Chapter Text
Liam could hear the gangster rap from North 11th.
The way Niall had described it, 12th street would run along the park – and this was North 12th and this was Brooklyn and Liam wasn’t supposed to get that confused with another 12th and another park on another island entirely. Your ears will pop, he’d said, when the train goes under the water. They had. And now with Public Enemy blaring down the street through the gray dusk, Liam was more sure than ever he’d done everything just right.
Niall lived in a studio flat over a car garage called Wild Ride. Niall made a lot of lewd jokes about this over the course of their pan-Atlantic calls. The shop was owned by someone named Derek who Niall said was massive and stayed in Germany two thirds of the year. So, Derek wouldn’t mind if Liam came to stay with him for free for a while. Which was lucky because when your girlfriend of several years dumps you for your younger brother, the only face you can stand is a decade-old best friend’s. Niall would have the answers, Liam thought, rounding the corner to Wild Ride and wincing at the volume. He had to.
Niall hung by his knees from a car lift.
“Oi! Bro!”
He swung down with a perplexing combination of adeptness and near catastrophe. A younger kid in a hat had a motorcycle propped up to Niall’s right and gave Liam a sideways glance through a pair of protective goggles as Liam stood his massive suitcase and entered.
It all seemed a bit strange. But as soon as Niall reached him Liam was scooped into a massive hug and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“You made it! You’re here!” Liam could feel the vibration of Niall’s shouts into his shoulder. He sounded drunk. Here might not be so unlike Manchester after all. “Oh, what has it been, an hour in the States? Come on. Let’s get you laid.”
Liam choked. “I could stand a shower.”
But Niall had him by the elbow and headed for the door. “Nah, you shower after, man. How long has it been? Let’s go. American girls. Accents. It’s the miracle we’ve always waited for.”
“Niall – “
“Lucas, watch the shop!”
“The shop’s closed…?” the younger kid said.
“Niall!” Liam chuckled.
“Ugh, alright,” Niall scoffed but when he turned back his face still beamed with a smile. “Liam,” he said and shook Liam by the shoulders. “You’re in New York!”
Liam’s stomach fell to his shoes the same time his heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t help but be excited that this was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
“Now, it’s a studio,” Niall was already dragging Liam’s suitcase along with Liam to a slatted staircase behind the office. “So that means that everything’s in the same room. Well not the bathroom, I mean it’s not a prison, but we’ll be sharing a space.”
Liam shrugged. “That’ll be fine. I’ll get a job. I’ll find my own place.”
“No, sure, sure,” Niall agreed not sounding so sure. “You’ll find a room.”
“A room?”
“But in the mean time don’t sell the place short. Here, take the other handle, the staircase is crooked.” They commenced their climb. “We come in and out out the side of the garage so there’s not really a deadbolt, but in the summer the door swells so it’s real hard to get open just without it. Step over the gap.” Liam complied, a glimpse of the cement floor below scrolling past his elevated sneakers. “Sometimes Lucas will come in early to start working on cars, so sleep on the right side of the building. Mail comes in under the garage door; there’s a crate. And garbage has to stay on the inside because Derek doesn’t have sidewalk zoning. But recycling has to stay outside with the neighbors stuff, because the mice will chew through the cardboard.” He dropped Liam’s suitcase onto the landing. Liam could still hear Niall’s mix blaring from below. “Jiggle the lock.”
Niall jostled his front door open, the startling shade of forest green swinging back to reveal a single room with a scratched wooden floor, futon, hand-built coffee table and a TV the size of a small house. Empty Guinness cans were the room’s only decorative element. He had a mini fridge.
“I like it,” Liam said. “I’m really gonna need a job, though.”
Niall’s face seemed to register Liam’s disappointment. He raised an eyebrow at this own place of residence.
“You are,” he agreed. “Fortunately you’re in Brooklyn, mate. Everyone knows a guy.”
“You know someone then?”
Niall shrugged. “I got someone in mind.”
“Heads up or your wearing it!”
