Zayn pulled on the handle to the door of the pet shop and went in. He assumed it would be hard to find Louis but to his surprise, he could see him at the back of the store near the fish tanks. So he made his way to him. Louis didn't notice him until he got up on him.

"Oh. What's up, Zayn?"

"What's up?"

"What brings you here?"

"Eh, nothing much."

"So I take it you're not pet shopping."

"Nope."

"Well, I'm on the job, you know."

"I can see that."

He stopped and faced him. "So what are you doing here, if you're not pet shopping?"

"I wanted to see what you were doing."

"Oh." Louis seemed excited to have someone come to his place of work just to observe him. It didn't even matter that he shouldn't be talking casually on the job. If someone was actually showing interest in what he did, he didn't mind showing them. "Right now, I just finished checking the tanks for dead fish. We're clear."

"That's good. You definitely wouldn't want any customers to spot one in there. Now what?"

"Well, I was going to straighten out the shelves to make sure everything is tidy. But come here. I want to show you something first." He gestured his head for Zayn to follow him and he did.

He led him over to a cage of male hamsters. "We just got a few new hamsters in. Look at this guy."

Zayn bent down to look in the glass case. There was a tannish colored hamster in the cage and he was up and walking while the rest were all piled up and sleeping inside a plastic castle. "Aw. He's cute."

"Isn't he? He's a busy little guy too. I named him Peanut."

Zayn stood up straight. "You named him? Louis, that's not good. You know naming leads to attachment. If someone buys him, that's going to break you."

"I know. That's why I'm not going to let that happen?"

"What are you going to do? Tell them he's sick to make sure they choose another one or something?"

"No. I'm gonna buy him."

"When?"

"Today, before I leave."

A smile slowly crept up on his face. "Aw. That's awesome, man. Lou and Peanut."

"Yep."

"So why'd you name him that?"

"Because he's a Golden Hamster and his color reminds me of a roasted peanut. They're native to Syria and are also commonly known as Syrian Hamsters. But they've been found in Greece, China and a few other places as well."

"Wow. You think you're ready to be a pet owner?"

"Of course I am. I studied to be a veterinarian. I know all about nutritional diets and what to do when they're sick or behaving abnormally. Trust me."

"That's not what I mean." He pointed out. "I mean are you ready for the responsibility? Head knowledge is different from having to actually put it to use. Pets become your family. We don't always deal with family rationally. And many times we don't even have time to deal with them at all. You wouldn't want to neglect him."

He laughed. "You know me. I'd never neglect a precious little creature such as this. He'll give me some company in my condo. Which I kinda do want anyway."

Zayn nodded and chuckled, low-key feeling sorry for him. "That's a great idea. Peanut would make great company."

"Mhm."

Peanut jumped against the glass barricade and Zayn chuckled. It was cute how he was trying to get out. He might be just perfect for Louis.

"So how was your day?" Louis questioned and he moved on down another one of the aisles.

"Fine, I guess. The strange thing about today was that every single customer that came in needed an oil change."

"Every single one?"

"Every one of them. That's the first time that has ever happened."

"There's a first for everything." Louis was moving along until he stopped at a part of an aisle. "So where are you going after this?"

"Most likely home. Just to relax."

Well, that wasn't the whole truth. He was going to go home and practice eating blindfolded the way Harry taught him. He figured it'd be good to use that with Harry next time they ate together again.

"That's nice. I won't be off until another thirty minutes."

"Bummer."

"Yeah."

Zayn shoved his hands halfway in his pockets. "Hey listen, Lou."

"Yeah?"

"I want to ask you something. And tell me what you think."

"Alright."

But Zayn just nervously stood there.

Louis raised his brow. "Um, I'm waiting. What do want to ask me?"

He slowly took a step toward Louis and leaned next to his ear. "How does it make you feel when someone gently speaks to you in you ear like this?"

He furrowed his brow. "Uncomfortable."

"That's all?"

"Yes. Weird also fits that agenda. Why do you ask?"

