The Gambler

The thing about prepping for a world tour was that there was absolutely no method to it. There were the inevitable meetings about choreography, lighting, security details, venue information, ticket packaging, meet and greets, costumes, setlist. No matter what, there always seemed like there were thousands of things still left to do. For Elle, she was lucky enough to have an incredible team behind her. In the past three weeks, she had been present for every meeting or short lunch to go over every aspect of the tour. She wanted everything to be completely perfect, even if that meant she was losing sleep and sanity doing so.

At the current moment, she sat in a dance studio watching the fifth group of girls audition to become her back up dancers. Evan and Tracy, her choreographers, were teaching them a simple dance to do for their group audition after they watched them individually perform. Elle knew that ultimately, the decision of who would go on tour with her was up to the pair, but she liked to the idea of having some input into who was picked.

Her phone buzzed wildly on her lap and she glanced down to see the goofy picture of Harry she had taken on their late night adventure staring back up at her. His name read out on the screen and she quickly hit the green answer button, standing up and excusing herself onto the small rooftop patio directly beside the studio.

“This phone call better be to tell me you’re dying because that is the only way you won’t get scolded for interrupting my backup dancer auditions.” Elle said with a grin as she spoke.

His laughter chorused through the phone before he continued, “Actually, I have much better news than my possible death.”

“And what would that be?” She asked as she walked over to the children’s swing set, the lone piece of ‘furniture’ out there.

“I’m in LA right now. Doing some unexpected press or something. Either way, I’m here and I was hoping we could hangout.” He rushed out and she heard the sounds of shuffling and a waning voice ring out about connecting flights.

“I’m pretty busy today, but you can stop by tonight if you want.” Elle answered and bit her lip to hide the grin pulling at her lips.

Harry let out a small cheer before he spoke, “Wonderful. Where are you staying? Or have you moved into your house now?”

Her latest purchase had been an enormous house in a popular celebrity neighborhood. She had been in talks for weeks to buy it, but had finally bought it three weeks ago, right after she had arrived home from New York, “I’m all moved in, well partially. I still need to go buy most of the furniture for it, but I’ve added the main necessities.”

“That’s awesome!” Harry said excitedly, “I can’t wait to see it.”

Elle smiled, “Is it just you? Or are the boys there too?”

“They’re here. They want to see you two, though I have no idea why. You’re quite annoying.” He joked with a small chuckle.

Elle feigned shock, “Rude! Besides, you were just practically begging to hangout.”

“I think begging is an exaggeration, love.” Harry laughed along with her.

Elle sighed, “I have to get back to the auditions, but why don’t I text you when I’m done here and I can give you the address and stuff. You and the boys can come over when I’m done or whatever.”

“Cool.” Harry replied, “Good luck with the auditions, tell me if there’s any fit girls, yeah?”

“Shut up!” Elle laughed before she said her goodbyes with Harry.

As she walked back into the cool studio, she knew Harry was joking and yet she couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at the thought of him with another girl. It was ridiculous, since she wanted them to just be friends, but the feeling was still there. Every time his name had flashed on the screen of her phone, her stomach would do this strange flip or a smile would play on her lips. Elle was walking a thin line and she knew it, but she had yet to try and fight it or walk away. There was something about the curly haired boy that made her keep wanting to come back.

She opened up Twitter on her phone and read through some of the tweets on her newsfeed. She was following a total of 38 people, 5 of which happened to be in One Direction. It had been a choice that was made one night when she was on FaceTime with Harry who was over at Liam’s with the rest of the boys. They had all demanded she follow them after they overheard Harry telling her to follow him.

The rest of the people she followed were a variety of other celebrities, fashion designers and a small handful of friends from back home including her best friends, Jenna and Casey, who were both home and about to graduate from their senior year in school. Elle, despite all of her success and things she had done, couldn’t help but feel envious over their senior year. They had the picture perfect senior year as far as high school goes and Elle didn’t even get to go to a proper prom.

jenna_hill23 Miss my babes @elle_peters1 a lot today. 23 days! <3 <3

Elle smiled at the small message and retweeted it. Her tour would begin in 23 days and her two best friends were going to join her on the tour. Neither girl had immediate plans to go to school and they couldn’t pass up a 10 month tour of the world. Elle quickly composed a new tweet.

Elle_Peters1 Tour starts so so soon! Can’t wait to see all of your beautiful faces! Picking the setlist tomorrow... what do you want to hear? xx

She had adopted the two x’s after teasing Zayn about his use of them in almost every tweet he sent out, yet she now found herself ending almost every tweet with them.

“Alright girls, we’ll start your individual auditions now.” Evan’s voice pulled her out of the Twitter world and she looked up to see that 12 girls now stood in front of her. They were still group 3, which meant 2 groups were left each with 12 solo auditions. Groaning internally, she took a seat beside Tracy and continued to watch the girls move.

Four hours in the studio followed by one hour of traffic later, Elle was at home. Tracy drove her home and once Elle was inside, had left the young girl. She was greeted by her three dogs running towards her with their wagging tails. There was Mocha; a Boxer and Lab mix, Snoop; a large Rottweiler, and Dunk; a pit bull. Each dog had its own reputation, but Elle was convinced they were the biggest sucks in the world. All of them opting to cuddle up to her in bed or refusing to go outside when it rained. They were her protectors, but also the kindest dogs she had ever met.

She sat down on the large sectional leather couch in her main living room and played around with the dogs for a few minutes before she let them outside to run around while she called Harry. She held the phone up to her ear as she waited for him to pick up and padded her way to the kitchen. She pulled out the small bowl of blueberries that sat on one of the shelves of the fridge and leaned against the island. She had almost finished two before Harry answered.