You couldn’t squeeze through between the bar and the raised tables on a Saturday night at Lost Boys. Couples on dates, groups having parties, families with kids that ran off and introduced themselves to girls who had whiskey shots sloshing into the purses in their hands. Even the seats that faced out the windows were filled this April night, because you rather come here and stare at the street than be anywhere else when moonshine was on special and the food all came in the back seat of some skinny, tattooed-up 19-year-old’s Honda that very morning.
You couldn’t squeeze through, that is unless you were Louis Tomlinson, the owner of said establishment, and you were threatening to dump a plate of caramelized fennel risotto onto anyone who blocked your path.
“I see your look, Terry,” he threatened one of the waitresses who howled with laughter as he passed. “You doubted my Oregano, so I added extra for you. I’m having these girls report back. Here you go, love.” He set the plate down in front of a trio sat quietly in the back of the room. White Christmas lights and mason jar candles gave even the most demure bunch like this the romantic confidence to smile flirtatiously back. “Do me a favor and tell Terry if you like it, alright?”
“Thanks, love,” one of the girls responded.
Louis laughed. “Ah, I like when American girls say it. Zayn!”
He shouted and a pair of yellow eyes behind a sea of drunken revelers at the bar shot up. Louis held up three fingers and pointed at the table of demure girls. Zayn nodded and continued to pour.
“If things pick up a bit more, should I help him?”
It was the lazy voice of a lazy-postured kid sitting next to the cash register amidst the bottles.
“Babe,” Louis hung over the bar and grabbed four sets of silverware from the bin, “if things pick up a bit more I think we’re breaking fire code.” He took off again for the hostess station to relieve his anxious employee. “Farm boy,” he called back to the kid, “fetch me an arugula and apple salad for table twelve!”
Farm boy – or Harry as it were – smiled and slid down from the register.
“As you wish.”
“Table for four?” the hostess was saying in a high pitched sort of panic.
“Beth!” Louis called and immediately hugged one of the waiting party. “Jack, how are you?” He shook another’s hand. “Gina’s gonna seat you in like half an hour, okay? We’ve changed to a circus theme, do you like it?” He gestured to the crowd amidst Beth’s and Jack’s approving laughs. “We’re getting elephants. Zayn’s serving Irish lemonade, though, so I encourage you to get hammered before you eat our food. Oh, speaking of Irish lemonade…”
The crowd parted for Louis once more as he made his way to the very front of the room where Niall was entering the door and scooped him into a hug as much as he could standing a good few inches shorter.
“Holy shit, man. Are you eating? Did you bring me something?” His face grew suspicious. “Why are you awake?”
Niall laughed. “I came to ask you something, actually. Bit of a favor.”
“Alright, well, come on in, we’ll go out back. Terry!” Louis cleared a path for he and Niall back in the direction of the bar. “Harry’s bringing a salad for twelve, can you check on it? Holy shit, Leslie!” The expectant grin on a nearby woman’s face brightened to finally be recognized as Louis caught her up immediately in yet another hug. “Leslie, your fucking baby!” Across from her did, in fact, sit a man with a toddler clapping excitedly on his knee.
“She just turned two, didn’t you, Annette?” Leslie cooed at her.
“Annette?” Louis said, the appropriate wonder in his voice. The child beamed. “Annette, I’m stealing you, come here.” And without a second’s hesitation or an ounce of protest from her parents, Louis took Annette in his arms, onto his hip and disappeared with her and Niall into the crowd. Annette did not seem bothered.
“Annette, you’re two now.” Annette nodded proudly. “The last time I saw you you were inside your mother, is that weird for you?” Annette confidently shook her head. “That’s brave of you, Annette. Annette, Zayn is gonna show you what a Shirley Temple is.”
Zayn passed two drinks to a waiting set of guys across the bar before quickly wiping his hands on a rag and taking the toddler without question from Louis’ hip.
“Hey sweetheart,” he said in a voice far too soft spoken for his environment. “Give your parents a wave so Uncle Zayn doesn’t get arrested…”
“It’s Annette!” Harry had an arm full of plates of salad.
