too soon to tell, chapter t w o
You dropped your bag in the foyer of Harry’s house after work on a Thursday. It was quiet--he wasn’t home yet and you’d keyed in knowing that you’d have some time to yourself.
You felt a vibrating in your pocket when you shrugged off your coat, your visible reflection told you it was a FaceTime call, Alyssa’s name danced across the screen until you slid your thumb to answer.
“Hello, hello,” you greeted, walking to find a seat on the couch.
“Where are you?” She furrowed her brows as she took in your surroundings.
“At Harry’s--he’s out, though.”
She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “I will never get sick of you lounging in his house when he’s not there.”
You rolled your eyes at your old roommate’s antics--she’d always been the number one supporter of your relationship and when you texted her earlier saying you needed advice, she promised to call on her lunch break.
“I’m not lounging,” you informed with a shake of your head. “I just got out of work, we’re having dinner tonight.”
“Mr. Popstar isn’t too busy?” She teased, aware of the tension both of your schedules had been causing.
“Apparently not.”
She forked a bite of food into her mouth, the sun was shining through the window behind her, the walls of your old apartment were redecorated now with the art of your replacement. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“Sort of,” you leaned back and let out a breath. “I mean, it’s all connected--”
“What is?”
“I’m getting to it,” you made a face at her through the phone. “So--don’t freak out, okay? Cause I don’t even know if anything will come from it and Harry doesn’t know yet.”
She nodded and gestured with her hand for you to get on with it.
Knowing Alyssa, she was already jumping to conclusions in her head. You were pregnant, you were engaged, you quit your job, you had a huge fight with your sister. No, no, no.
“I interviewed for a job in LA...and I haven’t told Harry because all our friends have been so excited about us being in the same spot again but--”
Her eyes went wide at the mention of a US city, she did her best to hold back her smile until it faded when you said: “I don’t know. Something feels off between us.”
“Off between you and Harry? More than just being busy?”
“I’m probably overthinking it but,” you looked around his living room. Pictures of his mum, his sister, his cousins--even his manager--were tucked in frames and placed on shelves. There wasn’t a trace of you in his house except for the toothbrush upstairs and the key on your keyring.
“It feels like we’re not moving forward. And we’ve both been busy, like I’ve told you, but since we don’t live together sometimes we go days without seeing each other and it’s fine, I get that he’s busy, obviously, but--”
“But you want to move in with him.”
“Well, I don’t know--I did, sort of, I think--but then I heard about this job in LA and it sounds amazing but Jessie just moved here and no one will shut up about how great London is.”
Alyssa offered a sympathetic frown and repositioned the bowl in front of her to get another bite. “What’s the job?”
You almost didn’t want to tell her, sure she’d get excited and eager to have you back in the same country. You winced a little, bracing for her reaction. “S’with E! News,” you shrugged. “It’d be on-air.”
“Shut up! Are you serious?!”
“Yes m’serious,” you rolled your eyes. “But I haven’t told any of them because you know how they are.”
She nodded, “Jessie will not want you to take it.”
“God love her, but of course not. And Harry spends time out there, so it might be okay, but it’s not like I could ask him to go with me.”
“Why not? He’s famous, Y/N--he belongs there.”
“It’s too soon,” you whined. “He’s not my fiancé and we don’t live together, so--I don’t want to make it weird.”
“But you love him,” she reasoned.
“Yeah, but s’been weird lately!" You tried to drive home the point. "He’s made no mention of moving in and we’ve been dating for a year and a half, I’ve been in London for over a year now. He’s not even mentioned it, Alyssa, I swear. He’ll say things like ‘one day we can go on vacation,’ and ‘what should we do for Christmas?’ But he’s made no concrete plans to actually have a future with me.”
“Maybe he doesn’t think you’re ready.”
“Maybe he’s not ready,” you volleyed.
“Maybe,” Alyssa shrugged. “But you won’t know if you don’t ask him.”
“But if I ask him and he’s not on the same page I’ll look like an idiot and he’s busy with the album and now I’m thinking about moving to LA and--”
She watched you, waited for you to say more, but you were out of words. You changed gears.
“Maybe we’re just not meant to be long term.”
“Oh come on,” she groaned. “Not this again.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Your whole ‘we should have left it in New York’ shit.”
You lifted your eyebrows to demand further details.
