Love in Music

My eyes searched the room while Brent spun me around, continuously, I could feel my footing beginning to slip but my concentration was focused more on Frankie then my own dancing to care. It wasn’t until I had slammed into Brent’s chest did I realise how annoyed he was looking.

“Focus.” He hissed at me, narrowing his eyes and straightening me up, I grimaced apologetically and glanced back over to where Frankie was slowly going through the moves to the dance video with Coby. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” I answered Brent automatically, slowly turning to meet his eyes and see the disbelief. I sighed and turned my attention properly to him. “It’s nothing, really. Frankie’s just had a bad couple of days and I was worried.”

“Well she looks okay now, you think we can go over the spin again.” I stood up straighter and nodded, wanting to take this seriously. Brent eyed me before nodding and resting his arms on my waist.

I let him lead, taking one step back then another before I looped under his arm and leant back so our joined arms were extended and my back was straight, hair practically sweeping the floor. After the first couple of tries where I was shaky and untrusting of Brent I had realised that he wasn’t going to drop me, so I let all my weight go, trusting him to spin me back up right before I would - if I was in the actual music video - push away from his chest and begin singing the chorus to Forever Is Over.

Before we could get that far Brent once again made me try the spin again. My thigh muscles were going to be screaming tomorrow with how hard I was clenching them today, keeping me balanced and unmoving while suspended.

“Back straighter Annabelle.” I rolled my eyes and pulled a face at Brent when he pulled me up again. Jacque had been unrelenting today in her criticism.

“One more time.” Brent promised. Sighing I moved back to him so he could lead again before I spun and dropped back as gracefully as I could handle at this point, keeping my back as straight as I could before spinning myself back up with Brent’s help.

“Much better.” He complimented, letting me take a step back and try to keep the world from beginning to spin.

“Lucinda you wouldn’t step on Ty’s feet if you stopped watching me.” I turned to see Frankie pull away from Coby to glare at us all. “I’m not going to fall apart because my twat of a boyfriend dumped me so please get back to practicing.” I shard a side look with Kate who just shrugged and moved to grab a drink bottle. Jacque sighed and scrubbed a hand over her forehead before calling us all back to her.

“You girls need to be practicing more, Simon wants this routine down pat within a week and I haven’t even brought in your other dances yet so I’ve talked to Jen and you’re going to be here every day this week practicing. She’s already put it in your schedules so go check with her. It needs to be tighter.” We all nodded at Jacque as she turned and mumbled more things under her breath.

“Don’t worry, she’s always like that before a deadline, thinks we won’t make it and we always do.” Jase cut in over our panicked looks with each other. “You girls are doing great, we can run through the chorus one more time if you’s would like?”

Katie was the first to jump up and join Jase on the floor, she was the one that panicked most about something running late or not being perfect. I stepped up next to Brent at the front of the floor and faced the mirrors, letting Brent rest his hand on the furthest hip from him.

Jase counted us in and I turned immediately into Brent’s arms, his hands directing me gently through my hips before dropping and grabbing my arm while I spun down and under his arm, letting my head fall back so my hair skimmed the floor just like we practiced before letting Brent spin me back up so I could push out his arms.

He continued to move towards me while I moved back along to the lines “Coz if I don’t get out now I might never escape, your power is fading away.”. Brent lurched forward and I pushed past gently knocking him on his back so he went sprawling to the ground, out of the corner of my eyes I could vaguely see the other four boys land in messy heaps on the ground.

“That was great. The spins really synced up this time.” Jase jumped up, clapping and leading all the other boys in to do the same. I laughed and faked bowed at Brent when the door to the dance studio opened.

Jen strolled in, her eyes glued on the Ipad in front of her while she was talking into the phone she held to her ear. We all turned to watch her scowl and shout demands down the phone before hanging up and smiling at us all sweetly. She looked around the space before finally speaking.

“Oh good, Jacque’s finished with you, let’s go.” She turned to head back out the way she came and all five of us girls scrambled to follow after her. We called out quick goodbyes to the guys and Lucinda threw me my water bottle before we piled into the elevator behind Jen. We were all sweaty and tired from dancing for the past three hours but Jen didn’t mention it. She continued to tap away on her Ipad until we hit her floor and she led us through to her office.

“You all should know as of 26 minutes ago Forever Is Over reached number one in Australia.” My mouth fell open and someone screeched in my ear before I was pulled into a bone-crushing hug with the other four girls. Our hair sweat-slick and dirty sticking to each of us but I found, while being amongst the four other hot and sweaty bodies, that I didn’t care.

We pulled back when Jen grabbed our attention again and I fell back onto her couch, sighing at the pressure off my feet.

