‘Jesus, they aren’t even telling the truth at the wedding? How can they keep track of all the lies?’ Gee said, folding his arms and baring his teeth in the semblance of a grin.
‘It’s all in a spreadsheet, I keep it updated on Google docs,’ she answered, frowning as she listened to make sure that Phil hit all the important points in the speech. They were only white lies, she didn’t understand why Gee always got so wound up about it. Everyone did it – bent the truth or hid it to make them look the best they could. And it wasn’t just famous people, hell, what were filters on Instagram for if not for gilding the truth.
She looked behind her to make sure that the intern was stationed at the rear of the tent and was still filming all of the speeches on her phone. She’d have the other intern ready to capture any video of the dancing later. Then they would leak the videos from some of the guests’ social media accounts to get around the ‘we want to keep this a private event for family and friends’ story they had going. Keeping the illusion, even though the leaks were fully signed off by the happy couple.
‘It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, Ems.’ Gee pushed his glasses to the top of his head as he turned to look at her.
His eyebrows furrowed over hazel eyes.
‘Oh my god, didn’t you used to be Gee Knightley?’ One of the guests at the next table called over loudly.
Everyone in their vicinity turned around to stare.
Here we go again, Emma thought, trying not to smile.
Gee slumped further down in his chair if that was possible, his frown deepening. It was the same perplexed and bad boy look that had looked down from a poster on her wall when she was sixteen. And probably also been on the bedroom wall of the girl currently bouncing in her seat behind them.
‘I’m still Gee Knightley,’ he muttered, before sitting up, smoothing over his face and turning to smile.
‘Hey,’ he said with a small wave.
The girl squeaked, her face crimson and her eyes shining.
Ems rolled her eyes. This happened at least once a day. You would’ve thought that ten years after Gee’s boyband had broken up people would forget.
‘Oh my god, you were always my favourite in Status Single. Are you ever going to reform? I saw that Johnnie was acting now, what do you do? Oh Luke, Luke… you remember Status Single?’ The girl, who was really a woman in her late twenties, poked her companion with her finger.
The bloke looked grumpily impressed and also as if he were worried that Gee was either going to run after his girlfriend or himself and he wasn’t sure which one was better.
‘I’m sorry, but I think we need to listen to the speeches, maybe we can catch up afterwards?’ Gee whispered with a finger to his lips and a wink.
He turned back round, the practised smile falling from his lips.
‘This is all your fault, Woodhouse,’ he griped. ‘We’ll be all over social media in about a minute.’
‘Hush,’ she said. Not that she wasn’t used to it.
If she’d told her sixteen-year-old self that Gee Knightley would walk into her tutorial group her first week in university, she would have screamed and flapped in a fan girl panic. As it was, her eighteen-year-old self had gone bright red and tried to remember how to breathe.
They didn’t actually talk until two weeks later, when Gee had leaned over and asked if she knew what the hell the tutor was talking about.
And by the time they’d been made partners for a group project, Emma could just about forget that he had been Gee Knightley, lead singer and bad boy in Status Single, and the star of her teen fantasies. He’d become merely Gee, the annoying mature English and Business student whose main source of fun was making dry and sarcastic asides about their tutor or poking fun at her very carefully thought out plans for the future.
‘Okay, but we are getting out of here as soon as we can. I refuse to stay for the dancing, because they’ll start playing that song,’ Gee whispered.
‘I’ve got to meet with the team to choose which of the pap shots we want released, we can’t go till that is done,’ she replied.
Emma tried to hide her smile, because she knew that the Status Single song he was referring to was on the playlist.
Sometimes you had to get your little jollies where you could, even when you were working. And Gee’s grumpy face when a whole dancefloor did the dance that went with the song was always priceless.
‘I hate you,’ he said as he reached for his phone which was on the table. ‘And yes, I was right. The back of my head is already trending on Twitter.’
He flashed the screen at her. Yes, there was the back of his head and hers.
‘Damn it, Gee, why didn’t you tell me my hair was coming down at the back?’ Her hand went up to fix it.
‘I thought it looked nice, less corporate, more my Emma,’ he said, putting the phone back on the table and slid his sunglasses back on.
He reached a finger up and tickled the back of her neck interfering with her attempts to repair her hair.
