SivaSykes Tw Fanfic

Chapter 24

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:50:18 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

'Sophie!' Jay called after me, 'you guys need to talk whatever the hell this is through, running off won't solve it. Now I don't know what this is about and I'm sure if you want to tell me you will in your own time, but for now go find Hollie and sort it.' I nodded and slowly turned around to walk back to the backstage area. Hollie turned around to face me when she heard me coming. 'sometimes Hollie, I don't tell you stuff, but not because I don't trust you, I do it because I don't WANT to. I don't want to burden people with that kind of stuff because it's my cross to bear not yours. That means you don't go digging around and eavesdropping to find out what I'm keeping from you.' 'yeah that's totally fine because to be honest Soph that's not even what's pissed me off. I can't believe you'd even do that, it hadn't done anything wrong, it-' 'DO YOU THINK THAT WAS EASY FOR ME?!' I yelled. 'Soph' Nathan warned. 'No Nathan! She needs to hear this. Hollie that decision wasn't like I was chosing what to have for fucking breakfast?! It damn near killed me and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. So don't you dare judge me on something you will never experience.' 'How can you even say that?! I'm in the exact same situation now!' I stood in disbelief for a few seconds before I lowered my voice to almost a hiss. 'No, no you're not. Not even close. Nathan loves you, you're not living at home, you're done with education and you're old enough to want the baby and be able to support it. I had none of those things so tell me what I was supposed to do? Have it and give it away?! I don't think so. Get off your high horse and try and see this from my point of view.' I could feel my eyes starting to well up and before I could walk away I heard Jay whisper 'Oh Soph, what did you do?' I kept walking.

Hollie's POV:

I stood there with the lads in shock. 'I should go talk to her' I finally said. None of them moved or said anything. 'Okay you are all useless' 'We don't get this girl stuff' Tom said. 'Argh' I walked in the direction of Sophie but Nath caught my hand. 'Want me to come?' he said. 'Too late' Siva chirped in. 'Mate, really?' Nathan said but I cut in. 'No, I need to talk to her alone. Who's place are we going back to tonight?' 'Ours' Nath said. I nodded and went to go find Sophie. 

I walked out the nearest exit door and went to the metal stairs behind back and saw Soph sitting there. 'I'm sorry' I said. She didn't move or acknowledge me. 'I, I just don't understand. But we're different so, I'm not going to have the same opinion as you sometimes and I get that now.' Not a flinch. 'It must have been horrible being in that situation and, I guess I'm upset too because while you were suffering I was clueless and I wish I could have been helping you'. I walked over to her and sat down next to her. 'This is so hard' 'You have no idea what feelings and shit I had to go through Hollie, and now it's been all unravelled again because he-' she threw her hands up. 'He found my DIARY' 'ouch' 'why would you read that' 'I wouldn't' 'But I accept your apology' 'and now I have to tell you something' she looked at me with her questioning eyes. 'I heard something I shouldn't have and I'm not sure what to do'

Chapter 23

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:44:45 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

'Jake I thought we'd been through this?' I walked off to find some toilets backstage were I could talk privately. 'Yeah Sophie we have, only I still have some of your stuff from when we were dating, and I found something.' 'Oh really, and what was that then?' I replied, clearly uninterested. 'I found your journal.' Oh shit. 'And what's inside is even more interesting and do you want to know what I found? Because it really broke my heart.' 'Look Jake I'm so sor-' 'YOU HAD AN ABORTION SOPHIE' he shouted, 'you were pregnant with my kid and never even told me, but worse still, you actually got rid of it?!' 'Jake please! I'm sorry! We were 17, we weren't ready for a child, I'm not even ready now! Jake I never meant for you to find out, you never would have wanted it anyway, and I was only 3 weeks in, it was hardly even a baby yet. Jake I'm so so sorry.' 'Sophie that was never your call to make' he hissed and hung up the phone. Oh god, I never thought he'd find out. I thought it would all be okay and that we could go on as normal. At 17 what would I have done with a baby? I didn't want it, I couldn't want it. I needed my education, my family, my friends and I would have given up all of that if I'd had that baby. I'd never have Jay if I'd have had that baby. I opened the door to the bathroom and found Hollie on the other side, looking guilty as she was caught in the act. 'Hollie what the hell?' I almost shouted. 'Soph I'm sorry I was worried about yo-' 'You can't eavesdrop like that Hollie, I left because I wanted privacy. You had no right.' I shouldnt have snapped, but I was pissed off. 'How much of that did you hear?' I asked slowly. 'Enough.' There are some things you want to keep to yourself and this was absolutely one of them. Now that Hollie knew, it'd dig up bad memories and reopen old scars, wounds I'd tried to heal for a reason. Now I'd have to face it all over again and answer for what I did. I didn't owe anyone anything other than Jake, but no answers meant it stayed a gaping hole in the group. Well crap.

Hollie's POV:

'Enough' I said and shook my head. 'I'm your best friend, how could you keep something like THAT from me' 'Hollie sometimes you need to realise the world doesn't revolve around you, it was my business which I rightly chose to keep private' I stepped back. 'But I tell you everything, what else are you hiding? If you can't trust me with that, I mean, that makes me feel like shit Sophie' 'That's a consequence I'm going to have to deal with' she wiped her eyes and walked down the hall. I reached out my hand but there was no use. I looked at my stomach, there was no way I could have an abortion. I didn't understand her at all. But, that shouldn't become between our friendship, right?

The lads had just come off stage and walked into the spookily quiet room backstage where Soph and I were. 'Whats going on?' Jay said. 'I think Sophie should tell you what's going on Jay'. She stood up and shoved past the lads knocking Jay's water all over me. 'At least you gave him a chance for his water to break!' I sharply put my hand over my mouth and cursed. 'What in the world?' Max said and Jay threw a cloth at me then walked after Soph. 'I didn't mean to I'm just, I'm so angry' I said. 'About?' this was hard. 'Soph told me, she told me that, I don't know' Max looked at my weirdly and walked off. I rubbed my eyes and looked at Nathan who was standing above me dabbing my hair with a towel. 'Can everyone just go comfort Soph? Please?'

Chapter 22

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:14:55 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

I was glad Jay hadn't pushed the whole Jake thing. He'd whispered that he was sorry and understood that sometimes ex's were ex's for a reason when we were fussing over the babies. Nathan had told me that I needed to deal with Jake, that he needed to go before he caused more problems and I totally agree. I'm never going to let anything come between Jay and I and if it means giving up an old friend, then so be it. It was nearly 5 in the morning so we all tried to cram in whatever sleep we could, but no matter how I tried I just couldn't sleep. Around 7am I got up and padded over to the window, staring out at the newly lit sky above. A strong pair of arms soon wrapped themselves around me, holding me tight and I turned to hug Jay back. We stood there for a long time before I whispered 'I'm sorry. I should have told you about Jake the second I got the first text. You had every right to ask, I responded badly.' 'Soph I should have listened to you, I should have let you explain and I didn't, all I could picture was you and him, you not loving me, and I lost it.' I stood on tiptoes and gave him a soft kiss before resting my forehead against his. 'Jay, I don't know how to say this in a way that you'll believe me for once, but you're going to have to try because I'm only going to say this one more time. It should be implied for the rest of our lives. I love you. I will always love you and only you. Until we have children, then I will love them just as much as I love you. It's me and you against the world Bird.' Instead of a reply I got a kiss, but that was just as good, if not better, than anything he could have said. The moment was perfect. That was until my phone rang on the floor by the sofa. We both pulled away and Jay sighed. 'It's him, isn't it' he said. Picking up my phone I saw he was right. 'It's okay, answer it.' 

 'Hello?'
 'Sophie? It's Jake! How are you?'
 'I uh, I'm good, how're you?'
 'I'm great! Look I know it's early, but I just really need to see you Soph. I've missed you so much.'
 'Jake I've been gone for nearly 2 years now, why all of a sudden do you need me?'
 'Why? I love you Sophie, that's why. And yeah it might have been two years, but if you love someone then you can wait a lifetime for them.'
 'Jake, I'm engaged. I told you that. I love my fiancé and if you think I would ever leave him then you really don't know anything about me.'
 'I just need to see you, please Soph?' 
 'If I see you, Jay comes too. That's the only way this is going to happen.'
 'Then I guess this is goodbye?'
 'Goodbye Jake.'

 I hung up the phone and glanced over at Jay. His eyes were shining at me. 'I'm so proud of you Soph.' 'I'm proud of me!' I laughed, 'I don't do the whole confrontation thing well at all!' 'What's going on in here?' a tired sounding Nathan said as he walked into the room with Hollie trailing behind him. Jay looked at me and grinned before saying 'We're proud!'

Hollie’s POV:

'What of?!' Nath and I said in sync and stared at each other. 'Well that was weird' I said. He shrugged and plonked himself in the middle of Soph and Jay separating them and put his arms around them. 'So what are we gonna do today!' 'Nathan, it's quarter to 7 in the morning, go to bed.' Jay yawned and pointed at the door. Nathan got up and sniffed before walking out. 'You're so mean!' I said to Jay laughing a little. Nathan walked back in and grabbed my arm and walked me out and Soph stuck her tongue out at me before I reached the door. I closed it and hugged Nathan outside. 'How are you then Mr!' I said into his shoulder. 'Shut up!' Jay shouted from inside the room. 'Sorry forgot you needed alone time this bloody early!' Nathan said and we both laughed. We walked towards the lounge and laid down on the sofa with a blanket. 'So what are we doing today?' I said. 'We've got a gig tonight, so we have to practise before and, well you know the routine' 'Oh yeah, I forgot' 'Whats wrong?' 'Nothing, nothing, we just haven't been out in a while' 'I will arrange something' I could feel him smiling, this made me worried. 

