Real(ity) Feelings

Chapter 10

I'm so glad people seem to be enjoying this story that has been created out of my random mind - this next chapter is probably my favorite out of all of them so far...so I hope you like it! (Also I got a little carried away and it's LONG!)

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Joe flashed another weak smile at the brunette sitting far too close to him at the bar. Mia had been talking for at least the last 20 minutes straight, edging closer and closer to him as the minutes ticked by.

"So then, I thought to myself, why SHOULDN'T I start a blog? You know what I'm saying?" she asked, looking at him as though he was the answer to her prayers.

Joe nodded politely and took a gulp of his drink, hoping if he focused on something other than Mia's big brown eyes, he wouldn't feel so terrible about being as disengaged from this experience as he possibly could be. In the last 40 minutes he had been sitting here, it had become obvious that Mia was well and truly into him - and he couldn't lie, it hurt his heart a bit to know he was going to have to let her down at the end of this "date".

"So, what about you? I feel like I know your whole life story from YouTube, but there has to be some secret that the Internet doesn't know. What do you do in your free time?" Mia asked, sounding genuinely interested, her eyes wide and curious.

Joe stifled back a sigh - he still had at least half a drink to go before he was going to be able to escape, so he might as well make some conversation to make the time go faster.

"Well," he started cautiously, "I like to hang out with my friends..."

"Oh, like Caspar and Jack and Mikey?" Mia interrupted eagerly. "Oh my gosh, tell me about them! I love them!"

Joe couldn't help his smile, "Well yes, I do hang out with them all the time, but in my true free time I like to go home to Wiltshire and get together with my old mates from school."

"Oh," Mia responded, slightly dejected. "So are you, like, not really friends with the other YouTubers?"

Joe shrugged, "We're definitely friends...but when we hang out, there's a 99% chance it started because we were filming together, or we're at a YouTube based event. When I need to get away from my job, my mates from school are who I turn to."

Mia looked disappointed with his answer, so he spoke up again, "What about you? You've told me about what you post on Instagram...but what do you like to do offline?"

Her face brightened again as she started to ramble about yoga and her dachshund puppy. Joe nodded in feigned interest as he raised his glass to his lips and took another long gulp, trying to block the image of Dianne storming off from his brain.

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Dianne pulled back the drapes and peeked out the window toward the backyard, nibbling on her thumbnail. Joe and Mia had been sitting at the bar for the last hour, cameras still lined up in front of flood lights, making the backyard visible in the darkness of night for the first time all week. Dianne could just barely make out Joe's shoulders shaking as he laughed at something Mia said.

She felt a rush of tears form in her eyes, a few escaping and rolling down her cheeks, as she hastily reached up and wiped them away. With a sniffle, she turned away from the window and made her way back into the bedroom. The other couples were laying in bed, but the lights were on and bright, so everyone was talking amongst themselves. Dianne made her way wordlessly across the room and slid into her and Joe's bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.

"Oi, Dianne. You okay, doll?" she heard Steve say from across the room.

She sniffled before answering in a small voice, "Yeah...I'm fine."