“You were freaked out in the beginning that you’d move back there and it would be weird.”
“And?”
“Was it weird?”
“Not at first, I guess. But I mean, come on---don’t you think we should have taken some kind of step forward by now? Even just mentioning the idea of moving in together?”
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “Maybe it’s different with someone like him.”
You rolled your eyes--what if that’s what you were sick of?
People always said that: it’s different because of his job, it’s different because he’s on the road, it’s different because he’s famous.
Of course it was, and that was fine, for a while. But what if Harry’s job always got in the way of feeling normal? What if you couldn’t have a real wedding because of it? What if you could never send your children to summer camp because of it?
Were you willing to sacrifice your own future to live an unconventional life with someone just because you loved him?
“When will you hear back about the job?”
“Dunno--talked to them last week on Monday and they said this week at some point. S'been a while, so hopefully soon.”
You’d been keeping busy, trying to avoid your personal email at all costs and also making sure that Harry had limited visibility of your screen at all times.
“Do you want it?”
You thought on it for a second. Being offered a job at a company like E! would certainly be an ego boost, but the mere thought of having to explain to all of your friends that yes, you’d been back in London for 18 months and now you were packing up and moving even farther away than before wouldn’t be easy. That seemed to be the one certainty in the whole situation: no one would take it well.
“I don’t want to leave everyone here, especially Harry--but I also don’t want to be stupid and think that this relationship is going somewhere if it’s not.”
Alyssa nodded and let out a sigh. “I get that, I mean, of course you have to do what’s best for you. But I’d hate to see you not be with him just because things are hard right now.”
You leaned your head back on the couch and sighed. You didn’t want to break up with Harry. If anything, you wanted to move forward and move in with him and do what you’d always imagined: have a good job, have a few kids, try to be happy.
But what if you’d been naive enough to think you could have all of that with Harry and what if this is how you were finding out that you couldn’t?
Were you still stuck in your teenage fantasy of marrying the boy you'd long been crushing on?
She watched you for a second before she reassured: “you’ll figure it out.”
You smiled, glad you’d called Alyssa if only to have someone talk you off the edge a little bit. You missed waking up one room over and her love for basketball games and New York 99 cent pizza.
“Well it’s not like I have to make a decision right now,” you said. “I haven’t even heard back from them. For all I know they could never reach out again because I bombed my interview.”
She rolled her eyes at your self-deprecation and offered a few final words of encouragement before you hung up and promised to catch up soon.
Ever since you’d left, Alyssa had taken it upon herself to keep you up to date on the ins and outs of New York. New restaurant? She’d send you pictures and a 200 word review. Crazy subway rats making the news again? Articles and video proof would be sent your way in a matter of hours.
She’d gotten a new roommate to fill your bedroom and apparently things weren’t always peachy between them. Peyton was quiet and shy--according to Alyssa. She was up every morning at 6am and in the shower at 6:30. She did yoga in the living room and hated it when Alyssa left empty beer bottles on the coffee table.
Alyssa was starting to lose her shit, swearing up and down that she needed to either pull the trigger and move in with Owen or find a new place altogether. It was my apartment first, she’d say. She should leave, not me.
It had been hard that year to leave the city you’d grown to love but harder to leave Alyssa and Carly and the things that made New York feel like home. It was also, in hindsight, hard to leave the place where you and Harry reconnected and built the foundation of your current relationship.
You heard commotion from the front door only a few minutes later when you rummaged through Harry’s kitchen for a snack.
“Hi,” he called from the other room, a close-lipped smile when you stuck your head around the corner to greet him.
“Hi! How was the photoshoot?”
“Good,” he nodded, watching as you stuck your hand into a box of crackers. “What time are we meeting everyone?”
Right--Thursday also meant dinner somewhere downtown with everyone in tow.
“7pm--but Jessie said we should try to get there early since it’s a new place and no one’s ever been.”
He nodded in acknowledgement of your words but seemed distracted, like his mind was somewhere else and his body was the only thing tying him to the room.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, looking back up at you. “Just a busy day and a busy week.”
You nodded, unsure if he wanted to say more or if you were supposed to have more of a reply than a simple nod of your head.
You’d both been stammering out awkward sentences and trying to dance around the elephant in the room for a few weeks, but now, under his gaze, you felt more uncertain than before.
“Are you okay?” He turned the question around and watched you closely.
