Five Days || HS

DAY ONE

It started out like any other day. Alicia took no notice of the fact that her colleagues were running around a bit more frantically, nor that somebody had sworn loudly in the break room because their shaky hands had dropped the new coffee pot. No, she was mentally preparing herself to finally pitch an idea at the weekly meeting.

"You can do this." She said to herself as she flipped through her folder once more, "You're his right hand man for christ's sake. He adores you."

Alicia Mendez had been working with James for the past three years. In those three years he had gone from Mr. Corden to James, and from frightening boss to obvious teddy bear. James and his family had opened their home to her, and on various occasions had shown that she was much more than merely an assistant. And that was just fine with her considering that she had moved to LA alone to take the job.

So it was stupid of her to think he would shut down her pitch, wasn't it? She knew that she had to have more confidence in herself. That whole, "fake it til you make it deal" and everything. But after spending the past five months trying to pitch an idea, she knew that she had to actually try to speak during meetings instead of just being the designated note taker. She wasn't supposed to be an assistant forever, right?

"Alicia."

"Yes?"

Her head popped up and she felt her glass slide down upon her nose. She pushed them back up in one swoop as she closed the folder with her other hand.

James smiled at her from the doorway, "Mornin', darling. Talking to ourselves again, are we?" He asked in his now more slightly Americanized British accent.

Alicia flushed, "N-no."

"It's not a bad thing, heard it's a marker of intelligence or something like that."

"Yeah, okay." She said, rolling her eyes as she collected both her folder and the one James had her prepare last night."We should get going."

"Did you take a look at the guest star for this week?"

"Oh, no. I just printed out all of the things you-"

"Good. Great. It'll be a surprise for you at least."
James said as clapped his hands. He looked incredibly elated. She had only seen him get that way because of a celebrity guest a few times before.

"What do you mean?"

"Some bugger in the media department found out and told everyone my surprise. It's a wonder you haven't heard, really." He said, furrowing his blonde brows as his steps quickened. Alicia tried to match his steps, but her heels had her at a slight disadvantage.

"Is it really that big a deal?"

James stopped in his tracks and turned to face her,

"It's huge, Ali. Huge."

Alicia tilted her head, knowing full well that she could care less who in the hell it was that was coming. She was just a tad taken aback that James clearly wanted her to care as much as he did. He knew full well that was not about to happen. If he wanted to see people get excited over his planned guest appearances he would have to settle for whoever broke the new coffeepot or Lorraine or Milo from PR. They were obviously the only two who, no matter what happened, would still continue to worship celebrities as if they were some kind of idols.

As the girl who had to directly deal with the talent, Alicia was no longer particularly starstruck. Her encounters with celebrities had quickly shown her that Hollywood wasn't all it was made up to be. From throwing a milkshake at Justin Bieber's head because he actually had the gall to tell her that she had taken too long at the drive through, and then proceeded to try to pat her on the behind, to "accidently" spilling juice on Ariana Grande's Versace dress after she had pointedly told James that he should hire new help, Alicia was probably the last person that would shriek over a guest announcement. But James just didn't seem to get that, even considering her history, go figure.