under your bed in new york. // larry stylinson

three.

It was 7:27am when Louis was licked awake by his dog.

"Milky, no," he groaned, trying to push the puppy away from his face. "Stop it!"

Milky, being absolutely tiny, was too small to reach Louis' bed by herself, but Louis had bought a few mini staircases for her so she could get onto his bed and the couch when she wanted to. Unfortunately for Louis, however, she often used her staircase to climb onto Louis' bed and wake him up before his alarm had even rang. On this day, she was dutifully licking Louis' face and yipping, wanting to cuddle.

"C'mere, you little menace." Louis grabbed the puppy and gave her a few kisses, then cuddled her into his chest and closed his eyes again. "I still have a few minutes before I'm supposed to wake up, so shhh."

Milky obediently stopped yipping and instead snuggled into the warmth of Louis' chest, and the two spent ten more minutes in bed before Louis' alarm went off and he had to get ready for work. He made Milky's breakfast and let her eat while he got ready, chewing on a granola bar as he said goodbye, making sure he'd set up a few things so Milky could eat, drink and amuse herself while he was at work.

"Bye bye, cutie!" Louis scratched behind the puppy's ears and left before Milky could do something like look too cute and Louis would accidentally be late for work because he'd spent too much time cuddling his dog. He swung by the grocery store to buy a ready-made frozen meal that he could keep in the fridge and heat up in the office microwave - he'd sometimes go out for lunch, and very, very rarely he'd make himself a lunch to bring in the morning, but on busy days when he had a lot of work to do, he'd just get himself a store-bought meal.

He drove to work, said hello to a few colleagues, and sat down in his office. He still had a case to wrap up and a presentation to finish for the meeting, and he had a long day of work ahead of him. He'd probably be working overtime today, so he'd arranged for Niall to occasionally check up on Milky and take her on a walk since he'd be too busy.

During his lunch break, he'd microwaved his lunch and was eating in his office while he worked when Danielle knocked on the door and came in. "Hey, do you mind if I eat my lunch with you?"

"No, sit down."

Danielle sat down on the chair on the other side of Louis' desk and unwrapped her sandwich. She took a few bites, eyeing Louis with a weird look in her eye before she finally asked, "How was your date?"

Louis rolled his eyes. "I knew you wouldn't have come to eat with me in my office if you didn't have some ulterior motive."

"So how was it?" Danielle prompted.

"It was alright."

"I'm going to need more details than that. What's Lucas like?"

"Nice, I guess. Sweet. Charming."

"Did you do what I suggested? Open up a bit?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Good. Are you going to go for a second date, then?"

"I... I don't know."

"Hmm." Danielle chewed thoughtfully. "Do you not like him?"

"Of course I like him, or else I would have immediately said no to a second date," Louis said. "I just... don't know. I haven't gone on a second date for a year and a half."

"That doesn't mean anything, you know." Danielle unwrapped her second sandwich. "So, what's the deal?"

"Well." Louis twirled some pasta around his fork. "Lucas is a really great guy and we get along pretty well, I'm just not sure if I'm interested in him romantically. Maybe I could if I tried, but..."