The Adjacent Room [h.s]

Chapter 24

'You're all going to need to leave the set. There's filming going on and nobody wants your chatter in the background of this video. There's a room over there and you'll need to make your way over now.' Leslie demands to Eleanor, Liam and Niall's assistants and myself. At least now I know she's rude to everyone and not just Harry. As much as I'd like to argue with her, I understand that they do need silence on set.

'Of course, we'll go now.' Eleanor replies, while both Liam and Niall's assistants, whom I'm yet to have formally met, all respond with a similar answer. My distaste for this woman has grown rapidly due to her disrespect towards Harry, so I focus my attention on him as we walk away to avoid looking at her. I offer a small smile to him, but he only half heartedly returns it. I guess he's just distracted and focused on the video.

When Eleanor turns the handle and opens the door to this room, a small space comes into view. The room is in the shape of a rectangle, with a long couch sitting against one wall and nothing else.

We all sit down on the couches in silence. Nobody is saying anything, and the air in the room is getting more awkward by the second. I can tell already that these assistants are very dedicated. I wonder how I appear as Harry's assistant to them, but after Leslie's clear distaste for my role as both assistant and girlfriend, it's possible I'd rather not know the answer.

'I'm Sophie, Harry's assistant' I say, breaking the ice in the room.

'Tara, Niall's assistant' the woman I now know as Tara responds, holding her hand out for me to shake.

'And I'm James, Liam's assistant if you couldn't already guess.' James smiles, his hand outstretched too.

'And I'm..just Eleanor. Nobody's assistant.' Eleanor laughs, doing a great job at being so cool and collected in a moment where I'd feel so out of place. For a room that was so awkward moments ago, the whole atmosphere has done a one eighty.

'I'd love to get to know you all, but Niall has asked me to source him some of these fancy and exclusive golf clubs that I can't seem to find anywhere, so I should probably do that.' Tara says, clearly feeling bad to cut the conversation short.

'Niall does that too? Liam texted me the other day and asked me to find him this pair of sneakers! I found those though, but I've got some other stuff to do anyway.' James comments, and they both open their bags and reach for the laptops.

After hearing the tasks of James and Tara, it's lucky that Harry actually gave me work to do this morning, or I'd be sitting here looking like one hell of a lousy assistant. It feels like lately he hasn't had anything for me to do, but I have an inkling that that's because he doesn't want to make me work. I want to bring this up with him, but he's got so much going on at the moment that I don't want to bother him with it.

'Do you want to work too? If you've got work things to do, I might leave. I probably don't need to be here anyway if we're just stuck in this jail cell of a room and I wanted to take the dogs for a walk.' Eleanor laughingly decides, waving her hands around the small space. The iconic dogs I've seen on her story countless times are the one she's obviously referring to.

I hug her goodbye, and she asks to catch up for coffee at some point during the week. I agree, glad that she offered, and we exchange numbers. James and Tara are so lost in their work that they don't even notice the exchange, only looking up to wave goodbye to Eleanor.

'Don't let Leslie yell at you for walking too loud.' I whisper as she opens the door.

'I'll try my best' she winks, and leaves.

Without Eleanor in the room, there's nobody to distract me, and I decide I should take a page from the books of these two assistants and do my work too. With that, I pull out my own laptop. Harry asked me to compile a list of the addresses of all the people he worked with closely during his solo career, namely producers, writers, stylists, photographers and videographers. Since he won't be able to work with them anymore, he wants to send personal thankyou cards. It bothers me that Harry doesn't get to work with these people anymore, some who have become some of his closest friends, but I guess that's what happens now he's back in the band.