Right Place, Right Time

Moments

"Even when the night changes, it will never change me and you," sang Harry in that lovely, raspy voice of his. He was sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging his legs and smiling at me as he sang. I was in the third row from the front on the left hand side of the catwalk stage, watching as he and the other 1D lads went through some of their songs and smiling inanely back at him.

It was a closed soundcheck - no members of the public allowed - and the enormous stadium was mostly empty apart from a few security staff and ushers wandering around doing some last minute jobs, and about a dozen members of the touring party, who were sitting down the front listening. Gemma was there, along with a pretty blonde girl I recognised as Louis' sister Lottie. Official photographer Cal Aurand was looking at photos on the screen on the back of his camera and taking the odd snap. The others I wasn't too sure about.

Harry'd led me to my seat before getting up on stage, and I noticed the way everyone had looked at me when I walked out in his shirt - lots of eyebrows were raised at that. "Harry gave you his shirt?" said Gemma. "Wow, he's never done that before. He must really like you."

I couldn't help blushing. "Nah, he just wanted to save me from the embarrassment of spending the rest of the day in either my hideous elf outfit or an antique One Direction T-shirt," I said. "He's very kind."

"Hmmm," said Gemma. "I know my little brother well, and yes, he is very kind. But I also think he really likes you."

She was super friendly and chatted away as if she'd known me for ages, which helped to make me feel comfortable. I tried not to stare at Harry as the guys sang but it was hard to tear my eyes away. Even when there wasn't actually an audience, he still had incredible presence on stage.

I was beside myself with excitement at the thought that in a couple of hours I was going to get to see them perform live and I still couldn't get my head around the fact that I was actually there as their guest and wearing Harry's shirt. I'm usually quite calm under pressure but I couldn't quite believe I was managing to stay as composed as I was, especially when Harry kept smiling and waving at me.

The guys spent a fair amount of time mucking around and singing alternative versions of their songs - their rap version of Little Things was hilarious - but every now and then Harry would turn around and look at me as he sang, and it made my pulse race.

When they finished the other guys disappeared behind the stage but Harry walked down a short flight of stairs at the side of the stage and came over to us.

"What do you think?" he asked me.

"You're not bad singers," I said, trying to look as serious as possible. "You might be able to earn a living from it, I suppose."

"Wow, thanks," he said. "Do you think we'll be able to entertain the 50,000 people coming in here in half an hour's time?"

"Possibly," I said. "If they don't like the singing you could put the squirrel suit back on and twerk everybody. That could get a round of applause."

Now I was the one flirting. I was amazed at how easy it was to exchange banter with him.

"Now you're being cheeky," he grinned. "Hey, we've got a little while before they open the gates - would you like to come up on stage and see what it's like from our point of view?"

"Yes please."

"Wow, you're really getting the special treatment," said Gemma from beside me.

Harry shot her the "shut up" look that I recognised as being very similar to that I got from my 16-year-old brother Ben when I was teasing him, and turned towards me.