Chapter Text
September, 2025
It’s done! The beast is finished.
(This is the place to scroll on to Chapter One if you’re not in the mood for my ramblings about what made this fic happen.)
When I started this journey in 2023, I was only seven months into fic reading—thirteen years in the fandom, and not once had I touched a fic. I love literature, I’ve studied literature, but real people fanfiction always felt too invasive, too close to home I guess, especially given the parasocial bond I’ve had with these five boys since day one, (it’s worrisome, really).
Then came November 2022: a broken arm (so much for ‘parasocial bond’), surgery, a hospital stay, and unreliable WiFi. The universe has a dark sense of humour.
What shall I say, one click led to another, and I tumbled down an ao3 rabbit hole I’ll never be able to climb back out of. I binged for hours, weeks—whom am I kidding? Months!
I found works that eclipsed much of my literature-studies reading list, works that ruined me and put me back together, and fics that healed things I didn’t know where broken. And somewhere along the way, I felt the need to give something back to this amazing community. That’s how this “little journey” began.
On Sunday, May 21st, 2023 I created a doc called fic2.
On May 22nd I renamed it Good Grief.
That these words are written 28 months after starting and the stats of my Scrivener look like this
—is just another joke of the universe.
The idea for this plot was born while navigating my own upheavals. Losses I couldn’t escape, changes I couldn’t undo.
I learned the hard way that death is a part of life as much as love is. Though we celebrate one, the other is being pushed aside, outsourced to hospitals, hospices—basically anywhere but close to us. What we don't see, doesn't exist.
Yet, it does exist. Painfully so.
I’m not gonna lie, I thought I understood grief. In less than three years, I lost five of my closest and most beloved people, and then three more followed soon after. So when I started to write this rollercoaster, I believed myself more than well-versed in the gut-wrenching truth that no matter the level of grief you’re subjected to, your own life goes on, whether you like it or not.
From the start, this story was meant to portray how loss, grief, love, and laughter go hand in hand. Because if I’ve learned one thing, both from research and from experience, it’s that discussing the hard topics in advance can and does ease the unimaginable pain when grief inevitably hits.
Never in a million years, though, had I thought that I'd be mourning the loss of one of the boys during this process.
Yet here I am.
On October 16th, 2024, Mister Liam Payne tragically passed away.
At that time I was 346,559 words into this story. A story about Louis losing his best friend.
And nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for it.
It broke me. More than I will ever let someone know.
I am not a superstitious person in any way. But the little evil voice in the back of my head, whispering, “You’ve called it” is something I will have to live with for the rest of my days.
Finishing this story was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. For multiple reasons.
I struggled. A lot. Still do.
Friendships were formed over this, friendships were dampened over this.
But in the end I owed it to myself, to my betas, to the fic fandom that has given me so much over the past three years, and last but not least to Liam to push through this beast.
To grieve is to honour the memories we’ve created with someone while we grapple with their absence.
This is me honouring 15 years of memories.
This is me honouring one special night in a hotel bar, where I still don’t know who needed the talk more—you or I.
I wish my words had had the same impact on you as yours had on me.
Sometimes life even fucks up pinky promises.
This is me grappling with your absence.
RIP Liam
Until we meet again.
xxx
❤️
“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”
George Bernard Shaw.
So, have that laugh, have that cry, have that laugh while you cry or have that cry while you laugh, but never cease to make the best out the time you have, because we’re all just arguing about our timescale given.
My special thanks goes out to the dearest Hands And Knees For Two Days Straight squat. Without you girls, I’d probably still be stuck somewhere around chapter 10.
Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your support. Thank you for being the OT4 I needed to push through.
I will never be able to repay you.
Please know that you’ll always be in my heart.
❤️💛🧡💚💙
Disclaimer:
This product contains traces of life and death and everything that can happen in between.
There’s swearing, sarcasm, banter, smut, an attempted assault and a very happy ending.
