Burn Me Like the Sun

Work always seemed longer and more exhausting without either Valenti or Fran there to keep me entertained, but it felt even worse that afternoon with at least one pair of eyes always watching me, silently curious and just the slightest bit judgmental.

Clearly, all of my coworkers had seen the papers.

Thankfully, I was still a no-name, but that didn’t stop everyone I worked with from recognizing my cropped mop of auburn hair on Twitter and every last gossip magazine. It was bad enough with Morgan and Sydney always hushing their voices every time I walked by, like they thought they could pretend they weren’t constantly talking about me while I wasn’t around them, stuck in the line for refills or lugging around my tray and waiting for the prep team to finish. But it felt like there was no one that could keep their eyes off of me the entire afternoon. Even Rudy and Luke, our bartenders, stared so much that it felt like I had a cockroach crawling over my skin with every step I took in the crowded kitchen. Peter was the only person that didn’t treat me like a horrible rush hour traffic accident, though I wanted to chalk it up to the fact that he was too busy to pay attention to anything other than the prep, which he was left with leading by himself for the afternoon.

After five minutes in, my feet started to hurt and the lights began to feel like pins on my eyes and the noise from the event seemed to seep through every crack of the walls and pinch me with every breath I took. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home so badly, maybe make myself a sandwich and a cuppa and start on the pre-digital media dissemination essay Lassiter was expecting on his desk on Monday. I wanted so badly to escape the curious stares of my coworkers that I started to let myself get distracted by my surroundings – namely, the handfuls of stoves and ovens that lined almost every edge of the kitchen. Even on the Tube on my way to work, with my brain just as mushy as applesauce, I had felt the need to be constantly distracted from the pull of home.

Because Val wasn’t working the event and Margaret didn’t want to spend money for petrol to drive one person halfway across London when she could just tell me to take the Tube, I ended up taking the Underground to the event, which, as luck would have it, was smack dab in the middle of Chelsea, thanks to Marge’s new connections. I had almost an entire hour mostly to myself, at least until a graying woman that smelled like cat litter took the empty seat next to mine about halfway through my trip. Solitaire got boring after a while, and my iPod had been missing for the past week, though chances were I forgot it in my pocket and still hadn’t got to washing whatever trousers I’d left them in. So I had plenty of time to torture myself with thinking.

I thought about what I’d make for dinner when I got home – maybe some baked ziti from the leftover pasta I’d made the other night, or maybe I’d just bake a pan of brownies and finally be rid of the store-bought mix I’d had stashed in the cupboard ever since Louis mucked up the wiring. Then I started thinking about the night that Louis broke the stove – the painful look on his face when he stumbled to the ground, quickly followed by the realization that he had totally fucked up when he was just trying to get a rise out of me. And then I thought about Louis, just Louis, and his confusing agenda when it came to the two of us, and what Fran had said, that he had set up the perfect trap for me. I could see it coming from a hundred miles away, but I couldn’t bring myself to veer off course.

When I finally got off at the familiar South Kensington station and followed Peter’s hand-written directions to the Chelsea Old Town Hall, I was still perfectly fine with letting Louis pay for fixing my stove – after all, he broke it, so it was obviously up to him to get it fixed. But then I spent the next four hours working in front of so many high-end stoves and electric ovens that I could feel the change of heart come over me like the steam that wafted under the bathroom door when Fran took an extra-long hot shower.

I slowly became irate, offended, and riled up to the point that it felt like someone had given my brain a wedgie. I could handle my problems on my own. I didn’t need anyone’s help, and I didn’t need anyone holding it over my head, either. That was just a risk that I wasn’t willing to take. Not only that, but I never even asked for his help to begin with – in fact, I specifically told Louis while I cleaned up his burn not to bother with it. He knew I wanted to take care of it, and he had the gall to ignore me.

So four hours later, with my arms sore as I dragged my feet across the kitchen tile, I made up my mind. I was going to Louis’s.

I was able to convince Peter to let me borrow his mobile to get directions to Harry’s and Louis’s place from the Town Hall, as I really didn’t feel like rounding back to the Tube station in an attempt to recreate my first trip to Louis’s house. After scrambling to jot the directions down on a cocktail napkin before Peter finished packing up and left, I made a hasty speed-walk to their townhouse, which thankfully only ended up taking ten minutes.

