#Chinstagram was the tag on the first of the Instagram posts that came through about eleven-thirty. Emma could identify Gee’s chin out of a sea of people in it, sadly she could also work out that one right next to it was Jamie’s. Which shouldn’t have been a surprise because it was Jamie’s Instagram account it was posted on. She could see the blurry background of the Empress around the crowd, but the foreground was mostly the two lower jaws of the men squished together to get in the screen.
‘As long as he doesn’t post “kisstagram”,’ she said stabbing a fork into one of the containers of Chinese takeout that she’d had delivered. It was spread over the table, erasing the presence of the tableau.
Her laptop was open in front of her, and displayed her Hootsuite dashboard with all the band’s different social media accounts on it. She switched to monitoring the conversation online. So far it was mostly the rehashed photos of Tina and Will from earlier. The plan was that Will would wait till midnight UK time to update the bears account. That gave five hours for all-out fandom excitement and speculation before Ed and Frankie moved into the spotlight.
The planning part of her wanted to know exactly what they were up to but… for once she had to trust someone else. She owed them that.
She shoved more food in her mouth and washed it down with the bottle of water next to her. Champagne would have to wait until this was all over.
Her phone pinged again. Gee’s Instagram account banner alert flashed up at her. She felt sick. She took another drink of water and looked at the time. It was only fifteen minutes to midnight.
Please don’t let it be a kiss. Please don’t let it be a kiss.
She held the phone away from her and opened it so she could look at it from the corner of her eye. It was silly but if she didn’t like what she saw she could drop it.
Oh, okay, it wasn’t a kiss. Relief made her sag in her chair. She looked at the photo. It was a shot of Gee and Jamie as she expected but slipping in between them with a shy smile was Rob from Tech Dev.
How the hell had he got there, she thought. Bringing the phone closer to her face, she tried to enlarge the photo. Yes, that was definitely Rob and… she peered closer. Bloody hell, after all her trouble he’d managed to get his arm round Jamie. It was a pity he was too late. They both were.
Who would think she’d have so much in common with him? Not her. And she’d been horrible to him. Not deliberately but he was such a non-event, with no background. There was nothing wrong with him per se, maybe he was a perfectly nice man. It just showed she had no clue when it came to planning anything really.
But it looked like both she and Rob were going to be starting the new year very single and quite possibly heartbroken. And no one deserved to feel as crap as she did.
If only she hadn’t interfered. Maybe…
She couldn’t help but trace Gee’s big grin with the tip of her finger. He looked happy, and also slightly drunk.
On a usual new year about this time they would be bouncing round the pub or their house depending on whether they could be bothered to host a party. There would be dodgy boyband music blaring out, Gee proclaiming that it was the most pure music art form that existed, his arms wide, gesticulating wildly and spilling beer or some other beverage over the furniture or floor, while she would probably have snorted wine out of her nose because of laughing too hard. Then he’d stop waving and rest the weight of his arm over her shoulder, holding her close. Making her feel like she belonged.
She could almost feel it laying there, like a ghost.
No, this was stupid. She’d thrown it away, there was no reason for her to wallow. This was something she did to herself.
New year. New Emma.
She sat up taller. That was it, she was going to learn how to roll with the punches, she was going to enjoy all the ups and downs. Embrace uncertainty. She swallowed hard as she shivered. Okay that one was going to take her a bit of time.
As she stared out of the window, the sky lit up as the fireworks display at the London Eye exploded into life.
As a soundtrack to it her phone rang with Gee’s ringtone, a Bros song. She wondered when he’d changed it.
Why was he calling her? Surely, he should be snogging his new boyfriend? Taking a deep breath, she accepted the call.
‘Happy New Year, Ems,’ he shouted down the phone. The sounds of cheering and singing came spilling from behind him out into her ear. Happy New Year shouts came from a chorus of voices.
‘Happy New Year, Gee,’ she said back carefully.
‘What?’ he shouted.
Oh for god’s sake.
