***Harry Styles***
Friday, July 13th, 2012 – North London, England

Neither Louis nor I got much sleep on Thursday night. He would doze off for a minute, then twitch or jerk awake and all I could do was just hold him tight. I wasn’t sure if he was mad at me for pressuring him to go meet Chuck, but he was letting me touch him which I took as a good sign. The bad signs were he didn’t want to talk about it, and I wondered if he was only letting me be there for him because he had nowhere else to go at the moment. I was worried what would happen when we got home.

He slept through most of the flight, and we landed in London and drove home in silence. He went straight up to his room and shut the door. I unpacked my bag, giving him a few minutes before going in to check on him. I knocked lightly on his door, but didn’t wait for an answer before I walked in. My boyfriend was lying on his bed on his back, staring at the ceiling, his hands behind his head. His face was…expressionless.

“Lou?” I said, when he didn’t even acknowledge that I’d come in.

“Hi, Harry,” he said, his tone flat. I walked over to him and laid down next to him, draping my arm across his stomach. He reflexively put one of his arms around me.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“I’m fine,” he said. That scared me – Louis couldn’t lie, but I knew he wasn’t fine, leading me to believe he really thought he was okay, which was worse than him breaking down because then he’d at least be acknowledging the pain. I tilted my head to look up at him, and he smiled down at me. “Really. Don’t worry, Curly.” He ruffled my hair. I knew he wasn’t going to talk, so I decided I just wouldn’t let him out of my sight until he actually was okay. Putting on a mask was something I was very skilled at, so it would be hard for him to fool me.

“Let me at least make you something to eat,” I offered, but Louis shook his head.

“Just, lay here with me?” he asked.

“Oh, of course, Love,” I said, and I tightened my arm around his stomach, then the two of us fell asleep like that.

We had to go into the studio to record the next day, and I could immediately tell the guys sensed something was up with Louis. When my boyfriend left the room to go to the bathroom, I explained what had happened in Anaheim. They promised they’d help me look after him, and acted like nothing had happened when he came back. After the session was over, the managers asked Louis and I to stay back for a few minutes. The other three said goodbye and left, and we walked into the conference room with some of the managers – Carl, Frank, and Pete. We sat down.

“Look, guys,” Carl opened. “There’s been a lot of Larry publicity lately, and we need to put a stop to it.” I blinked.

“We’ve seen the effort you guys have made in public,” Frank added, “and we really appreciate it, we do. But it hasn’t been enough to stop the gossip, so we’ve come up with a few ideas to try out.”

“Like?” I prompted.

“Well, one of the bigger topics we’ve seen is about how you two live together,” Pete said.

“Neither one of us are moving,” I stated. Louis looked at me appreciatively.

“No, no, we’re not saying that,” Pete continued. “But we need to make it appear like one of you has moved out.”

“What, like have someone take pictures of one of us loading up a moving van?” I asked, confused.

“We thought about that,” Frank said, “but we think that would only start break up rumors and escalade the publicity. So we’re just asking you not bring up the fact that you live together, and if anyone asks, you each have your own place, just like the other guys do.” I nodded. I hated it, but I could deal with it.

“We’re also toying around the idea of getting one of you a fake girlfriend,” Carl said. “We haven’t made plans to do so yet, but just know that that is a possibility for the future if we’re unable to tame this thing.”

“This is ridiculous,” Louis said, standing up.

“Lou,” I said, gently. I was angry as well, but I knew losing my cool with management wouldn’t help anything.

“No, Harry, they want us to deny our love for each other and lie to our fans! Why can’t you just let us come out already?” he asked the managers.

“Louis, I get that you’re frustrated,” Pete said, kindly. “But the thing is, a lot of people who make One Direction happen – I’m talking producers, publicists, the marketers, even some of the song writers – might not understand, and they might terminate their contracts with us over it, and it would be pretty damn difficult to find replacements that would keep things running normal and continue with your same sound. And you guys seem to like the way things are going, yes?”

“Don’t do that,” Louis said. “Don’t act all noble like you’re doing this for us.”

“Louis,” I said, more firmly this time.

“We’re doing it for the band, Lou,” Carl said.

“Bullshit,” Louis said. “I just hope you guys never get told that you can’t publicly express your feelings for your wife, because let me tell you, it starts to take its toll on you and your relationship.” My heart snapped. Louis turned and stormed out of the room. I had never seen Louis go off on someone like that – outside of his family, he always kept his cool (unless we were fighting, of course, but that was a different story) and rarely argued with authority. I looked at the managers, knowing I needed to smooth this over before it got ugly.

“Sorry about that,” I said, standing up as well. “He’s had a rough week.”

“We understand,” Carl nodded. I took a deep breath.

“Look, we’ll do it,” I agreed, “for now, we’ll keep up with the image that all of us are straight, but most of our fans are our age and younger. That’s a different generation than you guys grew up in, and they’re more tolerant of stuff like this, so, just, keep that in mind.” I said it as nicely as I could, and they all three nodded, then shook my hand and I left to go find Louis.

I went down to the lobby of the building and saw my four band mates standing around one of the couches; Liam, Zayn, and Niall probably having waited for Louis and I to see if we wanted to grab lunch like we usually did after morning recording sessions. Zayn was hugging a tearful Louis, and the other two had their arms around his back. It made me really jealous for some reason. I knew it didn’t mean anything beyond friendship to any of them and I trusted all of them, but I was the one who was supposed to hug Louis when he was upset. I told myself I was being irrational and probably just bugging out from his comment about things “taking a toll” on our relationship. I quietly walked over to the guys and cupped my hand around Louis’s neck.

“Come here,” I whispered, and I turned him towards me as Zayn let go of him. Louis fell into my arms, and I let him cry, glad that he was at least showing emotion but pained that he was hurting so badly. Finally, he pulled away and wiped his eyes. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home. I’ll make us all some lunch.” The guys nodded, and I drove Louis home while they followed in their cars. He stared silently out the window the whole time, and I didn’t bring up what had happened with the managers, not yet.