Room 317

Chapter 8

“Oh,” he breathed as a speck of white floated down and melted against his forehead. It was initially cold but quickly warmed up on his skin and evaporated. The next one hit his eyelash, the third into his right eye. He blinked the cold wetness away and lowered his head. Louis was still looking up and now had his mouth open – his tongue trying to catch a flake of snow. It was the most adorable thing Harry had ever seen and whoa, where had that come from?

Louis suddenly lowered his head too, tongue back in his mouth, and he looked back at Harry with the toothiest grin possible. His face was just lit up in wonder and it was kind of breath-taking. Harry was mesmerised; Louis was so…so… pretty. He really was and oh… Harry stared, almost cross-eyed, as a large snowflake landed on the tip of Louis’s nose and slowly melted. He couldn’t help himself, not with Louis looking so adorable and smelling so sweet and feeling so warm, he dipped forward and rubbed their noses together.

Louis breathed in quietly at the contact but didn’t move and Harry, stuttering internally at how soft and silky it felt to rub noses with him – and cold – did it again and again. Yes, Louis’s nose was cold. And his breath smelled like sweet coffee. And this felt way too nice to be normal… and that was when Harry realised it wasn’t normal – at least for him – to be rubbing noses with another guy. He pulled back, slowly. Louis’s eyes were wide.

“Uh…” Harry said, his heart suddenly jack-hammering in his ribcage. Holy shit, what the hell had he just done? Why had he just done that? And was there anything close at hand that he could just crawl into and die of embarrassment?

“Did…?” Louis stuttered, still gaping incredulously, “Did you just give me an… Eskimo kiss?”

“Uh…” Harry wanted to say ‘No! That’s just a figment of your warped imagination. I would never do a thing like that!’ but what came out was, “Yeah?”

“Uh huh,” Louis said faintly and Harry wanted his friend to blink. The wide-eyed staring was starting to make him nervous.

“Okay?” asked Harry, starting to fidget with his coat pockets.

“Um… yeah,” Louis replied, sounding a little dazed, “it was… interesting…” he swallowed loudly, “you’ve never done that before.”

Harry shrugged, “I like to keep you guessing. Come on, let’s keep walking.”

~*~

They fell through the front door, giggling and dripping melted snow everywhere, about two hours later. As they crossed the threshold, Harry staggered under the weight of Louis on his back and carefully let him slide to the ground. The encrusted snow under Louis’s boots skittered across the wooden floor and his sodden hat finally slipped off and dropped into one of their wet footprints. What had started as a few tiny flakes of snow had turned quickly into a blizzard and they’d taken full advantage of it. Snowball fights, snow angels and bum-sledging down embankments had been their enjoyment – and at one point Louis had tackled Harry to the ground in a field by jumping on his back. Harry had received a face full of snow and retaliated by rolling over and starting a wrestling match, which morphed into trying to shove snow down each other’s backs. They were now soaking wet, frozen to the bone but completely and utterly exhilarated. It was to be short lived though…

“Where the hell have you two been?” Liam appeared in the living room looking incredibly angry.

“Out for a walk,” Harry replied, the smile falling from his face. Liam didn’t just look angry, he looked livid.