IMAGINES: Celebrity Encounters Starring You (69 page)

Your stomach drops. “I see” is all you can manage.

“So, you can imagine my disappointment when my lawyer contacted your literary agent, who said that you didn’t want to keep my name on your story anyway.”

You squirm a little on your barstool, feeling guilty.

“When I asked why, I was told that you’re worried that you’ll be pigeonholed as a fanfiction writer for the rest of your life.”

“Sorry,” you mumble.

“What? Why? I mean, I totally understand that you don’t want to be labeled before your career even starts.”

“And yet you came to the meeting today to try to convince me otherwise?”

“Yeah . . . well—mostly. I was told I should be there from a legal standpoint, regardless.”

“I thought you were coming to sue me,” you admit.

Dylan’s sudden bark of laughter makes you jump. “Are you serious?” When you nod, he adds, “I’m not that much of an asshole.”

That makes you laugh too.

“But seriously, I get why you don’t want to keep my name on your story.” His voice is a little quieter now. “I just think it’d be really cool if you did.”

YOU AND DYLAN
are mostly quiet when you get back into a cab.

He tells the driver two stops—first, your hotel, then his.

“So, what happens if you do publish your story?” Dylan asks after a few long moments. Something about the way the city lights are blinking by outside makes the inside of the cab seem quieter.

You look out the window. “I’ll probably have to stop posting it. The story’s mapped out to be three books long, and I’m still posting the second one. Janet probably wouldn’t be happy if I gave away the ending for free.”

Dylan chuckles. “Sounds reasonable.” Then something occurs to him. “Wait, so that means I’m going to have to wait, like, years before I can know the ending?”

You turn to him and smirk at his distressed tone. “More than likely.”

“Dude,
what!?
I don’t get special privileges since I’m the main character?”

“I never said I was keeping you as the main character.” You watch his face fall a little.

The cab rolls to a stop outside your hotel, and you pull out your wallet. Dylan grabs it out of your hand and shoves it back into your purse.

“Hey—”

“This is on me,” he says, dismissing you. “But I am going to need your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone.” He holds out his hand.

“Why?” you ask, but you still unlock it and hand it to him.

He types in a number and hits send.

“Who are you calling?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he lets it ring for a few more seconds before ending the call. He hands your phone back to you.
“I’ll see you tomorrow for the meeting. Do you want to share a cab again?”

“Um, sure?”

He smiles at you. “Cool.”

You decide to concentrate on getting the cab door open so he can’t see the embarrassingly goofy grin that’s spreading across your face.

“See you tomorrow,” you say, stepping onto the sidewalk. He waves and you shut the door.

You’re walking through the hotel lobby when you feel your phone vibrate. You look down to see a text message from a number you don’t have saved in your contacts:
I still think it’d be pretty cool to keep my name as the main character. But you have to promise that I don’t have to wait with everyone else to know how the story ends.

You smile like an idiot as you read it. Then you text back:
And if I d
on’t
keep your name?

Another message comes through by the time you get back to your room:
Then two years’ worth of internet stalking me will have been all for nothing ;)

I
t’s one of those days.

Some days are bad, others are terrible, and others you can only describe as shitty. Yet, others are even worse, days that make you wonder what you did wrong to deserve such punishment, days that you describe with the well-known meme “the Lord is testing me.”

Today is one of the latter, in which you debate whether to jump off the highest floor, let a plane run you over, or bang your head against a wall until you crack it. The true question is, which one will give you at least a small sense of satisfaction?

It began with your cell phone’s preemptively assuming it was time to change time zones . . . again. Hence you were an hour late for your flight. When you realized what had happened, the ensuing panic had you running faster than Harry Styles does upon hearing “Free Stupid Tattoos.”

Of course, you’ve forgotten quite a few things that you only now remember, on your way to the airport. Still, that can be fixed. You decide to focus instead on the trip; you were going to spend time with that online friend you met through Wattpad from Sheffield, the location for the last One Direction concert prior to their upcoming hiatus. When you jokingly suggested you should meet for the first time and go to that concert together—for moral support
because there was no way you could survive the last concert alone—she said yes and it suddenly became a reality. It was time to plan every detail and, most important, get those tickets—for which you almost became a hacker to keep the website from crashing. Time went by until everything was covered and the day to take your plane to meet her had arrived.

Your day keeps going downhill with your flight, of course, delayed the nice amount of two hours. You started considering just jumping on the first plane to the UK you can find, even if it means hanging from the wing. Desperate times, desperate measures.

Because you spent almost all your savings on that concert ticket, you couldn’t get a direct flight. The delay of your first flight makes you late for your next one, which obviously makes you want to see heads rolling. You might be a psychopath.

But, oh, come on. Not all is bad, right?

“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience we’ve caused you, miss. Please accept our apologies,” a man in suit and tie with a bright and perfectly practiced smile tells you just as you’re about to cause a scene in front of everyone in the airport.

Your nostrils expand as you take a sharp breath, doing your utmost best to control your inner Hulk.

“Don’t worry, we will get you a new ticket for our soonest flight to the UK.”

“When would that be?” you ask.

But the man just smiles, tense and a bit nervous.

At least the company takes responsibility and gets you a new ticket, ten hours later, but still, you’re going to get to the UK. And because karma isn’t a total bitch, you end up in executive class, which is really nice. First row!

This is basically the only good thing of your the-Lord-is-testing-me day. It’s probably the stress of the day, or that you
haven’t eaten anything but a small order of fries, but when they give you your food on the plane, you gobble it up.

Almost as soon as you finish, you start feeling unwell.

It’s like your guts are playing Twister, which is really bad timing. You’re flying across the Atlantic, so it’s not like you can shout to the pilot to stop because you need to use a proper restroom. But then your whole body tenses and a little squeak escapes your lips as the ache gets stronger. Your body is getting hot, and it seems you’re breaking out in a cold sweat.

