All Hidden Away

“Tasha? Come on, it’s time to get up…” Harry says shaking my shoulder lightly. I open my eyes and grab my phone from the bedside table which tells me it’s just after six o’clock. I look at Harry.
“Why so early?” I ask with my gruff morning voice. “I thought the meeting was at nine?”
“Yeah, but I thought you probably wanted to go out for a run before then…” he mumbles looking down. I sit up slowly and rub my hands over my eyes before getting out of bed altogether.
“I do.” I smile at him as he gets up to leave me to get dressed. He got to the door. Turned round and quickly pulled my into a big hug.
“Thank you for last night.” I mumble into the hug.
“Anytime.” He kisses the top of my head and leaves me to get changed into running clothes and my shoes. I tie my hair into a high pony and grab my phone and earphones. I get down to the kitchen and I am surprised to see both Harry, and Louis are standing with Liam making coffee.
“alright luv?’ asks Louis when he sees me. I nod and smile at him as I plug in my earphones and leave the house for my run. Throne by Bring Me The Horizon comes on and I can feel the beat echo in every step I take. I love that familiar burn in my muscles as I turn down the small narrow streets. I turn round and head back home slowly after the small burn touches my chest and nose caused by deep breathing in the chilling morning air. I open the door breathlessly and go to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea. I realise I still have my earphones in when someone taps me on the shoulder. I quickly pull them out and turn to see Niall with a smile on his face. He pulls me into a big brother-like hug. I thank him like I did Harry last night.
“We are always here for you, you know that.” He says holding me at arm’s length. I grab my cup of tea and go join everyone sitting talking. Even stu and Jared are awake and it’s not even eight yet. At half past seven mum walks in in her dressing gown, greeting good morning to everyone. She comes over and gives me a big hug.
“are you okay sweet- pea?” she looks at me with concerned eyes. I nod my head and smile. We all sit around for a bit longer just making jokes and having fun. At quarter to eight I go and jump in a shower and start getting dressed. I pull on my black soft fabric shorts and a purple soft flowing blouse with a semi-open back. I pull on my white sandals and apply a bit of makeup. I leave my hair to air dry knowing it will become its normal wavy self. Once im done I walk down stairs to here very formal voices talking. I check the time. Half past eight. I walk into the living room and see the guys facing Simon. I freeze and wait to be told what to do. Harry’s face is resting on his hand which in turn is resting on his knee. He makes eye contact with me and raises his head with a smile, stands and walks over to me.
“They not here yet, but on their way. Simon, you guys know each other,” I wave awkwardly at Simon who has always scared me. He smiles and waves back and sit down between Harry and Liam. Niall is seated next to Liam and Louis next to him. I frown automatically at the thought of were mum, Jared and Stu are.
“They went out to get coffee, will be back just before nine.” Says Liam picking up on my confusion. I nod and smile at him gratefully.
“um… I don’t want to be rude, but if the meeting doesn’t start till a bit later can I go sit outside for a bit?” I ask looking Simon, feeling like a school girl asking to go to the bathroom. Harry answers for them, taking control as the protective brother.
“Sure, I’ll call you when they get here.” he places his big hand on the small of my back. Louis stands with me and walks me outside.

“You sure you okay?” he says with a sympathetic look on his face. I nod and sit down on the grass under the big oak tree.
“Im fine… just needing to get-” I gestured to back inside the house “that over with.” He laughed. And took a seat next to me.
“Yip…” he says popping the p. “I know what you mean.”
“How long did you guys stay up last night after…”I trail off knowing he knows what im referring to.
“Just long enough to make sure you were okay.” I look at him. “And no- don’t you dare say sorry!” he says anger quickly flashing through his eyes. I look down trying to hide a smile.
“Where do you go?” he asks suddenly catching me by surprise.
“What do you mean?” I ask looking back at him. His eyes are as blue as ever and his hair falls slightly into them.
“when you go running. I sometimes miss just being able to go out, you know?” he looks at me and I feel like I need to comfort this person who is often more like my brother than Harry, but I don’t know how.
“just, where ever… I turn around to come back home when I start feeling tired, so like today my run wasn’t that long, but the one time Stu ended up calling me because I was out running for three hours and he started to get concerned. I don’t know Lou… I just, run.” I say shrugging my shoulders.
“maybe when we all staying together, we could go for a run together, yeah?” he asks like it’s no big deal but I can hear the plea in his voice. “I fucking hate running on a treadmill…” we both start laughing and Harry comes over looking grim.
“They here early and demanding we start.” He looks at the ground and I can tell he is also anxious about this meeting. Lou goes over to him and places a hand on his shoulder and comforts him. They both look at me and I stand up wiping grass off my bum.
“let’s do this.” I say with a smile as I walk in front of them back into the house.

