The Reinvention of Harry Styles

Molly fiddled with the chopsticks for a few minutes before giving up and asking Harry for a fork.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just never figured out how to hold them properly.” Molly shrugged.

“Well, for starters you’re doing it all wrong.” He held up his hand with the chopsticks perfectly placed to demonstrate.

Molly studied his finger placement upon the chopsticks and tried to replicate it, unsuccessfully, and accidentally dropped one. “Like this?”

Harry shook his head and laughed. “No, it’s more like… Do you mind?” He hesitated before putting his hand on hers.

“No, go ahead, knock yourself out.” Molly offered her hand out with the chopsticks to Harry.

“I’ll try not to knock myself out with your hand.” Harry laughed, and readjusted her grip. “For starters you need to relax, or you’ll break those chopsticks.”

“Sorry, I guess I’m just nervous.” Molly answered and giggled.

“Nervous to eat sushi?” Harry asked with a cheeky grin.

“No, I’ve eaten sushi plenty of times. Though, I usually have to ask for a fork,” Molly admitted and worked the chopsticks in her hand more successfully.

Harry watched her for a moment as she took her first bite of yellowfin. “Is it because we met less than an hour ago, and I’ve already asked you back to my house for a ‘date’ as you called it?” He shot her a teasing smile.

“I did not say that, you know what I meant, and…” She took another drink of wine. “Yeah, maybe. But we’re here to talk business. Or marketing. PR, whatever.”

“Right,” Harry leaned forward and pushed his plate off to the side. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Well, for starters, you need to communicate with your fans more. The ones who already like you, or what’s left of them. Post a selfie on instagram or say something on twitter not related to your album.” Molly suggested, and grabbed some more sushi.

“Like what? ‘Just got some killer sushi with a buxom babe’?” He grinned and pretended to tweet.

“What? Did you just call me buxom?” Molly laughed.

Harry raised an eyebrow as he ate another piece of sushi. Molly didn’t know how to respond to this, so she kept talking. “So, yes, keeping in touch with fans is always good. I think that could go a long way with salvaging some of your 1D fans.”

Harry nodded as he took this in. “You said you were a fan, that you’d been a fan of One Direction. What made you stop? What changed?”

Molly shrugged and contemplated her empty wine glass before reaching for the bottle to refill it. “I guess I grew up. Though, I always felt like I’d grown up with you guys because I was 16 when I became a fan, and you were only a year or two older…. I don’t know, I guess when you guys broke up, I moved on. I was in college, so I found other things...other boys to...obsess over.”

“Obsess?” Harry raised his eyebrows.

“I mean, I found a real boy to fall in love with.”

“Lucky guy,” Harry said, nearly into his wine glass as he was taking a sip, and Molly couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

She shrugged. “He mysteriously got syphilis after a year of supposedly monogamous dating. Luckily he caught it before it spread.”

“That really sucks.”

“I learned to take boys less seriously after that.” Molly looked back into her wine glass and hoped Harry would change the subject.

“So, besides boys, what else did you study at uni?” He asked.

“Marketing, actually, though I learned to hate it by the time I graduated. That’s why I’m doing freelance writing and random interviews with stars like you.”
“Marketing? So you do actually know what you’re talking about.” Harry smiled. “This might actually work.”

“What?” Molly was feeling the wine tingling the neurons in her brain, mixing up the synapses.

“This. You helping me rework my public image. This might actually work out.” He stared at Molly pensively for a while as she swirled the dregs at the bottom of her wine glass. “Would you like to be my girlfriend?”

The glass slipped out of Molly’s hand and bounced to the table below, but somehow did not break. “What?!?” She stuttered as she picked it up again.

“See, my management has control over many aspects of my career, and in turn, my life. The one thing they do not have a say in is who I date. Who I actually date, not who I’m seen in public with. I can’t exactly hire you to be my personal PR person or assistant, they wouldn’t go for that. So, will you be my,” he held up his hands to indicate air quotes, “‘girlfriend’. It would give you a reason be around me often, voice your opinion, and they couldn’t ask you to leave.”

Molly looked at him carefully and wondered what was in that wine. “You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend around your management, but not publicly?”

Harry nodded. “That’s right.”

“And what exactly would that entail?” Molly inquired, feeling interested in this deal.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, it would be like we were dating, except, not.”

Molly nodded. “Okay, but how much? Where do we draw the line?”

Harry’s face lit up and he snickered. “Oh, no it wouldn’t be like that. Nothing physical.”

Molly giggled and covered her face. “God, no I did not mean that. I meant, like, logistics. Do I live with you? How long have we been together? How did we meet? Stuff like that.”

Harry nodded. “Right, that’s important too. I guess….that depends. Where are you based? Here in LA?”

Molly shook her head. “I’m from Connecticut. I work from home, or wherever I am.”

“So maybe we met in New York, I’m over there pretty often,” Harry suggested.

“Maybe when you were on SNL?” Molly suggested, and Harry agreed.

“That would work out perfectly, because that was about three months ago.” Harry’s eyes lit up and he looked Molly over for a moment. “This could actually work.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“So you’ll do it?” He asked.

“Harry Styles, are you asking me out?” Molly smiled broadly.

“Yes, Molly…. I don’t even know your last name.” He bit his lip and squinted as he tried to remember if she had said her surname or not.

“Molly Annabelle Winthrope. Born April 15th 1995. Graduated Cum Laude with a degree in marketing from the University of New Haven this spring. My favorite colors are aqua marine and tickled pink (it’s a crayon color), and hobbies include baking (and eating) cupcakes, reading fanfiction, and knitting.” Molly smiled. “I feel like I’m on a dating show. Anything else you’ll need to know as my pseudo boyfriend?”

“Cupcakes? I love cupcakes, maybe we can bake some tomorrow when Jeff stops by.” Harry smiled. “We can show off our new 'relationship.' Maybe you surprised me yesterday, at the interview, that’s why I seemed a little off.”

“That’s a good idea. We had been keeping it quiet until we were sure this was a thing, that’s why your management didn’t know about me.” Molly suggested, and Harry nodded. “Do you have icing sugar?”

Startled, Harry shrugged. “I’m not sure, why?”

“If we’re making cupcakes we’ll need some. The rest of the ingredients are pretty basic, like, sugar, butter, flour, eggs… you have that, right? And baking tins?” Molly asked.

“I think we need to do some shopping,” Harry smiled.

Notes

Thank you for reading!