i 0d2125e00f277ca8 (23 page)

Louis knows that the holidays are supposed to be a time of rest in

theory, but the days between the closing night of the play and

Christmas Eve are a complete blur. When he‟s not striking the set, he‟s

marking term papers. When he‟s not marking term papers, he‟s looking

over exams. When he‟s not looking over exams, he‟s making his

excuses to Harry, who he hasn‟t seen in days. And when he‟s not

apologizing to Harry, he‟s preparing for the annual Louis Tomlinson

Holiday Extravaganza.

The Extravanganza had taken place on Christmas Eve for the last three

years, each time to greater and greater acclaim. It is an immovable date

on the social calendar of everyone who matters in Louis‟ life, and with

good reason: it‟s Louis‟ birthday. And it shall not pass uncelebrated,

despite whatever lesser holidays might follow it.

It had started out as a simple Christmas/birthday party the first year that

he‟d moved to Manchester, before he‟d had many friends. He‟d wanted

to impress his new colleagues, so he‟d made an effort. Naturally, when

Louis makes an effort, the results are legendary, and his party had been

the talk of the teachers‟ lounge for weeks. Zayn may or may not have

been photographed wearing a lampshade on his head and little else.

Such are the foundations of friendship.

Unfortunately, his success had consequences. He had to out-do himself

the next year, so suddenly instead of a few bowls of punch and eggnog

there had been a full bar with Christmas-themed drinks. Niall had

woken up on the roof of the building dressed as Father Christmas, and

Louis had chalked up another victory. But then Christmas came around

153

again, and he couldn‟t let everyone down, so he‟d moved all the

furniture out of his flat and created a dance floor, complete with a red

and green strobe light. It had been quite the hit, even with the

policemen who arrived to break the party up.

And now it‟s time to do it all again, bigger and better. He has a

reputation to maintain. Sadly, the fact that his life has descended into a

state of disaster over the past month means that he‟s not as prepared as

he usually is by now. By this time last year, he‟d already placed an

order for ten dozen festive cakeballs, stockpiled five cases of beer in

the snowdrift on his balcony, coated fifty yards of fake popcorn garland

in gold glitter, and gotten Duchess up to a record nine minutes before

she ripped her tiny elf hat off and tried to eat it. This time around he

hasn‟t even got enough food in his fridge to feed himself lunch, much

less accommodate the mobs of people coming to make merry. He needs

to get his arse in gear.

Thankfully he sent out the invitations—tiny cards attached to glass

Christmas ornaments with silk ribbon and nestled inside gold boxes on

a bed of gold-flecked tissue paper, tasteful and fun, Christ he is good—

before things got too hectic. But there‟s still the matter of food, drinks,

entertainment, decorations, and every small detail in between. He ends

up clutching two hundred red plastic cups to his chest in the party store,

having a nervous breakdown over tablecloths and alcohol logistics, so

he calls Zayn and Niall in as reinforcements. It pains him to admit

defeat, but he can‟t do it alone this time.

“You know, you could call Harry,” Niall tells him one afternoon while

he‟s hanging his eleventh string of lights along the ceiling of Louis‟

flat. “I‟m sure he‟d be willing to help.”

“Not happening,” Louis says. He keeps his eyes trained on the table

arrangement he‟s working on. Red, white, and silver is his palette this

year. Inspired. He is arranging decorative pomegranates. Pomegranates

will keep him sane.

He pretends like he doesn‟t notice Niall and Zayn exchanging a look

across the living room.

154

Harry keeps texting him throughout the week, offering to pick up

anything he might need or come by to help him set up. Louis shrugs

him off every time and insists that everything is under control even

when it clearly is not, even when he almost breaks his leg falling off the

ladder while getting a box of decorations down from the top of his

cupboard. He feels shitty about it, but he‟s afraid that having Harry

around will lead to him having to talk about feelings, which is just not

exactly something he feels like handling right now. Or ever, really. So

he keeps his head down and hopes Harry doesn‟t hate him for it.

They make it through seven days of scrambling, of cleaning his

apartment from top to bottom, of searching for a place in Manchester

that will rent him a chocolate fountain on such short notice, and by the

night of 23rd he‟s finally, finally ready. The ashtrays are sparkling. The

pudding is chilling in the fridge. The Christmas-themed shot glasses

have been arranged on the counter with care, in hopes that people will

get absolutely, monumentally sloshed.

Louis is finally curled up warm in his bed and starting to drift off when

the buzz of his phone wakes him up. He squints at the light and thumbs

through the lock screen to find one last text message from Harry

waiting in his inbox.

please at least let me bring something, i want to help xx

Louis buries his face in his pillow. He is shagging the most genuinely

good person on the planet outside of Zayn‟s fireman and probably some

nuns somewhere. He is almost definitely a dick.

bake something if u want, he texts back, then he shoves his phone

under his pillow and wills himself to sleep.

He wakes up early the next day to nine birthday texts because, oh,

right, it‟s his birthday. He managed to forget that part somewhere along

the way. There‟s one from Harry, one from Zayn, one from Niall, one

from his mum and two of his sisters, and the rest from his old

155

Doncaster friends. He reads them as he steeps his tea. He is twenty-six

years old.

“I am,” Louis says to his cat, “officially closer to thirty than twenty.”

Duchess stares at him, then knocks over a tin of plastic spoons in a way

that looks deliberate.

He doesn‟t have much time to dwell on his age since his day is full of

fielding phone calls and deliveries of hors d‟oeuvres, setting out plates

and napkins, making a last minute run to the shop because he forgot he

was out of his favourite kind of brandy. He spends most evening before

the party meticulously ironing his red trousers and trying on three

different pairs of braces before rejecting them all in favor of a fuzzy

white jumper, because it‟s cold, damn it.