 Later on Jay and Soph finally decided to get out of bed and get ready. Jay of course was late and ended up getting in the van with boxers on holding his clothes, typical. We arrived at Regents Park and the boys practised for a bit and headed back stage. In the room where we were all staying there was a little tv on the wall showing the stage and all the acts, that was cool. 'My throat would start to hurt now wouldn't it' Nath said. 'Oh god' I said and went to go make him a drink. A minute later I heard 'Max not the lemons!' and shook my head. I did not want to know. I came back and Kelsey ran into me. 'Ah sorry!' and Tom ran after her. The lads had to go on stage and Soph, Kelsey and I were left in the changing room. I felt my phone ring and answered it. 

 'Hello?'
 'It's Jake' I put the phone on loud speaker and placed it on the table. 
 'Jake would you leave her alone, it's getting tedious'
 'Can I just talk to her? It's important' 

 I looked at Soph and she rolled her eyes and picked up the phone.

Chapter 21

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:06:24 -0400

Sophie’s POV: ‘No of course not!’ ‘Liar.’ ‘Look they’re not feelings okay, it’s just back in school he always used to be the one you know? The only reason things ended with me and him was because of us moving to London, not because I stopped liking him. I used to miss him crazy amounts but ever since I met Jay, I haven’t given him a second thought.’ Racking through my memories it was hard to say whether I’d loved Jake or not. I’d liked him, I’d liked him alot, but I don’t think I ever truly loved him. ‘What am I supposed to do now? I don’t want to see him but I can’t ignore him because he’s still a friend? Plus if Jay knew about him he’d totally get the wrong end of the stick. He got jealous of Siva earlier so god knows what he’d be like if he knew the history I had with Jake and then proceeded to still meet up with him.’ ‘I don’t know, maybe you should see him? I mean, if he’s a friend then you’re allowed to see him Soph.’ A friend that wants me to leave my fiancé for a high school romance, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I would never leave Jay. He’s my everything. All that I have in life I have because of him. I would spend every day for the rest of my life trying to show him how much he means to me and just how perfect he is. On cue the boys walked in with tea. Jay and I curled up together on one sofa and Hollie lay across Nathan on the other. ‘Have you guys set a date for the wedding yet?’ Nath asked. ‘We haven’t really talked much about it yet I guess? Once our apartment’s finished and paid for we’ll start planning and let you guys know. We both want you all to be a part of our special day’ Jay replied. He was right. We hadn’t discussed the wedding much at all. There was so much we needed to plan as well! Stag weekends and Hen do’s, the actual ceremony, the reception, best man, maid of honour, bridesmaids, dress, colour scheme, theme, food, venues. There was so much to do! ‘Yeah remind me to talk to Michelle about planning and stuff!’ I laughed. I got up to go grab a jumper from Hollie’s wardrobe and was rifling through when Jay came to the door, talking into a phone. ‘Okay then? She’s right here if you-no okay no worries mate, yup, bye.’ Jay passed me my phone and looked at me for a few seconds before his brow furrowed and he asked ‘Soph, who’s Jake?’

Chapter 20

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 11:52:00 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

Hollie slammed the door shut behind her and I knew there was no point chasing after her. There was nothing I could say when she was this mad, she just need time to cool off. Picking up the magazine from the table I read aloud: ‘Nathan Sykes, aged 19 and one fifth of the band ‘The Wanted’ was spotted earlier in the week in a long embrace with a mystery blonde. Nathan is currently in a steady relationship, but have things hit a rough patch? Does Nathan need a little something new?’ I dropped the magazine back onto the table and folded my arms, looking straight at Nathan with a less than impressed look on my face. Tom span the magazine round so he could read the article and looked up at Nathan. ‘Mate, what the hell is this?! You have a pregnant girlfriend, what do you think you’re playing at!?’ ‘Guys this is ridiculous!’ Nathan shouted, ‘she’s a fan! I met her outside a gig we were doing, she was saying how much we mean to her and I gave her a hug! That’s all this is I swear! I don’t even know her name…please guys, I love Hollie. I always will! She’s having my baby and I would never ever do anything to jeopardise that!’ He grabbed the magazine and hurled it across the room, barely missing Siva’s head. Tears had begun to fall down Nathan’s face so Jay moved round the table and draped an arm across his shoulders. ‘We believe you Nath, we’ve all had enough shit thrown our way by the paparazzi, you just have to ignore it and Hollie will come round, she knows how much you love her mate.’ ‘I just thought we were done with the bullshit stories,’ he croaked, ‘god I don’t even know where she’s gone.’ I walked over to Nathan and held his hand. ‘I know exactly where she’ll have gone, come on.’

A couple hours later and we were all standing on Littlehampton beach at 2 in the morning. ‘Welcome to where Hollie and I call home’ I laughed. It was a cool night with not much wind so the sea was calm and all we could hear were the waves slowly lapping across the pebbles. ‘When we were kids,’ I began, ‘when ever I got mad or upset, I’d always run to the beach. It made me feel calm and helped me to think things over. Just up here there are two little alcoves in the rocks. A lot of the time when I’d run up here because of a fight with my parents or a boyfriend, I’d find Hollie in the alcove next to me. We never really talked but I guess it was just comforting to know of eachothers presence. If she’s anywhere trying to think things over, here’s where she’ll be.’ We trekked up the beach a couple hundred metres before we got to a large hill that was mainly rocks. ‘You want me to go see her first?’ I asked Nathan, and he nodded slowly in return. After a boost from Jay I was scaling the rocks to the alcoves above and I heard a voice from above. ‘How did you know I’d be here? I came here specifically to be alone.’ ‘I know you did,’ I huffed, clambering up onto the ledge. ‘Gimmie a hand before I plummet to my death will you?’ Once I’d finally squeezed into the alcove with Hollie we sat in silence. I was trying to work out what to say. I always knew what to say but now? Now two of my best friends were emotionally fragile and I was scared of breaking them into little pieces. Turns out I didn’t need to say anything as Hollie beat me to it. ‘Do you remember when we were younger? Mrs Turner made us write down what we wanted to do when we grew up. I knew exactly what I wanted to be. I was so ready for it too! Now I’d give anything to be that innocent kid again. We’re growing up so fast, you’re getting married, I’m going to have a baby, and Nathan, I don’t even know about Nathan.’ I pulled her into my shoulder and hugged her tight. ‘Yeah we’re growing up Hols, and it’s scary! But it’s a good scary. The thought of marrying Jay terrifies me because that’s it then isn’t it? For the rest of my life. But then I look at him and that fear goes away, because I love him, and he loves me. Just like Nathan loves you. He can explain it all Hollie. Now will you please come down? I’m freezing my butt off!’

Hollie’s POV:

Fanfic

We climbed down the rocks and I saw Jay and Nathan about 100 meters away sitting down on a rough patch of grass. I stood there and closed my eyes feeling the wind through my hair. ‘I just need time alone sometimes’ I repeated. ‘We all know you do Hollie, you just need to know when you’ve had enough time alone, we’re all here for you’. I nodded and opened my eyes feeling a tear stroll down my cheek. ‘He’s my life, my everything Soph and sometimes I wonder what he sees in me, honestly, I give him such a hard time all the time’ ‘We’re girls, it’s kinda what we do’ I laughed. ‘Is he mad at me?’ ‘No, he’s worried about you’. We walked towards them and the whole way Nathan was staring at the floor. He hates me. I stopped right in front of him and his gaze didn’t budge. ‘Nath?’ I saw Soph and Jay edging sideways and I ducked under Nathan and looked up into his eyes and he smiled. ‘I just worry that I’m going to mess up our relationship’ he said. ‘I’m always going to love you, some things are going to get in our way and annoy us but it’s what happens, and we’ll cope, we wouldn’t be together now if we couldn’t, right?’ I waited. ‘Right?’ I said again. He looked straight into my eyes and held my hands, what was he doing. He picked up some seaweed and wrapped it around my engagement finger. ‘THAT’S EW EW NATHAN’ he fell on the floor laughing and I flung it at his face. ‘That was meant to be me being cute and asking you for your apology!’ He said then started laughing again. ‘Okay apology accepted, but I will kick you the next time you apologise like that!’ I made a disgusted face and wiped my hands on his shirt. ‘Lets go home’.

We got back and Soph and Jay had to stay in our flat as theirs was having some work done to it. ‘You know where everything is’ Nathan said to them. They walked down the hall and unpacked their things. Nathan kissed me on the cheek before walking into the kitchen to make a cuppa. Jay followed him in there and Soph joined me on the sofa. ‘Read this’ Soph said and passed me her phone.

‘Jake: Been thinking about you babe, miss you x’

‘Holy crabs…’ I said. ‘I know’ she started whispering. ‘He’s been texting me similar things for almost a week Hollie, I do not need my ex texting me when I’m engaged’ ‘This is crazy, he knows your engaged’ ‘I know, he asked me to dump Jay’ ‘WHAT?’ Soph nodded and flicked her phone to where his picture was. ‘Do you still have feelings for him..?’

