"I only am interested in you as a friend and I begged Niall to set this up just so I could get closer to your roommate."
Louis stares, and then slowly lowers himself into a chair. He hasn't even opened his mouth yet and this is already the worst blind date he's ever been on (and that's saying something.)
"I take it you're Liam?" he says, reaching out for the glass of icy water in front of him and taking a few steadying gulps. (He kind of wishes it was something stronger.)
The man in front of him nods. He has thick eyebrows that seem to be permanently slanted in a kind of perpetual expression of concern, and his hair is shaved close to his square-shaped skull. He's reasonably attractive, his clingy button-down reveals the outline of his abs, and he's friend zoned Louis without ever speaking to him. "Liam Payne."
"So," continues Louis after an excruciatingly awkward pause in which Liam studiously pores over the menu (which he doesn't seem to realize is open to the kid's section.) "You...like Zayn."
Liam's face lights up, and he- Louis swears to God- pulls out a goddamned ballpoint pen from his inside jacket pocket and proceeds to jot down something on the legal pad Louis hadn't noticed was spread open next to the menu. "Zayn."
Louis stares at him. "Are you- are you taking notes on him?"
Liam stares up at him, all sincerity and eyebrows. "I want to get this stuff right."
This is too good. This is too good. Louis just barely restrains himself from cackling and leans over the table a little to glance at Liam's notepad. "That's very nice and all, Liam, but it's a y, not an i."
Liam beams like Louis has offered him a wonderful gift and corrects the mistake with a flourish.
Their waitress stops by the table, flips her blonde hair over her shoulder, and smiles down at them. "Y'all ready to order?"
"Sure," says Louis, and passes her back the menu without looking at it. "I'll take a bottle of wine and a slice of cake. I don't care what cake. Just give me cake."
She blinks once, and then slowly takes the menu. "Sure. And you'll have?"
"I'll take the Rootin' Tootin' Spaghetti Bowl, please," says Liam with a perfectly straight face.
The waitress gives him an indulgent smile. "Alright, then. It'll be comin' right up, gentlemen."
"It says 12 and under," says Louis in disbelief, once the waitress is out of earshot.
Liam shrugs. "I like the Kids Menu. It has reasonable portions."
It's probably a good thing that Liam is only here for Zayn, because Louis thinks that if this were an actual date he probably would have either faked an emergency call and disappeared or given Liam an aggressive under-the-table handjob just to shut him up. Louis considers telling him as much, but he doubts it would faze him.
"How did you even know Zayn, anyway?"
"I don't," says Liam, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "That's what this is for."
"How did you...find out about him, then?"
Liam shrugs. "The hot guy in all of Niall's Facebook photos."
Fair enough. "And why, may I ask, didn't you get Niall to set you up on a blind date with Zayn instead of me?"
Liam looks utterly horrified. "I couldn't do that! What if I totally messed it up? I couldn't just go in without knowing anything!"
"Seven and a half."
"What?"
"Inches."
It takes Liam a moment, and when he finally gets it it's absolutely terrifying how quickly his expression morphs from confusion to shock to pure unadulterated glee. When he clicks open his pen to start writing again, his hands are actually jittery with excitement.
Louis watches him and thinks, this is not going to end well.
"Honey, I'm home!" Louis peels off his jacket, and his trousers for good measure (he'd been wearing his skinniest pair of skinny jeans, the ones that crushed his balls to within an inch of their lives, just in case his blind date led to him getting laid. If only.)
There's no answer except an outburst of laughing from the kitchen. Louis frowns and pads over.
There are two people in his kitchen. Neither of them are Zayn.
"Hello, Niall," says Louis. "Hello, fire guy. What are you doing in my apartment?" He's not wearing trousers, but that could prove to be a blessing in disguise, because he's wearing his good black briefs tonight, the ones that make his arse look spectacular (not that his arse ever doesn't look spectacular) (there's no point in being modest about it, really.)
Niall ignores his question in favor of leaning on the counter and wriggling his eyebrows suggestively. "How'd your blind date go?"
