, like it’s just the two of them for miles and miles.

“Alright,” Louis says a few minutes later, chest heaving as he falls back against the wall. He holds the bandana against Harry’s chest, the soaking wet fabric leaving droplets on his skin. “You win.”

“That’s what I thought,” Harry says cheekily.

Louis runs his fingers through Harry’s hair, combing the strands back, and then he reverently slips the headscarf over his head and adjusts it.

“Thanks,” Harry says softly, and he’s about to lean in for another kiss when Niall yells at the two of them to get out of the pool and stop traumatizing everyone.

“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” Louis yells back, giving Niall the finger, but all the same, he pushes himself up and out of the pool and gestures for Harry to follow.

They eat burgers on the deck in their bathing suits, all of them clustered around the backyard table. The tiki lamps that keep away the bugs are switched on, the music plays softly from the speakers, and as Harry looks around at their Fourth of July celebration, he thinks that they’re all doing pretty well for themselves.

After his third beer, Louis curls up in Harry’s lap, and as much as he hates the boys giving him shit for it, Harry feels endlessly comfortable. He wants to be close to Louis, wants to keep him here with him forever so that he can never leave. Louis sneaks bits of Harry’s ice cream with his own spoon when he thinks Harry isn’t looking, and Harry notices but of course doesn’t say anything.

The fireworks catch them by surprise when they’re all still sitting around the table. They’ve been talking about going inside to watch a movie for the last half hour but haven’t actually made the moves to do it. They have to stay outside now, Niall reasons, and so they all sit there and watch as the sky erupts in explosions of red and green and blue and gold.

“Those ones are my favorite,” Harry mumbles in Louis’ ear, as a cascade of gold sparks erupts and then rains down on the sky.

“Yeah?” Louis asks, turning to look at him. There’s a glint in his eyes that Harry hopes will stay forever. “I like the ones that explode from the center. They’re called peony fireworks, actually.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“My little sister went through a phase when she was obsessed with fireworks. Hard not to pick up some stuff when she never shut up about it.”

Harry laughs and presses his lips to Louis’ temple. Of course he would know about fireworks. He’s beginning to think that Louis is an encyclopedia of weird, random facts.

The show ends in a fast-paced display that has all of them holding their breath until it ends.

‘“That was incredible,” Louis says when it ends.

“It’s always that good,” Liam says. Harry feels strangely pleased that Liam’s chosen to spend the holiday with this ragtag band, when surely he has plenty of friends on the island he could’ve spent it with. “Never seen a bad one here.”

Niall whistles lowly. “Anyone for a movie? I could go for another beer, too.”

Zayn directs them to bring everything inside. Harry can’t get up until Louis does, and instead of doing that, Louis has chosen to drag his lips across his neck. He’s not complaining.

Niall is the one who ends up forcing Louis off of him, saying that it’s not fair that they all have to clean and Harry and Louis can just make out. Harry blames Louis, Louis shifts the blame to Harry, and Niall smacks them both on the sides of their heads.

“Don’t care. Just get up and clean.”

“Yes sir,” Harry says, and Louis pinches his side.

Once the dishwasher is loaded, the pans are soaking in the sink, and everything is tidied, Zayn acquiesces and says that they can watch a movie.

“Romantic comedy,” Harry insists.

“No, no, let’s do Captain America.”

“Liam, no,” Niall says. “If we watch that, you’ll recite every word. Not worth it.”

They settle on Inception, which Harry has watched dozens of times. The DVD is probably going to break one day from overuse. When that happens, he’ll just buy a new one.

They’re just starting the part with the first level dream sequence when Louis nudges Harry’s butt with his toes. They’re sharing the shorter couch, sitting with their backs to the arms and their feet tangled in the middle, and every so often Harry has reached down to warm his toes. Louis, apparently, has a thing against socks. So be it.

He smiles at Louis, who tilts his head toward the stairs and raises his eyebrows. It takes only a second for Harry to catch onto his meaning. He smirks and nods.

“Think I’m gonna run to the bathroom, guys,” Harry says, stretching his arms exaggeratedly. The guys don’t say anything, and Louis stretches out on the couch, taking his place.

There’s a bathroom just off the kitchen, but he takes the staircase to the one upstairs and waits on the landing. He knows Louis will follow.

It’s only a few minutes before he hears the murmur of voices and then Louis comes into view, a cheeky grin on his face when he sees Harry waiting for him.

“Hi,” he says quietly, wrapping both arms around Harry’s waist.

“What’d the others say?”

“Said they’d see me tomorrow and to have a good night,” Louis says with a grin. “Don’t think we were as subtle as we thought.”

“You’re about as subtle as a brick when you want to be,” Harry says.

“Hey, that’s not nice,” Louis says with a pout. Harry assuages it with a kiss. “C’mon, show me your room already before I combust.”

Harry thinks about teasing him, considers grinding his hips against Louis’ and then realizes that he himself might not survive that, so he tugs Louis’ hand down the hall and pushes open the door to his bedroom.

“Fancy,” Louis says. “Very nice. Very nautical.”

Harry rubs his nose. “Yeah that’s, um… my mom. Decorating this place is kind of her thing.”

“Well, pass on my compliments to her, Harold.”

“I will,” Harry says hesitantly. Louis is standing in the middle of his bedroom and all Harry can do is think about how he wants Louis, wants everything with him, and yet he doesn’t know how to go about this. They’ve already talked about it, for God’s sake. Why can’t he just say the words?

Louis ends up doing it for him. “But I don’t really want to talk about your mom right now. Think I’d rather be sucking you off instead. Is that okay? That what you want?”

Harry nods, suddenly feeling dazed. His throat shouldn’t feel so dry as he nods, murmuring a quiet yes. He’s had sex with people before, has had some phenomenal blowjobs and his fair share of shitty ones. Just the thought of Louis on his knees before him shouldn't have him quite so hot.

But this is Louis, and it seems that with him, all of Harry’s usual rules have gone out the window.

“Say it again. Louder this time,” Louis orders, voice husky. He takes a step forward and pushes Harry back with just a pointer finger to the chest.

Harry’s back hits the wall and as Louis advances, he manages a shaky, “Yes. Yes please.”

“Good,” Louis says, and then he proceeds to pull Harry’s shirt up and over his head.

His lips are on Harry’s the second the shirt’s flung into the air, and he makes quick work of undoing Harry’s now-dry swimsuit bottoms and pulling them to the floor. Harry steps out of them, not quite believing that he’s naked here in front of Louis, who’s still got all his clothes on.

“Come on, not fair,” he whines, tugging at the bottom of Louis’ shirt. Eventually, Louis relents and allows him to pull it off, and then goes right back to kissing him. His hips are flush against Harry’s, and Harry’s growing hard against him. “C’mon Lou, please, want your mouth.”

“You’ve got my mouth,” Louis says cheekily, drawing him in for a long kiss.

“Not like that,” Harry whines. “Please, Lou.”

Louis pulls away and takes two short steps backwards, drawing his eyes slowly over Harry’s body from top to bottom. “You know, earlier in the pool, I was getting hard. Probably could’ve come right there in front of everyone if we’d kept at it long enough.”

“I know,” Harry says. “I could feel it.”

“Oh, so you were doing it on purpose,” Louis says, eyes glassy. “You wanted me to come in front of everyone.”

Harry desperately wants Louis to come back to him. “I mean, I wouldn’t have been mad.”

“Cross your wrists and raise them in the air. Don’t move, or I’m gonna stop,” Louis says, his tone stern, and then he drops to his knees in front of Harry.

Harry does as he’s told, and when Louis’ mouth encircles his cock, his head falls back against the wall with a loud thunk.

--

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Styles.”

“Hi, Nick. Is Louis here?”

“Just in the bathroom. Can I get something started for you?”

Harry shakes his head. “No, I just came to see him.”

Nick tuts. “You can’t just keep coming in here and not buying anything. Eventually you’re gonna scare off the real customers.”

“I know, I know.”

“Anyway, are you being nice to Louis?” Nick asks, a defensive edge to the question. “Treating him well.”

“Very well,” Louis says, rubbing his hands on his pants as he steps back into the room and grins at Harry.

Harry grins back, and they’re definitely both thinking of this morning, when they’d gotten each other off in Harry’s shower before work.

It’s been a few times since that first time, and it just keeps getting better and better.

“Gross, I don’t need to hear about that, Tomlinson.”

“Actually, you know what, I will take something,” Harry decides. “Everyone’s always talking about how good Louis’ pina colada smoothies are, but I haven’t gotten to have one yet. One of those please,” he says, slapping his debit card on the counter.

“There we go,” Nick says with an approving nod. “Now you’re finally paying for stuff.”

Louis scoffs as he takes some pineapple wedges and a container of coconut milk from the fridge below the counter. “What’s the point of working in an ice cream place if I can’t give free stuff to the boy I’m seeing?”

Nick rolls his eyes and heads to the back room. “Nothing, Louis. As long as you’re doing your job.”

A few minutes later, Louis presents the smoothie to Harry with a flourish. “That’ll be six dollars,” he says loudly, and then winks. “Of course you don’t have to pay for it.”

“He does!” Nick yells from the back room.

Louis shakes his head.

“Just let me pay for it,” Harry says, waving the card at Louis. “It’s no problem.”

Louis looks like he’s going to fight Harry on it, but Harry would prefer that Louis keep his job, so he’s stern. “Fine.”

Harry takes a sip while Louis runs the card. “Woo, this is good. Zayn was telling the truth.”

“What, you think he would lie to you? You think I would lie to you?” Louis brings his hand to his chest in mock-offense.

“He definitely would. You, I'm not so sure about yet,” Harry says, and then the bell over the door jangles and a family with a gaggle of kids walks in. “I should get going, but I’ll see you later? You want to come over and swim?”

Louis nods, and then Harry blows him a kiss and leaves.

It really is a damn good smoothie.

--

“We should probably—go— inside,” Harry says through kisses, but he makes no move to follow through on his words. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been standing in the shallow end of the pool, Louis’ back pressed to the wall while Harry kisses him senseless. It’s long enough that Harry’s toes are likely wrinkled. His fingers would be too, but he’s been using them to pull at Louis’ hair instead.

He’d forgotten about the thrill of discovery with a new person: determining what moves make them respond, what they like and don’t like, what makes their toes curl and their voice break on a moan. He’s having a lot of fun figuring out these things about Louis. He’s pretty sure it’s mutual.

“Probably,” Louis says, and then he kisses Harry again.

Eventually they get pulled inside by the promise of an impending thunderstorm. Louis heads to the bathroom to rinse off and change his clothes, while Harry decides to make them grilled cheese for dinner, claiming that he’s too tired for anything else. In reality, he figures that the less time he spends cooking, the more time they can spend kissing. It’s only economical.

The front door opens and a minute later, Zayn strolls in. Harry abandons the grilled cheese temporarily to greet him with a wave.

“Hey, how was work?” they ask at the same time.

“You go first,” Harry says, laughing.

“It was good! I got to be in front of the camera this time, which was pretty sick. The shots came out great, I’ll have to show you when they email them to me.”

“I’ve always told you that you should be a model. But of course it takes someone else telling you that to believe me. I see how it is.”

Zayn laughs. “No, it’s not that, it’s just—oh. Hi, Louis.”

“Hey,” Louis says, stopping in the middle of the kitchen. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Zayn says, suddenly terse.

“How’s the grilled cheese coming along?” Louis asks, coming up behind Harry at the stove and trailing a finger along his lower back. Even through the thick fabric of his t-shirt, Harry can feel the warmth of his skin. He wants Louis’ hands all over him, now and always.

Food first, though.

“You want one, Zayn?” Harry asks, flipping the two sandwiches on the pan.

“No, it’s okay.”

Harry furrows his brow. “Alright.”

When the food is ready, Harry and Louis take seats the table where Zayn is sitting, flicking through his phone. Louis keeps trying to engage him in conversation, but Zayn’s answers are short and choppy, like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“I should get going. Thanks for the sandwiches, Harry,” Louis says, dropping a kiss to the top of Harry’s head as he pushes away from the table and picks up both of their plates.

“But I thought—” Harry cuts himself off, feeling suddenly lost.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Louis says, and Harry nods weakly. “Alright. See you then.”

“Text me when you’re home,” Harry insists as he blows him a kiss, and Louis laughs.

“Will do.”

Facing the prospect of an unexpected evening with no plans stretching before him, Harry takes his time washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen countertops. The whole time, Zayn sits at the kitchen table, still scrolling through his phone.

“Zayn? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired from work,” he mumbles. “Long day.”

“Alright,” Harry says, noticing that Zayn’s voice is entirely devoid of the excitement he’d had when he first got home.

Harry shakes it off, remembering that he’s had his fair share of off days, and then he spends the rest of the night on the couch reading a book.

--

“Why did I agree to this?” Louis huffs, chest heaving. “I think I had some kind of psychotic break when I agreed to go running with you.”

“You love exercise!” Harry says, watching as Louis is doubled over, trying to catch his breath. Harry actually feels much like doing the same, but one of them has to pretend to be motivated.

“I said I love soccer,” Louis retorts. “Not this five mile run bullshit.”

