Taylor Swift, 2021
"This is incredible." Joe says, awestruck while holding Taylor's hand under the table and letting his eyes wander over the round of people who joined them for their party dinner.
One Direction's contract is finally over and they currently sit in the dining room with twenty-seven people. Some of them brought plus-ones and then there are some special invited guests like Adele and Selena Gomez.
"It is." Taylor agrees, smiling at Joe.
"But that's not everyone, right?"
Taylor looks for the two faces that weren't there a few minutes ago and sees that they aren't here now either.
She leans to her right side.
"Niall." She whispers, trying to get his attention. Niall's been texting someone for the whole evening, but he looks up now that he's heard his name.
"Where's Louis?" Taylor asks and a wide grins spreads over Niall's face.
"Doing stuff."
"Okay." Taylor draws out. "And where's Harry?"
"Being stuff."
Niall looks so proud of his answer that Taylor can't even bring herself to roll her eyes at him.
She wants to answer but her sentence is cut off by Ariana, Adele, Zayn, and Olivia singing people watching with Conan sitting between them and looking like he's about to burst from pride.
Of course, their dinner is as chaotic as everything they do.
"Scarlett Johansson has a new baby and it's going to be named tomorrow." Rihanna says, looking at her phone.
"Not to offend anybody, but tomorrow is a stupid name." Louis says, having a dramatic entrance into the room, followed by Harry.
Taylor and probably everyone in the room sees what they've been doing.
Their hair is incredibly messed up and they didn't even try to cover their necks.
Taylor can't blame them, they're free.
Louis walks over to take a seat next to Mick while Harry bends down to give Gigi a tight hug and Khai three kisses on her forehead.
She sneezes.
"Bless you." Gigi says, holding her in her lap.
Zayn pats her arm, talking to Liam absentmindedly.
Harry aws at the small noise, that just left Khai, for so long that Zayn thumbs his chest.
"God bless your little soul and your heart and your whole personality and body. Hallelujah may you recover from that awfully cute sneeze."
"What the fuck Harry." Niall asks with his mouth full of chicken.
"How come that every time we have a big dinner, you two decide to fuck right before that?" Mick speaks up.
"We didn't plan on it. At least I didn't but then Hazza just thought it would be a good spontaneous idea to propose-"
Everything is loud after that.
A few people are shouting questions, Gigi and Ariana are squealing, Niall is crying and Liam and Zayn are congratulating them while Rihanna rips Louis hand over to her and inspects the ring.
"Again?" James Corden asks, also crying.
"How many times can you get engaged?" Joe speaks up.
"As long as you love each other." Harry replies and now Louis awes so long that Rihanna pinches his finger.
Harry rounds the table and puts his arms around Louis' shoulders, kissing the top of his head.
"We disgust me." Louis says, but he's smiling so widely his whole face crinkles and he looks like he's shining and could burst with happiness.
"Please stop I'm going to vomit from all the love." Niall pretends to gag but Taylor and everyone knows that he is secretly (or not so secretive) the biggest Larrie on this planet.
"You only hate it because you're such a lonely single." Louis counters and Harry gently hits his arm for that, but Niall only smiles.
"You're gonna feel like such a twat in a few seconds."
"Nothing you can say can hurt me." Louis says confidently.
"You're not 5'9."
"How can you, Niall?! I thought we were friends." Louis dramatically shouts and buries himself in Harry's hoodie.
"Why is he supposed to feel like a twat?" Mick speaks up interestedly.
"Yes, what are you hiding, Niall?" Rihanna joins him.
Just on cue, Niall's phone beeps and he jumps up excitedly, running out of the room.
A few second later, he comes back in, this time in company of a young handsome man, black hair and dark brown eyes.
"May I- wait, introduce yourself." Niall practically jumps with excitement and the man smiles and waves, a bit awkwardly and probably intimidated by everyone in this room.
"Hello, my name is Brandon, I'm twenty-five years old, you might know my voice from the phone calls you make once a week to order food. My favorite movie is Black Widow, favorite color is rainbow and what keeps me awake is the thought about why there's a light in the fridge if we're not supposed to snack at night." He bows the slightest when he's finished and a few people at the table clap.
"That's Brandon?" Harry asks loudly and Brandon's jaw literally drops to the floor.
"Harry fucking Styles I think imma pass out. Away. Pass away."
Louis smiles and puts his finger to his chin, pretending to be in deep thoughts.
Taylor raises her wine glass to her lips and sends Joe an amused smiles while watching the scene.
"What did Beyoncé once say, again?" Louis wonders out loud. "If you like him then you shoulda put a ring on him." He gasps dramatically, throwing out his arm and relaxing his wrist, so that his adorned ring finger is in Brandons sight. "Oh wait, he already put a ring on me."
Louis puts his free hand up and high fives a laughing Harry blindly.
"Sorry." Brandon apologizes. "I didn't mean to, I- I'm with Niall, so..."
"You're fucking?" Zayn asks laughing and Gigi hits him, pointing at Khai who still sits in her lap, playing with grapes.
"Well. Yeah."
"How very straight of you." Liam mocks laughing and Niall sits down next to him, leaving room for Brandon between him and Harry.
