A Howl In The Night ✔ » l.s

Epilogue

The sun always shone perfectly through the windows, most especially outside where it covered the plants in a warm blanket of sunlight. It was also always perfectly peaceful here—away from the loud and endless activities of the city, comforted simply by the soft ruffling of leaves on the trees that surround them. Every morning, birds would chirp peacefully, and sometimes their neighbor—a sweet old woman who had around twenty cats—would bring them apple pie and milk for breakfast.

Louis woke up before his alarm today. It had been a few years straight ever since when he began waking up to Harry sleeping soundly at his side, and it was something he didn't think he'd be able to give up for anything. Careful not to jostle him awake, Louis scooted closer to his boy and draped his arm over Harry's waist, watching the slight flutter of his thick eyelashes and the small movements of his puffy, slightly parted cherry lips. Over the years, Harry had grown his hair out, and now it brushed the top of his shoulders. Louis absolutely loved it. He began twirling a single strand around his finger and gently brushed a few stray curls from his face. Smiling to himself, Louis leaned in to leave a kiss on his lips, eyes lighting up in amusement when Harry chased after his lips after he'd pulled away even though he was still asleep.

Not wanting to spend the rest of the day admiring Harry's beauty (that tended to happen quite a lot) Louis forced himself out of the bed and tiptoed out of their bedroom. He unlocked his phone, and just on time, Niall's caller ID appeared on the screen.

He picked up. "Hey, where are you?"

"At the door," Niall said a bit breathily, "open up, I'm carrying some stuff and I don't want to wake Harry. He's still asleep, right?"

"Yeah," Louis said as he strode across the living room and opened the door as quietly as he could.

Niall and Liam were standing there, looking quite glum despite the early hour. Well, perhaps the ungodly time was the issue here. Louis ushered them inside, taking note of the boxes they were carrying.

"More deliveries will be coming later," Liam told him as he set down what looked like a cake box on top of the coffee table.

Meanwhile, Niall began opening the box he was carrying after unceremoniously dropping it on the floor, revealing a messy jumble of colorful decorations.

"Let's start," Niall said seriously.

While the two of them moved around, Louis grabbed a small party hat from the box. "What's this? Looks like you stole it from a six-year-old kid's party with the theme of Barney."

Liam chuckled while Niall glared at him and grabbed the paper hat from his hand. "We need all the decorations we could get."

With an exasperated but fond sigh, Louis began helping them with the decor, having to shush them every five seconds unless they wanted to wake Harry up and have him walk into a half-finished mess of a surprise.

They'd finished most of the decorations about an hour later when Zayn and Perrie finally arrived. They both carried heavy bags of food and drinks and began laying them out on the kitchen counter. Louis stood in the middle of the living room, inspecting the large "Happy Birthday!" poster Liam and Niall were hanging on the wall, which Louis was pretty sure was also used a few months back for his birthday.

"A little to the left," Louis instructed, nodding in satisfaction when Liam pulled it a bit. "Good. Tape it up now."

Louis was fixing up the speakers when someone's phone began ringing ridiculously loud. Louis' eyes widened, watching as everyone began patting their pockets and pulling out their phones to see if it was theirs.

"Someone turn that off!" Louis whisper-shouted.

"It's not ours!" Zayn whispered back.

Louis' face turned red when realization dawned at him. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and turned off the alarm. "Oops. Uh, that was mine."