“There’s only two miles left. Come on, let’s get it done.” He sets off at a run again, because if he doesn’t do it now he might quite literally never finish.

“Styles, I’m so done with you it’s not even funny!” Louis yells from behind, but seconds later Harry can hear his footsteps on the pavement.

Eventually they make it to the beach, and Louis collapses right there on the sand. Harry joins him, chest heaving, blood bumping in his ears, and he thinks he could fall asleep right here for the rest of the day.

“The ocean, let’s go in the ocean,” Louis insists a minute later, tossing his phone onto the sand and gesturing for Harry to do the same. He pulls off his shirt and Harry wants to trace the shape of his collarbones with his tongue, wants to inhale the sweat-salty-Louis smell he knows he’ll find.

Louis doesn’t wait for him, just barrels into the sea and assumes Harry will follow. He does, of course. The ocean is freezing, just what he needs, and he can’t stop laughing as Louis flicks water at him.

A few minutes later, they’ve made a weak attempt at swimming and Louis has decided to wind his legs around Harry’s waist instead, arms wound around his neck.

“Hey, Olympian,” Louis says. “Did you think about how we’re gonna get home from here?”

Harry groans. He had not thought of that. “I’ll call Zayn.”

--

He first hears about the wedding at work. A couple comes in and in the process of browsing, they mention that they’re attending a wedding at the hotel in Edgartown on Saturday.

“Oh, that’s nice," Harry says, mainly focused on how he can get the couple to spend more money and make him look good in front of his boss. “Have you seen our women’s sunhats? They’d make the perfect addition to any wedding outfit.”

He hears about it against the next day, when he’s passing a church on his morning run.

The Wedding of Julia England and Peter Fitzpatrick, 5:00 pm

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he texts Louis. “You want to crash a wedding?”

It's ballsy, but he's just brave enough to give it a shot.

They both wear suits, and Harry has to stand in his room and kiss Louis for ten extra minutes before he deems them ready to leave. It can’t be helped; Louis looks delectable. He also insists on taking a picture, just for his own memories.

“You’d think it was our wedding or something, the way you’re acting,” Louis grumbles, but his eyes are fond. “You look nice too.”

“Come on, no time for compliments, we have a wedding to get to.”

They stroll to the hotel hand in hand, making sure to look as unassuming as possible as they enter the lobby. Harry has sunglasses on, the tamest ones he owns, and all it takes is one minute of Louis searching the events board in the lobby to locate the right room.

“England-Fitzpatrick wedding, the Nantucket ballroom. This way,” he says, grabbing Harry’s hand and tugging him down the hallway.

They sneak in a side door. Harry braces himself for what they might find — if someone’s giving a speech and the ballroom is silent he might actually die of embarrassment — but he’s relieved to see that they’ve made it just as the DJ is getting ready to announce the bridal party.

He swipes two champagne flutes from a passing waiter, and he and Louis down them in three quick gulps. They’re probably supposed to be used for a toast, but whatever.

The bridal party gets announced to the tune of Crazy In Love, and while Louis wraps his arms around Harry’s waist and holds him close, Harry memorizes the names of a few of the attendants. It’ll be good to name drop them if anyone questions him.

Katie, Martha, Anthony, Sean.

The bride and groom are finally announced and they stroll in arm in arm, a beaming smile on Julia’s face matching the one on Peter’s. He dips her down for a kiss when they reach the center of the dance floor, her gown swishing with the movement, and he wonders what it’d be like to have a love like that. To feel for someone so deeply and intensely that you would promise to spend the rest of your life with them.

He drops a kiss to the top of Louis’ forehead and together they watch as Julia and Peter dance.

There’s a quick speech — Harry grabs a second round of champagne for them — and then people are dispersed while music plays in the background.

“I didn’t really, er… think about this too much,” Harry says, voice low in Louis’ ear. “What are we going to do here?”

“We’re going to mingle, of course, “ Louis says with a flourish, taking Harry’s hand and leading him across the ballroom.

They end up getting stopped by a few people on the way — “Oh, aren’t you that lovely boy who was dating Emily’s brother?” and “Oh, hi, I’m Susan, you must work with Peter!” — and eventually they collapse at a table in the back, cheeks sore from smiling so hard.

“Look, those two are empty,” Louis says, pointing to the placards at the seats next to them. “Let’s switch them out.”

Harry move the ones that name them as “Oliver Watson” and “Diana Martin” to the other seats. Whoever Oliver and Diana are, hopefully they’ll be happy in their new places.

The wedding has an open bar, and he and Louis spent the next few hours getting fantastically tipsy. They make up increasingly ridiculous backstories for each person that questions them, and roar with laughter each time they get away with it.

“Yes, I work with Julia at the publishing house,” Harry says with a nod. It’s become easier as the night has gone on, alcohol flowing in his veins and bits of the couple’s life stories being fed to him with each person he talks to.

“Awful woman, that boss of yours,” Louis says very seriously, and the older woman they’re talking to frowns.

“I thought Julia’s boss was a man. A lovely man. Isn’t that him over there?” Harry follows her line of sight to a gentleman he spoke to ten minutes ago, telling him that Louis had sold Peter his car last year and they’d become fast friends.

“Right, right, it is. I work in another department,” Harry says quickly. “Lou, you promised me a dance, remember? Let’s dance.”

“Well, you heard the man,” Louis says to the older woman. “I better do as I’m told. Lovely talking to you.”

Harry wastes no time pulling Louis close, wrapping his arms around his waist and swaying him to the beat of the song, a slow, sultry jam. The jacket of his coat has long been discarded on the chair at the table, so Harry can feel the heat of his body under the smooth fabric of his dress shirt. “You, sir, are very handsome. Can’t keep my eyes off you, actually.”

Louis snorts and leans in, his nose just inches away from Harry’s. “Pretty sure everyone in this place can’t keep their eyes off you, Styles. I almost feel bad for the poor groom. Except not really, because I’m the one dancing with you.”

Harry grins and closes the distance between them, kissing him deeply. Louis brings his hands up around Harry’s neck to play with the hairs at his nape as they kiss, and Harry wants to be closer, wants everything with Louis. Wants to hold him tight and never let him go.

He’s drunk, that’s all.

They sway on the dance floor for a while longer, full of cake and alcohol and contentment. It turns out that Louis can actually dance, and no one is more surprised by this fact than Harry.

“All this time,” Harry says, shaking his head like he can’t quite believe it. “All this time you could dance like that and you kept it from me.”

“Had to keep you on your toes somehow, Styles,” Louis says with a smirk, and then he spins Harry around again.

They’re standing at the open bar waiting for their beers when danger strikes. They’ve managed to avoid the bride and groom the whole night, artfully dodging whenever they’ve gotten within speaking range. It’s been pretty impressive, actually. But the jig might be up now, as he catches sight of Julia and Peter making their way over to them, a stern frown on Peter’s face.

“Tip the guy, grab the drinks, I’ll get the jackets,” Harry mutters, elbowing Louis.

“Excuse me,” Peter says, and that’s when Louis grabs the drinks and runs.

“Hi! Peter, so nice to see you again. I’m sorry, I have to run to the bathroom, I’m not feeling well,” he says, rubbing his stomach and frowning. “But thanks so much for the invite!”

He scuttles over to the table that has the jacket and exists out the same side door that they came through hours ago. He sees Louis waiting for him, a grin on his face and a beer in each hand, and they both start running.

They don’t stop until they’re on a grassy lawn with a view of Edgartown Harbor. There’s a gazebo, and they round it and collapse on the other side, their backs against the wooden railing, out of view of anyone who might come looking for them.

“Cheers,” Louis says, holding up his beer against Harry’s.

“Cheers.”

They talk about the most random things they can possibly think of, including a round of the versus game, which quickly turns X-rated. Harry files all the information he gleans away for later. Something tells him he’s gonna need it.

It’s no wonder that by the time their beers are gone, Harry is straddling Louis’ lap and undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“Stop that,” Louis says, swatting Harry’s hands away, but considering his lips are drawing a path down Harry’s neck, it’s supremely ineffective.

They end up in the grass, Harry’s body hovering over Louis’, the buttons on both of their shirts half undone. Harry feels hot all over, like he wants Louis to take him apart and stitch him back together.

There’s an entire world out there, stars and constellations and a searchlight from the nearby lighthouse, music and conversation and the clinking of glasses from the party they just escaped, and yet Harry focuses on none of it.

Louis lifts his head and presses kisses to Harry’s collarbones, dips his fingers into his shirt to pinch his nipples, trails his tongue along Harry’s swallow tattoos that he got just before he started college. “I like you so much,” he breathes against his skin.

“Me too,” Harry says. “Lou, I want…”

“What is it? What do you want?”

“Everything. All of it. Whatever you want,” Harry says, brushing his lips against Louis’.

“Alright. I can do that,” Louis says. He kisses the underside of Harry’s jaw and raises his hips, grinding against Harry’s crotch as best he can. He winds a hand between their bodies and undoes Harry’s pants, pushing them down halfway and slipping a hand inside his boxers.

The minute his cock is free, Harry groans, breaking the still of the night, and when Louis starts lazily circling it, he has to bite his lip to stop himself from fucking down into his hold.

“Feels good,” Harry mutters. He manages to undo Louis’ pants and slip his hand inside. He gets his pants down with some struggle and gets his hand on Louis’ cock. He takes them both in his hand, and with Louis’ help, they start grinding up against each other, their cocks sliding together with hot friction, Harry’s hips snapping against Louis’.

He feels a bit like a sixteen year old, the two of them getting each other off with their hands, but there’s something tender about it too. Maybe it’s the desperate quality to it, the fact that they couldn’t wait until they got home to do anything, that it has to be now.

When he comes, it’s to Louis’ teeth scraping over his ear and telling him how good it feels, how good Harry feels, how much he likes doing this. There’s a surge of white hot pleasure and then he comes over both of their hands, kisses Louis until he’s coming too.

“I think,” Louis says, chest heaving as he falls back against the crash. “Think you just killed me.”

“But what a way to go,” Harry says, wiping his hand on the grass as he presses a kiss to the side of Louis’ mouth.

“What a way to go indeed,” Louis says with a grin.

--

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Harry says, dropping a kiss to Louis’ head and sliding in the booth next to him as he waves hello to Liam and Zayn. “Work was crazy.”

“S’alright,” Louis says. “We were just talking about how awful you are.”

“Must have been a short conversation,” Harry quips. “What are we drinking?”

Niall comes to sit with them when his shift ends, making it a tight squeeze on their side of the table. It’s the first time the five of them have been together in days, hectic work schedules keeping them all from spending much time together.

“Hey,” Zayn says suddenly, cutting through a side conversation Louis is having with Harry about the movie they saw last night. “I just remembered that this is where the two of you met.”

He points to the bar’s counter, and it comes back to Harry in flashes of memory: spotting Louis at the end of the counter, sending him a drink, immediately forgetting about it. “That’s right. If only I could remember that night in as clear detail as you seem to.”

Louis kisses his shoulder. “Found our way to each other in the end, didn’t we,” he murmurs, and Harry nods. He freezes for a minute as the words hit him, because that sounds a lot more serious than just two people hooking up. But then he realizes that’s probably just how Louis meant it and he finds he can breathe again.

“Hey, I don’t think you ever repaid me for that drink. The next round’s coming out of your wallet,” Harry says cheekily, and because Louis is Louis, he agrees.

--

“Knock, knock, anyone home?”

“In here, Lou,” Harry calls from the living room, where he’s comfortably settled on the couch and doesn’t intend to get up for anyone, not even a cute Louis Tomlinson who’s (hopefully) brought takeout for dinner.

He has, Harry can smell it, and when Louis walks into the living room, feet bare and face flushed, Harry only has eyes for the paper bag in his hand.

“Did you get it?”

“I got it,” Louis confirms, setting the bag in Harry’s lap and greeting him with a quick kiss. He settles on the couch next to Harry and wriggles under the blanket so that they’re both outstretched on the couch, hips flush with one another.

“God, it smells so good,” Harry says. Louis gives a murmur of assent and Harry tears into the bag. It’s cheeseburgers and fries, exactly like he asked for, and he’s so happy he could kiss Louis right now. So he does.

It’s quick, though, because cheeseburgers.

“It smells so good that we almost didn’t have any food. I forgot my sweatshirt at work and I went back to get it after I got the food. I thought Nick was gonna steal it and I wouldn’t have any food to bring you.”

“You told him it was for me though, right? Nick loves me.”

“I’m not sure he does. He’s always getting mad when I give you free ice cream, remember?”

“That’s just teasing. He loves me.”

“Probably likes you more than me, I bet.”

Harry flicks him on the shoulder. “That’s because you’re a brat and I’m charming.”

Louis snorts. “You’re not half as charming as you think you are.”

“Fuck you.”

“Wouldn’t you like to,” Louis says.

“I would, actually,” he says, pressing the words against Louis’ shoulder as he leans into him.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Louis says. He pats Harry’s hip and blows him a kiss. “Food first, sex later.”

“‘Kay,” Harry says, happily munching on a french fry.

He’s loved everything he’s gotten to do with Louis, from making him laugh so hard he snorted his chocolate milkshake out of his nose to giving him a blowjob so good in the shower last week that Louis had claimed he saw stars. Just getting to spend any time at all with Louis is incredible, and he can’t imagine what this summer would be like if they hadn’t met.

