Until I Met You

(Louis’ POV)
The two girls looked at us, one with awe and the other skeptically. They wanted our story? Alright! Who better to tell it than ME? Let’s see...

It was a rather cloudy morning back home-

(Niall interrupted my story, “No, I think it was only slightly cloudy.”)

(Liam nodded, “Yeah, it was only slightly cloudy”)

It was a SLIGHTLY cloudy morning back home when we were called up to the office to see management.

“What can we do for ya’?” Niall asked, rather excitedly, but the look on Simon’s face caused his smile to falter.

“Well boys, I’ve got some bad news. Have you ever heard the name Gladdis Alester?”

Zayn and I partially raised our hands. “She’s the girl that works for one of those magazines, right?”

“Yes indeed,” he continued, “And isn’t one of those regular idiots that go around taking pictures like amateurs. Her stories make or break careers.”

“Well, what’s this got to do with us?” Zayn asked.

Simon sighed, putting his fingers to his temples, “Once every month she writes an article. If she finds a story on someone, it could end up going either way. She either absolutely adores you, or completely hates you. No in betweens. Alester’s papers are so sought out that she makes millions a year. It’s like a game to her. When she publishes a story, she leaves a clue to tell us who’s next. The last issue, as I’ve just read it, gave this clue: The next story’s outcome could go TWO WAYS.”

“Two ways,” Niall laughed, “One Direction. I get it.”

“This is NO JOKE!” Simon thundered, “She’ll be after a story about you! Your entire career could be at stake. A single slip up and no more performances, no more fame, no more fans-”

“You make us sound so shallow,” Harry interrupted.

“And no more music!” Simon finished.

We all sat there in awkward silence for what seemed like an eternity but was probably just under a minute. Zayn broke it, “Well what do we do?”

“You’ll have to be quiet for the next four weeks. Once a deadline passes, Gladdis will usually move on.”

“But what about our US tour?” I could feel my eyebrows rise.

“I’m not going to cancel that quite yet. She usually doesn’t start writing until two weeks before the deadline. When you leave tomorrow, I need you to keep your heads low, yeah?” We all nodded, except for Niall who was staring out the window.

The next morning took forever. We sat at the airport in hoods and sunglasses, trying to look as far away from our usual style as possible. It almost worked. About half way through the flight a girl noticed Liam tweeting.

Hundreds of fans must have showed up when we landed. It didn’t cause too much of a mess, but we were a little delayed.

(Harry rolled his eyes, “If you can call an hour ‘little.’”)

After a few weeks we finally ended up in LA. We had just finished our show when we got a call from Simon. “Boys!” he said-

(Zayn pitched in for the first time, “Actually, he yelled.”)

“Boys!” he YELLED through speakerphone, “What did I tell you?”

“To not attract attention to ourselves?” Harry asked innocently. The rest of the boys snickered.

“Exactly! And all you’ve been doing is THAT. And guess what I just found out? Apparently, according to Gladdis’s last post on her blog, she’s found a good story. WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT MEANS?” No one said anything for a good minute, so Simon continued, “I don’t want you using your phones. No more Twitter, no more Facebook, no more parties. Stay in the hotel room, do not come out- I will have someone bring you food, and I SWEAR, if you mess this up it will most likely end your music career forever. Do not leave your hotel room for the next week and a half! No ‘ifs’ ‘ands’ or ‘buts!’” with that, he hung up the phone. Of course, we didn’t listen to him.

Anyway, the next morning, instead of leaving for the next city, like we had originally planned a few months ago, Simon found out about our little escapade to a club and had our phones taken away. He was set on shipping us off to some random little town where it would be harder to find us.

We ended up in a less than fancy hotel down by the beach and were given strict orders to stay there. Simon even hired a few body guards to stand watch by the door. But, of course, we got bored.

Using our ever increasing sense of creativity, we snuck out and went down to a restaurant. We had a rather peaceful meal up until we spotted a van stop outside. The moment we saw what looked like a flash, we ran.

(Liam interjected, “We paid the bill first, of course.”)

Slipping out the back way, we walked down the street for a while until it started raining. That’s about the time when we saw a car behind us. Running, we tried to ditch the two vans in a neighborhood.

I guess we took a few wrong turns-

(Zayn ruffled my hair affectionately, “Brilliant lead you were Louis.”)

…and ended up lost in small streets. We thought we got rid of them, but when we saw a spotlight streak through the rain down the street, we had to run. The only place to go was down a street where the lamp broke. Of course, this wasn’t a very good idea because it turned out it wasn’t a through street.

There was a wall at the end of it, but it would be impossible to get over due to the rain. Zayn spotted some bushes nearby but Liam wasn’t man enough to stay the night in wet foliage, so our only choice was to either climb the fence, or knock on someone’s door and ask to use a phone.

So, seeing the headlights get closer, we knocked on the nearest door and ended up…well here.

Notes

Hope you like this story
~L