“Jess?” asked Jen, snapping me out of my thoughts. I smiled sheepishly at her. “Oh my god, you were reliving ‘strip FIFA’ in your head weren’t you?” With that she threw a pillow off of the couch at me, nearly knocking my drink everywhere.
“Sorry,” I sighed. “Was just a really good night.”
“I’m sure it was,” laughed Jen. “Spare me the details though.”
“Fine,” I said, getting up to clean out my now empty cup. “So what’s the plan for the day then?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind going shopping a bit,” said Jen with a shrug of her shoulders. “Or we could see a film…”
“Actually, shopping sounds good,” I said. “I need to find a dress for this gala dinner thing Aston’s asked me to.”
“Ohhhh, a fancy party with Mr. Celebrity?” asked Jen. “I didn’t think you two were doing that sort of thing yet.”
“We’re not,” I sighed. “This will be our first night out as a couple for all to see.”
“You don’t seem so excited,” said Jen, looking at my slightly frowny face.
“Just a bit nervous about the press and all that,” I replied.
It was true, I was petrified of getting in front of all of the cameras that seemed to follow Aston everywhere. We’d been living together for nearly a month now and we’d managed to stay out of the press. It wasn’t that we stayed in every night, in fact we went out and about in our quiet little neighborhood quite frequently. It was just that we hadn’t been out where we could get hounded by cameras yet. I was beginning to understand why Aston had chosen his neighborhood in the first place.
The gala event was a celebration for a network of charities. The boys were invited because they were going to be receiving an award for their philanthropy work via the JLS Foundation. Of course I was proud of Aston, but going to this event meant a full on red carpet experience. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
To Aston’s credit, he’d done a pretty good job convincing me that it would be fine. He’d explained that the red carpet would be short, and that it would be daytime so it wouldn’t be as frantic as a nighttime event. Not that many celebrities would be there so it wouldn’t draw out the entire press. He’d also tried to bribe me with a night out, shoes, and a holiday.
In the end I agreed not for the bribes, but because I was actually proud of him and the boys’ charity work. I wanted to be there to support them, even if that meant facing the press.
Jen and I popped in and out of a handful of stores over the course of the afternoon and I settled on a nice salmon pink body con dress. It was incredibly simple, with thick straps at the shoulders, a round neckline and a skirt that reached nearly to my knee. I thought it was quite fitting for a charity event, and I knew I had heels and jewelry to match it.
After we had finished we sat down for an early supper at a small bistro off the high street.
“So you’re ready to go public with this whole thing?” asked Jen.
“I’ve got to sooner or later,” I smiled. “I mean, I can’t tell Aston to stop being famous, it’s sort of part of the package now.”
“Guess so,” smiled Jen. “Is it weird?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when you two were first together he was a nobody, and now you can’t walk down the street with him or you’ll be mobbed.”
“I guess,” I replied. “But I like that I knew him before he was famous, it makes me appreciate his hard work so much more. And I know what sort of person he is outside of the limelight, and I can scold him when he strays away from that person.”
“So then, is he ‘the one’?” asked Jen.
“I think so,” I said, as I smiled slowly. “I mean this whole thing is still early days, but it was so easy to just pick it all up again, even after being apart for so long. I mean, we had our ups and downs at first, but since then it’s just been so good. I can’t imagine being with anyone else.”
“Awww look at you, all loved up,” smiled Jen.
I just smiled faintly back as we collected our things and left the restaurant.
--
The next couple of days were quiet. Aston was gone until Tuesday afternoon, playing a few shows and doing some out of town promo for the band’s new single. I spent those days working on getting the studio all ready to go, and then starting to figure out ways to advertise. I’d decided on sending demos off to management companies and record labels, making sure to include my Tinie Tempah track in the package.
Wednesday finally rolled around, the day of the charity gala, and I was anything but calm. I spent three times longer getting ready than I normally did for a night out, I was just nervous that I would look crazy in the pictures the paps got, and in my gut I knew that those pictures would be on the cover of papers the next morning.
I slipped on my dress and did my hair in a sleek bun, adding simple makeup. My hands were literally shaking as I put my mascara on.
Aston showed up just as I was slipping my jewelry on, quickly getting ready. He’d been off all day doing interviews and only had a few minutes to get changed into a nice suit while the car waited for us outside the entire time.
“Babe you ready?” he asked as he finished fixing his bowtie.
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
“No seriously, you ready for this?” he asked, walking up to me and gently stroking my cheek.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I smiled bravely.
“Love you,” he whispered as he quickly kissed my forehead, not wanting to smear my lipstick, and then grabbed my hand and dragged me out to the car.
The entire ride I was internally freaking out, my heart was literally in my throat. Aston sat next to me in the back of the car, messing about with his phone after he realized I wasn’t in the mood to chat.
As we pulled up to the venue I realized just how big of an ordeal this was. There was a line of cars down the street waiting to pull up to the red carpet, and I could see the number of cameras that were there… it was a lot more than a few.
Then the words came out of my mouth, “Ast, I can’t do this…” I said quietly, and as his eyes turned to meet mine, I could tell that I’d just broken his heart a little bit.