“Yeah,” you shrugged, moving to sit on the couch.
“You seem--off.”
You didn’t know what it was. Could he possibly sense the tension in your shoulders as you waited for an email either way? You got the job! We regret to inform you…
Or was he just aware that you felt awkward since it had been almost two weeks since you had any considerable amount of alone time and even longer since you were able to have a date night that wasn’t interrupted by Jeff or Erica or someone who needed something from him.
He took a few steps closer towards you, a look of concern etched on his features. “What’s wrong?”
The words were on the tip of your tongue when he looked at you, eyebrows lifted as he waited for you to spit it out.
“I guess I feel like we’ve been distant.”
He pushed his head forward, almost like he hadn’t expected that to be the issue. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” you shrugged, caught off guard by his pushiness. Maybe you shouldn’t have brought it up.
“You don’t know?” He pressed.
You broke eye contact with him for a minute, wondering why you had to state the obvious. “Well, you’re busy all the time, Harry.”
He let his shoulders rise and fall in defeat, looking around the room in frustration. “I told you that finishing the album would be busy.”
“Yeah, but you forgot to mention that you’d also be busy when the album is done once promo starts and then tour,” your voice was quiet, not so much angry as you were upset.
You were tired. You wanted nothing more than to spend a night on the couch with him and only him, tell him about LA and about the sudden itch you felt to see more of the world than just London.
But with Jake and Adam always around and Bryn and Jessie, too, paired with interruptions from Jeff and Erica--it felt as if there was no hope for a private or honest conversation.
He came to sit closer to you on the couch now, took your hands in his. “I know my job is a lot, okay? I know it’s annoying that I don’t necessarily get weekends off or have a typical schedule, but once the album is out and the promo is done I’ll have a bit of a break before the tour. We can go on vacation somewhere, just us.”
It sounded nice, maybe a tropical island or a cabin in the woods. But before you could nod in agreement the thought of Los Angeles popped into your head.
His album was due out in December, promo from now through the New Year, some time off in February and March for both of your birthdays and then tour. You had no clue where you’d be by then.
Would you be in LA? Would you be in London? Would you be stuck in this same spot on his couch with decision paralysis and a crushing sense of uncertainty about the future?
He knew you were over-thinking and tilted his head. “What?”
You blew out a slow breath of air, twisted a ring on your finger and then looked up at him again.
You didn’t even have a chance to be more honest, a buzz on your phone on the coffee table in front of you both broke the room in half, the name of the woman you’d spoken to was in bold next to your email icon. You reached for it quickly, Harry’s brows furrowed when you pulled it close to your chest so he wouldn’t see.
“What’s that?”
Hi Y/N, thank you so much for your patience over the last few days. We would love to offer you a position with NBC Universal - E! News as an on-air correspondent in our Los Angeles headquarters.
You looked up at him quickly, cheeks red and heart racing.
“What’s happening, are you okay?”
“I got a job offer,” you said quickly, still holding the phone close to you.
“What?” He smiled, “why didn’t you tell me you were looking? I didn’t even know--”
“It’s in Los Angeles.”
His smile faded instantly, he blinked a few times like he must have misheard you. The leather of his couch felt cool beneath your legs, a clock on the wall ticked and for a second, you wondered if he could hear your pulse as loudly as you could.
He pulled his eyes away from you but then quickly scanned over your face. “Are you taking it?”
“I don’t know,” you said honestly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Silence, words filled your brain and crawled up the back of your throat, desperate to be said out loud, in real life, instead of just circling in your head.
Because I don’t know what we’re doing or if we’re moving forward. I don’t know where I want to live. I don’t know if I can stay in London forever. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Only the last part made it out between your lips. “I don’t know.”
“Y/N,” he stood up, more angry now as he looked around the room and scratched at the base of his neck. “This kind of feels like a bombshell to drop on someone.”
“I was going to tell you--but we haven’t had a second alone, I just didn’t want to have to tell everyone before I knew what was happening.”
“You didn’t even tell me you interviewed,” he said.
“The last time I saw you alone we got interrupted by Erica three times in one conversation.”
“Probably for a good reason--”
“But you seriously can’t even put your phone down lately when we have dinner, even when everyone else is there!”
