Zoo // Louis Tomlinson

//43//

            Harry’s hair was a mess, tangled up in his bandana as his hands fidgeted with the paper airplane necklace he always wore. It wasn’t even that though that Louis was catching onto, the troubles of the eldest shadowing what Harry had been up to for nearly four months now as both Zayn and I gave each other worried glances.

            His lips were stained a bright red, a red that every one of these boys was familiar with and a color that only meant one thing. Something I was simultaneously happy and worried for, because Harry deserve to feel what I felt, but I wasn’t quite sure how Louis –let alone the rest of the world- would take it.

            “Spit it out mate.” Zayn prompted Harry, his thick accent sometimes hard to unravel as I focused everything else on Louis.

            “Morgan from our management team, I’ve been seeing her since we got back and I kissed her today.” Harry was visibly struggling with the words, his tall frame shrinking as the anger control with his older counterpart slipped away like water in your hands.

            “Since we got back? From lunch today?” Louis sneered, the confusion echoing with the hurt in his words as he used the painful words he was so good at crafting against his best friend.

            “No, uh, since we got back because you and her fought.”

            Wrong thing to say.

            Harry’s eyes growing wide because I knew that had not been how he meant it, but Zayn and Louis seemed to be taking it a different way. Zayn’s concerned face morphing into that of irritation as I physically had to stop Louis from what he no longer had any control over.

            My hand jumped out to him, grasping the front of his shirt and keeping him from moving any further. It wasn’t a warning I was used to, but more of one that was unspoken. His entire body rigid against me, but not a single step further was taken.

            “She’s a bitch Harry, she’s going to use you and help the damn tabloids when we leave their management. You’re so fucking stupid if you think she actual-“

            “Louis!” I snapped, not willing to take another moment of Harry’s green eyes dulled down to a small fraction of the pain and regret he was feeling for not telling them, but how else would he have done it?

            He couldn’t have told the boys, not if he was feeling this way because they would all have labeled him the same way. His feelings irrelevant because none of them tried to understand Morgan and everything she did for them. Only Harry had the heart to, and while the rest of them were busy with their own lives, no one had bothered to ask.

            “What?” Louis snapped right back at me, the sharp contours of his torso sliding under my hands as he turned to face me instead. Blue eyes were on fire, the darkest sort of fury burning in them.

            “Let him finish.” I seethed, not at all afraid of Louis like many people seemed to be, because in moments like this I was very aware of what was turning in his head and exactly why he couldn’t see beyond the obvious.

            “You fucking told my girlfriend before you told me?” He wasn’t facing me anymore, turned back to Harry as the two men carried completely different stances. Harry showing signs of backing down, while his eyes sparked with the determination of proving a point.

            “Stop yelling at him! He didn’t tell me anything!” I shouted, not noticing when Zayn’s eyes widened impossibly, his own posture heightening because Harry and Louis never argued, but Louis and I arguing seemed to pose a threat because in this situation Louis was wrong, and neither of us were good at stopping.