Love and Fame (Harry Styles)

Chapter 10

Our finished song was beautiful. According to the boys it had the structure of Little Things and the tempo of Rock Me, and I was absolutely in love with it.

It had been so much fun to record it too. Once I had entered the recording booth I hadn't felt as much as a reptile in a glass cage as I had expected, and it had been a lot of fun.

The boys had been on the other side of the glass next to Chris McMore and Quentin Forbes, the guys working the mixing table, and it had definitely helped a lot to have some known faces to look at.

It was fascinating how quickly things had changed between us. When I had performed for the boys for the first time in the shabby bar near my place a few weeks ago, I hadn't been able to look at them without messing up my lyrics. Now it calmed me down and made me more secure to look at their beautiful faces and gentle smiles.

"When am I gonna perform the song live with you?" I said as we were seated in front of the mixing table, listening to the finished song on repeat.

I kind of dreaded the moment I would have to perform the song with the guys. My usual audience never topped fifty people and I had only once performed for a couple of hundred. That had been terrifying enough.

Performing in front of thousands would be petrifying. At least the first couple of times before I got used to it.

"As soon as we have a live version set up," Niall said and I nodded.

The boys must have seen me go pale, because they reassured me that I would do all right and that it was nothing to worry about. I didn't quite believe them.

They started telling me stories from their own experiences on stage when nothing else worked.

It started to make me feel a little bit better when they told me how they goofed around and just had fun, but then they started talking about the times they had messed up or made a fool of themselves and I sighed.

"Not really helping, guys," I interrupted as Harry told me about the time he had had his pants pulled down in front of thousands of people. By then Liam had also mentioned the time he had slipped in a puddle of water and had pulled Louis down with him. "I swear, if you do that to me when I'm on stage..."

"What?" Louis said, excitedly waiting for my threat, but I didn't have an end to my sentence.

"Just don't do it. Ever," I said and the boys laughed.

When we arrived in Miami, our next stop on the road, I joined the boys backstage as Lou prepped them for the show.

I really wanted to explore the city, but the boys would have some free time the next day so I decided to postpone it until I could go with them. That would be more fun anyway.

"What's it like?" I said as Harry and I were sitting cross-legged on the floor, amusing Lux with funny faces. "Being on stage, I mean."

"It's such a rush," Harry said and an excited smile spread across his beautiful face.

"How big are the arenas? I keep trying to picture just how big they are, but I can't seem to get it right."

"Come here, babe, I'll show you," Harry said and my heart skipped a beat as he stood and took my hand.

Babe? Harry had never called me babe before. And why was he holding my hand?

What was going on? He had to stop messing around with me like that. One of these days I would get actual feelings for him, and that would be terrible.

I couldn't fall for Harry. He was my colleague and if I got serious feelings for him it would just mess with my life.

But I didn't have time to think about that just now, because Harry had already brought me to the stage.

People were yet to be allowed inside the arena, so it was still empty. I didn't really want to step onto the actual stage, but Harry still had my hand enveloped in his so I had no choice but to follow.

He stopped us when we were at the very edge of the stage and I looked in awe at the massive space opening in front of us.

The place was huge! I felt the nerves again as I imagined standing on the stage once the space in front of me was filled with people.

"What do you think?" Harry said, still holding my hand in his.

"It's massive," I mumbled and looked at my friend. That didn't help the butterflies, because an other kind erupted in my stomach once I looked at Harry's beautiful face.

Shit.

I had started to fall for him.

"You okay?" Harry offered when he saw the look on my face and I nodded slowly.

"Yeah, I'm just nervous."

"Don't worry, you'll do just fine," he said with no doubt in his mind. "And the crowd is so loud that they probably won't hear you anyway."

"Meaning?" I said and arched an eyebrow as I tried to figure out if it was an insult or not.

"Meaning you can sing whatever the fuck you want and no one will really notice what you say," Harry said and I giggled. "I mix up the lyrics all the time, deliberately, because it's a lot of fun."

"I don't really believe that no one will notice," I commented dryly. "Do you remember my friend, Ashley, who came to your show with me?"

"Yeah, what about her?"

"She showed me videos on YouTube once, entirely dedicated to your lyric changes," I said and Harry flashed an innocent smile that sent my heart racing in my chest. "You're very dirty minded, you know?"

"I know, sorry," Harry chuckled and I smiled.

"Don't apologize, I like it," I admitted and Harry grinned. "I like that you're not all polished. You're a human being too, and you have just as much of a right as the rest of us to curse and do inappropriate things even though you're famous."

"Thanks, love," Harry said and squeezed my hand, reminding me that our hands were still entwined.

The realization made my heart skip a beat and a tingling feeling spread from the hand Harry had enveloped in his own.

Oh, dear. I was in big trouble.

I was falling fast and hard for the boy I had promised myself not to get involved with.

And the worst part was that even though I had started falling for him, I would have to keep my promise and keep my feelings to myself.

Even if it happened to turn out that Harry was feeling the same way...