Coffee and Love

Sudden Fame

My hair fell into my face as I bent over the soundboard. I impatiently batted it away, extremely frustrated at the amount of buttons blinking in front of me. Even with labels this machine was confusing and now I was expected to help run sounds for the afternoon’s radio shows.

“You look lost.” A girl about my age said.

“Just a lot.” I groaned. “It’s my first day on machines.”

She nodded, her short blonde hair bouncing. “Well, I’ll make sure not to laugh at you too much then.” She grinned. “I’m Brianna, one of the hosts of Hot Mess.”

“I’m Nikki, the new intern. Hot Mess…that’s our first afternoon show, right?” I clarified.

“Yeah, see you’re doing better than most interns. They just kind of stare at me.” Brianna shrugged. “You’re American. What are you doing working for BBC? It’s the British Broadcasting Corporation.” Her green eyes stared at me as I just kind of stood there, not sure how to answer. No one else around here had ever questioned why I, an American, was given this job.

I looked back down at the sound board “Well, I have a YouTube channel that’s popular in the US and kind of popular in the UK and…I don’t know, I applied and got the job?”

“What’s your channel?” Brianna asked.

“4girls1camera. I run it with my friends.” I cautiously tried out a sound effect, jumping as the volume was much too loud in my headset.

“Wait, I knew I recognized you. You guys just did a video with Dan and Phil.” Brianna said. “He released it a couple of hours ago.”

“Did he? I haven’t gone on the internet today, I’ve been learning equipment.” I shrugged. “Did you like it? We were a mess after that video.”

“Yeah, you’re hilarious. I subscribed to you because of it. You should really check your subscription numbers.” Brianna turned her phone towards me.

“Five thousand subscribers?!” I shouted, quickly covering my mouth to keep from screaming in excitement. “We only had a thousand the other day.”

“Uh, you did a video with Dan and Phil, what did you think was going to happen?” Brianna laughed. “This is adorable, did you not realize you’d become popular?” I shook my head and she continued laughing. “So, are the rumors true?”

“What rumors?” I asked.

“That you’re dating Phil. The phandom is like in tears over it.” Brianna looked at me expectantly and I just went back to the soundboard.

“We’re not dating.” Phil said from the doorway. “Little Intern and I are completely platonic.” I was glad my hair covered my face so Brianna couldn’t see my smile at how false Phil’s words were. “My fans would probably tear apart any girl I dated, and I wouldn’t want that to happen. Especially not to our Little Intern.”

“You know her name is Nikki, right?” Brianna chided Phil.

“Thank you, Brianna. I keep telling him that.” Dan rolled his eyes.

“Right, so you’re dating her and don’t want the fans to know because you’re afraid they’ll kill her?” Brianna said and the room dropped to instant silence. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“How the bloody hell did you just figure that one out?” Dan asked, glancing at Phil.

“I read people like they’re books.” She shrugged “And Phil’s a terrible liar, let’s be honest.”

“So the fans think we’re together?” I asked, pulling out my phone, wincing at all the notifications. “Oh my god. These are all twitter questions.”