Louis' POV
I wake up to the sound of feet shuffling on the floor. I really, really don't want to get up, so I wait for the sounds to stop. Unfortunately, they never do. I open my eyes slowly and try to find out where the annoying noises are coming from.
"Good, you're up." A loud voice says right in my ear. I groan in response and turn away, trying to get more sleep. "No, no, no." The voice speaks again. "Up you lazy bum, we have planning to do." Planning?
"What are you talking about?" My voice is rough and deep, an affect of just waking up. I have never liked my morning voice.
I lift my head to find out who I'm talking to, and I find a perky boy staring at me, smiling. I recognize him as the boy from yesterday. Neil. No wait, I'm pretty sure its not Neil. His actual name slips my mind, so I decide calling him Neil is better than nothing. Eventually he will correct me and I'll relearn his name.
"Harry's birthday. His parents had planned a huge surprise party, invited everyone he knows, which, mind me, isn't very many people. After he told them he is gay they called that off. Now, it is up to us to plan him a party. I probably should have started sooner, but it all works out considering now I have someone to help me!" Neil says loudly, is he ever quiet?
Harry's birthday. This is brilliant! I can plan something nice and small for just us and his close friends. Something fun and special, something he will love. Except, I barely know him, so I don't know what he would like. That's ok though, I have Neil to hep me!
"Alright, when's his birthday?" I question him.
"Um...that's the problem. His birthday is tomorrow." He replies.
"What! Are you insane! That gives us..." I quickly check the alarm next to the nightstand. It reads eight twenty three A.M. " less then twenty four hours to plan the party!"
"Yeah...I know. I was planning on having Liam and Zayn help us, but I'm not sure that's a good idea anymore."
Oh yeah, Liam and Zayn. As far as I knew, Neil, Liam, and Zayn are his only friends. I don't know where he stands with Liam and Zayn at the moment, but I'm guessing it isn't good.
"Ok...well we can do this. We have twenty four hours in counting to plan the best birthday party he has ever had. Now tell me Neil, what does Harry like?"
"Have you already forgotten my name? It's Niall, not Neil." Niall laughs.
"Doesn't matter, to me your new name is Neil." I reply, laughing just as hard.
Niall laughs and brushes it off, telling me if I want to call him Neil then I can.
After sitting and talking for ten more minutes, we decide we should probably start planning. He calls in a maid and asks her to bring us a pen and paper. Less then two minutes later, she's back.
---
"I give up Neil! Harry will live without a party for one year." I groan, we have been at this for over an hour and the only thing we have written down is balloons. After an hour, we only have one idea, and it's not even in idea, it's a given that you have balloons at a party.
"No! We have to have a party for him, he's turning eighteen, he needs a party." He exclaims.
"Sure, eighteen is a pretty big birthday, but we have no ideas! I don't get why we can't just give him a cake and move on?" I'm already tired of planning, I just want it to be over.
"Oh my god! We need to get him a cake!" Niall yells, right in my ear. I groan again and Niall just rolls his eyes at me. "Lou, this is his first birthday with you! It needs to be special, it needs to be romantic, fun, and sparkly!" He gasps dramatically, "We need to have sparkles!"
"Does he even like sparkles?" Im growing more and more skeptical of this birthday thing by the minute.
"Everyone loves sparkles, who doesn't love sparkles?" Looking him dead in the eye, I point to myself and whisper, "Me." Niall gasps and gives me a glare that could kill. I take it he really likes sparkles.
"Please, please, please, pleaseeee can we have sparkles?" I sigh and tell him yes, but if I get glitter or anything on me he will pay.
I look down at the note pad he's writing on, and when he's done he turns it for me to read.
-Balloons
-Sparkles
-Lights
-Flowers
-Cake
"We should have butterflies that fly out when he walks outside, and tables where the center pieces are covered in flowers and all the butterflies land on them then get up at the same time and fly away!" Niall yells.
"Niall please. How could we possibly get butterfly's on such short notice?"
---
As it turns out, Niall has a butterfly man's number saved on his phone. Why? I don't know. The kid seems to really like butterflies. He tell's the man that we will need 150 butterflies. How does someone even get 150 butterflies? After Niall gets off the phone, he alerts that they will be here tomorrow morning at eight, two hours before the party starts.
We decide to have it in the garden, since we all seem to enjoy the outdoors, and we don't want butterflies all over the palace.
"Alright, only one thing left to do." Niall says after we finish setting everything up in the garden. "We have to bake his cake."
Bake his cake? Like, us, in the kitchen, making his cake. No, no, no. I don't bake.
"Erm...I don't bake. At all. So unless you want to burn the place down, I suggest you do it without me."
"Fine, but you have to come down to the kitchen with me. It's late and I hate being down there alone." I agree and Niall leads us down a complicated path to the kitchen.
