You and I | Harry Styles/1D Fanfic

Eight.

            Week two of being assigned to work with One Direction and I was already starting to get a glimpse of just how tiring my life was going to be for the next few months. I'd already gone with them to three signings in the past two days and now we were currently on our way to a fourth. It had been some ungodly hour, like five forty-five am, when the van had pulled up to the front of the house and there was a knock on the door. I nearly had a fit when I opened it to be greeted by a very chirpy Niall wishing me a good morning. I'd literally had to shove him straight back out of the house and shut the door behind us. His voice was super recognisable and I couldn't risk Beth or Zoe hearing him. Okay, so I hadn't told the girls about working with One Direction. I just didn't see how I could do it without rubbing it in Zoe's face – she would literally be devastated. Then she'd moan at me and whine at me constantly to let her meet them and, to be honest, I didn't really want to mix my personal and professional lives together – not at this stage, at least. I mean, the guys had to deal with obsessed fans every day, I didn't want to add to their problems by adding my crazed best friend to the list. I would've told Beth but I knew that she'd end up telling Zoe just so she could laugh at her reaction (which, to be fair, I was sure would be a sight to see) so it was just safer with neither of them knowing.

I sat in the van between Liam and Niall. Harry and Louis were sat in the back and Emmie was riding shotgun. Emmie was chatting away to the driver, bless him. This probably wasn't what he needed at seven in the morning. I was so tired and I could hear Harry snoring softly away in the back. My eyes kept drooping shut and my head would lean slowly forward and then we'd make a sudden movement and I'd jolt back awake. It was so embarrassing falling asleep on the job but I couldn't help.

Apparently I really couldn't help it because at eight fifteen a tap on my shoulder woke me up. My eyes opened really sluggishly and I tried to adjust my eyes to the light. That was when I realised my head was resting on someone's shoulder. I bolted upright and turned to look sheepishly at the person on my left. It was Liam.

"Ohmygosh I'm so sorry!" I said, awkwardly. This was literally so awks I could hardly believe it. I'd literally barely spoken to Liam since I'd started working with the band, of course it would be his shoulder I'd end up leaning on. Why couldn't my fat head have fallen to the left and rested on Niall's shoulder – at least we'd sort of started to bond. Liam looked down at me, laughing softly.

"It's fine, honestly," he insisted. "Don't worry about it, you looked cute." Great, that's just what I wanted the band members that I was managing to think; that I was cute. I was already massively aware of the fact that they were all a good few years older than me so this wasn't exactly helping me to assert authority.

"I can't believe I fell asleep. I'm supposed to be working." Liam raised an eyebrow at me.

"There's not an awful lot you can do sat in the car. Signing days are long, you should grab the sleep wherever you can – trust me. It'd be silly not to," he assured me. I nodded in acceptance, running my hand through my hair to make sure that it still looked mildly presentable. Well, presentable for me anyway.

"Where are we?" I asked Liam quietly. Harry was still fast asleep and I noticed that Niall must've dozed off to during my little nap.

"We've just gotten to Gloucester," he explained. "We'll probably get to Cheltenham in another twenty minutes or so and I just thought I'd wake you now so you're not groggy when we're getting out of the car. There's nothing worse than waking up and then straight away having to jump into work." I smiled up at him, appreciatively.

"Thanks," I said.

"Not a problem," Liam replied warmly.

The Traffords Centre was absolutely swarming with teenage girls. The van pulled up outside one of the private staff entrances but as soon as Niall stepped out of the car the screams erupted. I followed behind him and looked up to find the source of the screaming. Hundreds of fans were in the car park leaning over the barriers to look down into the delivery section we were currently entering through. Niall waved a little before following Emmie into the building. The boys' reception had been the same everywhere we'd gone over the past couple of days but I still wasn't used to it; I didn't know if I ever would be. Liam came up beside me.