Chapter 4.

54 2 0
                                    


            Sitting on her bed, Chloé was trying to read an article on her computer and had lit a candle whose vanilla scent filled the room. Lockdown in many ways was disrupting her life and, at university level, the young woman, like everyone else, had had to adapt. With university libraries and archives closed until further notice, she had to do with the resources available online. She was working on Dauphiné prostitutes in the 18th century for her master's degree and, at the end of her first year, she had to submit a report on the state of her research, which was moving almost backwards in view of the circumstances. She wanted to try to make some progress in her reading, which she had somewhat neglected for about ten days, but Chloé found it very difficult to concentrate and her thoughts wandered towards a certain British music group and especially towards its brown-haired singer. She was terribly looking forward to working with them and would have liked to speed up the time as she was already imagining herself in a London recording studio. Dreamy, she suddenly felt like going to look at the message she and her sisters had received from the Vamps on the Faith account, as if she still doubted that what she was experiencing was real.

           When she opened Instagram, she was shocked. She, Chloe, had a message request. From Brad. The young woman's heart raced. What could he want with her? Trembling but with a huge smile on her face, Chloe opened the message. And as she read it, her smile stretched even more. She was touched that he loved his song so much that he wanted to play it during a relaxing evening. Chloe quickly took a picture of the page of her notebook with the lyrics and sent it to Brad. He responded immediately.


"I like your writing very much"

"Thank you," she said with a smiley face.

"I see that you too are writing in a notebook" he said.


        He added a photo of the view he had at the time of the conversation to his own notebook. Chloe was touched and happy. Brad seemed to want to keep talking to her. She was flattered.


"Yes, it's starting to get pretty full."

"Do you have any other texts?"

"Nothing complete yet..."

"I'm sure it must be very good."

"Do you want to read one?"


         Surprised by the guts of her own proposal, Chloe suddenly dropped her phone, which was buried in the thickness of the blanket. She would normally be very difficult to open and now she had just offered one of the most secret parts of her life to a complete stranger. But Bradley gave off such an aura that she had an irrepressible desire to trust him. When she had known the Vamps, Chloe had immediately sensed that the singer seemed to be a deeply kind person and this first impression was confirmed during their few minutes of video discussion in the afternoon.


"Only if you read it to me."


           Chloé fell backwards and her heart raced. Although she didn't have much experience in relationships, the young woman was quite capable of recognising when a man was trying to flirt with her. At the same time, Brad's flirtation with her was quite clear... What was she supposed to do? Was it smart to respond favourably to her advances when they were made to work together? The professional context in which they had met cooled the young woman down somewhat, but could she really miss such a call for headlights? Hesitantly, Chloé finally decided to look for a fairly neutral answer that didn't go headlong into the young man's arms, but didn't shut the door completely on him either.

Paper Heart - Bradley Will SimpsonWhere stories live. Discover now