"Why is it so difficult to get here?" You would think the place where they make the food is easy to get to.
"I don't know, never bothered to ask." He replies. "Aha! Here we are."
He swings open a large doors and I gasp. The kitchens are huge. When I say huge, I mean huge. It easily is the size of half an American football field. At first glance, I see a total of six giant ovens. They sit in the middle of the big room settled inside a kitchen island. There is also one of those old fashioned ovens, the kind some pizza places use to cook their food. One half of the room is covered in counters and cabinets, I assume there's where they make the food. Sitting on the counters is everything you could ever think of to use for cooking. Mixers, blenders, and a group of fancy pans cover some spaces. Other counters are completely empty, they don't have anything on them. Hanging above some of the counters is holders, they have all the knifes, silverware, and pots. The other half of the room is very different. It is covered in sinks. I count seven in total. There is also half a dozen dishwashers under them. Near the sink is a giant area covered in lots of towels. In the back of the room is an elevator door that I assume leads upstairs.
Niall turns to me grinning.
"Come on, we have to get everything out."
He leads me to a door that I didn't even see and pulls it open. Inside is the biggest pantry I have ever seen. It must have every kind of food in it. He walks around grabbing things until he look satisfied with all the items in his hands. He turns and walks back to the counters where he carefully lays out each ingredient. Then, he stops and just stands still.
"Erm...Niall? Whatcha' doing?" I say, poking his shoulder. He snaps out of whatever trance he was in and turns to me.
"Sorry, I was trying to figure out what else we would need for this recipe." He mumbles.
I nod and turn away. He goes over to the biggest cabinets and pulls them open. Inside is a huge fridge. He grabs a handful of things out of there and attempts to carry them all back. He ends up dropping an egg on the floor and making a huge mess.
"I'll call a maid." I sigh.
"What? No. I can just wipe it up, there's no need to have a maid come for every little mess." He snaps.
My eyes widen and I turn away saying a short ok. He grabs some towels and wipes up the mess, throwing the dirty towels in a bin.
After he gets all the ingredients, he points to all the pots he will need and makes me get them. They are high up, so I end up needing a step stool to reach, which makes Niall laugh.
"Ha! You're short!" He yells through his laughs.
"Give me a break, I'm big!" I shoot him a glare. He stops laughing and starts mixing ingredients in the pots and bowls I hand him.
"How do you know how to do all of this?" I ask him. I assume he is one of the chefs who work here, since he knows where everything is.
"Oh, yeah, I'm the head chef here." He says.
"Makes sense," I reply. "What kind of cake are you making?"
"Well, Harry is a very picky person. He claims he wants to go vegan, but we all know that isn't happening. That said, he isn't particularly fond of sweets. If it's to sweet, he wont eat it, but if it isn't sweet enough, he also wont eat it. Obviously, it's hard to fix his desserts everyday. Thats not the point. I'm making a two tier chocolate strawberry cake with buttercream frosting and a creamy inside."
"So a chocolate cake?"
"Well its a bit more complicated than that!"
"It's a chocolate cake."
"Fine, yes, I'm making a chocolate cake."
I roll my eyes at him as he continues to put everything into the bowls and mix them together.
Less than an hour later, he is pouring the batter into the pans and doing a bunch of stuff I don't understand to them. He puts his pans in the oven. Somehow he ended up having six pans of batter for a two tier cake.
"Why so many pans?"
"Ugh, the audacity." He says under his breath. "Well, its a two tier cake, which means it needs two seperate cakes to put on top of each other. Each cake needs two layers, therefore we have multiple pans. As for the two tiny pans, that's for us. Im hungry."
He begins mixing other stuff in a bowl. When I ask him what it is, he tells me that its the strawberry cream for the middle.
Forty minutes later he pulls the cakes out of the oven and puts them into the fridge. He claims he's letting them "cool," whatever that means.
Finally, he pulls them out of the fridge and starts putting them together. He puts a layer of strawberry cream in between each layer, then put the leftovers on the out side of the cake. He takes some chocolate frosting and covers the cake in it. Then, he takes some strawberry and puts them on the edges after he drizzles them in chocolate. It looks amazing.
"Tada!" He shouts. Then he reaches behind him and pull out the tiny cake. It's not big at all, maybe the size of my hand. It looks like one of those tester cakes. He pulls out two forks and hands one to me, then tells me to dig in.
I eat a bite and moan at the taste. It is so good. Niall did an amazing job, I can't wait for Harry to try this.
We finish our tiny cake and put the big one in the freezer. We say goodnight and head back up to our rooms. After getting lost a couple times, I finally make it there. I make sure to set an alarm for seven so me and Niall could finish prepping everything, then I go to bed.