Strictly '18

13

-Dianne-
"Di, who's this?" Joe panted as he reached my side. I nervously grabbed his hand. I looked over to Joe as he squeezed my hand reassuringly - I could see that he realised who it was.

"You must be Joe. You're the reason..." he said to Joe as he stepped closer to him. Joe stepped back which pulled me away slightly. "Dianne, you honestly left me for this small, weedy guy?" He laughed.

"Leave him alone!" I shouted at him.

"Fuck off, Dianne! This doesn't involve you anymore." He shouted back at me. Joe turned me to look at him so I looked into his eyes and concentrated on him.

"Don't worry about me, Di. Just stay out of the way, I don't know what he's going to do."

"But I know what he's capable of, Joe." I whined "Please don't..."

"I'll be fine, Di. Don't worry." He said as he let go of my hand and kissed the top of my head. He handed me the bear and walked away. I held the bear close and watched nervously.

I watched as they started talking to each other. I could see Joe was staying calm but it was getting more tense.

Joe stepped back but within seconds he was on the floor. He had been punched.

"Joe!" I shouted as I ran over. "Stop, Anthony! Just stop!"

I ran to Joe and checked that he was okay.

"I'm fine, Di. Let's just go." He said as he wiped the blood from his nose and started to get up. I helped him to his feet and passed the bear to him.

Once he was stood up, I walked over to Anthony.

"Look, I ended our relationship because I fell out of love with you. It had nothing to do with Joe. None of this is his fault. I stopped loving you because of who you are. You seemed like a lovely person but god was I wrong." I told him. "If you want me to be happy, then you'd leave me alone. Both of us, you'd leave us both alone." I turned and sighed shakily as I walked back over to Joe.

I held his hand as we started walking away.

"You alright, Di?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah. I'm more worried about you." I told him.

"I'm fine. I've had a nose bleed before."

"Yeah but he could have broken your nose."

"I guess we'll find out soon." He chuckled softly. "What do you wanna do now?"

"Can we just go back to yours?" I asked nervously.

"Of course. I'll just text the others and we can go straightaway." He squeezed my hand and kissed it. "It doesn't matter if I get hurt, as long as I protect you, that's all that matters."

I nodded nervously and kept walking with him.

I wasn't scared of Joe. I couldn't ever be scared of Joe. I was scared of Anthony because I know what he's capable of. I've experienced it before and I don't want Joe to experience it.

I was silent for the whole walk back to Joe's. He could sense that I was nervous because every now and then he would squeeze my hand softly and smile softly.

We got inside and he sat down.

"Do you want me to clean up the blood then get some ice? It'll help with the swelling." I said to him.

"Yeah okay." He smiled sleepily. I found a cloth and got in damp in some water. I wiped away the blood on his face and then gave him an ice pack.

He held it on his face across his left cheek and nose.

"Hey, Joe? I'm sorry about earlier." I told him.

"Hey, none of that was your fault. It's not your fault he's such a dick." He reassured me.

"No I don't mean that. I mean on the Ferris wheel. I overreacted." I sighed softly.

"No you didn't. I was being stupid. What I said was horrible. But I was telling the truth about the possibility of us ending badly. And I'm terrified of that because you're the best thing to ever happen to me."

"We can make things work though. Surely? We can be public and still work through it." I asked curiously

"Di... you don't know what it's like on this platform. Getting famous on TV or radio is fine because you're seen to have a talent. Mainstream media makes my job difficult because we are seen to be less important. So when the media focus on us, it's not usually for a good thing. This will reflect on our relationship, which is what I'm terrified about."

"I understand now, Joe. But how do you know for sure that they relate?"

"Because it's happened before." He said quietly. I could tell from the way he was speaking that he was serious and he felt strongly about it. "I've not spoken about it before though so..."

"You don't need to if you don't want to. I completely understand why." I assured him.

"No... it will help..." He shook his head slightly. "I was dating a girl a couple of years ago, I was completely head over heels in love with her. All I could ever think about was her. We were public, showed the world everything we could show. The media loved us because we communicated with them. Then she communicated with them too much. And she gave them information about me. I said we needed to slow things down in our relationship, but that I still wanted to be with her." I watched him nervously as he gulped. "She obviously thought I wanted nothing... or that was her excuse. She cheated on me with one of my closest friends at the time."

"Joe. That's terrible." I sighed and hugged him tightly. "I'd never to anything like that to you."

"I know. But with the media involved, anything can happen." He told me.

"Okay. Well, now that I know, I'm completely okay with your plan with the pictures. It does make some sense. It confirms it but it still gives us some privacy which I guess is important, especially with both of us having a large following." I replied to him.

"Thank you, Di. It really does help that you understand." He smiled softly.

"Its okay. For us to work, we need to compromise and work with each other." I smiled and kissed him. I felt him kiss me back. "Shall I make us some hot chocolates before we go to bed?"

"Ooh, if you're offering, okay then. I'm sure that I have some Bailey's in one of the cupboards. If you find it, put a bit in mine." He grinned as I stood up.

I went over and made two hot chocolates. I stirred the Bailey's into both of our mugs.

"There you go. A splash of Bailey's should warm us up too." I smiled as I passed him his mug.

[As of publishing this, on 20th January 2019, 11:01pm GMT, this book is on 4.42K views which blows my mind. I think I published the first chapter on 19th December 2018 so this book is just over a month old.

That many views in that time is incredible and it makes this book my most successful. I just wanna know how active you guys are so if you've read this, comment what you're favourite part of the story is so far and what you want to happen next.

Thank you
Emily xx ]