Numbers (Louis Tomlinson)

Chapter 10

Louis' POV

"So you know that hot girl Elle I was talking about?" I swivel my chair around to face Zayn, whose got ear buds dangling from his ears and his hands intertwined with one another.

"Yea." He shrugs, pausing his music and pulling the buds from his ears.

"I think that's who I'm going to do the bet on this year."

"Really?" He snorts, genuinely not believing me.

"Yea." I don't see anything wrong with my option, I think I can win with her.

"You will literally never win with her."

"Well I don't see why not, she's just like every other one I've picked before."

"No, Elle is different. Judging by the rants you've gone off about her, she'll be hard...let me rephrase that; impossible. You will never be able to do it."

"I'll be able to do it, she's just a bit harder this time. I mean what do you expect, at this day and age I should probably challenge myself a little more."

"Tommo, just because you've won all the comps, you won't win this one. Elle is not that type of person to win with, you'll have to try extremely hard for her to even have a civilized conversation with her."

"Again, I want to be challenged. In no more that six months I'll have her where I need her, and you'll still be struggling."

"Not true, I'm good with the lasses. It won't take my long, especially with the chick I got this year."

Is he going to go easy on himself just because I'm going hard on myself, because if he is then he's just playing unfair.

"And who might that be?" I take off my glasses and set them on my computer desk, rubbing my eyes before facing him again.

"You know that bird, Perrie?"

I roll my head back onto the the head of the chair. You've got to be kidding me. I turn my head back up, "That's just uncool, man."

"Well why? There's no rule in this game that it can't be someone who already likes you. It's fair."

"No it's not!"

"So are you admitting that we got totally different level girls and that there's no way you could win this?"

"I didn't say that. In fact, I take back what I said. It's completely fine, completely fair. Go ahead and pick an easy, I'll still win." I can't give him the satisfaction he so desperately wants. I can't.

"So are these our final options?"

"I say yes."

"I say yes."

"Okay, Zayn. Get ready to lose to a four-year-in-a-row champion." I hold my hand out.

"Good luck, mate. You'll need it." He shakes my hand finalizing the games, which means the annual celebration. I can basically already see the smoke rising. Zayn turns to his nightstand, grabbing the pack of cigarettes from the drawer and holding it out as an offer.

"Not tonight."

"Hm, not like you to pass up a cig."

"No, Zayn, that's you. You know I feel terrible about it."

"Whatever. I won't stop myself." He mumbles, grabbing a match and lighting the end of the cigarette,

"Be right back."

He stands up and leaves to stand out on the balcony, leaving me to return to my tape. Yawning, I pull my headphones back over my ears and press the play button. The beginning is good, but as soon as it hits the combining of the songs it's too loud. I adjust the volume levels in scale to its previous, the tracks clashing well again. The vocals in verse two of track three don't power over the drums, so I adjust it so it's more defined. They don't go well with the background though, so I select it all and set it an octive higher, giving it an even cooler machine voice. I decrease the highness of the voice at the end of the phrase so that the bass can come in effortlessly without slamming against the voice. Now I have to add the fifth track, deciding to go with Avicii's "Wake Me Up" since its rhythm goes intensly well with the rest of the tracks. I still have to add two more tracks but I can't tonight, I'm too tired.

So I save my work on to my flash drive and log off my computer, taking the flash drive to insert into my laptop. Setting up the beginning I press play so I can mentally note my flaws and memorizes them by tomorrow. Only another day to work on it before it goes on air, luckily not many people listen to the Friday night mixes to have a judgment on it. I still get so into my tapes though, like it will come back to haunt me if I don't do it 100% correct. Sawyer usually isn't hard on me if I mess up in a part or two, but it still will annoy me if I disappoint him in the slightest.

Sawyer said he'd review it tomorrow, which makes no sense because there's no way he can get the time too. He's the only host in the studio right now, if he takes off time to just listen to my tape then he'll miss his cue and I'll feel guilty for it. But I really need his help on it. Hopefully he'll be willing to work overtime to do it, because honestly I feel like it's a mess. But soon they're getting a second host so Sawyer can return to giving feedback. I wonder if this host will actually be better than the last one, considering that the station always picks dimwits for the job. Sawyer's good, but the last guy, not so much. He didn't play enough recent songs and did a terrible job with his show.

If we could only get a good host this time, maybe our station would become the tiniest bit more popular. More listeners means more money distributed across the studio, which I've been needing for months. My entire tax payments literally rely on the next host. But something tells me the next host won't be good, and we'll be stuck in the well forever.

Never has my work stressed me out more.