Chapter 19

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 08:39:00 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

Everyone was congratulating Hollie and Nathan on being pregnant, but because Jay and I knew beforehand we stayed sat down. ‘Do you reckon she’s told her parents yet?’ Jay whispered. ‘If she knows what’s good for her then yeah she will have done, I’ll talk to her later and find out how it went. I want her to have this time where people are going to be happy for her and she can just relax for a bit’ I whispered back. ‘Oi you two!’ Tom called out, ‘Come and join the celebration and stop being lovey in the corner!’ Jay pulled me up from the sofa and Tom poured us a glass of wine each. Nathan tapped his wine glass against Max’s to get our attention. ‘Guys I just wanted to say, thankyou so so much for being so awesome when we gave you our news, we weren’t really sure what to expect but you’ve all been amazing! Also thankyou for all the support you’ve offered, I have a feeling we might have to take up a few of the offers!’ Everyone cheered and hugged and more wine was poured. Everyone was in such a good mood, looking around at everyone I just felt genuinely happy. In that moment I realised just how lucky I was. I have the perfect fiancé, clumsy and likes a drink yes, but a gentleman and all round genuinely amazing guy. I couldn’t believe a guy like that had fallen for me, and in doing so he’d introduced me to all my friends and I would honestly be lost without them. If ever I needed anything at all I know I can go to any one of them and they’ll help out, especially Hollie. My best friend. Without her I would be a totally different person, she changed me for the better and I can’t express in words how much she means to me. From the corner of my eye I saw Siva walk over. He lifted his arm and brushed his hand over my cheek. ‘Are you okay?! You were crying!’ I chuckled a little and said ‘Yeah Seev i’m fine! I’m just happy is all!’ ‘Oh well good! You’d better go see Jay, I think he’s getting jealous.’ We both looked across at Jay and he quickly looked away whilst Seev and I laughed. ‘I’ll talk to you later Seev’ I smiled and wandered over to Jay. ‘Hey you’ I grinned. ‘What’s with the stroking your face business from Seev?!’ ‘Jay?’ ‘Umm, yeah?’ he said worriedly, ‘I love you Jay, don’t you dare ever leave me.’ ‘Soph I’m not going anywhere. Ever.’ He pulled me in and held me tight and in that moment I never ever wanted to let him go.

Later that evening Hollie had offered to make drinks for everyone, much to the disproval of everyone else, but she’s said nothing was going to change now that she was pregnant. I followed her into the kitchen and jumped up onto the counter. ‘How’d they take it?’ I asked. ‘You mean my ever so understanding mother?’ she replied sarcastically. ‘I told her, she freaked, said we won’t be talking to each other for a while. Soph, I just, I need my mum you know?’ ‘I know babe, it’ll all be okay. I promise.’

Hollie’s POV:

'Who knows about you being pregnant so far?' 'I don't know Soph, I'm so scared about the press' 'Yeah you're gonna have to talk to Nathan about that one' I sighed. 'Help me bring the drinks back in?' We walked back into the lounge and Soph opened the door. 'I just don't understand why it had to happen to ME!' Nathan shouted, and Soph and I stopped in the doorway. My jaw dropped and so did the drinks. I dropped the tray and ran back into the kitchen. 'Nathan what are you?' Soph said. 'She wasn't meant to hear that' Nathan said and I heard him walking after me. 'Hollie, Hollie!' 'I just need to drive Nath' I picked up my car keys from the table and opened the back door but Nathan caught my hand. 'I'm sorry, I'm just frustrated' I looked him in the eyes. 'We just need time, I understand' 'But now I've made myself sound like an idiot and I didn't mean it like that, I love you' I walked towards him and embraced his hug. A tear strolled down my cheek and I sniffed. 'I'm so sorry Nath' 'There's nothing to be sorry about, we're about to start an amazing life together' 'I just need to think' I swung past the door and walked out into the black outside towards my car. Soph started running towards the car but I started the engine and went. I had no idea where I was going, probably just driving in circles. I had a bit of cash on me and decided to go up town to the big supermarket. Nathan's words were swimming around in my head. 'I don't understand why it had to happen to me' I said out loud. 'What happened?' I heard a voice say back. I was parked outside the supermarket now and I could see the outline of a man outside my car. 'Just talking to myself, sorry' I opened the door and was about to walk into the store when he said 'Don't I even get a hug?' he walked into the light and my eyes widened. 'DAD!!!' I ran towards him and leaped and hugged him. 'Dad I haven't seen you in ages! What are you doing here its late! And what's wrong with your voice!' 'Alright 20 questions alright! I just came out for a drive, I didn't feel right. And yes, sore throat'. We walked into the shop and passed isle by isle. 'What did you even come in here to get?' he asked. 'I don't know, I've been so unsure of everything since-' 'The pregnancy' I nodded. 'I'm so sorry Dad' he hugged me again. 'I better be going home, your mother needs me' 'Tell her I love her, and of course I love you dad' he saluted me and walked back to his car. That was weird. I walked over to the magazines and picked up my favourite magazine heat and stared at the front page.

'Nathan Sykes caught with mystery girl! Stress getting to him? What will the girlfriend say?'

I picked it up and bought it along with a mars bar and sprite. 'Is that all you were looking for today?' The guy said behind the desk. 'I didn't think I'd ever find that' I pointed at the headline and he pushed his eyebrows together. I walked back to my car, got in and slammed the door. 'Why him? Why Nath, why have I caused Nathan all this shit!' I rested my head on the steering wheel for a couple of minutes, then drove home. I had been out or about half an hour and parked the car and picked up my shopping. I walked up to the house and saw Soph and Kelsey looking outside the window and then they ran from it and appeared by the back door seconds later. 'Hollie don't you ever do that again!' they started and I stormed right past them and walked into the kitchen where everyone was. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and took out the magazine and slammed it on the table looking at Nathan, before walking out.

Chapter 18

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 15:32:00 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

Packing had taken way longer than I’d expected. After Jay packing so well before we left, I felt confident that I could leave him to do it again whilst Hollie and I tidied up the kitchen after baking. We weren’t going to leave the boys to do it all but we’d asked them to get started for us, to which they happily agreed. We were just putting the last few things away when Nathan had burst through the kitchen door in hysterics. ‘You two have got to come and see this!’ He led us to mine and Jays bedroom and quietly opened the door. ‘Oh my god…how the hell?’ I said, not quite believing what I could see in front of me. Jay was lying in his suitcase, asleep, with a magazine across his chest. ‘Nathan, how did he even?!’ ‘I have no idea! I came to help him out because I’d finished and well, found this!’ I knew Jay liked to be quirky, but this was just weird. Who falls asleep in a suitcase? I crept over and sat beside the suitcase and leant down to whisper in his ear. ‘JAY!!’ He bolted awake and jumped up, tripping over the edge of the suitcase as he did so, proceeding to fall over onto the pile of clothes he’d not quite gotten round to packing. Hollie and Nathan cracked up laughing and I just looked at Jay. ‘Oh lord, you’re going to fall over when we walk down the aisle aren’t you?!’ He looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes and a half smile and said ‘Probably Soph! I reckon you should carry me.’

We had a 6 o’clock start the next morning, so when it got to 10 we all decide bed would be the best thing. After saying our goodnights I laced my fingers in Jays and we clambered into bed. After a while I could feel his eyes boring into my back, so I flipped over. ‘What?’ ‘What do you mean what?’ ‘I mean, I can feel you staring at me!’ He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in towards him. Kissing my forehead he asked ‘Do you ever think about having kids?’ ‘What brought that on? Oh, wait, never mind. Umm sometimes I guess. Do you?’ ‘Yeah Soph, I do,’ he smiled, ‘a lot more since Hollie and Nathan actually. I’d never really thought much about having a family seeing as we’re still young, but seeing how happy it’s made them both makes me realise that there’s no one else on earth I would rather start a family with.’ He was right, we were still young. I was only a couple months off 20, too young for me to have kids. ‘Give it time Jaybird, and in a couple of years who knows, maybe there’ll be the patter of tiny feet!’ Jay brushed my hair away from my face and kissed me hard. It never ceased to amaze me that a kiss from him could feel so amazing, it felt like I fell in love all over again each and every time.

‘Sophie, Jay, it’s 7! Will you guys get up already. Our flight leaves in 2 hours and I’d like to be on it!’ Oh crap, we’d overslept. Unravelling myself from Jay’s arms I pulled him up and shoved him in the direction of the shower. I padded into the kitchen in an attempt to get breakfast. ‘No Soph,’ Hollie said, ‘go get dressed and bring your stuff out, Emma’s going to be here in 20 minutes to take us to the airport.’ ‘Fine, make me starve! Oh, umm, you are gonna tell your parents today right?’ ‘Yeah, well, I’ll try to. I just don’t want them to do anything stupid.’ ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine. Anyway I’d better get dressed!’

Hollie and Emma’s goodbye had been long and teary. The flight was fine, yet even though I’d only been up for a few hours, I was exhausted. Siva and Nareesha had been waiting at the airport for us and had taken us all home. Hollie and Nathan were the first to be dropped off and I told her not to worry and to call me when she’d told her parents. The two had a very long day ahead of them.

Hollie’s POV:

As soon as we walked through our flat door, we both squeezed through the door at the same time and ran to the sofa. ‘Oh my god Nathan look! A new cap for you!’ I pointed in any direction and he ran off, what a brilliant distraction. I leaped onto the sofa and took up all the room when i heard footsteps walking up to the sofa. I looked up and saw Nath. ‘Well, that was mean’. I laughed and poked him in the side before sitting up to make room. ‘So when are you going to call them?’ He said. ‘Parents?’ ‘Yup’ he lent back and reached for the TV control. ‘God, I hadn’t even thought about it. I guess I should ring them soon and let them know we landed ok?’ ‘Or you could ignore them like you have for the past 2 weeks’ ‘I have not! … But that is a good plan’. He rolled his eyes and turned on the Manchester United match. I got up and walked into the kitchen to get him a can of beer, the usual routine that happened whilst a football match was on. My phone vibrated in my pocket and I looked at the message from Soph.

‘Ring them. Now. Or you never will.’

