maybe i'm amazed - paul mccartney

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She smelled the same: like strawberries and whipped cream and marshmallows. I missed her. Her sugary voice and her pale blue eyes that were so animated yet clearly exhausted. The black skinny jeans she always wears and the muscle shirts that she cuts herself. I missed her pink lips, the little dimples on her cheeks, and her old tattered sneakers with illustrations done by her very own fans.

I haven’t seen her since the flight when we separated ways after I helped her at baggage claim. She hurriedly got her bag from me and rushed off with her band mates, joining a conversation with Dylan and Nate.

After a long ride from the airport to the hotel we would be staying in for a week, everyone was drained. The thing I never understood about flights is why it was so tiring—how can you get so tired after sitting down for hours? Liam would always say that butts get tired too.

I open the hotel room’s door and sat down on the couch the moment I spotted it. Zayn immediately made his way to the corridor of rooms and entered the nearest one, mumbling a good night. Niall entered the same room, waving a hand towards me with a weary expression. Liam was on the phone but managed to give a short nod before entering the room across.

Usually, we'd have a hotel room for each person or one that fits at least two to three people, but somehow, we got one that had three rooms with two beds. Since everyone thought that I had my period because I saw Paige, they made me agree to sleeping alone while everyone else had a roommate. Why do we have to be five?

Louis went in last, closing the door behind him. He got off his phone and stuffed it in his pocket before dropping his bags at the side of the door. He exhaled and put his hands on his hips. “How was Paige?”

I shrugged, slumping further down the couch. “More peaceful than expected.”

He nodded and sat across me. His shirt was wrinkled and his eyes had dark circles under, almost mirroring my own pair. “That’s good,” he said.

I return my own nod, hair falling on my forehead. I scrunch up at the curl, pushing it back with my fingers. “Yeah,”

We fell in silence for a moment and I can feel his eyes on him. Finally, he said, “Did you apologize?”

“Yeah,”

“Did she forgive you?”

I exhaled slowly. “Nope,” I rolled my lips in my mouth.

His facial expression switched to a softer look, pity. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head slowly. “Not really,”

He nodded and stood up, making his way to the kitchen and got a bottle of water. I was thankful that he didn’t push any further.

I entered my room and closed the door quietly. I plopped myself on the bed, the white sheets drowning me with the mattress. I stare up at the beige ceiling above, soaking myself with the thought of Paige.

“What happens when you leave me?” She asked quietly.

We were on my bed. Her head was on my lap while my fingers played with the ends of her soft hair. She was wearing nothing but the white shirt I had the previous night, too big for her petite frame.

It was late in the afternoon and we were both too lazy to get up from bed that morning, so we decided to spend the day in bed. The 80s playlist she made on my laptop played softly in the background, all of the blinds were shut, and the white beddings under us were wrinkled and disordered. The boxes of Chinese food we ordered for lunch stayed at the floor beside the bed, the chopsticks broken in half because of Paige’s attempt to drum to Pour Some Sugar on Me.

“Nothing happens,” I mumbled, “I’m not going to leave you.”

She looked up at me, her eyes locking with mine. “Promise?”

“Promise,” I gave a reassuring smile.

She shook her head and sat up, facing me. She shoved her pinky to my face. “You have to pinky swear, Curly.”

I chuckled. I wrapped my own pinky around her tiny one and gave it a small kiss. “Pinky swear,”

She grinned and rested her head back on my lap. She got my hands and started playing with my fingers. “You know, it’s called a pinky swear because the person who breaks it has to cut off their pinky.”

“I know,” I kissed the top of her nose and hovered her. “You remind me whenever we do one.”

She pursed her lips. “What if you break the swear?”

“I won’t,” I laughed, pecking her lips. “I’m not going to leave you, P. I want to keep my pinky.”

I woke up with a start, my breathing heavy. The lights in my room were on, and Louis sat on the edge of my bed with Niall standing behind him. They looked at me with a blank expression and finally, Louis stood up in front of me and offered a hand to take. “Come on,”

I clutched his hand and stood up from my bed. I followed the two out of the room and to the elevators.

“Where are we going?” My voice was hoarse.

Louis didn’t blink an eye, looking straight at the gold elevator doors in front of him. I looked to my right at Niall with a questioning look. He stared back at me for a second then looked down on his phone.

“Where are we going?” I repeated to the two but only received silence.

The elevator chimed and the golden doors opened slowly, the main lobby greeting us.

“This better be worth it.” I muttered under my breath as we stepped out of the lift.

Niall and Louis walked in front of me as I followed closely behind. They lead me out of the building and camera flashes greeted us the moment we walked out. They directed their microphones towards us, shouting questions. All of their words were a blur to me, my head spinning from all of the flashes. I followed Niall quickly, blocking out all of the questions. I heard a question or two with Paige’s name along the lines, but I didn’t give them any sign of acknowledgment.

