June 15, 2016
Jade's POV
Whenever we got a message from management it always made me nervous. There were very few people on our management team who were friendly, one of them being our manager. Everyone else had one thing on their minds, money, so they were nothing but business. They never thought about anyone else's feelings just the money so you could understand why I was nervous.
We got a message about a week ago saying that next week on June 15, today, we would need to attend and urgent meeting. We were all positive they found out about our plan so we went ahead and took precautionary measures.
The girls and I began looking at new management teams in case Modest! decided to drop us. We didn't get to serious about it because like I said, Modest! was about money and Little Mix were currently racking some pretty decent checks.
We didn't let on that either group was nervous about the meeting but, we did ask Renee what it was about. She responded "you'll find out next week" and then she hung up on us but, that's really what we were expecting.
So today on the day of the meeting, we were practically shitting ourselves in the waiting area. The boys were yet to arrive and the meeting was supposed to start 10 minutes ago.
"We canceled two days of promo for an unorganized, supposedly urgent, meeting." Jesy said breaking the silence. We disappointed thousands of Australian Mixer's by canceling a festival performance and when we told them it was because of a meeting with management, Modest!'s twitter account got a few choice words.
Perrie was nervously tapping her foot, her heels clicking causing Leigh to squeeze her knee, both to reassure her and to silently tell her to stop. She muttered a quiet 'sorry' before speaking up, "What could they do if they find out our plan. I mean would they drop us?"
Jesy never looking up from her phone responded, "Pez, we already talked about this. Just breathe."
Whenever we were in a nerve-wracking situation, Jesy was always the best at hiding her anxiety and calming the rest of us down.
"Right," Pez sighed, "Jest breath.". She took deep breaths and closed her eyes.
I sat on the other side of Jesy reading one of the magazines they had scattered across the coffee table sat in front of us. I usually never read celebrity magazines because it was full of rubbish but, I needed to get my mind off the thing that has been consuming it since last week.
"Stay right in the waiting area." I heard the receptionist say. I looked up and saw Louis walking towards us. He was wearing a light colored denim jacket and black shirt and jeans. He smiled over in the girl's direction then turned his gaze towards me and keeping it there.
I stood from my seat and walked towards him. I threw my hands around his middle when I reached him and he wrapped his around me shoulder tightly. I tilted my chin up and pecked his lips.
"Hi babe," I greeted, copying his infectious smile.
"Hi, love," He responded, leaning back down to peck my lips again.
I heard faint gagging noises behind me and when I turned around, Liam, Harry, and Niall had joined the girls and they all had open mouths with a finger pointing into it.
I giggled and turned back around to Louis who was giving them mean looks. I let go of his torso and grabbed his hand and leading him back to where I was seated before.
I looked over at Leigh who was now seated on Harry's lap playing with his hands and leaning against his chest. "I know you two weren't sating anything about us?"
"You were practically licking each other's tonsils." Harry teased. Louis flipped him off.
"It's been twenty minutes and they still haven't called us, what is going on?" Jesy huffed sitting on the edge of her chair looking down the hall that leads to the conference rooms.
"Renee didn't tell you?" Niall asked, Jesy snapped her head towards him, "Tell us what?" she questioned.
"Alicia told us that Renee got held up with some other person who works higher up in management and it would take another thirty or so minutes." Liam explained as if we were supposed to know. "She didn't tell you guys?"
"She didn't." Perrie said looking as if she was in deep thought, "Why wouldn't she tell us."
"I don't know but, whatever it was it must be important if it couldn't wait until we finished our meeting." Leigh looked over at me then at everyone else, "Maybe their discussing our 'punishment' or something."
Jesy sighed, "Leigh we're not children, they're not going to punish us."
"Yeah but, what else could they be talking about."
Jesy sighed once again this time in defeat.
"Let's just think happy thoughts." Niall piped up smiling, "Nothing but happy thoughts." He kept repeating it like he was being therapeutic but, it just made my nerves worse.
"Niall! We get it we're all thinking happy thoughts!" I snapped causing a few other people in the waiting area to give me annoyed glances.
He turned to me with a wide expression, "Doesn't sound like it." I just simply rolled my eyes and felt Louis running his thumb across the back of my hand immediately calming me down.
So we sat there each in our own conversations. Leigh talking with Harry. Perrie, Liam, and Niall talking, and Jesy still sat silently on her phone occasionally joining Leigh and Harry in conversation. Louis and I stayed in our spots also talking. For the most part the building wasn't very busy and it was just us eight in the waiting area know. After another fifteen minutes, a lady in a pantsuit informed us that they were ready for us.
The nerves that had calmed down soon erupted as a flock of butterflies in my stomach. Louis grabbed my hand which to no surprise eased me nerves.
The Modest! Building was much different than Syco. It was not as many stories and the rooms were all made of glass. Everything was black or white making the whole building look very futuristic.
Down the hall we saw Renee and Alicia sitting at a glass conference table with a few other people from both of our management teams in Conference Room C. For the first time ever I saw that Renee looked...nervous and unsure. She usually carried a confidence that was never cocky but always intimidating.
The pantsuit clad lady opened the door and led us into it the room. Once an unfamiliar man who sat at the head of the table dismissed her she scrambled out of the room.
"Have a seat," the man said. He was wearing a grey suit and his grey hair was short and slightly quiffed in the front. He wore a friendly smile but his cold blue eyes made me uncomfortable whenever they landed on me.
We walked to the table and all sat on one side. Jesy sat closest to the man, then Harry, Niall, myself, Perrie, Leigh, Liam then Louis. I looked over at Alicia and she sat surprisingly, with the same expression as Renee.
