FicWad

Being woken at seven am by someone pounding on your front door is never ideal. In fact, it makes you panic. It’s rather strenuous to panic the second you open your eyes in the morning. It’s also really annoying that you have to get up, find something decent to open the door in and actually drag yourself out of your bedroom and down the hall. Trust me. I’ve been there.

So, as you may have guessed when I woke up to my door being knocked on really rather loudly, I was anything but happy. Groaning into my pillow, I began to shuffle in an attempt to get myself up as thoughts went through my head as to what selfish brat would knock on my door at this time in the morning. Of course the emergency possibilities were only in my head for a brief moment because thoughts of my brother, only just getting home and having forgotten his keys seemed much more probable. I sat on the edge of my bed staring at my closed wardrobe thinking what would be at grabbing distance if I only opened one door. I figured any hoodie would do. I moaned again as I pulled myself up onto my feet, falling forward and supporting myself with a hand tactfully placed on my wardrobe, ready to open it instantly. I stomped out my room pulling on an oversized black hoodie and zipping it up just past my bra, walking straight down the hall to my apartment door, quickly flattening my hair with my hands. I fumbled with the many locks before ripping the door open, half anxious, half enraged.

Seeing the figure of two men with dark hair, I instantly assumed my brother and a friend in my sleep deprived state.

“Mike! For fucks sake! You have a key, idiot! Fucking take it!” I shouted, turning on my heels and starting to walk back to my bedroom.

“Um, hey. Your manager called our manager...” Said a voice I knew oh, so well…not from first hand experience. Fireworks began to explode in my head; had my idiot brother actually done something right here?

“See we needed a female voice to work with on our new single and he said you’d be interested. When we heard you were in Liverpool… well we couldn’t really say no for a chance to see this place again. As a band we’ve been pretty inspired by The Beatles…” The voice trailed on. I’d had to lean against the wall for support. I was too scared to look back, if this was real I honestly don’t know what I’d do with myself.

Ages ago, my brother, who owns a management business, caught wind of some collaborations I could do to break me into the industry. I just told him to send a demo to all of them, even when he asked if I wanted to see who was available and choose for myself. I had no idea one of them would be these guys.

“We heard you singing one of our songs on your demo and though you’d be perfect for it…”

Oh my god. They heard? They heard! That’s just… shameful. If the world can swallow me now, please do. I can’t believe it. It must have been like when teachers get 7 year olds to repaint a Picasso and humour them by telling them it’s brilliant.

“We’re staying in some hotel but to be totally honest we have no idea where it is. We know it’s pretty early but we wanted to meet you and stuff so we got dropped off here, I hope that’s okay.” The voice came to a stop. To tell the truth, so did my beating heart for a moment. This was insane. Actually – no. I looked insane. Stood with my back to them wearing nothing but a rather large hoodie in the middle of my hall. Then it occurred to me I didn’t actually know who was here. Maybe it was time to turn around. I let go of the wall and turned round VERY slowly. I must have looked like such an idiot. I turned to face them, mouth a little open in surprise and eyes wide.

“Hi,” I managed. Brendon Urie, yes, Brendon fucking Urie, giggled at me.

“Hi!” He spoke mockingly. A grin came across my face. Next to him was a suitcase and a very tired looking Spencer Smith, carrying a hold-all on his shoulder. I took a deep breath.

“Erm… come in! Please, come in. Sorry, I’m not wearing much. I er, I didn’t really expect company at seven in the morning. I didn’t expect this at all actually,” I said quickly, avoiding eye contact and rushing towards the door to open it father and attempt to pick up Brendon’s suitcase. It was rather heavy.

“Don’t be silly, I got it,” He smiled. Again. I honestly didn’t know how much longer I could hold the fangirl in. He pushed my hands off the suitcase and picked it up effortlessly. Spencer lead in, grinning at me.

“Hey,” He said quietly. I smiled back. Brendon followed in.

“Straight down the hall, door facing us. Make yourselves at home, I’m just going to get some actual clothes on.”

“Okay, thank you,” Spencer said making his way into my living room.

Me and my older brother had lived together in this penthouse apartment for about three years now, since he started earning serious money. It was pretty big, spread over two floors. Of course, he gets the whole top floor. I get my own bedroom, but it’s the biggest in the place so I’m not complaining. The rest of the bottom floor has all the basics; kitchen, living room, bathroom but we had one room converted into a recording studio for some of his clients and myself to use and we have a media room since we’re both huge movie geeks. See we call it a media room but it’s just a room with a big TV, a tonne of DVD’s and a comfy sofa. A typical home in the middle of one of England’s greatest City centres.

When I’d washed, straightened my shoulder length ginger hair, slapped on some makeup and changed into a pair of skinny jeans, a vest top and my favourite purple hoodie, I joined them in the living room. The overall shock factor had gone now; I was just waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out with his camera crew.

