The Habits. | #Wattys2016

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THE SUMMER AFTER SENIOR YEAR.

Aline's POV

Cora twirled her drumsticks in her hands patiently as we waited for Pete, our record label manager, to show up. We've been sitting in his office for almost an hour and he said that he had something to discuss with us. I play with the bright pink strand in my blonde hair and scrolled through Twitter on my phone. The number one most trending tag was The Habits.

And we all knew who they were.

"Look at this," I say and hold my phone out to the rest of the group. Isla's pink bubble popped and she continued chewing it.

"And we thought that we would have to deal with them anymore," Eloise mumbled and began braiding her hair.

  In freshman year, our homeroom was with the four most utterly annoying boys on the face of the planet. They, like us, wanted to make it big. TNG had made it big before they did, that was a fact. But the hard thing was that Pete owned both TNG and The Habits. Pete says that both groups are his shining stars and that he would probably die if he lost either one of us. But let's face it- The Habits sucked. Yes; they had all become extremely heart-throbbingly hot in the last three years, but guess what- so have we.

"We should leave," Isla finally says. "I don't think he's going to show." We all shared our yeses and then get up to leave, but just then, Pete opened the door entering with a whole Manila folder flooded full of stuff.

"Sorry," he says, shutting the door to his office. "The copy machine wasn't working." 

"What's that, Pete?" Cora asks, sliding her drumsticks into her back pocket.

"Well, I've done some thinking and I think that maybe if you went on tour with The Habits-"

"I'm stopping you right there, Pete," I say. "Like I've said before, we don't want anything to do with them."

"I know what you've said, but I have a feeling that it would make you both wildly more popular. Just trust me on this one. You'll only have to spend the three months on tour with them, then you can never speak to them again. I don't care. But my two best groups have to preform together at some point," Pete argued.

"No," Eloise says and crosses her arms.

"Just think about it, okay? Call me tomorrow with an answer. I'll give you whatever answers you want about them only if you'll think it through," Pete says, pleadingly. He's practically on his knees, begging us to prove form with one of our most hated groups of people in all of history. We'll just have to give him the satisfaction of telling him that we'll think about it.

"Fine. We'll think about it and call you tomorrow with a confirmed answer," Isla said and threw a piece of her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Good! Great! Terrific! I'll call you tomorrow at noon on the dot!" Pete says and hurries back out the door. Once he's gone we immediately look at one another.

"We all know the answer, right?" I ask.

"No," we say in unison and walk right out of the room.

>>--->

I sigh and kick off my heels. Today was probably the least tiring day we've had in a while and I'm still tired. Isla and Cora are watching a movie in the living room and El is baking. Without a word, I drag myself up the stairs and crawl into the bed to take a nap.

   I spend about an hour trying to fall asleep, but I realize that there's one thing on my mind. That one thing was the tour offer with The Habits. I truly hate that band, but if it means that we'll make Pete happy, maybe he'll give us more leadway in the future. It was funny that an hour ago I thought I'd say nothing but no, but now the option of making Pete happy and gaining more publicity from our fans seemed to scream yes to me more than just not going because I utterly despised the band. So I did the logical thing; I got out of bed and went to ask the girls.

I walk downstairs and the smell of Eloise's snickerdoodle cookies hit me. I walk into the living room and grab a pair of Cora's drumsticks laying on the floor and bang them against the mantel. This, woke up Isla and Cora, whom had fallen asleep on the couch watching what I think was Mean Girls.

"El, did you bake cookies?" Isla asks groggily. Eloise walks into the living room and sits down in a reclining chair, tucking her feet under her butt and wrapping her arms around her pillow.

"Actually I did. I got bored," Eloise says with a shrug.

"I have called this 'Family Meeting' because when I went upstairs to take a nap, one thing was still on my mind. What if Pete wasn't wrong about the whole publicity thing for the tour with The Habits. What if it made us more insanely popular than we are now, and that's just by going on tour with someone else. People love seeing other bands together, especially if they're the two hottest bands in the world right now," I say, almost regretting it all after it came out of my mouth.

"You make a good point, Al," Eloise says and looks to Cora and Isla. "Whatdaya say?"

"I say yes," Isla says and begins putting her hair into a messy top bun. Now, all eyes were on Cora. Cora was usually the last to make the decisions around here, so it wasn't really a shocker when we had gotten a yes from both Isla and Eloise.

"Only for the fans," Cora says and smiles.

"Only for the fans," we repeat.

>>--->

"The line was horrific," Isla says and drops the subs from Subway on the counter. She takes off her sunglasses and lays them on the counter. "Has Pete called yet?"

"Not yet. But I really just want my sub," I say and grab the one labeled with the stuff I ordered on it. Cora always orders the biggest sub, so without a doubt, we know which one's hers right from the start. I take the first bite of my sandwich and Eloise pops the plate of cookies in the center of the counter for afterwards.

"They smell so good," Cora says and reaches for one. Eloise immediately swats her hand away.

"You know the rules, Cora," Eloise warns jokingly. Cora rolls her eyes and finishes off her sub just in time because the phone rings.

"I got it, I got it," she says, her hands still covered in the vinegar that she requests on her sandwich.

"We actually did make a decision, Pete. Here, Lemme out you on speaker," she says and places the phone in the cookie plate.

"Hey Pete."

"We made cookies."

"And I got subs."

"Glad to see I called you around lunch hour," Pete says and laughs. "So, what'd you guys decide?" All of us exchange glances, mankind sure everyone is still up for the idea we decided on last night.

"You'll be happy to know Pete, that we decided to take you up on the offer. We'd love to tour with The Habits."