She knew me too well, it was scary. I walked back into the lounge and placed the can on the table next to Nathan. ‘Thanks babe’ ‘We’re going to have to go see them soon’. He looked round at me confused. ‘Soon? But- but, football?’ ‘But- but, twins?’ I pointed down and he laughed. ‘Okay, that’s a fair enough point. I will finish this then we can go?’ ‘Yeah sure, I just need to drop them a text first’. I walked out again but went to our bedroom and sat on the end of the bed. I texted Mum asking if I could come round and she said there was a bug going round and didn’t want us to catch it, especially Nathan for his voice, bless her. So she called me instead. ‘Hello’ ‘Hi mum, you okay?’ ‘Yeah i’m fine sweetheart how about you?’ ‘Yeah i’m fine, I will fill you in more about Ireland when we meet but, I have to tell you something and its really difficult so just let me say everything and then, well, i’m not sure, but just listen okay?’ ‘What the hell have you done now’ ‘Just listen!’ ‘Ok’ ‘Well, urm’ I heard Nathan walk into the room and he came in and made a worried look before sitting down next to me and putting his arm around me. I put the phone on loud speaker so he could hear what was going on. ‘Well, Hollie?’ ‘Oh sorry, yeah Mum there isn’t a simple way of me telling you so, i’m expecting twins’ I heard her gasp and she tried to speak but i stopped her. ‘Please, just let me talk. It was an accident… wasn’t it?’ I looked at Nath. ‘Oh yeah, it was. But a beautiful accident’ He chipped in. ‘Aw, but yeah, and I know i’m too young and I know i’m an idiot but it happened and i can’t take it back and I know i’m mature enough to handle it, I know you don’t think I am but I know we will be the perfect parents and-’ ‘I get it’ She sounded furious. ‘Mum i’m sorry I’ ‘We wont be speaking for sometime’ and she hung up. I turned around and stared at Nathan, then burst into tears. ‘She doesn’t understand! She never lets me talk and explain things and she was young once she must understand that mistakes happen-’ ‘Mistake?’ I wiped my eyes and looked into his eyes. ‘You’re right’ I said. ‘It wasn’t a mistake’ We said at the same time, then laughed. ‘Well that was cringy’ I said. He smirked. ‘You know, what they think doesn’t matter. If she wants to be like that fine, she will regret treating us like this, our family sticks together and if she doesn’t want to be a part of this, then that’s fine’ I cuddled him and we decided to see the others, I would be surprised if Mum hadn’t told them yet.

We knocked on the door of Siva’s flat and Nareesha answered. ‘You alright Love?’ ‘Kinda’ I smiled and walked through into their lounge to see everyone. I looked behind me and Nareesha was shrugging her shoulders at Siva. I walked over to everyone who hadn’t spotted me yet and winked. ‘Oh hey guys!’ ‘HOLLIE! NATHAN!’ They all ran over and hugged Nath and I stopped. ‘Guys stoooop!’ They all got up and we laughed. ‘Stop, stop, i’m trying to be serious!’ I said and everyone sat around. ‘Whats up babe?’ Max said. ‘Oh, well no big deal but’. I stopped and embraced everything. ‘You might all be really offended but, I kept this from you because, frankly I wasn’t ready to tell you all. So please don’t hate me but’ I stopped again, this was so hard. ‘Just tell us i’m dying!’ Tom said. ‘Ok, ok. I’m pregnant’. They all sat their with their jaws dropped. Nathan chipped in again- ‘… with twins’.

Chapter 17

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:47:00 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

After Hollie and Nathan had left with Emma for her check-up, Jay and I tidied away the mess from breakfast. We hadn’t organised anything to do and seeing as we were in Ireland, we had no idea where anything was. Jay gave me the ultimatum to both stay in and raid the DVD shelf, or go out to try and find something else to do. ‘Well, it’s not that I don’t want to go out, I just wanna be here when Hollie gets back and I have no idea when that’s going to be.’ ‘Soph that’s fine! Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, I honestly don’t care as long as I’ve got you with me. I know you’re worried, but everything will be fine just like you said. Those two can get through anything.’ ‘You’re right, I need to stop worrying. She’s like the sister I never got you know? I feel like I should have protected her last week when she had those pains and I couldn’t do anything. I had to sit there and watch her in pain. It killed me to see her like that. I’ll be fine once I know everything is alright.’ I must have started to cry because Jay pulled down his sleeve and swept it across my cheek gently. His hand lingered on my neck before he pulled me in and held me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face into his chest. He always smelled so good. We stood there for a few minutes in silence, not needing to say anything because he knew exactly how I was feeling and what was going through my mind. ‘You know what you need to do?’ he said, pulling away suddenly. ‘What?’ ‘You need to sing.’ ‘I need to sing? Why?’ ‘Singing is an awesome way to just get your emotions out, you’ll feel better afterwards, I promise.’ Jay was right, singing did make me feel better and I could express myself without having to over think anything. ‘Actually I think Emma has sing star around here somewhere? Check the shelves over there will you?’ I said pointing to the cabinet by the window. I scanned through the DVDs to see if it had been misplaced but after minute Jay shouted out ‘Got it!’ I put the disk in the PS3 and set it all up, we were ready to go and all I needed was a song. ‘Oh god there’s hundreds of songs on here, how the hell am I going to choose?!’ ‘Let me pick.’ Jay laughed and scrolled through the list like he knew exactly what he was looking for. When he stopped the song on screen was This Too Shall Pass by Ok Go. I smiled, I knew this song well and had sung it so many times, but now it seemed to be quite relevant. He clicked play and grabbed the two mics, handing one to me. The intro filled the entire room. His fingers intertwined with mine and taking a deep breath I began to sing. ‘You know you can’t keep letting it get you down, and you can’t keep dragging that dead weight around.’ Jay joined in at the chorus and we sang in perfect harmony. Saying I loved singing with Jay was an understatement, his voice always gave me goose bumps no matter what song he was singing, it’s flawless. We carried on singing and by the time Hollie rang to let us know they were coming back we’d sung nearly half of the disc! ‘Hey Soph, we’re on our way back. Emma’s going to take us down the shop first though; I’m in serious need of some chocolate right now.’ ‘Uh oh, chocolate time? What happened?’ ‘I’ll explain when we’re back, shouldn’t be too long, maybe 10 minutes?’ ‘Okay, bring me back some skittles, Jay’s been a good boy whilst you’ve been gone!’ We both laughed and said our goodbyes.

When Hollie, Nathan and Emma got back Hollie was already half way through her chocolate and all three of them looked kind of shocked. ‘So? Is everything okay?’ Jay asked and before anyone replied a bag of skittles was thrown in his direction. ‘Oh my god! Thanks guys!’ I walked over to Hollie and pulled her to the sofa. ‘What’s going on, you all look like zombies?’ She beckoned for Jay to come and sit down. ‘Umm, we have some news. There’s not a baby in there…’ ‘What?!’ ‘Let me finish! There’s not A baby in there, there’s two. We’re having twins!’ We both jumped up excitedly and bounced around the room before I hugged her, half rugby tackling her back into the sofa. ‘Hollie that’s incredible!!! I’m so happy for you!’ I looked at Nathan and he was beaming along with Jay. The boys hugged each other before Jay said ‘Right! We’re celebrating, I found wine downstairs. Is that okay Emma?’ She laughed and told us it was fine. Whilst Emma, Nathan and Jay found the wine and glasses, I pulled Hollie aside and went serious for a minute. ‘Hollie, are you sure you’re ready for this? I mean, one baby is tough, but two? That’s gonna be crazy hard.’ She half smiled and said ‘I know it is, but I love Nathan and I know he’s going to make an amazing father. Admittedly this is all a little bit crazy, I’m 19, but it’s okay. I want this.’ I hugged her and squeezed her tight; she was a stronger person than I was. If I was in her position I’d be freaking out. ‘You know I’m always here right? Whatever you need.’ She squeezed me back saying ‘I know Soph, I know.’ Letting her go I asked the question I knew she didn’t want to hear. It had to be said. ‘Hollie, I know you don’t wanna tell everyone just yet, but what about your parents? Nathan’s parents? You need to tell them. The later you leave it the more they’ll wonder why you kept it from them. You’re two months in already!’ ‘I guess you’re right, I just have no idea what I’d even say. My mum’s gonna freak and I don’t think I can deal with that.’ I looked over to the boys and Nathan grinned over at us. Smiling back I said to Hollie ‘Either way, Nathan’s never going to leave you and that’s the most important thing. He’s here to stay Hols, so are all of us.’

Hollie’s POV:

I whispered thankyou to Soph after she told me she would always be there for me, and jogged to my room to put some nicer clothes on. I walked back out and Emma had gone. ‘Where is she?’ I asked. ‘She just said she would come back later and left’ Nath answered. That was weird, never has she just left without saying goodbye to me. Maybe she was just feeling really emotional after today? Well she would tell me later, i’m sure she needs her own space. I saw sudden movement in the corner of my eye and saw Sophie jump up off the sofa. ‘Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my GOD’ She jumped a little and ran into the kitchen. ‘What the f-’ Jay raised an eyebrow and looked at me. ‘Jay, you must know by now what it means if Sophie does that’ I said and walked over to the end of the room and looked down the hall. Nathan was just as confused as Jay and they both snapped their thinking faces on. ‘Jay you fool! She does that when she, well, sees a spider, and there obviously isn’t one, OR…?’ His face lit up and he snapped his fingers. ‘Cooking’. Just as he said the world Sophie ran into the room with a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. ‘Guys, we have nothing planned today, we are so totally cooking’. You could say… Sophie was a cooking addict. Actually, Sophie is a cookie addict. Many a time we have tried to get her to quit, but it wont work. I rolled my eyes then thought about it. ‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea’ I said. ‘SEE!’ Sophie stuck the spoon into the air. ‘Sophie you would think cooking is a good idea anytime, what I mean is that, we give the boys a chance to relax you know?’ ‘Oh, yeah we could do that to’ She winked at Jay and he made the face of an excited toddler who has just arrived at disney land. ‘Don’t be silly, we’re fine!’ Nathan came over to me and put his arm around my back. ‘I don’t want you creating more stress’ He whispered into my ear. ‘Nath, its cooking, I think i can manage- plus Sophie will do most of it, we do not trust Hollie’s cooking do we’ He smiled at me. ‘You sure? and yeah, that’s true’. I nodded and pointed at the Xbox in the corner of the room before Sophie pulled me into the kitchen and closed the door behind us.