“I can’t help it that my work is insanely busy right now!”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” you said this quickly, voice higher than usual and a heat on your skin that he normally didn’t provoke, at least not in a bad way. You stood from the couch and put your hands on your hips. “I don’t know what I’m going to do and I don’t even know if this job is right for me and under no circumstances are you allowed to tell anyone. Especially Jessie.”
He rolled his eyes at that.
“What’s the eye roll for?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Everyone just got back and now you might leave and--”
“I said I don’t know if I’m going to take it.”
He was quiet at that, clucked his tongue in thought but then disappeared upstairs to shower and change.
The car ride over was awkward, he asked how your day had been and you told him you talked to Alyssa, he bristled when you admitted you told her about it.
It wouldn’t be the end of the conversation, you were sure of that. You’d likely end up at his for the night and he’d apologize for being busy, you’d apologize for not telling him and maybe, you hoped, he’d ask you to stay over.
When you greeted Adam with a hug, you ignored Harry’s sour mood and opened the menu in front of you.
“My first dinner as a Londoner,” Jessie smiled, shimming her shoulders in excitement when Bryn looked over the specials across the table from you.
“This is on you, right? New job, new salary?” Jake teased.
“Maybe if I hadn’t just bought a whole new bedroom set,” she rolled her eyes.
“How’s everything with you?” Adam eyed Harry, his question veiled to avoid too many details in public.
Luckily, Harry’s ability to go out in public in London was similar to that in New York. As long as a private room or a table in the back was requested, he could typically get away unscathed if dinner was less than 2 hours and if he had his back to the dining room.
“Fine,” he shrugged, eyes still down at the drink menu.
“Fine?” Jessie leaned forward, her tone insinuating that she didn’t believe him. “You’ve been working really hard all summer and now all you say is ‘fine?’”
He glanced up at her, lips in a forced smile. “S’all good, Jess--just tired.”
Bryn gave you a look, one that asked what stick is up his ass?, before she changed the topic.
“Let’s not tell our server how fit she is tonight, yeah?”
Jake let out a snort of a laugh and sipped at the water that had already been brought to your table. “Alright, you thought the one last week was just as hot as I did.”
“I did,” Bryn agreed seriously, “but I didn’t offer my number unsolicited. How do you know she’s even straight?”
“She’s got a point,” Jessie chimed in. “Remember when you asked that girl to dance in the club when her girlfriend was right there with her arm around her?”
“I thought they were just mates!” Jake defended.
“You also have the worst radar for gay women ever,” Bryn nodded.
“When was this?” Harry asked, the hint of a smile on his face when he watched Jake adjust his napkin on his lap.
The words came out of your mouth without thought. “You weren’t here--you were in LA.”
He met your eyes when you replied, nodded, and then leaned back in his chair, effectively bowing out of the conversation without saying another word.
You weren’t trying to be short with him. You looked over to Jessie, who undoubtedly sensed the tension, and offered a smile. “How’s the flat?”
“Good,” she nodded. “Glad that all my furniture got put together without any scratches,” she reached over and patted Adam on the shoulder.
“We’re not children, Jessie, we can handle some furniture.”
“You broke my dresser when I asked you guys to move it into another room,” Bryn reminded, a look of confusion on her face at Adam’s retort.
“Only because it was already half broken and a piece of shit,” Jake said. “I love you, Brynnie, but that dresser was already knocking on Heaven’s door.”
Harry let out a laugh at that, another memory that he had missed while on a trip to a studio somewhere north of London. He excused himself to the bathroom after you placed your orders, and once he was out of earshot, Jake leaned down and looked at you.
“What’s going on with him?”
You forced a cheesy grin and blinked a few times. “He’s just grumpy.”
“‘Bout what?” Bryn asked.
“Guys,” you leaned back in your chair, hoping you didn’t have to say too much. “I can’t tell you every single thing that happens in our relationship.”
“Well, when it affects us I think we have the right to know,” Jessie shrugged, playing the typical we don’t like when our parents fight card.
“It’s not affecting you,” you shook your head, eyed her seriously over your glass of Pinot Noir.
Adam shrugged, a smirk on his face let you know he was trying to rile you up. “He’s grumpy at dinner and we’re all here and we’re all aware of it. We don’t like tension between you two.”
“Alright, leave the woman alone,” Jake waved them off. “As long as everything’s alright.”
“It’s totally alright,” you nodded, wondering when you’d gotten so comfortable lying to them. “He’s just busy with the next phase of work.”
