|Chapter 21

"I'll wait out here for you, mate. I'm sure it's nothing too major they need to talk to you about." Niall assured his best friend as he spoke to him out the car window. 

Louis nodded, moving his arm across his stomach, his hand gripping onto his other arm. "Hopefully." He whispered more to himself. The boy turned on his heel and made his way up through the doors to his management's building. For some reason Louis seem to get this eerie feeling in his belly whenever he stepped foot in this place.  Almost as if he was intimidated by the whole aroma.

Like last time, the front desk lady gave a warm smile, even at this late hour, and greeted him with a "good afternoon." Louis replied before he stepped up to the elevator and pressed the button to reach the floor he was heading to. 

Taking a step out onto the intended floor, Louis noticed how late it was from the dark sky out the wall of windows. It made him wonder why they couldn't just call him in the next day. But he didn't make the rules. He just needed to do as told.

Louis carefully knocked on the double door to the office, the knocks sounding like echos in the empty foyer. Seconds later the door opened revealing a woman in a business suit, her hair pulled back into a neat, low bun. Louis walked inside, the air feeling heavy as eyes watched his every movement.

"Hello." Louis said, following the man's gesture towards the seating area taking a seat on the familiar couch that was in front of the large desk. His hands kept in his lap, moving his sleeves to cover his fingers. 

"Louis." Marco greeted bluntly. Looking around at everyone in the room, each of them had serious faces and harsh looks. Sure, their job was serious, but something seemed to be wrong. That made Louis nervous. What had he done? He couldn't recall doing anything troubling.

"What was I-"

Suddenly the door was opened again, Harry appearing from behind it. What was Harry doing here?

"Hello Harry." 

"Hey Marco." Harry then noticed Louis sat on the couch, his face showing confusion. "Is something wrong?"

"Why don't you take a seat and I'll explain what's going on." Marco's face didn't change from his flat, somewhat angered expression. 

Harry did as he was instructed, taking a seat next to the older boy on the couch. The younger looked to Louis, silently questioning if he had any idea of what they were going to say, in which Louis could only shrug slightly, not having a clue. 

"Boys." Both Louis and Harry's heads snapped back to their manager. "I'm guessing from the confused faces that you haven't checked the news articles lately.." The man then pulled out a couple of magazines, tossing them down onto the coffee table in front of them. Each cover had either a picture of Harry or both of them separately. 

"What is this all about?" Harry raised a brow, picking one of the magazines up. 

"Read what it says." 

Harry did. "Harry Styles and.. Mystery Kendall? What?" 

The boy quickly turned to the page the article was written on and he didn't spare a second to start reading it. "Could Mr Harry Styles secretly be taken, in a hidden relationship from the public? Suspicions have arisen not because of any papped photos or random sightings, simply because no one knows who this 'Kendall' looks like, but all because of a video a fan caught of.. Louis Tomlinson, fellow band mate, ranting to himself about a 'Kendall' at the live festival performance last weekend.."

Louis eyes widened as he listened on. Louis was sure that no one would have heard him, let alone taken a video of him doing so! 

"From what can be heard in the video, Tomlinson says: "What the hell does Harry see in Kendall? They're practically putting on an act for Harry!"... The fan claims that it looked like he said something else but the 21 year old was too quiet to hear..." Harry's brows furrowed  together as he read that.

Fear showed in Louis' eyes. Harry didn't look to him at all, and that worried him. He could just hope that Harry wasn't mad or anything from what he said. What he said made him sound like he was jealous, and they definitely didn't need rumours going around about him being gay, as well as Harry being in a secret relationship. Or for Harry to think Louis liked him, even though he truly does. 

"I-I'm so sorry. I didn't think anyone heard m-me..." Louis spoke nervously.

"Well you had no reason to talk about him in public anyway!" Marco exclaimed It made Louis shrink in on himself a little.

"Marco, it's fine! I can just deny it like I did with all the other ones." Harry said.

"No! No Harry, there's been too many articles about you and girls Harry, fans will start to get annoyed and the public will continue to think badly of you if we continue to deny it." 

The room was silent, but the older man had a certain look on his face.

"What are you saying?" Harry asked cautiously. 

Marco contemplated his idea for a moment, until finally he was sure of it. "We're not going to deny it. Let there be Harry and Kendall." The man grinned.

A massive smile formed on Harry's lips, his eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree, while Louis had a growing frown.

"Really?!" Harry chirped happily.

"Yep! Harry Styles and Kendall Montez!"

Harry's smile dropped immediately. Louis' face showed confusion.

"Wha... y-you mean Kendall Lawson, right?" Harry corrected to his boyfriend's name.

"No Styles, you heard me." Marco then pulled out a photograph of a girl with wavy, dark hair, makeup applied to perfection and a clear complexion. That when Louis realized it was a model.  "We'll set the two of you up, become a star couple. Show the world that Harry Styles isn't just a ladies man, but actually has a heart for the girls."  

"Doesn't Harry get a say in all this?" Louis asked shyly.

"Unless he wants to continue to look like a womanizer, then I suggest he do as we say." 

Harry didn't say anything back, only dropped his head, not looking back up.

"The band will be heading to LA soon. Kendall is having premire for a new movie she starred in, so Harry could easily attened with her and go to the after party, expose the couple to the world. We can set up a few other appearances and outings so we can get some paps out there to capture it all." 

