Songbird- Harry Styles

five

Chapter 5

I stand in the kitchen, dumbfounded by his behavior. He did NOT act like this when we met last week.

I'm tempted to leave, but now I'm determined to find out what his issue is.

"What the fuck is your problem?" I ask, standing in the door frame, watching him throw a t-shirt on.

"My problem," he starts "My problem is the fact that you are here, and I don't need you to be"

I roll my eyes.

"Well, I can leave if you're going to act like this," I say, seriously. I mean, he's hot but I don't want to work in a tense environment.

"Fuck that," he says, lighting a cigarette. He takes a drag and blows the smoke outside the cracked back door. I look up at him as he looks at me.

"I'm paying you to be here, and my manager wants you here, so we might as well try to do something. Just try not to get in my way". He says, taking another puff.

Suddenly his phone starts ringing on the table next to me. It's Jeff.

"Daddy's calling" I smirk as I hand him the phone.

He huffs and snatches the phone out of my hand and turns around, answering. His voice is low but I hear his side of the whispered conversation.

"What"

"Yes, she's here"

"Yes we're going to work soon"

"No, I will not try anything"

"Well, maybe I will... Just to piss you off"

"I'm kidding. Sorry"

"Okay. will do"

"Bye"

He turns around and plops himself on his nice, comfy-looking couch.

"Alright, Emily," he says. "What do you have for me?" he leans back with the cigarette hanging out of his mouth, fern tattoos poking out in the small gap between his t-shirt and his sweatpants.

"First of all, my name is Emory". I correct sternly "It's Emory or it's E.J. It never has been and never will be Emily," I say

He puts his hands up in surrender

"My apologies, E.J, what do you have for me"

I don't love his tone.

"Well, I have tried to get a hold of you a few times over the week to ask you a few questions but you seem to have an allergy to your phone. I-"

"My phone actually works perfectly fine, I just answered it, did I not?" he sneers.

I'M TIRED.

I'm deciding to ignore his comments and just get the job done. If he's going to make it difficult the least I can do is pay attention to what I do best, which is write songs.

"Anyway," I continue, brushing off his remark

"I wanted to know how exactly you wanted the album to sound, the prose, timbre, meter, the order, I want to pick your brain" I start.

I wait for him to interrupt but he looks at me to continue.

"I listened to both of your other albums to get a good gauge of how you generally write and your stylistic choices on both are very different. On self-titled, it's definitely more of a folksy vibe and the order seems somewhat random. There is a mix of styles and it's honestly really intriguing. Comparatively, Fine Line really plays to your strengths in experimental music, the order of the album is a lot more cohesive in my opinion, and more representative of a story, and there were a few more radio hits on it. I'm not shocked that it was so successful, I actually really enjoyed it" I say to him, honestly.