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Summer is not my favourite. What is though, is winter.
And even though the summer in England is as good as a cup of hot chocolate during Christmas for Brits, it doesn’t have snow what-so-ever. And, not having snow makes it all bad. So, snow is the best part of winters and the worst part of summers.
Autumn too, it’s better than spring or summer. It doesn’t have snow too, but you can almost smell snow. Lori Gilmore much? I should stop.
So, with the autumn sky above my head and my legs pacing the speed of a cheetah, I clash with the cafe door. Because, well, of course I would. And, oh, to think I clashed with the door, because of fucking course not, the door was open. And by the time I stood up, the line in front me ending towards the cashier was falling like dominos. This would be funny if I were sitting on the same bench my interviewer probably is.
Is it too insensitive to ignore the Fallen and just go and order myself a cup of coffee? Probably. Do I even care at this point, when the whole of my morning was a wreck, and it’s not that bad for these little human beings to have some of their bad-morning-share too? No.
So, I order a cup of coffee and ignore the snarky look the cashier gives me. I sit down on one of the window couches and begin to text my interviewer, whose name I should probably learn. Because knowing me, I’d probably greet them with a ‘Hi, …uh…MR INTERVIEWER’, and I don’t want that.
Mr Stephens. Sounds posh. And probably uptight. And most probably Harry-hating.
I get an alert from my phone, glowing up with Mr Stephens’ mail.Harry,
I sincerely apologise for delaying the meeting, I’ll be reaching the cafe in about twenty more minutes.I’m somewhat relieved, since I was the one who was already late by fifteen minutes and now, Mr Stephens’ is. Is this karma? Well, I was running because of Stephens and the whole domino-mishap occurred because of him, indirectly, so well, it doesn’t hurt for him to take the blame of who-came-late. If I were having this conversation with Gemma, we’d be laughing our asses off, and come to the actual conclusion that Gemma came late, but I came later.
I feel a bit more relaxed now, so, I take a nap. What? It’s 7:00 am right now, and I woke up at almost 5:00 am. Considering I’m twenty-six and should’ve probably had a real job with real working hours, I should be used to getting up early, but I’m here today. I’m here today to get a real job. I’ll have to wake up E A R L Y. D A I L Y.
This is what torture looks like, not-early-risers.
I wait for Mr Stephens’ for another fifty minutes.
He arrives with a briefcase in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. The receptionist of the oh-so-rich cafe takes his coat, cigar and briefcase. She opens it and hands him a file, which I’m guessing is Harry’s-Interview-which-is-a-formality-anyway file.
‘Hello. Mr Styles.’ So we’re supposed to act civil and not try W.W.E moves on each other?
‘Hi, Mr Stephens! Was travelling here okay?’ I give him a cheery smile and considering the man has moved a single muscle around his lips, I have failed to entertain him until now.
‘So, Mr Styles. What position have you applied for?’ Who’s gonna tell him I want to collaborate with the company and not work for it. Even I do this much homework before the dawn cracks.
‘Um, I wasn’t applying for any position, sir. I was here for the interview of wedding planning management?’ I reply nervously, fiddling with the loose end of my jeans. I probably wore too casual for this shit. Shit.
‘Oh! Okay. Right. So, what’s your business share plan?’ He asks me, probably embarrassed even though he doesn’t look so. It feels nice to gaslight myself.
‘Thirty-Seventy is what I had proposed earlier, to which your financial department deemed okay.’ He looks at me. Why is he looking at me?
‘Okay, what’s your development plan? And how do you think you’ll be able to improve Hemersons’ better?’
‘Well, of course your company has one of the best Event Organising managements, but I think wedding planning is a major step up in the company. It’s widely asked-for and having its management will help with a lot of profit. And of course, my management would have immense help with the collaboration, too.’ My management consisted of two members. I need help. What the actual peanut butter fuck am I doing?
‘Okay.’
He moved on to ask me atleast ninety-eight-thousand more questions but I answered them considerably smoothly, because, you know, I have a management and shit.
‘I’ll let you know by-’ He is about to answer when a stranger- who looks pretty fed up?- interrupts him.
‘Motherfucker! DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING SHAME?’
Mr Stephens eyes me, and what have I even done? He isn't any of my one-night-stands, I’m careful enough to at least know their names and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him before. Have I? Nah.