With Harry’s album yet to be announced, you couldn’t sit around in a London restaurant and divulge details--even if you were all acutely aware of the work he’d put in and the upcoming announcements and events.
Adam let it go. “How’s work for you, Smalls?”
Another shrug of your shoulders, “s’good--I told you all about my November cover story, right?”
“Yeah,” Jessie sipped a glass of Cabernet. “But you said you didn’t know who it was going to be with.”
“Well, s’cause I had to drop the bomb on him first,” you nodded in the direction of the bathroom. “I’ll be sitting down in a few days with Ms. Gigi Hadid,” you lowered your voice and leaned forward to say her name.
Bryn’s eyes went wide, Jake grimaced.
“How’d he take that?” Adam asked.
“He’s not thrilled,” you admitted. “But I’ll talk with his team about what to avoid specifically, I guess. Her team will probably have a list of off-limits items too.”
Bryn let her elbows rest on the white tablecloth. “Yeah, but, you can’t just ignore the fact that she’s dating Zayn.”
“I also can’t just barge in and stir shit up,” you said.
Harry pulled his chair out next to you and sat back down. “Who are you stirring shit up with?”
Everyone chose to be quiet now--Adam looked down at his phone and Jessie reached for her wine again.
“Just telling them about my cover story,” you admitted, watching his face for a reaction.
He nodded, a tiny smirk in your direction. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stir shit up,” he said, reaching to put a hand on your thigh beneath the table.
Those were the moments that made you feel less panicky--the realization that he was still choosing you and even when the tension was high and the mood was low, he’d reach over and remind you that yes, he cared. Even if he was late to dinner or distracted.
Which is why, when you got back in his car that night and headed for his house, you were surprised when his mood shifted again.
“I’ll just drop you at yours?”
“Oh--yeah, sure.”
“Did you want to come to mine?” He looked over at you like he hadn’t expected any resistance to sleeping separately.
You were quiet for a second--not if he didn’t want you there. “No, it’s fine.”
“I can’t read your mind, Y/N.”
“You don’t have to,” you said quickly, a prickly tone to your words when he made an unreadable face.
He drove in silence for a few minutes, closing in on your neighborhood when the street lamps disappeared for the sake of suburbia.
Eventually he cleared his throat and that sent you over the edge.
“What do you want me to say, Harry? Do you want me to apologize for interviewing for this job?”
“No,” he said simply. “I just don’t know why you thought you didn’t need to tell me about a huge decision like that.”
“It wasn’t a decision until today when they offered it to me.”
“Just seems like something you talk to your boyfriend about.”
You looked over at him in the dark of night, the glow from the dashboard didn’t help you see his features as he turned left onto your street.
“Well, sorry that we didn’t have the opportunity to talk about it between your work schedule and Jessie moving in and group dates--”
He slowed down on your street, put his flashers on when he stopped in front of your building. “I don’t want to keep secrets from each other,” his voice was softer now. “I don’t want to not know what’s going on in your life. I did enough of that for two years when we weren't talking.”
You sighed at this, the sentiment broke whatever anger was lurking inside you and when you looked up to see him, you wondered if you should ask him.
Are we ever going to move in together? Are we ever going to get engaged?
You figured the lead up to his sophomore album wasn’t the best time for that conversation. He pressed a kiss to your forehead and you climbed the stairs to your flat alone.
**
A few days later you sat nervously in a conference room and watched as beads of sweat formed on the water glass in front of you. Tyler had brought you in, offered you a breath mint, and promised you’d be fine. When you asked him if the whole room was hot he said it was just you and your nerves--but the droplets of water that raced towards the wooden conference table begged to differ.
You’d gotten email after email this morning: one from Jeff with the rules he and Harry had come up with and eight from Gigi’s team with requests for snacks, topics to discuss, topics to avoid, lunch request, arrival and departure time, and a few extra regarding booking her photoshoot the next day.
A text lit up your screen when you tried to smooth your your hair in the reflection of your screen.
Jake Newcomb (10:42am): In case you’re wondering what to get me for my birthday, a video of Gigi Hadid saying she loves me would be perfect!
You ignored his text and felt a pang of disappointment in your gut, you thought it would have been Harry with words of encouragement.
He was fine with you doing the interview, he seemed to come around to the idea when he met with Jeff and had a chance to mark some things as off limits.