She couldn’t help but laugh even as a tingle went down her spine.
‘You aren’t helping, and you are such a drama queen. You’ve had people taking your photo at least once a day since I’ve known you. And I know you aren’t as grumpy about it as you make out to be.’
‘Fine, Woodhouse, but you need to make it up to me, now my privacy has been violated. You have to deal with taking the rubbish and recycling out for the rest of the week for making me come here. Pinky promise?’
He held his pinky finger out, while he stared ahead as Phil was still proclaiming his love for Brooke.
She brought up her hand and let him wrap his finger round hers. Warmth spread through her. Life was always good when she had Gee next to her. Partner in crime, platonic soulmate.
And even if he was always trying to upset her plans and get her to let loose, he’d never leave her. Sometimes she thought he knew her better than anyone else did. Maybe even herself.
There was rustling and movement as everyone got up for the last toast to the bride.
‘And that is my cue,’ he squeezed her finger and under cover of everyone seating themselves again, he managed to slip out of the tent. How he managed to do it when he was over six foot she didn’t know, it was like he had a force field round him that made people part in front of him.
Emma got her bag together. This might be a wedding, but she was working, which is why she’d brought Gee. He kept any single men who thought they would get lucky at bay and he didn’t get the wrong idea. He also knew how to behave at these sorts of things, even if he grumbled. And, he didn’t need entertaining or babysitting. When she had a plan that was this detailed and finely tuned she couldn’t be distracted.
Not that Emma had time for a relationship, working in the publicity and PR department of Mega! Management took way too much time. But she had a timeline for a relationship and marriage and all that, because you couldn’t leave these things to chance.
She shuddered at the thought of not having a plan. If you didn’t plan, anything could go wrong. So she had her checklist for the right sort of bloke she’d end up with. Not that she was due to meet him or date him for another year or so, according to her timeline.
So yeah, Gee was perfect plus one material.
‘Oh, did Gee Knightley leave?’ The girl stopped Emma as she got up to meet the rest of the team in the room they’d taken over as control centre. Otherwise known as the library.
Emma took a deep breath, poor Gee. No matter where he went he could never really hide.
‘Yeah, sorry he had a call from Johnnie that he had to take.’
The girl’s eyes widened and her hand came up to her mouth.
‘Johnnie? But I thought they… are they dating?’ she whispered.
Emma winked and walked off.
That was probably a shitty thing to do and wasn’t completely fair, she thought. Gee had never lied about dating both men and women. If he had lied then Status Single would still be going. But he hated lying about himself, which she thought was very short-sighted. He could make his life so much easier if he lied or even just prevaricated more. But whoever he dated it didn’t matter because over the years the rumours about Gee and Johnnie’s relationship, ‘Genie’, ran rampant. One day they were supposed to hate each other, the next they loved each other, then they couldn’t stand to be in the same room as each other. Or, the one that made them laugh the most, was the rumour that they were secretly married. Whichever version it was, everyone believed it was the reason the band broke up.
Really, it was their record company that had thrown their toys out of the pram when they realised that neither one of them was going to play into the heterosexual rock god persona.
Anyway, she shouldn’t be stirring.
But then again Johnnie had been round the house last night with his overly cute pug, Georgie. Between the pair of them they’d eaten the leftovers she had been saving to have for dinner. And Gee had let it happen. And added to that, Georgie had humped her favourite hugging pillow from the sofa.
No, she wasn’t feeling very gracious towards either of them. Well, Georgie got a pass because he was cute, and it wasn’t his fault Johnnie hadn’t had him fixed.
Emma had a flash of guilt when she thought of the way Twitter was about to explode with ‘Genie’ ship conspiracy theories all over again.
They were big boys. They’d deal with it.
She shook her head to get rid of the distraction. She was working.
Bugger these shoes, she thought as she wobbled on the slightly uneven flooring. Why did your feet have to swell in the heat? What she wouldn’t give for some comfy shoes.
Sadly, comfy shoes were fine for everyday wear but for weddings, nope. She needed to look enough like she belonged at the party without standing out.
She was the power behind the throne, she thought, the person behind the curtain pulling the levers. She could hear Gee’s voice saying, ‘the person holding the puppet strings.’