The red light on my video camera flashes, signaling the beginning of the YouTube video.
I breathe in a slightly nervous lump of air, and fix my composure, leaning on the marble kitchen counter a bit. "Hi! Welcome back! I'm Amber," I exclaim, trying once more to create a proper introduction for the video. I steal a glance Harry's way, whose features stay fixed on the camera, and feel the corners of my mouth slightly lift from the crease between his full brows, creating a very determined facade.
"Hello, I'm Harry," he rasps as if nobody knows his name, "and we're baking muffins today!"
We continue with the intro, showing the products we got at the store and putting them on the counter near the huge mixing bowl. "So... While we make the batter, I was thinking we could ask each other a question with every ingredient added in the bowl..." I start, opening the recipe on my phone and put it down on the island, already preparing to smoosh the bananas.
I don't even know why I thought of playing this game, but I just feel like the people watching the video don't actually know anything about us. Plus, it doesn't hurt to get to know each other better in the process, right?
"Like the 20 Questions game?" He asks, measuring the sugar, and waits for my cue to pour it into the mixing bowl.
"Yeah, but the amount of questions depends on the number of ingredients." I finish crushing the bananas in the container and nod for the sugar to be added. "I'll start. Uhmm... What's your favorite movie?"
"Easy. 'The Notebook'." He pours the cup in his hand into the pot, as I stir it all together. I honestly don't think there's anything that could mess the cupcakes up. It's so simple.
"I've never watched it." I laugh and I swear I saw his eyes bulge out a bit from my response. If I had to guess by just looking at him, I'd put all my bets on the movie's genre being Romance.
"Really? What's yours, then?" he asks, adding the next ingredient to the mix.
"It's a close call between 'Titanic' and 'Me Before You'," I say, watching a sly grin come up to his face. "What?" I question his reaction.
"Nothing." He adds in the baking powder but keeps the joyful expression lingering on the corners of his lips.
When I start preparing questions to figure out what his deal is, he cuts me off before I can even begin, coming up with the easiest question there is to ask, "What's your favorite color?"
"Yellow." I shrug, finally finding a whisk after searching in multiple drawers. I swear, he has at least 20 fully packed drawers in the spacious kitchen.
"Why?" He opens a pack of chocolate chips, almost spilling them all, but somehow manages to make them into the bowl.
"I hate all the other ones." I take over the bowl. "What's yours?"
"It used to be black." I notice him glance at his ocean baseball cap I made him buy. "But now it's hard to choose between pink and blue."
"Really?" I question, earning an approving hum from him, as he subtly fixes his rose spectacles lost in his curls. "Do you have a nickname anybody calls you?" I turn to the next question I had on my mental list, grabbing a teaspoon and scooping the baking soda with it.
"Erm..." He strokes his barely visible stubble on his chin in thought. "Do you know James Corden? Well, he calls me Harold." He laughs, scratching the back of his head.
"Uh... My friends tend to call me Hazz or just H. And..." the corners of his mouth tug up, "...and there was this one pretty weird girl who got so wasted she called me a fusilli-head. I think it's because of my hair."
I feel myself getting redder and redder with each sentence he makes. "No way! What was she thinking? She must've been really high or something."
"She was pretty fun to be around if I'm honest." He smirks, and takes the whisk out of my hand, though I noticed his shoulders tense when I mentioned being high. "Do you have any nicknames?" He snaps back to being his old self.
"Not really. I mean, Ms. Middleton — the kind lady whose door you banged on in the middle of the night — calls me Berry, for some reason." I shrug, letting him still mix the bowl.
I think it has to do with the way you say my name; Am-ber Ea- ston. If you say it quick enough, especially in Ms. Middleton's Southern accent, you can definitely hear the nickname.
"Yeah? What kind of berry?" He scratches the rules of the game, asking the questions now.
"It's up to you, I guess." I let him have his moment at the stirring and adding a few more flavors.