Nothing in this story is so graphic that an average emotionally stable adult couldn’t cope with it.
To what extend you consider yourself emotionally stable is not up to the author to decide.
By continuing to read, you agree not to come at the author for personal issues that might, respectfully, be better discussed with a therapist. So take care of yourself, my friend.
Several studies (e.g., Jones et al., 2020; Bellet et al., 2018) suggest that trigger warnings do not reduce immediate distress when exposed to potentially upsetting content. They also don’t tend to prevent people from engaging with the material, but they might increase anxiety by emphasising the potential for harm, and may unintentionally reinforce avoidance behaviours.
I don’t intend to increase your anxiety. That’s why you won’t find special warnings for potentially upsetting scenes, none of them are very graphic either way. What I can promise is this: everything you’re about to read has been written with intention, balanced by humour, sarcasm, and a thoroughly considered healing arc for every single character.
There are a couple of sentences that, with the knowledge of today, I’d probably write differently. But at the time they were written with intent, so I decided to leave them in. As a wise man has engraved on his chest: it is what it is.
AI was used to scavenge commas, spelling variants, and Louis’ bloody possessive “s” to spare my betas from having to correct the same shit over and over again. Other than that: every simile, triad, and em-dash is mine. I refuse to let chatGPT ruin 30 years of proper use of punctuation in English.
If you still think something sounds AI-ish, blame my non-native autistic arse for picking it up in way too many AI written fics and student essays. It’s a pestilence I can’t seem to escape.
Let’s just face it: we’re all doomed to live with this plague we feed ourselves anyway by now.
There will be links to pictures or songs in this fic. If you don’t want to disrupt your reading flow by clicking on them here’s the link to the masterpost where I will add additional visuals or audios as we go.
Now, have fun, and please don’t be shy about letting me know what you think of this “little” story.
All the love
Faith
Chapter One
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Louis yelped and darted toward the spinning witches’ hat carousel at the far end of the playground. Two primary school kids had wound it up so tightly that, the moment they let go, it whipped into a dizzying blur, catapulting a little girl who had climbed onto it straight toward the trees lining the park.
“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, catching her mid-air just in time. The impact knocked the breath out of him, but he managed to steady them both. “That was a close call! Are you okay, love?”
He looked down at the blonde bundle dressed in faint rose in his arms. She couldn’t have been older than three, and now clung to his chest, too shocked to even breathe.
“AVA!” A female voice cried out frantically as Louis gently inspected her for harm. Her tiny hands clutched his jacket, her face buried in his shoulder, trembling but unhurt.
“Christ, Ava,” the woman gasped, rushing to his side. Strangely, she didn’t reach for her daughter but instead placed a hand on Louis’ arm. Louis resisted the urge to pull away.
“Thank you—thank you so much! Are you alright, darling?” she said, finally glancing at the little girl, but instantly back at Louis not even waiting for an answer. “Gosh, I was only distracted for a split second and when I looked up, she was gone and you were already sprinting to fetch her,” she added, batting her fake eyelashes.
Louis bit back a scoff. Split second, my arse. The group of four mums—all looking exactly the same with their long, flat-ironed blond hair, meticulously plucked brows, and matching wardrobes in fifty shades of mumfluencer beige—had barely moved since he’d arrived at the playground with Milly and Ruby nearly forty-five minutes ago. The biggest effort they’d shown during the past hour was to snap the “cutest” totally-not-staged Instagram shots of their wunderkinds. The rest of the time, they’d been side-eyeing other people, whispering, and passing judgement, all while their unattended offspring trampled over sandcastles, buckets, and spades.
God, did he despise these pretentious, social media mum snobs.
“Yeah, happens to the best,” he said, tone polite but edged with sarcasm that sailed right over her head. “Mind if I hand you your daughter back now?”
“Oh! Yes, of course,” she stammered, hastily taking Ava into her arms. She gave the girl a quick once-over before promptly setting her back down.
