Poor Little Rich Boy - Larry Stylinson.
Louis’ dare is simple: to find some sad little rich kid stupid enough to fall in love with him, and win him over by the end of the holiday. In every figurative sense. It’s a challenge that Louis is completely confident he can carry out. So when the perfect, pretty little Harry Styles crosses his path with a seemingly endless bank balance and a head full of romanticism, it looks like Louis has found his idiot.
Chapter One:
The sun was warm, but not unusually so. There were a couple of clouds floating lethargically above the square. People milled about, bumping into each other and shooting each other nasty looks, waving at old friends, having conversations at a volume which was deemed necessary because of the masses of people all gathered in one place, and the hubbub which made it hard to have a chat at normal volume. And very few people noticed the attractive young lad with the feathery caramel hair and the pleasant voice, who was making his way through the crowd like he was used to it while his friend, a young man of a similar age who seemed constantly on the verge of a smile and whose cheeks were almost always pink with enthusiasm, trailed slightly behind, like he couldn’t quite keep up.
As crowds went, this was a large one; close to a thousand people crammed together in the centre of Doncaster, churning and babbling as friends talked to friends and people socialized and every unfamiliar face blended into the next and little attention was paid to them. Louis expertly slipped through the masses, inserting a charming “excuse me” or a sweet “I’m sorry!” every now and then, easily negotiating his way through the crowd with Stan clinging to his sleeve so as not to be left behind. They had little interest in the festivities, but rumour had it that there would be alcohol there, and since when had Louis ever refused alcohol of any sort? It would be rude, he decided, to not show up when there was booze being passed from hand to hand at a discount price. Luckily, Stan agreed with him. But then again, Stan usually did.
“It’s mad around here,” Stan panted. “Absolutely bloody bonkers!”
“My kind of place,” Louis called back to him, and he neatly dodged a woman with two whining toddlers while Stan was left struggling to edge around them without getting himself into trouble.
There were old people mumbling disapprovingly to each other, and a couple who were still young enough at heart to be having fun. Louis kept a constant stream of glances towards his ankles to make sure he wouldn’t step on any of the little toddlers running around, even though he was almost completely certain that he would hear them weeks before he saw them, what with the amount of noise they were making. Some of the people there were his age; some of them he knew, and these he awarded a sociable wave because Louis was friendly to everyone, and he would have waved to someone he’d only met once in his life, just to be nice.
He wasn’t sure of the exact nature of this particular charity event, only that it was a big one, and the big prize that everyone wanted was apparently an excellent one. That was about as far as his inquiries went; raffles and games and the like held little interest to him. Louis wasn’t the type to buy an entire book of raffle tickets just on the off-chance of winning a prize he’d probably hate. In fact, his motives for being there in the first place were simple; discounted alcohol. Louis wasn’t an alcoholic, but he was definitely hovering dangerously closely to the borderline.
According to Stan, Niall and Hannah were waiting on the other side of the square beside the alcohol coolers, ready to start insistently demanding as much alcohol as they could afford to buy and probably begging for a whole lot more to be put on the side so that Louis and Stan could buy even more once they arrived. Zayn was keeping an eye out for disapproving parents who could bob up at inopportune moments, such as while the other four were attempting to smuggle a dangerous amount of booze out of the town centre without being spotted. Louis had a reasonably loose leash, but Niall’s parents often worried about him (not his fault, poor kid; he had one of those cute faces that you couldn’t help but be concerned for) and Zayn’s mother would have been horrified if she knew what he got up to most nights. They were all rebelling, basically. It made things more fun, anyway.
Louis kept a watchful eye out as he cut smoothly through the crowd, clearing the way for a huffing, panting Stan who was shuffling behind him in a state of near exhaustion. Across the street, he caught sight of a tall boy with soft brown eyes and black hair that he loved, and they exchanged curt nods before turning away. If any parents were to turn up, everyone would be looking to distance themselves from Louis – Stan excepted of course; his mother had fallen prey to the Tomlinson charisma years ago – because very few people approved of him. Not that Louis was surprised. Most of them preferred to blame Louis for sudden outbursts of rebellious behaviour from their kids, and it wasn’t something he discouraged. It made the local kids respect him a little, and he felt that respect made him safer. If they respected him, they were less likely to punch him.
As he rushed past another stall – some kind of table bedecked in achingly bright streamers and dripping with balloons and ribbons – he felt someone grab at his arm, snag his shirt by the sleeve, and Louis jerked to a stop with a low cry of surprise. Hot on his heels, Stan ran straight into him, stumbled, and nearly fell backwards and landed right on his backside. Louis neatly caught him with his free hand, then turned his attentions to the person who had grabbed him so quickly.
Auburn hair pinned neatly on top of her head with an assortment of pins poking out so that she slightly resembled a porcupine. Thickly outlined eyes which were dangerously close to giving her the appearance of a racoon. An assortment of cinnamon coloured freckles dancing on the bridge of her nose. Louis paused and examined her for a while, taking her in.
