Fact of the day: I'm allergic to ketchup and washing up liquid. fuN.
Please participate in voting and commenting, it doesn't take long and tells me people are reading the book so I should carry on updating. Share the story so the chapter targets are hit faster so I can update quicker.
Thanks for standing by if you have been ^-^
-
There was a loud bang at the door, snapping me out of my sleep. I groaned really loud before stretching and trying to get back to sleep. There were a few click sounds before someone came into the room. "Lola!" I heard Nicole yell. I already had a pounding in my head and could feel my heart pounding against my chest slowly.
It wasn't the best idea, drinking the night before with no idea of what was happening the day after, but I didn't regret it; not one bit. "Wake up!" She yelled again, "It's 9:30, you've missed breakfast," she pointed out.
My lips felt sticky and I felt sickly to open them, my mouth still tasted like beer, with a hint of medication. I wanted to sleep in but obviously I wasn't allowed too. I wasn't really paying attention to what Nicole was saying because all I could focus on was how my heart rate was slowly speeding up along with the banging in my head.
While Nicole was speaking, the words going in one ear and coming out of the other I remembered that Carter had brought me back last night, I bolted up and scanned the room but I didn't see him anywhere in the room. "...I see that got you up," Nicole said. "Get ready," she instructed, "I'll be back in a half hour." She said before leaving quite quickly.
I climbed out of bed and made my way to the bathroom, one, to pee and two, to check if Carter was there or if he had left. He wasn't in the bathroom so he had left. After peeing, I picked out an outfit, a grey shirt, slightly cropped so it stopped just above the belly button and a pair of white jeans. I showered before putting on my underwear and bra and then pulling on my clothes, I hadn't realised that the shirt said animal across the chest in bold white letters.
As I brushed through my hair and quickly blow dried it I checked the time on my phone, it was already 10:30 and Nicole hadn't come back yet. I pulled all of my hair into a ponytail and grabbed my phone, key-card and purse and shoved them into my leather jacket pockets and put on the jacket.
I left my room and went and knocked on Nicole's door to see where she was. I heard her speaking become louder as she approached the door and opened it. She was on the phone, probably to management about why we weren't there yet.
"I'm sorry, we'll be there as soon as possible." She said. "Yeah, I understand that." She grabbed a denim jacket from her bed and gestured for me to go. "I haven't had very much time to speak to her about that, but I'm sure it won't take long." We rushed towards the lift and then called it, it was only on the floor below us. "Yeah, we're coming right down. See you." She finally finished before hanging up and shoving her phone in her pocket.
"What happened?" I asked as we got into the lift.
"We're late." She summed it up. "Plus, I was meant to speak to you about your media approach yesterday but it slipped my mind since we were so busy,"
"Media approach?" I asked as I heard the lift ding at a floor that wasn't ours and the door opened, on the other side stood Carter, he had sunglasses on and his hair wasn't styled. He hadn't taken notice of us since he was looking down at his phone but as he stepped into the lift he saw us and smiled. "Hey." I said to him.
"Hey." He said back. Suddenly Nicole's phone started blasting and she quickly took it out and answered it. As she yapped away, me and Carter made small talk. "You snore in your sleep," He decided to tell me.
"Ummm... okay," I said, unsure of how to respond.
"You talk a lot too,"
"Oh really, what was I saying?" I asked sarcastically.
"Not much. But we held a conversation about what we did yesterday," He told me. "And you have a crush on Cameron." I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and I didn't remember the conversation at all.
"I don't have a crush on Cameron," I mumbled.
As Nicole finished her phone call Carter spoke to her. "Hi. Umm Nicole, I was told I was meant to go down to the HQ with you and Lola," He said to her.
"Yeah, I just got told the same thing. The taxi is waiting outside we need to hurry," She said as the lift dinged because we got to the bottom floor. We rushed to the back of the building where the Taxi was. Nicole got in the front seat and I climbed into the back accompanied by Carter.
Nicole spoke to the driver about some business stuff, leaving me and Carter sitting awkwardly in the back. "Uh, thanks for um... staying with me yesterday." I stuttered.
"I thought you wouldn't remember." Carter said, I looked at him slightly confused. "You were drunk, like really bad." He reacted to my expression.
"I wasn't that drunk." I said.
"You went swimming in your clothes and then sat in my car in your underwear." He said to me, eyebrows raised.
"Yeah. That doesn't mean I was drunk." I pointed out.
"Oh. Okay." He shrugged. "So what m.a are you taking?" He asked me. "Since you're paired with Brent you could take any, he does the whole lot." I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. I chuckled nervously before answering.