“Caroline,” she said, thrusting her hand out, and stepping even closer. Too close. Louis flinched, instinctively leaning back. There really wasn’t much that irritated him more than people invading his personal space.
Caroline’s gaze swept over him, starting at his face and sliding down the length of his body before settling somewhere around his collarbone. He cringed but forced himself to stay composed.
He hadn’t even planned on being here. One minute he was shaking hands over a multi-million-pound software deal, the next he was sprinting across the playground in Brioni. Or was it Prada? Who cared. Okay, his sisters cared since most likely it had been one of them who made him buy it.
Anyway. All it took to get here was one call from Gladys. “I’m not feeling great, sweetheart. Could you pick up the girls?” She had said, and no, he couldn’t.
He was supposed to have lunch with a bunch of other suits, celebrating their merger. But of course he did; just like every other day since Ben was in hospital. Again.
It wasn’t even a question anymore. Ben was his best mate, the girls were Louis’ godchildren, and the only ones holding their little universe together since the diagnosis were his Nan and Gladys—Ben’s mum.
So, of course he said yes, and didn’t even swing by home to change.
Now, he was the utterly overdressed weirdo sweating through his way too expensive navy suit and white shirt on this May 3rd. At least he’d had the decency to get rid of the matching tie.
Although, throwing a quick glance to Caroline, he wasn’t sure the open top two buttons were working in his favour right now. He felt like a piece of prey under the glare of a mating-ambitious bird.
Louis ran a hand through his hair. Christ. How had he gone from boardrooms to babysitting in a single breath? Again.
He rubbed the back of his neck and tried not to think about how much easier it used to be.
Ben had always been the sturdy one. A walking dad joke in human form even when he didn’t have children yet. Unshakeable, gentle, deeply uncool in the best way. Louis had never needed to step up like this, not full-time. He was the one who could happily lose eighteen hours a day in his office if it meant everyone he loved never had to worry about money, bills, or broken boilers. That was how he showed up—by making sure no one else had to panic. But now the panic had moved in anyway.
Since the diagnosis, everything had cracked open. And no matter how many zeroes Tomcare Solutions racked up each quarter…there was no way of buying a way out.
First came the chemo, then the surgeries, and now this endless hospital stay that had stretched into its fourth week.
Louis didn’t like to think about how pale Ben looked last time they facetimed. Or how small the girls seemed when they asked when Daddy would come home. He just didn’t know.
He wasn’t good at this stuff. He was a loner. And perfectly happy as such. He’d always only thought of himself as the backup. The godparent. The extra. But lately, it felt less like standing in and more like juggling the whole thing, which was okay, because—well, he loved those silly little buggers. And still, between Ben’s treatment, Gladys’ dodgy health post-stroke, and two nearly-three-year-olds who could destroy a living room in under twelve seconds, he was…coping. Sort of.
At least on paper, he still looked like a man who had his shit together—designer suit, smart watch, curated stubble. A proper professional. He’d built a whole business on that image. Knew exactly how to use it, too.
But standing here, shirt clinging to his back, collar wide open, brown brogues kicked aside to dig his feet into warm sand, it felt like wearing a costume from a different life. One he didn’t have time to put away before stepping into this one.
And judging by the way Caroline was eyeing him—like she’d just found a Daddy-shaped snack—he probably should’ve come in trackies.
She was still standing there, far too close for his liking, holding out her hand and not taking her eyes off him.
“Louis,” he answered finally, accepting her outstretched hand for a quick handshake, already ready to retreat. He turned to glance at Ruby and Milly, who were peacefully sitting in the sand, shoving their toy excavators and dump trucks from point A to point B, blissfully minding their own business.
“Nice to meet you, Louis,” she cooed. “I’ve seen you around a few times over the last couple of weeks. Your daughters are so lovely, totally different from this whirlwind. You can’t let her out of sight for a split second,” nodding to her daughter, who was now stumbling around the swings, dangerously close to a pair of kicking feet.