We spent the entire afternoon baking, and I was exhausted. ‘Soph, you do realize you aren’t gonna do all this for your wedding’ ‘Yes I am’ ‘How the, wait, you must be tired i’m not even gonna bother!’ ‘I can do what I want’ I laughed. ‘I know! Just, there’s gonna be so many people there, you can’t do it all?!’ She shrugged and blew her fringe out of her face. Oh god, she was probably going to do it all. We both walked in on Nathan and Jay playing cod and had to practically stick the white chocolate cookies and brownies under their noses for them to regain consciousness from the Xbox zombie doom. We all sat around and talked about leaving tomorrow. We had had a lovely little stay here with Emma and… Emma? ‘Guys, Emma hasn’t contacted you has she?’ They shook their heads and I got nervous butterflies in my stomach. I grabbed my phone and called her, which led to answer phone. I rubbed my hands on my head thinking that would magically solve the problem then saw a note on the front door. ‘YOU GUYS’ I stood up and stomped over to it and read it out loud. ‘Hello my lovelies! Sorry I had to rush, just remembered I have a very important meeting with an old friend! Hope I haven’t caused too much trouble! Mwah! X’. I slowly turned around and glared at Nathan and Jay. ‘You guys, didn’t see this note, you were in the same room when Emma wrote this note, you were here when she bloody left this room, and stuck it on the door, and you didn’t see.’ Their eyes shot open and they grinned slightly. ‘This isn’t funny! Do you know how worried I have been?! I was thinking about calling the police!’. ‘Wow, we’re stupid’ Jay said and looked at the note. ‘Yes, yes you are’.

Emma came home later that evening and we told her everything, later we packed, got ready and slept. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and I was preparing myself, because I was going to tell everyone my secret. And I wasn’t backing out of it this time.

Chapter 16

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:52:35 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

WOW paintballing had been incredible!! We’d beaten the boys by a huge margin and they weren’t too happy about it! Their tactics had been shocking and their aim was even worse. Although, I hadn’t expected to be kidnapped by Jay, so hats off to him, especially with the recovering leg and ribs! Still, the girls found me and made him into a walking work of art without getting a drop on me. I was very proud! The boys hadn’t expected us girls to be so good at it, we’d been going through proper strategies, making hideouts and attacked from places they thought we’d never reach! My favourite had been the game in the woods. Nathan and Siva had run towards us as soon as the whistle went and Hollie and I had scampered up a tree. They were totally sure they’d find us and get us out straight away…well, totally sure until we unleashed a good few bullets at their heads! We all had multiple bruises and were still kinda covered in mud from before but I could clean up and rest on the plane so I wasn’t too fussed. The fans that greeted Nathan and Jay at the airport hadn’t seemed to have minded either so everything was good. We’d all checked in our luggage, my car was safely locked away underground and all we had to do now was wait for the flight. Hollie was still going on to Nathan about the events of the day and she was milking the fact he’d lost to her. I turned to Jay and said with a grin ‘So Jaybird, still crushed I defeated you in what you boys thought would be the easiest game in the world?’ ‘Yes. I actually am, but then you’ve kind of distracted me from it.’ ‘And how have I done that?’ ‘You look hot covered in mud!’ The serious look on his face combined with the sincerity of the words he’d just said made me crack up. People around us glanced over and I tried to hide the fact that the outburst of a shocking laugh had been me. After nearly an hour of waiting we heard the boarding announcement for our flight and went to check in and board. We found our seats quickly as they were near the front and sat down. Jay and I on one side of the isle, Hollie and Nath on the other. Leaning over Jay I got Hollies attention. ‘You excited to see Emma?’ ‘Yeah! I haven’t seen her in a while and I’ve got so much to tell her. She hasn’t met Jay before has she?’ ‘Nope, this will be the first time! I’m not worried though, it’s kinda hard to hate Jay so he’ll be totally fine.’ She laughed and lent back into Nathan. Our flight would last around 45 minutes to an hour, so once the seatbelt signs were off, I grabbed the spare clothes I’d packed in my bag and my hair brush and headed to the bathroom. Getting changed took me at least 5 minutes. No matter what anyone says, changing clothes in an airplane loo is hard! I quickly ran the brush through my hair and scraped it back into a ponytail before going to sit back down. The remainder of the flight was spent listening to Jays iPod and I think I even fell asleep for a little while before we landed.

‘Aunt Emma!!!’ Hollie shrieked in glee when we left the airport and saw her standing out front waiting. She dropped her luggage and leapt on Emma. The pair stood hugging for at least a minute before they finally broke apart. ‘Hey Soph, Nathan…and I don’t believe we’ve met?’ Emma said holding her hand out to Jay. He grabbed her hand but pulled her in for a hug instead of shaking it. ‘I’m Jay’ he said with a smile. ‘He’s in The Wanted with Nath…and he’s also my fiancé Em!’ ‘Oh my gosh you girls! Life’s pretty exciting for you all right now then. Come on, I’ll take you all back to the cabin to dump your stuff and clean up, then we’re all going out for dinner!’ After piling everything as well as ourselves into Emma’s car we set off for the cabin. Hollie and Nathan told her everything about the pregnancy and about Jays accident, Jay and I told her about the proposal. She was so excited for us, and looking round the car at the boys, they both had huge grins on their faces.

2 hours later we were all showered dressed and heading out to a pub 2 miles down the road from the cabin. The weather was lovely so we decided to walk, both couples hand in hand and Emma between us both. ‘Hollie I’ve scheduled you in for an ultrasound and general checkup tomorrow at 11, that okay?’ ‘Yeah that’s fine. Thankyou so much for doing all this Emma, it means so much. I was really freaking out about having that pain in my stomach. It felt totally wrong.’ I saw Nathan squeeze Hollie’s hand and pulled her in so that his arm was around her back but still holding on tight to her hand. I could tell from his eyes that he’d been just as terrified as she had and it gave me hope that they’d both make wonderful parents. It was going to be difficult, but they’d get through it, like they got through everything else. The pair of them had such calm heads on their shoulders and always knew how to handle what ever situation life threw at them. Hollie and Nathan were going to be just fine.

Hollie’s POV:

‘Now girlies does this seem an okay place to eat?’ Emma asked us. I looked up at the pub, it looked more like a warm little cottage. ‘I see our opinions don’t matter!’ ‘Nathan, boys will eat anywhere when they are hungry’ ‘…That is true’. I smiled and told her it was fine. To be honest, I was hungry and didn’t reallycarewhere we ate! But Emma is always right, you cannot prove Emma wrong. The warmth from a fire hit you on the way in and Nathan held me close. The bar was straight ahead so Emma confidently walked up to the owner and asked for a table, the lady led us through to the other side of the pub and gave us a little table with a cute little vase of flowers. ‘When you are ready to order just come up to the bar and tell us your table number and we will get your meal ready’ The woman smiled at us and walked back to the bar. ‘Whats our table number?’ Jay asked. Emma pointed at the wooden spoon in a metal tin on the corner of the table before grabbing a menu. Jays eyes lit up. ‘Sophie compliment me’ He asked. ‘Erm, why?’ ‘Do it’ ‘Okay ur.. Jay you have pretty eyes’ He grabbed the spoon and shoved it in her face. ‘Want a spoon with that!’ Jay banged his head on the table and laughed so much he nearly cried. ‘Mate..’ Nathan said before bursting out laughing too. Sophie and I awkwardly sat there looking at them before grabbing our own menu’s to look at the food. They both calmed down (eventually) and decided what food they wanted. Emma got up and walked to the bar, she had been gone for a couple minutes so I assumed she was having a chat with someone, she basically knew everyone around here. ‘Are Jay and I in my usual room at the end of the hall?’ Sophie asked me. ‘What?’ ‘In Emma’s cabin?’ ‘Oh! I thought you meant here, majorly confused. Erm where did she put your stuff?’ ‘She just put it on the main sofa’ ‘Oh, well yeah, she always places everyone in the same room’ ‘Okay cool’ ‘Why…’ I smiled slightly and she laughed. ‘No I don’t mean that! Just the walls in the other guest room aren’t really sound proof- WAIT- I don’t mean it like that, I mean-’ Nathan and I burst out laughing. ‘You’re lucky Emma wasn’t here Soph!’ Jay said. ‘She doesn’t care Jay’ I grinned. ‘I meant to talk! I meant talking!’ She blushed and laughed. ‘Just keep digging just keep digging…’ Nathan chimed and drummed on the table. ‘Oh god’ Sophie just looked out the window and ignored everyone. I saw Emma walking back with a bottle of wine and a basket of bread so I ran up to help her. ‘What are you doing Em?!’ I carried the two baskets and put them on our table. ‘I just saw Mary and she wanted a chat chill!’ ‘Oh don’t worry, you didn’t miss much’ Jay and Nathan chuckled and the corners on Sophie’s mouth twitched. ‘Tell me’ She glared at us. I told her in brief what happened, Sophie didn’t even care. ‘I. Meant. Talking.’ Emma laughed and laughed and assured Sophie she would get a sound proof room. We chatted for a bit before our food arrived and spent the evening telling tales about our lives back home and crazy things that had been happening. It didn’t take long for us to finish and it was getting quite late, so we left our table, thanked the staff then walked outside. Emma stopped outside the door and shivered. ‘Do you all want to get a taxi?’ She asked. ‘No its fine Emma, we wont make you pay’ ‘You twits it is fine’ before they could argue she got our her mobile and called a taxi. The boys didn’t know how rich Emma was, no body did. Well, apart from Sophie and I. She keeps it quiet because she doesn’t want people treating her differently. She has changed her mind slightly since she met the boys, but still prefers her amazing little cabin to a big mansion of whatever.