"Yeah... Uh..." I dragged on. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"M.a? Media approach. Like making music, modelling, videos." He listed.
"Oh. I hadn't really thought about that. I didn't think I'd get this far to be honest. I mean, never in my life did I imagine being sat in the back of a taxi with Carter Reynolds, but here we are." I blabbered on.
"I think you'd be good at making videos." He said, looking straight at me. It was the first time I realised his eyes were a dark shade of brown and beautiful.
"Really?" I asked.
"Yeah. Your voice is nice, you'd be good on a radio show aswell. Say more words." He said, a small smile on his face.
"Okay. I like cheese and I hate tuna. Oh and I boarded a plane for the first time in like nine years yesterday. And the airport security really get all in there with the searches."
"Mhmm." He indicated that he wanted me to carry on.
"I have a best friend named Stacey and a boyfriend named Dan." I said, starting to talk about my general life since I didn't know what else to talk about. "I have brown eyes and brown hair."
"That's quite obvious." Nicole chimed in from the front seat. Carter attempted to shush her. "We're here, by the way. You can listen to Lola talking later." She said before getting out of the taxi. I rushed out since we were already late.
We walked quickly to the conference room, as it was labelled, it was quite a large meeting room as we got in there were eight others sitting around a large table in the middle and a few adults scattered around the edge of the room.
I took a seat next to Cameron at the end of the table while Carter sat across me. Nicole apologised for us being late and the man at the front accepted it and carried on with the presentation.
The next half an hour was spent doodling on the back of a sheet of paper as the man at the front spoke, none of the information registered in my brain and it made me bored, it was mainly stuff about dealing with the media and doing specific activities to get positive attention.
As the man finished speaking everyone started chatting quietly. Cameron turned to me. "Hey," He said. I smile and responded simply.
"Hi." I said.
"What are you planning on doing then?" He asked me. I shrugged, I was guessing that he was talking about whether I was making music or videos or deciding on being a model. My options were limited since I didn't possess talent in many categories. "What are you good at?" He asked me.
"Not much." I mumbled.
"Can you sing?" He asked.
"Nope."
"Can you model?"
"Nope."
"Can you talk into a camera?"
"Doesn't seem that hard." I answered. Cameron smiled, I'm guessing he liked the idea of me making videos.
"Great, so you're gonna make videos." He said happily. I slightly nodded, not knowing what else to do.
"Lola." Nicole called me, she already had Brent standing next to her. I excused myself from the conversation with Cameron and went over to them.
"Hey." I said to Brent, he smiled and briefly nodded. "What's up?" I asked both of them.
"Brent was just telling me that you have a good personality for video making." Nicole said to me, I raised an eyebrow at Brent, he shrugged, he seemed really quiet in front of new people, and he didn't portray that character on stage the day before.
"I did want to make videos, yeah. That's what me and Cameron were talking about just now." Nicole wiped fake sweat from her forehead as I spoke.
"Good, less work for me."
"What work do even do to begin with?" Brent asked her as a joke.
"Yeah. All you do is eat bacon for breakfast and drive me places." I started speaking but she covered my mouth and chuckled nervously.
"I'm your mentor. That's my job." She answered. "So have you guys decided who you're gonna room with?" She asked, the words seemed foreign to me, I hadn't a clue what she was talking about and right about then was when I wished that I paid attention to what the guy had said.
"Yeah, Me and Matt. We spoke about it yesterday." Brent said. Nicole and Brent both looked over at me, awaiting my answer.
"I-uh-what are you talking about?" I stuttered at first. Nicole rolled her eyes.
"Your roommate, who are you rooming with?" she asked. I felt nervous as I scanned the room looking between the four girls I could room with, they were all either speaking with their mentors or sat at the table speaking.
As I looked between them I made eye contact with Haylee who was speaking to her mentor, she raised one eyebrow and I mouthed 'roommate?' to her. She nodded and showed me a thumbs up.
"Haylee." I answered.
"You literally mouthed it across the room, you don't even know the girl properly." Brent said to me.
"I don't even know any of you properly." I answered tiredly.
"So you're rooming with Haylee?" Nicole confirmed as she wrote down some words on a paper. I quickly looked over at her and nodded a little and she did the same.
"Yeah." I answered.
After sorting all of that out and speaking to Haylee briefly we were all shoved outside of the building and into taxis to go to the apartment block the HQ owned.
I got pushed into a taxi, along with Nash and Matt, by someone from the management team, the 30 minute drive wasn't boring but also wasn't the opposite as me and Matt bickered about the incident at the beach yesterday.