"Well. Let's see." He took his left hand out of his pocket and wrapped that arm around Louis' neck. Then he leaned in his ear again. "Close your eyes."

"Z, what are you doing."

"Just close your eyes and you'll know."

"You're not gonna do anything else weird, right?"

"Depends on what you call weird. Plus, the quicker you do it, the quicker this will be over with."

"Fine." He closed his eyes.

"Forget everything you thought about beforehand. Just concentrate on me and what I'm doing. Now, tell me how does it feel to have me talking in your ear like this?"

Louis opened his eyes and lifted Zayn's arm from around him. "Still weird. And Zayn, you need help."

"What do you mean? You didn't feel anything?"

"No. What was I supposed to feel?"

Zayn hesitated. "Uhmm... Nothing. You were supposed to feel nothing."

"You're lying."

"Nope I was just curious. That's all."

Louis pulled a bag of guinea pig food toward the front of the shelf. "I know when you're lying and you are. You were expecting something to happen, weren't you?"

"Maybe. But it was mostly just an experiment. To see if what I'm looking for happens to everyone."

"Apparently not then, hm?"

"Apparently not." He said in defeat.

Louis sighed with a half smile. "You always tease me for being weird but you're weird too, it seems."

"I have to be. Or else no one would believe we were ever friends. I'm just not on your scale."

"Says the one who came over here and tried to get me to feel something just by talking in my ear."

"Don't say it like that. You make it sound bad."

"Not my intentions. My intentions were to make it sound weird."

Zayn chuckled. "I really hate you."

"I know. The feeling is mutual." But then he couldn't help but be serious. "I know we're joking but I really will hate you if you cause me to get in trouble for talking on the job."

"Oh right. I better leave then."

"But of course when you're ready to buy a pet, I'm your guy."

"Yep. But I'm not ready now. So I guess I'll see you later, then."

"Bye."

Zayn scurried out of the store and Louis pulled more food up to the front.

"Dude."

He faced Alex, a coworker at the pet store. "What?"

"You were risking it."

"Risking it? Risking what?"

"If Miss. Tillis saw you chatting it up with your boyfriend like that on the job she would've wrote you up fast."

Louis frowned. "Boyfriend? That wasn't my boyfriend. I'm not even into guys."

"Are... ya sure? You don't have to lie. I saw him all in your ear."

Louis tightened his lips. "I'm plenty sure. He's just a friend. Nothing beyond that."

"Well does he like the guys?"

"No. He does not like the guys." He said tiredly. "And even if he did, I wouldn't tell you because it's not your business."

"Right. Well, I just came over here to tell you that anyway. Chatting on the job would still get you wrote up if she caught you. I'm looking out for you."

"Yeah, yeah. While also assuming. If you say that again, I'm going to take these two fingers and poke you in the throat."

Alex covered his exposed neck with his hand. "Ouch. I can already feel it."

"Yeah, I bet you can."

➡ ➡ ➡

"This smells like chocolate chip cookies." Mindy said as she put a candle up to Harry's hand.

"Thank you. I can't wait to burn it."

She stopped and smelled the air as he went down the hallway. "I see you're already burning a candle!"

"Yep. It's cherry blossom!"

"Wait. So you burned Zayn's candles before all the others I gave you? That's interesting!"

Harry waited until he put the candle up and then came out so she didn't have to yell anymore. "Does that upset you?" He asked apprehensively.

She chuckled. "No. The candle smells good. I like it. He chose a great candle."

Harry grinned. "Yes. He did. What do you want to do, today?"

"Well, I was thinking I could get your opinion on something regarding the wedding."

"Okay what is it?"

"Liam's dad wants to pay for everything." She said quickly.

"What?"

"I know. I tried to say no but he told me I should think about it."

"What does your mom think?"

"She says she wants to add her share. I wanted that as well."

"What does Liam think?"

"He says I should let him do it because they had both talked about it together."

"Oh."

"I really don't know what I should do. Liam is well off. But I don't want to come into our marriage using his money to benefit me. I hate it." She plopped down on the couch and put her elbow on her knee and chin in her hand.

