Chapter Text
AUGUST
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Harry said, feeling like a track on replay.
He’d been saying the same thing to his mum for two months before she finally decided on a new assistant.
And he was happy for her now that she had. Her search seemed increasingly hopeless with each new candidate proving to be a greater nightmare than the one before. He'd sat in one day on interviews, reclined in one of the armchairs in his mum’s office, and tried to focus on the book in his hands but he couldn’t help a giggle whenever an interviewee displayed a blatant lack of fashion know-how. He might as well have been watching X Factor auditions with a gag reel of the most talentless of young hopefuls.
Seeing an end to his mum’s misery was good. Having a new “babysitter” was not. And it was inevitable that every time his mum hired a new assistant, Harry also got a new babysitter.
It was the nature of the position. Assistants did whatever their employers asked them to do. Keep track of the schedule. Fetch a cup of tea. Water the plants. Babysit the wayward son. Harry’s mum’s assistant did it all.
And technically, she needed any help she could get in any way she could get it. Because Harry’s mum was the Anne Styles, millionaire-owner of Styles Incorporated, one of the world's most luxurious fashion lines. Styles was an ever-increasing empire, with offices in London, Paris and New York and stores in almost every major city around the world. Anne had her hands full. She was starting another line for children and babies and opening a new store in Sydney.
Harry understood the dire need for a new assistant after Joan, the previous girl, fucked off back to Ireland as soon as her boyfriend proposed. But Harry was seventeen now. He was less than a year away from "officially" being an adult and starting university. The thought of having a caregiver just seemed crass. Frankly, it was insulting.
“Harry,” his mum sighed, checking her watch. “I can’t do this with you right now, love. He’s almost here.”
“Could we just agree now that he won’t be my babysitter?” Harry asked determinedly. His cereal was getting soggy and he should have been dressing for Caroline’s party. But this was a priority situation.
“He won’t babysit you,” his mum said. “He might look after you sometimes, yes. But he isn’t a babysitter.”
Harry looked at his sister, Gemma. “Is that not the exact definition of a babysitter?”
Gemma smiled but otherwise offered no agreement in an attempt at diplomacy.
“Harry,” his mum said. “I understand you’re going through this phase where you want to be treated like an adult, I do. First, the job and now the complaints about my assistants…”
Anne said the word “job” the way one might say “scrotum” or “pustule.” The idea of Harry working at a bakery was as offensive to her as fake Louboutins and genuine snakeskin. But she was right: Harry was all about being treated like an adult, although it wasn't a phase.
He didn’t want to wake up one day and realise that everything he possessed had been given to him. He didn’t want to be one of those rich kids riding on the waves of mummy’s money. He was grateful for every aspect of his life, grateful for his mum and her success. But in the future, he wanted to be proud of something he’d done too.
Maybe working at a bakery wasn’t the key to being successful. Maybe he wasn’t anywhere near the key. But Harry liked baking. He liked it a lot and even if he wouldn’t be the next Nigella Lawson, he figured that following his passion was a good place to start.
“I’m not complaining about your assistant,” he said, ignoring the comment about his job. “I’m complaining about being treated like a kid.”
“I’m not treating you like a kid,” Anne said. “I’m looking out for you. That’s all. Please, Harry, go check on the house and make sure everything is ready for him? He’ll be here any minute. Please. We’ll talk more about this later if you want.”
They probably wouldn't talk about it later. Harry sighed, standing and dumping his soggy cereal. “Want to come?” he asked his sister.
“Can’t,” Gemma said. “I’m meeting Aaron for lunch.”
Harry rolled his eyes. Aaron was Gemma's musician/model boyfriend who Harry wasn't convinced deserved her.
“I wanted both of you to be here when he arrived,” Anne said, pausing on the number she'd dialled into her mobile.
“I’ll meet your new assistant tomorrow, I promise,” Gemma said, kissing their mum on the cheek as she left.
Harry and his mum looked at each other and she smiled sweetly, waving her towards the glass door. He sighed again, more loudly, and left her to make a call. He pulled the glass door leading to the garden open and stepped out onto the patio. From there, he could just see the guesthouse, slightly hidden behind a collection of trees. Before he could pull the glass door closed, Bacon, Gemma's brown pug, scurried outside, walking circles around Harry’s ankles. He lifted the dog into his arms and started down the stone steps, past their small swimming pool and stopped at the end of the garden where a wooden fence separated the main grounds from the guesthouse. He pushed through the wooden door and headed up the steps to the back door of the guesthouse and punched in a security code.
