C H A P T E R    E I G H T

Napkins and Nerves

❄●❄

                   LOUIS SHOOK HIS head like a dog before going inside. He knew Molly was working tonight and she was a perceptive little thing. The last thing he wanted was for her to know that something was wrong. Not that she'd pry, probably, but he couldn't be too cautious.

                   It didn't seem to matter. As soon as the little bell that signaled his arrival rang out, Molly's eyes widened at the sight of him, her mouth forming a small 'o' shape. After that expression dissolved, she looked sort of pissed, which was...unexpected.

                   Was it closing time already? He checked his watch. Nope. He still had an hour to cool off before returning home, where Lottie was surely going mad. He hoped she wasn't too worried. He was, after all, a grown-ass man even if he didn't act like it sometimes and he was allowed to be out as late as he wanted to be, goddamnit.

                   "Louis," Molly hissed as he approached the counter.

                   There was garbage at his feet that he made a mental note to pick up for her before going to sit down, but for now he made sure not to step on it. "Molly," he mimicked her. "What did I do?"

                  "Where the hell have you been? Your sister was here a little while ago looking for you. She's – "

                  "Terrified?" Louis sighed. Typical Lottie.

                  "No, she's pissed. She's going to tear your head off the next time you're within arms' length."

                  He didn't necessarily expect his sister to actually wander the streets looking for him, but now that it's apparently happened, he's slightly annoyed. What was she doing out alone so late? He'd have to have a word with her about that. It's not that this part of London was very dangerous, but you never know.

                  Louis knew this was all his fault. He hoped Lottie was back at his flat waiting for him. He'd give her a call as soon as he assured Molly that all was well.

                  "Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it then, yes? The usual, please, love," he said, shrugging nonchalantly.

                  This seemed to annoy Molly further, but without a word she went to work making his drink. When it was finished, she slid it across the counter and looked sternly at him until he met her gaze.

                  "At least call her."

                  "I'm going to," Louis frowned. "Thank you for the tea."

                  He didn't like to shut down like this to acquaintance-friends like Molly who never got to see any other side of him apart from his gentle, friendly, people-person front, but he really wasn't in the mood to discuss his personal problems with her right now. He paid her for his tea and then bent to pick up the litter by his feet.

                  On his way to the trash cans, he realized there were words written all over the napkins. Curious, he unfolded one of them with the thumb and index finger of his free hand, squinting at the blotchy scrawl.

I'm entirely convinced that

Like lightning and love songs

And peppermint hot cocoa

Your eyes pierce me in ways

My body is not

Accustomed to

                  Was this poetry? Louis stopped walking and set his cup of tea down on a table near where he stood. He read over that napkin again before tucking it behind the others and attempting to make out what was written on this one.

Your edges are fire

Your curves a tidal wave

I'm carbon dioxide and

Expensive parchment

And you're going to ruin me

You exhale like icicles

I melt you with my tongue

You're lethal and lithe

A flicker of the Big Bang

And you're going to ruin me

                  Louis turned it over, desperate for more, holding his breath without even realizing it. His eyes assaulted this shitty napkin until he found another stanza scribbled along the edges like the mystery author was too engulfed in his work to be bothered to simply grab another napkin for the end.

I bet your whimpers

Are symphonies

And

                  Wait, had he read that correctly? He squinted even more, bringing the napkin closer to his face. But there was no more writing. Obviously the author had run out of room, but...how did it end? Did it just repeat the final line of the first two stanzas again or was there more?

                  "Shit," Louis breathed aloud, unable to help himself. He felt all tingly and sort of embarrassed, like he was witnessing a private confession that he shouldn't be. Self-consciously, he looked around, but the only other person there was Molly and she was somewhere in the back. Once he knew he was in the clear, he read the last stanza again, this time out loud.

                  "I bet your whimpers are symphonies, and..." He pursed his lips. "And...you're going to ruin me." It sounded right, of course. The perfect ending to a surprisingly breathtaking poem, and yet he couldn't help but wonder if he had it wrong. And if he did, what could it be? How would he ever find out?

                  "Hey, Molly?" he called out, figuring it couldn't hurt to ask.

                  "Yeah?" she answered, appearing behind the counter again.

                  "Do you know what these are? These, um, poems, I think?" He held them up so that she could see what he was talking about, but he already felt foolish. How would she know?

                  "Oh, they're poems?" she asked. "I recognize them, but I didn't know what he's been writing on them."

                  "Who?"

                  At this, she smiled the same fond smile she gave Louis whenever he'd give her a witty comeback or an amusing one-liner. "A new regular. Started coming here a couple days ago. He comes in around the same time you usually do, actually; gets himself a peppermint hot chocolate, which isn't on the menu. I make it for him anyway. Um, yeah, and then he sits in that booth right there by the door and just...writes on napkins. For hours sometimes."

                  How has Louis never noticed this guy, then? That seems like an odd enough sight. Was Louis really that unperceptive? What does he even have on his mind every night when he comes in here that he failed to recognize a face that's been here the same time he has been for the last few nights?

