Young & Beautiful

Drunk enough to call Harry.
He picks up on the third ring.
“Yes?” Harry’s voice calmly answers, and the sound is startling and pleasant, thrumming in
Louis’ air passageways and arteries. His voice is even deeper over the phone.
He can’t help but chuckle at the greeting, rolling his eyes to the dark ceiling of his bedroom.
“Is that how you greet all your mates? Or is it just me?” he slurs teasingly.
“I treat everyone equally, Louis Tomlinson.”
Louis rolls his eyes once more. It makes him dizzy. He burps and his mouth tastes like tequila.
“Sure. Anyway. Happy new year!” he cheers happily.
He can hear Harry’s smirk. "A bit too much to drink?”
“What? Nah. Was thirsty, that’s all.”
“Well, then you chose an appropriate day to be thirsty,” Harry says, and his voice is so, so far
away, isn’t it? But Louis can still imagine his face, his hair, his eyes. The way his lips form the
words.
Too much tequila.
“And how did you spend your evening, Curly?” he asks, silencing his thoughts.
He hears a deep sigh. “My father threw a party at our house.” The words are heavy.
“You didn’t go to Zayn’s?” Louis asks, taken aback. A strange sort of relief floods him at the
thought that Harry wasn’t there either. That he didn’t…miss anything.
“No. I couldn’t.” He sighs. “It got a bit out of hand, though. Dad…really shouldn’t do things like
that.”
Louis snorts. “To put it lightly,” he says, alcohol having ripped away his filter.
“Yeah,” Harry says softly before he quiets, and Louis begins to wonder if he’s made him sad,
when suddenly he begins speaking again. “Anyway, he needed to go to bed. So I made everyone
leave.”
Louis’ eyebrows rise. “You kicked everybody out? A bunch of batshit crazy popstars and
socialites? You were the one who had to ask them all to leave?” The words shock him as he
imagines Harry—lone, little, tired Harry—ushering piles of rowdy, beautiful people out of the
huge, dark doors of his mansion. He furrows his brow. “Weren’t you off your tit as well?”
“Course not. Wasn’t in the mood. Besides, I needed to care for my father. It was a bit of a…high
risk situation. He needed to be watched.”
Louis nods, feeling a barren sort of melancholy settle inside of him. Harry. Poor Harry.
He misses Harry.
“Not such a happy new year, then,” he says glumly. Burps again. Or was that technically a