“Elle!” He breathed out heavily, “Sorry about that. Louis was attacking me.”

“Sure, you call it attacking, I call it making sexual advances.” Elle teased and popped another blueberry into her mouth.

Harry let out a loud laugh, “Shut up. Are you done at the auditions?”

“Home, safe and sound.” She replied and walked back towards the door where her three dogs stood patiently, “You guys want to come over now? I haven’t had any supper yet, but we could maybe order Chinese or pizza? Unless you’ve eaten already.”

“Elle,” Harry said with a small laugh, “We’re teenage boys. Perpetually hungry.”

Elle laughed and nodded her head even though he couldn’t see her, “Right, forgot.”

“That sounds good though. We’ll head over now then, yeah?” Harry asked her and after she gave him the address and the code to get through the gates in front of her house, they hung up.

Twenty minutes later, she heard the sound of the doorbell ringing, her dogs bounding forward. Elle quickly made her way to the door and pulled it open while simultaneously holding her dogs back. She turned to see the five boys staring down at the dogs with wide eyes and she laughed, “Don’t worry, they’re really lovely. Just a bit wary of strangers at first. Come on in!”

Harry was the first to edge towards the door, holding out his hands for the dogs to sniff. They calmed down almost immediately and he walked further into the house allowing each boy to enter.

Louis pulled her into a hug, “How are you, love?”

“Great, wonderful, amazing!” Elle answered with a small giggle before wrapping her arms around Zayn.

Harry watched as she welcomed Niall and Liam before turning to him. Her hair was tied up, a blue headband with white polka dots and she looked incredibly comfortable. He held out his arms to her and she walked into them, without heels on she came just to the top of his shoulder. He felt her arms wrap around his waist and he leaned his head on top of hers for a moment. They stayed like that for a minute and Harry took in the way her body felt against his. She smelled of coconut reminding him of a tropical vacation and laying out on the beach. The hug was over before he really wanted it to be, but he merely smiled down at her before he followed her into the living room.

He took in the large room as she began to talk with the boys and was taken aback at just how large the house was. It wasn’t an enormous mansion, but it was certainly bigger than any other house he had been in. The couch was white with beige pillows placed at the ends and middle. Louis and Liam sat along the one side with Niall and Zayn at the other end. Harry followed suit and sat down beside Zayn. Elle had disappeared, but returned moments later with beer in her arms and passed each boy a bottle before sitting in the corner of the sectional between Harry and Louis.

“This house is huge!” Niall exclaimed while looking around, “You moved in a couple weeks ago, yeah?”

Elle nodded before taking a sip of her beer, “Yeah, I bought it when I came back from New York and only moved in like a week ago. I still can’t believe I own a house and I’m not even eighteen yet.”

“When’s your birthday?” Louis asked as he rubbed one of the dog’s heads.

“In six days.” Elle replied.

“SIX DAYS!?” Louis exclaimed making the dog move away from him, “Are you having a party?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Elle replied with a shrug, “It’s not like I can go out to a club.”

“But it’s your 18th! This is huge!” Zayn said with just as much enthusiasm as Louis.

The pair began to plot about wild party ideas and how they would have to go all out, meanwhile Elle just watched them with an amused smile. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she took another drink from her beer before turning to ask Liam a few questions. Just like that the group were loudly discussing things from Elle turning down Louis’ requests to ship in two siberian tigers to Niall’s growing hunger.

Zayn had taken over Elle’s laptop to google the price of monkeys when an alarm went off. The group grew silent and Elle leaned forward for the remote to turn on the TV. Harry tried as best as he could not to notice the flesh of her back that was slowly being exposed thanks to her low riding sweatpants and the raising of her shirt as she moved. Yet, he found himself glancing quickly at the tanned skin before Louis’ hand was suddenly in his face. Harry looked up and found Louis sending him a shit eating grin, Liam behind him giving him the same look.

Harry turned away, a slight blush on his face as he did and saw the front gate on the TV. Elle pressed a button and the gates opened, a delivery man toting three bags of food. Niall was the first to jump up and ran towards the door, Elle trailing behind him. She looked at Harry with a teasing roll of her eyes and he soon found himself standing up as well.

“Niall loves food.” Harry explained as he walked side by side with Elle.

The blonde girl laughed as Niall’s voice called out, “It’s my passion!”

“You’d think singing and performing would be your passion, goof.” Elle joked and opened the door to see the delivery man just stepping up to the door. She smiled warmly at him, “Hello!”

“Hi there!” He replied and appeared starstruck for only a moment before he gave them their total. Elle, despite Harry’s protests, pulled out the correct amount of cash with a more than generous tip. Niall quickly grabbed two of the bags and ran back into the house yelling for the boys.

Harry took the last bag and walked with Elle back into the kitchen. He took the brief moment in stride and nudged his hip with hers, “‘ve you got plans tomorrow?”

“I have a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest in the morning, but I’ll be done for the day after.” She replied and pulled at the sleeve of her shirt.

Harry nodded before he asked, “Do you want to hangout for a bit? Like, without the lads.”

“What did you have in mind?” Elle asked with a hint of a smile.

Harry shrugged, “Maybe just go out for a bite to eat and then we can be all touristy? I haven’t really had the chance to see all of LA yet.”

“Sure.” Elle said with a small laugh, “I’d love to be a total tourist with you tomorrow, Haz.”

“Excellent.” Harry replied as they walked into the kitchen.