We turned up at the cabin and she walked up to the fireplace and lit it. ‘Right, I’m going to go to sleep since I need to get up early to take Hollie and Nath to the hospital’ ‘We’re leaving at like 10?!’ ‘Exactly, far too early’ ‘Wow I see where Hollie gets it from!’ Jay smiled to himself and kept quiet. ‘Anyway! I am going to sleep, Sophie and Jay your stuff is on the sofa, make yourself at home blablabla, you know where everything is, goodnight!’ And she was off. I shrugged and told the others I would be going to sleep as well because I needed my rest for tomorrow. I started to walk down the hall to mine and Nathan’s room when I heard Sophie. ‘You’re gonna be fine Hollie’ She gave me that look she gives when she knows shes right, and Sophie is always right. ‘Hope so’ I smiled back at her and carried on walking. ‘I’ll be there in a minute!’ Nathan said and I put my thumbs up without turning around. ‘She’ll be fine in the morning, shes just a bit worried now’ I heard him say trying to be quiet. They agreed and carried on talking. I walked into our room and closed the door. Emma had put my suitcase on my bed and there was a note there. ‘No matter what happens, remember I will always be here for you’ It read and I pushed it close to my heart. I heard someone attempt to close the door quietly and before I knew it Nathan’s arms were around my waist. ‘You sure you’re okay?’ ‘Nathan i’m fine, look at this’ I turned around still inside his arms and I held it in front of him. ‘Isn’t she cute?’ I said and he smiled. ‘You’re lucky to have someone like her, just remember we will all be here for you’ He kissed me on the forehead and let go. I let my legs go and fell back on the bed before closing my eyes. ‘Nathan’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘I’m tired’ I opened one eye and looked at him to see him grinning. ‘Go to sleep then you muppet!’ ‘I can’t be bothered to move now!’ He laughed and I felt him lift me. ‘Where the hell’ ‘Just to your side of the bed before you have a moan at me!’ ‘Oh’ I laughed. I laid me down on my side before walking over to a draw and getting my pj’s out, and throwing them at me. ‘I sat up and got ready before getting under the warm duvet and closing my eyes again. I heard him walking around before sitting down on the bed. ‘Nath, are you on your phone again’ ‘Yeah, don’t worry its nothing to do with management i’m just replying to fans on twitter’ I smiled to myself. ‘Oh okay’. The clicking of his phone was strangely relaxing, I grumbled goodnight before quickly falling asleep.

‘Wake uuuuuuu-uuuup, baby come onnn wake up nowwww’ Ah, my personal alarm. Nathan was standing by the mirror doing his hair whilst singing to me and was almost ready. ‘What time is it?’ I asked. ‘10’ He smiled at me. ‘Urm I just got some clothes out for you, I don’t think you will mind its what you usually wear on days like these’ He said and looked at the pile of clothes on the end of the bed. I sat up and reached them. ‘Jeans and a hoodie, you’ve learnt well’. I got up and dressed, straightened my hair and put some makeup on. ‘We’re going to a hospital, you don’t need to put all the make up on Hollie!’ He chuckled. ‘This is how much i usually wear?’ I made a sad face and he cuddled me. I grabbed my red vans, put them on and walked out into the open kitchen where Soph and Jay were sat making breakfast. ‘You alright sweety?’ Sophie said. ‘Yeah i’m okay, i’ll admit i’m nervous but its normal right?’ ‘Right, just deep breaths!’ She nudged me and gave me a hug. ‘Tell me everything as soon as you get back, and text me on the way out so I know around about what time you will be arriving back here’ ‘Okay okay’. Nathan walked out of our room and stood with Jay and smirked at him. ‘Shutup Nathan’ ‘I didn’t say anything!’ ‘You gave me that look’ Jay gave me evils and we giggled. Emma walked round the corner with her car keys. ‘You ready chaps?’ She didn’t even give us a chance to answer before opening the door and pointing out of it. I gave them both a cuddle and took Nathan’s hand before walking out. This is what we had came to Ireland for, it was all happening now. I was worried, but oddly excited.

I had fallen asleep on Nathan in the car and woke up, but kept my eyes shut. ‘You’re going to be a good daddy Nathan, you’re young but very wise’ ‘We haven’t even told the others yet’ ‘I know love I know, they will understand’. There was silence, then the car stopped and they both opened their doors and got out. My door opened and I lifted my groggy head, Emma leant over and undid my seatbelt and I got out of the car. ‘I’m. Tired.’ They both rolled their eyes and we walked in. Emma worked in a private hospital, so it was very quiet and natural, and shockingly smelt quite nice? She walked up to the front desk and whispered something. The woman nodded ‘You know where to go Dr. M’. Emma led us both up a quiet corridoor before opening a door and inviting us in. ‘Hospitals give me the creeps’ I said before going in. The room was small and had a little bed with equipment attached to it. ‘Oh my god you aren’t gonna hurt me are you’ Emma laughed, she didn’t need to answer. ‘Right, Nath you sit down on that chair there, yes there, and you hop up on this bed Hollie’ I got up on the bed and just sat there. ‘… You need to lay down’ ‘Oh! Right of course’. I did and lifted up my top before she started prodding me. ‘If you touch her right-’ I burst out laughing. ‘Well, I was gonna say if you touch her there she will laugh, so there you go’ Nath sat back and watched as Emma did all sorts of things. ‘Now this piece of equipment is very new, and expensive so don’t jog me, but it will tell you about the baby and if its healthy, its heart beat, etc. But it can tell you about the baby whilst its awfully young, thats why its so special’ ‘Right.. okay’. Emma put a special gel on my belly before scanning it with this weird tool and watched an image on the screen. She picked up something else and put headphone sort of things in her ears. ‘Why I never’ ‘What? Oh my god what?’ She shook her head and raised her eyebrows. ‘Let me check again’. ‘Emma whats wrong?’ Nathan stood up and grabbed my hand. ‘Nathan, there’s two heartbeats. Hollie is having twins’.

Chapter 15

Sun, 06 May 2012 17:20:00 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

Was running out and leaving everyone else to clear up bad? Yes. Did I feel guilty? Yes. Was I going to stop kissing Jay McGuiness to go help out? No. No I wasn’t. Everything had been perfect, the proposal, my friends and family and the fact that Jay had done absolutely everything himself. I didn’t deserve a man like Jay, not in a million years. Sophie McGuiness. Wow. It has a ring to it, like it was meant to be. As it was only just 7, we decided to walk home. It was still light out and comfortably warm. ‘I want it to be on a beach’ I said. ‘Want what on a beach?’ ‘Our ceremony. I’ve always dreamed of having my wedding on a beach, somewhere like Hawaii or Barbados. Somewhere peaceful you know? Where I can look out at the ocean at sunset and know that anything could be over that horizon, just like in life.’ ‘Soph you can have anything you want, as long as you pack me my factor 50!’ For the next 5 minutes I was in hysterics. I couldn’t even walk! ‘What’s so funny?!’ ‘Nothing! I just, our honeymoon! We’re gonna have to go somewhere like the North Pole so you won’t burn!’ He chuckled and said ‘Yeah, like we’re gonna be spending our honeymoon outdoors!’ I honestly couldn’t wait to be Mrs Sophie McGuiness! When we got home we spent the entire evening in bed on the laptop, looking up everything and anything we could include in the wedding. We’d decided on having the ceremony on a beach, and to go along with that Jay had suggested we all dress in beach wear and treat it like one massive party. It sounded amazing, and he even said he’d buy me a custom made White bikini to use instead of a dress. It took some convincing but I eventually agreed it would be pretty cool! It was 11 when I heard Jay’s breathing fall into a steady rhythm and I still had so much to do for Friday. I wasn’t really tired so I text Michelle asking if it was okay to go over the next day and finalise everything for Hollie’s birthday. We wanted to do something she wouldn’t forget, and I wanted it to be something fun before she started waddling because of the sprog inside her. We’d reached the idea of paint balling and I knew all the boys would definitely be up for it! Nathan, Hollie, Jay and I would all have time to recuperate up in Ireland so it seemed like the perfect plan. Speaking of which, I still needed to pack. I’d have to wait till morning because Jay was asleep but I wrote out a list of everything we both needed to take and stuck it on the bedroom door so I wouldn’t forget. Crawling into bed, I found my way into Jays arms and fell asleep to the steady beat of his heart.

I woke up to the sound of rattling in the kitchen and went to investigate. ‘Soph! You’re up…umm, I was doing you breakfast in bed.’ ‘Oh JayJay, Thankyou! Well seeing as I’m up we can sit at the bar and you can share it with me.’ After breakfast I gave Jay the list of stuff we’d need for Ireland and persuaded him to start the packing while I went to see Max and Michelle. He wasn’t really a fan of packing but I knew he’d do it simply because i’d asked. It was raining out so I grabbed a coat and practically ran the entire way to Max’s.