                  "Huh. Suppose he must be missing these. You think?" Louis wondered, sticking the one unfinished poem into his pocket and looking through the other ones.

                  "Most likely. It looks like he works really hard on them. He gets this really cute look on his face when he's focused."

                  Without missing a beat, Louis raised a brow and peeked over at the girl. "Someone's got a bit of a crush, yeah?"

                  Her face reddened almost instantly. "What? No! I was just saying, he's sort of cute. Doesn't mean I have a crush. He's probably too old for me. Looks more like your age than mine."

                  "Hey," he teased. "I'm not old. I'm vintage."

                  Molly rolled her eyes, beginning to retreat to the back again. "Whatever. Finish your tea so that I can wash your mug and kick you out."

                  Louis grinned for the first time that day. "I'll be gone before you know it."

                  "Call your sister!"

                  Oh yeah. "I will, I will."

❄●❄

                  LOUIS HAD A love-hate relationship with Zayn. The lad keeps him sane, but God, lately everything about him drove Louis mad. Although this was happening with a lot of people that he could usually tolerate. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

                  "You should've just told her you needed some time to yourself, Lou. There would have been no reason for her to question that. But you can't just disappear – "

                  "I know, I know," Louis groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. His stomach growled, and he was already regretting skipping lunch for this phone call. His legs were beginning to cramp from sitting behind his desk for so long.

                  "Okay, but do you? She has a right to be pissed. I sort of am too, man, she was freaking out and I didn't know what to tell her. It was shitty of you to put me in that position."

                  "Look, I know. I should have told someone I was dropping off the face of the fucking planet, okay? I got it. Heard you the first fifty times."

                  "Louis – "

                  "I just needed a second. One bloody second to myself, because the morning was shit and the entire day was shit and I had shit to offer you guys that night, so I just... I just needed a second."

                  "Dude, I get it," Zayn insisted. "You fucked up, but I get it, and as long as you know you fucked up, then breathe. It's over. Apologize to Lottie and move on from it. It was one bad day."

                  Except that there's been lots of bad days and October is going to end soon, which means it's almost that stupid time of year again and my chest already hurts, Louis thought, pushing away from his desk and beginning to pace around his room. His joints cracked at the sudden movement.

                  "Look, why don't we all just go out tonight? You sound like you need it," Zayn suggested.

                  "God, no. Not tonight, and not for a while. You lot almost killed me the last time."

                  Zayn chuckled quietly. "Well, like I said then, just breathe. Things will get easier."

                  Louis' eyes darkened; he could tell in his reflection on one of his classroom's windows. His voice softened, becoming vulnerable for this one question only. "Fucking when?"

                  "I don't know, Louis. When you're ready for them to."

                  What kind of answer was that? "Great pep talk, Zayn. I'm really feeling it."

                  "I mean, I don't know what else to tell you, mate. You won't talk about it and you won't let it go, and you obviously can't deal with it on your own, so...nothing will get better until you want it to."

                  Louis shook his head, finished with this conversation. It was going nowhere and Zayn stopped being helpful about thirty seconds ago. "Right, well. I've got to go. I have papers to grade and pencils to sharpen."

                  He heard Zayn sigh on the other end before his best friend said, "I'll see you tonight?"

                  "Probably not tonight."

                  There was a pause. Then, "Okay. See you soon."

                  Louis ended the call.

❄●❄

                  THANKS TO BOTH great weather (at least as far as London was concerned) and Louis' impatience, he made it to Gibson's about twenty minutes earlier than he usually does. Trying not to be too obvious about it, he glanced over his shoulder toward the booth by the door, but it was empty.

                  There was a line in front of the counter, so Louis brought his bag back to his sofa first and stared at his phone for a long time before he finally built up enough courage to call his sister. But she didn't answer, so he left her a voicemail.

                  "Hey, Lot. Um, I just wanted to know if you'd be home for dinner tonight. I was thinking that maybe we could go out? My treat. If you've got a place you want to go, we can do that. Otherwise there's this restaurant that me and the lads hit up occasionally. It's quite nice there, good pasta. Okay, well, um...call me back or text me, or...yeah."

                  Louis sighed, running a hand over his face. He was the worst brother on the planet. He's never taking another second to himself again. If Lottie's around when he explodes, then she's around. At least she won't give him the silent treatment afterwards. Hopefully.

                  The line was gone now, everyone waiting off to the side for Molly to get their orders ready. He waited patiently, knowing she wouldn't drop what she was doing for him because she knew him well enough, and he was alright with that. Once she was free, though, she smiled at him.

                  "Hi, Louis. The usual?"

                  "Please." He slid her payment over to her.

                  She got him his change and then stepped back to get to work. Over her shoulder, she asked, "Talk to your sister?"

                  He pursed his lips. "Working on it. She isn't too keen on talking to me right now, I'm afraid."

                  It took Molly a second to answer, and she disappeared from Louis' line of sight. By the time she returned, she had his tea ready and handed him the mug. "Well, in the meantime you can admire the attractive new regular with me and maybe I'll share a cookie with you."