On my way there, I focused on figuring out just exactly how I could murder an international pop star and get away with it. But by the time I rounded the corner of the street and spotted the familiar iron spires that guarded Louis and Harry’s townhouse, I still hadn’t stumbled across a foolproof plan. It didn’t even matter though, because the one person that would inevitably get in the way stumbled down the front porch steps before I could even think of hiding back behind the corner.

“The wavy crisps, yeah, I got it!” he called past the doorway as he slipped on his jacket. He shook out his unruly curls and procured a beanie from his pocket, promptly slipping it past his ears and shutting the door behind him with a pronounced whack.

Harry spotted me when he lifted up his chin, his beaten leather shoes smacking against the steps as he slowed to a stop, his gaze locking with mine. He quickly glanced back over his shoulder at the house, but then lurched forward in a spirited walk, nearly breaking into a run, and met me at the gate. He beckoned me closer, his cheeks cut with dimples, and I slunk forward, hanging my head.

I shot him a grim frown, watching him wrap his fingers over the iron spires as he leaned forward, pressing his chest into the gate.

“Alright?” he greeted smoothly.

“Alreet,” I replied curtly, letting out a staggered gush of air that had hitched in my throat the second I’d seen Harry duck out of his house. I dragged my eyes to my work boots when his smile faltered, as the way his expression melted pricked at my heart.

He chewed on his lower lip and pushed himself off the gate, silently unlocking it with a flourish and sliding from behind it. He gripped one of the spires and leaned sideways, swinging just the slightest from the gate as the hinges croaked. “How are you doing?” he asked earnestly, watching me closely.

“Honestly?”

He nodded.

“Angry. Confused. And a little guilty, now that you’ve caught me.”

Harry stopped swinging from the gate, his face puckering. He shook his head, mumbling incoherently before it finally hit him. He stood up straight with the realization and ran his hand over the gate as he stared at me, his eyes sharp. “I get you need space, but why are you ignoring all of us? Honestly, now,” he implored, his words coming out thicker than peanut butter. “Because I was just making a new friend, and she was bloody brilliant. And I don’t want to lose her yet just because my housemate was being an arse.”

“Wow. You’ve actually demoted him to housemate,” I mused sourly, looking off to the side. “Don’t let him hear you or you might just hurt his feelings.”

Harry sighed, like he was completely frustrated with me, but when I stole a glance at him from the corner of my eye, he was smiling softly, his eyes still locked onto me.

I rounded on him and jabbed him in the chest with my finger, but I only earned a weak grunt in response. I wagged my finger at him, giving him a firm look. “I can’t believe you let him bring me mobile back. I mean, a little warning would’ve been nice, yeah? God!”

He rubbed the spot where I’d poked him, looking dismal. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, I should have at least given you a heads up.”

I scoffed. “So you obviously know why I’m here, then.”

He chuckled, looking back at the house as he pinched his lower lip between his thumb and finger. “He’s quite the cunning bastard.” He looked back at me, his eyebrows slanted upwards, hopeful and emphatic. “You’ve got to give him some credit for that one, don’t you think?”

He had already brushed past me and was rounding the corner before I pulled myself from my paralyzed state, the shock of his words registering with my brain gluing me in place like a child’s macaroni craft project. Fran was right: Louis had planned it out entirely, and I did exactly what he had wanted me to do – shamelessly, even.

“Wait, Harry!” I called, my voice cracking as I stumbled forward.

His hunter green beanie peeked back around the corner, followed by a pair of dimples. “Yeah?”

“What…” I groaned, pushing the heel of my palm against my forehead. “What did Louis say to you that convinced you to let him bring me my mobile?”

His smile faltered into a thoughtful expression, his lips pressed together, until he finally said, “It wasn’t anything amazing.”

I groaned loudly, sick of the half-arsed answers I’d been getting. “Why did you let him take it, then?” I rubbed my lips together and watched Harry as he approached me hesitantly, his fingers tugging at his beanie as he stared at his feet. “Because honestly, you deserve a good smack for that one. You just dug your grave a little deeper, mate.”