He hums and takes a fairly long time to come up with the next question. "All right. I got one. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?"
"Italy," I instantly reply, almost cutting him off with the speed of my answer. "Just imagine gazing over the canyons or going to the sea every day. Might even catch some stars. Paradise on Earth, if you ask me." I almost forget the camera being in front of us, cracking two eggs with one hand, and letting them get lost under the spoon. "What's the best joke that you know?"
"Alright... Ermmm..." He clears his throat, trying to come up with one quickly. "Why don't eggs tell jokes? They'd crack each other up." He waits for my reaction but is the first one to break a laugh. Really, the more he cackles, the less I stay serious, starting to crack a smile as well.
"The fact that you're always the first one to laugh at your own jokes is funnier than the punchline itself," I laugh, slowly calming down from the hysterical laughter.
As we start melting the butter in a small pot, he drags out, "Alright. Last question. Maybe a weird one. I've seen you make some bold choices in fashion. But what's one clothing article you'd be too afraid to wear?" He stirs the mix together, creating the perfect batter.
I'm taken aback a bit by his interesting choice of question, but answer it without a second thought. "A dress, probably. I don't think you'll ever see one on me. Ever." I give him a look to not demand any further explanation, so he noddingly smirks, letting only one of his dimples show.
"Alright. How about we make a deal? If you ever wear a dress, I'll wear one as well." He raises an eyebrow, and I laugh at his pact offer.
"What? I'm serious." He points a finger at me, making me realize he wasn't joking.
"Alright." I skeptically agree, our deal being caught on camera. It doesn't matter, though because it's not like I'll ever wear one. "For the record, I think you'd look stunning in a dress."
Though he doesn't respond, I don't miss the way the corners of his lips reach his gleaming eyes at my comment.
I let Harry fill up the muffin cups with the batter, as I scroll over the recipe once more to make sure we didn't miss anything. My heart slightly drops when I look at the full pan Harry's filled and realize we didn't pre-heat the oven.
I rush to turn the degrees for the oven to 350 and throw the filled pan into it, making a mental note to myself to keep them in there for a bit longer.
I grab the camera off from the make-shift book stand, and comment, "The cupcakes are in the oven! We'll get back to you in 20 minutes."
We decided to spend the time waiting for the muffins to bake by watching an episode of Friends.
I watch as Harry makes his way onto the overly huge white couch and let 'The One with Joey's Award' play on the widescreen TV, so I timidly plop down onto the opposite side of the sofa, being scared to ruin the modern touch in the apartment.
He throws a pillow toward my side of the couch, as he's obviously not afraid to get the snow-white pillows dirty, silently nudging me to get more comfortable in his grand-sized sofa.
"Hey Rach! Rach! I'm up for a Soapie!" Joey's voice excitedly rings from the huge stereo system in front of the TV.
I softly smile at the scene and continue watching it through my yellow shades, noticing Harry slowly tugging his pink spectacles on the bridge of his nose to do the same.
"Oh my God, you stole her award!" About halfway through the episode, Harry's light snores overpower the sound coming from the TV, so I slowly turn my head in his direction and scan over the way his hands are hugged around a pillow, his polish-chipped nails dug deeply into it.
A single chestnut curl flaps over his forehead with each gust of breath he lets past his rose lips, which match the shade his sunglasses already slung down his nose, revealing his fluttering eyelashes dancing in his peaceful rest.
I must admit; he's quite charming.
When I find myself being weirded out by the realization, I turn back to the TV, watching a seven-minute countdown flash on the screen. I scrunch up my nose at a smell coming from somewhere I can't figure out the location of. Is it coming from outside the windows?
I don't have time to inspect anything further when a loud siren breaks through the apartment, making my heart drop and Harry arise from his state of sleep.