Brendon and Spencer were sat rather awkwardly on opposite ends of our red sofa, their bags to one side of it. They looked up as me as I walked in and gave me awkward smiles. I awkwardly sat down across from them on a matching futon.
I asked them “Can I get you guys a drink? Coffee? Tea? Maybe some breakfast?” To which both asked for coffee and said they’d eaten in the airport. I smiled again, and got up to go to my kitchen, leaving them to their conversation about how cool it was that Liverpool airport was named after John Lennon.

In my kitchen, I was immensely grateful that the buzzing from my coffee pot was drowning out my thoughts. I fumbled in my pocket for my phone, speed dialling my brother. It rang the maximum amount of times before his rough voice greeted me.

“Hello?”

“You sent my demo to Panic! At The Disco without telling me?”

“Oh hi Chloe. Yeah, how’d you find out? Is there a problem? Oh my god, are they actually hiring you?”

“Mike, where the fuck are you?”

“In bed, Why?”

“Get your fucking arse down here, RIGHT now. Be wearing clothes, don’t look dead. Coffee’s on.” I tried not to sound too infuriated before slamming my thumb onto the end call button. Realising I didn’t know how the two boys sat in my living room took their coffee, I took the whole pot in with four mugs, a jug of milk and some sugar on a tray. It was so ridiculously hard to think about trivial things like milk and sugar while I had Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith under the same roof as me.

Walking back to the living room I ran into my Brother on the bottom of the stairs. He looked me up and down.

“You’re dressed… you’ve got makeup on and everything… it’s like seven thirty…” I watched him put pieces together in his head, “one, two, three, fou… four mugs? There’s only two of us. Is someone here?”

“No shit, Sherlock,”

I watched his eyes widen. “It’s not.” He said from behind the hand he’d clasped over his mouth.

“It is,” I said before pushing past him to get back into the living room. They were in deep conversation about…something. I don’t know. I was having a hot flash and my head was spinning, all at the same time as my heart beating in my throat and my knees feeling rather weak. Mike followed me in and I heard his whisper of “oh my fuck” as his expectations were confirmed. My charming brother, ladies and gentleman.

“Hi,” Mike said to them as I placed the tray on the coffee table. They greeted him back and leaned forward to grab a mug. Mike sat on the armchair and I resumed my place on the futon. “I’m the guy you spoke to on the phone. I’m Chloe’s manager.”

“Oh, right. She seems pretty clueless about all of this,” Brendon chuckled.
“That’s because she is,” Mike laughed back, “I never actually told her I’d sent her demo to you guys,” He finished.

“Oh, right. Are you even interested?” Spencer asked me.

“What? Yes! Yes, of course I am! I’m sorry, it was just a major surprise you turning up at my door, that’s all,” I gave a nervous laugh. Wow, this was real.

“Okay, great. We were really happy to find a voice like yours, it’s just what we imagined on the record,” Spencer explained. I smiled at the both of them in return, reaching for the coffee myself now the other three had finished pouring their own.

“We’re really sorry to have turned up so early and dragged you both out of bed,” Brendon apologized. Me and Mike both shook our heads even though we both had pounding headaches from waking up at that time. To be honest, we were more used to going to bed at that time. “We were really excited to see who we’d be working with, that’s all. Also, we have no idea where we’re actually staying, we were hoping you’d be able to show us round? Y’know, get us all settled in and used to each other. Nothing like a bit of bonding for future co-workers,” Brendon said, winking at me while his famous grin was plastered across his beautiful face. I nodded, more in agreement with his perfection than with whatever he’d just said to me. I honestly had no idea.

“We have a recording studio if you guys wanted to get anything laid down in there, it’s got everything you could need. I have all my guitars upstairs, my own custom kit too if you’d rather use that and Chloe has a couple of her own basses,” Mike bragged.

“I noticed your baby grand when we came in before, it’s beautiful,” Brendon said. He glanced back towards the floor-to-ceiling window in the corner which had our white piano in front of it. It had the logo of my brothers business on the lid in black gloss, I’m still not sure exactly what it’s supposed to be but it’s nice to look at.

“Feel free to dabble with any instruments you find in this place, we honestly don’t mind, do we Chloe?” Mike leaned over to push my knee and wake me from my daydream about how this was actually a dream and I’ll wake up if I try to fall asleep in the dream. I looked at him. I decided I’d just nod. Spencer and Brendon smiled at me. Thank god it was the right movement. Mike face palmed at my stupidity.

“So how about breakfast and then we’ll take you around all the basic staples of Liverpool and then find your hotel? And then we can meet up again later for dinner?” I suggested.

“Sounds great,” Spencer said, Brendon nodded.

“Good plan sis. I’m going to cook…something, you entertain the nice people. And kid, try to act like a human being,” He said hopefully, before walking out and leaving me to my idols. They looked at me expectantly.

“So…erm…what’s the song about?”