No Control (Book 1)

17. Something Great

I became vaguely aware of a ringing sound. It permeated my sleep and I opened my eyes, trying to figure out what it was. It took me a minute to realise it was my home phone ringing. I stared across the room at it in confusion. No one ever rings it, I only have a landline for the wifi. I threw the blanket off my legs and stumbled over to it, still half asleep. "Hello?"

"Jess? Christ, where have you been? I've been going out of my mind!" It was Callie.

"Oh, hi Callie," I mumbled. "What's up?"

"You've been AWOL for nearly 24 hours!" She screeched. Callie was always one for being dramatic. "You haven't been answering your mobile, and I tried this number earlier and got no answer, I thought you'd been murdered or something!"

I rolled my eyes. "All this because my battery died?"

"So why didn't you answer your landline?"

"I only just got in." I replied.

There was a pause. "From last night??!" Callie screeched even louder.

I hesitated. I always told Callie everything but I wasn't sure I was ready to share this yet. I hadn't quite got over the shock of it all, and wasn't in the mood for loads of questions. Plus, Callie loved a good gossip. I didn't think she would intentionally spill my secrets but where Harry Styles was concerned, I couldn't afford to take the risk. It wasn't just my reputation on the line, it was potentially a media story. I made a snap decision.

"No, from the corner shop," I lied. I went out earlier for some milk and then fell asleep on the sofa when I got back. My phone died last night and I've only just put it on charge."

There was another pause. "So last night you came face to face with the object of your obsessive-celebrity-stalker-crush, you talked to him, and you haven't called me first thing this morning to discuss it in minute detail?" I could feel the scepticism rolling down the phoneline in waves.

"Well, he was a bit of an arse," I found myself saying. "He was a let-down in real life to be honest. So I've just been mooching around at home, grieving for the Harry I thought he was." Damn I'm good at lying when I have to think on my feet.

"Oh no, Jess, really?" Callie sounded upset.

"Yeah but it's fine, I'm over it," I said quickly. "I just fancied a quiet day chilling doing nothing."

"OK," Callie said. "Sorry for ruining the illusion. I didn't think he would be a flop in the flesh."

"Oh no, please don't apologise," I begged, now feeling guilty. "I'm glad I met him, it was amazing to see him. He's still hot!" I flushed, remembering tracing my finger over his butterfly tattoo.

"Do you want me to come over? We can eat chocolate and drink wine and talk about what a dick he is?" Callie suggested.

"No it's OK, I have some work to do this weekend," I lied again. "I need an early night so I can crack on with it in the morning."

"OK," she agreed. "I'll call you in the week and we can have a girlie night one night OK?"

"That sounds great," I said. "Wait, how did it go with James?"

"Fantastic." I could hear the grin in her voice. "But I won't bore you with the saucy details right now. Those can wait."

I laughed. "Sounds interesting."

"I'll speak to you later," she said.

"Cool. And sorry for making you worry," I apologised.

"It's fine!" she breezed. "Byeeeee!"

"Byeeeee!" I laughed, and put the phone down. I decided to go and make a cup of tea and thought I'd better charge my phone. After digging it out of my bag I plugged it in by the sofa, switched it on and went into the kitchen to make my tea. I glanced at the clock - 3.15pm. Yikes, I'd been asleep for about 3 hours. I heard my phone's start up tone singing from the lounge as I poured the water in the mug and stirred it around the tea bag. As I added the milk I heard my phone pinging periodically and sighed. There was clearly something wrong with it. I took my mug of tea and a packet of Jaffa Cakes into the lounge and flopped on the sofa. Picking up my phone I swiped to unlock it and looked at my notifications.

@ellie1d_xx and 21,537 others started following you.

I blinked and looked at it again. What the...? I stared uncomprehendingly at it, and then another notification came up:

@styles_girl started following you

What the hell was going on? I tapped the notification and my Twitter opened up. I went onto my profile and stared at the screen. 34 following. 21,544 followers.

Ping

@taylorhate_556 is now following you.

What the hell? I checked it was definitely my own profile. It was.

Ping

Another two followers. Was this some sort of joke? This was the sort of thing celebrities must have to put up with, I thought to myself. Then my stomach jolted. I went back into my notifications and began to scroll down, searching for his name, but after a few seconds I realised it would take me hours to scroll through them to find the one I was sure had started this all off. I went onto my profile again, into my 34 following, and scrolled to find Harry Styles. I tapped on his name, my heart pounding. His profile loaded up, and there, just below his name was a little blue rectangle - follows you

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