In Too Deep (Dancing With The Shadows)

twenty two

He slams the kitchen door behind her, sees her through the patterned glass of the door. He flips her off, which she reciprocates, storming off outside.

"And add a dollop of cream cheese to the sauce so it bulks up more," her voice travels into the room, startling Louis.

He snaps his head up to find her at the large kitchen window that hangs over the sink.

He strides over. "Bye, Mabel," he says before pulling the window closed.

Now that that is out the way, he thumbs his bottom lip in thought. Her advice on using the microwave rice isn't actually a bad idea. He hasn't had much cooking abilities or skills ever since he stopped learning to cook once he moved in. The most he could make was toast and potentially a fried egg on a good day.

It's not like he's a shit cook, per se. He's just inexperienced, a little rusty if you will. He just needs a bit of practice and he could be the next Jamie Oliver, but less cock like and more fun.

So the practice starts now.

"Alexa! Play some upbeat music," he decides, talking to the device he rarely uses that sits on the top of the cabinets.

"Playing some upbeat music, on Amazon Music," she calls back, before Happy Together by The Turtles begins tinkling through the speakers.

"I can't see me loving nobody but you for all my life," Louis sings along, wiggling his bum to the music, bopping his head as he begins fishing the tomatoes from the fridge and some chicken, grabbing all the ingredients and dumping it on the kitchen counter.

He whistles along to the song, listening to Mabel's advice despite himself, and adds oil to a medium heat pan, frying the chicken.

He hopes he doesn't give them food poisoning, so he might just leave it in for a little while longer than might be necessary. He finds the packet rice in the pantry and leaves it on the side.

Now, does he wait for after his planned activity for the pair, or do they eat first?

He looks out the window to see the sun is still quite high in the sky, only slowly falling. It was raining last night, so the air is sticky and there's steam wafting into the air from the rainfall evaporating from the hot surfaces.

He takes the chicken off the heat, stirs the sauce he's made (he won't admit he gave himself a pat on the back for that one, he didn't even use a jar, just threw whatever he thought necessary to make a tomato sauce into a pot and prayed. Its seemed to pay off) and takes that off the heat also.

He wipes his greasy hands on a tea towel, checks his hair in the mirror out in the hallway and goes to Harry's house to ask him out.

Literally.

He won't admit that his stomach flutters with butterflies and nerves, his heart thudding in his chest. He hasn't been on a date since Ben, told himself to never trust a person like that again.

But here he is, putting his full fucking trust in a celebrity that's showed him nothing but kindness and honesty.

He thinks he's going behind Owen's back for trusting someone again. Doesn't know if this is a bad idea, but his heart wins here, and if there was anything his Mamma would tell him as a kid, was that following your heart is better than following your head.

So he chases his heart to where it lays on Harry's porch.

Funny how he calls it Harry's. It's not, it's his, it's the family's, but since Harry fits the house so nicely, he can't help but hope Harry would want it one day.