Camera Shy || Ben Barlow

Five

The band had made me skip the next couple of shows, leaving me alone on the bus with nothing better to do than watch Zach's live-streams from where he stood at the very very back of the room. Despite never actually being at the shows (or doing my job) since what Zach liked to call 'the incident', I'd seen more of the boys than I'd seen of them since getting this job.

Ben had been flitting in and out of our bus on an hourly basis, Dani and Fil not far behind. West and Sam had the right idea, leaving me alone to 'heal and recover'. If I had a quid for every time Ben had asked me if I 'need anything' or 'needed any help', I'd have been loaded. Where was my money?

Unfortunately for me, today wasn't a show day; it was a day off, and everyone had just been paid. So, where was everyone? The arcade. The hoard of twenty-somethings had all gone off to the arcade to blow their pay-cheques on the 2p machines for a cheap squishy Captain America key-ring. And where was I? Still in bed.

"Dani's absolutely smashing that spider game," Zach told me over the noise of excited children, as he directed his phone's camera at an upscaled version of whack-a-mole where you used your feet to squish spiders instead of moles.

"You mean he's cheating," I laughed, pressing my hand to my temple to ease some of the pain. Fil sat one one side of the board, while Dani sat on the other, both pushing the buttons as quickly as they cold, with their hands, as prize tickets poured out of the machine and onto the floor in neat little stacks. I never earned enough tickets for them to form automatic stacks like that.

"We're not cheating!" Fil cried. "We're using our initiative!"

"They want this pirate version of Mouse Trap from the prize booth. It's a ridiculous amount of tickets; they may as well just buy the game from Tesco." I rolled my eyes, despite the pain it caused and put on a smile. While I'd been in bed, Zach and Cara had made friends with the boys. They had nothing better to do.

"Ben's wreaking all kinds of havoc," he said, directing the camera back to his face and making his way over to another side of the arcade entirely. "Some woman stole his slots machine while I went to get more 2p coins so he had a full on argument with her and got her chucked out. What a man."

"That sounds more like Cara than Ben."

"They've surprisingly got a lot in common," Zach said, with a slight grimace, as though his jealousy had spiked as much as my own. Cara had beenour best friend this whole time, and now it looked like we were losing her to Ben Barlow, of all people.

"When are you coming home?" I asked, more to change the subject than anything.

"No idea. Hey, guys? When are we going home?"

"When this fucking key-ring falls out of this retarded machine." I heard a voice yell from a small distance away.

"West, are you trying to get us all thrown out?"

"Not until I've got this key-ring."

Sure enough, West did eventually get his key-ring, after it got stuck in the hole and an employee had to come and fish it out for him. According the Zach, the whole debacle had been extremely embarrassing for the rest of the band (more so than the time Fil had shit himself in the middle of a shopping centre).

"We're off to hang out with the band. You coming?"

"No loud noises?"

"There will probably be multiple loud noises." I shrugged my shoulders and rolled out of bed anyway, deciding that I didn't care about the fact that I was wearing NASA pajamas. I'd been hit in the head with a glass bottle; I could wear whatever I wanted to.

"Essa! Thank goodness you're not dead," Fil screeched, overly excited. "Zach's iPhone photos are becoming a problem."

"Becoming a problem?" Sam frantically nodded, ushering me over to the couch as if we were old pals, best mates.

"They're terrible, Essa. He put them on Facebook and everything." I couldn't help but laugh as he opened up Zach's Facebook page, the comments pouring in. The fans knew exactly who I was, and they missed me, apparently. At least someone did, I supposed.

"I guess we'd better make up for the damages then, hadn't we?" I said. "Can someone go grab my camera for me?" I asked, not wanting to get up and find it myself.

Shortly after Ben arrived with my camera, I realised something was off. The baby of the group, the most energetic little thing I'd ever come across in my life, was not here. "Where's Dani?" The instant horror that took over the band's faces worried me. How had no one realised that Dani wasn't there? "Did he even get back on the bus?" I asked, knowing that Dani lived in the world of Dani.

"God knows," Ben shrugged, as Fil called Dani as quickly as possible.

"How did you lose Dani?"

"We're always losing Dani," Ben said, as if it were no big deal that the man child was wandering around the city by himself, probably lost and hungry.

"Dan, mate, where are you? What do you mean you're at the arcade?! We all left ages ago. I don't care if you haven't won the rubber fish, yet. Get your arse on this bus. No, you can't get food on the way! Bus! Now!"

"Maybe someone should make Dani some food before he gets back," I mumbled, playing around with the settings on my camera and taking photos of Ben at weird angles. The fans would love these. Fil rolled his eyes.

"That inconvenience can make his own food."

Dani appeared eventually, standing at such an angle that only his bum was actually on the bus, earning slaps from Fil, Ben and West (in that order), while Sam shook his head. He dragged the little drummer into the bus before taking a seat at the caravan-style table. "What did I miss?"

"Essa's taking pictures to make up for the shit ones Zach took."

"Oh, I thought they were meant to look like an eight year old took them." If looks good kill, Dani would be dead and gone. "Anyway! Let me go get my sticks," Dani said, rushing out of the room and away from Zach's murderous tendencies. "Can't put on a fake concert without my drumsticks, can we?" He said, rushing back in, briefly using Ben's head as a drum. He was definitely going to be in trouble for that one later but, for now, the boys just wanted to have a bit of fun. And so did I.

Matt, Sam and Fil all banded together to play air guitar, while Dani loudly used every household item he could find as a drum (including his friends... and my camera), earning a whole array of disgruntled faces from his band-mates. Zach and Cara played the crowds, screaming and cheering along to Ben's off-key renditions of his own songs, his facial expressions giving me the first proper laugh I'd had since getting bottled in Sheffield, while Sam pretended to be the security detail. Suddenly, I wasn't so tired anymore, and I didn't feel so left out. I didn't want to just crawl under the covers and sleep, and think about how everyone was having fun without me, anymore. I was part of the fun now, an important component in the group again. I was being noticed.

As I flicked through the gallery of my camera, I decided that I couldn't part with most of the photos on here. That they weren't for the public eye. Oddly enough, I'd deemed one that fully showed off Ben's bare arse fit for public viewing, but had chosen to keep it from the internet for the time being; no one needed to see that on a Saturday afternoon.

Laying in my bunk, laptop on my knee, I uploaded only the least flattering photos of Ben I could find, contrasting with consistently attractive photos of the others, including Zach and Cara. Ben was one of those people that was either extremely photogenic or completely disgusting, and there was no middle ground. I had photos of him in which he looked inhuman, in the way that he was literally too attractive to have come from this planet. But on the other hand, I had photos of him in which he looked inhuman, in the way that he looked like a mauled whale. He never looked mediocre.

I'd also found that his personality was very much the same. Ben was either ready for a good time, all sunshine and laughter, ready to throw his mates under the bus for a bit of a giggle, or he just wanted a ciggie and to sit by himself in his bunk. There was no middle ground. There was no normal, no regular calm neutrality.

Ben Barlow was never mediocre.