you felt you wanted to answer. “Matchmaker, are you?”
“You must be joking. I can’t get myself a date, never mind anyone else. Nope, if you still like Stacey you’re on your own there. I just think you seem nicer than Dray.”
I smirked. “But you don’t actually know me. What if I’m a vampire or something and not as nice as you think?”
She guffawed with laughter. “I like you, you’re stupid.” Clapping her hand over her mouth, she gasped. “Sorry, I mean, you’re funny, not stupid as in dumb. You make me laugh. I don’t laugh much. My life’s pretty boring, so I’m so pleased I’m now running your fan club.” She patted down her pockets. “Oh, but Freya went off with my pad and pen so I can’t write down anything you tell me.”
"It's fine. You don't have to run our fan club. I'll tell the others. Thanks for supporting us and hopefully you now realise that alcohol is not your friend."
She blushed a little. "I shouldn't let myself get pulled into Freya's hairbrained ideas, but hey, I got to meet you all. And I really am a huge fan and would definitely, truly like to run your fan club. You'll need one. You're going to be huge. I just know it."
Oh what the hell. “Give me your phone number and email address and we’ll be in touch. You can totally run our fan club if you want. You can ask us anything via emails and then we’ll leave it up to you how you run things. That’s if you still wake up in the morning wanting to run things and it's not the alcohol talking.”
“I don’t usually drink.” she confessed.
"Funnily enough. I kind of worked that out." I stood up and escorted her to the door. "Let's go find your friend in the canteen."
She nodded.
"I really do think you and Stacey seem better suited than her and Dray." She said, as her friend stood up in the canteen and they got ready to leave.
"You stick to creating the fan club, and I'll run my love life, or lack of it." I gave her a hug.
"Bye. It was nice to meet you. Thanks for being so kind and not kicking us out." She said.
Bless her. Erica seemed a really nice girl. I hoped she wasn't taking on this fan club thing just to try to get near Zak. Her soul seemed far too good for him. He'd ruin her. But… she was a grown woman and I clearly had no clue about love, so it wasn't my problem.
We said goodbye to the women and made our way home.
Back at the show the following evening we found we'd made it through to the following week's live rounds. So had Seven Sisters and Flame-Grilled Steak.
Stacey
For someone who seemingly had the world at her feet if the stories in the press were anything to go by, I was pretty damn miserable. I'd enjoyed my time alone, but now I was back here waiting for the results to be announced and the amount of people and noise surrounding me was driving me insane. Most of the chatter was coming from my bandmates as Donna almost had them in a frenzy with her excited chatter about how we could win this. She was full of ideas about what we could do next, for which I noted Carmela smiled at her without it reaching her eyes. We did what Carmela told us, end of. She'd been okay with the changes we'd suggested last time, but as she cast her eyes upon Donna once more, I got the impression that the already small Donna was going to get cut down soon.
I only wished I had the same enthusiasm.
We walked out onto the stage for the bit where there was the overexaggerated announcement of who had and hadn't made it to the next round. For the first week we were being whittled from twenty acts to seventeen acts and then two acts a week would leave for the next seven weeks, leaving three acts in the final.
We made it through to the next week. I was happy for the band, but I still had this unsettled feeling inside. After making my excuses to be on my own for a second night in a row, I went home where I took some time trying to work out what was making me feel this way. Okay, I’d realised I needed to focus on myself a little, but that couldn't be