Oh, dear God, this is bad,
you think, wanting to drop to your knees and scream a long and thunderous “No!” to the skies, like in soap operas. That has to be gratifying, though a luxury you can’t afford.

You realize that resisting is just hopeless. Before standing up, you pull up your hoodie and let your hair fall free, hoping people won’t notice your cramped expression or the humiliation coloring your cheeks. But the moment you get to the restroom for your section, you start to think maybe it wasn’t just bad luck but rather the food: a line of another five people looks as pale as you would were you not blushing.

You look around, trying to find another restroom as fast as possible. Once you spot one at the other side, you make your way over just to find two other people waiting. Wanting to cry for your bad luck, you head to the economy-class restrooms, just to find even longer queues.

Taking deep breaths, you go back to your seat and wait, keeping the controlled breathing, hoping it’ll get better. You barely move and the minutes seem to drag forever as people keep waiting for their turn and getting out with more relieved expressions.

“It totally was the food,” you curse lowly, just to yourself, grimacing in annoyance.

You close your eyes and think of positive and nice things,
so your head is filled with your favorite band and the knowledge you’ll see them live soon, you’ll be there for the good-bye as you’ll be for their comeback. Despite the pain, the smile is natural on your face as you get a bit nostalgic for all the time you’ve been their fan, supporting them, watching them grow as you do the same. You remember the days when Louis was obsessed with stripes, when Niall wore that red polo shirt on every concert of their first tour, and you chuckle at the memory of how you also got a varsity jacket because of Zayn. How could you forget the period when Liam only wore plaid shirts and couldn’t stop talking about Woody? Or Harry and his blazer?

You were a fan when Harry didn’t have a single tattoo. You remember the first time you saw the star on his arm and how, rather quickly, more and more were added after the quote until . . . well, shit happens.

You remember your favorite one, Niall: prior to braces, during braces, and after braces.

You were part of the carrot obsession and later were calling the new fans carrots as a mean way of offending them for their ignorance.

You were there when Zayn left the band, with the confusion and heartbreak that it brought. You cried, wondered why, and even failed a test because your head was anywhere but school. Your mother scolded you severely, but you couldn’t help it. For you One Direction wasn’t just a band you liked; they had always been so much more.

You’ve been there from
Up All Night
to
Made in the A.M.
, and you’ll be there when they come out with their sixth album.

You heave a deep sigh and open your eyes again, smiling to yourself realizing that, once again, One Direction have helped you through a tough time, in this case food poisoning on a plane.

As soon as you notice no one is in line for the restroom anymore, you push all thoughts to the farthest corner of your mind
and just make a run for your life, aka to the toilet. Thank goodness it’s unlocked, so you just push the door open and enter as fast as you can, knowing that if you keep torturing yourself like this, you’ll die, pitifully, on a plane before the concert. You managed to get such good seats—you can’t die just yet.

Things, sometimes, happen faster than you process them. That’s how you sometimes end up in situations that are just too bizarre for an ordinary teenager.

This is one of those.

As you step inside the restroom, another person is just leaving. Yes, at the same exact time. Because your luck is rotten this day and what else could happen to you?—it gets worse. On your way in, you accidentally tackle the guy trying to exit, making him crash into the small and compact sink as you reflexively close the door behind you too enthusiastically—to put it nicely—trapping you both inside.

“Oh, God,” you mumble, your brain working one second slower than the events unfolding before your eyes. The moment you look up to see the face of the person you’ve just dragged into your misery, you go completely pale, all color draining, making you look like a corpse as you stare agape at the man before you. “Oh, dear God, no.”

But no plea to the heavens will change that you just had to trap in the restroom with you the world-famous Niall Horan.

How . . . just how can your luck be so rotten that you meet him, for the first time, in a situation like this? With him staring at you with a panicked look, confused eyes and lips tightly pressed together, with his hands on your shoulders, trying to make room between you two.

You’re not just bumping into a celebrity, not just a celebrity you like. Nope. This is Niall freaking Horan, your favorite from One Direction, your favorite band of all time.

The odds aren’t in your favor today, that’s for sure.

“I’m . . . I’m so . . . I’m so sorry. . . . I thought it was vacant and I . . . I was in a hurry . . .” You are doing your best not to hyperventilate in front of him or just burst out fangirling on his face. You cover your mouth with shaky hands because you just don’t know what to do.

You’ve read countless fanfictions. Practically every completed one you could find that was actually readable, and many times you dreamed of meeting One Direction in a random and totally fateful encounter. You imagined yourself making a great first impression and then falling in love and living your own story with one of them, extra points if that one is Niall.

Never, not even in your wildest daydreams, did you imagine something like this could happen. Not after spending ten hours in the airport, waiting for your plane, wearing the most casual—that is,
comfortable
—clothes you could find for the long trip. Not with your hair looking like a bird’s nest. Not when you’re ill because the food they gave you was probably poisoned!

“Are you okay?” he asks, and you can’t control the little squeal that escapes your lips when you hear that unmistakable accent directed at you, with his big blue eyes watching you closely.

In all fairness, though, it might be because your guts are twisting even worse than before, probably due to the stressful situation.

“I am perfectly fine,” you lie as you feel your body betraying you with more cold sweat, making your skin glow, and not in the good way but more like in a she-is-about-to-die-and-for-your-own-sake-you-should-stay-away kind of look.

“Not to be rude, but you don’t look quite well, love,” he insists, looking a bit worried.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just . . . trying not to faint in front of you.” Your voice wavers a bit at the end of that sentence as your
guts twist ruthlessly, making you cross your legs and sweat even more. “Big fan,” you add in such a small voice that he can understand something is really wrong.