Louis inhaled sharply at the sight.
“Godchildren,” he said, his tone clipped, as the kid miraculously remained unscathed. “Just babysitting.”
“Oh, how lovely! That’s such a nice thing for you to do. Kids sure do seem to love you, judging by the way they cling to you,” she said somewhat smirking with a short look to her own daughter who was now trying to climb up the slide tower. “Not a single parent then?”
“Nope, not a single parent,” he replied, pressing his thumb into the palm of his hand to ease his discomfort.
Her smile broadened and she flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder exposing her tanned collarbone under a light cream crocheted cardigan; her three friends were low-key side-eyeing them, pondering whether to come over or not.
“Oh, single godfather then?” she asked, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. “I assume, as I’ve only seen you alone with the two darlings…”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, could you be more blunt, he thought when the ringtone of his phone saved him from answering.
“Sorry, gotta take this one,” he said, as he took a few steps aside and turned around before picking up.
“Hi, please tell me you’re in the neighbourhood. Code rainbow, Li, code rainbow!”
Liam snorted through the phone. “Tommo, again? I can’t keep saving your sorry arse every time yet another bird you won’t give the slightest chance throws herself at you, mate. You’ve seriously gotta learn how to ditch them on your own—or for the love of everything that’s holy, just let one pull you already! They can’t possibly all be shite. Anyways, where are you? I was heading back to the office but wasn’t sure if you’d still be there.”
“Pleeeeease, I’m at the park with the girls and the dumbfluencer mum-mafia is tackling me. It’s four of them! Four! It’s like throwing a piece of meat into a flock of vultures. Me being the meat! Damnit, Payno! She asked if I was a single-parent-slash-godfather twirling her stupid hair around her finger mere seconds after I prevented her daughter from smashing her head on a tree trunk! She didn’t even check on her. Grant her another five minutes and she’ll lasso me with her bra, forgetting she has a kid in the first place!”
A loud laugh bursted out of the speaker.
“Fine. I was already heading your way. Just parked at the coffee shop, give me a sec.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me till you’re here! I’ll fire your arse!”
“Aww princess, be nice to your Wookie Bear if you want me to get you out of there with your pants still on.”
“I swear to God, Payno, don’t make me slap you!”
“Maybe I enjoy a well-placed—”
“OH, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND HURRY!” he hissed, throwing a glimpse at the four women that were still ogling him, obviously waiting for him to end his call.
“Darling, no swearing in front of the children,” Liam’s voice rang out from behind. Louis spun around just in time to see the exceptionally fit, brown-haired lad hop over the playground’s barrier giving Louis his biggest grin.
With a slight slap on Louis’ bum, he hung up the phone, let it slide into the back pocket of his black fitted suit trousers that really didn’t leave anything to the imagination and pecked Louis on his cheek.
“There you are WOOKIE BEAR!” Louis simpered loud enough for the dumbfluencers to hear.
“Hi pumpkin, missed you, how are my three favourite princesses?” Liam chirped, putting his muscled arm around Louis’ waist, and pulling him in close.
Dressed in a dark green polo insolently accentuating his brawny upper body, Louis had to admit that Liam was quite the sight, and he thanked God for the umpteenth time that Liam moved in next door at the age of five and ever since had been one of Louis’ best mates in the world. Still, he tensed at the physical contact and made a mental note to get him back later for calling him “princess” in public.
Liam’s arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed by Brandy, Mandy, Randy, and Sandy—or whatever their names were. The second Louis hung up, the pack of them began to approach again, their interest now doubled.
And Louis? Well, Louis’ momentary self-preservation mechanism was to start cooing. Totally not over-exaggeratedly of course. “I am sooo sorry for the interruption, please meet my partner Liam. I would gladly resume our little chat, Caroline, but unfortunately, Liam and I have a few things to discuss for our wedding in September,” and just because he could he then batted eyelashes on his turn, and maybe even threw the most cringeworthy love stare at Liam.