He notices my agitated state, and scrunches his eyebrows up in response, still being flustered from the scare he got, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I snap out of my frazzled condition and jump up from the couch, running toward the cause of the noise, only to slowly realize it's the smoke detector making the screeching roar.
"Shit! It's the cupcakes!" I scream out, hearing Harry's ruffling in the background, as I ignore the pounding in my heart from the noise.
Harry comes into view with the camera in his trembling hands and rests it onto a counter in a corner, making sure the whole kitchen with both of us in the viewfinder is visible.
"Are you kidding?" The panic in my voice is more prominent than ever, as I open the windows to let the cloud of smoke out the walls, "We're going to burn your whole fucking house down!" I climb onto a kitchen stool to push a button on the smoke detector, successfully turning off the ear-piercing noise.
I hear him turn the oven off and pull out charcoal-black muffins with the help of a white kitchen mitt, as a new cloud of smoke casts out of them.
"I don't understand," I breathe out, "They were supposed to bake for at least five more minutes!" I swat a kitchen towel over the cover of the smoke detector in hopes to prevent another soul-piercing alarm eruption.
A moment of silence goes by while he inspects the oven and I bash the last traces of the fume out the window, the awful smell still lingering in the air. He stops his actions, connecting his eyes with mine, and stares at me looking as serious as ever, making me grow uncomfortable in his gape.
"What is it?" I worriedly offer him a half-smile, hoping he isn't mad at something I possibly did wrong.
He still looks at me with a blank expression, and I find myself holding my breath in anticipation, but release it when I notice his mouth twitch into a smile, which then turns into a huge grin, letting his dimples pop.
"You heated the oven to 350 degrees." He laughs, and I give him a 'yeah, so?' expression, making him continue, "It's Celcius degrees in England."
I mutter a small 'oh my God' at the realization and bury my face in my hands from embarrassment. "Well, you're no better! Why was the first thought in your mind to run after the camera and not help?"
His huge grin turns into an eruption of laughter. "Are you kidding? I couldn't let this footage go to waste! It's literal gold!"
I wipe my tears of laughter and turn to the coal-black muffins, concluding that the insides are raw and the outside of them is burnt. "What are we going to do now? They're a lost cause." I frown in thought that Sarah won't get her cupcakes, after all.
He takes the camera in his hands and zooms into my face, then puts it down onto his 'love is a mixtape' stand, his laughter still ringing through the kitchen. "I knew something was bound to go wrong. So I bought a pre-made mix earlier."
Huh, I guess the baker boy knows best.
He pulls out a box from his groccery bag, and I let out an overly-exaggerated gasp. "And you bribed me with the sour worms!" I gently swat him with the kitchen towel I used for removing the smoke, remembering how he pulled out a packet of candy and gave it to me when I started asking questions about the contents of the bag on the walk here.
"Worked like a charm." He points a finger at me with a triumphant grin across his features. His chipped nails open the cardboard box, pouring the dry substance into a new bowl, but then his eyebrows create a small crease above his nose after reading the instructions on the cover. "They're all in some foreign language."
He shows me the instructions, the page having a bold title in the middle 'инструкции — добавить 200 мл воды, 100 мл масла и 2 яйца.'
"It's Russian." I scan over the instructions, "It says to add 200ml water, 100ml of oil and two eggs." I translate, catching Harry off-guard.
"You know Russian?" He opens the fridge to take out the necessary ingredients.
"Yup. Speak Spanish, Dutch, and Portugese as well." I proudly smile.
"What? Why didn't I know that?" He measures the liquids, and I let him do all the job, not wanting to mess anything up even more.
"There's a lot you don't know about me." I grab the camera and exhibit the way he's pouring the measurements inside. "My dad worked as a dialect teacher. He'd teach me a new language every year. He wanted to do French next, but we never got to it. I'd love to learn it, though."
He almost jumps up at the last part of my sentence. "I speak French!"