But he really wants Louis to fuck him, if he’s honest. He’s spent a lot of nights lately thinking about it, wondering how it’ll feel when Louis crooks his fingers inside of him, how he’ll definitely do that thing with his tongue that makes Harry scramble for a pillow to muffle his screams, how great it’ll feel when he finally presses in.

“Easy, Casanova,” Louis says, gesturing toward Harry’s crotch. “I said after dinner, not during.”

It’s then that Harry realizes he’s half-hard just from imagining what it’ll be like. “Fuck,” he mutters, flushing red. “Really good burger, that’s all.”

“Right,” Louis says, and then he breaks into a grin. “You haven’t even eaten a bite. Admit it, you think I’m hot.”

“I doooo,” Harry whines. “Now shut up and let me eat my burger in peace.”

“You’re the one who’s making this experience dirty!” Louis sputters, but Harry resolutely ignores him and turns on the television.

Zayn gets home from work about an hour later, when they’re nearly done with their third episode of Parks and Rec.

“Hey!” Harry says, lifting his arm from Louis’ shoulder to wave at him. “We just watched the telethon episode, we can go back and watch it again if you want.”

“That’s okay,” Zayn says quietly, dropping his backpack in the corner of the living room.

“It’s really not a problem. I know that one’s your favorite.”

“Want some of my extra fries?” Louis offers. “I don’t think I could eat more if you paid me.”

“That’s okay,” Zayn says, staring at the TV, which Harry’s paused on a frame of Leslie, mouth open in a wide grin. “I think I’m gonna go downstairs. I have a bunch of work to do. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Alright,” Harry says quietly, twisting his body to watch as Zayn goes downstairs to the office in the finished basement.

“What’s wrong with him?” Louis asks.

Harry shrugs. “No clue. Can I have another fry?”

--

“Please,” Harry says, reaching back and kicking the door shut with his foot. “Lou, please fuck me.”

“Yes,” Louis mutters, pressing the words against Harry’s jaw. “Yes, okay. D’you have condoms? Please say yes, or I’m gonna die.”

“Yeah,” Harry nods, reaching for Louis’ pants. “In the bedside table.”

“Good.” Louis tugs at the hem of Harry’s t-shirt, and once he lifts his arms over his head, Louis has it off in seconds. Louis’ shirt follows, and Harry spends a few minutes running his lips over the bare skin of Louis’ chest. There’s a faint smell of sweat, and Harry finds it intoxicating.

They’ve done this a few dozen times by now, and Harry knows exactly where to kiss and touch Louis to distract him, what sounds to make if he wants him to pay more attention to a certain spot, what kind of movements are going to make him crazy.

It feels different tonight, because Louis is going to fuck him.

“Pants off,” he says, tugging at Louis’ belt. “Off, off, off.”

“A little eager for this, are we?”

“Yes,” Harry says immediately, completely shameless. It’s worth it though, because Louis pulls down his pants and his boxers, and then he’s naked, cock half hard. Harry gets his hand on it before Louis has time to breathe, licks his palm and circle’s Louis’ cock with a tight grip, just like he knows Louis likes.

“Oh, Harry,” Louis moans. The sound of it shoots a bolt of heat straight to his stomach.

“Been thinking about this for so long,” Harry says, and then he pushes Louis back onto the bed. He scrambles to push himself backward so that he’s laying against the pillows, head slightly up so that he can look at Harry.

“Last night,” Harry continues, pulling off his boxers in one fluid motion. He hopes it looks sexy; it probably doesn’t. Louis’ eyes darken all the same, so he figures it doesn’t really matter. He comes right up to the edge of the bed, where Louis is looking at him like he wants to devour him. “Last night, I was laying in bed, right where you are.”

“Yeah?” Louis says after a minute, swallowing around the word.

“I was thinking about you fucking me,” Harry says, and he gets on the bed, kneeling with his knees bracketing Louis’ legs. “Thinking about how good your fingers are gonna feel in me.”

“Yeah?” Louis asks, voice a little shakier this time. He looks absolutely sinful, biting his lip and trying to keep a straight face. Harry watches his cock perk up, and feels another shot of heat straight to his stomach.

“I was thinking about how much I want you inside of me,” Harry says, inching closer as he crawls toward Louis on hand and knees. “Thinking about how much I like it when you get your mouth on my cock, how you always make that glorious sound when you come. Wondered if you would do it tonight, too.”

“I think I will,” Louis mumbles, his facade crumbling quickly.

“Yeah?” Harry asks, pausing just inches from his face. “D’you think you could do it better than I can with my own fingers? Your fingers are smaller, but I bet they’ll be better. What do you think?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. “I think I can definitely do it better. Got a cock, don’t I?”

“That you do,” Harry says, smirking widly, and then he changes course and envelops Louis’ cock with his mouth.

Louis is trying so hard not to buck up and fuck Harry’s face, if his strained moans and fingers clenching the sheets are anything to go by. The sounds he makes whenever Hary does this are one of the best parts: he gets so breathy and desperate, Harry can’t imagine anything better.

“God, Harry, your mouth was made for this,” Louis mutters, tugging on Harry’s hair, and Harry removes his mouth and sucks at the skin of his inner thigh. Louis keens.

“Enough,” he finally orders, one arm thrown over his eyes. “Enough, Harry, or I’m gonna come.”

“Thought that was the point,” Harry says as he pulls off.

“No,” Louis says, catching his breath and using his body weight to flip Harry onto his back. It’s a role reversal: before Harry has time to think about it, he’s pushed up against the pillows, looking up at Louis with desperation thrumming in his veins. Louis’ hands are hovering all over his body, from his neck to his collarbones to his stomach to his cock, and yet he doesn’t touch any of it. Harry might cry. “The point is for me to fuck you and we both come.”

“Okay. I uh, I can do that,” Harry says, feeling suddenly shaky. His cock is hard against his stomach, and he thinks he might come just from the images bouncing around in his skull. He’s probably not going to live to see his 20th birthday, because Louis is going to kill him.

“Bedside table you said, right?” Louis asks, leaning over to look in the drawer. He emerges a minute later with a condom and a bottle of lube. “Here comes the fun part.”

“Everything’s fun with you,” Harry says, drawing him in by the chin for a kiss. He feels hot all over,

“Should’ve known you’d be a sap even during this,” Louis mutters, popping open the cap of the bottle, but he drops it to the bed and holds Harry’s cheeks in his hands, kissing him deeply. “But me too. Always having fun with you, I mean.”

“The feeling’s mutual, then.”

“Good,” Louis says, and then he slicks up three fingers with lube.

He starts with one, and he’s so much more gentle than when Harry had done this last night, in this very bed just as he’d told Louis, trying to imagine what this would feel like. He kisses Harry through it and tells him how good he is. It’s better than when he’d done this alone, because he doesn’t have to control himself as Louis adds a second finger and crooks his fingers, brushing them over his prostate.

“Right there, yeah?” Louis asks with a smirk, as if he couldn’t already tell, and then he removes both fingers and comes back with three.

“Alright, alright, I’m ready,” Harry says, reaching out for Louis and finding purchase in the sheets instead. “I’m ready, I swear, Louis, come on.”

“Are you begging, Styles?”

“Yes,” Harry moans, and he spasms when Louis brushes his prostate again.

Harry feels bereft when Louis pulls out, even though it’s exactly what he wants. He can’t control his breathing as Louis rips open the condom. Harry wants to do it himself, tries to reach out to do just that, but his hands don’t seem to be working. He can’t do anything but leave them hovering in midair, just inches away from Louis, watching intently as he puts on the condom and slicks himself up with lube.

It’s all too much, watching Louis run his hands over himself, seeing how turns on he is by Harry. This is too much.

“D’you want me to stop? Is it too much?” Louis says, suddenly concerned, and Harry realizes that he must have said that last bit out loud.

“No, no, it’s perfect,” he says breathily when Louis kisses a path down his stomach. “You’re perfect.”

“It’s mutual,” Louis says, and then he lines himself up with Harry’s entrance, waits for his nod, and then pushes in.

“Oh God,” Harry says immediately. He’s already dripping sweat on his forehead, getting some of it on Louis’ face as they kiss. He clutches Louis’ shoulders and holds on, feeling like he might float away as Louis pulls out and pushes back in.

“Harry,” Louis mutters. “Baby. You feel so good.”

“Mmmfph,” Harry groans. Louis’ face is pressed up against his cheek, forehead brushing Harry’s curls, and he’s making these little sounds that are kind of like a moan but also kind of like a 'yes, please, that’s perfect.'

Harry’s entire world is reduced to this bed, to the feeling of Louis’ hands running over his chest, his lips on his forehead, his nose, his neck. There’s a heat building in his spine and spreading to his toes and fingers, and he’s trying to hold on because he never, ever wants this to end, never wants to conceive of a moment when he might not be doing this.

It has to end eventually, of course, and he comes with Louis’ hand on his cock and his legs wrapped around Louis’ waist, holding him close. Louis isn’t far behind, and Harry can feel him pulsing inside of him. It’s a little dirty and a lot hot, but it’s nothing compared to the way that Louis bites down on his collarbone as he comes.

Slowly, the world comes back into focus, and Louis rolls off Harry, ties off the condom, and then immediately comes back against his chest, snuggling in close. “Holy shit,” he whispers, running his hand across Harry’s face, feather light. “You’re good, Styles.”

“We’re good,” Harry corrects, and then he drops a kiss to the top of Louis’ head.

He likes the way Louis keeps running his hands along his skin, tracing patterns. It’s like he’s checking he’s still there, that he’s in one piece, that he hasn’t disappeared and left a hologram in his place. He’s been doing this for a few minutes when Harry remembers something that makes him laugh.

“Can’t believe you called me baby.”

Louis giggles. “You into that?”

“Yeah, I might be,” Harry says with a smile.

“Good,” Louis says. “Me too.”

--

A few hours later, when they’ve showered and snuck downstairs for snacks and fallen into bed again, this time for a round of reciprocal blow jobs, their clothes in a pile on the floor, Louis is holding Harry close and tracing shapes on his skin once more.

“Can you tell me about this one now?” Louis whispers, running his finger along the rounded shape of his anchor tattoo. “It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

For the life of him, Harry can’t remember why he didn’t want to tell Louis before.

“Right, so I said I got the ‘I Can’t Change’ when I was sixteen, yeah?” Louis nods. “So I was out, and everything was great. And then two years later, I had a really shitty relationship my last year of high school. It started off really well.  Was really happy. I finally felt like I was someone. You know that shitty way that sometimes it feels like unless you have someone, you’re no one?”

Louis nods, and Harry takes a deep breath. “The guy, Chad, he was always telling me I needed to be more, do more. He didn’t want me to go to NYU. He wanted me to follow him to Bloomington, Indiana to do who the fuck knows what. I applied early decision anyway, cause that’s what I wanted. And when I told him I was going, he just… freaked. Said that he didn’t know what he ever saw in me, said I obviously didn’t care about him, on and on.”

Louis inhales on a sharp intake of breath. “Harry—”

“I broke up with him, obviously. Or he broke up with me. Who really knows? But anyway, the reason I got the tattoo a few months later is to remind myself that I’m the only one who can tie myself down. I’m the one making the decisions.”

“What about the rope?” Louis asks softly, trailing a finger down his arm tenderly.

“Oh, I got scared of the pain and figured I’d get that added later.”

Louis snorts. “You’re such an idiot.” The statement is combined with shining eyes and Louis leaning in to kiss him, so Harry isn’t too bothered.

--

“My ass hurts,” Louis complains, raising himself in the bike seat and flexing his muscles before lowering himself again. “I’m never letting you fuck me again if it’s going to feel like this.”

“You said you liked it,” Harry sputters. “Why didn’t you tell me that I was being too rough, I would’ve—”

“Relax, relax,” Louis says, running a hand down his arm. “I’m only kidding. It was great. And you weren’t too rough,” he says. “Was perfect.” He grins, and Harry can’t help but think about how good it had felt to fuck Louis last night, to look down and see him spread out before him willing and pliant, entirely at his mercy.

“Okay, good.”

“Wouldn’t say no if you wanted to do that again later,” Louis says, and then he speeds off on the bike.

Harry has to fight to catch up with him: he has longer legs, but Louis is strong. He reaches him just as they approach the lighthouse, where they’ve planned to have lunch, and as Louis hops off his bike and lets it fall to the ground, he gives a victory cheer.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry grumbles. “You might’ve won this round, but we’ll see who wins on the way back.”

“Probably also me.”

“I said we’ll see,” Harry repeats.

They poke around the lighthouse, taking selfies and posting them to Instagram with matching captions — “We’re such dorks,” Louis says as he presses ‘post.’ “Completely gross,” Harry agrees — before spreading towels on the beach and eating lunch.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” Harry asks. He feels Louis tense beside him. “I mean, it’s just that you haven’t seemed like yourself lately. I’ve loved having you stay over, and God knows I don’t want to stop doing that—”

“Good, because I think I’d cry,” Louis says, relaxing a bit.

“But we haven’t spent a lot of time together lately and I’m worried something’s wrong.”