“Oh,” Brandy-Caroline stammered, “You’re engaged! That’s um, that’s wonderful, congratulations. A late summer wedding, how lovely. Nice to meet you Liam, your fiancé is quite the catch if I dare say so.” He threw a bit up in his mouth.”We were just…um,” she blushed, “We… I just wanted to thank him again for saving my daughter from flying off that hell of a spinner. He’s really got some amazing reflexes, so um yeah, thank you.”
“Oh, bless you, darling,” Liam purred. “He really is the absolute best. I guess all his football training didn’t just benefit this bum,” he winked and squeezed Louis’ right butt cheek.
Gonna staple a list of appropriate behaviour to your forehead first thing in the morning, bloody hell. And then knock you out with the goddamn stapler, Louis thought, biting his inner lip and grinning tightly. If he happened to pinch Liam’s waist just a bit too hard that was on pure accident.
“It sure didn’t,” Caroline chuckled, throwing yet another glance at Louis’ bottom. “Well, then I’ll no longer keep you lovebirds from your chat. It was a pleasure meeting you. Best wishes for the wedding and thanks again for the impeccable catch,” she pointed her head towards the toddler. “Bye then, see you around.”
Once she was out of earshot Louis snarled, “My bum? Seriously, Payno?”
“Hey, it is a good bum, don’t blame me!” he laughed. “So, is it just me or did I hear you say thanks for saving me YET AGAIN from major embarrassment and total incompetence in the flirting department, Liam, bestest friend in the whole wide world?”
“I’m not incompetent in the flirting department. I may have slight deficiencies in the dumping business, but really, how’s it my fault that I attract the shallowest of all out there? Besides, you’ve been working for me for 15 years and not once have I fired your drunk arse, you owe me.”
“Only because most of the time you’re too baked to even tell if I’m drunk or not. She was hot though, could totally have let her shag you for a change, she seemed quite fond of your dumping business,” he teased, making a beeline towards the two toddlers before Louis could hit him with the spade. “Hey, my lovely little sunshines, how are my two favourite girls? Wooow that’s some impressive building skills, did you dig that hole all on your own, or were you just helping Louis to dig himself one?”
“Limaaaa,” Ruby squeaked darting straight into Liam’s arms, “Look, I got piggy tails.” She pointed to her dark hair fixed in the smallest pigtails he’s ever seen. “Loulou did it,” she proudly smiled at him like he’d hung her the stars and started twirling.
“Wow, you look amazing, Sweetie, the best piggy tails I’ve ever seen on a two-year-old,” he patted her back and smiled. “And you, Milly, you didn’t want Louis to make you any piggy tails?”
The toddler shyly shook her head, not looking up, silently loading the dump truck with sand.
“She still refuses to speak?” he whispered towards Louis, raising an eyebrow.
Louis shrugged his shoulders, his lips pressed to a straight line. “Can’t blame her, can ya?”
“How is he? Have you been to the hospital yet?”
Louis faltered. “Li, you know I…” he stuttered, flinching back in horror.
“Yeah, mate I know,” Liam said compassionately. “It just sucks so much. Did Gladys say anything?”
“Not really, she just rang me up in the middle of the Commsmith meeting, asking me to pick up the girls from nursery because she wasn’t feeling too well. I didn’t dare ask,” he murmured. “Nan is taking them for the night. They really need to fix him soon.”
“Lou, you know he won’t...”
“They’re gonna fix him, Li, they will!”
“Mate.”
“Don’t ‘mate’ me, he’s gonna be fine! He always is.” He planted himself on the ground next to the toddlers and began to ram the little yellow plastic spade into the sand.
