After The End: Book 1

26. Fulfillment

Louis POV

The next several days were very calm. Harry seemed to level out a little bit and I stopped finding him asleep on the couch which I was willing to take as a good sign. He wasn't obsessively cleaning things that didn't need to be cleaned at least and he wasn't listening to our best hits while laying in the dark. Instead he'd started reading the book that he'd given me slowly while smoking cigarettes on our balcony and scowling across board games at Lux. Lux was apparently unemployed which complicated her moving situation. I wasn't sure she actually had a plan for when she was to move out. Naomi told me that Lux assured her she was "working on it."

Naomi continued going to work although her shifts were now shorter. We hadn't revisited the "our future" conversation beyond absentmindedly mentioning baby names and joking about figuring out what we would do for a baby room if we couldn't get Lux out of our spare. I was scared to push any of the big conversations much farther. It had dawned on me that we had been so overtaken by the fact that we were having a baby that we had skipped some crucial issues. Naomi didn't want to get married. Naomi was happy at her grocery store job. I hated that I had such conflicting feelings with those things. I wanted to shower her in a life of commitment and generosity and she seemed to think that doing that would be an attempt to domesticate her.

I was also suddenly realizing that if Harry was actually clean and sober then I was free to work again and I couldn't very well launch another multi million dollar career with a baby at home, could I? Naomi seemed to think so. She had no problem with the chance that I could do something again. She even joked about us being a red carpet family one day. I wondered if she knew that would force her out of her grocery store position eventually. I wondered what that would do to my child. I imagined it would either be the best childhood ever or the worst. In my experience it had not done well for teenaged Harry. Was it selfish of me to want to work even though I knew the pressures? In the end, I had decided that if it was too much I could simply step down and fade into the background as I had before. I would need to do so before things spiraled out of control. I could do that, couldn't I?

Once the thought was in my head, I couldn't stop it. I wanted out of my house. I wanted the chance to put myself back into music and entertaining people. It felt urgent and unignorable. I thought that if I didn't do it soon, I might get so caught up in being a parent that I forgot to do it later. I spent days mulling over it but I knew I was sure. I wanted to try.

I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do yet. I had been propositioned several times when the band first dissolved. I had several producers, record labels and celebrity friends on speed dial, but that wouldn't help if I didn't know what to ask for. That's when I'd finally resigned myself to get Harry involved.

I approached him during his daily round of uno with Lux before dinner. They were settled across from each other on the living room floor with the deck of cards between them. He had just released a string of expletives and was busy drawing a handful of cards when I tapped his shoulder.

"Can I borrow you?" I asked.

He softened the scowl he was offering Lux to face me and said, "Am I in trouble?"

"No," I assured him.

He threw his cards down next to the pile and stood up. "Good. She's cheating anyways."

Lux's giggle as we walked away assured me that Harry was right. Once we were out of earshot I said, "I want your opinion on something."

He looked at me expectantly.

"I want to go back to working," I said carefully.

"That's a terrible idea. You have plenty of money." He crossed his arms defiantly. "I'll even start paying rent."