Love is Blind

“You can go get some food if you want,” I told my assistant, Cassandra, as she pulled the door to Cosmo’s building open. “This could take a bit and I know you haven’t had ten minutes to yourself since we got to New York.”

“Are you sure?” My assistant asked as she punched the up call button for the elevator. “I don’t mind.”

I nodded and shooed her with my hand. “Seriously Cass. I’ll call you when this is done.”

Cassandra nodded, her long brown hair swinging behind her as she did. She didn’t need anymore convincing; she hurried back out the way we came in without another word. I chuckled to myself as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Stepping inside, I sucked in a deep breath and pushed the button for the floor some lady named Kathleen instructed me to go to.

Walking through the hall, looking over all the covers of Cosmo that lined the walls was surreal. Knowing that I was going to be their next cover girl made it even crazier. I didn’t belong up there with the likes of Selena Gomez, Kate Hudson and Jennifer Aniston. I wasn’t there yet. I was only just cracking the surface. And most people only knew my name because I tended to spout out stupid shit on Twitter.

“Harlow Davis?”

I glanced up from the current cover I was looking at, a pretty blue one that featured Taylor Swift, only to be met with another young blonde. She looked younger than me and for some reason that irked me. What was this magazine doing hiring infants to do their interviews? I forced myself to smile at her and nodded.

“The one and only,” I said and the motioned for me to follow after her. She led me into the first room on her right and then disappeared.

The room looked like some girly girl threw up inside of it. There was a pink couch, a white chair and zebra print. There was a girl standing in the middle of the room, bent over a table as she shuffled papers and fiddled with a black tape recorder. When she stood up a little straighter and smiled at me a sigh of relief fell from my lips. At least this girl looked like she was my age so hopefully she wouldn’t ask inane things.

“Hey, I’m Olivia Lucas,” the girl said, holding out her hand for me to shake.

“Harlow Davis,” I said as I stared at her outstretched hand. “I don’t believe in handshakes, I’m more of a hugger.”

Olivia laughed and nodded before we shared a quick embrace. She motioned for me to take a seat on the pink couch but I frowned.

“Do you mind if I take the chair? That thing looks seriously uncomfortable,” I said before laughing. “Wow, sorry that was me totally pulling a diva card wasn’t it?”

The interviewer shook her head. “It’s totally okay, you can sit there,” she laughed. “I actually just had One Direction in here. They weren’t too keen on it either but for a completely different reason.”

I laughed and nodded. “I can imagine. That pink couch might be insulting to any guy’s manhood.”

Olivia chuckled as we settled into our seats - me in the white chair and her on the pink couch. I settled back into the cushions and sighed. This was already one of the more pleasant experiences I’d managed when it came to interviews and we hadn’t even started yet.

“So can I get you anything before we get started? Water? Tea?” Olivia asked as she picked up her notebook and tossed her hair over one shoulder with her other hand.

“I’m good, thanks,” I said as I leaned back and crossed my legs. It felt weird being the one seated in a chair while she was on the couch but I wasn’t going to admit that now when I made a fuss about sitting there in the first place.

“Okay,” the girl nodded, “so I’ve got to ask – is it true you played all of the instruments on your first album? The one you self-produced?”

I chuckled and gave a quick nod. This was always the question people wanted answered, like they truly couldn’t believe that was possible.

“Yeah,” I said as I shook my head in disbelief. “You know everyone always asks me that and I mean I guess I kind of get it considered I played guitar, bass, drums, piano and violin but it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. I was on my own at the time, I didn’t know anyone else who played instruments so it was kind of a just ‘do what you gotta do’ kind of thing, I guess.”

Olivia laughed. “I can’t really fathom playing one instrument let alone five.” She shook her head. “But while we’re on the subject, what’s your favorite instrument to play? To write with, since you write all your songs, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I um, okay this is going to make me sound awful but I kind of refuse any songs that weren’t written by me,” I laughed nervously, “but I think that’s more because I haven’t felt a real strong emotional connection to any song that I haven’t written unless you count John Mayer’s Slow Dancing in a Burning Room. But I mean hell I’d probably sing anything he wrote. He’s a musical genius, you know?” I shook my head, suddenly realizing I was seriously off track and not even on purpose.