‘Happy New Year!’ She yelled.
‘Had to make sure you were the first one I said it to, you know, for luck, like we always do,’ he slurred into her ear.
How could her heart keep breaking over and over, she thought, tears blurring the cascading sparks in the sky so they looked like golden smears.
‘Always, Gee.’ She wasn’t sure if he heard her through the background noise. But he would always be first with her.
‘Love you, Ems,’ he said. Or at least she thought that was what he said. His voice was quieter and she could hear Johnnie whooping in the background almost drowning it out.
‘What?’
‘Happy New Year, you old tart.’ Johnnie’s voice came booming down the line. ‘No, I’m speaking to Emma. You always speak to her, it’s my turn.’ He had obviously wrestled the phone off Gee.
She put her head on the table, turning her head away from the fireworks outside. Her body was having its own display on the inside. Sparks and warmth racing round, she wanted to dance.
‘Happy New Year, Johnnie. Now put Gee back on,’ she yelled frantically.
‘Hold on.’ He said and then the call cut off.
‘What?’ She looked down at her phone. ‘No!’ Had he said he loved her? He had, hadn’t he? She pressed the ‘call back’ button as hard as possible. The call failed.
‘How can you fail?’ She screamed at it.
She tried again and again.
Maybe she’d misheard? Maybe he meant he loved her as a friend? Because she knew he did but… the fireworks inside her fizzled out like a damp squib.
If he meant it, he’d have called back. Yes?
As soon as her phone buzzed she leapt on it.
Gee’s phone is out of juice, he says he’ll talk tomorrow. HNY!
It was from Jamie. But of course.
‘Happy New Year, Emma,’ she said to herself, as the vice that had been crushing her chest earlier came back and seemed to spread across her whole body.
***
The @bop_bear photo went viral around the BOTP fandom on all social media platforms about half an hour later. God, it was hard to wallow in misery when you were being a double agent. Emma used the official social media, trying to counteract all the confusion according to Mega!’s wishes, before logging onto some of the non-authorised accounts that Will and Ed had set up and undermining her own narrative.
She felt as if she had a split personality as it got closer to 5 a.m., or midnight in NYC. There had already been a panic. Ed had gone off the agreed script for the evening and instead of watching Frankie perform in Times Square, he’d hung out with the Feckless Rogues who were playing two blocks away.
With a bit of quick thinking, she’d managed to make it look like his trip to see the other band had been planned.
She smiled as another frantic message came through from Dan. She could imagine that Will was probably hearing about it all from Tina and having a ball. Maybe it wasn’t very professional to let a colleague deal with all of this but… Dan’s hurtful words about Jamie came back to her. It was like she was back there. No, she couldn’t be the bigger person, Dan would reap what he sowed.
Okay, it was almost time, Ed couldn’t avoid Frankie all night. She drummed her fingers on the table.
Her email chimed. It was four-thirty in the morning, so a half an hour before midnight in New York. It was from Dan.
He won’t kiss her on stage, says he’ll do it in the crowd or he’s walking. WTF???
Good on you, Ed, she thought smiling. It felt so good to be on the other side, to be the resistance. It seemed that Ed and Will’s plan didn’t include him being stuck on a stage. Please let it go alright, she crossed her fingers.
Just get him to snog her, was Si’s answer back on the email loop. Filing the emails, she went back to watching the social media conversation. She didn’t want to think about snogging.
Because that made her think of Gee. Who was obviously too busy to charge his phone. Busy kissing?
No, that didn’t help. She needed to concentrate.
At that moment Dan sent through the live link to Times Square. He and Amanda were recording everything. Always got to have the evidence to update the social media accounts with, she thought, in case the real fans missed it.
Crap, Ed looked as miserable as she felt. He had the beanie that Will usually wore pulled down over his ears. His sheepskin coat had its collar turned up so it hid a lot of his face. From what she could see of him he looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than there.