“There she is! Hello Darling, how are you?” says Claire. The Modest! worker who is in charge of the contract I signed. I walk over to say hello and she pulls me into a hug and kisses my cheeks. She holds me a bit longer and subtly whispers in my ears. “Behave.” She is so saccharine dripping with her overly sweet perfume. Her hair is perfectly in place. Not a blond hair out other than in the tight bun on top of her head. Her eyes are exaggerated with make up to give her a slight slant eye appearance. She’s wearing her standard black mini and a white button up shirt.
“Im fine thank you.” I say sweetly as I take my seat from earlier.
“Great, well we don’t want to dilly dawdle, let’s get to it boys… and Tasha.” She says my name like it’s an afterthought and I mentally roll my eyes at her.
“First off, we’d like to discuss some living arrangements for the next month. You will all be staying at Harry’s, correct?” we all nod our heads in response. “right well… there are a couple of problems my team and I have picked up-” my heart drops. I knew it. I knew it would be too good to be true. Simon cuts across my thoughts with a stern look and his simple.
“No there are not… we’ve already sorted out everything. There aren’t any issues, Claire.” I loved him so much in that moment, but I was also reminded why he was the disliked judge on XFactor.
“But sir-” she looked appalled.
“No! No buts. It’s final and has been for about two weeks now. Next point please.” I literally had to stop myself from running up to him and hugging him in that moment. I smiled and Claire glared at me. I felt Harry and Liam stifle laughter, and Louis smirk proudly and was glad that they could contain themselves.
“Okay… well we have been given some feedback from-” she stopped as the door opened and mum came walking in.
“Hello everyone, I didn’t think we were starting for another ten minutes. Hello Si, how are you?” she ignored Claire but sent me a look asking if I was okay. I nodded and smiled as she had a brief catch up with Simon. Harry placed his hand on my knee and gave it a quick squeeze before leaning back and whispering to Louis to discuss some game score that was on at the moment, typical boys…
“Right well, call me if you need me.” She says smiling as she walked upstairs. I presumed the boys stayed out while the meeting was going on.
“as I was saying, we have recently been given some feedback from the fans and… well, you guys need a girlfriend or fling or something. I mean you are all single and have been for a while. We aren’t going into too much detail today, but there was something someone thought of that could work…”
“I’m not getting back together with Eleanor.” Says Louis simply shaking his head and looking at Simon.
“And we don’t expect you too, but-” started Claire.
“Hold on just a second… what has any of this got to do with my sister being here?” asks Harry suddenly rubbing his face with his hands.
“Well you see someone suggested that because she’d be living with you, but still chooses to not come out as your sister-” she looked to me for confirmation. I stared back unsure of where this was going. “and Niall, Louis and Liam haven’t had girlfriends in forever… so someone suggested that they one of them posed to have a fake relationship just for the month she was living with you.” She said the last part so quickly I thought I heard her wrong. The room was so silent you could even hear an ant fart.
“Sorry? Say that again?” I said suddenly waiting for confirmation.
“Someone suggested that you and let’s say, Niall have a fake relationship just for the month.” I stare at her with my mouth hanging open. I look at Simon who is sitting there with a straight face looking sombre.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” screams Harry.
“Well you see it would mean-” she looked taken back by his language. I was still sitting there staring.
“I don’t give a flying rats arse what it would mean! You can’t just use her or us like that!” he screams back. I see Liam and Lou are fuming. Lou looks like he is about to punch someone and Liam is just sitting in his seat, mouth open but too well trained to say anything.
“That’s fucking ridiculous! She’s like my sister!” says Niall angrily. Simon steps in before things can go any further. And I hear mum come down stairs.
“Boys, Tasha, Anne… I hate to do this. But while she and you are under our contract, she doesn’t have much choice. And it’s safer for the little secret issue….She just gets to choose between Louis, Liam and Niall.” He looks angry that he has to put us in this situation. I stand to get up and leave, but Harry pulls my hand and makes me sit back down. Mum looks confused and speaks up.
“What’s going on?”
“They say Tasha signed somewhere in her contract to be used as a fake girlfriend for us lonely boys…” says Louis being his true sassy self.
“I never signed a stupid contract saying anything about being forced to date anyone.” I say as calmly as I can.
“It’s right here.” Says Claire handing me a document. Mum looked shocked.
“where? I read this thing so many times I know it inside and out.” I say to no one in particular. I open the document and turn to a highlighted page.
“Read it out loud.” She says, sounding way too smug for my liking.
“By signing this, I, Natasha Louis Styles agree to always do anything required of me to benefit the image of One Direction and ….” I trail off. I remember reading this and signing this part without a second thought. I mean of course I would do anything to help them… I just didn’t think they meant like this.
“You see, you are obliged to-” I walk straight past her shoving the papers into her chest forcefully, and head outside. I didn’t really make it much further than the park behind our house before the tears clouded my eyes and my body was shaking. I slid down the side of a tree trunk scraping my back but I ignored the pain and sat on the ground and started crying.

Notes