“Next up you guys are meeting with Leanna, Derek and Tony to go through your vocals for your next song WordShaker.” I shared a quick grin with Gracie that had been both of our favourite songs out of everything we had written so far with the songwriting team. “But first there is food waiting for you all in the fifth conference room, I had ordered for you all knowing that you wouldn’t have enough time to get anything else. Then after that you have a meeting with wardrobe so they can go through your sizes for your outfits in the music video and then you should be able to go home.” Jen rattled off and I hoped to God that there was coffee amongst the food that Jen had ordered for us.

She finally dismissed us and if my feet weren’t already crying from dancing all morning I probably would have ran down the stairs to the conference room that was waiting for us. But instead we all traipsed into the elevators and stood patiently, idle conversation until we walked into the conference room and saw the table laden with sandwiches and fruit. Juice and coffee sat on a counter behind the large table. I grabbed a sandwich and headed straight for the coffee maker while the other girls took seats around the table, grabbing handfuls of food.

“You guy’s don’t have to keep an eye on me so much you know?” Frankie broke the hungry silence and I glanced up from the coffee machine to stare at her, surprised. “I’m not going to break, it’s been three days and I’m fine really.” I sighed and Gracie leant over to wrap an arm around Frankie’s chair.

“We’re in this together now Frankie. We’re sisters and you were hurt so we’re looking after you. You just have to accept that.” Lucinda shrugged from across Frankie and I nodded in agreement.

“It’s true. If you want to cry then we’ll crawl into bed with you and watch every chick flick that each of us owns and if you want to fly over there and kick his ass well, - we will probably go with you.” I grinned and grabbed my coffee from the machine then sat down next to Kate. Frankie smiled slightly before shaking her head.

“Ya’ll are nuts, but I love you anyway.” Gracie laughed and placed a large smacking kiss to Frankie’s cheek before Frankie pushed her rolling chair away.

“That was so sweet, I might tear up.” My head snapped to the doorway when I recognised Louis’ voice. He opened the door wider and all five boys piled through.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked, grinning at Louis. I hadn’t seen him at all in the last three days and we had only texted sparingly.

“Heard you girls had food.” Niall responded, falling into a seat and dragging a tray of sandwiches towards his chair. Lucinda reached forward and grabbed as many as she could in her hand, glaring at Niall.

“And apparently hit number one in Australia.” Liam high-fived Frankie when he moved past her to grab a juice from the back table. I grinned up at Louis as he fell into the seat next to me. I leant over to press a quick kiss to his lips and link our hands together. He shot me a surprised look but let me play with his fingers. After finding out that he had initially wanted to ask me to go away with him from Harry and Zayn I didn’t want Louis to think I didn’t like him. I did. I definitely did, I was just too busy.

“And we’re now number two here.” Lucinda grinned, that news we had found out this morning when our song had come on the car radio on the way to the studio.

“You almost beat our record, almost.” Louis pinched his fingers close together and held them up. I rolled my eyes and knocked his hand down.

“Don’t worry we’ll flog your guys record no problem.” I teased him, his eyes narrowed in on me and a smirk crossed his face. I had the feeling that most people on the end of his smirks should probably run scared. But they only made me push back.

“Is that so? Care to make a bet?” He enquired leaning closer into my space. I tried not to smile when I held out my hand to shake.

“What are we betting?” I questioned as Louis eyes shifted from my hand to my face. He opened his mouth to retort what would probably be something dirty and inappropriate in front of our band members when someone knocked on the door and stuck their head through. It was one of the interns I had seen briefly throughout the day, following Jen mostly. She shifted and eyed the room nervously.

“Um Jen said that the girls have to go to their vocal practice now.” She said timidly and Lucinda slapped the back of Harry’s head so he would stop smiling at her. He turned to growl at Lucinda who just shoved a sandwich into his open mouth.

“You freak girls out when you stare at them Styles.” She glared, standing up and grabbing a water bottle and another sandwich. I sighed and looked back at Louis who watched Lucinda and Harry, amused.

“I’ll see you later?” I asked Louis unsure. He turned to me and frowned.

“Sure. Are you here tonight?” He questioned. I shrugged and grabbed a water bottle.

“Jen didn’t give me a time we finished. Just that we have vocal practice and then wardrobe fittings. So I have no clue.” Louis frowned and nodded. “I’ll text you.” I added lamely and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before following the girls out the door.

“Are you okay?” Kate asked. I nodded and fell into step beside her.

“Yeah its’ just –.” I sighed and wrapped my arms around my waist. “It’s just lately I barely see Louis and it’s getting to the point where I just don’t feel like I –.” I paused and Kate nudged my shoulder.

“That you’re even together.” She offered and I nodded in response.

“We barely talk about anything anymore other then this.” I gestured around the building. I couldn’t tell Kate that the worse thing was that sometimes I found myself forgetting that I actually had a boyfriend.