No Control | The Night Before

1~ Hey Angel

March 2015

4.55pm. I had been watching the time for at least ten minutes, as the second hand jerked painfully slowly around the clock face, counting down the seconds until the end of my working day. It had been a long week, but it was finally Friday and I was looking forward to getting home, having a hot bath and eating my own body weight in chocolate in front of the television.

"Jess! Got any plans tonight?" my colleague Sarah called from her desk opposite mine, and I shook my head as I tidied a few glitter pens away and locked my drawer.

"Nope. Quiet night in tonight," I told her.

"Shame," she remarked. "I was hoping you might be in the mood for a night out. My sister has two VIP tickets to Cirque Le Soir nightclub in Soho for her and her boyfriend, but she's just texted me - she's got a tummy bug so she can't go. She's asked me if I want them."

I snapped my head up and met her gaze excitedly. "Cirque Le Soir?"

She nodded, grinning. "Yep. Where Niall, Louis and Liam are known to visit when they're in London. And considering they have just begun a week-long break in between shows...." she let the sentence hang and pulled an overly nonchalant face.

"Oh come on, you don't think any of them will be there do you?" I said. "I mean, I wish, but how unlikely is it? Would you fly all the way back from Japan and head straight to a club, or would you go home to bed?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Jess, you're such an old woman. Where's your sense of adventure?! These are free VIP tickets! Even if no one famous is there, it will still be an amazing night. Come onnnn... what do you say?"

"I don't know," I sighed. "I was looking forward to watching the soaps with a bottle of wine -"

"If One Direction are papped leaving that club tonight, how will you feel knowing you had the opportunity to be there but turned it down in favour of Eastenders?" Sarah demanded. "You will be gutted. And I'll be on Harry's arm, obviously."

I laughed out loud at this. "Harry never goes anywhere like that anymore. He stays under the radar."

"Just because he isn't papped doesn't mean he doesn't go anywhere," she pointed out. "Are you willing to take that risk?"

I sighed and looked out the window at the dwindling late afternoon sun. A hot bath and comfy pyjamas, or a tight dress and painful high heels? There wasn't really any contest for me.

"I think I'll give it a miss," I replied.

~~~

Four hours later I found myself shivering in the queue outside Cirque Le Soir as the crisp March air whipped around my bare legs, raising goosebumps on my skin and causing my insides to quiver; from the cold or nerves, or maybe both, I wasn't sure. Beside me, Sarah was desperately trying to keep her cool.

"What if they're actually in there?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. "What if we come face to face with one of them? Oh God, if it's Harry I don't think I'd survive it. I think I'd die right there, in front of him, in a miserable mess on the floor at his feet."

"Don't," I muttered, feeling a flutter in my stomach at the mere sound of his name.

Did I mention I was a One Direction fan? Of epic proportion? And that Harry Styles had been my guilty crush for the past two years since I took my teenage sister Maddie to her first concert in 2013, to the point where a picture of Harry was my desktop wallpaper on my work laptop, Kiss You was my ringtone, and I read every article I could lay my hands on about him and the rest of the band. And no, twenty two was not too old to be a fan, thank you very much. Although my older brother enjoyed taking the piss out of me at every opportunity for being an "adult Directioner."