He's So Fine [Beatles / George Harrison FanFiction]

Chapter Eleven: 4th September 1962

It wasn't as if he could say he was just nipping out, so instead George waited for the rehearsals to finish and slipped out when no one was looking. The record company was taking them to dinner shortly, but he'd only be a few minutes. It was raining outside. He paused to light a cigarette in the porch doorway of EMI studios reception, then half-walked, half-jogged through the carpark, over the zebra crossing and down the long road to the cafe that stood opposite the tube station.

They'd flown to London this morning from Liverpool. A small luxury and extra insurance after the travel problems they'd had at the start of the year when the country was covered in all that snow. They'd arrived at just after lunchtime, checked into the hotel and then headed straight over to EMI for a supervised rehearsal ahead of tonight's recording.

It was their second recording session, but the first that felt real. The first with Ringo on drums, the first with all of them together, and it was going to produce their first single. Hopefully not their last. Hopefully one of their own compositions too, although, not if the record company got their way.

They'd given them an acetate of a song they wanted them to record the last time they were here. Some bouncy, sugary pop song. They'd hated it immediately, but had obediently learned it and attempted to rearrange it to appease their new producer. Still, they didn't want to go back to Liverpool with someone else's song and not that song. It would feel like a failure. A defeat.

Della was early, like he knew she would be. She would have come here straight after work, even though she wasn't meeting him until six. She stood outside the cafe, head turned away and nervously shifting her weight from one foot to another as she twirled a large black umbrella on her shoulder. As he crossed the road towards her, she turned her back without seeing him, passing the umbrella from one shoulder to the other.

'Hi,' he said behind her and Della swung round, making him duck out of the path of the large, brutal spike on the top of her umbrella. 'Hey, watch what you're doing with that brolly,' he warned. 'You'll have my other eye.'

Della stared at him. 'What are you doing here?'

'Nice to see you too,' George replied, sardonically, grinning anyway.