A House Built Out of Stone

Part 2

“’s a nice place here,” Harry says. “Is it just yours?”

Louis nods. There’s a swell of something like pride in his chest, ballooning out into his lungs and his heart. His place is nice, because it’s his, because it’s home. “Yeah,” he says. “I bought it, like, three years ago. I still don’t really know why.”

He does know. The place had been empty, dusty and stale and unloved. Louis hadn’t had really anything but a failed stint in university, a few thousand pounds he’d worked his arse off for, and a Zayn. Zayn had more than that, of course. And maybe that’s why they went wrong. Zayn has always been so much more than Louis. Zayn had boxes upon boxes of books, classics and contemporaries and so many words. It was fascinating, really, to see that many worlds and universes cramped inside things so small.

The books needed a place to live, and so did Louis and Zayn.

The flat had been a house, but the bookshop was a home.

“What’s your favorite, then?” Harry asks. He’s got these wandering hands, the fingertips that trail over every dusty spine on the shelves, peering at the titles as he walks past. “Out of all these books, which one do you love the most?”

Louis trails behind him. It feels like his shop has expanded a bit, has made a temporary space for this boy and his silly hair and his questions.

“I don’t think I can choose,” he says. “I love them all for different reasons.” Loves them for making him laugh and making him cry and making him feel less lonely sometimes, when the flat seems too empty and Louis pads down the steps where there are characters waiting for him, infinite worlds bound together by ink on a page. “Why would I want to choose?”

Harry pulls one of the spines out, his finger tracing over the yellowing pages, blurred from wear and overuse. “Everyone has a favorite,” he tells Louis. “That’s just the way it works.”

“Says who?”

Harry shrugs. He’s got awfully broad shoulders, expansive and wide. “Says me.” He smiles. Teeth and dimples, Louis thinks again, and he wonders how many people have gone weak over them. “I’ve got a paper due at midnight. I should probably get back to it.”

“I close up at nine,” Louis says. His cold toes press into the wood and he pulls his arms into his jumper to find a bit more warmth. “Maybe 9:15, if you’re good.”

Harry shakes his head. His curls bounce, loose and messy against his face. “You won’t let me stay?” He slips the book back on the shelf and turns to Louis. “I’ve not got anywhere else to work on it.”

Louis sighs. “Do you not have a home?”

“It’ll be too noisy,” Harry tells him. “Just a bunch of blokes there, you know? Please Louis, c’mon, I’ll be good.”

It’s an awfully bad idea. Louis knows that from the dimple stitched into Harry’s cheek and the slant of his mouth when he smiles like he’s already won. Louis doesn’t know if he can trust him but his shop seems to, with the way a space seems to have been made for Harry to stay a little longer into the night.

Louis finds Brave New World buried in the blankets in the backroom. He takes the blanket too, pads back out into the main shop and settles in his chair. The cushion is sunken in around Louis’ body, like after all these years it will only seat him, is only fitted for him. Harry curls himself up in one the chairs, the wood creaking unsteadily but holding and Louis breathes out something quiet like a thank you, because people will let him down but his shop never will.

He lights the lamp by his chair, the dim glow casting just enough light so Louis can read comfortably. The big overhead lights have been turned off, and Harry works by the lamp too. The tap of his fingers on his laptop keys is as settling as the drip of the ceiling, the constant stream of quiet sounds echoing softly in Louis’ ears as he reads.

They are both near-silent otherwise. Louis’ limbs feel languid and heavy the longer he sits there, because he’s become accustomed to falling asleep like this, held together by the smell of home that’s embedded deep in the cushions and the softness of the chair curving around him. It’s his chair, and it fits him, and Louis lets his head fall back, resting against the back as his eyes close. The book rests dutifully in his lap, and Harry types on, quiet and steady and focused.

Louis falls asleep like that. He doesn’t mean to let his guard down so much, but he does. The words of his book are tattooed on the back of his eyelids, and he lets the drip of the ceiling and Harry’s heavy, steady fingers over the keys lull him to sleep.

His books will watch over him, he’s sure.