"You're kidding." I narrow my eyes in suspicion, trying to figure out if it's a mere coincidence or lie, earning a small whine 'I'm not!' from Harry in retaliation.
"Tell me something in French, then." I doubtfully challenge him.
His fascinating forest-green eyes find mine before they get lost tracing my features, seemingly scanning over my tug-up lips and each curve of my appearance. We continue to stand in the middle of his kitchen, as he has me in his grasp of sight, making me feel almost bare in his examination. I mean, he could be thinking anything.
His eyes finally lock with mine, and I swear for a moment he looks into the deep abyss of my soul. Though the fleeting moment comes to an end when he clears his throat, and I notice a faint crease form between his eyebrows. "Alright. Erm... Tu me coupes le souffle."
I laugh at the apparent gibberish he just let out. "What does it mean?"
His smile matches mine when he realizes I didn't understand what he just spoke. "It means you're a bad cook."
"Really?" I skeptically ask, and he's about to say something else but remembers the camera's still recording and clears his throat instead.
"Yeah. But should cut that out. Don't want people thinking I'm rude." He scratches the back of his head, before turning back to fill the paper liners with the artificial batter.
"Okay." I chuckle at his odd demand but add the 'cut out the footage' onto my mental checklist. "And for the record, I'm not a bad cook."
"Sure you aren't. You can't even bake petits gâteaux correctly." He teases, revealing his bunny teeth — the two front being longer than the rest.
(french transl; cupcakes)
"Petits gâteaux. Is that your French word of the day? Cupcakes?" I ask, and at this point I'm useless in the kitchen, standing in the middle of it and only fiddling with my fingers.
"French word of the day. I like that. Petits gâteaux is the one today, then."
~~~
Bustle.
Bustle is the exact word to describe the energetic noise backstage of Graham Norton's show.
After finishing the video with Harry, I went to my hotel room, grabbed my outfit, and went straight to the huge building, seeing as there wasn't much time left to relax anyway.
I've always been fascinated with what happens backstage in concerts; from the audience's point of view you see the finished product — the lights flashing perfectly to the beat, the singer wearing a perfectly tailored outfit, whose voice overpowers the whole stage, in perfect proportion with the back-up band's equipment set flawlessly in place, tuned and moved excellently.
But there's plenty of preparation chores that go behind the stage. Currently, there are at least 5 people only setting up the lights, 2 or 3 people checking, tuning, and putting effects on the various instruments, over 4 people checking the seats, and a bunch who are making sure Harry's outfit and hair look perfect in his dressing room.
I've already greeted as many crewmates as I could on the way to the dressing room for the backup singers and band, waiting for Sarah to stroll in here any minute now.
Seeing as I've arrived a bit early, and gotten ready for the show already, I've got some time to edit the video we filmed mere hours ago, all while resisting the temptation to snack on the cupcakes I brought here, as I've already given a few to the crewmates running around this whole place. The smile on their faces receiving the muffins was irreplaceable.
"When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other." I come upon the video footage containing me reciting the marked 'Love is a Mixtape' page, the quote ringing through my AirPods nicely.
I adjust the computer on my lap and decide to cut the quotes of the beautiful book out from the video I'll be posting, but keep it on my laptop's storage somewhere. There have been quite a few scenes I've already cut out of the footage — many of which were close-up shots of Harry's face when he was trying to figure out the settings of the camera, as well as many clips with Harry's fingers covering the lens, completely wrecking multiple scenes.
I don't blame him though, I'm very grateful he offered to help me today. Plus, it was quite funny seeing him try to work the alienated object.
I grab my backpack from the edge of the lounge chair, carefully balancing the computer in my lap. After scrambling through the contents of the leather bag, I finally find a few hard candies and throw one in my mouth, already feeling the strawberry flavor dissolve on my tongue.
The sweet treat almost gets stuck in my throat when I flinch at a loud clatter coming from the door, soon to reveal an out-of-breath Sarah tripping into the dressing room with multiple bags in her hand.
