In This World (Harry Styles)

22

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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I know how much I lean on you

Only you can see

The changes that I've been through

Have left a mark on me

You've been as constant as a Northern Star

The brightest light that shines

Right Down The Line - Gerry Rafferty

"Alright...I was thinking this here...this might work," I huffed, setting a sheet of roughly scribbled lyrics before him in the studio.

"Oh...wow, hang on, mate." He ruffled around a drawer, then popped on a pair of black-framed reading glasses.

"Mate, shut the fook up, right now?? You wear reading glasses? How haven't I noticed that before?!"

"Because I can never keep up with them. I try to have a pair at all my workstations, but they all go missing. Like someone's eating them."

I grabbed his chin and turned his head to face me. "Mate...you wear reading glasses??"

"Sometimes! Only sometimes! Especially when I have to read chicken scratch like this, alright?!"

I laughed hysterically, greatly entertained by the sight of him peering at the paper through the thick frames like an old man. It was ridiculously adorable.

"You're so olddddd! I'm so younggggg, thank God! I have my whole life ahead of me!"

"Yeah, well don't get used to it, fella. Father Time comes for us all!"

"You're so cute I can't even believe it!" I wheezed, then picked up my camera and snapped a few shots of him as he scoffed. Now I quieted and stared at him in tender disbelief.

"Grayson Cain..."

"Yep?" he muttered, still perusing the paper before him like a physician.

"You're the man of my dreams..."

He just smiled and shook his head.

Later I headed back into the booth and tried a few of the reworked lines. I'd been staring at them so long, I just needed a fresh set of eyes. We'd tweaked a few words to improve the flow and hopefully it would do the trick. The intention was to record a very rough demo of a few songs to send to my team back in LA so they could get busy producing and finding musicians to play all the instruments Gray and I had composed for the track. Trouble was, he and I were having difficulty agreeing on the sound of one specific track, which was actually chosen to be my lead single. First impressions were important, and this one had stumped us both. It wasn't quite right.

"One more time, sweetheart...from the top," he said into the booth mic from the console outside. "You've almost nailed it."

"Ok...ready whenever you are."

Oddly, I'd been shy about letting him hear me sing in a professional setting for the first time. He and I sang around the house together all the time, killing loads of duets, but there was something about putting on my formal musician cap in front of him that unnerved me. I was supposed to be an expert vocalist and nail it right out of the gate, or so I thought. So it left me fearing I'd reduce myself in his eyes if I didn't get it right the first time. He might end up disillusioned by me as a professional, and more importantly, as Harry Fucking Styles the so-called phenom. I couldn't get it out of my head how disenchanted he'd sounded on the phone when he first saw me, lying face down amid a harem of Japanese hookers. High out of my mind.