Louis heaves a sigh. “It’s not you, I swear. It’s just this shit with my internship.”

Harry feels almost guilty for the way he relaxes at this statement. But Louis had cancelled their last two dates, and he’s prone to worrying. If Louis decides to stop seeing him, he’ll be crushed. Even if it is just a summer romance, he reminds himself.

“It’s getting more stressful, because we’re expected to write an extra two articles a week, and deliver the newspaper, which takes hours, and I’m already working with Nick, and dog walking, and there’s the boys and my housemates and you, and it’s all just a lot.”

Harry grabs his hand and runs his thumb over the back of it. “You know you’re not like, obligated to hang out with me, right? I mean, I love spending time with you and I especially love when you end up sleeping over, but it’s not supposed to be stressful. It’s fun.”

“Trust me,” Louis says with a laugh. “You are not stressful. Everything else is stressful. You are the opposite of stressful.”

“So you mean, stress relief,” Harry says with a smirk.

“Well, you are certainly good at that. But I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you the impression I was just coming over for sex and sleeping over. That’s not me. It’s just like, the only time I can see you right now.”

“I know,” Harry insists. “Trust me, I know. I get it.”

“Good,” Louis says, and then he leans in for a kiss. “Because it’s not just about the sex. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry says with a grin. “I know. Is that why we never go to your house? Because it’s stressful?”

“My place is like, a trash heap, essentially,” Louis says with a frown. “There’s like seventeen people living there and I share a room with four other guys and it’s so gross.”

“Ick,” Harry says.

“I don’t think I’ve actually slept there that much. I used to sleep at Nick’s sometimes, when I worked late and didn’t want to have to get the bus home.”

Harry nods, remembering that Nick lives above the ice cream shop.

“And I stayed with Annie a few times, because she’s always a good time. But it’s shitty, always feeling like you’re mooching off people.”

“You can mooch off me whenever you want,” Harry says very seriously.

“Thank you, but I can’t do that. I’ll just have to put up with it.”

Harry frowns. “You shouldn’t have to, though.”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll just keep at it and hope that it ends soon.”

Right, the end of the summer. It’s still weeks away, but Harry doesn’t like thinking about it.

“Whatever you gotta do.”

--

Harry is folding women’s shorts, a very easy but tedious job, when he lifts his head and sees Zayn at the front of the store. Harry’s immediately concerned.

He abandons his work and walks over to him. “Hey! What’s wrong?”

Zayn furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Is everything alright? You never come here.” Zayn has quite literally never come to see him at work before, not even that time when he lost his key and got locked out of the house for four hours.

“Oh. Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wondered if you wanted to get lunch? I have some stuff to talk to you about.”

Over the speakers, there’s a call for Charlie to come to the register — that’s the secret code they use when they’re backed up and need more help.

“I have to go,” Harry says. “I can’t right now.”

“What about drinks?” Zayn asks, tone a little desperate. “Tonight?”

“Sure,” Harry says, throwing him a thumbs up as he heads to the register.

--

“Bye, Kyla! See you tomorrow,” Harry says, waving goodbye as he punches out and leaves work. It’s been an incredibly long day, and he wants nothing more than a hug from Louis and maybe a kiss or two.

Nickety Splitz is empty when Harry gets there, just Louis and Annie throwing mini marshmallows back and forth at each other behind the counter.

“You know, Louis is always telling me how busy this place is, but half the times I come in it’s only you two screwing around.”

“Ah, that’s because you always come at the most inconvenient times, Harold.”

He snorts. “I hardly think seven at night is inconvenient. Isn’t this place supposed to be overrun with kids hyped up on sugar right about now?”

“You just missed a big rush,” Annie explains. “There’s a show at the Tabernacle, I bet we’ll get a big crowd when that gets out in an hour or two.”

“Alright, well I mostly just came for a kiss and maaaybe a scoop of chocolate peanut butter fudge?” Harry flashes his best puppy dog eyes between Louis and Annie. Louis merely shakes his head, but Annie — well, it doesn’t take long for her to agree and start scooping it for him.

“Actually,” she says, the scoop halfway to the cone, “you can just go home, Louis.”

“Really?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, why not. Go be like, gross and flirty, or whatever. Nick will come by later anyway, he can help with the rush.”

“You are a saint of a woman,” Louis says, kissing her on the cheek. He takes over scooping Harry’s ice cream, and he puts a second, heaping scoop on there for good measure.

“Bye, Annie! Thank you!”

They’re out the door before Annie has any time to change her mind.

“You want to come over?” Harry asks. Since last week, when Louis confessed that his internship and housing situation are stressing him out, he’s been making an effort to have Louis over more frequently. It’s only partially selfish.

“Yes. Here, have some ice cream.”

Harry takes a long lick and passes it back to Louis, encouraging him to lick around the edges before it starts to melt. The sun is low in the sky, but it’s still disgustingly hot out.

“Here, have some more, I can’t eat all this by myself.”

“Then why did you scoop so much?” Harry sputters, leaning in, tongue first, to where Louis has extended the ice cream halfway between them.

“Just felt like it,” Louis says, and next thing Harry knows, Louis has pressed the ice cream against his chin.

His mouth drops open and Louis giggles, a bright sound that makes Harry’s heart feel light. Louis presses a hand against Harry’s chest and guides him back until he hits the window of the candy store. He kisses all the ice cream off his face, giggling the whole time.

“This isn’t The Notebook, Lou,” Harry says, a weak protest, and then he pulls Louis in for a long, bruising kiss.

--

Louis sleeps over, and he’s in the shower the next morning when Harry decides it’d be nice to make him some coffee to take to work. Never mind that there’s coffee at his work; it’s not Harry Styles coffee, which is made with the care and attention Louis deserves.

Zayn’s in the kitchen when he gets downstairs, dressed in running clothes and looking like he just ran ten miles, and Harry stops short.

He was supposed to get drinks with Zayn last night, and totally forgot.

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah, oh shit is right,” Zayn says, pushing past him to get the milk from the fridge.

“Zayn, I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to, it just slipped my mind, and I had such a busy day at work and then Louis—”

“Save it,” Zayn says, holding up a hand. “Do you know how long I waited there? How many times Niall came over to tell me that you were definitely going to show up soon? You ditched me. I thought maybe something was wrong, because the Harry I know wouldn’t do that. And then I get home, and I hear you talking to Louis in your room—” Harry wonders what time he’d showed up, because at one point they were definitely doing more than just talking “—and I realized that maybe this Harry would. This Harry would abandon his best friend for a boy, and maybe I just don’t know him after all.”

Louis chooses that moment to come down the stairs, and even though Harry can’t see him, he can picture exactly how his face looks: bright red, embarrassed, completely frozen.

“So yeah, save it, Harry. I don’t need to hear it.”

--

It’s all Harry can think about at work that day. He’s so unfocused that even his manager takes notice, and she sends him to the back room to catalogue the new stock. It’s about a thousand degrees back there, but at least he can play music and not talk to anyone.

The downside of this is that it give him an entire shift to think about Zayn, and how badly he fucked up.

He feels blindsided by the realization that he’s essentially thrown Zayn to the wind for the past few weeks, and yet it feels like it’s been staring him in the face. He generally considers himself a pretty perceptive person, but he’d allowed himself to get so wrapped up in Louis that he hadn’t noticed Zayn reaching out.

Normally when he’s working in the back room, he spends half the time texting Louis, because it’s the one place where he’s allowed to have his phone. Today, his phone hasn’t gone off once.

The car ride to work had been one of the most uncomfortable of Harry’s life. They’d sat in silence, listening to talk radio and trying to ignore how awkward it felt. When Louis got out of the car at work, he’d murmured a quiet apology to Harry.

“No, it’s my fault. I’ll see you later?” He tried to smile, tried to make Louis know that it wasn’t him that he was frustrated with. It was himself and his inability to see what was right in front of his face.

Louis had hesitated. “Alright, if you want.”

He’d walked away before Harry had a chance to say that he would always want Louis.

That’s kind of the goddamn problem, isn’t it? He wants Louis so much that he missed everything else going on around him. He didn’t even see that his own best friend needed him, and they saw each other every single day.

He feels like shit and he wants Louis to come make it better, but he can’t. He needs to be away from Louis, to sort out his head and figure out how to make it right. There’s no one he can talk to about this. He’s on his own.

By the end of the work day, his head is spinning with ideas of how he can possibly apologize and what this means for him and Louis. As he gets into his car, he hesitates. Maybe he should talk to Louis, explain that they should cool it, see each other a bit less. The thought of doing that sends agonizing dread creeping up his spine, so he gets in his car and speeds home before he can do something quite that stupid.

Louis has texted him by the time he gets home and his thumb hovers over the button to slide it open. He can read the first few words of the preview, and it doesn’t look good. Anxiety twists in his stomach.

Eventually, he decides that it’s now or never. He can sit here in the car forever and run the risk of Zayn seeing him in the driveway, or he can open the damn message.

Hi :) I think we should skip dinner tonight, I think some stuff needs to be figured out first.

Harry feels his forehead break into a clammy sweat. Is this — is Louis ending things? Fuck, Harry is really going to end up with no one. First Zayn and now Louis.

Call me later if you want, the message continues, and the coil in Harry’s chest loosens. Take your time.

Alright. So maybe he’d jumped to conclusions. Maybe it’s going to be alright after all.

Stomach feeling slightly settled, he unbuckles his seatbelt. It’s now or never, and he’d like to repair things with Zayn. It’s gotta be now.

Zayn isn’t in the house when he gets there, but his shoes and his sunglasses are both in the entryway, so Harry knows he has to be here. The sliding door that leads to the backyard is ajar, and Harry figures that’s his best bet.

He finds him sitting on the back porch, shoes off, scrolling through his phone. He absolutely hears it when Harry closes the sliding door with enough force that it ricochets off the door jamb and bounces back, but he doesn’t look up.

“Zayn,” he says quietly, trying to muster all the courage he can, but Zayn says nothing. His left nostril twitches, and Harry sighs. He knows that if Zayn wants to do something, he has incredible capabilities to do so. This might not be as easy as he thought.

Harry comes to stand before him, takes a deep breath, and begins.

“Zayn. I’m so sorry. I completely fucked up. I never meant to abandon you like I did, and I never forgot about you—”

Zayn laughs bitterly at this, and it hurts, but at least he’s listening.

“—I just got so caught up in things with Louis that I forgot to make time for you. I’m so sorry and I really feel awful. I actually threw up at work today because I felt so awful, and you know I would never hurt you. Zayn, please, you have to know that.”

“You did though,” Zayn says. He’s still staring at his phone, but his eyes have been focused on one spot for so long that Harry knows he’s not actually looking at anything on the screen.

“I know. And I feel so bad about it.”

Zayn sighs heavily and sets his phone down on the table. When he finally looks at Harry, the look in his eyes fills Harry with dread. It’s not anger, like Harry was expecting. It’s resignation. Like he’s given up.

“Do you know what it’s like,” he starts, “to have all these expectations for something and then it just turns out totally different than you expect?”

Harry nods.

“So I guess you can imagine how I felt when I thought I was going to have this amazing summer with my best friend and then to find out a few weeks in he’d rather spend all his time with someone else? It makes me feel like shit, Harry. Like you don’t even care about me.”

“That’s not true,” Harry says quietly, staring at the shape of his sneakers on the ground.

“I know, but that’s what it feels like. I’ve spent weeks feeling slighted. I’ve spent so much time alone that I’ve started talking to myself. And I’m glad you’re happy, but it’s really fucking shitty for me.”

“But you have friends,” Harry tries. Immediately, he realizes how dumb it sounds, but he feels compelled to push through anyway. “What about people from work? Liam? Niall?”

“Yeah, they’re great,” Zayn says, exasperated. “But they’re not you! They’re not my best friend. But I can’t even hang out with my best friend because he’s off with some guy he’s known for all of two months.”

“Louis isn’t just some guy,” Harry says, tone harsh. “He’s—”

Zayn’s voice is softer when he speaks again. “I know. That’s not what I meant. I’m glad you’re so happy with him, I really am, but it hurts that I have to feel slighted in the process.”

Harry sighs. When he locks eyes with Zayn, neither of them look away. “I’m really, really very sorry. I think I was just blinded by… Louis, basically. And I took you for granted because you’re my best friend and I figured you’d always be there.”

He wipes tears from his eyes and he just feels so tired. It’s been such a long day and he just wants things to be alright. There are tears in Zayn’s eyes too, and that’s how Harry knows they’re going to be alright.

“You really are my best friend. I’m sorry I let other things get in the way of that. I don’t know if that makes it any better, but I am really very sorry. If you’ll forgive me—”

“Of course I forgive you,” Zayn says, standing up and giving Harry a hug.

“—I promise I’ll spend the rest of the summer making it up to you.”

“S’alright,” Zayn says, squeezing him tight and then wiping his own cheeks. “You were an idiot, but I think you’ve been tortured enough. Just don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” Harry says earnestly. “I really, really won’t.”

“I believe you,” Zayn says, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Now, what do you say about ordering some pizza? I’m starving.”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

They get inside, and then Harry decides he has a better idea. “Maybe a cuddle on the couch first?”