Liam sighed. Louis could feel his worried brown teddy bear eyes fixed on the back of his’ head, watching him stubbornly digging and broadening the girls’ construction site hole.
The situation with Ben was…tense. He and Louis had grown up practically like brothers. Ben’s mum, Gladys, and Louis’ Nan, Jen, had been inseparable since the dawn of time—just like Ben and Louis. Whether it was birthdays, Christmases, or random Tuesdays, the Burkes and Tomlinsons had been constants in each other’s lives. And once the Payne family moved in next door, they’d become part of the mix too. It was just…family.
That’s what made everything now so hard to bear.
“Is Gladys still refusing to go to a proper physiotherapy clinic?” Liam asked, letting sand run through his fingers.
“The only way she’d agree was if Nan came too. But good luck with that—every stroke rehab centre’s been jammed since the damn pandemic, and the NHS is still using it as an excuse for falling apart. Even if I managed to get them into a private place, there’s no way they’d go along with it while Ben’s still off track. You know how the old girls are—stubborn as hell.”
“Stubborn, huh? Oh, wouldn’t I know.” Liam smirked and nudged Louis’ side with the tip of his shoe.
“Shut up.”
Louis leaned back and watched Ruby collect pebbles to fill her truck. The fun fact with the Tomlinson-Burkes was that Ben’s mum was actually older than Louis’ Nan, yet Ben and Louis were the same age. It had always struck Louis as odd—like the Burkes had skipped a generation. And no, it was totally not because the Tomlinson women shot out babies like a confetti cannon at New Year’s, no matter what Ben said. Anyway. His Nan, at seventy, could still run circles around most people, but Gladys wasn’t as lucky. The strokes had slowed her down, and no matter how much she loved the twins, keeping up with two whirlwind toddlers while Ben got his treatment was too much, not that she would ever admit so.
Liam shuffled his feet through the sand, as he cleared his throat.
“Do you think we should maybe talk to him again about trying to find—“
Louis jerked around, staring at him in bewilderment. “Did someone hit you on the head, lad? Because if not, I’ll gladly offer,” he grunted, knowing perfectly well to whom Liam was alluding.
They fell silent, both knowing better than to push that train of thought. He glanced toward Ruby and Milly, still happily digging in the sand. Their mum hadn’t even lasted six hours after they were born.
As much as he’d like to romanticise their story, she basically was a hook-up on a drunken night at the pub and Ben didn’t know about the existence of the kids until the maternal ward of the Summerstone General Hospital had called to inform him that the mother of his children had taken off, leaving nothing but two newborns and a note containing his name, phone number and the sentence: “If their dad can’t take them, please find them a caring family.”
Louis could still remember the call. The stunned silence from Ben. The way he’d clutched the edge of Louis’ kitchen counter when the paternity test came back positive two days later and Ben had asked him to get his siblings’ car seats and drive him to the clinic, now!
The image of Ben holding two screaming newborns had stuck with Louis. Awkward arms cradling both girls at once, his expression a wild mix of fear and determination. “Guess I’m a dad, then,” he’d said, his voice cracking on the word “dad.”
But the truth was, Ben had already been fighting an uphill battle before the twins came along. The cancer diagnosis—Stage III colon cancer, the same shit that had taken his dad—had hit him like a freight train just six weeks earlier. He’d barely had time to process that blow when the phone call from the hospital came.
For the first six months it all went fine. Although Ben’s treatments were a constant rollercoaster, he turned out to be a real baby whisperer. On his not-so-well days, Gladys, Nan, and Louis helped out as much as they could and they made things work.
Month seven then brought the news that the cancer had spread. Two days later, Gladys had her first stroke. Ben had to stay in hospital more and more often. The new round of chemotherapy took its toll on him and with Gladys in recovery, the twins were shuffled from one set of hands to the next, passed between godparents, grandparents, nursery, and anyone who could step in when needed, mostly Louis though.
