“Harry, how old are you?” the doctor asked him slowly.
“Eighteen.” Turning his gaze to his mother, Harry felt some kind of panic coming up his chest. Something was wrong. Everyone was acting so strangely. “You said it was only five days. What is going on?”
“I can’t let you take me home, Harry,” Louis repeated. He stepped a little closer and when Harry frowned, he managed a weak smile. “I wouldn’t be able to let you go again.”
“I hadn’t given up,” Louis repeated Liam’s words from earlier. “I had hoped.”
He heard Liam swallow and taking a deep breath. “There’s none left. His last tests showed he’s not going to recover, Lou. The doctors said his memory won’t ever come back. It’s been too long.”
“Who asked for the first date?”
“Me,” Louis answered. “Kinda. You owed me a drink. I won the name guessing, but you had to catch your bus, so we met again the next night.”
“I want to, Lou. It feels like that’s one of the few ways you actually let me take care of you.”
“Not anymore.” Louis dropped his voice, a rush of excitement going through him as he realised he was able to do this. With Harry. In public. “I’ll take sex over food any time.”
“I didn’t let anyone fuck me in the past five years,” Louis murmured, voice muffled against Harry’s chest. “The last time was two days before the accident.”
“And you don’t want to take me to your bed and open me up until I beg for it? You don’t want to fuck me deep and hard and slow, until I’ve forgot anything but your name, screaming it with each of your thrusts?”
“Laughing, Louis kicked out his foot to poke Niall’s thigh. “So you don’t wanna know about the call boy I had over last week that I paid to tie me to my bed and make me beg for it?”
“Gross,” Niall and Liam retorted in unison.
“You started it,” Louis reminded them.”
“Was that on Christmas?”
Louis nodded. “Yeah. We had a huge get-together in Doncaster. You were making Christmas dinner.” He pulled another picture from the box and held it out for Harry. “And made me your kitchen slave.”
“It’s a basic human instinct to turn away from danger. Usually, in an accident like the one you had, drivers turn the car right to protect themselves. Harry did the exact opposite by turning left. The only explanation we have is that he instinctively wanted to protect you.”