Butterflies & Hurricanes || l.s

Chapter 1

Perfect.

Today is going to be a good fucking day, Louis just knows it.

Lottie is still in her room across the hallway when Louis comes out of his own. She's trying to straighten the bow around her neck and struggling to tie her icy-blonde hair up into the tight ponytail required by their private school.

He steps into her open door - knocking first out of courtesy, unlike Lottie bursting into his room earlier this morning - to help her with the hairdo as she finally loops and adjusts a red silk bow to her liking, the equivalent to the boy's mandatory pocket squares.

Why she's chosen red for her color, Louis had no idea. Her eyes pop when she wears blue, but Louis simply tells her she looks wonderful (she does), earning himself a glowing grin from his little sister.

Clapping his hands together, Louis exhorts, "Let's go eat these pancakes you told me about, yeah? Heard Mum put chocolate in them and if you don't hurry up, Fiz and the twins are going to have eaten them all already. The sausages too. Mum never makes sausages, so I want to grab one before they're gone,"

"Louis, your gay is showing," Lottie snickers, only to receive a much-deserved swat on the arm from her brother. She just rolls her eyes, smoothing out her school-issued blazer and giving Louis a small push in return. "Go on, eat your sausages," she grins teasingly as they leave her room and walk down a rather palatial set of marble stairs to the first floor.

The Tomlinson's house is lavishly grand, its exterior built with a combination of pristine white walls and brick accents, green ivy twisting and climbing its way up the brick, adding to the charm. Not to mention the house is huge. Yes, it's housing Louis' parents, himself, and his four sisters, but still. Huge.

The plot of land is of equal magnitude, with perfectly groomed grass, hand-set stone pathways, and a beautiful garden full of luscious plants and exotic flowers.

An inground swimming pool is the cherry on top, a veteran host of Louis' countless year-round pool parties (only with his close friends, he's not one for big extravaganzas). Louis owes a special thanks to the pool heater and built-in jacuzzi, because winter pool parties never fail to be a blast.

All that being said, it feels like home. The inside is filled with framed artwork Louis and his sisters have made over the years, no corner of the premise without a bit of character and a dash of Tomlinson. There are scratches on the walls and furniture from years past, toys, footballs, and everything in between scattered all around.

Louis had been to some of his friend's houses in the past, and they looked scarily bare compared to this. Think Kim Kardashian's house but without half the decent architecture.

All of the surrounding houses (mansions) are of equal size, but unlike the others, Louis' parents worked hard to earn the money and didn't inherit it from older generations. It fills Louis' heart with pride.

His dad, Mark, works as a surgeon, so he's rarely home. He's normally off doing procedures and surgeries that Louis can't even pronounce, sticking his hands into people's open chests and prodding around at their brains.

It's like he's starring in his own season of Grey's Anatomy (which Louis most definitely doesn't binge watch on the weekends. As if), but he's an actual doctor and not nearly as handsome as McDreamy.

To his credit, whenever his dad is home, he spends all of his time with his family. Louis absorbs this like a sponge. He feels fortunate and extremely grateful that his dad chooses him and his family over drinks with his friends at random dive bars downtown. (Something Louis knows some of his friends are stuck with, sadly.)