Labels || H.S. [#Wattys2020]

TWENTY-SEVEN

The end of the day couldn't have come any sooner for Reagan. Even though the boys tried to laugh off what had happened, it just was not as easy for her. She had been working so hard her entire life to be who she is now, to get to that point in her life, to get that job. She knew that if she kept running-literally and figuratively-into trouble with Harry she was going to lose everything.

It wasn't easy for Reagan to get the job at the label. The fact of the matter was her father, James Bailey, was a pretty influential man in the record industry. Wherever she wanted to work he would most likely pull strings and bam suddenly she was the new intern. Reagan resented this incredibly much. She didn't want to be hired because of her dad, she wanted to be hired because she was good at what she did. So she talked to her professor, she applied using her mothers maiden name, and she had gotten in. She had gotten in without anyone's help because she was good. She didn't want to ruin that because of a boy. Yes, even if that boy was Harry Styles.

Harry had driven her home though, as promised, even though Lydia was adamantly against it. Their new strategy was to make sure Reagan looked like nothing more than his assistant if they were ever to be in public together. Lydia had introduced it before they had left in the late afternoon, only to have Harry smirk, Louis shake his head, and Niall and Liam argue how stupid the idea was. Harry of course had no plans to abide by these constraints and planned to continue his carpooling with Reagan and their chaotic relationship. He was never one for rules, and quite frankly that scared her. She had known by the look on Lydia's face that she wasn't about to let Harry stomp all over her with his leather YSL boots, not anymore.

So as Harry drive an annoyed and angry Reagan home she felt as if she needed to make it explicitly clear that they were just coworkers now.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?" He asked checking his rear view mirror for the twentieth time. One of the body guards was following them, surprise surprise.

"About today..." She began.

"I'm sorry about that, Rae." He said, gripping the steering wheel a bit tighter. He didn't usually get mad, but when he did it became pretty bad. The thing was that Harry was almost at his breaking point, he hated this aspect of his career with an intensity that people wouldn't ever believe he had within him. It was almost five years of this now, of the constant watching over, the rules, the 'you can't talk to this person for x reason'. He was sick and tired of it. He wanted to be happy, that was it. He loved singing, he loved the lads, and he love their fans. But being labeled as famous has broken some part of him that he isn't sure he can fix anymore. Every time he tries to be happy, every time he tries to be himself, he just ends up short because it wouldn't look good to other people. He had to please the public, he could never dream of putting himself first with this career and it was just now beginning to infuriate him more than ever.

"Harry you don't have to say sorry." She said as he approached her driveway, "Lydia's right, you know?"

Harry hit the break roughly upon hearing Reagan say that and sharply turned to say, "Excuse me?"

Reagan's eyes widened as she was thrust forward from the car's jolt, "Are you crazy!?"

"Oh I'm the crazy one!? You want to follow Lydia's asinine plan and I'm mad!?"

"Harry, do you want me to lose my job? That's what's going to happen if we start seeing each other!"

"So you'd rather your career over me?"

"First of all, I've known you how long? A few weeks? A few weeks and you want me to just drop everything for you!? And secondly, my career isn't leaving on a world tour for the next three months in three weeks, is it?"