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It all started out as good fun. On Tuesday nights, Louis and his roommate Niall liked to go down to Paddy’s, the Irish pub a few miles away from their apartment for some half-priced appetizers and cheap beer. Right after New Year’s, Paddy’s announced that Tuesdays would now be ‘Trivia Tuesdays,’ and teams of two could compete in trivia contests for a chance to win free food and drinks at the pub.
Naturally, Louis and Niall wanted to try, because they could never have enough free appetizers and beer.
They never won – never even came close – but they had fun trying. And the beer was still cheap, so it was fine.
Until February, when he came in. Louis didn’t know his name, but he kindly started calling him ‘V-Neck,’ for the simple fact that he always came in wearing a black or white V-neck T-shirt, with tight-ass jeans and stupid boots. And he was good. Like, really good. His head just seemed to be filled with random facts about everything, and he and his partner started winning every week.
Louis honestly wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t for the smug expression on V-Neck’s face, or how he ran his fingers through his stupid brown hair that looked like it had recently been chopped off, or how he always winked at Louis after handing in his answer sheet.
Yeah, V-Neck was an asshole, a know-it-all and just plain old obnoxious, and Louis hoped he never had to actually talk to the man.
---
It was nearing the end of March and Louis and Niall were struggling. They’d managed to get about eight questions correct so far. They only had one left and then a bonus question.
“Question number twenty,” Perrie, the bar’s hostess, said into her microphone. “There is a place in the United States called Lookout Mountain. From this point, you can see seven states. Name four of them.”
“What the fuck is Lookout Mountain?” Niall hissed to Louis.
“You really think I know?” Louis asked.
Niall rolled his eyes.
“OK, let’s think of this,” Louis said. “We live in fucking Philly and have never heard of this place so maybe it’s in the south? Like, we have the Appalachian Mountains, and the Rocky Mountains are over on the West Coast?”
“So just name four southern states!” Niall whispered.
“I can’t think of any!”
Louis looked up and saw V-Neck watching the two of them from across the bar. V-Neck just smiled his arrogant smile and then turned back to his partner, a guy with a buzzcut and tattoos all over his arms and hands.
“Just literally write anything,” Niall told Louis.
“Fine.” Louis wrote down Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas before he could overthink it.
“And your bonus question for the evening! Don’t forget, this one is worth five points. It is…” Perrie announced. “What was the first fast food restaurant that opened in the United States?”
“McDonald’s,” Niall immediately whispered.
“No, I think that’s a little obvious,” Louis said.
“Or, is it so obvious that it’s the right answer?”
“What?”
“You know what I mean. Just write it, unless you can think of something else.”
Louis sighed. He glanced over at V-Neck, who was already folding his answer sheet in half. As if he could feel Louis’ eyes on him, V-Neck looked back at him, and, like clockwork, winked.
Louis was fuming. He returned his attention to his paper and begrudgingly wrote McDonald’s, just because he really couldn’t think of anything else.
---
V-Neck’s team won. Of course they did. Their team was called ‘Go Big or Go Home,’ pleasantly enough, and when Perrie called them up, the two guys couldn’t hide their grins.
“You know, this is your fifth win in a row,” Perrie said into the microphone. “What’s your secret, boys?”
V-Neck just shrugged and looked around the room. He waited until his eyes connected with Louis’ before speaking. “I don’t know. I guess, you just gotta keep watching Jeopardy.”
Louis rolled his eyes and went up to the bar. He really needed another beer.
---
“Are you watching Jeopardy?” Niall asked when he came home two nights later. In the living room sat Louis, who was lounging on the couch with his attention focused on the television screen.
“Shhhh!” Louis hissed. “Niall, come on. I just missed the question.”
“Since when do you watch Jeopardy? Besides when Will Ferrell does those skits on SNL?”
“All the time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You don’t know everything about me.”
“Fucking hell,” Niall sighed. “Is this about the guy from trivia? What do you call him? T-Shirt?”
“V-Neck,” Louis corrected.
“Oh, right. V-Neck. Is this about him?”
“No.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying,” Louis insisted.
“OK. You know that trivia is supposed to be fun, right?”
“I am having fun! Now leave me alone! I need to learn more about the people who signed the Declaration of Independence.”
Niall took a deep breath. “I need a new roommate,” he whispered to himself.
“I heard that!”