There was a heavily tinted car waiting for us at the end of the street and Niall opened the door for Louis and I. We entered the car quickly and Niall came in last, shutting the door loudly.

“Liam and Zayn are there already,” announced Niall as he looked at his phone.

“Where?” I asked, looking at him. I leaned to him, trying to get a glance of his phone conversation. “Let me see,”

“We have a meeting, don’t you remember?” Louis asked, pulling my shirt back.

“Yeah, but that’s in the afternoon.” I said, knitting my eyebrows. “It’s ten in the morning.”

“We’ll pick up some lunch first.” Niall said quietly, his fingers tapping away on his phone. “Do you want Italian or French?”

“Let’s just go to a McDonald’s drive-thru.” I said faintly, feeling my stomach grumble at the thought of food.

Louis exhaled. “You have to stop it with the fast food.”

Lie. I hated McDonald’s so much I wanted to put Ronald McDonald into a coma. The only reason why I’ve been eating a lot at McDonald’s was that Paige hated it a lot. I never understood the logic behind it, but it satisfied me to know that I was doing (eating, rather) something my ex-girlfriend hated.

I snorted. “If you’re bothered by it, don’t mind me. Get an apple pie or something.”

“You’ve been eating unhealthily ever since you and Paige-“

“Stop,” I snapped, giving him a look. My chest started to tighten, and I knew that it was happening.

My breathing started becoming heavy, and before I knew it, I couldn’t breathe. All noises were blocked from my hearing except for my own heartbeat, which echoed loudly in my ears. I could feel my cheeks burn and my head spin, and next thing I know, a burger was forced into my mouth.

“He might vomit.” Niall said seriously as he looked at me. I was relieved to finally hear what was happening, but it wasn’t really something I wanted to hear. In addition to that, my heart wouldn’t slow down and my breathing still wasn’t steady.

“Harry, can you hear?” Louis asked. One of his hands was rubbing my back and the other held the McDonald’s burger. He always knew what to do whenever I had one of these “episodes,” as he’d like to call. He was there the first time I had one.

I nodded, feeling nausea overcome me. “I feel like vomiting.”

“I told you,” muttered Niall.

Louis gave him a stern glare before looking at me and changing his expression to a much softer one. “Hold it, we’re just a few minutes away.”

I swallowed hard, which was a horrific decision; the bitter taste of puke made me shudder. I stuck my tongue out in disgust and squeezed my eyes shut. I heard a faint chortle from Niall, who was covering his mouth like he didn’t want me to hear him. Remind me to punch him in the face.

“I’m going to vomit on you.” I scowled at him.

He pulled a face. “Yeah, right.”

The car stopped abruptly in front of a tall building and it because of the sudden break, the vomit came up. Gladly, I didn’t open my mouth, but sadly, I had to force it back in and swallow (I heard it the moment I said it, shut up) because there was paparazzi waiting outside our car.

Niall pulled on my arm and helped me out of the car with Louis walking behind us holding the McDonald’s paper bags and a half eaten burger. We didn’t show much of an entrance, but we walked past them as quick as we can and I didn’t vomit once.

We entered the elegant-looking lobby of the building with its tinted windows and high-class carpeted floors. The people in these music companies are always attractive. A girl in a tight red dress approached us, with her red lips smiling.

“Hello, boys. Mr. Cowell is waiting for you at the seventh floor.” She spoke with a thick New York accent. She turned around, curling her finger towards us as a signal to follow. She appeared to be wearing a backless dress, which I didn’t really understand since it was fucking cold in the building.

Niall was eyeing her bum the whole time and got a disapproving look from the woman behind the front desk. “Wait ‘til you see the others,” she had muttered under her breath.

The elevator ride was silent. Ms. Red Dress left us after pushing the seventh number with her perfectly manicured red (surprise, surprise) nails. Elevator music wasn’t something we were fans of, but Niall tapped his feet to it.

“Stop,” Louis rolled his eyes. “Putting a beat to it won’t make elevator music sound good in a million years.”

Niall huffed. He looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Still need a barf, Harry?”

I rolled my eyes this time. I didn’t want to open my mouth and thankfully, we reached the seventh floor. Simon had a thing with having meetings at floors with the number seven. He said he wanted to be lucky.

We stepped out of the elevator and went down a corridor with posters of artists hung on the white walls.

“Why aren’t we hanged up there?” Niall asked, looking at a poster of Grouplove.
I opened my mouth to answer, ready to give the whole ‘genre matters’ speech, when I heard her laugh. Are you fucking serious?