“Listen, he may be a twat—” I scoffed at that, throwing back my head, but Harry ignored it. “But trust me, he’s a twat that’s truly sorry.” He shot me a sad smile and sighed. “I promise, Blake.”

I could only fathom a sarcastic nod, one of my eyebrows perked up doubtfully as I smiled scathingly.

He jerked his chin to the gate, then reached over to squeeze my elbow. “It’s open. Try not to murder Louis. He is my housemate, after all.”

And then he disappeared around the corner.

I spun around and stared at the gate as I screwed my mouth to the side. I could just as easily shut it closed and turn around and head back to the nearest Tube station and go back home, but then that would defeat the purpose of all the rage and irritation that had been simmering under my skin for the better part of an hour. It had yet to reach a boil, but I was certain the second I laid eyes on Louis, it wouldn’t matter because my skin would just melt off from all the loathing that would surely burn straight through me.

My eyes wandered to the pot of white carnations next to the driveway as I ambled up the stone steps. Earlier in the week they had just started to bloom, but now nearly all of them had blossomed, soaking in the sunlight that filtered through the tree branches that hung over almost every edge of his garden – all of them except for one.

I ended up sprinting up the steps and knocked on the door before I even had time to catch my breath. Louis’s voice was muffled by the thick wooden door, and I could hear his heavy footsteps make the hardwood floors creak.

“Damn it, Harry, you’re so daft. It’s not that hard to remember. We need sour cream and—”

The door swung open, and there he was, breathtaking and infuriating all at once.

I could feel my stomach swoop against my ribs like someone had lit the acid lining my guts on fire, and it took half my concentration to grapple at the anger that I had been feeding off my entire walk to his house. But the way he stood in the doorway, only an arm’s length away, his eyebrows shooting up so far that he looked like a bloody cartoon, made me hesitant. He was so overwhelming that all I could do was stare at him as he stumbled back with surprise even though he had planned his every move like a chess match. I felt pathetic just standing there and it was nagging at me.

He dragged his gaze to his feet as he picked at a loose thread hanging from his beaten Joy Division t-shirt, clearly at a loss for words.

“Oh, don’t act like this isn’t exactly what you were hoping for.”

He set his jaw and looked up, only glancing at me before he looked off to the side again, his lips set in a firm line. “You’re kind of early. Didn’t expect you to come ‘round for a couple of days.”

“Did you really think I could let any more of my anger with you simmer over? Huh?” I challenged, raising my voice. “I’m-I’m so goddamn disappointed in you! Using me like this, pushing my buttons. It’s frustrating! Just fuckin’ infuriating, Louis!”

“It’s not my fault you’re so easily set off,” he countered indignantly, widening his eyes as he clenched his jaw.

“Oh, my god.” I laughed bitterly, crossing my arm and cupping my elbow as I shook my head. I stabbed my throbbing temple with the tips of my fingers.

“Why don’t you come inside?” he offered, his voice clipped. He glanced around his garden, his eyes not even glazing over me. “We can talk about this.”

“We’re so far past talking, mate.”

Louis sighed and clenched his teeth again, the muscles in his jaw dancing. He yanked his fingers through the ends of his hair, which had been cut short and faded along the sides since the last time I saw him, when I was trying to smash his head in my doorway. It was shorter than I’d ever seen it before, and the cut looked distractingly good on him.

“Okay, so if you’re not here to talk, and you’re not here to forgive me, then what the hell do you want, Blake?”

“Forgive you?” I balked. “Really?” I stepped forward, close enough that I could feel the heat from his body that soaked through his worn t-shirt roll over me. “Do you think you even deserve it? Because I sure as hell don’t, mate. You’re pathetic,” I spat.

His face paled and he swallowed hard as he visibly shrunk back, then cleared his throat. “What do you want from me, then?”

“I want you to keep your bloody promises, alreet? I’m only here to say one thing, and I’m only standing on this bloody porch so you’ll actually remember my face while I’m telling you so you can finally get it through your thick skull.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his eyes finally flicked over my face, darting like a hummingbird, not focusing on one thing for long. “I am not going to let you hold this over my head.”

