Half of me was fantasising about the idea of Joe just throwing me, caveman style, on that pool table and having his wicked way with me, while the other half was already realising how hard it could be to get over him if that did happen.
Maybe the mom...
I met Sam when I was 20. She ended up sitting next to me in a lecture one day. I can't remember how exactly we started talking, but we immediately just hit it off.
I plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she accepted. As far as I'm aware she was the first girl who had ever been interested in me. I quickly fell head over heels and I was delighted to offload my virginity on her.
For some reason, Sam seemed fascinated by me, which I definitely wasn't used to, especially as it felt to me like she was way out of my league. So I found myself doing my best to entertain her, impress her. I was so unused to having attention and although I wasn't comfortable with it at first, I found I started to crave it; finally someone thought I was interesting. I eventually told her about the story I'd wrote and unsurprisingly she asked if she could read it.
She loved it, encouraged me to submit it to agents . . . And I found one. There was a bit of a bidding war and, just after I finished uni, the book was released.
And Sam was there for me the whole time, supporting me, reassuring me when I had regular bouts of imposter syndrome. Helping me deal with that initial onset of fame once it became clear my book was heading into bestseller territory. She was a great girlfriend.
"I didn't deserve her," I tell Sienna now. "And I quickly proved that."
"What did you do?" she asks, her eyes wide. She tops up our wine glasses.
I grimace. "I let fame go to my head. There was this model at the time, Leesa Meadows?" She nods in recognition. "She'd approached me at a couple of events, and she was definitely keen. And, I was 22 and she was hot... I can't even defend my actions. I ended up cheating on Sam with her. Sam would see photos of me at events and ask about Leesa but I would lie and say our PR folk just wanted us to present a united front, etc etc. All bullshit, of course.
"At this point, I wasn't even sorry. I just . . . It was like I thought I deserved this now, I'd had a crappy childhood so now this was my reward. In my head, I almost put the blame on Sam for getting me into this situation, for encouraging me. Like I said, I was a dick."
"Did Leesa know you had a girlfriend?" Sienna's face is hosting a mix of emotions right now. It's difficult to tell which one is prevailing. I know my story won't be endearing me to her though, especially with her recent history. Which was precisely what I wanted to avoid in all of this.
I nod in answer to her question. "She did. I don't think she really cared at first. But then I was spending more time down in London by that point, and she was there too and Sam was back in Glasgow so we got a lot closer . . . And at some point I told her me and Sam were over. But we weren't. I was planning to end it because we were going in two different directions, but I just hadn't been able to bring myself to do it yet." A sharp bitter laugh I wasn't expecting bursts out of my mouth. "The irony of it all was that I didn't want to hurt her."
"Wow," Sienna whispers, almost to herself. She looks up. "Oh sorry, go on!" She waves to me to continue.
"So I'm juggling these two girls, feeling simultaneously smug and disgusted with myself, with smug mostly winning out admittedly, when I'm approached to go on a reality TV show."
Her eyes brighten with recollection at this. "Oh yes, so you did. It was like a version of Celeb Big Brother but on a satellite channel, right? I didn't have the channel but I saw some coverage of it in magazines at the time."
"Yeah. It was a crock of shit, frankly. But my agent thought it would be good for a bit of extra publicity for the book, and my ego was so big by that point that it practically needed its own hotel room. I was more than happy to do the show at the time. This was my chance to finally prove to all the folk who had ignored me growing up that I was actually worth something." I glance over at Sienna. "Do you remember what happened?"
She shakes her head slowly, clearly thinking. "There's a vague memory of some sort of scandal involving you; I can't remember what it was though."
I sigh. "Dickhead here struck again. There was a young pretty soap actress also on the show, Cecilia, and of course I couldn't resist getting to know her a bit better. Despite the fact I was still seeing Sam and Leesa. And despite the fact I was on camera the whole fucking time. It's true what they say, you know: you do forget you're being filmed."
"Did you . . . You know?" Sienna asks, wide-eyed. I shake my head.
"Oh god, no! We didn't progress beyond kissing really. There was a bit of a steamy hot tub session but that was it." I cringe at the memory. "Anyway, ratings weren't that great so the producers decided to shake things up a bit, they'd schedule in some visits from our loved ones.
"To be honest, I assumed they meant family and I knew they wouldn't show up. Not even Jack - I knew he had no interest in being on TV. So I wasn't actually expecting anyone. But . . .,"
"Fuck, yes, I remember what happened now!" Sienna almost shouts in excitement. "Oops, sorry." She calms herself down. "They brought both your girlfriends in at the same time to confront you while you sat there with your arm around the actress, right?"
"It was literally one of the worst moments of my life," I say wearily. "At that moment I was just confronted with what an absolute arsehole I'd become. Sam was devastated, Leesa was spitting feathers, Cecilia was just mortified as she hadn't realised she was stepping on anyone's toes . . . And I couldn't even defend my actions. Unsurprisingly, I was the first so-called celebrity to be voted out of the show by the public after that. And funnily enough, none of the girls wanted anything to do with me."
"Goodness." Sienna's voice is faint.
I nod grimly. "So yeah, when you ask why I didn't want to tell you who I really was? It's because I didn't want you to remember any of that."
Now I just have to hope she doesn't judge me too harshly.
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So now you know Joe's secret . . . What do you think? Was he right to hide it?
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