The Adjacent Room [h.s]

Chapter 31

'Hi there, you must be Sophie?' A bald, tall, middle aged man says, walking up to me from the door. Despite being married, I'm certain this man's appearance alone would be enough to make my mom swoon. I have no idea who he is and I'm impressed he knows my name, but his presence in the room is large enough to allow me to make an educated guess that he's the band's new manager.

'That's me, yes. Are you the band's new manager?' I smile, mentally trying to picture the email I got months ago with the information about the boys's new manager. It takes a while for his name to come to me, but if I'm not mistaken, he goes by Lucas.

'Wow, was I that obvious? It's Lucas.' He chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck and confirming my suspicions. I shake his hand, and then we continue our conversation.

'It was a wild guess.' I laugh back, and he smiles.

'I just thought I'd come in and meet all the boys. Usually I'll meet my clients much earlier on, but the rest of the band's management seemed to have it under control. My wife just gave birth to our first child actually, so I've been busy changing diapers and pulling all nighters. But, I'm here now.' He laughs, and I'm surprised and how friendly he is. Compared to the rest of the management, this man is clearly a rose among the thorns.

'Wow! Congratulations! That's very exciting. You don't look like a typical new parent, sleep deprived and exhausted.' I joke, feeling genuinely excited for him. I've never been the type to particularly love kids or be super excited to have kids of my own, but the prospect of someone becoming a new parent is always exciting.

'It must be the lighting in here, trust me I'm sleep deprived. Anyway, it looks like it's all under control here so I won't be coming into the studio much, but you'll see me at events and appearances. Hopefully on a possible tour, if you lot can put up with me.' He laughs. This Lucas is growing on me, and I'm glad the boys have someone who actually seems to be a genuinely good person in their management.

'I guess I should go and actually meet the band, writers and the rest of the assistants..you are an assistant aren't you? Harry's, I think.' He guesses, forehead creasing in thought. My momentary distraction from thinking about the tense morning with Harry is short lived when Lucas mentions his name.

'Yep, Harry's assistant. It was great to meet you, Lucas.' I say.

'You too. Speaking of Harry, do you know where he is? I'll go meet him first.' He asks, eyes scanning the room.

'He's..uh..I actually don't know. He was over there, last time I saw him.' I say, pointing to an area beside the door. Usually I always know where Harry is, so this is both awkward for Lucas and for Harry and I too. I'm not used to being unsure of his whereabouts, and it feels like my lack of knowledge might be an after effect of our minor argument this morning.

'No worries, I'll locate him and everyone else somewhere.' He says, turning around to begin his search, before turning back around to face me and whispering quietly.

'Good pick with Harry. I always thought he was the cutest.' He says with a wink and a laugh, and then spins back around and walks away before I get the chance to say anything back. Lucas reminds me a lot of Jeff, Harry's old manager, and I hope that Harry and Lucas can become just as close. For someone who was just questioning whether I was Harry's assistant, I'm surprised he's so informed on said assistant's love life. Either way, it's refreshing to have someone from the band's management actually be supportive of him and I. I'm used to snide remarks left, right and centre from Leslie.

Once my conversation with Lucas ends, I wander back to the auditorium space to get some work done. I fill at least 3 hours writing out Harry's calendar, responding to emails, taking a mental note to take those finally completed thankyou letters to the post office and going over various other things. Harry is never usually high maintenance, but his work is particularly dry at the moment. There's not much to do for him except spend days in the studio, and for me to respond to email after email about appearances for the band. A lot of these messages should be going to the management but I somehow seem to end up finding them in my inbox, forwarded to me to reply to. Birthday party, bar and festival invites flood my unread emails, none of which are appropriate environments for a band as big as One Direction.