Pretend to love me [A.U]

A Fake Lover

"I need a favour."

Louis looked up to see someone he would've never expected; Harry Styles. "What kind of favour?" The small brunet couldn't help being cautious. Once, he used to consider Harry one of his best friends -though friendship wouldn't completely cover their relationship. It was more a flirtatious relationship that hovered between an actual romance and a platonic friendship. But now? Now the both of them were nothing but strangers. They wouldn't even smile or nod at each other when passing. Just like they never even met in the first place.

"Nothing too much." Harry smiled, but one of his hands started rubbing his neck -a telltale sign that he was nervous and it didn't go unnoticed. "Can we talk in private?"

At that a scoff came out of Liam. "You are the one that needs a favour." He shrugged, "If it's 'nothing much', why can't you talk about it here?" Louis absolutely loved his friend for this.

"It's something personal." Harry glared at Liam before he brought his attention back to Louis, "Please."

"Oh my, the great Harry Styles said please." Liam acted shocked before he rolled his eyes. The boy -by lack of a better word- despised Harry. He just couldn't understand how someone would throw away all of his friends who stood by him for years at a shot of being popular. True, Harry quickly gained even more 'friends' than he lost and it didn't look all that bad from what Liam could see online or hear when he listened in on conversations in the hallway, but still, he was bitter. It wasn't that long ago that their group of five was seem as inseparable. Guess all it took for 'inseparable' to be void was the promise of parties and 'living the good life'. Liam huffed in annoyance at the memories and turned his back on Harry, facing Louis who was looking at the two with a mix of surprise and amusement, "Lou?"

"Yeah?" Louis trailed his eyes back from Harry. He still couldn't believe what was happening.

"What are you thinking?" Liam asked, "You can ignore him if you want to."

"I can, but what's the fun in that?" Louis smirked, his eyes already had that mischievous glint that Liam both hated and loved, "I'll be right back, Li. I need to hear what the almighty fuck-boy has to say. Who knows, maybe it'll be something fun?" All caution thrown out of the window, Louis stood up and started walking to one of the auditorium that he knew was empty. In hindsight, going along with his whims all the time might've been a recipe for trouble. And if the loud sigh of Liam was anything to go by, Louis should've known that he was getting in over his head.

The walk to the auditorium was rather awkward with the two of them keeping quiet. Harry tried to make some small talk, but Louis' sass and sarcasm quickly ended those. After all, the latter wasn't really interested in being all that friendly after being dumped out of nowhere. Well, you couldn't exactly call it 'being dumped' as they were never together, but it felt like that. When the doors of the classroom fell shut behind them, Louis propped himself up on a desk, "So, what kind of favour were you talking about?"

"Pretend to be my boyfriend."

What?

"Are you being serious?" A nervous laughter came from Louis' lips. He couldn't believe they were even having this conversation.

"Yes. Pretend you love me." Harry didn't seem to be joking at all and Louis gulped. This was too much too sudden and the latter didn't know how he should react at all. Thankfully he didn't have to because Harry continued talking, "I'm not asking you to do it for free, I'll compensate you. You can call in a favour whenever and I'll even get you concert tickets to your favourite group or something like that, but, please, help me out with this. My family has been nagging me for months to join them on their yearly vacation even though I said I didn't want to tag along anymore. The only way I can take someone with me to relieve my boredom is if they're my lover, so I thought I'd just take a friend along and play the part, but Gemma, and I'll get her for this, said that it was suspicious because she somehow believes you and I were together. She also thinks that me going to parties more is because you dumped me and left me heartbroken." Harry sneered, "But now the only option I got is to ask you to play the part of my boyfriend and pretend you love me. Mum, dad and Gemma won't be too suspicious because they know you and like you already. And they already believe we got a history so-"

"Well, they're right about the history part, aren't they?" Louis glared at Harry. He hated it that Harry seemingly dismissed their past. Was it too much to ask him not to forget all the times they spend together privately? In their dorms, cuddling on top of a mountain of cushions while watching some sappy movie Harry chose or their rushed and heated make-out sessions when they thought no one was watching? Hell, Louis even gave up his virginity to Harry! How was that not having history together?

Instead of replying, Harry simply closed his eyes and let out a breath, "Anyway, are you in or not? It's at our vacation home in the woods, so it's not like it'll be fancy, but it's a free trip and you got nothing else to do anyway."

"What makes you say that?" Louis' eyes narrowed even more, "I have lots of plans. Great summer plans. Many."

Silence.

"You have absolutely nothing to do, right?"

"Yup."

"Wanker."

"Shithead."

"Bastard."

"Cunt."

"Such hard words, you'll hurt my feelings."

"Assuming you have those."

The two stared at each other before they busted out laughing. Somehow they reverted back to their younger selves bickering back and forth. Louis looked up through the tears that formed because of the laughter and saw something he had only admired in his memories for years; Harry's carefree laughing face. And well, if you got tempted with something that wonderful, you'd jump headfirst into something you knew would go wrong too, right? So, yes. Louis agreed to play the part of Harry's fake-boyfriend so they could go on the trip together. And yes, Louis immediately regretted it after they parted ways and he had to go and explain everything to Liam.

–--

a/n: Hi lovelies!

I've been so busy with college, but I had some time (no I didn't, I'm supposed to be studying, but I'm in the library with free internet and studying makes me want to write). So this came along! Though it's a very short thing (around 1.1k words), is this something y'all want to see a 'real' story of?

Also I've been editting the other stories, so they'll be back online in a few month when I get more done through all my family issues (really though, I'm beginning to doubt any value of the word 'family' ffs). Thanks for the patience you guys have with me x

Thanks for reading and I love all of you! x