Matilda | Harry Styles

NINETEEN

"Okay," Harry turned to me as soon as we were back in the car. I heard the slamming of car doors behind us, as his security bundled into their own vehicle, but Harry's eyes didn't flicker to follow the sound. He watched me instead, a bright grin overtaking his features. "Our tour continues."

"Where are we going?" I asked him, as he turned the key into the ignition and started the car. He leaned back in the seat, tilting his head back and letting out an almost elated sigh that made my stomach flip. I noticed how as one of his hands grasped the wheel, the other lay upon his own leg, drumming melodically as if searching for a position of its own.

"You'll see," he lazily tilted his head to peer over at me. "It's not far." I noticed the buzz of the city around us had started to pick up, now - more cars on the road, and the pavements more densely populated as the sun was beginning to beam down even brighter upon us. It was a little past ten, as I'd noticed from a large clock positioned on the wall as we'd left the cafe, which had also begun to grow much busier. I wondered if Harry's timings were deliberate - if he'd decided to leave and finish breakfast at a time when most people were arriving to begin it; he'd slipped away with such ease, undetected by anybody in search of a photo, or an autograph from him. I supposed he must have mastered that by now.

I watched out of the window, as Harry smoothly drew backwards, out of his parking space, and headed for the exit back onto the main stretch of road. It was infinitely busier here, already, the streets now unbelievably crowded with cars, barely moving an inch at a time with the standstill traffic that seemed to have appeared whilst we were inside. The pavements were now clad with people, most of them seeming to be a similar age to Harry and I - truthfully, they looked no different to anybody anywhere else; there was an astounding amount of athleisure, but beyond that, the one thing that struck me was the phones. Everybody was on their phone; whilst I'd been peering around like a child fascinated by the sights of the unfamiliar environment around her, nobody here appeared to even look up for the briefest of moments. Even their walks were slow and unamused; unurgent, lazy strolls as they squinted down at their phone screens, or their movements would come to a halt altogether when bringing their phone to their ear to take a call, or to respond to something clearly particularly shocking that the person on the other end of the line had verbalised. Nobody was looking at anybody else, or talking to anybody else, there - nobody appeared to care. I wasn't sure if I envied the apparent nonchalance everybody appeared to possess, or if I resented it.

"Do you really like it here?" I asked Harry, letting my eyes linger on a young girl who just about avoided walking into a lamppost after staring so incessantly at her screen. Harry seemed like so much more than this - it was surprising that away from work, he'd spend time here out of his own enjoyment. It was a busy, tourist-filled and self-centred area - London wasn't much different in that regard, but there was something different in the air, here, that I couldn't quite pinpoint. "In LA?" I glanced back at him to find his lips having twitched into an almost knowing smile, like he'd been watching and catching onto my every thought already.

"There's more to it," he replied, his finger extending briefly to push his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose. "It can be a little intense, but you can learn to love it. If you look in the right places." He paused for a moment, pursing his lips. "It's kind of like, when you're starting in music, if you get to LA and make it as a name here, you're sorted," he said, gesturing with his hand. "It's where the big labels are, all the connections you need to be making, and the people you need to be meeting. It's pretty big in determining if you're gonna make it."

"But, surely you made it here a long time ago?" I furrowed my eyebrows, not quite understanding why he'd remain so focused on the connections he'd undoubtedly already made. "You made your name everywhere, years ago." He paused as if contemplating his response for a moment.