                  Even though Louis felt a little spark of excitement at the mention of the author of those napkin poems, he raised a brow in confusion. "You baked cookies?"

                  "No. He did."

                  Louis watched her eyes as they followed something behind him. He turned to see a tall, lanky boy (man?) outside the glass windows making his way to the entrance. Brown hair, just a shade or so lighter than Louis', was pulled back into a bun at the crown of his head. His lips were pursed, his brows furrowed as he squinted at the sidewalk, and Louis was pretty sure he's seen a model on a billboard recently that looked remarkably similar to this guy.

                  "See what I mean?" Molly teased from behind him, and Louis startled, feeling warm all over in his face and his palms.

                  Flustered, he gripped his tea and held his breath just as the little bells above the door rang out. Molly put on a different smile than the one she usually greeted Louis with.

                  "I come bearing, uh..." Louis heard the guy start to say, stumbling a bit. "Cookies. I come bearing cookies."

                  To be totally honest, Louis was sort of frozen there in front of the counter, staring at the cake pops and brownies inside a display case, but now he could feel Molly staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to step aside so that the author of the napkin poems could deliver these cookies that he supposedly baked for her, and God, if only he could get his feet to work. After an awkward second that lasted too long, he finally moved over.

                  "Oh, wow, they smell great," Molly told him, taking hold of the brown paper bag he handed her. His fingers were long and slender, and Louis spotted a cross tattoo on the skin between his thumb and index finger. He stared at it until the guy tucked his hand back into his jacket pocket. "What kind did you say you were making again?"

                  "Uh, peppermint sugar cookies. They're sort of a secret recipe I suppose."

                  His voice was like honey and summer. Louis didn't know how to feel about it. And although he'd been planning to return the guy's napkin poems to him, Louis was going to have to take a rain check. He felt like he was in the presence of a celebrity and it was annoying and until he had proper control of his tongue and feet and sweat glands, he didn't want to make a fool of himself. He waited until Molly's eyes finally met his and jerked his head toward his sofa so that she knew he was going to leave them be.

                  "Oh, wait," she said quickly. Louis froze again. "I figured I'd introduce you guys. Louis, this is Harry."

                  Harry. Harry, the author of the napkin poems. Louis lifted his eyes to him, using his professional teacher-to-teacher smile because it was the only one he'd mastered under stressful circumstances. Harry was chewing on his bottom lip, his eyes flickering between Molly and Louis too quickly for Louis to even determine what color his eyes were.

                  "Harry, this is Louis. I don't know if you're as blind as he is, but you guys literally come here at the same time almost every night, so..."

                  Finally, Harry's eyes stopped dancing around. "Hi."

                  "Hi."

                  "Louis," Molly said, then. "This is the one whose nap—"

                  "Oh, yeah," Louis blurted, patting his pockets. "You know what, I think I've got them in my bag. Hold on."

                  Jesus Christ get ahold of yourself. He's not a fucking celebrity. He wrote words onto napkins in a hole-in-the-wall diner. With his back turned to Harry and Molly, who had resumed their conversation about Harry's cookies, Louis worked on breathing evenly while he searched through his bag. For a second, he worried he'd forgotten them, but then he spotted one of them poking out from inside his notebook.

                  He pulled them out, fingering through them quickly to see if they were all there. Last night he'd taken out the unfinished one out to read over again, but he thought he put it back with the rest of them. As he turned around to return to the duo at the counter, he found it folded up in the middle of the others. He unfolded it so that it wouldn't look like he paid it any special attention.

                  When he looked up, Harry was right in front of him. "Shit," Louis breathed, nearly bumping into him.

                  "Sorry, hi, I just... Molly had more customers."

                  "Right, right. Anyway, I believe these are yours."

                  To Louis' slight surprise, instead of looking relieved or grateful or happy that his poems were being returned to him, Harry's cheeks reddened and he made a weird face. But he took them and tucked them into his pockets right away, and by the time he looked back up at Louis, there wasn't a trace of that face left, wiped away entirely. Louis was worried he'd imagined it, but there's no way.

                  "Thank you. Thanks so much. I... Yeah, I must have dropped them," he shrugged, "fallen out of my pocket or something."

                  "I almost threw them away, to be quite honest with you," Louis laughed, feeling a bit more at ease now that he didn't have to worry about Molly watching them interact. "I thought they were garbage."

                  Harry's lips spread into a smile, a dimple blooming on his left cheek. "They are garbage."

                  "Oh, not at all," Louis insisted. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't read them, so, from my professional point of view, they're pretty excellent."

                  "Your professional point of view?"

                  "And my regular point of view. Both of them agree."

                  Harry giggled a bit, but then quickly scrunched his nose to stop himself. Then he said, "What do you do?"

                  Louis smiled and backed up to sit on his sofa, nodding for Harry to follow him. When they were both sitting, Louis set his tea down on the little coffee table and angled himself toward the first guest he's ever had in his little corner, glad for the first time since he started coming here that he had someone to talk to.