Power & Control

4: 505

~A

"How did writing go with the newbie yesterday?" Leigh approached me with a cheerful smile, abandoning her drumset but still holding onto her drumsticks. I shrugged my shoulders, adjusting the height of the mic stand in front of me to the perfect height I'd require it to be.

"Fine I guess." I emotionlessly responded, taking a seat at the edge of the stool I'd be located at for the performance. It was supposed to be a more stripped back, intimate one for BBC, thus why the director wanted me and the band to all be in a circle.

"You don't seem that thrilled. What happened?" She furrowed her eyebrows, examining my expression carefully for any form of reaction.

Where do I even begin?

"Nothing." I defended, my voice accidentally cracking a bit. That got her attention, her eyebrows lifting.

"Are you sure?" I scoffed at the way she narrowed her eyes, shaking my head.

"Don't you have to set up?"

"Already taken care of." She victoriously smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Now, care to tell me what actually happened? You're acting a bit weird." She added, making me roll my eyes out of annoyance. Before I got the time to answer, Perrie popped up from behind Leigh.

"Are we talking about the new guy? Because if that's the case, I'm all ears." She beamed, grinning widely as she glanced between both of us.

"Something happened and she won't say." Leigh was quick to fill Perrie in, still giving me the same suspicious look.

"Don't listen to her. She's reading too much into everything like always." I instantly contradicted, but that did nothing to stop Perrie from widening her sparkly blue eyes at me.

"But she's right most of the time, babes. Did anything actually happen?" I groaned at the both of them, deciding to put an end to the conversation.

"What happened is that he's an arrogant prick that thinks he's better than me because he figured out one song I was stuck at. Satisfied?" I glared at the both of them, keeping my voice down. He was in the same room, so having him hear me talk about him was definitely something I wanted to avoid.

"Sounds to me like there's tension there. Just saying." Perrie shrugged, raising one thick blonde eyebrow at me. Leigh glanced behind us for a split second before turning back to me, inching closer to the two of us to talk in a whisper.

"Tension or not, he's chatting with Jillian as we speak." She informed us and stepped to her right just enough to allow for some space between the two girls facing me. Through the crack between their shoulders I managed to see Niall tuning his guitar, my second backup singer right next to him. He said something to her, his face relaxed and even friendly in opposition to the intensity it always held when he'd talk to me. She threw her head back, laughing at whatever it was he told her and pressing her palm on his bare bicep, exposed from the short sleeves of his T-shirt. My stomach dropped just for a split second at the sight, but I refused to accept that it did, or even let it show to others.

"Didn't take him long to chat up a girl, did it?" I joked, tearing my attention from him and returning it to the girls.

"Don't you dare be affected by this." Perrie pointed a warning finger towards me, narrowing her eyes.

"Of course not. Come on, like you don't know me. I don't get attached." I scoffed at her, shaking my head. Both the girls were doubtful, which was to be expected. But I wanted to avoid talking about this any further, so I steered the conversation elsewhere.