“Aw, man, you’ve seen her?” Louis said.
“Yeah, they came in a few months ago.”
“How many salads did you make..?”
“We needed some on four, don’t judge me.”
“Niall’s here.”
“Hello, Niall!”
“Go away.”
“Okay.”
Harry wandered off with the salads. Louis and Niall swung into the kitchen, back through a set of wooden doors, and were swallowed by the shocking silence of Louis’ office.
“Sit down, bro. Relax.” Louis followed his own command.
Louis’ desk was a hurricane, but the office as a whole was more well kept than his mannerisms would have implied. File boxes, neatly labeled, lined one wall, coats and time cards and employee records another. His computer, though surrounded by loose Fruit Loops, was open to an Excel chart filled with tiny unidentifiable numbers. To the right of the screen was a framed five by seven showing an earlier face of the restaurant in front of which stood a younger Louis, a much younger Harry, and a girl in a pair of bright red sunglasses. They all had their arms draped around each other.
“You’re not gonna haggle with me now, are you? Because I’ve had a rum and coke.”
Louis’ joke brought Niall back to the living.
“No, no. I’ve got a favor to ask of you actually. You know, in exchange for my distilling magic.”
“Niall, the money I pay you is the exchange rate for your bathtub booze. But for your jaunty friendship, I’ll keep listening anyway.”
“I’ve got a friend just in town needs a job.”
“Oh, Niall…” Louis leaned back in his desk chair and pulled his beanie down over his eyes.
“I know I’ve asked you before – “
“You have, mate.”
“ – and the last time I did you hired him and now he’s out there on his, like, ninth hour of bartending babysitting a child.”
“Annette looks after herself,” Louis muttered into his hat.
“It was a good rec.”
“You’re a wreck!” he said, petulantly freeing his face from the wool.
“He really needs it, man. He’s not doing well. He’s my best mate from back home.”
“Niall, man, I’m sorry but that fucking zoo out there?” Louis gestured wildly to the door. “That’s what breaking even looks like, okay? If Annette doesn’t order alcohol with her meal I might not make it, get me? I take on somebody else I gotta cut people, and that’s shit. That’s, like, I don’t know it’s something. It starts with an N and it’s got a P. Zayn would know.”
Niall sighed. “There’s nothing? Harry doesn’t need any help with the food, or…?”
“Harry’s mum deals with him, I don’t know. But I don’t think so.” Niall nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, man.”
“No, no, man, look, it’s fine. We’ll figure something else out.” Niall got up from his seat and slapped Louis five as he made for the door. “He just got dumped in a bad way, you know? He’s looking for a change, that’s all.”
Louis watched his back as Niall took a suspiciously long time to gather the hoodie he’d carried in with him. It paid off. Another few seconds feigning to pull the sleeve off the arm of the chair and Louis deflated in his seat.
“Cheap move.”
“It’s true, though.”
“I hate you.”
“You can ask him yourself.”
Niall lingered by the door while Louis glared like a scolded child at the desk below.
He rolled his eyes. “Send him in before we open.”
“Thanks, man, I – “
“No, go away now before I change my mind.”
Niall didn’t hesitate to do so. “I’ll come with him and bring my new stuff,” he said as he bowed gracefully out of the door.
It took a second for it to swing shut. Louis could hear him exit the kitchen followed by the gust of carousing that wafted in behind him. He cast one more dark glance at the picture by his computer before hastily readjusting his hat and pushing back into the crowd himself.
“Annette! Uncle Louis is back!” He scooped her off the bar and back into his arms. “Hey, what’s the thing where you hire your family instead of being fair?”
“Nepotism,” Zayn replied to a bottle of Jack.
“Right. Hey, what in the hell is she eating?”
“Risotto,” Zayn shot defensively back.
Louis’ face lit up.
“Annette,” he said eagerly, the signs of a plan flashing across his eyes reflected in the mason jar candles and Christmas lights. “There’s someone I want you to meet named Terry…”
And he disappeared, a lost boy back into the crowd.