So far, his list was as follows:
Don’t publish anything too negative about anyone in the band (if she says anything negative about anyone in the band)
Harry and Jeff got to listen to the taped interview
Harry and Jeff got to read the article before you sent it off to your editor and could make suggestions to cut things if they felt it necessary.
It seemed silly, but you’d long been used to the lingo of contracts and riders and ground rules for things like these. You knew both Harry and Jeff trusted you, in fact, Jeff was now choosing to see this as a good opportunity for press before the announcement of Harry’s album.
Your biggest concern, truly, was not looking/sounding/acting like an idiot in a room alone with Gigi Hadid. Your second biggest concern was conducting a unique interview and writing a unique article.
You knew that Naomi and Tyler were nearby for support if needed, Tyler had already walked by the conference room three times to see if your subject had arrived and likely to make sure you hadn’t sweat through your blouse. You thought the commotion in the hallway was him until you saw a group of busy-looking people with cellphones and sunglasses.
“Hi,” you stood from your chair, extended a hand in her direction and offered your best professional smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Gigi, thanks for doing this interview.”
She seemed hesitant at first, smiled a little and shook your hand. “Happy to,” she said. She turned over her shoulder and locked eyes with the woman who seemed to be the most in-charge of the group. “I’m good,” she nodded.
They hustled out quickly, you stood frozen in place and watched as she took off her coat before sitting in the chair you’d pulled out for her. Once the door was shut behind her posse, she let out a sigh that bled into a frustrated laugh.
“I could never do an interview with all of them just loitering around--wouldn’t that be so weird?”
You nodded, mirrored her smile and had to remind your body how to move. Left foot, right, breathe, sit in the chair.
You weren’t really one to get star struck, but then again, you didn’t spend too much time with celebrities that weren’t Harry or his close friends. You certainly never sat down with a model like Gigi to have a conversation that could be as awkward as this one.
She checked her phone quickly but then put it face down on the table. “I am happy to do this, I know it might feel weird for us to be hanging out--but boys are stupid anyway.”
You smiled at this, immediately relaxed when she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs.
“Did you also get a whole list of things to not talk to me about?”
She stifled a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Zayn can be a man of few words but,” she looked down at your phone on the table. “Off the record--he had quite a bit to say when I told him you were doing the interview.”
“Off the record,” you laughed, “Harry did too. But how is Zayn?”
“He’s good--thinking about getting back in the studio at some point to start working on a new album, he’s been writing a bunch. Harry’s doing the same I assume?”
“Yes, yeah, he’s been really busy.”
“I know things might not have gone great between all of them at the end, but I don’t want this to be awkward for us.”
“Me neither. You can say as much or as little about the band as you’d like.”
She nodded, you figured it was time to give your pre-interview spiel.
“So, I’ll record us in a few seconds, you can obviously say ‘off the record’ if there’s something you don’t want me to include, but I like my interviews to be like conversations, basically. I’ll send someone on your team the recording when we’re done and a typed transcript. You’ll have 48-hours to look over it and revoke any statements that you don’t want me publishing or to clarify anything. After that I’ll write the story, send a final copy to your team before it gets finalized here, again, 48-hours to look it over and request any changes but at that time we don’t have to approve the requests. This is all in a document somewhere that someone probably signed for you--I’m sure your team is used to it, they know what they’re doing.”
You reached forward and pressed a few buttons on your phone, she watched until you looked up and told her: “It’s on now, so we’re recording and today is September 10th, 2019.”
She smiled like you were old friends. “Where do we start?”
“Is there somewhere you want to start?”
She leaned her head to the side. “We can jump right to it--”
“To what?”
“Oh come on,” she laughed. “Us talking about One Direction will make headlines for weeks.”
“Yeah,” you shrugged. “It’s funny that us just sitting down together will be a big deal, right? As if we’ve got nothing better to talk about than them.”
“Sexism at it’s finest,” she admitted.
“Do you find that a lot in your industry?”
She thought on this for a second, looked out the window but nodded. “It’s unavoidable, in a lot of ways. I think there have been a lot of changes over the last few years to at least move us in the right direction, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
“How would you want to see it change for the better?”
“Well, I’d love to have more privacy about my love life, for one,” she caught herself, looked to you quickly as if she felt bad. “Off the record, we can talk about it here, it’s fine. It’s different to talk about it with a woman, number one. And you’re you, you get it.”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” you offered.
