COVERED

Chapter 3

Eleanor's POV

A rude lady leads me into an office with the man from Starbucks sitting at the desk and someone else sitting in a chair opposite from him.

"Eleanor. Please, sit down."

I do as I'm told and sit on one of the awfully uncomfortable chairs across from the man I think whose name was Robert.

"Eleanor. This is Louis. Louis, this is Eleanor." Robert says gesturing towards both of us.

I look over to Louis and give him a gentle smile.

"Hi" I say, but he just looks away.

"Alright. Now that you two are introduced, we can get to buisness. Eleanor, Louis and his bandmate, Harry Styles, are having an affair. But we can't have their fans find out about that because we will lose loads of money and their careers will go down the drain. So, we need a beard to make Louis look like he is straight."

I can hear a muffled sob from Louis next to me.

I'm completely shocked. I don't want to take this boy away from the man he loves.

"Eleanor. Listen. It's really simple. We will pay you. And all you have to do is make people believe that you are dating Louis and he is not one ounce of gay."

Louis starts sobbing even harder at the last few words.

"But... I can't tear this boy away from the person he loves. Who cares if they're gay?" I say. Robert just laughs at what I say and spits out,"People won't like them if they're gay."

I sit there in silence and look at Louis who is still crying.

I really don't know what to do. I don't want to hurt this boy and "Harry" but I need to pay for Uni some way.

I finally sigh after thinking about it for some time.

"How much are you going to pay me?"

"£75,000 a year, so £6,250 a month."

"That will pay for Uni for sure" I think.

I bite the inside of my cheek trying to think of what I should do.

"Louis?" I say.

He turns to me for the second time in 15 minutes. I never noticed how beautiful his eyes are.

"Would you be okay with me taking this offer?" I ask him with concern. I won't take it until I know he's okay with it.

He stares at the ground for a while until he finally chokes out a "Yeah".

I turn back to Robert and say,"I guess I'll accept."

"Great. So we just need to go over a few things. And then you need to sign this." He says as he pushes what seems to be a contract towards me.

I start looking through it and theres things like "Show lots of Public Display of Affection" and "Tweet each other daily".

"Okay, so as I said, you need to make people believe you two are dating. This contract is until January 2014, so you have a long time to make them believe it. And if we think you're lacking doing that then we will do something ourselves like photoshop or go on your Twitters'. We will be having a discussion with Harry about what he can and can't do with Louis. But other than that, sign here if you would like the job." He points to the bottom of the page and I pick up the pen shakily and autograph my name.

"Alright. Louis, it's your turn now."

He picks up the pen I had and signs his name. I can see him trying to fight back the last of his tears.

"Fantastic! We will be making your relationship public in a week, so I suggest you two get to know each other. Also, Eleanor, you will be paid the fifth of every month."

"A-alright. Thank you Mr. Tooly." I say faking a smile.

"You're welcome. See you two next week!" He says as he spins around in his chair to face his computer.

I get up to leave, as does Louis.

I hold the door open for him and we walk out together.

"I'm sorry" I say, looking over to him.

"For what?" He says, wiping the tears from his eyes.

"For becoming your "beard"." I say putting air quotes around beard.

"It's not your fault. It's those dickheads that call themselves management. I wish they would just let me and Harry be free. But I guess when you love something, you have to let it go, right?" He looks me straight in the eyes when he says the last part.

"I'm sorry, Louis. It really shouldn't be like this."