His face fell, and his features twisted into something offended, the corner of his mouth picking up. “I wasn’t going to hold this over you.”

I scoffed, steeling myself for my rant. “Like hell you weren’t. I’m going to pay you back, so don’t think you can just buy whatever your heart pleases with the millions you have stashed up your arse and think that I’ll let it be.” I clenched my hands at my sides, barreling through the heat that had pushed the words out of my mouth.

Louis slumped forward then, his shoulder pressed against the doorjamb. He sighed, then finally spoke after what felt like an hour of just standing there and watching him battle against something within himself. “Blake, I was only trying to help.”

“Yourself,” I corrected coldly. “Because you’re selfish, Louis.”

He sighed softly and shook his head, looking off to the side as he tugged at the tight collar of his t-shirt. “It was my fault your cooker was broken in the first place. I felt guilty.”

“Get used to it,” I seethed. “I don’t need help, especially from you, and I certainly didn’t ask for it, either! You knew this about me. I never ask for help, yet you always insist on sticking your nose into my shite. Speaking of which, don’t think I didn’t notice that you went through my mobile. God,” I bit out, “you had it for, what? Two days? And since you have absolutely no self-restraint to speak of, you just had to pry.” I wanted to reach up and flick him in the face so he would stop looking off to the side and ignoring me. I felt like a balloon pumped up with nothing but exhaled breath – warm and abandoned, and ready to fall. “I made you promise you would leave me alone, but since you’re you,” I seethed, “I shouldn’t be so surprised that you couldn’t stick it out.”

He didn’t even try hiding his offense as he rounded on me, yanking his spine a little straighter and crossing his arms defiantly. “I only promised that if I dropped you off at class that I’d leave you alone, but you had me pull over before we even got there.”

I grappled at invisible words, my mouth flopping about dumbly. I gave up and grunted once, shaking my head. “Technicality! It doesn’t matter, alreet? I won’t let you hold this over me. You have to know I’m going to pay you back.”

He pushed himself off the doorway and stepped out onto the porch, and I stumbled back, my back bumping into the edge of the handrail at the top of the steps. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. “You can pay me back by just hearing me out.”

I sneered, feeling around for the stairs and chancing a step down as I locked my eyes on his periwinkle ones – a stunning blue like a melted ice pop in the summer. “No way in hell, Louis.”

“Just…” He sighed. “Listen, you’re not angry, just not about this.” He paused for a moment, waiting for me to interrupt, but I couldn’t, not with him finally staring me down. He continued when I didn’t speak, still watching me closely like a lion through a thick screen of reeds. “You’re hurt. You’re so hurt because you thought you could trust me, but I shat all over your trust and then dragged it through the dirt and stomped on it some more.” He sighed, defeated, like he was actually disappointed in himself. “I get that, Blake. I know you’re upset, and I was just a proper wanker. I am, yeah? I regret every minute of it, and I won’t stop hating myself for it any time soon. And I know you need time to lick your wounds, but I just need you to know, honestly, I’m so sorry. I just need you to forgive me so I can start making it up to you. If… If you’ll let me.”

Some time in the past month, Louis had somehow weaseled his way into the cracks and splintered fissures of my heart. I didn’t know exactly when it started, but once I finally took notice, it was already too late. Too late to seal up those vulnerable breaks that I’d acquired over the years with a little more blistering frustration without hurting Louis in return.

But he could still sense my hesitance after his apology, even though I had put half of my focus into keeping my face carefully void of anything and the other half stilling my hands at my sides and not wrapping them around his neck. He studied me like he was sight reading sheet music, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed curiously. And to be honest, I was so close to forgiving him, maybe with the hope that he could help me fix everything, but then he had to flap that huge mouth of his.

“You’ll forgive your mum of all people, but not me?”

My jaw went slack and a hot breath escaped my mouth. I could feel a deep blush follow, staining my cheeks as my eyes narrowed. “Tell me, is the reason you’ve got such a massive gob because you’ve stretched out the damn thing with your giant foot so many times?”

