Contrast~ A Conor & Jack Maynard Fanfiction

16

Niall and I got food and we are back at his place. He showed me around a bit.
"You have a few guitars." I smiled and looked at seven different guitars.
"Yeah, I play still when I'm bored. I also like to make some music once in awhile. Nothing big though."
"That's nice. Keeps you doing music. It's nice to make music?" I wondered.
"Yeah sometimes. Takes you back. You wouldn't understand."
"Really, you don't think that I understand that?" I grinned.
"Well do you write songs or something?" He wondered.
"Around my time at university I played around with some music."
"So you know a bit about music?" He smiled.
"I mean, I made something here and there but nothing extreme."
"What did you play? Guitar? Piano?" He wondered.
"I actually made music. I DJ."
"No way."
"Yeah." I chuckled a bit.
"Why didn't you do anything with your music?"
"I'm usually pretty shy. Not lately though; but I was. Um, I never thought my music was good enough. Plus, I wanted to work with kids." I shrugged.
"Alright 'teacher' let me know a few things about being a DJ. What is most important?" He wondered.
"There are six major things that you need to be a successful DJ. Number one, a laptop. That is where the music comes from. Alongside a few other things. Headphones; the bigger the headphones the better the sound. Your laptop is your arsenal but your headphones is what proves you to be the heavy hitter so no one thinks you're just a fool. Number two, all you need is some talent. Having too much talent, you'll go mainstream like David Guetta. You want to be around Hardwell, or even less mainstream, Yellow Claw."
"Never heard of him." Niall interrupted.
"Exactly, you have to explore to find some of the best. But making yourself show that you have some talent you need to be unique. Be original and don't make that generic sound. You just have to time the drop right and you're in. You should have the crowd or audience, whatever. Number three. One track. Only one. Look back a few years and remember the song Animals? Martin Garrix became a rising star from one track. That one track got into the hearts of millions. You make that original but the sound that everyone likes, you hit the sweet spot, guaranteed. Number four, just what I said, hitting that sweet spot and hit it often. One-twenty-eight beats per minute is where you want to end. I like starting off at one-twenty beats per minute then work my way up. You have to get the crowd going crazy at least the first third of the song. If you don't catch them then, then it may be hard to get them back. But too much BPM will make the crowd tired and they will lose interest. So that means no more than one-thirty-six. At least that's what I say. Number five, do it for the love of making music and not for the money. You make the crowd happy and your happy, then you'll make the money. Last but not least, number six. Killing it. If you don't kill it with your first track then you may be screwed having a big fan base. Your first track has to hit one thousand. Or at least close to that. If there is more, the better. If there is that many people, and they are loving the track, they will share it all over social media. That is the point that you have to start to have a second track. Then you should be able to go on from there. But it all starts off with a laptop and headphones." I told him.
"How do I know that you didn't just make that up? It sounds right but it also sounds like you just read that out of a magazine."
"I could prove it but I don't have the equipment."
"Then let's go. I'll get you the equipment."
"Where?" I wondered.
"I'm Niall Horan. I can get us into any club and get you to DJ." He smiled.
"I don't do well at clubs."
"Why not?"
"I tend to get drunk. Like really drunk; similar to the other night."
"We aren't going clubbing, I'm trying to get you to DJ. Take you back." He started to head to the door.
"Niall, I haven't done that since my friend died." I said and he stopped, "It's been awhile and I'm out of practice." He turned around.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know. We don't have to go if you don't want to." I have no clue on what I want to do but Haley would tell me to go out and do it. She liked going out and doing things we never do.
"No, I'll do it." I grinned.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes I'm sure. Now let's go." I chuckled.

We arrived at the club and it was easy to get in having Niall being a mega star. But Niall took me right over to the DJ. They seem to know each other. Looking at the club from the DJ's point of view is pretty cool.
"Liz, come here." Niall pulled me over, "Liz this is Rob."
"Hi Liz." I shook hands with him.
"Hi."
"So you know how to DJ a bit?"
"Yeah, but I don't straight up just play the full song then go to the next. I remix a bit." I told him.
"That's fine, like EDM style?"
"Yeah, trap kind of."
"Awesome, what can I start you off with?"
"Um, 'Don't Let Me Down' by The Chainsmokers."
"Sure, here you go." He handed me his headphones. I went behind the board. I've never played around with this song but I'll make it work. I'm just gonna bullshit it. I put the headphones on but only covering one ear.
"Are you sure you got this?" Niall asked.
"Yeah, don't worry." I told him.

I played with a few notches before transitioning to 'Don't Let Me Down' and I made it smoothly. Starting off low. Maybe 121 or 122 BPM. Then slowly picking up and changing until the drop right after the chorus hitting 126. They are loving it. But I dropped it back down to 123. Once it came to the last chorus, I made the perfect drop hitting the magical 128 BPM.
"This is crazy amazing!" Niall told me.
"Do you DJ; as like a job?" Rob asked.
"No, just a hobby." I smiled then looked back at the board and made a transition to 'My Way' by Fetty Wap.
"Well, I can get you a hook up if you want?" He grinned.
"No, I'm alright." I grinned back.
"Ok but if you DJ for the rest of the night, I'll pay you."
"I can't, really. I have work tomorrow."
"Alright, but hey, if you want to rethink my offer about hooking you up with someone just come back. I'll be here." Rob smiled.
"Thanks." I handed the headphones back.
"No problem." He smiled as he put his headphones on.

We arrived back at my place and it's almost half past ten. I'm bloody tired. I opened my door.
"Thanks Niall." I looked at him as I still stood at the door.
"You're welcome. It was only a night out though."
"I'm talking about taking me to DJ again. A lot of things have been new lately and I've changed a bit but doing that again brought back some good memories to be honest."
"Anytime." We both laughed.
"Well, I'm tired and I need to sleep. But have a good Christmas."
"You too. Goodnight." He smiled and gave me a hug.
"Goodnight." I smiled then shut my door. I turned around and sitting on my couch was Joe. What the hell?
"Jeez Joe, what are you doing here? Also how did you get in?"
"Well you gave me an extra key remember? But Conor talked to me and told me what happened." He told me and I took off my coat and set my keys down. I don't want to talk about it. I actually forgot about it for a minute.
"Of course he did. I knew it was gonna be you or Oli but he knows how much you care about me so it was obviously you."
"Liz, are you really that angry to jeopardize your relationship with Conor?"
"I'm not angry; I'm upset and annoyed a bit."
"Why?" He wondered.
"I'm upset that he's going on tour; like I'm happy for him that he is but it's just him being away. And I'm a bit annoyed because he didn't tell me sooner."
"Liz, he didn't know when to tell you. He didn't know when to talk to you face to face."
"Were we together when he found out?"
"No actually. He told me that he had those calls while you two were trying to work on that performance a few months ago. That's when he found out. So technically you two weren't together." Joe explained.
"Oh, ok. I'll talk to him tomorrow."
"Good, now get some sleep. You have work tomorrow."
"Goodnight Joe." I smiled and gave him a hug.