‘Uh-’ Mr Stephens tries to continue, when the fucking stranger interrupts. Again.
‘You made me fall like a fucking idiot over there, and now you’ve been on this date for what? Fucking two hours with this fuck-wit? Oh GOD! I’m running out of patience, get up, FOR GOD’S SAKE!’ What the fuck was he saying and fuckfuckfuck Mr Stephens’ leaving.
Mr Stephens gives me a tight lipped smile and waves a little, and just leaves. Leaves. Because of a fucking stranger. I bet he’s laughing with his assistant in a mini skirt holding his cigar and doing god-knows-what while telling a story of the dude who he was interviewing and how he got interrupted by another dude who’s like- a child- and just left the dude hanging there.
I hate life.
What the fuck is wrong with life. Ugh.
‘Mate, I’ve been waiting for 3 hours now. You better fucking get up.’ The stranger looks at me with furious eyes and his hand clutching on the cup of coffee.
‘What have I even done?’ I ask him irritatedly, already having an immense dislike for a person who ruined my potential job.
‘Fuck. Mate, you broke the line of fucking ninety thousand people, got your coffee and sat on MY place. THIS IS MINE. AND YOU WASTED MY TIME for STANDING in the like for SO LONG.’ I look at him expectedly, he’s angry because I’m sitting in his seat?
‘You’re- what- What the fuck are we? 12?’
‘Get up.’
‘I’m not getting up. I’ve already had a shit day, thanks to you.’
‘Get fucking up.’
I shake my head, maybe purposely venomly. And continue to drink my coffee exaggeratingly slowly. If he’s ruined my future, I may as well ruin his-.
I am about to complete the thought when a bum lands on my lap.
‘Don’t get up. Fine. I’m sitting here, then.’
Oh God, where have I ended up? I was to get a good deal with my job and go home happy to Dusty and cuddle with her and watch rom-coms with pizza. Instead, I’m bickering with a twelve year old.
‘Stop, JUST STOP, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’ I shout, immediately feeling embarrassed because there are about sixty people looking at us now.
‘What are looking at, fuckers? Get a Life!’ He says to the stares we are receiving. Which.
‘Can you please get up? I can only get up after that.’ I say to him, trying with sincerity. At it’s finest.
He gets up. I think my mischievous eyes could’ve given it off, but thankfully, he’s oblivious to what I’m about to do. I get up, and spill my coffee on the cushion. So much for a stupid seat. I’d rather pay for like a dry-cleaning wash than give this twelve year old asshole a seat, thank you very much.
Okay, I should’ve thought that through. He’s kinda smart. His eyes give me daggers for about five seconds after which they flicker towards couch-looking-chair. He smirks and snatches the unused cleaning cloth from my hands obnoxiously. He moves forward, still smiling, and places it on the area where the stain was. He. Casually. Sits.
I could very literally feel the fury-smoke escaping from my ears. Now now, I didn’t want to land my bum on his lap, which was probably the size of my palm. So, I went towards him and sat in front of him where my ex-soon-to-be-boss was sitting.
I sit there, looking at him, maintaining eye contact. I think the waitress could almost feel the hatred we were radiating so she moved forward and handed The Guy his drink which she had been holding for the past fifteen minutes. I bet she enjoyed the drama stupid Guy put on.
He drinks his frappé taking slow and almost-insinuating sips.
‘How about you fuck off?’ He says, annoyed by my intense stare for the past twenty minutes probably. Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes and he’s still just finished one-fucking-fourth of his frappé.
‘I will not.’ I say, slowly.
He gives me the finger and we stay in the same position for about an hour.
A cold, terrifying, and furious cup of water is enough to wake me up from my slumber. A look up to The Guy’s face, who holds a copy of The Yesteryears. I should’ve been angry with what he had woken me up with, but, I would’ve never in a million years (judging by the three hours and twenty sentences conversation we’ve had) pegged him as a romance reader. Hell, I would’ve never pegged him as a reader.
He looks down to where I’m staring, and holds his book up. And… tries to cover the title?
God, where the hell am I stuck? There’s a real-life dude who’s clutching to a romance book as if his life depends on it, tries his best to come off as intimidating, fought about a damn chair and is now hiding the fucking title of the book. He’s twelve. That’s it. Done.
‘You really are twelve!’ I say breathing out air, done with his stupid attitude.
‘I wasn’t hiding the title of the book, dumbass. You were shaking the water off your hair like a dog, and I didn’t want it on my book. So.’
