Playing With Lightning

True Confessions

“What the hell did you do?” I demanded, skidding to a stop in the doorway to the kitchen. The boys all froze, looking guilty. On the floor was the splintered remains of a big ceramic bowl, having been dropped and scattered across the floor. “Bloody hell, you guys are like five I swear.”

“It was an accident,” Nathan defended, crossing his arms. Yeah, so mature.

“Well, you guys can clean it up,” I pointed a finger at them all. “I’m not going anywhere near it.”

“Fine,” they all grumbled. Wasn’t I meant to be the youngest in this situation?

“Oh and Tom,” I added just before I left. “Can I get a lift to yours when you leave? I’m staying the night.”

“Sure,” he nodded eagerly. “In fact, I’ll take you now. Go get your stuff.”

The others all protested but Tom just shrugged and apologised, saying something about taking one for the team. I just rolled my eyes and ran back upstairs to throw some stuff into a bag for the night.

I went back downstairs and out the door to find Tom already in his car.

“You owe me you realise,” I pointed out as I buckled myself in. He just nodded and started up the car.  Him and Tay didn’t live far from mine and Max’s place, which was convenient seeing as we spent pretty much 24 hours a day together.

“Honey I’m home,” I called out into the house as I came in. I went straight up to Tay’s room, dumping my stuff on her bed. She looked up from where she was sitting at her desk painting her nails, just nodding and focusing back on her task.

I reached over and hit play on her iPod dock. One Direction, our second favourite boy band after the one we had no choice but to love, started playing loudly and we sang along word for word.

“So, I hear you and our little Jay bird are a hot new item,” she said with a wink. I just laughed, it was an off week when a rumour didn’t fly around that we were dating one of the boys. Or even other celebrities, some of which we’d never even met.

“Oh really, cause I heard you and Nath got caught making out behind the arena last week,” I retorted. I knew it wasn’t true, but she blushed anyway. “You wish.”

“I do not!” she said immediately. “For the last time, I do not like Nathan.”

“Yeah right,” I gave her a look that said she wasn’t fooling anyone, except maybe herself and Nathan. “I’m your best friend babe, I know you too well to buy your bullshit. I just don’t know what you’re so scared of.”

“I’m not scared,” she said slowly, as if she was going over something in her head. “More… concerned. Yeah, let’s say concerned. I mean, he’s Nathan Sykes, international pop star.”

“Yeah, but he’s also Nathan, the immature goofball that has seen pretty much every embarrassing thing we’ve ever done,” I countered. “If he’s stuck around this long, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about.”

“But those times were nothing compared to actual feelings,” she shuddered on the word. “You know, when I first met him, I refused to let myself like him because I was so convinced you guys had a thing.”

“Ew!” I laughed. “Not a chance, ever. That would be like getting with my brother, just gross.”

“Well I know that now,” she continued. “But at the time… I’ve never admitted this before, but before I came back from America, I did a bit of research, on twitter and stuff. There were all these rumours about you two, and then I saw how close you were and I was convinced. It took me a while to figure out just how weird that would actually be. By then, pretty sure I was about as far into the friend zone as you can get.”

“Okay, seeing as we’re doing true confessions,” I sighed, turning over onto my stomach to face her. She spun around in her chair to face me, listening intently. “Nathan wanted in with you from the first day. At the airport he told me to become friends with you because he thought you were fit.”

“What?” She shrieked, her eyes going wide. “Why have you never told me this, oh my god I hate you. Do you realise that I gave up so long ago and started being embarrassing as fuck and he thought I was hot? You are officially the worst best friend ever!”

“Excuse me,” I defended myself. “I’ve been trying to wingman you idiots for the last two years. You’re both just too stubborn and clueless.”

“I just ruined every chance of happiness,” she groaned, falling face first onto the bed beside me.

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” I laughed, poking her. She sat up and fell against me, her head on my shoulder.

“Well what about you?” she changed the topic.

“Me?” I scoffed. “Please, I ruined my chances with any of them long before I even met you.”

She rolled her eyes without a word.

“I don’t think you understand how much of an awkward teenager I was. I mean you’ve seen pictures. My appearance alone was enough to traumatise anybody from ever thinking of me as an attractive candidate ever again.”

“Okay, so you might have had a bit of a setback,” she admitted. “A very long setback, but look at you now. You’ve grown up, I mean the twins are enough proof of that.”

I glared at her and crossed my arms tightly across my chest. She just laughed and opened her laptop. I swear, we’re social media obsessed. It’s addicting, like drugs but even worse for your mental health. She logged into twitter and scrolled down her mentions. There were more tweets from my little friend. She noticed the ones he’d posted about the picture of Jay and I.

“I’m actually surprised none of the boys have picked up on this and said something,” she said as she scrolled down his tweets. His profile picture was a picture of me, creepy much. Every single tweet had something to do with me. He’d even had a go at some fans who’d defended me.

“Well they get a lot of mentions,” I shrugged.

“Well then show them,” she suggested.

“Are you kidding me?” I looked at her like she was nuts. “They would go nuts if they knew about this. You know how protective they can get. It’s not like he’s some kind of crazy stalker, he’s just a little obsessed is all.”

“If you say so,” she said, sounding unsure.

“I do.