Harry put Bacon down and surveyed the space.
When he and Gemma were younger, his mum hired an actual nanny, in addition to her own personal assistant. There was just too much that small children needed for an assistant to cover it all while seeing to administrative duties. This house had belonged to all of their nannies at some point. Eventually, when there was no longer a need for a nanny and an assistant, it belonged solely to Anne’s assistant. It wasn’t required of assistants to live on the grounds, although Anne preferred having someone available 24/7. It worked out that most of the people she hired were looking for a place to live, and who wouldn’t want a posh guest house in Anne Styles’ backyard to call home?
Harry walked into the kitchen and made sure it was spotless. He opened some windows, trying to get fresh air circulating. The carpets had recently been steamed but Joan had been a smoker. Despite explicit instructions not to smoke in the house, she still lit up often enough that the odour stuck to whatever it could. Harry made a mental note to mention it to his mum. For now, he lit a Diptyque candle and left it on the countertop.
The bedroom was clean. He fluffed and righted the pillows and opened the windows there too. He headed back into the front room and turned the television on, just to check that the cable was working. An episode of Sherlock was airing and he got a little distracted, watching the show so intently that he didn’t hear Bacon yapping his head off until the alarm system started blaring.
“Fuck,” someone said down the hall, followed by a string of expletives. 'Shit, shit, shit', and then a 'fucking hell'.
Harry shut the telly off and hurried to the alarm keypad mounted on the wall. There was a man standing by the door, surrounded by two suitcases, his head bowed as he sorted through his pockets, pulling the lining out in a desperate search for God-knows-what. Harry glanced at him, punching in the code and shutting the alarm off. The man looked up in surprise and Harry’s stomach rolled. It was cliché the way it did that. He thought this entire moment was cliché.
There he was, in front of this person who he’d never met, and there were butterflies swarming his stomach. Butterflies and beetles and fucking wasps.
Louis, if Harry remembered his name correctly, was a vision, to put it simply. He was that guy you had dreams about and spent your entire childhood and adulthood looking for. He was the guy in all the teen movies, Edward Cullen and company. He was the lead singer of your favourite band. But he was also the boy-next-door and the grocery store clerk. He was both out-of-this-world and down-to-earth with his bright (too bright) blue eyes and his chocolate-coloured hair beneath a navy blue snapback. He wore a grey T-shirt and black joggers and wasn’t dressed the way Anne would have liked but looked amazing all the same.
Louis smiled. He was beautiful. Harry’s stomach was rolling. And it was cliché but no other reaction made sense.
“Hi,” Harry said quietly. It was odd. He was normally so good with strangers, could have a group of people at a party wrapped around his finger before anyone was even drunk. He was a pretty confident kid, always had been, but maybe not so much right now. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought my mum would have left you the code.”
“You’re Harold, then?” Louis said, fixing the lining of his pockets, before stepping forward to shake his hand. He was aiming for professional, obviously, which Harry thought was endearing.
“Harry,” Harry corrected, leaning forward and shaking Louis’ hand. “And I’m not just saying for you to call me that because Harold is embarrassing. I’m legally Harry.”
“Oh,” Louis said, smiling. “Right. Harry it is then. Also, your mum did give me the code. I just seemed to have misplaced it.”
Harry didn’t know if Louis should be saying that to him. It wasn’t exactly reassuring for the new assistant to be misplacing anything as important as a security code. But Harry didn’t mention it. Luckily, Louis seemed to figure it out on his own.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that…” he murmured. “I have it somewhere. Just not in my pockets like I thought.”
Harry nodded. “Don’t worry. It’s not like I’d tell my mum.”
Louis looked relieved. He glanced down at his ankles, eyebrows quirked. “What’s this,” he said, bending over and picking Bacon up. “Didn’t know the place came with a dog…”
“That’s Bacon,” Harry said unhelpfully.
Louis scratched the space below Bacon’s ears. “Is he mine?”
“No,” Harry said. “Sorry. Technically, he’s my sister’s.”
“Where’s she?” Louis asked, putting Bacon down.
“Out with her boyfriend,” Harry said, which reminded him: He was supposed to be heading out for Caroline’s party. “Is there anything you need for me to do?”
