Ain't No Sunshine

Part 3

 The rest of the audition day seemed to fly by after my encounter with Charlotte. It was like I couldn’t keep my mind off of her. My eyes were pulled to my phone screen every three seconds. Even though I knew she hadn’t tried to contact me. But she would, I knew it this time.

I was escorted back to the hotel. I would only be here one more night before we flew to Hollywood for the next round of X Factor. I wasn’t worried about Charlotte not making it to the live show portion of the contest. She had real talent and I heard the other judges say she was one of the best we had seen so far. Thousands of contestants and she stood out. She was incredible.

Whenever I reached my room, my phone started ringing and my heart skipped a beat. It was almost disappointing to find out that it was just Louis. However, I hadn’t talked to him in a while, it was a nice surprise.

“Hey Louis,” I answered.

“Harry!” He exclaimed, “How ya doing? How’s the X Factor?” I could tell Louis, and all the boys were enjoying the few months off. They deserved it.

I laughed, “It’s all right, I s’pose.” I bit my lip, “Louis, I wanna tell you somethin’.”

“What’s that man?” he asked.

I cleared my throat. Louis was always the first person I went to with my relationship information. He was always there to listen, “Well, I met a girl. A really cool girl.”

“Ahhh, a special girl?”

“Well, I saw her singing at a club in downtown Nashville, and after I bought her a drink she asked me to sing with her and it was amazing. Then she auditioned for X Factor and I had security bring her to my dressing room and-“

Louis interrupted me, “You did what!? Harry, that’s weird.”

“I know it’s weird but I didn’t want her to leave. And I kissed her and now I’m waiting for her to call me. But she told me she doesn’t want to date me because she wants to get a singing career on her and blah blah.”

“Harry, you gotta remember that if someone doesn’t want to be with you, you can’t force them. You can’t make somebody want to be with you. If they don’t, they don’t. You just accept it and move on.” He explained.

I sighed, “I guess you’re right, Lou.”

“I always am.” He laughed. “I’ll see you soon.” Then he hung up the phone and I sat down on the bed. If she didn’t want to talk, then I would accept that and leave her alone.

After a few hours of sitting in my hotel, under strict surveillance by security, I received a text message from a strange number.

Hi

Charlotte?

Yes… I’ve been thinking. If you trusted me enough to give me your number, which I could potentially sell for thousands of dollars to millions of twelve years old, you must really like me

I smiled at the text and immediately called her. “Hey, I didn’t want you to call me.” She stated when she answered.

“Then why did you answer?” I asked.

“Well, you got me there.” She said, “I’ve been doing a lot more than thinking about you. I guess we could try this out. But I still want to try to keep it between us. I mean there’s no way you as a judge could be allowed to date a contestant?”

I thought about it for a moment. It had never occurred to me before that’s what would happen if Charlotte did agree to give me a try. “Well, that’s true. I’m sure it could stay between us, if we’re careful, that is.”