Cake. (Calum Hood and Luke Hemmings)

Chapter 23

Denim’s POV

After endless hours of travelling, we were finally in Cleveland. I didn’t even get the chance to check the name of the hotel we were staying in before we were dragged off for some or other scheduled interview.

“Wow, Denim, you look amazing,” Ashton commented. It was total sarcasm, seeing as how I looked was worse than Lindsay Lohan during her notorious drug phase.

“Oh shut up,” I rolled my eyes, unable to keep the slight smile off my face. “At least my shirt isn’t as holy as the Bible.”

“Hey, don’t hate the shirt. You should be grateful I’m allowing you to see so much of my skin,” he grinned playfully.

“You guys are going on in fifteen,” Matt came in holding bottled water. “Oh, and they’ve requested that the girls join the interview as well.”

“What?!” Jaye and I simultaneously shouted.

“No, no, no,” I protested. This was not happening. “I can’t go on stage looking like this!”

“I think you girls look fine,” Matt shrugged.

“We look like we’re hungover, high, and possibly pregnant, Uncle Matt!” Jaye’s eyes were wide as she crossed her arms. “I’m sorry but their request is denied.”

“Unless we get extra time to run and get our make-up, a curling iron and some other clothes in the bus?” I asked. I didn’t really want to miss a moment in the spotlight, did I? I was so grateful that we hadn’t yet removed all our luggage from the bus.

“I’m sure that could be arranged.”

***

“I don’t know how we got this done in ten minutes,” I whispered to Jaye as we waited backstage to be announced to join the boys.

“Me neither. We’re officially the most talented people alive,” she grinned.

In ten minutes, we’d managed to, in my opinion, perfectly style our hair. With evenly-winged eyeliner and lips redder than Taylor Swift’s, we waited patiently.

A few moments later, we heard the interviewer say, “Now, we’ve all heard about and seen the girlfriends of Calum and Luke in different public settings. No one has yet gotten to talk to these girls, but lucky for us, they’ve agreed to be interviewed by us.  Please welcome Denim and Jayde!”

“She got my fucking name wrong!” Jaye whispered furiously before putting on a fake smile and following me out onto stage.

The lights were completely blinding at first and I had to try my best not to squint. Jaye completely failed at being graceful and shaded her face with her hand, making her look completely disoriented.

The celebrity life is definitely not for her.

I could finally make out the silhouettes of the audience, a little surprised at the multitude of people, before sitting down next to Luke, my allocated seat.

Luke immediately took my hand, albeit sloppily, and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes at the gesture.

After the polite applause ended, the interviewer smiled at us.

“So, Denim and Jayde, I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind right now is what’s it like to be the girlfriends of these two?”

“Yes,” Michael turned to us too, a huge smirk on his face, “I’ve been wondering exactly that.”

After some laughter from the audience, and after I realised that that was a smart tactic from Michael to give us more time to think about the question. I was extremely nervous, completely unsure of how to answer. Luckily, Jaye saved us.