He waited for us to get settled to speak again "I don't believe we have met, I'm Jack Sawyer." he smiled looking over all of us. We took our turns introducing ourselves and shaking his callused hand.
Everyone else sitting at the table was silent looking through tablets and papers. "You're probably wondering why we've interrupted your promo?" Jack asked quirking an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Louis said.
"Well your questions will be answered soon but first we have a few questions of our own." Just when I thought that maybe they didn't have a clue about what we did, he tells us he has a few questions. It felt like my heart fell to the pit of my stomach and raise to my throat at the same time.
I heard Harry nervously clear his throat and Perrie let out an almost inaudible whimper.
"Okay," Jesy said leaning against the glass surface.
"So first we want to know if you know about this little hashtag thing that is trending on multiple social media networks." he asked.
"Yes we have." Louis answered. I had a feeling him and Jesy were going to be doing most of the talking.
Across the table I noticed someone write on a piece of paper. In fact everyone on the other side of the table was writing feverishly which once again made me nervous and you know what happens when I get nervous.
Like I always say, they don't call me Poopey for nothing.
"Okay, "Jack started, "and do you like the idea of both of your bands working together?"
"Yes in fact we proposed that idea while back." Jesy responded. Jack nodded, "Alright well I think that is all we need to know to tell you why we have called you here."
I must have looked crazy just smiling out of nowhere but, he didn't seem to know anything about our plan and that meant we didn't have to worry about being dropped.
I heard Niall, breath out a sigh of relief.
"So the reason why we had to delay the meeting thirty five minutes is because, we were asking some people a question about an idea that we had," Jack said smiling a little, I could tell that he deliberately not saying specifically what happen to build up suspense. It was working.
"At first they weren't so sure about the idea, but after some convincing we finally got them to come around to it. Do you want to know what the idea is." Jack asked. I waited for Louis' sarcastic answer but instead I heard Leigh softly telling him 'keep your mouth closed'.
"Yes we would like to know." she said.
"Well, your fans have been quite persistent about this 'Little Direction' thing so I think we should give it to them. In fact, if I knew about your proposal before, it would have happened sooner." he shot a cold glare in Renee and Alicia's direction. Explains why they looked nervous, "But I digress. Your fans have been blowing up Syco and Modest!'s social media accounts so we caved, and started looking for some gigs that the both of you could do together."
I wanted to run over to Jack and kiss all over his face but I refrained because knowing me, I would do it. "So we said, let's do the Teen Choice Awards."
...........
After he told us the amazing news, we talked about a schedule for practices and what song we were going to perform.
He also told us about why they chose the TCA's. He said that most of the award shows for the year had either already passed, or were too far away. Whatever we did it had to be soon because it would just make the fans even more...crazy. He also said that it was the only thing that both groups would be performing at and hopefully winning an award at. The boys were nominated for, Choice Boy Group and us girls are nominated for, Choice Summer Song and a few others.
The show was on the August 8th, and the practices would be in LA where the awards would be hosted. Sadly we weren't going to be dancing because the boys refused to do so and we all know that would have been a sight to see. So we were just going to be singing and fooling around on stage together. I think that would be enough to satisfy the fans since they wanted it so bad. The song we are performing is Not a Bad Thing by Justin Timberlake.
If this performance goes well then management would think about doing more collaborations and we're hoping that meant writing songs together.
We left the building about two hours after we arrived and decided to head back to Leigh and Harry's flat like we usually do. They had the most food, and the biggest and cleanest flat so it was the perfect place to hang out.
"I thought for sure they knew about our plan." Harry said from the common area. I was currently raiding their pantry for food.
"Exactly I almost pooped myself!" I yelled back my mouth full of chocolate biscuits.
"Jade?" Harry questioned as if I were four years old.
"Hmm," I hummed back.
"Get out of our biscuits please." It was funny how they knew I was eating the biscuits without even looking.
"Okay fine," I said walking into the common area, "Already ate all of them anyway." I shrugged trying to hide my smile while flopping onto the couch beside Harry.
Leigh, who was previously sitting on the other side of Harry, stood and groaned walking into the kitchen to check if I was actually ate them all. "She was serious!" She yelled in disbelief.
"We're back!" Jesy sung from the foyer, Niall's chants also being heard. "And we brought pizza!" She grunted on the word pizza.
Perrie walked in from the foyer into the common area flopping onto the spot next to Liam who was quietly watching TV. "I've been stuck with those idiots for far too long. I must have lost all my brain cells."
We chuckled at her and Jesy rolled her eyes with the pizza box in her hands. Niall followed behind her with two 2-liter soda bottles.
"Whatever." Jesy said in an American accent.
Jesy placed the box on the top of the coffee table and sat down on the floor so it was like her own little table.
"Jessica Nelson! Get that greasy box off that furniture!" I scolded, my inner OCD coming out, "You'll ruin it!"
She turned her head slowly towards me, Harry and Niall chorusing "ooos" in my ear. "There is a piece of paper underneath the pizza. The box isn't even greasy." She said slowly.
"Oh...well...don't let it happen again." I said in defeat.
"Ha ha, doesn't feel good to be wrong does it Jade?" Louis laughed. He was upset because I spilt my drink on his lap and he didn't have a change of pants.
"Shut up Lou, your just upset you pissed your pants." Leigh chuckled.
"I did no-," Jesy cut him off.
"Pissy pants! Pissy pants!" she chanted soon everyone joining her.
Louis stomped into the kitchen muttering something under his breath. "I'm eating all your fucking food!"
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