---
The next week, Louis and Niall took their regular table for trivia.
“You think your Jeopardy watching helped you this week?” Niall joked. He took a sip of his beer before glancing over to see Louis’ expression.
Louis took a deep breath. “Fuck you.”
Niall just started laughing.
Ten minutes later, Perrie announced that it was time to start. Louis got his pencil ready, as if that would somehow help him think of the answers that he probably didn’t know anyway.
“First question!” Perrie said. “Which Queen of England ruled the country for sixty-four years?”
Louis dropped his head to the table. This was already not good.
“Victoria.” Niall whispered.
Louis peeked an eye up. “Is it?”
Niall shrugged. “It’s probably not Elizabeth, and Victoria’s a common queen name, isn’t it? Just go with that.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Louis wrote down Victoria just as Perrie asked the next question.
“Name two countries that have nearly identical flags.”
Louis and Niall exchanged a glance.
“I need a shot,” Niall said. He got up and went to the bar.
Louis checked to see what V-Neck was doing, and it looked like he was actually thinking over the question.
Oh, good. Louis thought to himself. Something he doesn’t know.
But then V-Neck smiled and wrote down an answer.
Never mind.
“How many bones are in the human body?” Perrie asked.
“Oh, I know this one,” Louis whispered. He wrote down ‘206’ just as Niall returned to the table.
“Cheers,” Niall said as he passed a shot to Louis. The two of them clinked their glasses and tossed the shot back.
Louis put the glass on the table and saw V-Neck watching them. Louis stared as V-Neck just smiled and listened to the next question, which was, ‘Which US president survived two assassination attempts?’
After Perrie asked it, Louis said, “I’m gonna need another one of those.”
The rest of the night continued, and Louis just got more frustrated, only feeling a bit better at the few answers he actually did know. It was a rough night.
“And for the bonus round,” Perrie said after asking the first twenty questions. “Taste buds are not permanent on your tongue. They actually go through a life cycle. So, how long do taste buds usually last for?”
“What?” Louis whispered. “Who the fuck knows that?”
“Who cares about that?” Niall asked. “That’s so stu- Oh, good. V-Neck is done already.”
Any other time, Louis would’ve laughed at Niall using Louis’ nickname for the know-it-all across the bar, but this wasn’t any old moment. Louis snapped his eyes over to where V-Neck was folding his paper in half.
Despite wanting to look away, Louis couldn’t, and he glared until V-Neck looked over at him and winked.
“Fucker,” Louis grumbled. “What should I write?”
“I don’t know. Just put a week and let’s be done.”
“Fine.”
---
Louis took a conveniently timed bathroom break when Perrie said it was time to announce the winner. Based on the pompous look on V-Neck’s face when Louis came back, he guessed that he won. Again.
Louis let his rage at this information fuel him enough to go back to the bar for another drink.
---
“I’m not going.”
“You’re fucking going,” Niall said. “We go every week and I need my beer.”
“No. You can’t make me.”
“You wanna bet?”
Louis pulled his blanket over his head. “Niall, I don’t want to go to trivia!”
“Why?”
“Because we lose every week, Niall and V-Neck always laughs at me.”
“Seriously? I had a long day at work and I need my beer. I don’t care about V-Neck. And come on. You’re really worried about a guy whose hair looks like it’s going through puberty?”
Louis giggled. “It does look pretty silly, doesn’t it?”
“He’s clearly growing it out, and it’s fluffy, but it needs to grow a little faster. Louis, come on. Let’s just go get some wings and beer and have fun. How about this? We give really stupid answers to each and every question. Like, if they ask what Thomas Edison is famous for, we can just say ‘for lighting up my world like nobody else.’”
“What does that even mean?” Louis asked.
“I don’t know. But let’s go!”
Louis groaned. “Fine; since you clearly hate me, let’s go.”
“That’s the spirit!”
---
That night, Louis could feel V-Neck’s eyes on him as he entered the pub. They grabbed two pencils and an answer sheet from the hostess stand and took their usual table.
Niall ordered two beers and brought them over just as Perrie started talking.
“All right, people,” she said into the microphone. “We got a little mix-up tonight.”
Louis looked at Niall, and the two of them frowned.
“What does that mean?” Niall whispered.
Louis just shrugged.