“But okay sorry, back to your question, I love to play the violin. I absolutely love the sound and the feel of the bow in my hands but when I’m writing the piano is usually my go-to followed closely by Bessie, my Martin OM-28 acoustic.”

“So you-“ Olivia stopped and her eyes fixed on something behind me.

“Sorry, sorry,” a distinctly Irish voice said as I slowly turned around to check out what Olivia was staring at.

I laughed and jumped out of my chair. Niall Horan was standing just inside the room with a sheepish look on his face. His expression gave away that he’d heard at least some of what I said but I couldn’t bring myself to care – he’d already known most of what I confessed.

“HD!” Niall laughed as I hug-tackled him. His arms wound around me and I was secretly glad this wasn’t awkward. For our first meeting in person this was actually really nice. It was much better than what we originally planned on – a movie premiere we were both going to be at next week. There we’d have to deal with cameras flashing and questions about all the rumors that were currently flying about us.

“Sorry,” Niall repeated as we pulled apart. His apology was directed towards Olivia and I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “I think I forgot my phone,” he continued as he turned towards the seat I was just sitting in.

I glanced at Olivia as she nodded at Niall. She was standing and looking between us with a small smile on her lips. Of course, I groaned internally. I was so excited to see Niall in person that I completely forgot that we were in the presence of someone in the media. Our little embrace would surely just further the rumors that were already going round and round about us secretly dating.

“Found it!” Niall said, pulling a black iPhone from between the cushions of the white chair. He turned back to face me and gave me a big smile. “Don’t even say what I know you want to.”

I just shook my head. “It’s nice to finally meet the walking disaster in person,” I joked, lightly shoving Niall’s shoulder as I did.

He laughed and pulled me in for another hug. “Nice to get this out of the way now,” he said as I caught a whiff of his cologne. “Now we can just hang out at that premiere.”

“Are you sure? I think HD is too cool for you,” I giggled as we pulled away.

Niall shook his head. “You’re something else, you know?” He turned and nodded at Olivia. “Sorry ‘bout that and sorry for interrupting,” he apologized before turning back to me. “I’ll text you later.”

I nodded and watched with a smile on my face as Niall disappeared from the room. Reality crashed down around me as the door shut. I fought the urge to slap my forehead as I settled back into my seat. I was so not good at this fame thing; I wasn’t used to censoring myself or being secretive and I’d just forgotten that we were in the room with a reporter… twice.

“Sorry about that,” I said with a sheepish smile. “I just got excited when I saw Niall. We’ve been talking for awhile now but I hadn’t met him in person yet.”

Olivia nodded, a small smile on her face. “It’s totally okay. So I guess it’s safe to say the rumors about you two being a couple aren’t true? Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” I chuckled. “They’re not true and I’m totally single. Niall and I are just friends.”

“So if you’re just meeting right now how do you two know each other?”

“Well,” I sighed as I tucked my legs beneath me. “We met a couple months ago on Twitter. I’m on there like all the time and he tweeted me saying he loved one of my songs and one thing led to another and we just started talking.” I shrugged. “He’s a really great guy and we’ve been meaning to meet up and get coffee but we’ve both been super busy so our paths hadn’t crossed before just now.” I laughed and shook my head. “I didn’t even know he was in New York yet though. We knew our paths were definitely going to cross next week but that’s it.”

Olivia nodded and we settled into an easy interview. She asked about my upcoming album, the tour I was planning for the summer and why emotional attachment to songs was so important to me. It was easy and comfortable and I was pretty happy answering all the things she had to ask, even things about fashion and sex – two pretty typical Cosmo topics. But the whole time I couldn’t help but wish that the interview was over and I was back with Cassandra if only so I could tell her all about meeting Niall and how his eyes were a deeper blue than I’d ever imagined.