Everything sounded so dramatic to Louis, but Harry looked like he was listening to the same words he's heard over one hundred times before; which was exactly that.

+

Soon, the meeting was over and the two band members made their way out of the office. Harry still didn't speak a word and it was making Louis nervous.

"I-I'm so sorry Harry.. I didn't think-"

Harry shook his head. "You don't need to be sorry, Lou. Just..." His hands reached up and tugged at his curls, groaning loudly. He took a few seconds to take a short breath. "Why can't they just leave me and my love life alone?" He asked rhetorically, not expecting an answer back.

Louis didn't know what to say to the younger boy. All he could do was continue to blame himself for this. He should have been more careful about what he was saying around others, especially in public. 

He then realized just how many times Harry has had to do this. Before Louis was in the band, he was always reading a new article about Harry and his new girlfriend, it was always just his management covering up the fact that the boy was in fact gay. That has to be tough to handle. Yes, Louis was gay himself, but he can't yet imagine how hard it must be to hide something so personal for so long.

"I'm sorry Haz.. I can't help but feel like it was all my fault though. Because it is my fault."

"They were probably going to give me another 'girlfriend' soon anyway, nothing new. Nothing to really blame yourself for.."  

Harry wiped at his eyes, trying to be swift about it. That's when Louis realized the boy's green eyes starting to turn red and glossy, a small sniffle following close behind. Louis frowned, taking a hold of Harry's wrist and pulled him around the corner of the small foyer, incase anyone walked in.

The taller boy leaned his back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and resting his head back against the wall as well. He let out a heavy sigh, a few tears slipping from his eyes and falling down his cheeks. Louis stood beside him, looking up to Harry with a sad, worried expression. He let the boy cry for a moment. 

"S-Sorry.." Harry mumbled. "It's just.. pressuring sometimes. Being known as the 'ladies man' or 'the flirt'.. or some kind of manwhore."

Louis' brows furrowed. "You're not a manwhore."

"But that's what the world sees me as..." He rolled his head to face down at Louis. "A nine-teen year old manwhore who hooks up with any girl he can get at the snap of his fingers..." Harry spoke weakly, his voice forming into a whisper as he finished.

His words only caused Louis' frown to increase. Louis could never see Harry like that, a fan or not, he would see Harry as the honest and loyal guy he was. 

Louis stepped closer, reaching up and cupping Harry's jaw as he wiped away the final tears that showed. It made Harry smile a little, closing his eyes and moving his head into the small touch of Louis' tiny hands. As much as Louis wanted to smile back, he had this bubbling feeling inside of him still full of guilt. He pulled his hand back.

"Harry... I-I'm sorry about what I said about you and Kendall. About what you see in him.. and how he's just putting on an act for you.." But it's all true! He's not the humble and charming boy around me like he is with you. He says rude things to me, and threatens me, and he took your necklace away from me! Even Zayn has his bad thoughts about him. He's not the nice guy you think he is, Hazza! "I didn't mean it..."

It was silent for a moment, the two boys just staring into each others eyes. Green bonding with blue.

"I guess if we're apologising.." Harry cleared his throat, looking away, seeming to contemplate his words for a while before he voiced them. "Louis... about before, all the things I said about you.."

Louis' eyes lit up a little in hope.

 "I was just kind of rambling for moment, saying like, friendly complements." Harry looked back to the shorter boy.

Louis' heart dropped and the brightness in his eyes dimmed. "Right. Right, ha, I knew that. I didn't take them in any other way." He laughed awkwardly, which Harry easily caught onto.  

"W-What did you think I meant by it?" Harry asked, his tone nervous, his fingers fiddling with the 'T' ring Louis gave him. The things he said had much more of a deeper meaning than one would normally say to a friend. Harry honestly didn't know where it all came from.

"Nothing."

"Louis."

"N-No no, really. I didn't think anything more of it."

Harry wasn't buying a word of it, telling by the obvious growing blush on the boys' cheeks, the stutter and the nerves showing in his movements.

"Niall drove me here. I'm pretty sure he's sick of waiting for me out ther-" 

"I told Niall he could go back home since I could give you a ride back when the meeting was over." Harry cut him off. Louis wasn't getting away from the question so easily.

But Louis wouldn't budge. He didn't say a word about it the whole way back to the house. 

Imagine how awkward it would be if Harry, who has a boyfriend, found out their band mate liked him more than a friend and then to have his boyfriend yell, and probably worse, threaten and hurt his band mate for liking him and causing all this fake girlfriend trouble.

Kendall looked like he could do much more than just a small cut from a necklace chain. 

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I'm so sorry that I haven't been updating for almost 3 weeks! I hate myself for it, honestly. But thank you for 9K!

But I've been trying to do other things around writing recently, like, I started drawing a lot and made a fanart/art instagram (if you wanna follow: far.away.niall) and other personal things I'm trying to keep on track. 

I promise I will be better at these updates! 

Also, something crazy and slightly scary (in a good way) happened. One of my internet friends, hey Soap, were talking to her friend and that friend mentioned this book!! I didn't know how to feel, I was so happy! And thank you to that person, you honestly made my day with your words :)

Okay, I'll go now. BYE

-chloe x