I hadn't really been paying much attention to this band. One Direction is apparently who they were and they weren't exactly small either, as I was finding out. Fifteen minutes had flown by since I'd delivered the last outfits and to some, that may seem like a tiny amount of time. And to me, it was. But a lot can happen in that small space. A lot did.
My mother was anxiously fretting over footwear when I'd made it back into the room and she was throwing shoes everywhere, screaming at them like they weren't just shoes. I'd made one simple suggestion, comparing the colour of one pair of shoes to the colour of the shirt one of the boys was wearing but according to my mother, the contrast was wrong and I was simply not "cut out" for a designer's job.
I knew she'd lose it soon and just throw all the shoes at me and tell me to hand them out randomly.
She'd done that before and it hadn't been even slightly disastrous as she thought it would be. I'm not completely hopeless when it comes to matching shoes with clothes. I know my style isn't exactly my mother's piece of cake but I can improvise when I needed to.
So for the next fifteen minutes I found myself sitting in a corner plush chair, listening to the building up of a crowd somewhere off near the stage. And like I was saying, fifteen minutes wasn't a huge amount of time. But in those 900 seconds, the crowd became monstrous. Usually the audiences that packed the 02 were insane. But the screaming and chanting of the people that night were almost alarming. By the time my mother finally made up her mind about which shoes would go best with which outfit, the noise was making me feel slightly uneasy. Big crowds made me feel slightly uneasy.
And I had no idea why.
All I knew was that I couldn't afford another panic attack during the hours of this show or my mother would fire me for good. My 'hysterics' as she liked to call my attacks, made her look bad. Apparently my "freak-outs" made our family and her business seem insecure. And this angered me.
But I couldn't do anything about it.
So I pushed the nauseous feeling to the back of my stomach and picked up the five shoeboxes and left the room to deliver. I stopped off at Louis Tomlinson's room and came face to face with a cheeky looking smile as a brown-haired and blue-eyed boy answered the door to his dressing room. His eyebrows rose as he took in my outfit but he simply smiled.
"I have your shoes," I told him, offering up his shoebox.
"Can I wear your shoes?" He asked.
I looked down at my old black vans and back up at him, confused. "Um.."
"Your not our usual dresser, are you?" He asked, avoiding my questioning eyes and changing the subject while taking the box I held towards him.
I shook my head, no.
He simply grinned. "I'm Louis."
"I know," I said, not offering up my own name. "If there's nothing else I can help you with, I have other shoes to take to your band mates."
He shook his head. "Thanks." And he closed the door.
I continued onward, offering Zayn Malik and Niall Horan their shoes which they took while exchanging polite greetings in their cute accents.
They were nice boys, I'd decided.
I stopped outside "Harry Styles'" door and hesitated however. This was the asshole who'd passed me off as a fan.
I knocked and there came a muffled 'come in' from the other side of the blue door.
I slid my security card through the lock while balancing the remaining two boxes in my other hand and kicking the door open loudly with my foot.
"Your shoes," I said flatly, standing in the doorway.
He turned to face me, his green eyes taking in the sight that was me before him.
"I don't think these clothes are meant for me," He said, ignoring me completely.
I raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"
"Plaid is Liam's thing," He continued. "I think these are Liam's clothes."
"What, so you're saying you can't wear those clothes?" I demanded, dumping his shoebox onto his dresser and heading back toward the door.
"No, I'm just sayin-"
"Look," I said, spinning around to face him whilst cutting him off. "The blue plaid brings out the green in your eyes while contrasting well with your brown curls. Your skin tone makes the colours all work together and those jeans suit you. Get the fuck over it and wear the shitty clothes for the two hours you'll need to wear them for. Then you can change into whatever the hell you want, okay?"
He was silent.
I was silent, the last box tucked under one arm and my other hand resting on my hip in a defensive stance. My eyes bore into his and I took in his facial expression, noting the way his eyebrows were drawn as if he were confused and the way he bit down gently on his lower lip as if lost somewhere in thought.
I meant what I said though. He did look infuriatingly handsome in "Liam's clothes".
And I guess that's the reason I smiled back at him when he offered me a polite grin to lessen the intensity of the silence.
"Thanks for the advice," He said after a while. "I guess you're good at your job."
I shook my head. "I don't put the shit together, I just deliver it."
And with that, I left to give Liam the shoes that were meant for Harry and then walking past the main dresser room, my job done, towards the back wings of the stage. I planned to watch the show from the best view in the house before helping my mother gather her things afterwards and heading home to sleep for a few years.