Beside him Frankie’s face was split with a huge smile. Emma had to hand it to her, even in freezing temperatures she was able to sell this pathetic excuse of a story. In some ways she pitied her, Ed definitely wasn’t playing his part but then…
Professionalism aside, Frankie had to know this wasn’t consensual and she had been incredibly gropey. Almost as if her thinking it had conjured it up, Emma watched as Frankie’s hand landed on Ed’s backside. His face came up and his mouth dropped in horror. It was as if she had her talons dug in and wasn’t letting go.
Ouch, she hoped Will wasn’t watching.
Over the crowd she could hear a countdown begin. Dan’s camera work left something to be desired as the screen joggled and she caught a glimpse of the illuminated ball on a building above them which would drop as the year turned. Sadly, it wouldn’t drop on Frankie no matter what Will and Ed hoped.
Ten, nine, eight… Ed looked pale and grey, but that could’ve been the shoddy cameraman… four, three, two… and she scrunched her face up as the cheer went up, any minute now and then Frankie lunged at Ed.
Oh. Well, that was unexpected.
Ed ducked. He full on crouched to get away from her. Frankie’s puckered lips hit icy air. The next moment, Ed spun out of her hold, and with another duck he shook off his bodyguard and vaulted the security fence, directly into a group of rabid fans.
It wasn’t anything anyone had suspected might happen.
She could hear Dan swear on the live feed.
She watched as the fans that Ed landed in the middle of stepped back in shock. It gave him enough time to give a little dip and a bow to them before he ran and disappeared behind a cop vehicle. The live stream bobbed and weaved as Dan took chase. Sadly for him the fans were now reacting and had also given chase and they were faster and more vicious. She flinched as it looked like Dan had hit the ground. No, he was up again. She squinted at the screen.
There, she saw Ed’s beanie flash in the corner of the feed and then he was gone, leaping into a yellow cab that seemed to have been waiting for him.
‘Holy…’ she started. Not even one minute into the new year. She could still hear the crowds singing Auld Lang Syne. That was some kind of planning, she was impressed.
Is he safe? She texted Will.
Just on his way to the Airbnb we booked. He’ll be tucked up in bed in 20 mins. Will’s reply came quickly.
They were smooth operators.
The live stream was a mess. Somehow Frankie was still keeping her mask firmly in place, but her eyes… Emma was glad to be thousands of miles away.
Good luck with that, Dan, she thought.
Quickly she wrote up her monitoring report, double checking there was nothing in it which showed she had inside knowledge. Logging out about 7 a.m., she staggered out of the building.
It was still dark, but the light from inside the cab she had called shone brightly. She should get in it and go home. Cook some bacon and at least keep some of her and Gee’s New Year traditions, eating bacon sandwiches while cuddled up under a duvet on one of the sofa’s watching old Buffy episodes. He would complain that Angel was a moaning git and people had little true appreciation of the joy that was Oz.
A sob broke through. She was so tired, she was feeling nostalgic and sad. It looked like the new year wasn’t going to be so happy after all. At least not for her.
***
There was nothing worse than getting yourself all wound up to have an emotional meltdown and then discovering that the other players in it hadn’t received the same information. She slammed the cupboard shut in the kitchen, watching as it caught a bag of Monster Munch and crunched it.
It wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped.
The day had been spent mostly sleeping. Not her, Gee. She’d got back and had a few hours’ sleep, waking with shaky hands. This was it, she was going to find out if he’d really said it.
But as she’d walked downstairs she realised that he was still in bed.
And well… she checked the clock. It was now 5 p.m. and… how drunk had he been last night? And what if he wasn’t alone?
Why hadn’t she thought about that before?
No, she couldn’t be here if Jamie ambled down the stairs after him.
Now she felt like she had a hangover. She grabbed a coat and her phone. She would hide out with Lew and Harry until the 3rd of January when she went on tour with the band. Then when she got back and saw him again, maybe she would’ve forgotten the words she thought she’d heard.
Pulling a woolly pom-pom hat over her ears she hoped to drown out Gee’s voice in her head.