Chapter Eighteen:
AN: It sucks, doesn’t it? I know. It sucks.
Why did I let him go?
That was all Louis’ rather muddled brain was capable of thinking as he sprinted for the foyer of the hotel with an armful of roses that viciously prickled his tanned forearms. He’d already sent the florist who had the rest of the flowers around to the front entrance and ordered him to fill Harry’s taxi with them – not only was it an adorable romantic gesture, but it’d be a good preventative measure to stop Harry from getting into the taxi; nobody wants to share a backseat with a mound of thorny plants.
He’d spent that damned fifty quid on the fastest mass delivery of roses known to man, and he was glad to see it gone. It was a symbol of his own betrayal, and he couldn’t bear to have it in his wallet, pocket or anywhere on his person anymore. Seeing it vanish into the florist’s hand as he appeared in the doorway had been the greatest relief of Louis’ life, even if he was technically now broke again.
Sprinting outside, he could see the taxi waiting by the front of the hotel, and he could see crimson petals crammed up against the windows. The engine was running but the doors were closed, and Louis couldn’t help but admire the way Harry had clearly crammed himself into the taxi despite the imminent danger of being scratched to shreds by thorns. Despite himself, he found Harry’s stubborn obstinacy kind of cute, even if it was sort of making his job harder.
The taxi could leave any second, so without any regard for anyone who might have been in his way, Louis sprinted for the vehicle with the bouquet of roses in one hand and the other hand outstretched, and he grabbed the door-handle and yanked it open with a triumphant cry.
“HA –”
Empty.
"-RRY"
About twenty roses fell onto his feet, but he could quite clearly see that Harry was not in that taxi, and he struggled to process that fact for several seconds. As soon as the horrible truth had sunk in, he found himself staggering to the front of the vehicle and tapping aggressively on the window; when the driver wound it down, he seemed almost as annoyed as Louis was distraught.
“Is this your idea of a joke, mate?” he demanded angrily. “Filling my cab with roses? You think this is funny? I’ve just had this cab cleaned; if you’re going to be filling it with stems and leaves and bits of petals, you can pay to have it cleaned!”
“Didn’t somebody order this cab?” Louis asked faintly. “Under the name of Harry Styles?”
“Wrong taxi,” sneered the driver, “Styles is being picked up on the other side of the forecourt; it came up on my radio but someone else got the shout. Now get these bloody roses out of my cab!”
Of course, Louis ignored him. He leapt away from the window, his head snapping up, and he saw the other taxi far too late as it began to pull away from the kerb on the other side of the hotel. In fact, he almost thought he saw a curly head pressed up against the window as the vehicle slowly headed out into the car park and towards the exit.
Louis gave chase.
Hollering and waving his arms, he ran after the taxi as fast as he could, faster than he ever remembered running in his life, ignoring the instant stitch that flared sharply into life against his ribcage in response to the sudden burst of speed. His feet thudded on the pavement as he ran desperately after it, shouting “Stop! Wait, please, please, no, stop, stop! You’ve got to stop!” People were staring, but as always, Louis couldn’t have cared less about that. The taxi was gathering speed and paying no attention to him yelling and running desperately after it, and still Louis ran, struggling to speed up himself. His legs ached, his ribs ached, his stomach ached, he ached, and he leapt over flowerbeds, stumbled through a decoratively placed bush, trampled some begonias and ignored the cries of outrage as he ran straight through a family of five, nearly knocking one of the children right over.
If he could make himself heard, the taxi would stop, the boy would tumble out and fall straight into his arms, and they’d have a movie-typical reunion with a musical montage while they hugged each other hard enough to break bones and sobbed onto each other’s shoulders. Sucking in a breath, Louis summoned the last bit of air he had at his disposal, snatching it into his lungs, and let it loose with a long, aching cry of “HARRY!”
He was so determined not to give up, feet pounding frantically on the pavement in the espadrilles that were totally unsuited for running, that as he watched the taxi pull out of the car park, out of the hotel gates and then turn the corner and vanish from sight, his legs couldn’t seem to stop. In fact, he kept running, as if he could still catch it even though it would have reached speeds of around thirty miles an hour now and he only managed to stop when he reached the gate and had to hold onto it and steal the support that his now wobbling legs couldn’t give him; he hadn’t run that fast since high school, and he was decidedly unfit after all this time. Groaning, he bent almost double, choked another breath and then closed his eyes in helpless defeat as he struggled to take a deep enough breath to fill his lungs again, when it felt like they’d been punctured and he would never breath again.
“Harry…”
“Louis!”
His head jerked, but it wasn’t the curly-haired boy who was calling him. The disgruntled taxi-driver with his cab full of roses had drawn up to the pavement that he was standing on, and surrounded by scarlet blossoms overflowing around him, Stan had poked his head out of the window and was waving frantically at him. Louis stared.
“Stan? What the hell are you doing?”
“Get in, loser! We’re going on a wild goose chase!” Stan dramatically threw the door open, throwing roses all over the pavement while bystanders tutted in disapproval, and Louis staggered over to the vehicle and was hauled in, thrown down on the rose-covered back seat, and then the door slammed and Stan was commanding the driver, “follow that taxi! I botched things up for you and Harry in the first place,” he explained breathlessly to Louis, “I’ll be damned if I’ll let you lose him now. I’ve never seen you get all mushy over a guy like that before now, and I doubt it’ll ever happen again, so step on it, driver! We need to catch that cab!”
“You’ll be lucky,” came the slightly less irritable reply, “guy who owns it drives like a maniac.” But the taxi accelerated, and they started picking up speed as they whooshed down the road in pursuit, Louis grabbing Stan’s arm and squeezing it hard.
