maybe + a.i [slow updates]

[eight]

Sophie

May 2014

-

The month of April seemed to be the busiest time in Sophie's life.

It seemed that all at once, artists were looking to book studios, or wanting to produce an album ready for the third quarter and it somehow ended up being Sophie's job to manage it all. It had seemed her months of messing around had not paid off when it came to doing actual work; mainly because she wasn't even sure if she was doing it right.

Too long of coffee breaks had cost her: her patience, her sanity and her lunch breaks. Suddenly there was no more goofing off with Jake when she had managers ringing her at all times of the day demanding time with the "biggest and best female UK producer around". It always took her a minute to register that the person they were blowing up over the phone was in fact her sister. The same sister that at 13 years old told Sophie, age 6 the truth about Santa on Christmas Eve and ruined Christmas '00 for the whole Carraway family.

So when Sophie finally did get a free moment, usually in the comfort of her own room, she spent a lot of her time either watching Netflix or talking to Ashton over FaceTime.

After Ashton left Sophie's apartment that night the both of them stayed in constant contact with each other. It wasn't as weird or as awkward as Sophie thought it was going to be, but none the less, she was happy.

She was happy that she finally had someone to talk to (other than her sister), who understood the music industry and the stress that work had caused her.

It was very rare that she was in contact with Rachel, at all really. Rachel was busy studying for her first year law exams so pretty much had no free time to herself never mind any time to waste on Sophie.

And although Sophie still had her sister, and at times Olivia's boyfriend, Cameron, it still felt incredibly lonely.

Jake had taken time off to go visit his family in Brighton, leaving Sophie with the majority of the work and no one to talk to at lunch time.

Ashton was starting a tour in Australia, so any time Sophie was free to talk to him, he was always sleeping, or it was just too early in the morning for him to talk to her.

So once again, Sophie felt alone in a city where she really shouldn't. She would occasionally talk to her parents, but even after a while she ran out of ways to talk about her life, which was probably at its most mundane and boring right now.

So the one time when Ashton did ring her, at a definitely unreasonable time of night, it was almost a blessing to see his name light up her phone screen.

She unlocked her phone, held the phone abnormally close to her face and tried pulling the most ridiculous pose she could.

When the call finally connected, Ashton cracked up at her triple chins taking up almost all the screen.

"Hey!" Ashton chirped. Sophie examined the background behind him, showing nothing more than a black fridge with certificates, photos and paintings all over it. In the corner were a few chairs at a breakfast bar and the whole room appeared to be exposed to the sunshine - even though it was winter where he was.

"Hey rockstar, how's home?"

"It's great. It's just so good to be at home y'know? I really missed it." for a second Sophie didn't know what to say, mainly because although she missed home, she hadn't been back to Manchester in six months.

Before Sophie could respond a blonde woman appeared in frame, with Ashton's hand creeping over his face.

"Ashton, is this her?" Ashton's response was a muttered, "yeah" whilst trying to force the woman out of the picture.