The nanny from hell

Part 16

The next morning,Dec woke up with a sense of impending doom,not that he'd actually slept much.

When he had eventually drifted off to sleep,his damn 3am alarm call scared him out of his skin.

"Fucks sake" he muttered to himself and slowly got out of bed,his mind immediately filled with dread of what was to come.

"Alright kidda?" Ant smiled a while later as they got into the car to take them to the set.

"Not really" Dec mumbled.

"It'll be ok" Ant smiled weakly.

"Will it?" Dec frowned "you don't exactly sound convinced"

Ant just shrugged his shoulders.

"You've looked haven't you?" Dec said accusingly.

"Looked at what?" Ant asked innocently.

"You know what" Dec stated bluntly "social media,the news,YouTube?what have you seen?and don't lie to me"

"I'm sorry Dec" Ant sighed "it's everywhere"

Dec looked at their driver,who seemed to be glancing back at him in the mirror a lot more often than usual.

"I don't want to talk about it right now" Dec stated as he stared at the driver.

"You brought it up" Ant pointed out.

Dec didn't reply and they spent the rest of the journey in silence.

Getting through the show seemed like such a chore for Dec,which was very unusual,he loved the show and loved his job,but he had never had to go through anything like this before and found it hard to concentrate on what he was doing.

During an ad break,Ant turned to him and said,

"Let's just get through the show OK?then I'm coming back with you"

Dec nodded sadly.

So after filming had wrapped up for the day,the two men were back in Dec's hotel room,with Ant ready to inform him of what he'd seen.

"Did you notice how awkward everyone was around me?" Dec frowned.

"Were they?" Ant replied "I didn't notice"

"Stop lying" Dec demanded "there was hardly any banter with the crew like we usually have and no one could look me in the eye...I bet they've all watched it"

"I doubt that" Ant assured him "they all have too much respect for you to do that"

"Yeah and curiosity is a natural trait, which I bet overrode any respect they may have had for me" Dec stated.

"Just don't think like that" Ant pleaded.

"Well,you watched it too" Dec pointed out "you're my best friend who knows how much I'm hurting,but that didn't stop you"

"I DID NOT WATCH IT" Ant protested firmly "I wouldn't do that to you or Ali,I just read the articles to see what we're up against"

"We?" Dec mused.

"Yes of course we" Ant smiled "you don't think I'm gonna let you deal with all this alone do you?"

"Don't see what any of us can do anyway?" Dec shrugged.

"True" Ant nodded "you're just going to have to ride out the storm and it'll be forgotten about eventually"

"You know that's not true" Dec frowned "it'll be talked about forever,will probably have had millions of views already"

"You've got a high opinion of yourself haven't you?" Ant grinned.

"So what have you seen?" Dec asked seriously "what did the headlines say?"