‘Why would you even splash like fifty gallons of water on me? Are you stupid? What the hell. You should know like, basic etiquettes, for fuck’s sake!’ I say, surrendering my hands up in the air. I
grab my laptop, keys, wallet and whatever I had on the table.
I went to the washroom first, just to check if I looked presentable enough to enter a public place. And.
No, I didn't. Because someone thought it’d be funny to make panda eyes on me. Cheers. It takes me another half an hour to remove the fucking ink. I bet Guy is laughing his ass off right now.
God, I hate him. I was there, shouting at him, and all this while he’d probably been laughing. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
I come back to the café, see The Guy is nowhere around and go back to The Table. Apparently, he left me a note. A Very Long One at that.Bye Harry,
Now, I know your name because I checked your wallet. It was just lying there and… I’m as curious as Pandora. I didn't steal anything though, I promise! But, I did buy you a coffee ;). I accidentally put an eyeliner curve near your eye and I had to complete the circle. And, if the circle on one was complete, I couldn’t bring myself to not do the other eye, it was Very Tempting. And then, I didn’t want you to look like cheap Gandhi, so I made Panda eyes. I tried removing them with water, but… Boom, you woke up. Nice meeting you, Curly.I look at the coffee sitting on the table, worth at least god-knows-money which I didn’t want to spend on. This is an expensive, bougie coffee shop after all.
‘Hi, mate.’ Zayn says without looking up from the laptop he’s working on. There’s a cigarette lit up behind his ear (Which, DANGEROUS!), two books stacked over each other just next to him and he types like, thousand words per second. He’s so effortlessly aesthetic. Sure, I can be too, but the word ‘effortlessly’ doesn’t seem to apply to me. Sometimes I wonder whether Zayn puts in some effort or he’s just… born aesthetic.
‘Heeeey!’ I drawl out the e, and sit next to him on the couch. He readjusts himself and finally looks at me.
‘Bad day?’
‘The worst.’
‘We’re going out tonight.’ He says and gets up, making some kind of hand-motion asking me to get up as well. I sigh loudly and dramatically, and find myself in the closet, pun very much not intended.
I choose a black t-shirt with blue skinny jeans. The only pair of jeans I have which are blue. It takes me fifteen minutes to get ready. Zayn grabs his cigarette box, lighter, keys (since I can’t be trusted with those), his bag in which he keeps his currently-reading-book and next-book-he’s-about-to-read (even to a club, ‘Books don’t have a defined place.’, he says).
Books were always a love for Zayn. And no matter how hot-sexy-evil-villain-everyone-roots-for looks are his, he’s a total sap. He brought me into reading when I was fifteen and he’d been reading since, well, since he could read. I started my first book with Rom-Com, as he’d suggested, and I haven’t been able to stop since.
We bought the apartment when I was eighteen and he was nineteen. We had around three hundred (of which two hundred were his) books together by then, and we had decided to make one of the two rooms a library.
We learned from somewhere that a thousand books make a library. So, by twenty-four and twenty-five, we had a library at our house. We probably shouldn’t have wasted so much money on them. Probably. But, eh, we did, and no one can stop us from buying new books. Because, if you’re a reader, you love physical books and your life basically depends on the smell that a new book gives off, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
Now, we have a living-room-converted-studio-apartment for Zayn, because he prefers that way, and the bedroom for me.
I put the seat belt on and tilt towards Zayn to face him.
‘Where are we going, though?’
‘Liam said he wants to hang with us and like two more lads he’s friends with.’
‘And here I thought you were thinking about me!’ I pout and he rolls his eyes.
He’s a rash driver. That was the first thing I noticed when he got his driver’s license. I still notice it everytime we go out. Hence, we reach the club in four minutes.
The music playing ridiculously loud seeps through my ear-cells and I know I’m going to have a pounding headache tomorrow when I see the booze, a Liam, and a Blonde Irish Dude.
‘Hey!’ Liam says and reaches out to Zayn instinctively and pecks him on the lips. ‘He’s Niall! We have our friend Louis here lurking around probably, he just went out to buy us drinks.’
I smile at Liam’s excitement and sit down straighter. Niall’s only cracked about half a joke and has only downed half of his beer and when a familiar, very familiar and Very Irritating Voice enters my brain.
‘You!’ The Guy says.