The next morning I got up and prepared myself for my second day of work experience at my Dad’s club. It probably would be a bit boring as I’d just end up cleaning again, but I was looking forward to seeing The Wanted again. However, it was probably going to be a little awkward between Nathan and me after he almost kissed me last night. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss him; I just didn’t think last night was a good time for us to do it. Maybe today we’d get to talk about it some more and work out what we were going to do.
Dad drove us both to the club and I went inside before him in hope of finding The Wanted again. They might not even be here yet, or they might not even be coming today at all. But surely if they were doing gigs this week, they’d want to rehearse as much as they could. I avoided my dad for as long as I could once we got there to try and get out of doing work for as long as possible. I really didn’t want to do the cleaning again; I wanted one of the interesting jobs like waitressing or working behind the bar, even though I was too young to serve alcohol. But I could still serve the non alcoholic drinks. As I walked around the club, Jay was the first person I saw.
“What’s up Gracie?” he asked as he saw me. Ugh, I hated people calling me Gracie.
“Not much..” I replied, “Just don’t call me Gracie.” I laughed.
“Oh, sorry.” Jay said, “Anyway, I hear you and Nathan had a little date last night..”
“It wasn’t a date.” I reminded Jay, “I just needed cheering up and Nathan offered to do so.”
“Hehe.. whatever you say.” Jay said sarcastically.
“Honest!” I shrieked, laughing slightly, “Nathan and I are just good friends and that’s how it’s staying.. for now.”
“Ahh.. I see.” Jay nodded slowly, “Well, see you around..” and he walked off grinning. He knew more than he was letting on. Nathan had definitely told him something.
I thought about what I’d just told Jay. ‘Nathan and I are just good friends..’ My own words echoed in my head. I thought back to when I stopped him from kissing me last night. Deep down, I wished I hadn’t stopped him. What if it was too late for us now? What if he didn’t give me another chance because I rejected him last night? I realised I’d made a mistake. I needed to go and speak to Nathan. I had to go and find him right this second.
I ran through the club; through the main hall and out into the back corridors where the dressing rooms were. Nathan had to be around here somewhere; I’d already seen Jay so the rest of them had to be here somewhere. I eventually got to Nathan’s dressing room and nervously knocked on the door. He called out to invite me in and I slowly pushed the door open to walk inside.
“Hey..” he smiled, looking up at me as I walked in.
“Hi. Can I talk to you for a bit?” I asked, sitting on the seat next to him.
“Sure.” he said.
“I’m sorry about last night, with Matt and everything.” I said quietly.
“You don’t need to apologise for that. I’m the one who should be apologising for trying to kiss you last night when you’d told me not to..” he looked down, embarrassed.
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you ab-..” I began to say.
“HAPPY TOM TUESDAY!!” Tom burst into the room and interrupted what I was saying to Nathan.
“P.iss off Tom!!” Nathan and I both yelled at Tom as he came in.
“What have I done now?” he moaned childishly.
“Just go.” Nathan snapped.
Tom backed out of the room slowly, looking at both of us oddly. I turned back to face Nathan and sighed as I quickly rehearsed what I wanted to say to him in my head. Asking guys out was never my strong point. I remembered when I tried to ask Matt out; I ended up babbling like an idiot, but somehow it worked and got Matt to go out with me. Wait, why am I thinking about Matt now? He’s out of my life and I’m going to forget about him and try and make an effort with Nathan who actually liked me.
“Anyway.. um..” I stammered, “I just wanted to say that..” I paused.
“Go on..” Nathan encouraged me.
“I want to tell you.. I.. um.. I..”
Once again I was interrupted, this time by my Dad. “There you are Grace.” he said has he opened Nathan’s door, “I was looking for you. You’ve got work to do, those tables out there aren’t going to clean themselves.”
“Yes Dad..” I sighed as he walked out of the room. “I’ll talk to you later.” I told Nathan, before leaving the dressing room. I hate my Dad.
---
Within the space of an hour, I’d cleaned about 8 tables. I was a really slow cleaner, and my slight obsessive-compulsiveness made it take a lot longer than I’d anticipated cleaning the tables. It seemed that more and more tables appeared as I kept cleaning, and every time I thought I’d finished, I’d find that there were even more tables needed to be cleaned. I decided to take a sneaky break, and sat down at one of the tables, sighing.
“Need a hand?” Nathan’s voice came from behind me and startled me.
“I suppose I could do with a bit of help..” I replied.
Nathan came around to my side of the table and picked up one of the cloths. He wiped around the table quickly and used wide sweeps to reach the other end of the table. All of a sudden, his arm collided with the bucket of water that I’d put on the table, causing it to go all over the floor and all over his trousers. I laughed as it looked like he’d wet himself badly.
“Why do I manage to spill something every time I see you?” he laughed, looking down at his wet self.
“Because you’re an idiot..” I giggled.
Nathan looked at me with narrowed eyes, yet still smiling. He threw the wet cloth at me, but I managed to dodge it. I stuck my tongue out at him as he missed me with the towel. He grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him. I knew exactly what he was going to do, and I tried my best to wriggle out of his grasp. However, I couldn’t and he pulled me even closer to him and hugging me tightly.
“Awww.. big hug..” he said jokingly.
“Nathan!! Get off me, you’re making me wet!!” I screamed.
“That’s what she said!” he joked.
I quickly pulled away from Nathan and shook the excess water from my clothes that had been transferred from Nathan’s body to mine. I picked up the cloth that he’d thrown at me earlier and threw it back at him, laughing as it hit me in the face. Our brief moment of fun was then suddenly interrupted, once again by my Dad.
“Grace, you’re meant to be working!” he called over to me.
“Sorry Dad..” I muttered.
“Guess I’ll let you get on then.” Nathan sighed.
“Yeah, see you in a bit..”
Like I said before, I hate my dad.
