Love and Fame (Harry Styles)

Chapter 9

"Isn't there some cheat chord for this?" Harry said as he impatiently hit the strings of my guitar, trying to make the F chord sound all right. It sounded horrible and his annoyed face expression made me giggle.

"Sure, love, you can do it like this as well," I said and showed him how he could make an F chord without the barre.

"I though we agreed that 'love' was my thing and 'babe' was yours?" Harry commented while he continued practicing the guitar, and I smiled.

"We never agreed on that. You're welcome to use 'babe' in your vocabulary if you want to. And I take the liberty of using 'love' in mine," I said and Harry flashed me one of his beautiful dimpled smiles.

Lately those smiles sent happy chills through my body, but I tried to ignore that fact. Because nothing could ever happen between us. And nothing ever would.

The boys had had their first show in Sunrise, Florida, and while they had been busy I had strolled around town. I had never been to Florida before, so it was like a vacation for me. I really looked forward to Miami. That was our next stop on the road.

In between the boys' soundchecks, interviews and live shows, I had met up with them in the hotel to finish our song.

At the moment, Harry, Niall and I were kicking it back in our hotel room. When Louis, Liam and Zayn returned from some interview, we were going to sing the song for the first time to see if it was any good.

In the meantime I tried to teach Harry how to play my song - the one he had heard on the radio and the one that had made him want to collaborate with me in the first place. But he found the chords difficult to follow.

"Are we ready, lads?" Louis practically shouted when he entered the hotel room a second later. He was always so loud.

Liam and Zayn were quieter. They just silently entered the room and sat down in the comfortable chairs in the corner of the luxurious place I shared with Harry for the time being.

I retrieved my guitar from Harry's possession as Niall retrieved his from the other hotel room, and we tuned them, agreed on the strumming pattern and prepared to perform our song for the first time.

I was incredibly nervous. I wanted so badly for the song to be good and for the boys to be satisfied.

The anticipation was sky-high as Niall and I strummed the intro and Harry started singing the first verse in his deep, gentle voice.

And the song sounded beautiful. It was simply breathtaking.

As Niall and I let the last chord of the song last, no one really had anything to say. We just started at each other, everyone satisfied with what we had accomplished.

"It's just right," I sighed in the end and everyone nodded.

"Now we just have to book studio time to record it," Liam stated and everyone nodded again.

For the first time in history I felt like writing something on Twitter. I would have to namedrop for my post to make any sense, but then again the point of my account was to promote the single. I couldn't be too strict about the namedropping thing.

I reached for my phone and all of the boys traced my every movement with anticipation their eyes. I arched my eyebrow, wondering if I was doing something strange.

"What?"

"What are you doing?" Harry said as I opened my Twitter app.

"I'm gonna post my first tweet," I announced and the guys looked like proud fathers witnessing a child's first step.

"Your second tweet," Harry corrected. "I posted the first one."

"Whatever," I giggled and started typing.

'I'm working on a little something with @onedirection. I think you're gonna like it!'

The second I put my phone away, the boys scrambled for theirs to read and retweet my post, and I rolled my eyes.

"You know, you don't have to retweet every tweet I post."

"You don't post very often, so it won't be a lot of retweets anyway," Niall commented and I giggled because he sounded so disappointed when he said it.

As I put my tattered guitar case on the floor, I was utterly aware that I had just entered a very fancy place. And for the first time in history, I wished I had a new and polished Taylor guitar, not an old and worn Yairi.

It was the first time ever I was in a recording studio. And I felt very out of place.

I didn't know what any of the buttons on the huge mixing table did, and I couldn't separate which microphones were used for audio and which were used for different instruments.

When I recorded my own stuff, I did it by the assistance of my MacBook Pro, GarageBand and an old microphone. That was why I had decided to call my first indie album Songs From A Living Room. If it were ever to be released...

"You okay?" Harry said and nudged me with his elbow.

I had apparently been quiet and motionless for a while.

I snapped out of it and tried to tell myself that I did belong in a recording studio. I was an artist after all.

"Yeah, sure, it's just a little overwhelming," I said and Harry looked confused, so I continued to explain. "I have never been in a recording studio before."

"Really?" Liam interrupted and I nodded to confirm. "How did you record the song we heard on the radio?"

"By myself. In my living room."

"That makes it even better!" Harry exclaimed with a lot of enthusiasm and I giggled.

"That's really impressive," Zayn added and everyone nodded.

"Thanks, babes."

"Are you ready to step it up a little?" Louis said and I nodded as a huge smile spread across my face.

"Definitely. Bring it on."

"That's the spirit," Niall chuckled.

The boys gave me a tour of the place and explained the basics as we worked our way through the different rooms. In the end they led me into the actual recording booth and I felt the nerves creeping up on me.

It would be nerve-wracking to sing in the booth. The glass wall facing the mixing table made me feel like the room was a glass cage for reptiles. And whoever would work the mixing table would be like the gawking guests in the reptile house.

"My microphone at home don't even have a pop filter," I commented to think about something else and to forget about the nerves. "This place is awesome."

"It's great to see that you're so excited about this," Liam admitted in his serious kind of way. "We've been looking for someone to collaborate with for a while, and this is new to us. So we've been kind of excited to see how it would work out."

"Does it work out!" I asked and bit my lip as I nervously waited for the answer.

"It definitely works out," Harry said with a dimpled smile and I relaxed as everyone joined in to reassure me.