He wasn’t particularly interested in her, but then, his interest in women had always waned rather quickly from the moment the initial interest faded. She was blandly pretty; nothing special, but plenty of guys would be happy to have her. He wondered if it was worth the effort of flirting with her, for the practice if nothing else. Certainly, she was planning to make an advance; her chest was being promptly pushed out and she stood up a little straighter with her lips curving into a well-rehearsed smile. Louis regarded her with interest; she was getting ready to flirt, but he wasn’t sure whether or not she would be any good at it. It would be amusing to see, in any case – so he returned her smile and tilted his head backwards a little bit.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes!” she said eagerly, quickly tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “Yes, you most certainly can. Can you spare a moment?”
Oh. She was one of those. He’d mistaken her appraising glance for flirtation – really, she was going to attempt to coerce him into buying a product he neither wanted or needed. Immediately beginning to back off, Louis started with an extremely earnest-sounding and believable “Well actually, Stan really needed to find the –”
The girl wasn’t going to be put off that easily. “It won’t take a moment!” she insisted determinedly, tugging him closer to her table.
“Louis!” Stan hissed, “what are you doing?”
He shrugged helplessly, finding himself completely at the mercy of the redheaded girl, who had frogmarched him over to an enormous glass jar filled with pale blue raffle tickets that had black numbers printed starkly on them. Proudly gesturing at the jar, she let go of him and took a seat immediately behind it – then shook it vigorously underneath his nose.
“Pick a ticket,” she said grandly, “and you could win a fabulous prize!”
“Right,” Louis said. He scratched his nose. He looked doubtfully down at the jar full of paper slips. “What’s this prize, then?”
“Oh, it’s absolutely brilliant,” she assured him.
“What is it?”
“You’ll love it, trust me. Everyone wants to win. This is the kind of prize that absolutely everybody wants, no matter who they are. This is the prize to end all prizes!”
“Yeah, but…what is it?”
“It’s absolutely brilliant,” she repeated brightly, violently shaking the enormous jar so that the tickets were wildly jostled around. “We were ever so lucky to get it. There were some very generous sponsors this year!”
“What is it, though?”
The girl had gone off on a tangent; he’d lost her. “It’s an excellent charity case,” she assured him earnestly; “it’s the best prize ever! I bought twelve tickets, I’m so desperate to win! Oh, trust me, you’ll absolutely love it! Go on, pick a ticket – you won’t regret it!” She aggressively brandished the jar right underneath Louis’ nose.
“Right, fine!” Louis snapped impatiently, plunging one hand in almost up to the elbow. Quickly withdrawing a ticket, he dropped several coins into the palm of her hand, shoved the jar back at her and then thrust the ticket into his pocket without looking at it. “Thanks. Bye!” Turning around, he grabbed Stan’s arm and hauled him off into the crowd.
“Wait!” called the girl. “I didn’t tell you what the prize is yet!”
But Louis had already vanished into the crowd, and he didn’t hear her faintly irritating voice calling after him.
They found Hannah by the liquor stall, looking around for them and critically checking every single bottle to work out which one she wanted, and which ones were actually within a reasonable proximity to her budget. Her long nails tapped on the bottles as she ran her fingers over them, like she could taste the wine through the cool glass.
With an enormous, goofy smile unfurling across his face like a flag, Louis announced his arrival by yelling “All right, tossers, what’s occurring?!” at the top of his lungs, and causing everyone within a hundred metre radius to flinch at the assault on her ears. Everyone, of course, except for the blonde girl he had directed his yell towards.
“About time!” Hannah yelled, and Louis grinned as he pushed past an obese, sweaty, glaring man, who had been hovering around eyeing both Hannah and the bottles in equal measure. Louis grabbed her by the arms and kissed her jokingly on both cheeks.
“Ah, Hannah. Lovely as ever. Now –” he clapped his hand briskly together “ – did you manage to get the goods?”
“Working on it,” she promised, “Niall’s putting that pretty little face of his to some use and trying to haggle, but I don’t know if it’s doing any good.”
Louis nodded and banged Hannah cheerfully on the back in a matey way. They’d dated briefly a couple of years ago (well, Louis called it briefly; most people argued that eight months was hardly brief, but it had flown by in a heartbeat) until they’d chosen to split over their differences, which mainly involved Louis’ inordinate interest in anything that was male and had either a pulse or a nice backside – but they were still mates, and good ones at that; his friendship with Hannah could only be rivalled by his friendship with Stan. Or his relationship with alcohol. Still, he was comfortable enough with her to be able to treat her like one of the guys, which was what Hannah liked – she liked her nail-polish and eyeliner, but she also liked the opportunity of being able to replenish them on a regular basis, whenever her rough play-fighting with the guys got her into a mess. She was great.
“Whoa, man!” Niall protested loudly, “you’re joking! That’s never a fair price; never ever!”
That was Louis’ cue – he edged past Hannah and started bounding towards where Niall stood, hotly arguing with the man on the stall who was refusing to lower his prices for anything. As he turned to begin backing Niall up, a clear, amplified voice rolled across the busy square, bouncing off the walls.
