pieces of you |t.h. au|

xi.

Friends are supposed to be by your side forever, at least, they should be.

a/n: this chapter has three parts; this is part one. Part two will be posted on Wednesday and part three will either be posted Wednesday or Thursday.

Time Skip- Two months later

"How long are you going to be gone for?" Harrison asked Tom as he walked into the boys' apartment, a cup of coffee from Aunt Mays in hand.

"Honestly I don't know." Tom admitted from the couch. "My parents are moving, and the twins are really busy with school, so I have to help them."

"That sucks." Harrison let out as he sank into the worn chair opposite Tom.

"Yeah, tell me about it." Tom sighed, "I was really looking forward to spending the summer here for once, with you, SJ and Ellie. It looked like the first summer I was going to be able to just relax and hang with my friends."

"You can always hope that they have to postpone the moving." Harrison offered, taking a sip of his hot coffee.

"One can dream." Tom let his eyes drift around the apartment and eventually to the window. He watched as Miss. Lighten, the girls neighbor walked her dog for what seemed like the hundredth time that hour, suppressing the urge to laugh when Ellie walked out of the door and was rushed but the tiny animal, its teeth gleaming in the afternoon sunlight.

"What?" Harrison questioned.

"You know Miss. Lighten right?"

"Yeah, that hot yet slightly creepy lady who knows our names-" Tom's laugh cut off Harrison's clarification.

"Her tiny dog tried to attack Ellie," Tom responded.

"And you're laughing about that?" Harrison's eyebrows shot up in confusion.

"Only because it was like an ant attacking a skyscraper." Tom said, still watching Ellie as she walked on the sidewalk to the boys' apartment. He noticed then that her hair wasn't just brown, it was a whole spectrum of different shades of brown and gold intertwined together in a beautiful medley that shone in the sunlight. She smiled her heart-stopping smile at the few tourists that managed to venture out this far from the center of town and even stopped to give someone directions.

"Damn man, your fuckin' whipped." Harrison mumbled snapping Tom back to the living room.

"Oh, shut up." He replied before getting up from the couch and pulling a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge. "Are you and SJ going out tonight?" Tom said after taking a sip of the cold beverage.

"Yeah, why?"

"Avoid the main street, we may already be two months into summer, but it's still chock full of tourists, all of the restaurants are packed." Tom explained.

Play: Falling Like the Stars by James Arthur

Not too long after Tom finished his glass of iced tea a knock on the door echoed throughout the apartment. Harrison looked down at his watch and grabbed his keys off the counter.

"What time is your flight?"

"Two a.m." Tom responded as he opened the door.

"Ouch." Harrison said before saying hi to Ellie and leaving to pick up SJ for a surprise lunch date.

"What's ouch?" Ellie asked as she pulled Tom into a hug.

"My flight leaves at two am tomorrow." Tom explained before pressing his lips to Ellie's forehead.

"Well, we have plenty of time." Ellie said a smile creeping onto her lips.

"For what?" Tom said cockily raising his eyebrow.