“Since yesterday was the home opener for the Phillies,” Perrie continued, “we decided to have tonight’s trivia be all about Phillies and baseball!”
Louis grinned. He could literally feel his face glowing; he had this. He looked over toward V-Neck and… well, Louis felt a lot better.
V-Neck looked scared. His face was pale, his eyes were wide and his lips were slightly parted.
Holy shit, Louis thought to himself. V-Neck doesn’t know anything about baseball.
“We got this,” Louis whispered to Niall.
“We’ll give you a second to get situated, and then we’ll start with questions,” Perrie said.
Louis looked over at V-Neck, and he and his friend were shaking their heads. They were muttering to each other and Louis couldn’t believe his luck. Of all the nights he wasn’t going to show up and was going to let V-Neck get the satisfaction of not having him there to intimidate, the category tonight was one that V-Neck didn’t have a clue about.
Louis was suddenly so much happier that he gave a shit about baseball, even though the Phillies had been letting him down the last few seasons.
“OK, is everybody ready?” Perrie yelled into the mic.
There were a lot of cheers throughout the room, but Louis noticed a few people looked uncertain.
“Let’s go, then! First question. This is an easy one, come on. What are the two years in which the Phillies won the World Series?”
Louis hurriedly scribbled down ‘1980 and 2008’ on the first line. He looked up at V-Neck, who was already frowning. Louis could barely contain his excitement. He settled for letting his smile to grow even wider.
“Second question,” Perrie said. “How many perfect games have been thrown in Phillies history?”
Louis wrote down ‘2.’
“And third question, name one of the pitchers who threw one.”
Louis wrote ‘Roy Halladay.’
“I don’t actually have to do anything tonight, do I?” Niall whispered in his ear.
Louis just shook his head.
“Cool. I’m gonna go put in an order for wings, then.”
Niall stood up and walked away. Then Louis glanced up at V-Neck, who had a deep frown on his face.
Louis felt so alive, like he could literally do anything right now. The overwhelming joy he felt from seeing V-Neck so frustrated and so unsure of himself was incredible. He couldn’t wait to answer more questions.
“Question number four,” Perrie sang into the mic. “You’ll see that this line is much longer. Your response will be longer than just a few words. The question is, ‘what is a cycle?’”
Louis didn’t even bother looking at V-Neck before writing, ‘when a player hits a single, double, triple and home run in the same game.’
“Are you getting all of these right?” Niall asked when he came back to the table.
Louis scoffed. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”
Perrie continued reading out more questions, and Louis knew the answer to each one. Every time he finished writing, he looked over at V-Neck, who was looking more annoyed by the minute. It would’ve been great if Louis just knew the answers to the questions that Perrie was asking, but it was multiplied by about a million just because V-Neck didn’t have a clue.
Maybe this was how V-Neck felt the last few weeks, watching Louis flounder and trying to come up with answers that made even the tiniest bit of sense. If it was, well, Louis suddenly couldn’t be mad at V-Neck for continuing to come back week after week. Louis felt great. And smart. And very powerful. It was good to know all about a subject, and man, was he glad that the category was something he actually knew.
“OK, we have one last question and then a bonus question,” Perrie said. “Ready? Number twenty: the team that played in the most recent World Series win was extremely special and is still very beloved. How many of the players on that team still play for the Phillies?”
Louis confidently wrote down ‘zero.’ Then he looked over at V-Neck, who was running a hand down his face. Louis held himself back from doing a happy dance in his seat.
“And your bonus question, which will be worth five points!” Perrie cheered. “In the most recent World Series win, there was something very special about Game 5. What was it?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw V-Neck throw his pencil down to the table. Louis smiled and wrote down his answer, which was, ‘Rain caused a delay after the sixth inning, so the game stopped. It didn’t pick up again until two days later, so the game was played and completed on two different days.’
“Boom,” Louis said proudly.
Niall read his answer and nodded his head, although he didn’t know enough about baseball to know if it was correct.
“V-Neck doesn’t look happy,” Niall said.
Louis looked over at V-Neck, who definitely looked pissed. His friend didn’t look much happier, even though he was trying to write down something for the last question.
V-Neck looked over at Louis, and Louis just couldn’t resist winking at him, giving him a taste of his own medicine.
V-Neck flushed and scowled before looking back down at his own table.
“Finish your answers and hand them in, please,” Perrie said. “Give us some time and we’ll announce the winners shortly.”