“All right, we’re announcing the winner of the charity raffle right here and now, ladies and gentlemen!”
“Um…Lou?” Stan poked him on the elbow. “Lou, didn’t you enter that?”
“Hmm? Give me a sec, I’m busy.” Louis didn’t even take his eyes off the man on the stall as he distractedly waved Stan away.
“But Lou, you entered that raffle! Don’t you want to see if you won?”
He never really expected to win. Louis was not the kind of man who thrived on gambling, who waited for the wheel of fortune to spin his way, and grumbled when it didn’t. He gave very little to life and expected little of it in return. But it was a charity raffle, and okay, so he didn’t give to life, but he did give to charity, especially when the girl selling raffle tickets happened to be quite so hot (because she was, really, now he’d gotten away from her slightly irritating voice and equally irritating enthusiasm). So he had his ticket crumpled up in his hand, almost forgotten, if he hadn’t been able to feel it within his grasp – and he couldn’t be bothered checking it.
“You look,” he ordered, dumping the crumpled ticket into Stan’s hand. He turned back to the stall. “Now, about this tequila…”
Overhead, a smooth voice was rattling off a well-rehearsed speech. “And we have a winner! Can the holder of ticket number nine thousand one hundred and sixty-five please come and collect their prize?”
“Louis…”
“Okay, so here’s the deal; I give you nineteen quid for these two bottles of tequila and –”
“Louis.”
“Shut up, Stan! – and then you throw in that vodka and some cranberry juice, and I’ll give you another twenty to round it off and –”
“Louis!” Grabbing hold of his arm, Stan cut off Louis’ frenzied bargaining. Turning around, Louis glowered at the interruption, but before he could get properly annoyed, Stan said “You won, Louis!”
That piece of news caused Louis to blink. “Huh?”
“You won!”
Stan thrust the ticket into his hand, and Louis found himself staring at a small blue rectangle of paper with a set of thick black numbers printed on it. His eyes struggled to focus on the numbers at first, but after a lot more blinking and a deep, furrowed frown, and then he managed to focus on the numbers that had been swimming dizzyingly in front of his eyes. 9165.
“I’ll say that again; can ticket holder nine thousand one hundred and sixty-five please come to collect their prize – a luxury, all expenses paid holiday for five to a state of the art resort!”
It took a few moments to sink in; the idea that Louis had just won a free holiday – a free holiday for five, so that his best friends could come too, and he kept looking stupidly at the creased bit of paper in his hand. Stan was gripping his elbow very hard, face lit up. Taking a couple of very deep breaths, Louis looked up, and they both grinned at each other…and then they started laughing. Laughing giddily and unrestrainedly, laughing because he’d been so lucky and it was all absolutely insane and people from Doncaster didn’t win fantastic holidays for five.
His stomach and chest hurt before all too long, but still Louis choked on his laughter, almost bent double with the force of the laughter that still shook his lanky frame, completely and totally stunned by the idea that he’d just snatched up a ticket and left, and he’d won. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to stop laughing just at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, and behind him he heard Niall and Hannah join in and start crashing around behind him in their own approximation of a victory dance (because of course they knew that he was going to take them with him), while beside him Stan was just standing in shock and occasionally letting out the odd breathless giggle. Louis grabbed him by the arms and they started leaping around in a manic circle, laughing at each other so hard that it hurt – and then Louis stopped dead with the kind of grin which in the past Stan would have been terrified of; the kind of grin that said Louis had some kind of plan forming in that mad head of his, and Stan had no idea whether or not he was going to like it, but he would be there every step of the way anyway, because he was Louis’ best friends and it wasn’t as if Louis was going to give him a choice in the matter.
“Right,” Louis said gleefully, turning to his friends and clapping his hands together, as if applauding his own good fortune. “Here’s the deal, tossers. You buy the booze, and I’ll give you a free holiday. No parents, no supervision, no rules – except legal ones, we’re not doing anything illegal. I have little sisters who look up to me; I’m a role model.”
Niall snorted. “You! A role model?” But he shook his head in mild amusement and turned back to the stall, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. Despite his complete lack of faith in Louis’ ability to be responsible in any way, he wasn’t going to turn down a holiday! Especially if all it was going to cost him would be keeping Louis full of alcohol and high spirits for the whole thing and there were going to be four other people chipping in.
Turning away, Louis started cutting through the crowd, wisely choosing not to wave the ticket and shout in case someone snatched it out of his hand. It didn’t take him very long to weave through the masses; no one was walking around anymore anyway; they were all craning their necks to try and accost the raffle ticket holder to give up his holiday. Nobody suspected Louis, quiet as he was.
He approached the redheaded girl, who sat at her little table with an enormous grin fixed on her face, scanning the crowd for the winner. It was her job to look enthusiastic, but really her expression was self-sufferance bordering on complete, unrestrained boredom. A long, slender shadow fell across her face and the table, and her pale forehead puckered as Louis stood right in front of her, blocking her line of sight – and then he proudly slammed the ticket down in front of her, so hard that the whole table shook.
“Did I win something?” he asked innocently.