‘Okay, so, paintballing’s booked?’ Michelle asked. ‘Yupp, I’ve also asked one of the girls in the upstairs flat if she can decorate their apartment for when we all go back to theirs. She’s got my key for Hollies so as soon as we’re out I’ll text her and let her know that we’ve gone. I still need to drop off all the banners and stuff but I’ll get Jay to drive round and do that later.’ Max walked in with tea and asked ‘So, how are you gonna get her there without her realising it’s paint balling?’ ‘Umm I guess I could blindfold her? I’m gonna drive her there so hopefully if she’s blindfolded it’ll muck up her sense of direction!’ ‘Sounds good! I’ll sort out some music and bring over some food for Jay to drop round tomorrow.’ Michelle was always great at organising things and I was so grateful for her help, I wouldn’t have been able to do such a good job if it had just been me and Jay! We chatted for another half an hour before I left to see how Jay was doing with the packing. When I got home he was sat on top of the suitcases in a meditating position with a huge grin on his face. ‘I’ve finished! Everything on the list and a couple things you’d forgotten, all packed.’ ‘I’m impressed Jaybird! I’ll let you pack for me more often’ I said laughing. The rest of the day was spent making all the final arrangements for paint balling, the party afterwards and the weekend in Ireland. In the morning I grabbed all the suitcases and piled it into my Audi, then drove off to pick Hollie up, the best bit being she had no idea I was even coming, blindfold in hand! I was so excited I pretty much ran up the stairs to their apartment before knocking on the door. ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!’ I shouted when the door opened. ‘No questions, no buts, I’m taking you out. You WILL wear the blindfold and you will enjoy it!’ I grinned at Hollie and she looked back at me with a look of dread on her face.

Hollie’s POV:

I had no idea what she was doing, but I was scared. I had woken up that morning at around 9ish, Nathan told me to get ready for something but wouldn’t tell me what for… which made me extremely worried. So an hour later when Sophie knocked on the door and literally dragged me out of the house, its safe to say I wasn’t too sure to be excited or to run back into the house. She shouted happy birthday in my face then whipped a blindfold around my eyes and took my hand. ‘Soph you aren’t going to kill me or something’ I stepped back and felt my back touch Nathan’s chest and he guided me forward ‘No no, she’s not going to kill you’ They both chuckled and had to guide me where I was going, which made me wonder.. ‘Where are you actually taking me?’ I put my hands out and felt a car. ‘You are going to have to find that out for yourself aren’t you’ Sophie said. Without even looking at her I could tell she had the evil grin on her face. We all got into the car and Sophie started driving. I had been in the back listening for a long 10 minutes with them both telling each other how amazing it was going to be when I interrupted ’Am I ever going to find out where we are going?’ ‘Soon’ They both chorused then carried on. I rolled my eyes, not that anyone would notice, and lent my head against the window. ‘How long till we get there?’ I said and started to close my eyes. ‘About half an hour, you can have a nap if you want but-’ I felt my head nod down then I fell into a deep sleep.

I woke up to a thud and lifted my head ‘What wait where who?’ ‘We’re here Hollie…’ Sophie said and she opened her door, I heard her footsteps crunch on the gravel outside around the door until they stopped beside my door. She opened it and I stepped out, I heard people whispering and instantly knew everyone was here. She took off my blindfold and the light, it BURNED. I blinked a few times and adjusted to my surroundings. ‘HAPPY 19TH HOLLIE!!!’ Everyone shouted and ran towards me and bundled me. ‘Guys stop stop!’ I laughed and thanked them. I had almost forgot it was my birthday, I guess I wouldn’t be feeling like that again any time soon! I got cuddles and kiss’ from everyone and was loaded with gifts. ‘Oh really, you shouldn’t have’ … Well of course they should have, you’ve just got to be polite you know? I smiled to myself and thanked them all again. ‘Aw you babes, wait, what are we’ I looked at their outfits and saw them all wearing these sort of.. how would I even describe them, camouflage onsies?! Tom and Max had army stripes on their cheeks and I just stared at them. ‘What the hell have you all booked…’ ‘You still haven’t caught on? Really?’ Soph looked at me like I was a complete idiot and pointed to a sign that was literally right in front of me: ‘Paint Balling’. ‘WHAT! OH MY GOD EEE WHAT THE’ I jumped around and screamed. ‘I have always wanted to do this!!!’ I squeezed Sophie and punched the air. ‘Yayayayayayayayay’ I ran around and everyone laughed. ‘Good present?’ Siva said and I just squealed in his face. I saw the entrance and ran as fast as I could leaving the others behind, today, was going to be the best. birthday. ever.

The woman in charge told us to get in teams, so since there were 10 of us, we split up into 2 teams of 5. I got to pick, obviously it was going to have to be girls v boys. The girls and I ran over to our end of the battleground as the boys ran to theirs before quickly splitting up, what an awful technique. I looked at the girls and told them what we were going to do. We all discussed our tactics and agreed on everything. I leant down and put my hand in mud and wiped two lines across my face and did the same to the rest of the girls. This wasn’t a game anymore, this was war.

Me and Sophie had climbed a tree (which wasn’t allowed) and were waiting for the boys to come to where we were. Nathan and Siva ran straight over and looked for us. ‘Mate i’m 100% sure I saw them both run over here’ Nathan span in a circle and couldn’t see us, what an idiot. I counted down from 3 on my fingers to Soph, and on zero we went crazy and shooted them both. We jumped down and started shooting again. ‘Okay okay we’re out!’ Siva said and raised his hands. ‘And i swear climbing trees is cheating?’ Nathan turned around and spread out his hands- ‘I can’t believe I had to see, the girl of my dreams cheating on me’ we all burst out laughing and they jogged out of the game. ‘See, he can be smooth sometimes’ I said and we both ran into the centre of the battleground. Nareesha and Michelle ran towards us and pointed behind, Max and Tom were running right at us and were loading their guns when we already started to shoot. I got Tom right in the stomach and he winced. ‘The pain you caused, has left me dead inside’. ‘Tom that was wicked!’ Max laughed and realized it was 4 against 1 so he tried to ran away but Michelle jumped on him and we all avoided her and shot his head. We were all too good at this. We all looked around and couldn’t see Jay anywhere. ‘Max where is he?’ I said. ‘Because i’m gonna tell you’. Yeah, that was a fair point actually. I heard running footsteps behind me and swirled to see Jay picking up Sophie and running off. What the?! We all ran but he was a lot quicker than us and had gone in and out of the trees so we couldn’t tell which direction he went. ‘My best friend has just been kidnapped by her fiance in paint balling, is that a record or?’ ‘How did he even do that?!’ Michelle raised her eyebrows and nudged her head in front of us. I looked and saw a little trainer pointing out from a tree, he would not be that obvious. We all charged and funnily enough there was Jay holding Soph, we shot him and Jay turned into a multicoloured giant running through the forest. ‘You’re out you cheat!’ Nareesha shouted.

We had many more games, the lads cheated many more times, and it was an amazing day. It was getting dark so we had to stop, I thanked the staff for an amazing day and we took off our outfits and gave everyone hugs. They all handed me little presents which I would have to open on the plane. ‘Thankyou for such an amazing day guys, I love you all’ I gave them more cuddles and kisses and we said we would see each other very soon. This was so emotional, and we were only going for a couple of days! I got into Sophie’s car and waved goodbye and shouted I loved them from the window, and we left.

We had just arrived at the airport in the taxi and saw a little group of fans waiting outside. ‘How do they find out these things?’ Soph said. ‘They’re fans, they find out everything somehow’ Jay said. It was getting late and cold, we stood out of the taxi and grabbed our luggage. The boys stopped and greeted fans and got pictures with them. So many girls started crying and they gave them all cuddles and kisses, the way they impacted their lives was magical. A lot of the girls came up to me and Soph also and asked for pictures. I even got a few cheeky presents from a couple of the girls. One of them had just got me a little galaxy bar, she said she was sorry that she couldn’t get me anything more but I praised her, it was exactly what I needed. Time flew past and we had to board the plan, we made sure everyone had a picture and a cuddle then went through the procedures to get on the plane.

Chapter 14

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:09:53 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

‘Jay, why am I blindfolded? It’s a cafe, I’ll have seen it before!’ Jay had called Jayne this morning begging her to let him have the day off. Eventually she’d caved but said he’d just have to do it tomorrow. We were both fine with the agreement! ‘I didn’t have time to book anything because I didn’t think I’d be here! I want to make it as much of a non-blag as I can!’ He kept steering me forwards until I tripped over a step he’d forgotten to mention. ‘Okay that’s it I’m taking this thi-’ ‘HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!’ What the? I opened my eyes and saw a room full of people in front of me, my family, my friends and then the rest of the band, with Hollie at the front trying to contain a huge grin. I looked up at Jay. ‘Happy anniversary Soph, I love you.’ ‘I love you too’ I whispered. I was in shock! Jay and I had been together for 9 months, not really a noted one to celebrate but here everyone was! I didn’t even know what to say, I was so overwhelmed. I buried my face into his chest and he picked me up and span me around. When he put me down I was facing the other end of the room and I couldn’t believe what had been behind me. Pictures of Jay and I were everywhere, there were beautifully decorated tables and banners. It was as if it were my birthday. I couldn’t believe Jay had done all of this for me. Oh god, this is what the phone calls and texts were about, why everyone was acting so weird with me the other day. I was such an idiot, I’d thought Jay was cheating and it made me feel awful, he deserved so much better than me! I turned around again and a tear rolled down my cheek. ‘Soph, what’s wrong?’ ‘Nothing, I’m just so happy Jay! I can’t believe you did all this for me, I don’t deserve someone as amazing as you.’ ‘I did it because I love you, it’s me that doesn’t deserve you! Do me a favour? Go look in that box on the table?’ I found the box and went to open it. At the bottom was an envelope and I pulled it out, opening it excitedly. Inside there was a piece of paper with intricate swirls and patterns all over it that read ‘Turn Around…’ I did as instructed and wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Jay was down on one knee holding a small silver box. OH MY GOD!! ‘Sophie, you’re amazing. You’ve stuck by me through everything, you’ve taught me so much and you’ve made me a better person. The fact that you stayed with me through the accident shows what kind of a person you are, especially when I couldn’t even remember you! I realise now that love isn’t about finding someone you can live with, it’s about finding someone you can’t live without. Will you marry me Sophie?’ ‘Yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!’ I leapt at him and kissed him hard before he gently slid the ring onto my finger. Turning to everyone I saw that they were all clapping and cheering. Max, Tom, Seev and Nath all ran and bundled Jay whilst I ran straight for Hollie. ‘I can’t believe you’re getting married Soph!’ ‘Neither can I! Although I have a sneaking suspicion that you had something to do with all of this?’ ‘So you got me’ she laughed. She’d done well to keep it from me really, she was the worst liar I knew! Gosh, this was all so weird, I’m getting married! I’m going to be Mrs Sophie McGuiness, wow. I noticed someone standing watching me and I couldn’t believe who it was when I saw them properly. ‘Nicola!! Oh my god, hi!’ Nicola was my cousin, but we were as close as sisters, I’d tell her everything before I told anyone else but I hadn’t seen her for ages because she was at University in Plymouth. It was so good to see her, and I had so much to tell her! I gave Hollie a hug and squeezed her tight before filling Nicola in on everything.

