More Lies, More Cameras and Much More Action

Chapter 5

JOE

Imagine this: it's the final of the World Cup and the two teams left are England and Germany. You're playing for England and have just been given a penalty after a Germany player did something wrong. The time is 89:37, there is 23 seconds left and the score is 0-0. You are about to take the penalty, the fate of England is resting on you.

Now imagine the nerves of you in that situation, times by about 5 million.

That's how I felt whilst I was looking at Maddy.

I don't know why I was so nervous, whether it was simply because I hadn't seen her in so long or because this article was such a big deal but I felt as if I was going to puke all over my red shoes.

I couldn't help but laugh when she told my manager to stuff the schedule, that's one thing that certainly hasn't changed - she is still feisty as ever. I always loved that in her, she won't settle for anything less than she wants. 

I lost count of how many times I had to wipe my palms on my jeans during that meeting and I don't even know how I managed to ask her out for dinner.

It's just a girl, Joe. A girl you dated for 6 months.

'Okay guys, I'm going to get off now so I'll leave you two to go have your dinner and sort everything out.' My manager said. She had no idea who Maddy was, to her it was just another journalist. I felt slightly jealous of my manager for thinking that, she'd never know how it felt to be sat in the dark crying everyday or the emptiness that would drag me down as I walked through the streets of London, trying to figure out where I went wrong.

'It was nice to meet you.' Maddy smiled. We said our farewells and she left the room, leaving me and Maddy alone. We both watched the office door shut, in complete slience before turning to face each other.

'So,' I began to say as she began 'do you'. We both smiled and stopped talking before looking down and blushing.

'Do I?..' I urged her to continue.

'Do you like her?'

'My manager?' I asked, earning a nod.

'Yeah, she's alright. They're all a bit money hungry though.' I said before making eye contact, causing me to laugh nervously.

'Why are you laughing?' She laughed.

'I don't know.. I just can't believe you're here!' I said, unsure how to feel.

'I told you I'd come back.'

'I didn't think you meant two years later!' I exclaimed.

'Anyway, lets go get some dinner and sort out this article. Since when have you been a journalist?' I asked, knowing she'd never done any journalism work before.

We both stood up and I opened the door, letting Maddy go through.

'I'm not, I'm doing this article to get the job basically.'

'Well, I've never known any company get somebody to do the job before they get employed!' I laughed, saying my goodbyes to the few girls left at Gleam as we walked through.

'I have an internship there, my boss basically said if I can do this well, I can have the job whilst the girl who's job it is, is on maternity leave.' She explained.

As we went to walk out the main office door, Katie was just walking in. Katie was my sisters manager who had been working at gleam for ages now, pretty much since it was set up. She was very close with my sister and knew all about Maddy and how much I'd struggled after I came back from Vidcon. She gave me a suspicious look, recognising Maddy from my vlogs and pictures but I ignored the look and said a simple goodbye to her.

'That's cool, congratulations.' I smiled, whilst stopped at the crossing lights, waiting to cross.

'Thanks Joe.'

'Where do you want to go for dinner?' I asked as we crossed the road, together, as we should be.

'What's good around here?'

'There's Burger and Lobster just over there, that's really nice.'

'Burger and Lobster it is then.' She shrugged, turning her head to smile at me. Her smile looked so much more genuine than it had ever done before, making me believe that she was now so happy, I did do the right thing by getting on that god-damn plane without her.