Zayn smiles. “Yeah, that could work.”

Doing this with Zayn is so reminiscent of movie nights in college that it hurts a little bit. He wants to slap himself for saying that, because it’s not like he’s 25 and dreaming of better days gone by. He is quite literally living the dream right now.

He hopes he and Zayn will still be best friends when they’re 25, and for a long time after that.

“Hey,” Zayn says, arm slung around Harry’s waist loosely. “Weren’t you supposed to have dinner with Louis tonight?”

Harry shrugs sheepishly. He’s still not entirely certain how they’re going to navigate this. “I was, yeah, but he cancelled. Said it’d be better for me to patch things up with you.”

A grin spreads over Zayn’s face. “Call him. Tell him we’re having pizza, and if he doesn’t come over, I personally will drive to his house and force him to come hang out with us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

And that’s how Harry ends up on the couch, sandwiched between his best friend and his boy, eating pizza and feeling like everything’s fallen back into place.

--

When Harry gets home two days later, Louis hasn’t been answering his phone and he’s going out of his mind with worry. He didn’t find Louis at work, and Louis hadn’t mentioned doing any internship stuff, and Harry knows that he’s an adult but he’s also just concerned about him.

He stops short when he sees the scene before him in the living room.

“You have to be kidding me.”

“Hey, Harry,” Louis says, waving at him before turning to face the television again.

“Hi,” says Zayn, and he doesn’t even pull his attention away from the video game.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re playing FIFA, what does it look like we’re doing?” Zayn asks.

“Right, I can see that, but Lou… what are you doing here?”

“Zayn invited me.”

“You don’t have a monopoly on his friendship, you know,” Zayn says smugly, and Louis high fives him.

“Right, well I guess if I’m not needed I’ll just go to my room or something,” Harry says, expecting them to call him back.

“‘Kay, see you later,” Louis says.

He starts his laundry, reads half a book, thinks about what to cook for dinner. When he goes back to the living room, Zayn and Louis are still engaged in the game. He takes a seat in the armchair and curls his legs up under him. He halfheartedly starts reading his book, but he’s mostly focused on watching the two of them laugh with each other.

He’s mostly pretending to hate that the two of them are getting along. It’s actually pretty perfect.

--

“Stay over tonight,” Harry says, peppering Louis’ face with kisses. “You haven’t in days, please.”

Louis shakes his head and darts away from him, sending a splash of water against Harry’s face. Harry grins and swims after him, catching up to him quickly and pressing him gently against the pool wall. He cups Louis’ face in his hands.

“Please Lou. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Louis laughs. “I bet you would.”

“I always do, don’t I?”

“That you do,” Louis says. Harry goes cross-eyed trying to focus on his wide smile, until finally Louis leans in and kisses him.

It’s a really good kiss, the kind that Harry’s been dreaming about all day, while running along the ocean this morning and going grocery shopping and folding piles and piles of clothes at work. It’s perfect.

And then he hears his mom’s voice.

“Harry! What are you doing?”

He springs back from Louis and loses his footing in the pool as he goes, which sends both of them toppling into the water.

When he emerges, his mom and stepdad are standing at the edge of the pool. His mom has her hands on her hips. She looks perplexed; Robin looks slightly amused.

“Mom!” Harry says, pushing back his wet hair out of his eyes. “I thought you weren’t coming for two more days.”

“Sudden change of plans,” she says with a shrug. “And before you say anything, it’s our house, so no, we don’t have to announce that we’re coming.”

“Right,” Harry says dumbly, adrenaline jolting through his veins. Fuck, he’s in a pool with Louis — his parents just saw him making out with Louis — and he needs to come up with some kind of introduction, but he can’t manage to make his dumb, lust-addled brain work.

Of course, his mom does it for him.

“Hi, I’m Harry’s mom, Anne. And this is my husband Robin. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Louis Tomlinson,” says Louis, his voice a little raspy, and fuck, that’s what he sounds like when he’s turned on.

“I’d shake your hand but unfortunately you’re a bit far away,” Robin jokes, and Harry genuinely considers drowning himself.

But then Louis laughs — his real laugh, reserved for when the joke is actually funny — and Harry is so, so embarrassed but he thinks that this might actually be okay. Maybe.

His mom and Robin wait until Louis is in the shower to grill Harry. He still can’t quite believe that Louis just met his parents. Of all the ways he thought today was going to go, this was definitely not it.

“Enough about the job,” his mom says when he’s said about three sentences. “Tell us about the boy. Is he your boyfriend?”

Harry rolls his eyes.

“What your mother means,” Robin says diplomatically, “is that we’d love to know more about Louis.”

“No, he’s not my boyfriend,” Harry says.

“But you’ve been spending a lot of time together, I take it? At least you must be, if he knows where you keep your favorite coffee mugs and how to work the upstairs shower.”

Harry sighs and contemplates how bad it would be right now if the earth swallowed him whole. Probably not that bad.

“Can we please talk about anything else? I’m begging you.”

Anne laughs. “Fine, but if you think there’s no way that Gemma’s not going to find out about this when she gets here, you’re wrong.”

--

“Niall, it was—” Harry hiccups “—so embarrassing. My tongue was in his mouth. Ni, have your parents ever walked in on you hooking up with anyone?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just leans across the bar and looks Niall right in the face. “Really fuckin’ awkward, let me tell you. Hope you lock your door when you’re with someone.”

Niall shakes his head. “Yes, Harry, this is the third time you’ve told me this story tonight. I think I’m cutting you off on free drinks, you’ve had a few too many.”

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Louis says.

“That’s because they’re not your parents!” Harry whines. “Can’t believe I had to come here and drink to escape them.” His head feels like he’s floating and when he tries to clack his teeth together, he doesn’t feel a thing.

“I’m drunk,” he says, and then he reaches over and wraps his arms around Louis’ neck. “Lou, I think I’m drunk.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Louis says with a laugh. “You wanna go home?”

“Nooo, Lou, don’t leave me.” He clings tighter.

“I’m not leaving you when you’re in this state. I’ll bring you home and sleep on your couch.”

“You promise you won’t leave?” He looks up at Louis, face very serious.

Louis mutters sometimes about him being awfully clingy tonight and then nods. “Yes, baby, I promise. I’ll stay.”

It doesn’t register in Harry’s mind until later, when they’re making out on the living room couch, slightly more sober but still sloppy. It’s not leading anywhere, it can’t, but Harry likes it all the same. He knows that he should go up to his bed and let Louis have the couch, but he can’t pull himself away.

“You called me baby earlier,” he mumbles pressing the words against Louis’ jaw. "You keep doing that."

“I do. Is that okay?”

“Like it a lot,” he whispers. “Like you a lot.”

Louis inhales, a shaky breath that Harry feels all through the length of his body. “Me too. Always.”

He really, really should go upstairs, because his mom will kill him if she finds them here, but he can’t. Not when Louis is tender and soft and pliant beneath him. He just can’t say goodnight.

--

It’s not his mom who finds them in the end. It’s Gemma.

It takes him a minute to figure out where he is, to process that Gemma is standing above him, her hair a wild mess, her hands on her hips. There’s a pair of arms around his waist and someone pressed up the length of his back and of course he knows that it’s Louis, could never forget what Louis feels like after weeks of being with him. But he doesn’t understand where they are, and he thinks maye he’s in a dream. A very weird, somewhat creepy dream. At least they’re both clothed.

“Oh, you are in so much trouble, squirt,” she says.

“Gemma, I thought you were in Paris.”

“I was. Decided to cut my travel short a few days early. Which is just my luck because it turns out you have a boyfriend.”

He opens his mouth, starts to force out the words ‘he’s not my boyfriend,’ but he can’t do it. They won’t come out. He’s stuck staring at Gemma, both of them wide-eyed for entirely different reasons.

Of course, that’s the moment Louis starts to stir behind Harry.

“Harry,” Louis says, barely lifting his chin from its place on Harry’s shoulder. “Can you explain why I keep meeting your family in compromising positions? Is this part of some kind of plan?”

“No,” he says, embarrassed. “It’s just... a mess of epic proportions.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s that bad,” says Gemma. “I’ll leave the two of you to get dressed. Mom and Robin are definitely going to force Louis to stay for family breakfast, just so you know.”

Harry breathes a sigh of relief. Family breakfast isn’t that bad. At least Zayn is there to back Louis up. They can all chat, Louis can charm them, and then they’ll all go their separate ways.

“Oh yeah,” Gemma adds, turning on her heel to look back at them. “The two of you could’ve been a little quieter last night. You know the sound travels up to the bedrooms, right?”

Harry groans, his face flushing bright red, and he turns in Louis’ embrace and buries his face in his chest.

--

Harry waits until Louis is out of sight before closing the door. He takes a deep breath in time with the snick of the latch, steadies himself, and then walks back into the room.

His mom, Robin, Zayn and Gemma are all gathered around the table, and the minute they catch sight of him they all start talking over each other.

“Harry, he’s great.”

“He’s amazing, I can see why you're so smitten.”

“He’s really funny. And incredibly handsome.”

“Eh, he’s alright.” That last one comes from Zayn, who accompanies the statement with a smirk, and Harry feels immediately less tense at the sight.

“So it was okay then?” He strives for a casual tone, pouring himself a coffee as he asks, but his hand is shaking slightly from nerves.

“I like him a lot,” his mom says, her face warm.

“Seems like you do too,” Gemma adds, and Harry blushes.

He takes a seat at the kitchen table between Gemma and Zayn, which is the prime location for teasing, but he isn’t thinking clearly. It’s a relief to know that they like Louis so much.

“Yeah, he’s pretty great. Been one of the best parts of the summer.”

“Except for how he nearly split up our friendship,” Zayn mutters, elbowing Harry, and then of course he has to tell the whole story to Harry’s family.

“Well, I’m glad you two got that figured out,” Anne says diplomatically, and then her tone grows warm. “But really, Harry, Louis is wonderful. You two are very similar in a lot of ways. I can see why you love him so much.”

“I do,” Harry says, the words tumbling out without any conscious thought. “I really do.”

Oh fuck.

The conversation switches to a new topic, but all Harry can think is, Oh. I’m in love with Louis.

--

Harry has plenty of time to think about it over the next few days of his parents’ visit, because Louis is swamped with tasks from his internship and has no downtime. He texts Harry when he can, mostly complaints about how exhausted he is from spending the day standing in a field, interviewing drunk middle-aged men about their opinions on the rock festival happening behind them.

I’m sorry. Wish I could come give you a foot rub.

Me too :( Tho if you were here that’s not the only thing you would be rubbing ;)

Harry coughs loudly and fights to hide the flush that comes to his cheeks, trying to disguise it from his parents. God, four days without Louis should not have him feeling as turned on as he does right now. But then again, four days without Louis.

He expected that his falling in love would be accompanied by banners and balloons and a big parade that screamed ‘Congrats! You’re in love!’

Instead, it’s been more like the slow creep of the tide, sneaking up on him. He didn’t realize he was falling in love until it had already happened. It was more a general feeling of oh, so that’s what that is. It’s being around Louis and feeling simultaneously exhilarated and completely settled. It’s wanting to talk to him all the time. It’s thinking of him at random moments and hoping that something made him smile that day, even if Harry isn’t there to see it.

He thinks back to that initial moment at the bar, when he’d spotted Louis across the room and just felt captivated by him, needed to know him.

Maybe his heart has always been in love with Louis Tomlinson. Maybe it was his brain that needed to catch up.

--

Rain pours down from the sky in sheets, and Harry sits on the couch, scrolling through channels and flipping through a magazine he doesn’t care about. He feels stuck, caught in limbo between saying goodbye to his parents this morning and waiting for Louis to call him and hang out when he’s done with work.

He can’t go outside or swim in the pool and there’s no Zayn to entertain him, so he just continues flipping through channels and snacking on popcorn while he waits for time to pass.

The bell rings fifteen minutes later, and Harry frowns, wondering who on earth would be outside in weather like this.

He opens the door, ready to offer the poor person a safe haven to wait out the storm, and then his mouth opens in shock.

“Louis? What are you doing here? Come in, you’re soaked.”

“Hi,” Louis says quietly, his expression unusually bleak. He steps into the hallway and takes off his shoes with a wet squelching sound as Harry closes the door. It’s the first time Harry has seen him since the breakfast with his parents.

“What happened? Actually wait, let me get you a towel to dry off first.”

By the time Harry gets back with a towel from the bathroom in the hall, a puddle has formed under Louis. Water drips from his hair to his shoulders to his shorts to the ground.

“I quit my internship,” Louis says, running the towel over his face.

Harry’s not quite sure he’s heard him correctly. “What did you say?”

“I quit my internship.”

“What… why?”

Louis shrugs. “I couldn’t deal with that asshole of a boss Colin anymore. I was done.”

Harry gapes at him while Louis dries off. He’d known for a while that Louis was sick of his internship, but they’d talked about him sticking it out. If Louis had quit impulsively, things must have been far worse than he’d let on.

“Wait—did you walk here?”

“Took the bus.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“My phone died.”

