Remember When ↠ l.p.

Auditions

The drive from my apartment to Liam's former work studio is about forty minutes, giving Louis and plenty of time to review our plans. By the time that we get there we've both memorized it word for word. Louis pulls me over to a side entrance where a security guard is motioning it over. He holds the door open for us and hurries us into the building. The door closes with a thud behind us and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness of the hallway in contrast to the sun shining brightly outside.

"Mr. Tomlinson, if you'll follow this hallway, turn left and take the third door on the right you will find the room we've set up for you. We just got word a minute ago that Mr.Payne is at the front gate, so you'd best hurry down there to get settled."

"Thanks mate," Louis nods and beckons to me. "Quickly then, let's go!" I follow behind with a skip in my step, I can't believe that his plan is working perfectly so far. We find the room that the guard directed us to. Upon entering a man fitted with a headpiece and microphone introduces himself to Louis while I explore the room. It's not very large, there is a row of desks with computers on them. In front of those, there are several large arrays of buttons on a control panel. Above these buttons are at least a dozen screens showing different camera angles down on the stage and filming area.

"-and from here," I turn around to see the technician bringing Louis over and explaining things to him. "you will be able to watch everything that goes down on the audition. I'll stay with you to help you with any technical issues or if you want me to adjust anything, like volume or maybe zoom in on a certain camera."

"Everything looks great." he motions to the headset the man is wearing. "Do you happen to know how far in Liam is?"

"He should be arriving any minute, he just got through the checkpoint by the front door." he steps up to the screens and points to one. "He should be coming onto this shot here." I squint at the screens, it's hard to focus on just one when there are so many angles. You can see little men in a few of the corners. They've been instructed to wait for Liam to arrive before lining up and then being called forward for inspection by him.

"I assume we have audio...?" Louis hints to the technician.

"Of course," he pushes a few buttons and slides up another one and we hear nothing for a moment and then some echoing murmurs from the stage is audible. "I can tune this in better when we know where Mr.Payne will be standing and interviewing them. I can rely on the microphones set up in that area then."

Louis pulls up some chairs for us and we make ourselves comfortable. Soon we're watching Liam walk out onstage and beckon those auditioning to step fully onstage. I helped Louis with a few of these selections, but for the most part he's settled it all himself. I lean forward to look over who he's picked as the technician begins to adjust camera angles, allowing us to have several views of the line of men standing onstage in front of Liam, an angle of what Liam must be looking at and, lastly, a shot of Liam's face. The thing all the men have in common is that they're well built, broad shoulders and muscles bulging underneath their t-shirts. Beyond that they range from skin color, hair color and length, and in height and weight. I lean over and whisper to Louis. "Which one is he? I can't tell."

Louis smirks and shakes his head. "I'm not telling. It should be obvious once we start." Then he ignores me, despite my efforts, poking his side and frowning at him. I give up in the end, opting to listen and watch as Liam motions one of the men forward. Surprisingly, the audition moves quickly. I don't know want one would want from a bodyguard, other than the obvious guarding one's body. However obviously Liam is not very happy with some of the men he questions, sending them off after only one questioning. A few times we aren't able to hear or understand exactly what he's asking them, but he seems to be enjoying himself. From what we have heard he's mixing serious questions with nonsensical ones about the color of the sky and favorite superheroes.

However, now after at least half of the group gone, this one guy seems to be standing out to Liam. He's been questioning him for far longer than the others. I lean forward to try and hear more of what's being said.

"-never would do something like that would you?"

"I would think of it as an invasion of privacy and a betrayal. I hope that doesn't come off as too harsh," he's an average looking man, of average height and sandy brown hair. He's not as muscular as some of the other men there, but's he's not exactly lacking judging by the lines of muscle showing from underneath his shirt. "Personally, I think the most important thing is doing whatever the employer thinks is best. After all, the customer is always right. It'd be along those lines, for me."

"How impressive, I quite like you..." Liam trails off. On the camera that is fixed on his face you can see him smiling a little and raising an eyebrow.

"Colin, Colin Edison."

"Well, I'm very impressed with you Colin. Please come off to the side while I finish questioning the others here. I want to give them a fair chance." His smirk is back and I swear I see one of the remaining men shake a little.

The rest of the audition goes by fairly quickly. I then understand what Louis meant when he said that I would know where our man was. All the others paled in comparison and seemed to have no qualities that Liam liked. While Colin, on the other hand, seemed almost perfect. After dismissing the others, Liam asks him a few more questions. Mainly about where he's from and Liam also clarifies about what this job would entail in greater detail than Louis and I included in the "flyer" we spread around. Louis and I stay until Liam's left-we were assured he wouldn't be able to see my car from where we parked so we knew it was completely safe-mumbling over the success of the mission. Although we saved most of it for the ride back home. We didn't want to discuss too much in front of the technician. Confidential information and all that, you know.

"Do you think he suspects anything?" I ask Louis as we pull into the parking lot of my apartment building.

"If he does, I doubt it will grow any. Colin's too well-trained to slip up. Hopefully Liam will be convinced it's just his imagination and begin to trust him."

"So then we've been a complete success?" I can barely contain my grin. We exit the car and he leads the way up to my apartment.

"Seems like it!! But eh, you never know. So don't say anything to jinx it love."

1236 I'm really proud of myself :') Hope you're having as good a day as I am!

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