The block we were staying in was seven floors high, having one apartment on each floor, even though we only needed six. We all poured out of the yellow taxis as they turned up a couple at a time. The one I was in was the third car to show up, the first two only having mentors and a few people from management in.
Me, Nash and Matt sat on the curb, counting the cars that drove past and punching each other as soon as another yellow car came in sight.
"So who's rooming with who?" I asked them, I already knew the female room plan since we had all spoke about it back at the HQ.
"The boys are Me and Cam," Nash started answering. "Him and Brent." He pointed to Matt. "And Carters on his own." I fake frowned.
"Sad for Carter." I acted sympathetic when in reality I was being sarcastic.
"What about the girls?" Matt asked.
"Me and Haylee. Lily and Rachel and Mandy's on her own." I said quickly. I didn't really know Rachel or Mandy that much since they weren't at the beach with us yesterday but Rachel seemed nice, Mandy on the other hand, didn't.
As the others started turning up we we're all told to stand with our roommates.
We were handed keys and then told to find our rooms, after walking up almost all the stairs, sticking our key in practically every door in the apartment block we got to the second to last one, Cameron and Nash getting the top floor.
As soon as the door swung open I fell in love with the small flat, it was furnished nicely. Haylee went straight to the bedrooms while I looked around the open plan lounge area. "I call the big bedroom!" Haylee called from one of the rooms.
"No, that's not fair!" I realised, rushing to the room Haylee was in. "I want this room." I said like a baby.
"I'm older and I called it." Haylee said with a smug look on her face, her arms crossed. I rolled my eyes jokingly.
"When are we moving in here then?" I asked her, she seemed proud for claiming the big bedroom. She shrugged her shoulders before answering.
"Don't ask me. I only know that I got the big bedroom and that we get paid $350 a week plus any money we make from our pathway." Haylee said like it was nothing.
"Wait." I said, processing the new information. "How do you know?" I asked her.
"When you talk about media approach with your mentor they should've told you. Plus they spoke about it during the presentation." She said. Listening to her made me realise that she was very confident and she was good at putting words together.
"Oh. I never got down to that." I mumbled as Haylee sat down on the bed, pretty much flinging herself onto it.
"What did you pick?" She asked me. "I picked music and social media." She said since I was silent for a second.
"Um... Social Media." I almost stuttered as I began to appreciate the aesthetics of the room. It was based around pastel blue and pink with some white.
"Like YouTube right?" She asked, looking for the switch of the fairy lights untangled with the bed frame. They had gone into detail when considering decoration.
"Yeah probably. I'm gonna get Brent to help me since I don't really know how to do any of it." I said, looking at some ornaments on the bedside table.
I went to the next bedroom, Haylee following behind me. I honestly didn't mind taking it, since even-though it was smaller, it wasn't much smaller than my bedroom back in Reading so it was okay. The colour theme was white with some pink floral patterns on the bedspread and curtains, which made the room seem brighter and bigger.
"You can have the big bedroom, I want this one." I said to Haylee. "It looks like my room at home." I stated.
"The big bedroom looks like mine." She said, I nodded. We looked around the rest of the one floor apartment, since the main room was open plan, the kitchen and living room, it was all one colour theme, black and white.
Just as we checked out the bathroom there was a knock at the door which was left wide open. Nicole walked in as we both stepped out of the bathroom.
"How's everything going?" She asked me and Haylee.
"Good!" Haylee answered perkily.
"Have you spoken to Lindsey?" Nicole asked Haylee. She shook her head before answering.
"No, I think she's with Cameron at the minute." She answered. Nicole nodded her head.
"Okay. Well I hope you don't mind but I have to snatch Lola." Nicole said, grabbing my wrist. We quickly said our goodbyes and I was practically dragged away and shoved into a car with Brent who was sat in the driver's seat.
"Okay, let's go." Brent said, starting the engine.
"Where are we going, I wanted to carry on looking at the apartment." I asked, a frown on my face.
"So did I, but then Nicole came up to me and was like 'Brent, you're meant to take Lola out and help her buy equipment right now' and then gave me this and shoved me into her car." He handed me a bank card.
"Is this what we buy all of it with?" I asked him, taking it from his hand. He nodded, continuing to drive.
We went to a big tech store, the drive was mainly focused on talking about what I should do for my first video and establishing that talking about bananas, like one of Brent's first videos was an option, just not one I would take.
Actually picking specific equipment was a struggle since I didn't have the slightest clue what was good for what or what was easier to use or anything to do with it in general.
Brent ended up just picking up what he thought would be good for me instead of making me ponder for ages. We ended up buying a camera, tripod, some lights, a microphone and some little fiddly bits and pieces.
