Lucy

This was probably the worst time for them to arrive, I thought. We’re arguing with our manager for crying out loud! Could you have picked a better time?
Erick paused for second, considering what to do. He looked worried.
“Um…put them in the lounge. We’ll come up when we’re ready,” he said. Veronica nodded and closed the door behind her.
Erick turned to us. He looked exhausted. He rubbed his eyes for a moment before giving us a weary smile.
“Be happy girls! Be happy! This is going to be great. If you just go along with everything and don’t complain, then everything will be alright!” he said excitedly. “Now, do you guys need a minute to discuss this?”
Scarlett gave him a weird look.
“Do we have a choice?” she asked sarcastically.
“Nope! I’ll be back in five minutes!” said Erick, slamming the door as he exited.
We sat in silence for a good thirty seconds before Scarlett said the obvious; “I don’t like it.”
Reagan snorted.
“Yeah, we know. You having to mope over Zayn the entire season? Ha!” she exclaimed. Scarlett narrowed her eyes at her, and Reagan scowled back.
“What? I’m just telling you the truth!” Reagan said, throwing up her hands. “It sucks, but what can we do? I mean, management controls us. We owe this to them.”
“We don’t owe management anything,” said Piper. We turned to look at her. Her expression was dark as she said, “They don’t control us, and we don’t have to listen to them.”
“Didn’t you just hear Erick? We don’t have a choice in this!” said Skylar. She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t want to date Harry.”
“I don’t want to date Zayn, or break Perrie’s heart,” I said. “Why would they do that?”
“What, have them break up? I heard from Max George that it was all a publicity stunt,” said Reagan. “You know, the guy from the Wanted?”
“Oh yeah, didn’t he fight with Zayn over Perrie?” asked Skylar.
Reagan nodded.
“Yeah, and apparently he nearly got her, but their managements took over and made Perrie date Zayn,” she said in a low voice, as if we were back at school gossiping at our lunch table.
Scarlett kicked her feet up on the conference table.
“I say we stick it to the man and rebel,” she said, sneering. “I hate being told what to do.”
“Okay, how about this? We pretend to go along with it at first, and then we do the exact opposite of what they tell us to do, and then….” said Piper, leaning in.
“Whoa! I was only joking! You really want to do that Pips?” asked Scarlett, her mouth hanging open.
Piper shrugged.
“They’re making me to look like a complete loser in this. I am not going along with this,” she said simply.
I was about to ask what she exactly planned to do when Erick knocked on the door.
“Ladies! It’s show time!” he sang, bursting into the conference room. “They’re waiting for you in the lounge!”
We got up and followed Erick to the elevator. Everyone was tense as we waited for it, wondering, Did he hear us talking about it? I glanced at Reagan when we entered the elevator. Her expression was a copy of mine; I’m nervous.
We arrived on the twelfth floor and followed Erick down a maze of hallways. We finally got to an open room that opened up into a deck. The warm summer breeze floated through the room, tickling my hair, as we got our first glimpses of them.
They were leaning against the railing of the deck, looking down at the traffic below. They were all dressed nice – like us, they had obviously dressed up for this meeting – and looked fresh from the plane – which is to say they looked slightly ruffled.
Erick strode out onto the deck and cleared his throat. The boys turned around.
These were the guys we were going to be living with. These were the guys we were going to be touring with. These were the guys we were going to be falling in love with.
“Hi,” they said. “We’re One Direction.”