“We’ll catch him,” Stan promised, “even if we have to hijack that plane.”
Louis laughed semi-hysterically. “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”
~*~
They arrived at the airport in remarkably good time, and the taxi which had brought Harry was still hovering by the entrance, having dropped him off. Louis could barely wait to hop out of their own taxi, and he bounced impatiently up and down on the balls of his feet while Stan shoved a twenty pound note into the driver’s hand.
“Thanks, mate. You were magnificent. Keep the change.”
Bearing in mind that the fare ought to have cost them a tenner at the most, the man’s eyes crinkled as he grinned. “No problem. Happy to help.” His gaze flickered to Louis. “I hope you find him,” he said seriously. “I really do.”
“If we stop hanging around talking that might be a start,” Stan said, and then he grabbed Louis by the wrist and started dragging him off towards the crowd.
They staggered through droves of people, craning their necks, calling out, and all the while Louis kept a sharp eye out for a mop of dark curly hair. Beside him, Stan was leaping manically up and down and pointing at strangers who didn’t even slightly resemble Harry, excitedly demanding “is that him? Is that? That? Is that him?”
Louis quickly realized that it would be a far better idea if he just completely ignored Stan; he didn’t even turn around when Stan pointed to the girl with the wavy pageboy bob and asked if that was Harry, he didn’t so much as blink when Stan tugged on his sleeve and pointed to a spotty curly-haired fourteen year old languidly blowing pink bubblegum bubbles by the perfume shop. But he scanned the crowd determinedly, knowing that it was all a question of knowing where to look.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the faintest idea where he was supposed to look, so he was pretty much screwed.
He was standing on his tiptoes and trying to spot Harry amongst the line of people slowly trickling through the passport checks when someone bumped into him, jostling him slightly and whacking him in the elbow with their suitcase, and he made a small, outraged noise and turned with a frown to snap at them.
“O-oh, s-s-s –” stumbling over their words, the stranger backed away wide-eyed, and Louis’ heart leapt – who else did he know who struggled to string together a two-word sentence in the presence of strangers?
The girl with the waist-length honey-blonde hair seemed embarrassed by the intensity of his disappointed gaze. Blushing, she turned and started hurrying away, and Louis deflated visibly in defeat. He buried his face in his hands.
I’ll never find him, he thought hopelessly.
Meanwhile, Stan was bouncing excitedly up and down beside him. “Is that –
Louis’ head shot up; he’d lost his patience. “No, Stan,” he snapped, “that is not –”
It was him.
Charcoal grey hoodie. Dark blue skinny jeans, dirty black Converse, and a black pull-along suitcase trailing along behind him. But it was the messy curls falling over his eyes and the familiar stooped shoulders that really made Louis completely certain, and he leapt away from Stan and shoved past the group of babbling American tourists that stood between him and –
“Harry!”
He was startled; his head shot up in surprise and he gained a distinct rabbit-in-the-headlights look, as he started backing away like he thought he’d done something awful. Louis sprinted for him without sparing a moment’s thought for how crazed he must look, and Stan huffed and puffed behind him as he struggled to keep up, less adept at manoeuvring around people and nowhere near as motivated. As he crashed through the middle of families, fell over suitcases and slipped on the wet floor whilst struggling not to trip over ‘WET FLOOR’ and ‘TRIP HAZARD’ signs, Louis was fully aware that he looked like some kind of madman, and he couldn’t have cared less.
He reached Harry quite quickly bearing in mind all of the obstacles in his way. Before Harry could do anything other than stare at him open-mouthed, Louis hurled his arms around the younger boy and pulled him against his chest, hard enough to knock the breath out of them both. Taken aback, Harry hesitated for a moment or so and then he sank into the hug with a low sigh of relief. Louis traced careful circles onto the other boy’s back, through the soft material of the hoodie, then he pulled back to look him in the eye and pressed their foreheads together.
Moments later he was crushing Harry against his chest again and there they stood, fiercely hugging each other, while Stan looked on and everyone else stared with momentary interest before turning back to what they had been doing, which would be a great relief for Harry: if anyone started staring and, as he saw it, invading this private moment that he really wanted to keep to themselves, he would absolutely hate it.
“I’m an idiot,” Louis breathed against his shoulder. “I’m a complete and total idiot.”
“I already knew that,” teased Harry; “I looked it up in the dictionary and there was a picture of you as the definition.” He dared to kiss Louis on the forehead, and Louis’ breath quickened in response.
“I know I messed up, and I should have been truthful with you from the beginning. I’ve got an awful lot of explaining to do. But please, you can’t just leave. Not now. I love you. Please…hear me out. I want you to stay.”
Harry squeezed him, hard. “I don’t want to go anywhere without you. You hurt me, Louis. It’s going to take me an awful long time to get over that, I hope you realize that.”
“I can wait. I can wait forever. Just…don’t go home, Harry.”
“I can’t keep that promise, I’m afraid.”
Louis’ heart sunk.
Harry’s hand tightened in the folds of Louis’ shirt as he whispered softly in his ear, feathery brown hair tickling his lips, “I’m already there.”
Only a miracle kept Louis from melting into a slushy pile of romantic goo at the sheer cuteness of that statement.
“One chance is all I’m asking for. Just let me explain why. And then I’ll chain you to the bed while I do it, because I can’t let you go. I can’t even think about seeing you leave, Harry.”
“You’ve got your chance. You’ve got as many chances as you want. I was about to turn around and go straight back anyway,” Harry admitted. “I’m in love with you, you know. I still hate you a little bit, but I love you.”
“I know that. I’m in love with you too.”