In all honesty I would call myself technically advanced but some of the things Brent picked up we're completely foreign to me and I knew I would definitely need help setting it up.
The thing about Brent is that, even-though I was probably getting on his nerves with my absent-mindedness when I attempted to pick a camera myself for half an hour, he didn't get frustrated what-so-ever. He was generally kind hearted and had an open mind.
Since we had a small amount of money left on the card given to us by Nicole we decided to go and buy some food, mainly snacks - Nicole had told Brent we we're allowed to spend all of it anyway, so it was fine.
We went into a local super market and looked around. Somehow we got onto the topic of videos again, I kept bringing it up since I was nervous.
"A good thing to do would be collab with as many people as possible but still interact with your audience, like let's say me and you were making a collab, if we just spoke to each other the whole time and completely ignored the camera then whoever was watching would feel left out, if you get what I'm trying to say?" Brent said, as we walked through the bakery. I was just picking up bags of cookies and brownies and putting them into the basket Brent was holding.
"Yeah. Okay. But I'm gonna struggle with thinking of video ideas." I mumbled.
"Anything that comes to mind. The days you're busy you can vlog. Also you can do challenge videos and tags and stuff, just make sure you credit the creator. Like AmazingPhil made the seven second challenge." Brent said before providing an example.
"Yeah. I guess things like the photobooth tag and maybe the no hands challenge." I said whatever came to mind.
"Jenna Marbles and I think the No hands challenge was made by Joe Sugg, I'm not too sure." Brent said quickly, shocking me a little.
"Could my first collab be me and you?" I asked.
He smiled. "Yeah sure. Any ideas as to what you want to do?" He asked. I picked up a pack of butter cream frosted cupcakes and shoved them in Brent's face.
"Baking Cupcakes." I said as a joke.
"That could be fun." He said, laughing a little as he attempted to move the box of cupcakes from his face and put them in the basket.
"I was kidding, that's really basic." I said. "It's something everyone does." I added.
"Yeah but then you could do it differently. Make it a little intense, I don't know, we could do it as a race or a competition, or maybe you could just teach me to cook since I haven't got a clue how to. You'd probably get really angry with me." He brainstormed on the spot, I was impressed by how easily he did that.
I shrugged. "We'll have to see." I mumbled.
-
Vote/Comment
Brent is adorable. If you don't think so fight me. I DARE U.
Carter feels at the beginning of the chapter bc obviously?
Thank 4 reading dis shit (lel *kis*)
Lmao period pains.
Dedicated to @NowImAWarrior97 because her 3456789876 comments in the past week have pushed me to write and thank for comments ur comments cute af
-
Okay now, only continue reading if you actually give a shit as to why I haven't updated in 2 months. If you honestly don't care then you can click away, I won't mind. ^^
(Btw trigger warning!)
Hello. welcome to the soml lmao.
The past two months have been some of the most difficult of my life. Usually I write to comfort me but this story, it's not really giving me the same buzz it used to (lmao sounds like drugs)
I'm definitely gonna keep writing because I've practically become best friends with Lola.
But the updates are gonna be slow [100% not this slow, like maybe once every couple of weeks/every week. I'm gonna try my best, okay] (here's the part where I talk about my shit life) because recently my mum's developed a cyst in her breast and we aren't sure if its cancerous or not, this has caused her to go slightly insane (literally).
Personally [she doesn't go to her doctors appointments even after constant begs from everyone around her] I've dubbed her unfit to take care of me and my younger sister so I'm having to do all of it myself. I haven't spoken to anyone about it because our tiny family is at risk of breaking up and I don't want that.
I'm also having to put up with constant verbal abuse from her (writing about it here is making me feel sick to my stomach) and there's not much I can do. I just have to raise myself and my 10 year old sister and hope for the best.
All of the bullshit made me develop severe anxiety and anxiety attacks are thrown at me left, right and center. (my anxiety came with ocd aswell aha the full package, amarite) Also leading to depression (its like buy 1 get 10 free) and making me resort back to self harm after being clean for almost 4 weeks (4 weeks is a long time for me ^^)
I promise you I'm putting my heart and soul into this book and none of the writing is half assed, If it seems it It's probably because I'm a shit writer.
I'm currently battling a hell of a lot and I appreciate anyone who hasn't stopped reading this book and/or read this summary of the past two months of my life.
I'm extremely grateful for having two amazing best friends who have helped me through a lot of it, one of which is probably reading this and one who is currently away in the Caribbeans for her cousins wedding. <3
Thanks to all.
Love sent.
-xxx-