Louis checked over their sheet, and, feeling confident, stood up to hand it in.
“I’m gonna get a beer,” he told Niall. “Be right back.”
Niall just nodded and pulled out his phone.
Louis gave the sheet to Perrie and went to the bar. He ordered another beer and leaned against the counter.
“Well, that sucked.”
Louis glanced over his shoulder toward the deep voice behind him. V-Neck was just a few steps away. He had his hands in his back pockets and looked strangely shy.
“Oh, did it?” Louis asked sarcastically. “I didn’t think so. I also knew all of the answers, though, so…”
The bartender handed Louis his beer, and he took a long sip.
V-Neck nodded. “OK. I probably deserved that.”
“Yeah, actually.” Louis turned around to fully face him. “You’re a bit of a jackass, you know that?”
He blushed. “I know. I’m sorry. And, well, it’s not an excuse, but I get really competitive at trivia games. And I have a dumb habit of googling things in my spare time and just remembering useless facts.”
“Wow, very enlightening,” Louis said. “Too bad you didn’t google any baseball facts to help you out tonight. You probably don’t even know the stadium where the Phillies play, do you?”
“The Linc?” he guessed.
Louis just sighed. “That’s where the Eagles play. And they play football, in case you didn’t know that one.”
“The Eagles play at the Linc? Shit, I thought I at least got that one right.”
“And you know they’ve won two World Series, right?”
“Two?” V-Neck asked in disbelief. “You’re kidding; they’re awful.”
“Hey! You probably can’t even name three players on the World Series team, which, by the way, they most recently won in 2008. You don’t get to insult them, V-Neck.”
V-Neck put his hands up in surrender. “OK, OK, I’m sor- Wait, did you just call me V-Neck?”
Louis shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I know your name, so, yeah, I’ve just been calling you V-Neck the last few weeks.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem to only have two shirts, and you’re wearing one of them right now.”
He glanced down at the black V-neck T-shirt that he was wearing. “Harry.”
“Huh?”
“It’s Harry, not V-Neck.”
“Oh. Well then, Harry, it’s been fun, but I should really be getting back to my friend.”
Louis started to walk away, but Harry held out his hands, making Louis pause.
“Wait, wait,” Harry said. “OK, just- Um, fuck.”
Louis raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything else.
“OK, so I sort of came over here to get your number so we could maybe go out sometime? But of course, I’m not saying any of the right things, and I know it’s because I say stupid shit when I’m talking to a cute guy. I’m not surprised you think I’m an asshole. I would think the same thing about me, too, especially with my stupid Jeopardy comment, and-”
“Harry, stop.”
Harry immediately paused, his mouth still open like he was going to continue rambling.
“You want my number?” Louis asked.
Harry nodded.
“So we can go out?”
Harry nodded again. Then he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder. “You can ask my friend. His name’s Liam. Trust me, he’s heard a lot about you the last few weeks.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. All about you and your- Um…”
Louis was intrigued now. “My what? You have a name for me, don’t you?”
“No.”
“So, I called you V-Neck, and you called me… what?”
“Nothing,” Harry insisted. “I swear, you were just ‘the guy from trivia.’”
“Listen, you either tell me the name you had for me or you can forget about getting my number.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “You mean I still have a chance?”
Louis just shrugged and leaned back against the bar, waiting for Harry’s answer.
“Fine. Blue Eyes.”
“You call me Blue Eyes?” Louis asked, smiling.
“Yeah.”
Louis nodded. “You can call me Louis, if you want.”
Harry smiled. “Louis?”
Louis nodded again. “Yup. That’s me. The one who knows too much Phillies history.”
“Yeah, how do you know so much about it?”
“You have your useless knowledge and I have mine.”
“I guess so. Um, so about that number?”
Louis pursed his lips. “I’ll tell you what. You can have my number when my friend and I come in first place at trivia. If it’s not tonight, then you have to wait until we do.”
“But that’s not fair! You guys nev-”
“What was that?” Louis asked, grinning. He quite enjoyed this.
Harry shook his head. “Nothing.”
“That’s what I thought.”
---
Louis and Niall actually wound up tying for first place with two girls who were pouting that they had to share their glory.
Louis said it didn’t count, seeing as they didn’t come in true first place. Harry argued that it did.
He gave Harry his number anyway.