He had lost count of how many nights he’d spent at Ben’s, rocking one baby while trying to calm the other until either his Nan or Lottie, Louis’ eldest sister, came along in the morning picking them up for nursery and granting Louis another hour to go home and get ready for work. It was somehow working, but at a cost.
Which was why, when the house next to his went up for sale, Louis hadn’t hesitated to buy it, turning it into fully accessible flats, and moved his grandparents and Gladys in. He’d even made sure there was a flat for Ben, just in case.
Not that anyone ever dared say that out loud. Not Ben, and certainly not Louis.
They didn’t even need to because for a while things had seemed better. Ben’s third round of chemo had gone well, and he finally seemed stronger, more like himself again. The twins turned one, then two, two and a half, and Ben was fine.
Until, well, he wasn’t.
Louis sighed, glancing at Ruby and Milly. For now, they were happy, giggling in the sandpit. But lately, he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was teetering on the edge. The twins deserved stability, but it felt like every time things started to settle, the ground shifted beneath them.
Because if he had learned one thing over time it was that when shit hit the fan in the Tomlinson and Burke households, it hit with a capital H.
“You okay? Want me to change the subject?” Liam’s voice cut through his thoughts, soft but steady.
Louis blinked, shaking off the heavy feeling in his chest and nodded.
“So, how did it go this morning?”
“What?”
“The Commsmith meeting.”
“Oh, yeah. Went smoothly. They signed without any further discussion. Guess that makes us the market leader now.”
“Whoop whoop” Liam blurted, “Tommo, I am so fucking proud of you, man. Look at you, Mister-Sassy-Pants-I-Failed-My-A-Levels-Twice-But-Conquered-The-World-On-My-Own. Who would have thought that teaching yourself programming to cheat at Sid Meier’s Civilization would get you to sunbathe at 3 o’clock on a workday, not giving two flying shits about your bloody 5k-suit being planted in a dirty old sandpit that strolling cats have most likely been using as a litter box since 1959.”
“Eww, Payno!!” he shouted, immediately turning towards the toddlers in the sand pit. “Girls, don’t put anything in your mouth that looks like truffles.”
“What’s toiffis?” Ruby giggled.
“Just don’t put anything in your mouth, Sweetie.” He raked the spade over the ground, relieved that the black pebbles were indeed just pebbles.
“So, pub tonight? Gotta proper celebrate my fiancé becoming one of the richest fuckers in town,” Liam teased with a blinding smile.
“Oh, fuck off!”
“Pub at seven?” Liam asked.
“It’s Wednesday.”
“And?”
“Friday’s pub night.”
“You’re 35 and own your own company, I think you won’t get into trouble for going to the pub twice in a week.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “Fine. Pub at seven.”
“Alright then. Gotta go, mate. My boss is quite a tit if I don’t figure out what to do with the 120 new people he acquired a few hours ago. Chief People & Operating Officer my arse, he should rename it Chief Herding Officer and pay me in tequila.” He grunted playfully, patting Louis on the back and taking a step back to plant little pecks on the heads of both girls.
“In your dreams,” Louis shot back. “You’d bankrupt us in a week. Juice packs it is, lad.”
Liam let out a loud laugh. “Bye Tommo, bye princesses.”
“Yeah right. Just leave me behind. A piece of prey for the vultures!” Louis frowned.
“You’re gonna be fine, sugar plum. I licked all over you, they don’t want you anymore. Rule no. 1 in the international vulture handbook: lick prey to call dibs.”
“Yuck, go already!” Louis waggled the spade, threatening to spank Liam’s rear.
“Bye, hun.”
“Bye...Hey, Payno. Thanks for being the close second bestest friend in the whole wide world.” Louis murmured, burying his toes in the sand, and strenuously trying to avoid looking up.
Liam grinned victoriously.
“Get your arse to the hospital to see him already. I mean it!” He blew Louis two kisses, hopped back over the barrier, and disappeared between parked cars.