When Harry Met Luna

“David, what’s going on with Rita Ora’s new album?” Janet shot the question over to the head director of Urban/Hip Hop, who sat opposite of me at the main meeting table. Everyone in the room turned to look at David.

“She’s about forty percent done with the album now.” He concluded as he nonchalantly flipped a pencil through his fingers with ease. “Album still untitled, we have about six more songs left to record. From there, we’ll choose maybe three or four of her best ones.”

I sighed and sat back in my black leather chair, finding it more difficult to pay attention to the weekly meeting then usual. It was an early Tuesday morning, meaning our typical Monday meeting was moved to this morning seeing as we had yesterday off for the Bank holiday. There were about thirty-five of us that had to sit in on the meeting regularly and basically conclude where every director of the department stood with their assigned artist or project. Mallory and I always had to sit at the far end of the table and take notes for Janet, so she can have everything on record.

Usually, I found these meeting to be quite interesting and we learned a lot by listening to what went on with each director and their genre of music however, this morning seemed a little dull and more so, tedious. I just couldn’t concentrate on what was being discussed and it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out why.

It was that damn boy, Harry Styles.

I couldn’t get his cute little face and his cute little hairdo out of my mind. Ever since our trip to Holmes Chapel, all of my brain power has been completely devoted and consumed by the idea of kissing him again. I needed it. I craved it. I wanted it as soon as possible.

I was beginning to feet like a drug addict, thinking about how soft his lips were against mine, the way his hands were both demanding and gentle against the nape of my neck when we kissed goodbye yesterday. It was making my body shudder and my skin explode with goosebumps. I was a junkie for his touch.

And I only had four more hours left before I could break sobriety and take a hit of my new drug.

“Before I let you go, I want to point out that the new A and R blog our interns are running, has been getting thousands of hits a week since we started it.” Janet picked up the stack of papers in front of her and shuffled them while she spoke. “Tim from production and I were thinking we’ll start doing weekly videos for the blog. You know, maybe get some band interviews and updates from the interns. How does that sound, girls?”

It took me a second to realize she was addressing Mallory and myself. I made sure to nod along with Mallory. At this point, I didn’t really care what the hell we were agreeing to if it meant it would conclude this meeting quicker.

“Perfect. Tim? Shall we get a crew downstairs with One Direction before noon today?” She looked over at Tim, who was sitting right next to her. He nodded and started rapidly typing on his iPad. “We’ll get Mallory to come up with the questions and Luna to interview them on camera. Sound good? Great. That’s about it, everyone. Meeting is adjourned. Get back to work.”

“Wait. What?” I jumped up, when it finally registered in my brain what Janet was ordering me to do. Everyone around the table started talking amongst each other as they got up from their chairs and began filing out of the meeting room. Janet was already halfway to her office, leaving me behind with a laughing Mallory and a satisfied looking Tim. “No, no, no! I’m not-how did that just-I can’t interview One Direction!”

“Oh this...this is going to be good.” Mallory threw her head back and laughed again as she ripped out a piece of paper from her binder and started scribbling things down. “I already have the perfect questions for you to ask.”

“Alright, ladies. I just confirmed 11:00 am to be a good interview time with the boys down in Studio four.” Tim walked over to us with his iPad at hand. “We’ll have a camera crew down there around 10:45 to set up a good space. Don’t be any later than 10:55!”

“We won’t let ya down, Timmy boy!” Mallory shouted after him with absolute glee.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how I found myself following Mallory and Janet down to the nineteenth floor not an hour later with a look of absolute terror on my face.

This was just my luck.

I make out with a singer in One Direction and my karma was to interview his stupid band for a video that will probably get over a million views on it because one directioners actually exist.

You know, maybe one might think that I was being a little melodramatic about all this. It was nothing major, just another silly task for the every day life intern. Some would consider me lucky for even getting an opportunity like this. Some journalist around the world would probably kill to be in my position right now.

And I get that.

But I just made out with one of the interviewees and this was going to be my first time seeing them since we actually, you know, made out.

Let’s be honest, I didn’t want our first encounter since the kiss to be filmed on camera.

“Why are you so nervous, Luna?” Janet gave me a weird look when the three of us got into the elevator. The doors binged shut prior to the elevator lurching downwards. “You’re acting like you’ve never been around a celebrity or popular band before.”

My face turned even redder and my heart rate started to quicken. I felt like I was going to throw up.

“Yeah it’s so weird, right?” Mallory agreed with Janet with a huge smirk. “It’s like she has some weird closet fangirl crush on One Direction or something.”

I glared at Mallory, now regretting that I told her about what happened between me and Harry over the weekend. Naturally, she freaked out and screamed and clapped her hands and declared she was right about us the whole time. I could tell she was 100% ready to enjoy how uncomfortable the next hour was going to be for me.

I made sure to stay behind Mallory and Janet when we started walking towards studio #4. When we drew closer to the door that led into the studio, I could hear a lot of bustling and the boys laughing loudly.

My nerves were officially shot.

Janet walked in first, followed by Mallory and then me.

Just when I entered the room, Mallory excitedly greeted the boys with her usual loud voice. “‘Ello boys! It’s been awfully too long since we last saw yeh!”

Zayn, Louis, Liam, Harry, and Niall were all lined up on five stools, with a sixth empty stool on the far end. Tim’s camera crew were already set up, having two cameras set up from two different angles and three tall lights shining brightly on One Direction.

When Harry spotted me behind Janet and Mallory, he immediately stood up and smiled.

I wanted to die. Please God, let me die.

“Well hello there!” Louis greeted us with the same amount of excitement as Mallory did. “What are you girlies doing here?”

