Demi Lovato Imagines

Let Them Eat Cake

"...Happy birthday to you..."

Jenna's arm bashes against yours as she starts clapping excitedly, the whole room erupting into loud whoops and whistles. Demi stands in the middle of the room, beaming smile, wafting away the smoke in front of her from the candles she just blew out. You smile too. You can't help but feel grateful for the position you're in despite everything. Yeah, the travelling is long and the performances are hard, but this is what you've trained for. This is what you wanted. And so what if the people you work for give you bad vibes.

Okay, maybe not 'bad' vibes exactly but certainly sketchy ones. Namely down to Paul's tendency to be constantly hovering in your peripheral vision, around every corner, or needing to slip in and out of the dancers' dressing rooms multiple times before shows. No one else seems to care though. Or, at least, they don't say anything if they do. On your first night, after joining halfway through the American leg of the tour, you remember frowning at Jenna in the mirror after Paul ducked back out through the door, the list of guests that he was supposedly looking for pinched between his thumb and forefinger. But Jenna just shrugged, stretched her lips into a tight smile, and continued to spread glue on her false eyelashes. That was when you realised you weren't supposed to question it. And the perks of being on tour with Demi Lovato outweighed it all anyway. Right?

Jenna leans even further into your side and when you look towards her, you see Paul sidling past her, hand on her shoulder, carrying a large kitchen knife. He walks over to Demi and hands it to her before quickly stepping back with his phone out, ready to video the whole thing.

"About to cut the cake!" he laughs, taking another step back to make sure everything is in shot. You watch as she directs a toothy grin to the camera then plunges the tip of the knife through the white cream. It slides easily at first, then meets some resistance. With a breath of effort, she pushes the handle to the table. Everyone starts cheering again and Paul pans the camera around to get the reaction. Meanwhile, Demi cuts again, lifting the wedge of watermelon up and onto one of the paper plates her make-up artist holds out for her. You're still working on remembering everyone's names. It takes another few minutes before everyone is given a slice and people are forming smaller cliques and chatting about how sore and tired they are from last night's performance. You're not sure what was so different. The stage almost felt like it was tiled and you were running uphill every time you travelled upstage. Whatever it was, it was a different venue this evening and you were sure a quick stretch in the hallway would unknot the kinks in your calves. You'd ended up in a group with Jenna, Molly, and Brad who had all finished their 'cake' and were covertly pouring out handfuls of skittled from their pockets and chewing them with ducked heads. But no one said anything about Paul. His name wasn't even mentioned. Don't you think it's kind of fucking weird, guys, you want to say, that we're not even allowed to eat candy? We're all adults, aren't we?

"Stop looking like that," Brad mumbles through closed teeth. You blink, shaking your head and turning your eyes to him.

"Huh?"

"Stop looking so put out," he says again. "We don't need another lecture."

"Take it easy, Brad," Jenna retorts in equally as quiet a voice. "She wasn't even here last time, remember."

"Last time for what?" you ask, taking the hint and keeping your voice down. Brad rolls his eyes and glances past your shoulder as if on lookout.

"Paul gave the whole team this big lecture on how we're all 'on the job' twenty-four-seven," Molly says, making air-quotes with her fingers, "And so we need to stick to healthy diets and exercise regimes even when on the road and all this shit. Was at least an hour long, right?" she says to the others.