“No, I don’t mind. Unless you plan on asking me stupid things like how amazing is it to be dating someone as handsome as him or do I find that his job overshadows mine, we’re good. We can be back on the record, too,” she looked down at the numbers on your phone, eyeing the ticking of the recording clock.
“But do you know what I mean? No one asks guys questions like that--or they’re different, at least. People just want to know everything about your relationship when you’re a woman and they view you in the context of who you’re sleeping with.”
“Yeah,” you nodded. “I get that.”
She smiled, “it’s hard to date someone famous, isn’t it? Lots of rules around it.”
You were surprised by the genuine look in her eyes, despite her own status and contracts and income, she seemed to be acknowledging that the two of you shared a unique experience and were now brought together under strange circumstances.
“It’s definitely hard for me--but, isn’t it easier seeing as you also have an assistant and a manager and people to, I don’t know, facilitate things? Not to invalidate how hard it still is.”
She laughed at that, “Yeah, in some ways, probably. He’s really private though, which is good for us. We focus on ourselves and do our own thing most of the time.”
“Right--you seem pretty private about it for the most part.”
“Yeah,” she shrugged, reflecting on your words for a second. “I think to me it feels weird that my relationship status can make so much news, you know? Modeling is my job and obviously that’s not your typical nine-to-five but--I like to focus on my work and when male journalists are continuously obsessed with my love life, I find that weird. I mean, you get that, right? I’m sure it’s no different with Harry.”
You bit your lip, embarrassed at how she’d managed to turn it around. She was right--you’d been getting more and more annoyed with how much your relationship with Harry was dictating your life--and for some reason, you admitted this to her.
“People are much more interested in me because I’m dating him--but they’d be just as interested in you even if you weren’t.”
“Would they?” She tilted her head to the side, another rise and fall of her shoulders as she looked around the room. “I get what you’re saying, but sometimes it feels like dating him gave my career a huge boost. I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, I totally get it. I feel the same way. I was building my career in New York and it was going well and I was writing fun stuff and making a name for myself and then I started hanging out with him and--”
“Everyone started to care more about you?”
“Exactly.”
You thought about the headlines, the articles, the pictures in tabloids that undoubtedly helped your name spread like wildfire through London and New York. You had to ignore it, most of the time, reassure yourself that you were a good journalist and a good employee and the good things in your career were not just a byproduct of the boy who slept in your bed.
She smiled knowingly, her lips in a thin line when she looked down to the tape recorder, almost like she felt guilty for steering the conversation in a different direction.
“Sorry,” you cleared your throat, sitting up straight. “Back to business.”
The conversation bled into more normal things: the upcoming fall fashion week, how she manages self-care when she’s busy jetting from city to city, and, try as you might, the two of you wound your way back to your commonalities a few times: sexism in your industries, life as young women dating famous men.
You thanked her profusely at the end and promised that Tyler would be in touch to confirm the date and time for her corresponding photoshoot later that week. She draped a Versace leather tote over her shoulder and seemed to float out of the office with a posse of beautiful people behind her.
You stood--still awestruck--in the hallway and watched as the elevator doors slid shut.
“She’s prettier in person,” Tyler said from beside you, a notebook in hand as he stared at the air she’d once occupied. “I didn’t know if that type of thing was possible but she’s definitely one of the prettiest humans I’ve ever seen.”
“She was nice,” you turned around to see Naomi behind him, also eager for more details. You headed back for your office in a trance, they scurried behind you as you thought aloud. “I mean, I didn’t think she’d be rude--but I didn’t know what to expect with the whole band history stuff.”
“Did you talk about that?”
“Less about the band and more about--” you blinked a few times and sat down at your desk, “sexism, what it’s like to be a woman dating a famous man and how that affects your career.”
Both of their eyes went wide, a smile tugged at Naomi’s lips when Tyler put a hand over his heart in shock.
“I’m sorry, so you’re telling me that you just had a heart to heart with Gigi Hadid about sexism and your boyfriends and--”
“I guess so,” you shrugged, just as surprised as they were.
**
You gave Harry fewer details that night over FaceTime as you brushed your teeth. He was somewhere in New York, disappointed that he’d miss Jake’s birthday dinner and celebration, but he promised to make it up to him when he got back.
He lifted a cup of tea to take a sip, light shone through the window behind him on your screen and he scrolled through emails on his laptop.
