I Bet You Won't • Larry

28. I Bet You Won't Surf

"What would you like to do today?" He asks. I make my way over to the bed and sit on it, my thigh touching his. It's a small action, but I still feel him get goosebumps when my bare thigh touches his. (Well, bare not in a literal sense. We both have boxers on. Unfortunately)

"I dunno. I'm cool with anything," I respond, rubbing my eye from sleep. I yawn while doing so, and catch Louis looking at me with a cocked head and sideways smile.

"What?" I ask.

"N-nothing," he responds, fiddling with his fingers. "You're just cute. His eyes don't meet mind and I can tell that he's nervous by the way that he pulls his lip ring into his mouth and lets it go repeatedly.

I blush, like I always do. That has to be some kind of medical problem. "Oh. Thank you, Lou."

We both just look down at our laps-at the way our thighs touch ever-so-slightly, not making eye contact.

"So, like, do you have anything specific that you want to do today? Anything that you've wanted to do?" Louis asks, and now that I think about it, there is something I've wanted to try.

"Well, I mean, I've always wanted to take surfing lessons, b-but if you don't want to, that's okay, too," I say. I don't want to make him do something he doesn't want to do just so I can be happy. I'd rather he be happy than me. That's how I've always felt. That's how I was raised to be. That's how... he told me to be.

"No, Harry, that sounds great! I'd love to do that. Do you know a place?" Louis asks.

"Um, not really. But it's California, there's probably tons of beaches around here."

"Yeah, yeah. Let me check," Louis says, grabbing his phone from the desk and removing the charger.

Louis' eyes widen and he winces a bit when he unlocks phone, reading something on his lock screen.

"Everything okay?" I ask, concerned.

My words seem to catch him by surprise and he looks up at me, startled. "O-oh, yeah, everything's... fine," he responds. It's obvious he's lying, but I decide to forget it for now. When he's ready to tell me, I'm sure he will.

"Okay," I respond. His shoulders sag a little, and he lays down on the bed, my thigh now over his knee. I scoot over.

Louis begins typing away at his phone, probably looking up a place to take lessons.

It's silent for about a minute until Louis hums, getting my attention once more.

"How about Venice?" He asks, looking up at me from his phone and, god, his eyes are so beautiful. I swear, they're this beautiful icy blue, so bright that they're almost shining. I can look in them, and my whole world can just stop spinning. I look into them and everything in the world is okay.

Like when you hug your mum and you feel like the world can explode and you'd still be okay because you're there in her arms. Especially when you were a child, and something would... happen to you. All you needed was a hug from her, and everything would be okay for that one minute.

I look into Louis' eyes, and I feel comforted. I love him. I love Louis.

"Harry?" He says, snapping me out of my trance. He waves the phone in my face. "You with me, bud?" He asks.