Louis scoffs and bumps him out of the way so he can rummage through the cabinets for something edible. "Did you know you set me up with a Zayn fangirl?"
Niall shrugs, bites into the apple that Louis would have sworn he wasn't holding five seconds ago. "Yeah?"
"You went on a blind date?" Harry speaks up for the first time. Unlike when Louis last saw him two days ago, he is both fully clothed and not sweaty. He cleans up well, for sure. (Although it was probably purposeful, the way the scoop of his t-shirt just barely showed the tips of the sparrow's wings. There was no way that was an accident.) "Also, you're not wearing trousers."
"Yeah, I did, and no, I'm not." Louis gives up and closes the cabinet. "No need to get jealous, fire boy. He just wanted me for my Zayn. Which Niall apparently knew about-"
"Oh, c'mon, mate. He was hilarious."
"He took notes."
"Pretty fit, though, wasn't he?"
"He took notes."
"It'll be good for Zayn. He needs a nice, dumb, pretty boy. Those tattooed ex-gang members are going to wreck him eventually. I was being a good friend."
"Not to me, you weren't. I feel used, Niall. Why doesn't anybody go through elaborate plans to stalk me?"
"Aww, I'm sure you have stalkers somewhere, Lou," says Niall comfortingly. (Harry doesn't immediately jump to Louis' defense, but then again his gaze is fixed unwaveringly to where Louis' trousers aren't. Louis will pass it off as understandable distraction.)
"That's very sweet and all, Ni, but why are you here? How do you even know Harry?"
"Oh, me and Harry are tight, man. Met at ceramics the other day." Niall fist bumps Harry, who returns the knuckle touch while all the while smirking at Louis. "I was just giving him a tour."
Louis doesn't even bother trying to process that tattooed fire-setting eyeliner-wearing Harry Styles is into ceramics. "You know this isn't actually your apartment, right?"
"Yeah, but you have more food than I do."
"Fair enough." Louis sighs. "Want me to put a movie in?"
And that's how the three of them end up on the couch, watching Titanic ("one of the best films of all time," says Harry earnestly, and Louis thinks who even are you.) Because Louis has always been a firm believer in lack of personal space, he immediately sprawls himself across the two boys before the opening credits are even over, his knees curled into Niall's gut, his head in Harry's lap. Harry's hand immediately comes down to stroke his hair, and it should feel weird and overly personal but instead it feels pretty nice, so Louis just closes his eyes and hums contentedly.
"Is that a box of matches in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
"Hmm? Oh. It's matches."
Louis pats sleepily at his leg. "Are they our matches?"
He can feel Harry shrug. "Maybe?"
"Christ, I've only met you twice and you're already stealing from me."
"Shut up," hisses Niall from the other end of the couch, and then lets out a poorly stifled sob and Kate Winslet lets Leonardo DiCaprio sink into the depths of the Atlantic. (A shame, that was. 1997 DiCaprio had played a big factor in Louis figuring out his sexuality.)
He isn't aware he's drifted off until his head drops down to the couch. He yawns, rubs at his eyes with curled fists like a child, and looks blearily upwards to see Harry pulling on his coat. The spot at the end of the couch is vacated.
"Whereayagoin?" mumbles Louis.
Harry glances down at his phone, and Louis sees the green of a text up on the screen. "Duty calls. I must be off."
Louis wonders what duty is. It probably involves fire. "Where's Niall?"
"Went home. It's one in the morning, and we all have work tomorrow. Zayn's back, by the way, said to tell you hi and also 'fuck you'. Not sure why."
Louis hopes he's gotten the first couple texts from Liam. "Okay. G'night, Harry. Try not the set the whole building on fire."
"No promises," says Harry, and pats him on the head before leaving.
Louis stares up at the ceiling and sighs. "Head pats are so platonic," he tells the plaster sadly. "Why does everyone like me as a friend?"
The plaster doesn't answer, but Louis is fairly sure that if it somehow magically gained the power of speech the very first thing it would do would be to in no uncertain terms friend-zone him.