"Jesus, you scared me." I pull out my AirPods and put the laptop with the After Effects program and the edited video still opened on the coffee table.
"Bloody hell, I'm so late, aren't I?" She pants out, and I notice her British accent tends to become thicker when she's nervous. I hold back a laugh at her appearance, scanning over her vastly disheveled hair, and her mascara visibly smeared under her eyes completing her run-down make-up, as a layer of sweat glistens on her forehead.
"Bloody hell, Sarah," I mock her accent, "What were you doing?"
The corners of her lips tug up at my question, but she doesn't get to answer when the same-looking Mitch stumbles into our dressing room.
"Or rather — who were you doing?" I raise an eyebrow and act disgusted at their activities, throwing a hand candy at Sarah to nudge her, while Mitch disappears in one of the bathrooms to change.
They couldn't be any more obvious.
"I'm done for!" She exclaims, her tone full of irritation. "I can't do my make-up, hair, and change my outfit in a span of 25 minutes!" She digs through her bag, pulls out a make-up box and her outfit, and combs through her hair, but instead of taming it, the locks seem to frizz even more, making Sarah groan in frustration.
"Relax! You've got plenty of time. Plus, I can braid your hair, if you'll let me." I try to plummet her panic.
"Really?"
"Yes! Now go get changed and clean that make-up off." I nudge her into another bathroom, hearing a huge exhale of relief escape her lips.
I find this the right time to pull out my princess manifestation journal, as I've bought a pink pen to match with a huge, a soft feather pompom attached at the end of it.
I attach the pen to a fresh page but get interrupted when another set of people stroll into this small-spaced dressing room. I lift my head to catch sight of Adam, Jefferey, and a curly-headed Harry already sitting down onto separate armchairs around me.
"Hi." The familiar deep British accent rings through the space around me, so I tuck the pen into the page I left off and close the journal completely, my fluffy stationery working as a bookmark.
"Hi." I smile back at him, putting the notebook next to my computer.
"20 minutes until the show! 10 until soundcheck! Gotta be ready by then 'cause we aren't coming back here after soundcheck." Jefferey scolds, earning an over-exaggerated whine from both changing rooms while everyone else drifts off into small chatter.
"Fucking hell!" Sarah stumbles out of the bathroom, adjusting her shoe on her right foot while jumping on the other in hurry. She quickly sits on the ground right in front of me and gives me the hairbrush to let me braid her hair, her hands shaking immensely.
"I hope it was worth this hassle." I quietly murmur, deciding to style her hair in one braid, already sectioning Sarah's hair in four equal sections. She seems to miss my comment and starts rubbing her eyes with the back of her palms, letting out stressful pants.
"God, I'm such an idiot! I won't get ready on time!" She starts reproaching herself, and I notice her breaths getting shorter in panic — a major sign of an attack coming on, so I let go of the braid I was making and rest my hand on her shoulder to draw attention.
"Hey, Sarah, look at me." I gently squeeze her shoulder to bring her back from her frightened state. "We're going to get ready in time. I'll do your hair and make-up. We've got 10 minutes; there's nothing to worry about. All you have to do is sit here and relax, okay? Can you do that for me?" I contend the sentences with as much confidence I have, as she seems to slowly snap back in reality at the word, her puffs gradually turning into normal-rate ones.
"Great. Well, I brought cupcakes." I take the plate with muffins laid neatly on it and hand it to her before stealing a glace Harry's way, whose eyes are already glued to us. "Or as one would say 'petits gâteaux'." I smile at the French word I learned today.
I part her hair in equal sections and start twisting them over each other, starting to create a complex braid, as Sarah takes a small bite out of the treat. She narrows her sight onto the computer on the coffee table in front of us.
"What's that?" She moves the mousepad, and the video I was working on immediately starts playing, as the clip of me frustratingly flapping the smoke out with the kitchen towel and Harry's shaky hands trying to film the whole setting rings through the room.