Harry gets Louis some warm clothes to change into and makes him some tea. While they sit cuddled on the couch, feet tangled together, Louis explains. The work was too much, it was taking its toll, and it wasn’t worth it anymore. After he’d had to spend the entire weekend at a music festival and then was told his research was good but the article was being given to someone else, he’d snapped. He’d quit, walked right out of the meeting, and then took the bus straight to Harry’s.

“The trouble is that I don’t have anywhere to live now,” Louis admits in a quiet voice. “My housing was tied to my internship.”

“Just move in with me. You’re here all the time anyway, it makes sense. Of course, only if you want to.”

Louis’ smile is like the sun emerging from the clouds on a long winter day.

--

“How did you live in that place?” Harry asks as they drive away from Louis’ house for the last time, his meager belongings backed in the trunk. “That house is a shithole.”

Louis grabs Harry’s hand and pulls it into his lap. “Why do you think I was always at your place?”

Harry snorts. “And here I thought it was because you liked me.”

“Nah, not really,” Louis says with a bright laugh, and all Harry can think is, I am so in love with you.

--

Harry gets a tattoo on a Wednesday morning. The tattoo parlor is empty, just he and the artist and some other staff around. The quiet gives him the chance to zone out, to accept the buzzing of the gun as background noise, while he thinks about how to tell Louis he loves him.

He’s getting an anatomical heart tattooed into his skin, for God’s sake. If there was ever a time for a big declaration, it’s now.

Louis gets out of work just as Dave, the artist, is finishing.

“Oh my god, it’s amazing. I want one.”

“What?” Harry balks. His brain feels a little fuzzy. Getting a tattoo always turns him on, and Louis really isn’t helping.

“I’ve had an idea of a tattoo I want to get on my arm for a million years. No better time than now, right?” He gives Harry a smile so sweet that Harry’s brain just completely whites out.

Two hours later, Louis leaves the shop with an arrow tattooed on his forearm.

It’s not until they’re in bed that night, when Harry is thrusting into Louis agonizingly slowly, that it occurs to him that the tattoos kind of… go together.

Weird.

--

The end of July creeps up on them before they know it, but Harry knows exactly how he spends every minute of those days: working, running, kissing Louis. The five of them go to the OD and get spectacularly drunk, which culminates in Harry crying about how much he adores all of them. Harry and Louis go to the beach and read books aloud to each other, Harry’s eyes closed as he lets the sound of Louis’ voice wash over him. He really is so in love with him.

He hasn’t said anything because he doesn’t know what their deal is. Everything with them had snuck up on them so quickly and so effortlessly that there had never been a need to discuss what they were. They like each other, and that’s been all they’ve needed to know. But it doesn’t feel like enough for Harry anymore. If he doesn’t tell him soon, he’s going to burst.

Louis is crushed when the camping trip they’ve both been looking forward to gets cancelled due to overbooking at the campground.

“It’s alright,” Harry says, and he proceeds to set up the tent in the backyard. They roast marshmallows on the grill and Louis talks about the first time they did this, all those weeks ago on the beach.

“Really wanted to kiss you that night,” Louis murmurs into his hair, and shortly after that, Harry is undressing Louis in the tent, body hovering over him, begging him to fuck him.

The tent comes crashing down around them fifteen minutes later, and as Louis bursts into hysteric laughter, the declaration nearly bursts out of Harry’s mouth.

--

Without his internship taking up so much of his time, Louis is free to come bug Harry at work again, as much as he wants. He takes advantage of this and stops by every day.

“Love this outfit,” Louis says, trailing his finger along the collar of the bright pink polo Harry’s wearing.

“Stop,” Harry mutters. It’s just going to lead to more teasing, which Harry’s torturous body sees as a form of foreplay. He’s at work. Now is not the time.

“You look like an Easter egg,” Louis continues gleefully. "Once again."

“Shut up.”

“It’s pretty cute, actually.”

Harry tugs at the sleeve of Louis’ t-shirt, a soft eggshell blue that brings out his eyes. That’s why he’d picked it out a few weeks ago, straight from the delivery truck. “Where’d you get this shirt, huh?”

Louis doesn’t say anything.

“Exactly, that’s what I’m saying,” Harry says with a smirk. “Be quiet and take the free shirts that are given to you.”

“You’re the best person in the world,” Louis says, batting his eyelashes, and Harry hates that he’s in love with an idiot.

But he kind of loves it too.

--

Harry gets the idea from something he sees on TV, but he doesn’t mention it to Louis until he’s ready to make it happen.

Louis stares at him with wide eyes, mouth turned down in protest. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Harry says, pouting. “I just want to try it one time in my life.”

“Harry, we’re not having sex on this beach.”

“But why?” Harry’s tone is dangerously close to a whine.

“Because it’s uncomfortable! You’ll end up with sand in your ass.”

“So you’ve tried it, then.”

“Yes. Keyword is tried. It was awful.” Louis makes a pained face, but Harry presses on.

“Come on, I’ll make it good. I just want to try it.”

Louis runs a hand over his face.

“C’mon, please,” Harry says, tugging at Louis’ hand.

They’re sitting on the beach. It’s dark out, and if Harry closed his eyes, he’s sure that the sound of the waves would lull him to sleep. He can picture it: the two of them curled up on the blanket Harry brought just for this purpose, Louis’ arms holding him close. They’d wake up when it got light and probably go for a swim as the sun rose in the sky.

It sounds lovely and romantic. But for now, he kind of just wants to do something a bit simpler.

“I brought supplies and everything. A blanket and a condom. Please.”

“You really want to do this, don’t you?” Louis says, lips quirked into a smile. The waning sunlight shrouds his face in darkness, but Harry can still make out the way his eyes are shining.

“I dooooo.”

Somehow, finding out that Louis has already done it has increased his desire for it by about one million. It’s not that he’s jealous, of course he and Louis have both been with other people. It’s just that he’s, well... a little jealous.

“Maybe it wasn't fun before, but me and you always have fun. Don't we?” He bats his eyelashes a little. It can't hurt.

Louis sighs, and when he looks into the distance, Harry knows he’s got him.

“Alright. We’ll give it a shot.”

Harry nearly cheers, but then he remembers that he’s supposed to be seducing Louis.

He pulls the blanket out from the bag and spreads it on the sand without another word. If they’re going to do this, they have to do it right. That’s why he’d planned an evening of sandwiches and watching the sunset together. They’ve done it countless times, but he knew that tonight was going to be different.

“Very impressive,” Louis says.

“Thanks. Now come here and kiss me.”

Louis leans forward and kisses him. They’ve done it a thousand times before and Harry likes the easy familiarity of it, the way he tilts his head as Louis brings his hand to Harry’s cheeks, how Louis will deepen it only just to pull back, how every time Harry thinks that maybe now is when he should tell Louis how he really feels.

Before long, Louis has Harry laying on his back, pressed into the sand. The blanket is thin, and he’s pretty sure he can feel something sharp poking him in the center of his back, but he ignores it.

“Take off your shirt,” Harry mumbles, shivering as Louis presses kisses to his collarbones.

Louis shakes his head. “No, lemme take care of you first.”

“Kay,” Harry mumbles, content with how Louis is hovering over him right now.

Things turn a bit shitty when Harry tries to wrap his legs around Louis’ waist and flip them over; they just end up on the sand, the blanket twisted up underneath them.

Harry bursts out laughing. “Whoops. I got it, it’s okay.”

Louis giggles and kisses him, and Harry’s heart feels warm. He really loves Louis.

He tries to fix the blanket, but it’s awkward, what with him refusing to remove any part of his body from Louis’. There’s also sand everywhere, all over his arms and his back and, inexplicably, on his face.

“It’s fine,” he says, before Louis can doing something dumb like suggest they go home. “C’mere and kiss me. Want you to fuck me. Please, really want you.”

Louis nods. “Yes, okay.”

There is definitely something sharp digging into Harry’s back, but he does his best to ignore it while Louis kisses him. He gets Harry’s pants off and his boxers quickly follow, and then Harry’s naked. He makes Louis take his shirt off, reaches up to trace patterns around his skin, tweaks at his nipples. Harry loves how sensitive they are, and he suddenly can’t wait until it’s Louis’ turn to squirm beneath him.

A few minutes later, he’s starting to wonder if they’ll make it to that point.

Louis’ perfect mouth is wrapped around his cock, and Harry moans a little bit, trying not to be too loud. He wants Louis to know how good he is, but he so doesn’t want the cops to come after them. Could be a bit awkward to explain to his employer.

Louis is perfect, so goddamn perfect, and Harry makes sure he knows it. It’s just that he’s having a difficult time getting hard.

He’s not normally one for aesthetics. He doesn’t need romance and candles and sweet nothings. But the blanket is thin and he’d never noticed how scratchy it was before. While the risk and the thrill of being naked in public are doing a lot to help with the arousal thing, he also just feels cold. There’s a strong breeze from the ocean and there are goosebumps spreading down his arms and legs.

He scratches at Louis’ scalp and realizes too late that he’s actually covering his hair with sand. There really is fucking sand everywhere. He tries to think about Louis and her perfect mouth, his perfect body. Louis is kneeling in a way that looks uncomfortable, knees digging into the sand. This isn’t quite the romance Harry had expected.

“You okay?” Louis asks, pulling off him as Harry carefully shifts, trying to get comfortable.

“Yeah, it’s just…”

“Not that comfortable?” Louis asks with a grin. He’s perched between Harry’s legs, his mouth looking sinful. His hair is tousled from where Harry’s been pulling on it. He looks downright obscene, and Harry can’t quite believe that Louis is his.

“Not particularly,” Harry admits, feeling a bit sad about the whole thing. “I think there’s sand in my butt crack. Also I’m really cold.”

“Poor baby,” Louis says, reaching up to kiss him. He’s careful to avoid Harry’s cock, and Harry doesn’t know if he’s relieved he’s not making it worse or if he’s irritated he’s not helping with the situation. “You wanna go home?”

“It was supposed to be romantic,” Harry whines. For a split second, he wonders if Louis feels let down.

Louis boops his nose. “Come on, we can have plenty of romance at home. I’ll even let you blow me in the shower.”

“Sold,” Harry says immediately, all fears gone out the window. “Let’s go.”

--

The only downside to Louis living with Harry and Zayn (apart from the fact that his feet are freezing and always wake Harry up in the middle of the night) is that there’s very little time for Harry to confide in Zayn how he feels. Over the past few days, he’s tried to steal moments when Louis was in the shower, or at work, or seemingly distracted. He’s been interrupted in one way or another every time.

That’s why Harry has decided to take matters into his own hands and visit Zayn at work. The office for Zayn’s internship is a small room with a few couches, a fridge, and a coffee maker. Harry sits down on the couch next to Zayn, curling into his personal space like he’s been doing for almost a full year now.

“Hey, how do you think Louis would feel about this?”

Harry smirks. “Probably encourage it. He’s a menace.”

“He's good for you.”

Harry looks up at Zayn as best he can while still resting his chin on his shoulder. The angle is awkward because Zayn is typing on his laptop, but it’ll do.

“I’m in love with him.”

Zayn doesn’t flinch. “I thought so.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The way you look at him, there’s something different about it. Like you just need him and no one else and you’re happy. Or something like that. Don’t make me get sappy about it.”

Harry blushes. That’s not exactly true, but it’s pretty close. “He’s… he’s a lot.”

“Have you already started planning your visits to each other yet?”

Louis had dropped the news on them last night: he had to leave in ten days, a week sooner than he expected. Harry knew this whole arrangement was temporary, but he hadn’t allowed himself to think much beyond life on this island. Until now.

Harry tried not to cry at the dinner table when Louis told them. That night when Louis thrust into him, slow and sweet and intimate, a few tears leaked out anyway. He’d squished his eyes closed, buried his face in Louis’ shoulder, and murmured that this was the best feeling in the world.

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “He doesn’t know that I’m in love with him.”

“You’re kidding.”

“How am I supposed to tell him? He’s leaving in two weeks. There’s no point.”

“There’s always a point in telling people how you feel,” Zayn says softly. “Even if it’s scary.”

Harry feels something strong well up inside of him, the nerves and the anxiety and all the feelings he’s been trying to push down for weeks. “We never put a name to it,” he says. “So I can’t assume anything is going to happen. I’m in love with him and he’s gonna leave and that’ll be that.”

“How do you know he doesn’t feel the same way? He might love you back.”

“He doesn’t,” Harry says, his voice growing almost desperate. “He’s probably gonna go back to school and find someone he likes better, someone older and cooler and someone who won’t be a complete failure at sex.”

Zayn blinks. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Harry says as he pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands. Zayn’s office is cold. Or maybe that’s just Harry’s despair for the future.

“No, come on. What happened?”

Harry takes a deep breath and closes his eyes again. When he opens them, Zayn looks deeply concerned. “I made him try to have sex on the beach the other day even though he kept telling me it was a bad idea. And surprise, it was an awful experience. I’m never gonna be good enough for what he wants. Also he keeps talking about how excited he is to see everyone back home again, and I feel like he’s just itching to get out of here.”

Harry doesn’t know what he expects Zayn to do, but he certainly doesn’t expect him to start laughing.

“This isn’t funny. I’m trying to be open and vulnerable and shit and you’re laughing at my pain!”

