LURE ✧ l.s. ✧

21.

For the next couple of weeks Louis notices that he's seeing much less of Harry. Usually he'd see him every night at some point, even if they didn't talk, but he hasn't seen Harry once for the past two weeks. The thought that Harry's avoiding him runs through Louis' head but he pushes it away.

For some reason, even though him and Harry are far from close, the thought of never talking to him or seeing him ever again hurts Louis. He likes Harry and even if he tells everyone that they're acquaintances Louis would like to think they're a little more than that.

The next night at the club Louis actually does see Harry walking around like he usually would. It's probably to make sure everything's going smoothly and other management stuff, Louis assumes.

Harry comes over by where Louis is and Louis takes his chance. He starts walking over to Harry but as soon as Harry makes eye contact with Louis, he turns and walks away. Louis really hates to admit it but he felt that one. It was obvious Harry saw him and then decided to leave, meaning that Louis really is the issue.

But why?

Louis thinks that he's been really nice to Harry. He even stayed until almost six in the morning to help him clean the club even though he was getting absolutely nothing out of it. Well, except for getting to talk to Harry. Louis has really tried his hardest to make it clear that he wants to be friends which he thought he was succeeding in.

Harry has never been like this with Louis. He's always been kind and charming. He's funny, and he may not like tons of human interaction, but Louis thought that he was opening up a little more. He never gave short answers or acted like Louis wouldn't care about what he had to say. It seemed like things were going great.

When Harry saved Louis that night with Louis thought that it was because Harry cared about him but maybe not. Maybe he really was just doing it because it was the right thing to do. Maybe Noah and Bebe are wrong, maybe Harry doesn't feel any different about Louis than he does about everyone else.

Again, Louis tries to just push those thoughts away and focus on the end goal. Harry could just be having a bad week. Who knows what has happened in his life? Louis' just going to keep doing what he was doing and hopefully everything will go alright.

For the next few nights Harry stays MIA for the most part which makes Louis sad and he prays it's not because of him. Louis decides he should ask Noah if Harry's okay because he's genuinely concerned now. What if the reason Harry's been so different isn't because of him at all and it's something deeper. Noah has said that Harry doesn't have many close friends so what if he's going through it alone? Louis wants to be there for him if he is.

The next time he goes into work the first thing he does even before he changes is go over to the bar area to talk to Noah. Noah's busy at first but as soon as he's able to take a quick break he goes over to where Louis' waiting for him.

"Yeah?" Noah asks.

"Well, firstly can I get a drink."

Noah takes Louis' order and when he gets back with it he waits for Louis to continue.

"I wanted to ask if you know why Harry's being so weird," Louis says before taking a drink.

"How has he been weird?"

"He's just been, I don't know, not himself I guess. Like before he would always talk to me when I talked to him and he always joked and stuff but he's been in his office so much when before he would come out."

"Why is that weird? Is he being rude or something? He can get like that sometimes."

"No...well, no. Not rude, but a couple nights ago I saw him walking around so I was going to go say hi. He saw me, we made eye contact so there's no way he didn't, but when he realized I was coming over he turned and walked away. He looked kinda annoyed."