Bells for Harry [Larry Stylinson]

Chapter 18 A Horse's Weight Worth Of Potatoes

In the end, Louis wasn't able to call Shana until the next day.

He still had a massive amount of assignments due, and working part-time at one of his professors offices in the city always left him exhausted. He tried texting her, but she didn't want to explain over text. He was dying to hear what she knew, especially because she warned him not to mention it to anyone else, specifically Harry's parents. He felt a pang of envy at hearing how her and Harry had kept sharing important things over the years. He'd sometimes ask her about him when he went back to his home town, where Shana still lived with her family and her son, but she'd usually avoid answering him somehow, further leading him to believe that Harry hadn't wanted to talk to him at all. He figured that their secrets were their secrets, but it made him angry that she knew things he didn't, and she'd never trust him. Their friendship had deteriorated somewhat over the Harry issue, as well as him feeling strange about their one awkward moment at Liam's birthday party all of those years ago. They'd never completely lost touch and they'd still hang out together with the group whenever all of them were in town, but they never managed to go back to the easy banter they'd had between them in the past.

He'd tried calling Harry that day already, but as he'd expected, Harry hadn't answered his phone. Now he was having tea in his kitchen, waiting for Liam to swing by the airport on his way home and get back with Niall. His phone buzzed, and strangely enough, it was a text from the latter.

In the car with Liam, but figured you'd want to know right away, he'd written. Met Dominic Christensen at airport, random as fuck. He was like u haven't been to the store in ages, and I thought not since like Christmas a million years ago when your son wasn't yet running it, and he says right Susanna was gonna cook a huge roast for y'all, bought a horse's weight in potatoes saying y'all never leave leftovers. Wtf?? He said it was that one year you didn't come home for Christmas, must be too, we haven't eaten together at Harry's since be4 he left at fifteen. She expected all of us there!

Louis almost screamed. He'd known something had been off about that. Susanna and Nate had sounded excited about him coming home only days before Harry's mum had suddenly called him tonelessly asking him not to, and offering to pay for his non-refundable ticket. The amount of times he'd replayed that day in his mind after Harry's parents had given him nothing but a vague explanation, and Helena had started going off at them for being homophobic and unsupportive of Harry's mental illness, was insane. Something had to have suddenly and drastically changed when Harry had come home that year, even if no one wanted to tell him what it was.

His phone went off again. This time, it was a call from Shana.

"Hey bitch," she said cheerfully. "What are you up to?"

"Why didn't you want to tell me about this over text?" Louis asked, too nervous to be polite.

Shana sighed. "Because I know that you're gonna text up a storm and worry over nothing, because I just know you, bruh."

He gritted his teeth. Was Shana going to tell him he was overreacting again? Him not being able to talk to her about Harry had been another reason their friendship had cooled. But he'd never told her about his feelings for him, and maybe that lack of sincerity had contributed to that.

"Okay, so what to do you know about the debt?" he asked, taking a deep breath.

"I already told Helena," Shana said. "And please don't make a big deal about this, he'll hate it when he finds out I told you two drama queens. He rented this place with his college boyfriend for years, and it was super expensive, which was fine at the time because he was paying. But when Harry moved back here and they broke up he got super upset, and demanded Harry pay his half for all the years they'd lived together, just completely fucked up. But you know what he's like, nice to a fault. So of course he said he'd pay him back, and now he'll have to suffer because of that for years."

Louis listened politely, but once again, something was completely off about that story. Yes, Louis knew Harry. And maybe he'd changed as he'd grown up, he had a melancholy about him that hadn't been there in his younger years, but Louis had literally stared into his eyes for hours the day before (onto his eyelids when he'd fallen asleep, but still), and he could tell that at his core, Harry still had the same charming, absolutely mesmerizing spirit he'd had before. Zayn acted like a loud, happy brat who probably thought himself very independent, but Louis had seen how he deferred to Harry, and how he'd stormed into a stranger's place to protect him, and also how that Eric guy was completely at his feet, infatuated with him despite having many reasons to hold back.

Harry was perfectly able to get himself out of a situation like that, there was no way a normal person was holding that debt over his head, he'd either found a way to charm the socks off that person, or he'd have found someone to pay his debt by now.

The only conclusion was that he hadn't told Shana the truth either.

"We're fucking home!" Liam hollered at the door, and he could see Niall come in behind him with his luggage. "This one packed up his entire life into that huge ass suitcase, I don't think we'll be rid of him for a while!"

"See?" Niall laughed. "I brought a huge fucking suitcase! So stop treating me like a dying man and giving me so many hugs, or I'll take it the wrong way and get my hopes up!"

The surreal thought that straight people were acting way too gay around here lately bounced through Louis's mind.

"Is that Liam and Niall?" Shana asked on the other end of the line. "Are you all together?"

Shit, he wasn't supposed to tell her. He could hear Leo, her kid, playing in the background.

"Yeah, Niall's on vacation and he's staying with us for a few days," Louis said, giving Niall a brief hug when he came into the kitchen.

"Harry?" Niall mouthed, and Louis shook his head.

"He didn't mention anything about a vacation," Shana said, and Louis thought she sounded upset.

He figured it was tough to go out with a young kid, and since Niall had told him plenty of times that he'd been at the park with Shana and Leo, or that he'd played with Leo on some weekend, he could imagine that Shana would be disappointed not to get to see him first when he had time off, especially since Niall was the only one besides Dani who'd stayed close to home.

"I guess it was sort of a last minute decision, S," he said. "Liam made him come, you know how annoying he can get."

Liam looked at him suspiciously.

"So what are you guys gonna do?" Shana asked, still sounding a bit off.

"Me, work on my tiresome assignments and count down the days for my August vacation," Louis lied smoothly. "Them, go to the beach, stay out of my way and buy me food, hopefully. I'll call you if I need to vent about them."

"Oh, okay, but-" she said, but Louis was already distracted by the scene he was witnessing in the kitchen:

Liam was wrestling with Niall, trying to take the jar of peanut butter that Niall had gotten out of the pantry away from him, along with the spoon he had in his hand, with no explanation at all. It was even more weird because they were trying not to make any noise so as not to interrupt his call, which made them look very comical.

"S, I gotta go, these people are fighting over a jar of peanut butter," he said.

"Bye, S, love you," Liam yelled.

Louis hung up and swiftly grabbed the jar so it was safe. "This is not only organic and expensive, but also mine," he told them. "So what the fuck?"

"I'll buy you more, if I'm gonna spend some time here, you gotta share the goods!" Niall said, getting rid of Liam's gorilla-like grip on him.

"You're not eating that, it's on the 'no' list!" Liam said.

Niall groaned. "He spent the morning compiling a completely bogus list full of stuff he swears I can't eat, when my doctor hasn't mentioned any dietary restrictions aside from the obvious!"

"Okay," Louis said, shaking his head.

He could already tell this was going to be a long day if he expected them to help.