Zayn snorts and then tries to keep his face straight. He’s still fighting a smile. “Honestly, do you really think Louis would spend an entire summer with you if he wasn’t interested? And not just sexually. Which, um, I’m pretty sure the two of you are doing pretty well in that department.”

“Why? Has Louis said something?” Harry asks immediately, eyebrows narrowed.

Zayn shakes his head. “He doesn’t. And the um, acoustics of your house aside, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Harry blushes and drops his forehead against Zayn’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

“I’m just saying! The noises are... very enthusiastic.” Harry wants to die a little bit. Thank God he and Zayn have absolutely no boundaries. He’s embarrassed enough as it is. “But even apart from that, you guys always seem to have a lot of fun together. I don’t see what’s so bad about telling him you like him.”

Because that would make the feelings real, Harry thinks. Admitting that he loves Louis, that he wants to give a relationship with him a real shot, it’s terrifying.

“It’s just scary.”

Zayn leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Harry’s head. “I think it’d be worth it. I think he loves you back. I know that you thought this started as a fling, but it seems like it’s become a lot more for both of you. You should tell him.”

“You think so?”

Zayn smiles. “Would I lie to you?”

“Well, there was that one time finals week—”

Zayn smacks him on the shoulder. “Shut up.”

When Harry speaks again, it’s much quieter. “But what if he says no?”

“Then he doesn’t deserve you anyway. Tell him, please. You guys deserve to be happy.”

“Alright,” says Harry after a minute. He’ll tell him. Just, maybe tomorrow.

--

He doesn’t end up telling him the next day, or the one after that.

Instead, they throw a massive house party as a farewell to Niall. He’s heading back to California,  and then two days later flying off to Hawaii with his family for a vacation.

“Spending your whole summer on islands, not a bad gig,” mutters Louis when Niall hugs him goodbye. They’re all spectacularly drunk, and Harry’s been spending most of the night pretending that Niall isn’t leaving.

“C’mere, you two,” Niall says, pulling them both close, arms flung around their shoulders. “Be good to each other, you hear me? We don’t have enough love in this world. We’ve got to celebrate what we do have.”

Surely Harry is imagining the loaded glance Niall throws his way.

“I’ll miss you,” Louis mumbles, and Harry can tell from the tone of his voice that he’s trying not to cry.

They both know that Niall leaving makes the end of the summer very, very real.

Harry needs to tell him. He intends to the next day. But when they’re kneeling on the floor, cleaning up the mess from the party last night, Louis smiles at him and everything goes out the window.

“You know what we haven’t done yet?” Harry asks, right in the middle of a story Louis is telling.

“What?”

“Gone to the movies and spent the entire time making out in the back row.”

Harry doesn’t even know what movie they see, just knows that Louis tastes like popcorn and chocolate. They spend half the time making out and the other half giggling into each other’s mouths.

They go skinny dipping in the ocean that night like they’ve talked about for so long, and as Louis wraps his legs around Harry’s waist, both of them laughing, he thinks about telling him. But then Louis’ cock brushes Harry’s and he has other things to focus on.

He doesn’t want to ruin what’s between them, that’s all. He’d rather focus on what they have right now.

--

There are eight days left when Harry finally gets the courage to tell Louis how he feels. He hadn’t planned on it. But then Louis hands the waiter his debit card to pay for their dinner and blows Harry a kiss, and something in Harry’s heart twists sharply. He has to tell him. He has to tell him, and it has to be tonight.

If it blows up in his face, he’ll deal with the consequences later.

“Thanks for dinner,” he says as they leave the restaurant. He drops a kiss to Louis’ cheek, lingering there for a minute to breathe in the smell of his aftershave, and then he links his fingers through Louis’. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“You don’t want ice cream?” Louis looks confused.

“Not right now. I wanna go see the ocean. ‘S our place, right?”

“You’re a sap,” Louis teases, pressing two fingers to Harry’s cheek and smiling. Harry grins weakly. His stomach feels a bit like it’s eating itself from the inside out.

He’s quiet on the short walk to what’s become their spot on the beach, but Louis chatters away enough for both of them. He doesn’t seem to notice that Harry’s gone suddenly silent.

Harry pulls Louis to his chest when they take their places on the sand, and he wonders if Louis can feel the rapid beating of his heart. He’s warm and pliant in his arms, reaching around to kiss Harry every so often and commenting incessantly on how beautiful the sunset is, how warm the sand is, how nice the waves are.

“Louis,” he says quietly, and he feels like he’s standing on a precipice. It’s now or never. He can risk his heart or he can stay small, never knowing what would have happened. Absolutely worse comes to worst, in eight days he says goodbye to Louis and then never has to think about him.

He tries to absorb a bit of the courage and confidence Zayn had showed when telling Harry to go for it.

“Lou, I’m...” he says again. “I’m in love with you.”

He feels rather than hears Louis’ shaky inhale of breath, and waits.

He doesn’t say anything.

He’s not saying anything, and time is crawling as Harry waits for him to speak, to at least acknowledge that he heard what Harry said. Nothing.

The air is startlingly silent. Blood whooshes in Harry’s ears and that’s suddenly all he can hear; the sound of it deafens even the sound of the waves. Tears spring to his eyes, and he releases his hold on Louis, scrambling off the sand and heading— well, he doesn’t know where he’s heading.

“Harry, wait,” Louis says, reaching out to grab his wrist. Harry shakes him off through his tears.

“It’s fine. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

He wants to walk away, but there’s nowhere to go. He can’t just leave Louis. They live together, for God’s sakes. Besides, it’s dark out. Louis might not love Harry, but Harry feels so much for him. He can’t leave him here alone.

“I’m gonna go wait in the car,” Harry mutters. “Just… meet me there when you’re ready to go.”

He will not cry. He won’t. He lasts about fifteen seconds in the driver’s seat before he cries.

It only last a few minutes, because Harry will not let himself throw a pity party right now, not when Louis could join him in the car any moment.

He does so about ten minutes later, sliding into the passenger seat and pulling on his seatbelt without a word. Harry doesn’t know if he makes eye contact, because he keeps his eyes on the road and doesn’t dare to look.

Harry considers himself to be a fairly eloquent person, but he can’t find any other way to describe the car ride other than “really fucking awkward.” Halfway through, as they drive over the bridge they all jumped off that day, Harry reaches for Louis’ hand. It’s reflexive, a habit that’s developed over time and he halts the movement halfway through, hand hovering in midair. Blood rushes to his cheeks and he reaches to turn on the stereo instead, pretending that was what he was trying to do all along.

Louis doesn’t say anything.

A century later, they pull into the driveway. Harry shuts off the car, and without the sound of the engine, the tension is even more painful.

He unbuckles his seatbelt, and gets out of the car. He hesitates, and when he speaks, it’s nearly a whisper. “I texted Zayn and had him make up the couch for me, so you can sleep in our—in the bedroom.”

He shuts the car door without waiting for an answer.

--

When he gets out of the shower, he can hear Louis and Zayn talking in the other room. He doesn’t know what they’re saying, but their voices raise periodically.

He can make out his own name, and something about Nick, and something that sounds like ‘fix it.’

He’s in a t-shirt and boxers and brushing his teeth in the bathroom when Louis comes in. He freezes for a split second, taken aback, and then continues brushing. Louis takes his usual place next to him at the sink, and they dance around one another to get the job done.

It’s so different from how they normally are when they get ready for bed. It’s usually playful, teasing, lighthearted. Tonight, he could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

He finishes brushing and sets to washing his face, and Louis does the same a minute later. When he’s done, he lingers, unsure of how to proceed. It’s still so fucking awkward.

Louis hesitates, and Harry waits another moment, thinking he might say something. The tension builds. Harry wants to scream. Then Louis shakes his head and keeps washing his face, and Harry shakes his head and leave the room.

The couch downstairs is genuinely very comfortable; he and Louis have napped on it a few times in the middle of the day when they didn’t want to commit to a proper nap but knew they were going to fall asleep anyway. It’s big and soft and luxurious. He wishes he could bring it home with him.

Now, though, it just feels lonely. True to his word, Zayn’s laid out sheets and pillows, three like he knows Harry prefers. There’s a blanket folded at the end of the couch. Harry starts crying again as he climbs between the sheets and shakes out the blanket over him.

It’s been an emotional day. His mom always says that getting a good night’s sleep can fix most problems, but he’s not sure that it can fix this.

He doesn’t know how he’s going to face Louis tomorrow. He can’t just kick him out of the house. But it’s going to be incredibly awkward. He doesn’t think he can just go back to them being a casual fling, not when he feels how he does.

He shifts on the couch and turns so that he’s facing the cushions. He’s gotten so accustomed to Louis’ slender body spooning him as he sleeps that he suddenly feels unbearably lonely. Well, time to get used to it.

--

He wakes to a soft hand on his back and lips hovering just above his cheek.

He sinks into it for a split second, pure instinct taking over, and then he tenses as he remembers that he’s mad at Louis right now.

“Hey, no, no,” Louis whispers, clasping Harry’s shoulder lightly. Harry sinks back into it despite his better judgement. “C’mere.”

He slips onto the couch, fitting his body against Harry’s without even asking, and Harry wants to protest, wants to shake him off, but he wants to hear what Louis has to say. It can’t possibly get worse.

“Harry Styles,” he says quietly, resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder. His breath ghosts against Harry’s cheek and he tries not to shudder. He hates how, even when mad at Louis, his body still gravitates toward him, still seeks out his warmth.

“I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since that day you walked into my ice cream shop. I’ve been in love with you and I was waiting for you to get there too. And I was convinced you never would, and I panicked.”

“What?” Harry says softly.

Louis laughs. “Yeah, that was a lot, sorry. The main part is that I’ve been in love with you for a long time and I should have told you a long time ago.”

“What?” Harry asks, voice fainter this time.

“D’you need your brain checked? I said I’m in love with you. I love you, Harry Styles. And I will, for as long as you’ll have me.”

“No, I can hear you,” he says faintly. “I just can’t quite believe this is happening.”

“Better believe it,” Louis says with a grin, and then he moves in for a kiss.

"I love you," Harry says happily.

"I love you too."

--

There’s very little sleep for either of them that night. They stay up late talking, wrapped in one blanket on the couch while they each drink a cup of tea. Harry explains that he’s wanted to tell Louis how he feels for weeks, but chickened out every time.

“You should have said something,” Louis says, booping Harry on the nose.

“And you just as easily could have said it yourself,” Harry says, but there’s no anger there. Louis loves him, has said so himself, and Harry doesn’t want to think about anything else.

“Well, yeah, Zayn gave me a good talking to and made sure I knew how much of an idiot I was.”

Harry blinks. “Is that what you two were arguing about?”

Louis nods and snuggles closer to Harry. “Yeah. He told me I better fix it or I could go stay with Nick. He said—” Louis winces. “He said that if I didn’t get my shit together and tell you how I felt, he’d cut one of my balls off. Just one, apparently.”

“Really,” Harry says, an eyebrow raised. He owes Zayn a week’s worth of coffee. Or maybe a puppy. “He said all this just now?”

“Yeah. But he says he’d been waiting for me to tell you for weeks.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm. I’m pretty sure everyone knew we were in love with each other except for us.”

Harry laughs. “Well, I knew.”

“Shut up,” Louis says, swatting him on the shoulder. “You knew exactly what I meant.”

“I do. And hey. I love you.”

Louis’ smile is blinding. “I love you too.”

--

Harry’s last day of work is the next day, and he can barely focus. Louis is in love with him, and he has the marks to prove it.

“You look like you got attacked by a cat,” Kyla says, poking at his collarbone. He’s wearing a white t-shirt, one he thought would cover the signs of Louis’ enthusiasm this morning, but apparently not. “Are you okay?”

“Louis told me he’s in love with me,” he says, a dreamy quality to his voice, and then he snaps back to attention. “But no, I’m not giving you any of the details. I’m working.”

“You’ve been folding the same pair of shorts for the last fifteen minutes. You can’t even focus.”

Harry brushes her off. “Whatever. It’s my last day.”

After pestering him for information about Louis for a few more minutes, she eventually gives up and goes back to work. He looks down at the angry red scratch on his collarbone and smiles. He think he might be fondest of the version of Louis he discovered this morning, the one who lets Harry fuck him in the shower and doesn’t stop the rambling stream of “I love you, I love you, I love you” and cooks him breakfast while he gets ready for work.

Louis has always been sappy and romantic, and Harry’s returned that in spades, but it feels like they can be so much more free with those feelings now that they know where they stand. He doesn’t know how it’s going to work out in the future, but he knows that he doesn’t have to say goodbye to Louis next week.

Louis can’t meet him for sandwiches on his last lunch break, but it doesn’t matter: after today, they have a whole week to do whatever they want before they have to go home. Louis is booked on the ferry home next weekend and Harry’s decided that he and Zayn will go back then too.

His manager gives him a hug when he clocks out, and presents him with a gift. She tells him to open it, and he does so slowly, a bit worried about what might be inside.

It’s a whale printed hat, because of course it is. He hugs all his coworkers goodbye with a big smile on his face, and then he’s out of there. He’s not particularly sad about it. The job was fun at times and it paid his bills, but he doesn’t feel attached. Not like he does to the boy standing behind the counter at the ice cream shop, a baseball cap on his head and a grin on his face.

