The Future Is Now - Larry Stylinson

Chapter 24

They had wine with their dinner that night and Harry and Louis were curled up on one of the couches talking in low voices, still holding their glasses. The older girls had let them be and the little ones were in bed, so they were pretty much on their own. Harry was feeling a little more drunk than he had last time but Louis still looked the same amount of tipsy- giggly and red cheeked.

"When did we have our first kiss?" Harry asked, reaching out absentmindedly to toy with a lock of Louis' hair. He felt a lot more free to touch once he'd gotten alcohol into him, and Louis was a lot more receptive when he'd been drinking.

"It was around Christmas time, actually," Louis told him with a smile, fingertips rubbing along the stem of his wine glass. "Niall managed to get a hold of some mistletoe and the lot of them were sick of us dancing around each other so they set it up and tricked us into standing under it together."

Harry chuckled at that, moving to rub the back of Louis' neck and the brunet let out a sigh, leaning into the touch and relaxing. "So did we kiss straight away?"

"No," Louis said, his lips twitching into a grin. "I was still with Hannah, back then. And I tried to reason my way out of it but you just pushed me against the doorframe and kissed me. Romantic one, you are."

Harry laughed at that, finishing off the wine in his glass and setting it down on the little table beside the couch. "I suppose your reasons just weren't good enough."

Louis giggled and rubbed a hand over his cheek. "Apparently. It gave me the incentive to break it off with Hannah, though," he said with a shrug. "So I guess it was a good thing."

"I bet the other boys were pleased," Harry smiled.

"You would win that bet," Louis replied, although his grin faded. "It gave Liam a bit of false hope, though, which put a damper on things."

"False hope?" Harry asked softly.

"Liam and Zayn always had this kind of," Louis waved his free hand aimlessly, "connection, or whatever. Amazing chemistry. I guess we all thought they were going to get together too, even Liam thought that. But then Zayn went and married Perrie, and it never happened."

"Oh," Harry said, frowning a little. He supposed he'd seen a great friendship between Liam and Zayn from the videos he'd watched, but he'd never thought Liam had feelings for Zayn. "That's a shame, I guess."

Louis snorted. "Almost broke the bloody band apart when Zayn asked Liam to be his best man and Liam threw a fit."

Harry blinked and half of him kind of really wanted to remember that, but the other half sensibly reminded him that not remembering a huge, stressful fight was probably better. "Is that why they're hardly seen together in the past few years?" he asked quietly. He'd seen articles online about 'Narry dates' and 'Zouis dates' but never Liam and Zayn. The band still hung out, but not all five of them at once and not Liam and Zayn.

"Yeah," Louis said quietly. After a moment he glanced down at the watch he was wearing and his brow furrowed. "I put Annie down a few hours ago, she should be screaming the house down by now."

"She might be tired from all the commotion," Harry suggested.

"Probably, poor thing," Louis said with a small smile. "I'll go check on her anyway. You want to come?"

"Yeah," Harry said with a smile. They stood up, Louis putting his wine glass down, and made their way out of the living room. Daisy wolf whistled at them and started giggling as Phoebe punched her shoulder, and both Harry and Louis' cheeks went red as they went through the kitchen to get to the stairs.