She stood at the end of the hallway near the conference room, a bottle of water in her hand. She chuckled lightly, her shoulders shaking. “Honey, I’d be glad if you guys were hanged up there.”

“Why is she laughing?” Louis whispered, but Paige obviously heard it.

“Niall, you mean hung. ‘ Why aren’t we hung up there?’ Sweetie, the word hanged is used for people who commit suicide. ‘How did she die?’ ‘She hanged herself.’” She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Her thick California twang topped off her black skinny jeans and bright pink tank top. She still had her favourite pair of sneakers on.

We all blinked at her until Niall started laughing raucously. He ran to her, his arms open wide. “Paigey, I missed you!”

That’s when the vomit came, all over Louis’s shoes.

Nah, I’m kidding. I wish it did happen, though, just so that I wouldn’t witness her hugging someone else.

Paige and Niall had a very close relationship when we were together. I didn’t mind at all, actually. I mean, my (ex) girlfriend and one of my best friends were very close and that was a good thing, until we broke up. Niall was mad at me for a week, and whenever I felt miserable about the whole break up thing, he remained sympathetic but not as much as the others.

“Good to see you, Paige.” Louis grinned, giving her a peck on the cheek.

Okay, so maybe the whole band had a close relationship with Paige and her own band, and they weren’t as sympathetic as my mom, but they all took care of me, at least. Niall was just the one who was mad at me the most. Although, they all knew that I was broken and I needed space, but at the same time, all of them thought that I was overreacting to the break up and that I’m too sensitive.

I’m still thankful for them, though. They put up with it for more than a year and each of them had different theories on whether or not I was taking the break up too miserably.

“You’ve been working out.” Paige giggled after giving Louis a tight hug.

That’s why they all loved her. Paige loved to compliment people. She looked for a good thing in every single person. There was this one time where we were talking about Hitler and her compliment was that he did a good job at maintaining his mustache.

Louis laughed, giving her a playful push. “So, what brings a fine lady like you here?”

“Well, the band has agreed to signing to this record company a few months ago, and we got a call from Simon Cowell the other day that he needed to see us.” She shrugged towards the end of her sentence and pursed her lips. “Why are you guys here?”

“Uncle Si called us for a meeting as well.” Niall answered, knitting his eyebrows.

Paige muttered a ‘what’ under her breath and turned around, walking quickly to the conference room. We all looked at each other before following her inside the room, which was practically made of glass, top to bottom, ceiling to floor. If the wall wasn’t glass, it was painted white. There was absolutely nothing dirty inside the room. It was a fully furnished area, couches pushed to the walls and a long, glass table at the center with office chairs lined up at each side.

Simon Cowell sat at the head of the table, reading an issue of Vanity Fair. The rest of Paige’s band sat at one side of the table, a water bottle each in front of them. The other side had the members of my own band, with water bottles as well.

Zayn raised an eyebrow at me and pushed back the chair beside him, patting on it in offer for me to sit. I followed and sat down slowly between Zayn and Liam, across James, who was staring. Niall, Louis, and Paige all sat afterwards, and silence approached as we waited for Simon to finish reading.

I could feel James burning holes into my head with the stare he was giving me; Zayn was shaking his leg the whole time; Liam was tapping his fingers on the table; Niall kept drinking on his water bottle; Louis was picking on his nails; Nate had his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his hands; Tim was looking at me as well, although his face actually looked like he was trying to tell me something—his eyebrows kept joining; and Paige, was, well, Paige. She was drawing on the piece of paper we were all provided with a fountain pen.

Finally, Simon cleared his throat, put down the Vanity Fair issue with Emma Watson at the front, and looked at us with a grin. He was the only one smiling on the table.

“What?” He looked at us with a confused look. “Are you judging me because it’s a late issue?”

Liam opened his mouth to speak but paused shortly and closed his mouth.

“So, why did you decide to hold a meeting with us and with them without telling us that we will be together in one room?” James finally said rather quickly, it was somewhat hard for us to understand.

“Well, I knew that both you lots wouldn’t agree to it, so I didn’t say it.” Simon shrugged, throwing a hand. “But, now that you’re here, let’s get to business.”

He leaned forward in his seat and pointed a finger at Summer Breeze. “Your manager”—Gab’s their manager. Nice person—“is still fixing the papers downstairs, but we already talked about this, so, yes.”

This time, he looked back and forth from Summer Breeze to One Direction, pointing fingers everywhere. “I don’t want any shouts, let’s take this all in like the young adults you are. Your”—pointed at us—“and your”—pointed at them—“record companies have agreed to settle a tour for both of you bands. Make me finish! Both are headlining, both are having the same amount of set time each day, and it’s a world tour. You can speak now.”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

Notes