“They’re actually doing this for the A and R blog.” Janet answered for us. “We’ll have Luna, our other intern, interviewing you for the video.”

Everyone turned to look at me. And thats when I knew, right then and there, that everyone was thinking the exact same thing I was.

“This is about to get so interesting.” Liam spoke first, now turning to a grinning Harry.

The rest of the band, sans Harry, started hollering at both me and Harry with the “Oh ho ho’s” and the “Go on’s”. My face turned red in seconds.

“I’m sorry, but am I missing something here?” Janet turned to look at me and then back at One Direction. I was mortified.

“Not that I know of, ma’am!” Niall answered her. He then turned to Harry. “Oi, Harry. Want to switch seats? Might be a bit easier for yeh to sit next to our interviewer.”

“I’m going to kill all of you.” I finally spoke, now walking towards the empty stool by the band in a huff. It was clear to me that Harry told everyone about yesterday, leading me to believe that I was most certainly going to strangle him the minute we turn off those cameras.

“You didn’t tell me you were interviewing us today.” Harry leaned over and spoke in a hushed voice as I adjusted myself onto the cold hard stool.

“I found out less than two hours ago.” I replied, casually push back my hair behind my shoulder. “Forced against my own will, mind you.”

He merely grinned in response.

“Alright, I think we’re ready to do this.” Tim’s head poked up from behind camera one. The younger man next to him carefully lifted up that microphone with the fuzzy part hovering right above our heads. Niall jokingly tried to reach out and catch it. Liam laughed and shoved Niall in the ribs with his elbow. “Right, Luna. What I want you to do is introduce yourself and then ask the guys to introduce themselves too. From there, you’ll mention briefly you’re starting a new series of interviews with Columbia Records artists, blah blah blah, then go into your interview questions. Do you have them with you?”

“I don’t-”

“Here!!” Mallory shot up her right arm, holding a small stack of notecards. She grinned at Tim before walking over to me and handing me the cards with a wink.

I took a deep breathe before Tim signaled with his hand that we would start filming after three seconds. I tried to stay composed and professional while also ignoring Harry’s evil smirk. The quicker we got this over with, the quicker I get to leave this stupid room and hide in my little corner back at the A and R office.

Everything was going the way it was planned in the beginning. I introduced myself to the cameras, I said everything Tim wanted me to say and then I asked the boys to introduce themselves before going on with the questions. So far, the band was behaving and my voice wasn’t quivering like it usually did when I got nervous - thankfully, my professor from speech class taught us how to hide the nervous quiver in our voices when we would present our ten minute long speeches in class. God bless that man.

When we moved on to the questions, I tried my hardest not to look straight at Harry and focused more on Zayn and Liam when someone was speaking. Harry didn’t take his eyes off me once and I knew that if I gazed back at him, I would founder. All successful confidence as an interviewer will backfire and I’ll start stuttering if I shared one look with him.

The questions that Mallory came up with were actually simple and not at all terrifying as I originally expected them to be. I asked questions like “What does the new album sound like?” or “What’s the main inspiration behind the tunes?”. When they started answering the questions truthfully, I could feel myself start to relax. This wasn’t so bad after all. It was actually kinda fun.

Of course, I thought too soon.

The next question I had seemed innocent at first and I didn’t think anything of it until after I was met with five smirking faces.

“Our favorite food?” Niall repeated the question and I nodded strangely, wondering what it was that was so funny about the question. I was about to say mine was greasy Dominos pizza when Niall decided to nudge Harry in the side. “Why don’t you answer this one, mate? We can’t be hoggin’ up all the answers.”

My face dropped. Now I know why they were all smirking.

“I quite like brownies.” Harry let out a low chuckle through his words while he casually slide his index finger across his lower lip. I had to refrain myself from staring at his mouth by clearing my throat and raising my glance at his now twinkling eyes. He slightly swiveled his legs in my direction, just vaguely touching the tip of my knees with his. I wanted to pass out. “Ye know, just chocolate in general.”

“What kinda chocolate, Harry?” Louis egged him on. “I’m curious now. Do you have a specific type of chocolate you like?”

I narrowed my eyes at Louis. Zayn laughed behind him.

“I like...” Harry continued to play with his lips while he thought about it. “Hershey’s chocolate. That’s a great chocolate brand.”

“How about Hershey’s chocolate kisses?” Liam offered to Harry and then grinned over at me.

“Yes, Liam!” Harry turned around and wagged his finger at him, nodding and laughing along with him. “I love chocolate kisses. Those are the best kind of kisses.”

I almost fell off my stool.

Like. I actually almost fell off my stool.

“What about you, Luna?” Louis asked me. “Do you have a favorite food?”

You know, it almost makes me laugh that they don’t think I’m going to fight them back at their little stupid game. When push comes to shove, I’m always ready with my game face on and secure.

“You know, I was thinking about my favorite food while you sissys went on about boring chocolate.” I started, sitting tall and ignoring the five pair of mischief grins next to me. “I think my favorite food is deep fried testicles.”

I heard Janet gasp drastically behind the camera.

“More specifically, bull testicles. See, in America, what they do is they chop the testicles off a bull, they skin them and then they slice them into itty-bitty 3 mm pieces.” I motioned with my hands how to pulverize a pair of testicles. Zayn’s Adam’s apple bobbed with fright. “Then you bread it and deep fry those suckers until they’re just right. Typically, one has them with a cocktail sauce too.”

I was met with silence.

Luna: one. One Direction: zero.

I shrugged apathetically while I switched to the next card. “Or, you know, Hawaiian pizza is nice too. Love Hawaiian pizza.”