“Hello, my love,” he says when he spots Harry, and leans right over the counter to give him a smacking kiss.

Harry’s pretty sure that violates about twelve health laws. He kisses him back anyway.

“You want something to eat?”

“Sure. What d’you have?”

Louis pretends to think. “Well, we’ve got ice cream. There’s also ice cream. And I think we maaaay have a bit left of what we had yesterday. Which is ice cream.”

Harry rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m not a big fan of that dish.”

“Sorry, which one? You’ll have to specify.”

“I’ll just take some ice cream.”

“Ah, you ruined my fun!” Louis complains with a pout. “I was gonna do a whole bit.”

Harry shrugs. “Sorry. I just really want some peanut butter chocolate fudge.”

Louis laughs, and it’s very possibly Harry’s favorite sound in the world.

--

They spend their last week on the island exploring, going for bike rides, and going to bonfires with Liam and Zayn and even FaceTiming Niall once to tell him how much they miss him. They’re attached at the hip, only apart when they need to shower, and even then they’re sometimes together. They have a lot of sex and Harry tries to forget about the fact that he’s going to be losing all this soon. No, not losing it. Saying ‘see you later.’ The correction helps a little bit, but it still hurts.

Harry drags Louis out of bed one afternoon to go visit Zayn at work.

“No,” Louis grumbles, refusing to get up. “If we go there that means you have to put on clothes. I don’t like that.”

Harry giggles. “Well, I’ll have to put on clothes eventually. What’s gonna happen when we run out of groceries?”

“We’ll just get them delivered. Come on, come back to bed.”

“Louuuu, we’re not in a John Mayer song.”

“What?” Louis sputters. “That’s not… that’s not even what that song is about. It’s about a couple in a fight.”

“Alright, well, we’re gonna be in a fight if you leave me to pester Zayn alone,” Harry says.

Louis snorts. “Alright. Fine. But you owe me a blow job.”

“Deal.”

Zayn’s in the middle of a photoshoot when they walk in, just like Harry had expected. He doesn’t notice them immediately, which gives Harry time to assess the situation.

He’s not totally sure what they’re here to do. He just wants to see where Zayn works and maybe cause a little bit of trouble while they’re at it.

“Trouble?” Louis asks.

“Yeah. Like go to the dressing room and move all their water bottles, and put their clothes on the other side of the room. Maybe tip a chair over. If it’s a soft one.”

“Trouble,” Louis repeats, and he’s grinning. “You are truly something else, Harry Styles.”

Before Harry has time to scope out the dressing room situation, Zayn catches on to the fact that they’re there.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Just saying hello, Zaynie,” Harry says, flashing Zayn his best smile.

Zayn, however, isn’t impressed. “Right.”

“Z, who are your friends?” The guy behind the camera asks.

“Joe, this is my incorrigible roommate Harry, and his boyfriend, Louis.”

Louis pokes him in the side when Zayn calls him his boyfriend. Harry smiles back. God, they really are a pair of thirteen year olds.

Joe’s face lights up. “Hi! Zayn’s told me a lot about you guys.”

“Only awful things,” Zayn grumbles. Harry flings an arm over his shoulder and pulls him close, so that he’s in the middle of Zayn and Louis. “The very worst.”

“You love us,” says Louis. “We’re your best friends in the world. You wish you could travel the world with us, perform shows and spend the rest of your life with us.”

Zayn snorts. “Yeah, right.”

“I mean, now that you say it,” Joe says. “You do look a bit like a boyband.”

They all laugh, and the picture Joe snaps in that moment is one that Harry wants to frame forever.

They also spend a lot of time wheedling Nick and, often more successfully, Annie, for free ice cream.

“You don’t even work here anymore,” Nick says sternly. “You quit to have sex with your boyfriend.”

“That is not true!” Louis protests. Harry pokes him in the side. “Well, it’s maybe a little true. But I still adore you, Nick, and your lovely ice cream shop.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick says, shaking his head. “Heard that one before. Most recently from you.”

They end up getting the free ice cream anyway.

--

They’re laying on floats in the pool, hands outstretched so their palms are touching, and the sun is shining down on them.

“Did you know that sea otters hold hands just like this when they’re sleeping?” Louis asks. “It keeps them from drifting off.”

“There’s no way that’s true.”

“It is! I read it in a book.”

Harry laughs. “Alright, baby. Whatever you say.”

“I did. The book’s at home. I’ll show it to you when you come visit.”

The easy way in which he says it makes Harry’s heart twist. “Yeah, can we talk about that? I kinda want to make some plans.”

Louis tugs on Harry’s hand until their floats are side by side. He leans in for a kiss, upsetting the balance of both of their floats, but by some miracle he manages to do it without toppling either of them into the pool.

“I get a week’s break in October,” Louis says immediately. “I’ve heard that New York is beautiful in the fall.”

“Mhm, it is. But I’m not sure I want to come to Michigan at Christmas. I think that’d be too cold for me.”

“Oh, come on. Buck up. You could handle it.”

Harry pouts. “But I don’t really want to. Let’s go to the Bahamas. Somewhere warm. Ooh, what about Sicily? Heard it’s gorgeous there.”

“You’re just trying to get me to take you to islands all over the world,” Louis says, snorting.

“Maybe one day,” Harry says hopefully, flashing Louis a little grin.

“Yeah,” Louis says softly. “One day.”

--

They’re halfway through packing up the house the day before they have to leave, and Harry is exhausted.

“Let’s take a sex break,” Harry says.

“No, we have to finish cleaning,” Louis says. He takes the last plate out of the dishwasher and closes it.

“I don’t want to,” Harry says petulantly.  “We’ve been cleaning all day.”

“That’s not true! We just took a break for lunch.”

“That was like two hours ago.”

“C’mon, just clear out that drawer there and then we can go for a walk outside or something.”

Harry frowns but starts to cleaning out a kitchen drawer anyway. It’s amazing the mess that has accumulated from just three months and three boys. They have to clean out the whole house in order to close it up for the season; Harry’s family won’t be back until Christmas at the earliest.

The drawer he picks is the one where they’ve tossed all their junk, full of papers and take-out menus and coupons for things they never bought. He’s half-tempted to dump it all into the recycle bin, but there might be one or two things in there worth keeping. It’s been a summer to remember, after all.

He’s thrown out pens that no longer write, menus for restaurants that are no longer open, and ticket stubs for beach parking that he no longer needs. There’s a pile of napkins in the back, and he goes to crumple them into a ball before something stops hm.

That’s his handwriting on the napkins, and Zayn’s.  It’s the list.

“It’s the list!” he yells, pulling it out and smoothing it on the kitchen counter so that he can get a better look. “Oh my God, I totally forgot all about this.”

Louis comes to see what the commotion is. He puts his hand on the small of Harry’s back. “What is it?”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe this,” Harry says, ignoring him entirely. “I never thought I’d see this again.”

“What is it?” Louis repeats.

Harry explains quickly about the list, how they made it and why Zayn took it away.

“You do tend to get a bit obsessive about things,” Louis says thoughtfully.

Harry ignores him. “We made this the night we met you, actually.”

“The night you actually met me or the time you sent me a drink and then drunkenly proposed?” Louis asks with a teasing smile.

Harry pulls Louis in by the shirt and then kisses him. “The second. What a good night that was.”

“You didn’t even remember talking to me.”

“Yeah, but that was the beginning of everything. Of us.”

Louis looks thoughtful. “Okay, true. Anyway, how many things did you do on this Kickass Summer Bucket List of yours?”

Harry looks down at the list, making a mental checklist of things he’s done.

• Use our fake IDs

Done, a whole bunch of times.

• Go to the beach every day

Major fail, but they did go to the beach as often as they could. That habit partially to thank for the summer tan he’s sporting right now.

• Crash a wedding

Done. He hadn’t actually expected to do this one, but it had happened, thanks to the abundance of weddings on the island.

• Get a tattoo

Done. He’d planned to do this one all along, and it’s one of his favorite memories from his summer.

• Throw a house party

This had not actually happened, but he’d gone to plenty of them at Niall’s house and cleaned up after the fact, which he figures qualifies.

Kiss a stranger

Done. Zayn doesn’t think it counts but it does.

• Read 10 books

He’d been too preoccupied with Louis to spend much time reading, so this one is only half done.

• Kiss in the rain

Not done. He's sad about it, honestly.

• Spend a night under the stars

This was supposed to be their camping trip, which had turned into camping in the backyard. Done.

• Skinny dip in the ocean

Done, and a great memory he and Louis share. He'd love to do it again with him one day.

He looks up at Louis. “Zayn did about half of them, and I did all but two.”

“Which two?”

“Read 10 books — I only managed like five — and kiss in the rain.”

“But that one’s so easy!”

“It never rained!” Harry protests, setting the napkins down on the counter and wrapping his arms around Louis’ neck. “At least not when we were together. I didn’t think you’d like it too much if I kissed someone who was just walking by.”

Louis tuts. “No, I would not. Well, good job anyway, baby. Eight out of ten is pretty good.”

--

Later that evening, with the final load of dishes started in the dishwasher and cheeseburgers settling in their stomachs, Harry suggests they spend their last night watching a movie on the couch. With ice cream, because no summer celebration is complete without ice cream.

“Yeah, why don’t you get the movie going and I’ll be right in?” Louis suggests. “Just have to run outside to grab something.”

“Okay.”

He’s settled on the couch five minutes later, Netflix on the TV and the ice cream tub in his hand, when Louis pops his head in.

“Hey, can you c’mere for a second? I think there’s something in your backyard.”

Harry frowns. “What do you mean?”

“A wild animal or something. Just in the woods, not actually in the backyard. But I’m worried about it.”

Harry sets the ice cream on the table. “If you see something, we should call animal control instead of dealing with it ourselves. There’s no point in trying to be brave.”

“Stop worrying and come here.”

Harry shrugs and follows Louis out in the backyard. He’s a bit puzzled when Louis comes to a stop right in the middle of the grass, but then Louis points at the woods and asks if he can see it.

“See what? Lou, I don’t think there’s—”

He’s cut off by the sprinkler roaring to life. Louis doesn’t react at all, almost like he was expecting it. Harry’s hears Zayn laugh and he turns to see him standing by the faucet, a grin on his face.

“What did you do?”

Louis beams. “You said you still needed your kiss in the rain, didn’t you?”

Harry nods as understanding dawns.

“Well, here it is,” Louis says, and then he pulls him closer and kisses him until they’re both soaking wet.

“It still doesn’t count,” Harry says, feeling a bit dazed. He’s really very in love with Louis. “I mean, I appreciate the effort, though.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “You’re lucky I love you.”

--

“You’re sure we have everything?”

Zayn and Louis groan. “Yes, Harry. Same as the last sixteen times you asked.”

“Alright, alright. I just want to make sure we don’t leave any of our precious belongings here.”

“Well, I’ve got you,” Louis says, wrapping his arms around Harry’s waist. “So what else do I need?”

Zayn mimes throwing up and Harry jokingly pushes Louis away, only to draw him back for a kiss. They’ve been doing a lot of kissing today. It seems that both of them are reluctant to let go. There’s been a kiss in every room of Harry’s house at Louis’ insistence, a kiss when they locked the door for the last time, and now a kiss as they stand on the ferry, waiting for the remaining passengers to board. The sky is cloudy overhead, but Harry’s got Louis by his side and he doesn’t care what the weather is.

The car is packed full of their possessions and currently down below deck with the other cars. Louis suggested they stay in the car for the journey, but unfortunately passengers had to go on deck during the ride.

“That’s too bad,” Louis whispered in Harry’s ear as he walked past. “We could’ve recreated the scene from Titanic.”

Harry had had to covertly adjust his shorts and hope no one was looking.

“I’m excited to see your parents again,” Louis says, hooking his chin on Harry’s shoulder and hugging him from behind.

Louis is going home with Harry for a weekend before he flies back to Michigan. Harry couldn’t be more excited that he doesn’t have to say goodbye just yet.

“Mm, I’m excited for you to see New York. I’ll show you all my favorite places. My elementary school, the mall where I wasted all my free time in high school, the spot where I had my first kiss.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that last one, thanks.”

“What, are you jealous?” Harry asks, turning around to smile at Louis.

“Yes. Completely.”

“Aw, baby. It’s alright. You’re the one that I want,” Harry says, humming the song quietly.

Louis rolls his eyes.

There’s a sudden crack above, and the heavens open. It starts pouring rain in thick sheets that have their shirts saturated before they can even process it.

“Inside!” Zayn cries, following the crowd that’s trying to sandwich itself through the door to the inner cabin.

Harry tugs at Louis’ hand to get him to follow, but Louis pulls back. He shakes his head.

“What are you—”

Louis interrupts him by pressing his lips to Harry’s, tugging him into a kiss that’s dirty from the start.

When Harry pulls away, his breath is coming in gasps. His hair is plastered to his forehead, and Louis isn’t faring much better.

“There’s your kiss in the rain, Haz. Your list is all done.”

Harry throws his head back and laughs, and he knows that he wants to spend the rest of his life making this boy happy. He’s has no doubt that it’s mutual.