Louis thought about it for a moment. “If you could maybe write the security code down? In case I did leave it on the train after all.” He said the last bit with a laugh but Harry could tell he was genuinely afraid of that being the case.
“Sure. Do you have a pen and paper?” Harry asked.
Louis patted his pockets again, though he should have known they were empty. “Maybe you could text it to me?”
Harry didn’t know how safe that was but he shrugged and pulled his mobile out of his pocket and handed it to Louis to enter his number. Louis tapped it in quickly and handed it back. “Done,” Harry said when he’d sent the message. Somewhere behind them, a notification tone sounded in one of Louis’ bags.
“Sorry I can’t help you move in or something. My friend’s having a bridal shower,” Harry said.
“Your friend is getting married?” Louis questioned. “How old is she?”
“32,” Harry said.
Louis raised both of his brows in surprise. “You’re 17, aren’t you? Do you normally hang out with people twice your age?”
Harry pursed his lips, feeling a bit scrutinized and not really knowing how to answer the question. He shrugged. “I guess I just have a lot of older friends.”
“Sorry,” Louis said with a wince. “That's cool, honestly. I didn’t mean to offend you or anything. You seem like someone people would want to have around. Regardless of their age..." He trailed off.
“Well, thank you,” Harry said. He wanted to ask Louis how old he was too. He thought vaguely that his mum had mentioned it. He knew for sure that Louis was much older than him. He had stubble above his lip and lining his jaw, as well as defined muscles and a confident, easy way of speaking that Harry rarely experienced with boys his age. He didn’t ask him though. He nodded towards the luggage. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Sure, see you around,” Louis said as he turned back to retrieve his things. Harry watched him momentarily as he bent over and grabbed the strap of his duffle, the lean muscles of his back printed through the thin material of his shirt. Harry clucked his tongue a few times to call Bacon and then reluctantly turned away, slipping through the back door.
* * *
Harry didn’t think he was gay. He'd always been attracted to men, but he found women attractive too. In primary school, he 'dated' a girl named Jennifer who everyone agreed was the cutest in class and had breath that smelled like scones. He still didn't know how she did that. A year later, there was another girl named Allison. And then in year 5, he kissed a boy for the first time, named Peter, and for a while considered him to be his boyfriend until Peter turned out to be not as fond of the title.
In year 7, after dating another girl, he started dating Ritchie who was gay and proud even at such a young age and no one gave him shit for it because he knew karate and his father owned a petrol station chain that Ritchie threatened would refuse to fill their parents’ tanks if they ever talked bad about him or Harry. Despite that, no one really knew Harry liked boys too, or that he and Ritchie kissed all the time in the boy's toilets.
It wasn’t until Year 9 when Harry was 14, that he actually, officially dated a boy named Andy. It was so official that Harry told Gemma about him and even confirmed their relationship on Facebook. For a while, Harry believed one day he would marry Andy. He believed Andy was the love of his 14-year-old life. But then Andy’s dad found out about them and the family conveniently transferred military stations later that month. Andy deleted his Facebook and Harry never saw him again.
Harry cried for the remainder of Year 9, it seemed. He cried until he met a girl named Tilly and started making out with her by the creek behind his house. Then they stopped just making out and she started kissing in places below his waist.
It wasn’t like Harry was sexually advanced, though he was no virgin. He’d only had full sex twice and not with boys. But he'd always hoped one day he’d meet a nice lad and it would feel right and perfect when it finally happened. He wasn’t confused about what he wanted. (He didn't think.) He knew what he liked and how he liked it.
At Caroline’s bridal shower, there were mostly women everywhere — beautiful women, of course, because Caroline was particular about who she kept in her company. Harry and Grimmy and about two other lads were the only men there. It wasn’t until later when they were eating cake and a pretty brunette seated next to him started chatting Harry up, that he realized. He wasn’t really finding any of the women attractive.
He thought he could definitely go home with a pretty girl if she wanted and he could probably get it up. But he didn’t want to. He just wasn’t interested.
“Do you want to go soon?” Harry turned and asked Nick loudly over the party din.
Nick turned away from the boy he was speaking to, a twink who was entirely Nick’s type. Harry felt sorry now for interrupting. “So soon…? What’s the matter?”
“I have work in the morning. I should probably get a good night’s sleep,” Harry said lamely. He could tell by the way Nick’s lip twitched that he didn’t believe him.
“Since when do you ever get a good night’s sleep?” Nick wondered.