Niall arrives an hour before the party sporting a red and green

snapback, and starts to set up the AV equipment. He and his endless

playlist of Christmas remixes have always been in charge of the music

for this particular party, but this year Louis has got him hooking up

karaoke in addition to the dance floor.

Zayn‟s the next one to arrive, the only time a year when he‟s not

fashionably late and only because it‟s under threat of bodily harm from

Louis.

“Excuse me,” Louis says, blocking the door with his body when Zayn

tries to come inside. “Do I know you? Are you on the guest list?”

“Quit fucking around, Louis, it‟s cold out here,” Zayn huffs, teeth

chattering.

“You look so much like my friend Zayn,” Louis says, “except he‟s the

type of lad who always adheres to his friends‟ party dress codes, and

your head is tragically lacking in any festive headwear. You are a

complete stranger to me.”

156

Zayn glares at him, his face lit up in flashes by the multicolored lights

on Louis‟ own hat, which is in the shape of a Christmas tree. He

mumbles something Louis can‟t understand, half-muffled by his scarf

and the turned-up collar of his coat.

“I‟m sorry,” Louis says, holding one hand up to his ear dramatically.

“Didn‟t quite catch that.”

“I said, I spent a really long time on my hair!” Zayn says.

“Ah, yes!” Louis says as he steps aside. “Now I recognize you!” Zayn

aims a kick at Louis‟ shin as he slips inside, but Louis dodges it.

“Should I take this to mean that your man candy is coming tonight after

all?”

“You know I would have told you if he‟d said so,” Zayn says. He

shrugs his coat off, bumping his fist against Niall‟s as he passes on the

way to dump it on Louis‟ bed. Louis has them all well-trained on the

party coat protocol by now. “Last I heard it was still a maybe.”

“Well, mate,” Niall says, “if he doesn‟t turn up, we could always just

set the tree on fire.”

“Ha-bloody-ha,” Zayn says. “Get me drunk enough and I just might.”

It‟s not long before people start pouring in, bottles of liquor and boxes

of beer in hand. Niall‟s got the stereo playing something relatively

relaxed, some acoustic cover of “O Holy Night,” but Louis knows he‟s

just easing people into things before everyone gets drunk enough for

him to switch on the strobe light. The turnout is good, as usual, and

Louis is pleased to see that everyone other than Zayn is honoring the

mandatory hat rule he put on the invitations.

It‟s always interesting to see all of his different worlds collide.

Everyone mills about, talking and drinking and laughing, gradually

filling in the walls of Louis‟s flat with faces from every part of his life,

157

one of his old friends from uni chatting up his librarian in the corner,

Zayn‟s TA doing shots with two of the girls from two doors over. He‟s

just said hello to Stan, who came bounding in with a case of beer and

two of the other Doncaster lads, when the door swings open again and

he‟s almost hit in the face with a stack of boxes.

“Sorry!” says the person behind them, and if Louis didn‟t know that

voice intimately by now, the curly hair peeking over the top of the

boxes would have given Harry away immediately. “Sorry, can‟t really

see where I‟m—oh, hello, birthday boy!”

Harry‟s stuck his head around the side of his armload of boxes to smile

at Louis. He‟s wearing a pair of reindeer antlers with little jingle bells

hanging from them, and there are snowflakes in his curls. It‟s the first

time Louis has seen him in a week, and he‟s helpless to do anything but

smile stupidly back at him, wishing he was maybe a little less tipsy for

this.

“Nice hat,” Harry says happily. He leans in to kiss Louis on the cheek

but misses, too busy trying to balance everything he‟s carrying, and

lands somewhere between his cheekbone and his hair.

“What in the name of Christ is all that?” Louis says, closing the door

behind Harry before too much snow comes inside.

“You told me to bake something,” Harry says. He starts making his

way to the kitchen, the crowd parting like the Red Sea to let him

through, and Louis follows. “I may have gotten a bit carried away.”

He sets the boxes down on the small amount of empty space left on

Louis‟ kitchen table and starts unpacking them and, Jesus, Harry has

outdone himself this time. The first four boxes are filled with a dozen

cupcakes each, different flavors, all iced in varying shades of Christmas

colors and covered in sprinkles. The last box is the tallest, and when

Harry opens it, Louis feels his mouth drop open.

“Haz.”

158

It‟s a cake, three layers by the looks of it, all thick off-white frosting

and red trim. In the middle of it in red icing script are the words Happy

Birthday, Louis! The i‟s are dotted with little smiley faces.

Louis stares at it for a few seconds, then yanks Harry roughly into a

hug by the waist, and Harry‟s laughing at him but he‟s buzzed and

Harry made him a birthday cake and what else can he do?

“I didn‟t know if you already had one or not,” Harry says when Louis

lets him go.

“I—” Louis begins, and then stops and starts again. “No, with

everything else I‟d, I‟d completely forgotten.”

“Good, then,” Harry says, grinning. “Hope you like red velvet.”

Louis bumps Harry‟s shoulder with his own and picks up one of the

boxes of cupcakes. “Come on, then, let‟s get these all out before I get

too drunk to be trusted with things that could stain the carpet.”

And, well, honestly, the cupcakes really do not match his color palette

at all. Part of him wants to die a little when he thinks of bright blue and

green frosting and gold sprinkles in between his carefully chosen trays

of peppermint bark and silver dusted sugar cookies, but the rest of him

really doesn‟t care. The rest of him just wants to put them somewhere

everyone can see.