His eyes bulged and he waved his hands out in front of him. “No. I-No, Blake—fuck—I didn’t… I didn’t mean…”

I fished out my mobile from my pocket when it beeped twice, the text tone slicing through the sudden silence between the two of us. I saw Louis flinch out of the corner of my eye as he instinctively slipped his hand into his pocket, belatedly realizing it wasn’t his own phone that had beeped.

“Thank god,” I muttered, eyeing the messenger I.D.

Louis let out a noise somewhere between a grunt and a whine, and he jerked his chin to my mobile as I slipped it back into my pocket for later. “Is that her?” he tried, his voice sour. “That’s your mum, isn’t it?”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms again, watching Louis as he slumped against the porch beam across from me at the top of the stairs. “This is not about my mum, Louis. This is about you and me.”

He looked almost guilty for a moment, a stark contrast to the emotions he’d been sporting on his sleeve since he opened the door – surprise, longing, anger, remorse, and even guilt. I could tell. But he was trying to hide his reaction for some reason, and I couldn’t swallow the thought of not knowing what he was thinking for a moment longer.

“What is it?” I finally ceded, rolling my eyes in an effort to not seem as intrigued as I was.

“It’s just…” He sighed, slumping forward, then pushed himself off the railing and flopped down onto the porch next to me, his legs stretching all the way to the last step from the bottom. “Your mum.”

“Oi, go on then,” I told him. “What’s this about me mum?” I prodded after a moment.

He pinched his bottom lip between his fingers, glancing up at me. “Is there any reason why she’s, just, y’know, suddenly so interested in you? Now? I mean, from what you’ve told me.”

I jabbed him in his knee with my trainer, shooting him a severe look. “What’re you on about, mate? Go on, spit it out.”

He shook his head and groaned, then pressed his fist against his cheek, staring up at me as his cropped bangs slumped to the side. “I’m worried that she, that she might be using you. To get to me, I mean to say. I just… I want you to be careful is all. It’s only just an inkling, see, but something doesn’t feel right. I just need you to trust me on this. Please. Honestly, I—” He sighed. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you. I’m just worried about you. Always am.”

“That’s a load of rubbish,” I bit out, immediately crossing my arms. My nostrils flared as I took heavy, steady breaths, and I stared at my feet, no longer able to swallow the sight of Louis. “My own mum! Are you listening to yourself, you wanker?” I scoffed. “Are you seriously trying to pull this card to get me to forgive you? Trying to fault her so you don’t seem like such a bad guy in comparison? Because that’s not going to work.”

He sat up a little straighter, but once he caught sight of the snarl on my face, he stood up, brushing his joggers off with his hands. “Blake, I’m sorry, I just think—”

I tossed my head back and laughed, grinning sharply at him. “You can take that sorry and all your other fucking apologies and ram them straight down your throat. I don’t…” I shook my head and tossed up my hands, shoving them into my pockets as I teetered down the stairs, my footsteps unsteady. “I don’t know why for even a second I considered letting you off the hook,” I grumbled, mostly to myself.

Louis grappled for my hand, his fingers only grazing my wrist before they gently wrapped around my elbow. He croaked my name, biting down hard on his lower lip.

“I hate you,” I snapped, ripping my arm from his grasp. “I hate you so much right now. You’re worthless.”

“Babe,” he tried again, his voice hitching and crumbling like a rich chocolate cake.

“You really think I’m so vile that my own mother wouldn’t want to be in my life? That she’d just use me like that to get to you? My god, do you even know how self-absorbed that sounds?” I sneered, looking up at Louis as he raked his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. He let out a shaky breath, his eyes focused on his feet. “How could you even suggest such a thing when you were the one that actually used me?”

“Stop putting words into my mouth,” he bit out, his voice breaking. He still wouldn’t look at me, not even when my feet had hit the footpath – he just kept staring off to the side as his Adam’s apple bobbed like a teasing fishing float. “Of course I don’t think you’re vile.” He brushed his palm over his hair and sighed defeatedly. “You already know what I think of you.”

“You forget, mate. Actions speak louder than words.”

And then I left, slamming the gate shut behind me, before I could give myself the chance to take it all back, before I could look at Louis’s face one more time, before I could risk falling apart all over again.