All the others are in the kitchen now, preparing breakfast, so me and Louis are the only ones left, still sitting on the floor in front of the tree.
We move to the couch and sit down next to each other, his head on my shoulder. “Thank you, baby, you make him so happy, you don’t even know.”
I smile and kiss him again before pointing to the last package. “This one’s yours.”
He rolls his eyes but smiles and takes the present, unwrapping it carefully. The album is black on the outside, not giving a hint about what’s inside but when he turns the first page, he looks at me, shaking his head. “No, baby, you did not.”
I smile and shrug at the same time.
He carefully traces around the first picture with his finger, one I sent to Liam while waiting for the train to arrive at the hospital that day. I look tired and exhausted; Jonah is asleep in my arms.
The next picture is one of Liam, Zayn and Jonah on the swings, all laughing about something.
It goes on about five pages filled with a few stupid selfies of Louis and me, Jonah with painted nails, us two on the couch, Stacey and Jeffrey in our arms.
The rest of the pages are empty.
“Baby”, Louis whispers, eyes shining, “Thank you.”
He kisses me but I pull away so I can talk again.
“I know there are like a hundred pages that are still empty but I’m confident we’ll fill them over the years, that’s what I hoped when I made this, for us to capture all the memories we’re still about to make in this.”
Louis smiles a lot now, wiping his eyes for the second time this morning and nodding. “That sounds amazing, my darling. We’ll make a thousand more memories.”
Warmth is spreading in my chest as he leans his head against it and we stay like that for some time.
“I got you something too”, Louis says after some time. “Nothing materialistic though. I’ll give it to you later.”
I wiggle my eyebrows and Louis rolls his eyes, slapping my arm softly.
“No, I did not get you sex for Christmas.”
I laugh and pout. “Yeah, that’s what you would’ve wanted, you pervert.”
I laugh again, shrugging.
“Well, it’s not like I can’t add that to my present”, he says and we both chuckle before we get up and head to the kitchen where Christmas songs are playing.
When we pass under the mistletoe, Louis grabs my hand to stop me and points to the branch.
“Stop, Harold, you got a duty to fulfil.”
I laugh as I press a long-lasting kiss to his lips, my smile not leaving my lips the whole time.
~~~
“Now finally play with the presents with me?”, Jonah asks and tugs on my shirt.
I lay down my fork on my plate and nod, thanking mum for lunch again.
“Yes, course we can. What do you wanna try first?”
I get up, following him to the living room while the others start cleaning the kitchen.
“Okay”, Jonah says when we sit down on the floor in the living room, “So I got so many dinosaurs, I can show them all to you.”
I nod and he starts explaining excitedly. He waited the whole day and was very patient so I let him talk for as long as he wants, explaining every little detail he remembers. After breakfast, we all went on a walk together and then had lunch pretty soon afterwards so Jonah got really bored after some time.
“And this is my favourite, the T-rex, it’s the coolest.”
We start putting them all down on the floor, from smallest to tallest, all in one row.
“Which one do you wanna be?”, Jonah asks, pointing to the row of toys, “I am the velociraptors and the T-rex.”
“I’m this one”, I say, grabbing a green, rather fat plastic dinosaur.
“Oh, bad choice”, Jonah says what makes me laugh, “You’ll loose in a fight against mine for sure.”
I play with him for at least an hour, repeating the same fight over and over again, feeding the dinosaurs branches of the Christmas tree, patting his three cats and putting them to sleep, crashing his trucks and rescuing them with the helicopter.
When Louis finally enters the room to interrupt our repetitive games, I can’t say I’m unpleased I can finally get up from the uncomfortable floor.
Jonah takes all three cats in his arms and gets up as well, smiling up at Louis.
“Daddy, Harry is the best player. He even played car crash with me even though you say that game is stupid.”
“That’s amazing, honey. But Harry looks tired, how about you two take a little break from playing?”
Jonah shrugs and nods at the same time before he sits down the cats on the couch. “Okay”, he says, dragging the y out, “If you insist. Then we can maybe watch Rudolph? Haven’t seen it all December.”
Louis smiles and sits down besides the cats while Jonah keeps telling him to be careful and not accidentally sit down on one of his ‘babies’.
“I’m not gonna hurt your babies, baby.” Louis reaches out his arms for Jonah and pulls him into his lap, placing kisses all over his face.
“Ew, daddy”, Jonah whines, “Disgusting.”
Louis just chuckles as Jonah snuggles into his arms and reaches for the remote.
“Harry, baby”, he says, “Stop standing around and staring into space, sit down with us, will you?”
I shrug. “I’d love to but Jonah, if you want some time alone with your dad, tell me, yeah?”
Jonah rolls his eyes and pats the space on the couch next to them. “No”, he says and as I sit down, he stays in Louis lap but starts playing with my hair, “You stay with us, you’re our Haz.”
“Alright”, I say, smiling, “I’ll stay with you then. I love you two.”
“I love you two, too.”
“I love you two, too”, Jonah says and giggles, “That rhymes.”
And then the movie starts playing and it’s just us three, Jonah in Louis lap, Louis hand in mine, my arm wrapped around Jonah, Jonah’s hand in my hair and my head on Louis shoulder and nothing could make me happier in that moment.
~~~
writing on the epilogues right now<3
do you want me to just post the rest of the regular story in one go or should I wait for it and do one/two chapters per day?
YOU ARE READING
three hearts in one home (l.s.)
FanfictionLouis is a single dad having problems raising his son, Jonah all by himself. Harry is a student at university. His part-time job is to teach children how to swim. What if a rather unpleasing incident forces them closer together than Harry ever coul...