Harry didn’t answer right away and Nick’s brows creased with concern.
“Yeah, we’ll leave. Let’s say bye to Caroline?” Nick said, taking the dinner napkin from his lap and placing it on the table. The boy next to Nick frowned and glared up at Harry, causing a pang of guilt in his chest. Just because Harry didn’t want any tonight, didn’t mean he should infringe on anyone else’s chances.
“You should stay,” Harry said to Nick before he could stand. Harry added quickly, “I promise I’m fine. I’ll explain later.”
Nick opened his mouth to protest anyway. Harry leaned forward and said to him quietly, “If you leave now, that boy beside you is going to hunt me down and murder me in my sleep. Seriously. Stay to save a life.”
Nick laughed out loud and Harry didn’t miss the way the boy’s frown deepened. “Are you sure?” Nick asked.
Harry nodded. “Absolutely.” Before Nick could say anything else, Harry stood and left to say his goodbyes to Caroline.
* * *
Harry got a ride home with a woman he knew from Caroline’s previous parties. She handed her his number as he got out of the car. “Call me if you ever need a ride?” she’d said with a wink. Harry had to give her credit for her clever line and an honestly noble attempt but he slipped the piece of paper in his pocket and hoped he remembered to take it out before washing his trousers.
He headed up to the front gate of his home as the women sped off. He glanced over at the private entrance to the guesthouse and then doubled back to peek through the fence. He wasn’t being a creep. He was just curious. It was a Saturday night and he wanted to know if Louis was the kind of guy who spent those watching TV at home.
Sure enough, there was a light on towards the front of the house where the lounge was and Harry imagined Louis curled up on the couch watching a movie by himself.
He backed away from the fence, reluctant for reasons he didn't know right then.
When he opened the front door, he heard cheerful voices from down the hall. He pulled off his shoes and headed toward them, rounding the corner into the kitchen.
His mum was trembling with laughter, one hand pressed into the marble counter to keep herself upright and the other clutching a glass of red wine. Robin was there too, a wide smile on his face as he listened to the third person in the room, gesturing animatedly with his hands while recounting some story. His back was to Harry but Harry knew it was Louis. If his voice hadn’t given him away, his messy brown hair would.
“Harry,” his mum said happily when she noticed him standing there. “You’re home so early.”
It was only 8 o’clock and he normally wouldn't return home until 10 or 11. “Yeah, I have work in the morning,” he said. Anne made the same face she always did at the mention of his job but said nothing. They had a guest after all and she was nothing if not decorous.
Harry glanced at Louis, who was watching him, and smiled.
“You have a job?” Louis asked curiously.
Harry nodded, sliding his hands into his back pockets. “At a bakery.”
Anne ran her hands through Harry’s hair, which normally he loved. Nothing beat a good head rub. But at the moment, it made him seem smaller than he wanted to seem in front of Louis.
“Close by?” Louis wondered.
“It’s not far. I walk or bike every morning,” Harry said and Louis seemed impressed, his bottom lip poking out as he nodded.
Robin smiled at Harry. “It’s a nice little place. Sometimes I grab a scone before work.” Harry returned Robin’s smile gratefully.
“I’ll have to stop by sometime,” Louis said earnestly and Harry couldn’t help it, he blushed a little. Or he felt like he was blushing. He wasn’t sure. He looked away from Louis and the smile he wore.
“Louis, you could give Harry a lift over there in the mornings. On your way to the office?” Anne said. Louis opened his mouth to agree most likely but Harry cut him off.
“No,” Harry said. This was exactly what he’d been worried about, a new assistant for his mum to force into cocooning him. “I like walking.” His mum looked like she wanted to argue. “It’s good for the exercise,” he added. She couldn’t argue with that. Being a fashion guru meant she was all about staying healthy and keeping in shape and set her standards just as high for Harry and Gemma. They even did yoga together occasionally.
She ruffled his hair again and drew him in to kiss his forehead. “As you wish.”
Harry glanced at Louis again, who was taking a sip of his wine while eyeing them both. “Well,” Harry said. “I’m knackered. See you all in the morning.”
“Goodnight, darling,” Anne said.
“Goodnight,” Robin added.
Harry wiggled his fingers at them both.
“Goodnight, Harry,” he heard Louis say, though he was deliberately trying not to look at him. His eyes were drawn to him anyway and before he left the room, he met his gaze and said, “Goodnight.”