You spit into the sink, an ocean between you.
“Have you thought at all about the offer? You have to tell them by tomorrow, yeah?”
You nodded, wiped at your mouth with a towel and then crossed your arms. “I can stay, I mean--if you want me to.”
He made a face at that, leaned forward and furrowed his brows together. “Of course I want you to stay, Y/N, but I don’t want to be the reason you pass on something important."
You were quiet for a second, uncapped lotion before spreading some across your forehead.
"I'm sorry I didn't react well when you told me. I'm proud of you and it sounds like a phenomenal opportunity...I don't know, it's just the timing of it--"
You cut him off, “well none of this is ideal timing, Harry.”
“Do you mean with my album?”
“I mean with any of it,” you said truthfully. “The album, the job offer--”
“Well the album existed before the job offer,” he trailed off.
Only a matter of seconds and a handful of words had managed to get you elevated and angry and ready to fight. That was happening more easily, these days.
“So what am I supposed to do? Always come second? Make every decision in my life based off of your career and your music?”
“S’not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that--I dunno--I thought you knew what you were getting into.”
Quiet, your hands gripped the counter in your bathroom. Your bare feet were on the floor and you wondered why you were trying so hard to make everything work if things were only getting harder.
“That came out wrong,” he shook his head, the look on his face let you know he wanted to take it back.
“No, it didn’t." You let out a sharp laugh. "I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Take the job,” he said quickly, like he saw you reaching for the button to end the FaceTime call.
“What?”
“Take it. If it’ll make you happy, take it.”
“And what about us?”
“We figure it out,” he shrugged. “We try.”
You sighed, unsure what to say.
"It's Los Angeles," he said. "Not Antarctica."
You blew air between your lips, looked up at him for a second. The curl of hair that dipped onto his forehead, the way his mouth pulled up in the corner like it always had.
“I love you, Y/N. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
His words didn’t offer any relief and you spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning and wondering how on earth you were supposed to make a decision.
Leaving him in London felt stupid. A few bumps in the road and you were ready to jump ship?
But staying and hoping for a ring or a shared address felt even stupider, somehow. You couldn’t pass up a dream job and hope that things would go well for your career if you weren’t going to work for it.
A few hours of rest came after 3am, your morning coffee was a tad bitter and the clouds in the sky seemed to match your mood. Maybe you should have spent more time thinking it over, talking it out, even calling your mum or Katie for advice.
But you couldn’t have told everyone about the job offer without a certain answer, and unfortunately, the person you wanted to talk to the most didn’t seem like he could be impartial.
You’d been upset, you’d been feeling disconnected from him, but that didn’t erase all of the good times and the happy memories you’d made, right?
Naomi and Tyler locked themselves in your office for lunch on Friday, they promised that they’d never tell your boss and they swore they supported you either way. Tyler used an expo marker to make a pros and cons list of staying in London and Naomi came up with a points system for each bullet on the list.
You stared at it, looked at the names of all of your friends, your family, your favorite cafes and restaurants in London. At the very bottom of what had become a long list of reasons to stay was his name.
And on the other side, Tyler’s poor drawing of an engagement ring sat beside a big question mark.
You didn’t know what the future held for you and Harry, and maybe that was okay. You didn’t know what would happen when you packed your life into a suitcase and moved to New York, but you’d survived to tell the tale.
They were quiet, eyes darting from the board back to you as they waited for you to say something.
You sighed, Tyler shifted on the couch in your office and Naomi smoothed out her blouse.
“I can’t take it,” you said.
Tyler’s eyes went wide, “really? You’re staying?”
“I can’t leave,” you shrugged. “I can’t leave him behind and leave my friends and start all over in a new city right as I’m really finding my groove here again.”
“Okay, I know we said we’d support you either way but I would have been fucking pissed if you went,” Tyler admitted, moving closer to wrap his arms around you.
You laughed, let him squeeze you before Naomi joined in.
“Me too,” she confessed, a smile on her face when she pulled away. “But I would have at least faked happy for you.”
You bit back the doubt and second-guessing, used their excitement to fuel a regretful email.
Thank you so much for the opportunity, but after careful consideration I cannot accept this position due to the geographical location.
Your thumb hovered over the small blue arrow, a wave of panic flooded through you when you hit send, like somehow, something inside of you knew that everything was about to change.
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