"Well, I would suggest you talk to Liam again. And this time be a little more sure about what you want."

"That's the thing. I'm not even sure about what I want. The only thing I know is that I want to be married to Liam."

He smiled. "That's a start. And you know that he wants to be married to you so at least you know that if you disagree on this then it's not going to change anything."

"Yeah, I guess you're right about that. I guess I just have to work up the courage to tell him how I feel."

"Yes. Exactly. When you do that, you'll get an idea of why he wants to do it. Until then, I'm not sure it's of any benefit for us to discuss it."

She sighed. "True."

Harry slowly made his way into the living room with her and sat in one of the chairs. "Although I've got a question for you now."

"What kind?"

"Is there a better way to purchase a large amount of cigarettes at once instead of just one single pack?"

"Yeah, if you purchase an entire carton. You're not thinking about smoking, are you?"

"Me? Smoking? Even though I choke up when people do it around me?"

"I'm just asking. I didn't know if Zayn was having that kind of influence or not. You've known him for a couple months already. You never know."

"No. He hasn't influenced me. I'm trying to influence him."

"By buying him more cigarettes?"

"No, by playing a game. But it'd be much easier to play it when I have more than just the little box on hand. He's buying his own cigarettes."

"Oh."

"How many cigarettes come in a carton?"

"There are different cartons. Some are one hundred, others are two hundred and I believe I once saw a three hundred count carton. I'm not too sure it comes in four hundred though."

"And they all come in one?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it just one big resealable container with all the cigarettes in it?"

"No. There's twenty in a pack, so for a one hundred count carton, there's five packs. For two hundred, there's ten and so on."

Harry nodded. "Oh. I get it. But that's way too many cigarettes. I was thinking along the lines of something different but I could change my strategy then. First, what would you suggest is to be enough to get Zayn to stop smoking?"

"Um... More research."

"More research?"

"Yep. If you really want to help him quit, let's look online at some facts about smoking and trying to quit first. That will help you to approach the situation in the best way possible. Okay?"

"Okay. He smiled. "Lets do that. But you know what I don't understand?"

She got up, came over to Harry and then knelt down beside him. "What?"

"After what just happened between both of us, we apparently can resolve each other's problems but not our own. Why is that?"

She thought for a moment. "Good question, Harry. But I don't know why. Just a thing that humans do, I guess."

"We're weird."

"Yep. We are."

➡ ➡ ➡

Saturday had finally rolled around again. And now, Zayn was back at Harry's house and standing in the kitchen, watching Harry dry off the counter with a rag. "I still don't get it. Why did you ask me to buy more cigarettes? And why two packs?"

He stop drying the counter and put the rag next to the sink. "Because if we play our cards right, these should be the last cigarettes you ever buy and you won't even smoke all of them."

He raised his brow. "Really?"

"Yes. I have a plan. A plan that involves that blindfold you wore last week."

Finally. Zayn thought to himself. Finally he was going to know how Harry figured the blindfold would help him learn to quit.

"Do you have another pack of cigarettes?"

"Yes."

"How many is left in the pack?"

"Five, I think."

"Okay. So not many. But I have a few questions I want to ask you. What's the most amount of cigarettes you've ever smoked in a day?"

"Four, but that's rare. I only do that when I'm really stressed."

"What's the most amount you smoke on a normal day?"

"Three."

"How many would you say you smoke a day on average?"

"Two to three. Either at lunch or on break before work ends and then at night. Sometimes I do all three."

"Okay. And the least you smoke a day?"

"Um, I have skipped days when I'm really busy and don't have much time but never more than one day. But when I do smoke, I smoke at least once a day. Usually at night or at lunch."

"Okay."

"Why do you need to know all of that?"

"To get an idea of how addicted you are. Because now you're about to be reduced to one a day. Do you think you can handle it?"

Zayn gasped. "One a day? What?"

"Yes. But you have to cooperate. You can't go out and buy cigarettes just because you crave them. This is on you."

"Huh? Can't you explain better?"