"So you're really together? I've followed this conspiracy since 2013, man." Brandon says to the two lovebirds, eyes wide.
Louis doesn't even bother to answer, just grabs Harry's face and kisses him.
"You're not freaking out." Niall notes, looking at him.
"Oh I am. Internally. I'm screaming and crying and throwing up and dying inside but I like to remain calm outside." Brandon assures. "I mean I wrote fan fiction about you two."
"Didn't we all." Niall sighs nostalgically and the table goes silent.
"You wrote fan fiction about us?" Harry asks inspecting his best friend's face closely.
"Yes." Niall answers confidently.
"What kind of?" Louis wants to know.
"Well, one where you were like enemies and you played a lot of football and it was really mature content, like you fucked a lot. You hated each other but the locker room was a different story you know."
"What the fuck." Liam buries his face in his hands while the rest of the table looks extremely amused.
"Then one where Harry, Zayn and Liam were like super mega extremely rich and I was really close with Lou. The moon played a big part in that one, I was at my lyrical and metaphorical peak."
"If it's named after one of my songs then I think I read that one. It was good." Lana del Rey says.
"Then there was one about a lighthouse in Scotland and one about a one direction reunion. And right now I'm writing about our lives here. But still a focus on Larry."
"So you're just putting what we do into fiction?" Conan asks from where Olivia and him sit and listen curiously.
"Not everything, but, yeah." Niall verifies.
"You gonna put this conversation in there as well?" Mick asks, sipping on his beer with one of his legs swung over the armrest of his chair.
"That would be really funny, innit?" Ed asks.
"Hey Ed." Brandon greets him with a peace sign. "Could we possibly do this tiktok trend later where I say Oh my god, Ed Sheeran is in my room?"
He quickly makes a plan with Ed, Olivia and Conan to make some tiktoks later, trying to persuade Louis to join them but he declines every time.
Brandon integrates himself into the group quickly and makes everyone laugh a few times ("And then I was like, Jason, you won't ever drink alcohol again." He says, raising his beer bottle to his lips. "Good thing my name isn't Jason, right?")
He's a really nice guy and later Niall and him reveal that they're not together, they just wanted to "Prank" the others.
Niall is just really in awe with the other man because he works at Nandos and Brandon is really in Awe with Niall because he's gay and has a crush on him.
Beyoncé spent the whole dinner at the head o the table, observing the various conversations while sipping champagne and eating grapes in her silk robe and diamond jewelry.
When the mood is the highest, she speaks up, quieting everyone immediately without even having to raise her voice.
"Louis and I have one thing to announce, which is actually the reason for this dinner." She says and nods into Louis' direction, causing him to stand up and walk over to her, standing next to her chair, everyone looking at the both of them curiously.
"Since the contract ended, the lads and I have been in a bit of a struggle." He starts.
"A bit." Zayn huffs into his elbow.
"Because One Direction needs to have a management. But it matters which one. First of all because of obvious reasons. A bad management could do the things they did to Taylor for example to us. And we wouldn't want that, would we? Also, if, maybe, someday there will be a reunion, we really want a management we're good to work with."
Olivia and Conan squeal at the word reunion.
"It took a lot of thinking, but I decided to found my own management. Independent."
Harry's fork falls onto his table and he looks at Louis, so surprised and so fond as if the blue-eyed man hung the stars. He looks so proud and happy, it makes Taylor smile involuntarily.
"But since I'm not planning to stop making music myself and running a management is a hole ass fucking lot of work, I knew I needed someone who could be the boss for me."
He smiles and turns his head to look at Beyoncé.
"That's me." She says proudly. "I don't have anything to do really and I love being the boss of something and I really want to help you after everything you guys have been through."
The other four men spend the next thirty minutes surrounding her and Louis and talking to them and drowning them in questions and Harry drowning Louis in kisses.
After they all calmed down, some of them decide to go to bed while the rest, only containing nine people, settle down in one of the living rooms and browse through the TV to find something to watch, eventually deciding on Dunkirk, only so that Niall could synchronize Harry's voice because he knows the script by heart (he had helped Harry learn his lines back then and had mesmerized every single one of them).
Taylor snuggles up into Joe's side, Harry into Louis', Brandon into Niall's and Olivia, Conan, Rihanna and Ed sit on the floor, snacking and making tiktoks.
"Why the fuck is no one helping him?"
Louis shouts and snaps Taylor out of her thoughts with that. She adverts her gaze onto the screen and a smile spreads on her lips as she watches Harry's character almost drowning and listens to Louis cursing the other characters for not helping him.
"Lou." Harry sighs. "We've been through this."
"Someone save my baby!"
Harry only laughs into his shoulder at that and Louis visibly tightens his arms around him.
"What if we made a road trip." Niall suddenly says, accidentally kicking the bowl off his legs and sending popcorn flying everywhere.
"Sounds fun." Taylor easily agrees.
"It will be glamorous." Niall assures.
"And when we're done, I'm gonna do another festival. That was way too much fun." Louis says and twirls the ring on his finger, him and Harry both looking at the silver as if it was the most important thing in the world.
And when Harry puts his ring finger next to Louis' clinking the rings together, Taylor sees that for them it really is the most important thing in the world.