After the End: Book 4

10. What He Knows Already

I have been rereading my own writing quite a bit this week for continuity reference and like why didn't y'all tell me how shit I am at editing??? I'd like to apologize to you, the Wattpad community as a whole, Harry Styles himself and God for my transgressions in grammar, spelling and basic conventions lmao
_______________

Louis POV

Melvin was staring at me quietly for longer than I was comfortable with. He'd already sent Becca out of the room, which wasn't a good sign for me, but since the heavy door had closed behind her, he'd not actually moved to talk. He just stared at me.

The meeting itself had gone well, so I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to be expecting. When it was the three of us, I'd given a synopsis of our plans and accomplishments from the week. There'd been setbacks obviously, but nothing was falling apart  irreparably. We had a solid plan going forward after meeting with the marketing team. I had some phone calls to make to schedule things for the launch, and we still needed to replace Amelia. I felt positive about it all. I just kept coming back to that optimism.

While Becca and I had talked, Melvin had nodded along and asked follow up questions that had given me the impression that he wasn't too upset with my chaotic planning, but then we'd finished. He confirmed that we were at the end of our check in, then he'd looked at Becca and asked her to step out. She and I had shared a rather frantic look, but she complied to rise and walk out, and I found myself alone with Melvin staring at me.

After several minutes, Melvin straightened up in his chair and sighed. "Louis, I want to be clear about something," he started in the same voice he'd used the day he tried to fire me. I swallowed hard. "If anyone else had given me near the level of blatant disrespect and chaos that you and Styles bring to this label, I would have fired them ages ago."

"You tried to fire me," I reminded him rather dumbly. He silenced me with a wave of his hand. He didn't look amused at all.

"I still think about," he warned. "I think about it almost every day. I'm sure you know why."

I had a few ideas, but his face told me he didn't want me to enlighten him to them at all.

"You are unreliable," Melvin said very seriously. "You're a terrible communicator. You don't respond to emails. Your ego is otherworldly. You can't stick to a plan to save your life. You're more interested in appeasing Styles than you are in getting actual results and everybody that works with you either worships you, or hates you. The only common denominator is that they all think you've absolutely gone mad."

He didn't even sound angry. His expression surely wasn't angry. He was just talking at me.

"So, why don't you cut me loose?" I asked pointedly.

I was working hard to muster something that didn't sound tired. I remembered a time back when I'd been terrified to be under Melvins microscope. Even just months prior when I'd showed up with Harry for the first time expecting to be fired, I'd feared what he might say to me. Now, I had quite a bit of undue confidence and it was exactly what he was criticizing me for. It didn't waver.

At my question, Melvin couldn't hide his smirk. "Harry's preorders have been open since Saturday night," he informed me. "It's been four days and all four days have broken records for preorders with this label and he hasn't even shown his face since that mess of a performance. You have the lowest spending of any of my talent managers and you haven't even bothered to hire yourself an assistant or any staff, but Harry is going to outsell everyone anyways."

"I'm allowed to hire an assistant?" I asked with raised eyebrows. My brain had blazed right past the first part. When it registered, I couldn't help the smile that had played onto my lips. Were we really doing that well? I'd been so overwhelmed, I hadn't even checked.