"That's me almost burning Harry's kitchen down." I put a hair-tie in her brown locks to secure the braid, before pausing the video and closing the computer. "I'm posting it tonight."
Sarah rushes to the nearest mirror and drags her fingers over the complicated hairstyle, releasing a breath of both relief and amazement. "Wow! Where did you learn to braid like that?"
"In jail." I chuckle and she lets out a huge laugh at my statement, as the rest of the people in the room snigger as well.
I wasn't kidding.
I speedily apply the last touches to Sarah's make-up in the bathroom, leaving her to do the lashes. I make my exit from the bright room she's in, but stop in the doorway when I hear her holler, "Wait! Thank you!"
I turn my head to hers, and smile at her gratitude, as I watch her make about three steps in my direction with the mascara wand still in her hand.
She steadily hovers over my ear, her soft breaths hitting my neck, "And by the way..." she whispers, "It was worth this hassle, after all," she replies to the comment I made earlier, which I thought she didn't hear due to the panic and my barely-audible voice.
With that, she makes her way back to the bright mirror in the bathroom, as I march back to the others with my mouth a bit agape, and plop down onto the leather couch, slowly tuning out on everyone else's chatter.
I notice we have about three minutes left until soundcheck, so I take my Princess journal from the small table, and quickly find the bookmarked page, starting to fill up the blue lines as I've done before the previous shows.
'I've got this. I've got this. I've got this. I've got this.
I've got this. I've got this. I've got this. I've got this.
I've got this. I've got this. I've got this. I've got this.
I've got this. I've got this. I've got this. I've got th-'
"Whatcha writing there?" Adam interrupts my meditational state, as I detach my pink pen from the glossy paper.
"I'm manifesting," I express, suddenly feeling the urge to laugh at my childish response.
"Did it work?" Harry chimes into our conversation.
"So far so good." I watch them both nod at my statement before slipping into a tense silence, as Harry inhales a large breath, prior to letting it out past his lips nervously.
"Are you nervous?" I ask, immediately cursing at myself for asking such a stupid question. Of course, he's nervous, Amber. Anyone would be after blowing a performance.
He approvingly nods, running his hand through his unruly locks, before flapping his arms down onto his lap and wiping the sweat on the fabric of his pants.
"Do you manifest before each show?" He fiddles with the gifted ring adorning his fingers. I suddenly get the feeling he isn't interested in my answer and is only seeking a distraction, so I let out a small 'yeah' in response.
"Do you... Do you think you could manifest for me?" He shyly wonders, and I have to suppress my laughter at his weird question.
"You know that's not how it works, right?" I open the lined page once again and scribble the last letters to my unfinished sentence.
"Probably. But it wouldn't hurt my tough luck." He makes a point, so I agree to throw his name somewhere on the page as well.
I press the point of my black-inked stationery, as the words roll out smoothly underneath it.
'I play flawlessly. I play flawlessly. I play flawlessly.
Everything goes well. Everything goes well.
Harry's got this. Harry's got this. Harry's got this.
We succeed. We succeed. We succeed. We succe-'
I don't get to connect the last letters to the last words when a knock erupts from the door, revealing a crewmate with the regular headphones and folder in his hands. "Come with me, please." His tone stays monotone as he checks some things off the front of the white page, mumbling something to Jefferey about the details of the show.
"Everyone ready?" Adam calls out, making Sarah and Adam appear in the circle we gather in within seconds.
With that, I leave my Disney journal on the coffee table, ready to give my absolute best at the upcoming performance.
Showtime.
***
This one was a bit longer than usual oops
I'll try not to make the next ones as long as I did this one
My mental state is very fragile right now so pls don't comment about some parts being cringe lmaoo I already know
Also, I do realize those fusilli jokes are getting old but idc bahahahahh I'll try not to include them as much as I did.
ily xx