He huffed but was very patient with Zayn. He understood that this was something new to him. "You really want to quit, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well here's how you will do it. I did some reading with Mindy. The hardest part about quitting smoking is resisting the nicotine cravings when you're going through nicotine withdrawals. It takes about three months to fully get over those. You tried quitting cold turkey once before but the nicotine withdrawals pulled you back in. So I came up with a little solution that's much like a game and that keeps you from having to quit cold turkey right away."

Zayn folded his arms. Wait. A game? How did Harry turn non smoking into a game. "Okay? I'm listening."

"Keep your five cigarettes. You'll need to smoke those up until Saturday. That's a week from now. You said that you've gone a day without smoking and was fine so I'm going to need you to skip a couple days in between and not go out and buy another pack. Can you do that?"

"I think so... But keep talking."

"After that, the real process begins. The way it will work is that I'll hide a pack from the carton you bought somewhere around the house every week. You'll have to go in search of it but the catch is that you'll have your blindfold on and you have to use your perception of touch like me. If you find it on Saturday, you get to have the whole box and it's yours to smoke. If you don't, you only get seven to smoke for the entire week. That's one a day."

"Okay. I see. But if I'm still getting my nicotine fix everyday, how will that stop me?"

"You didn't let me finish. First of all, I'll give you all seven at one time. So you can choose to smoke all seven in one day or one a day. It's all about how you choose to use it. But after that week is up, you'll come back and try searching for a pack again. But this time, if you don't find it, you only get six for the week. That's less than one a day."

Less than one a day? That intrigued Zayn. "And let me guess. The next week, it drops to five?"

"Yep. And then four and three, two, one and then zero. You're getting it now."

"Harry, I'm going to suffer when we reach three to zero."

"Sure. But you can choose to either suffer through a three month long withdrawal or the long-term effects of lung cancer for the rest of your life. It's your choice."

"Who says I'll get lung cancer?"

"Who says you won't?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Touché."

"So?"

"Uhm... I don't know... I want to."

"Ah, ah. Remember what you wrote down. It's not that you want to it's that..."

"I will."

"And you can only honor that if you take the leap."

Zayn felt a churning in his stomach. Committing to becoming a nonsmoker right now? Right here? Today? He knew that was a great decision but he had to admit that he was a bit scared to make that leap. Harry was right though. Saying 'I will' only worked if he was willing to cooperate with his statement. And he wanted to cooperate. He just had to figure out how to cooperate Harry's way. "Okay. I'm just not sure how it will work."

"I'll guide you through it all so don't worry about that. I did my research with Mindy. But you can hold true to your goal by telling as many people as you can that you're quitting. Especially your family."

He quickly shook his head. "No. Not my family. I don't want to tell them I'm trying to quit."

He didn't understand. "Why not?"

"Because I don't want to disappoint them. I tried this once before and failed. If I don't finish again, I already know how they'll look at me."

"But you will finish. You will finish and they'll all be very proud of you. Trust me."

"But you can't promise me that so that means it's not sure."

"It is if you make it sure. Cigarettes and nicotine have controlled you but for once, you can control cigarettes and nicotine. You have that power. Zayn, you can do something about it and do something about it for good. I believe in you."

There were those last three words again. Each time Harry uttered them, Zayn felt something in the bottom of his chest tickle. To support him was one thing but to support him because he believed in him was another. It was empowering. "Alright then. I will."

Harry grabbed the rag again. "You will?"

"Yes. I will."

"You're sure?"

Zayn smiled. "I will."

"I can't hear you. Say it like you mean it."

"I will!" He laughed out. Then he came and stood next to Harry. "I swear it's like you're a motivational speaker or something. Just get finished. We have a new color to learn."

"In a minute."

* * *

"Red is a primary color on the color wheel which means you can't mix any two colors to make it. But orange is not a primary color. It's made by mixing red and yellow together."

"That's cool."

"Yep. And that is the next color we're going to learn. The first is just a general description."

"Okay."

"Orange is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. It represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation. It gives the sensation of heat but is not as aggressive as red. Orange is a citrus color and is the color of fall and harvest."