Hollie’s POV:

Sophie ran off to see all her family and tell them everything, I was so proud of Jay. He did all this, it was completely his idea and he did it. It was amazing. At the end of the hall there was a little stage and tables all around it with assigned seats. I saw Jay walking around and giving everyone hugs and asking them to go find their seats. He had planned something, and I knew nothing about it. ‘Nathan, what is that stage for?’ ‘He’s got a surprise’ I stared at him then blinked at the stage. What on earth was he going to do? Nathan took my hand, we went to go find our seats and waited for Jay to get up on stage. We looked behind us and Jay was gathering the last couple of people to their seats and then jogged up the stairs on the side, he tripped, hoped no body would notice, everyone did. He laughed and grabbed a mic. ‘Yeah, that was funny’ he said and looked around at everyone. ‘Thankyou so much everyone for coming, this means so much, you all know that Sophie means the world to me, but I have something to.. say to her, in front of everyone’ Sophie was sat with Nathan and I at the table at the front right in the middle with the rest of us. She looked up at him and smiled. ‘You just, complete me’. He got many aww’s as replies and Sophie blushed. ‘And I want to prove how you make me feel’. Nathan, Tom, Max and Siva stood up from their seats and walked up to the stage, grabbed mic’s from the side then stood beside him. Everyone went silent and music turned on, it was magical. Jay looked into Sophie’s eyes, then lifted the mic to his lips. ‘Baby come over here’ I gasped and looked at Sophie. ‘I’ve just gotta tell you something, something’ She put her hands to mouth and gasped too. Jay sung the whole of Satellite to Soph, the boys joined in on the chorus and the atmosphere was incredible. Tears ran down her face and her face beamed, she looked at me ‘Hollie, this is unreal’. As the song ended I took my eyes off the boys and looked around me, everyone was cheering and clapping- we were so proud of them. Sophie hated dancing, but with his charm and good looks, Jay somehow managed to convince her to have a little slow dance later on when the DJ was playing soppy songs. I was sitting on Nathan’s lap and we were dramatically singing along to all the classics, as you do. Kelsey and Nareesha were walking around taking photos of everyone, they laughed when they saw us and took photos, but that didn’t stop us. ‘Have you seen Sophie’s ring?’ I said and stared at it as she was talking to someone. ‘Yeah, its beautiful’ Nathan smiled and agreed. ‘He’s been a pretty good boy today hasn’t he’ ‘Jay?’ ‘Yeah, hes done all this for her, its amazing’ ‘I could do so much better’ ‘Okay, 1. doubt it. 2. You are just looking for banter’ He laughed. ‘That’s true, I could never pull this off’ ‘Oh great, that’s good to know!’ I knew what he meant, but it still made me laugh. I waved at Sophie and she walked over towards us. ‘Please come dance with me, I look like an idiot’ We rolled her eyes and got everyone on the dance floor and showed off our ‘best moves’.

Hours passed and we spent the entire afternoon celebrating and spending time with a lot of friends and family. It was around 6pm by the time people started leaving so Jay and Soph stood by the door thanking everyone for coming and hoping they had a good time. Nicola came up to the door and hugged Soph for about a minute. I saw them talking for a while and Soph eventually nodded, they hugged again then she left. Nicola was the last person to go and when the door closed, Sophie practically screamed ‘That was amazing oh my god i LOVE you’ In Jay’s face and he lifted her up and span her around. ‘Eesh you guys, get a room’ Tom said as he nudged Soph and walked away laughing. I walked over to her and everyone else gathered. ‘Look at it’ She said and we looked all around the hall… ‘Do I have to clean that up’ She gave all of us evils and smirked. ‘I don’t think any of us do… Hotel staff?’ Jay said. ‘Come on we should do a small bit, I would feel mean otherwise!’ Nareesha said. ‘Yeah we’ll help’ I said and started collecting plastic cups. ‘Oh right, good point’ Jay lifted a bottle of wine and went to go put it away. ‘Guys look!’ Jay practically screamed and pointed at a corner in the room. My heart raced and I span around and searched to see what he was talking about. ‘What? Jay there’s nothing t-’ I turned back around and saw Jay grab Sophie’s hand and they ran out together laughing. ‘JAY’ I ran and the door shut in my face. We all stared at them both run away in awe. ‘…They did not just leave us to do all the cleaning up?!’ Michelle said. ‘They bloody tricked us, how do they, what?!’ Nathan rubbed his head and sat down. I raised my eyebrow and dropped the cups- ‘Oh my god, they are so getting it’.

Chapter 13

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:00:37 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

‘Sophie will you come to Emma’s with me next weekend?’ Hollie blurted out. ‘Emma…as in, Aunt Emma?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘Oh my God yes!! I love Emma, of course I will! Are we bringing the boys?’ Nathan looked at me like I was stupid, ‘I’m right here you know?’ ‘Hush boy, let the woman talk.’ ‘Yes Sophie Jay can come.’ ‘I love you Hollie Peacock!’ I laughed and grabbed her, kissing her forehead. Hollie’s Aunt Emma was such an incredible woman. She was a nurse up in Ireland and really good at what she did, but at the same time, she acted just like us, like a carefree teen just starting out in life. I loved the woman like she were my own family and I couldn’t wait to see her again. It would be the first time she’d met Jay and I won’t lie, I was so excited for her to see him, I knew she’d be proud. I ran into the living room and forgot Max and Michelle were camping on the floor. I proceeded to trip over them and muffled cries came from within the blankets. ‘Oh crap! Sorry guys! I forgot you were down there!’ Jay was trying to hide his laughter by covering his face with a pillow. ‘Oi McGuiness,’ Max said, ‘you can shut it!’ This just made Jay laugh even harder and out came the famous Jay laugh. Best. Laugh. Ever. I jumped onto the sofa next to him and put my hands on his shoulders, looking right at him. ‘You will never guess where we’re going!’ ‘Ummmm, you’ve won us an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas?’ ‘Jay, please don’t guess, we’ll be here forever, it was rhetorical. We’re going to Ireland!’ He looked confused and waited for me to explain. ‘Hollie’s Aunt Emma lives up in Ireland and she’s invited us up to stay for the weekend!’ I then whispered ‘she’s a nurse, I’m guessing Hollie just wants a checkup.’ ‘Wow! Sounds amazing. Wait, isn’t it Hollie’s birthday Friday? When do we leave?’ Oh God, Hollie’s birthday, I’d totally forgotten. This week was going to be so hectic. ‘I guess we’re going up Friday evening? We can still do something for her during the day. She’d kill me if we didn’t!’ Michelle offered to arrange something for Friday and I said that that would be amazing.

Everyone was up and moving about now and we’d all gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, and with 10 of us it was a squeeze, but we managed. Most of the boys ended up sitting on the counters with the girls and Jay around the table. In the middle of all the chatter Jay’s phone rang and it was Jayne. He put her on speakerphone so everyone could hear. ‘Hi everyone, how are you?’ ‘We’re all good, what can we do you for’ said Max. ‘I just called to say that this Wednesday is going to be a signing day! I’ve just been shown all the stuff you have to sign and it looks like it’s going to be a very long day, might take all night as well. Sorry lads. Oh and Nareesha, Kelsey and Michelle, POP magazine wants to do and interview with you about the Glad You Came video shoot, that all okay?’ Jayne got a lot of yes’s in reply and said her goodbyes. Wednesday was mine and Jays 9 month anniversary and I wouldn’t even get to spend it with him. I felt like I was going to cry. I excused myself and went to sit on the stairs to calm myself. ‘Soph? You okay?’ Jay had followed me out. ‘Yeah, I just, I was hoping we’d get to spend Wednesday together you know?’ ‘I know, look, we’ll do something Thursday yeah? Something really fun, anything you want!’ ‘Sure Jaybird’ I said with a half hearted smile. He grabbed my hand and we went back into the kitchen. ‘Don’t worry Soph,’ Hollie said, ‘I’ll take you out instead.’

Hollie’s POV:

It was hard seeing Sophie so upset, but it would be worth it. I felt like I should tell her but, I obviously couldn’t. We all grabbed little bits and pieces for breakfast and chatted a little when my brain buzzed. Ireland! I had completely forgotten already, how is that even possible? ‘Guys, I have something to tell you’ I lifted my eyes from the tv in the corner and looked around at everyone. ‘Well, Soph, Nath, Jay, Max and Michelle already know’ ‘Cheers for telling us last hun!’ Kelsey stuck her tongue out and carried on eating her toast. ‘Yeah, tell us last, its cool!’ Tom did his famous chuckle from the end of the table, at least they weren’t annoyed with me! ‘I’m going to Ireland on friday for the weekend’ ‘what!’ They all chorused and asked me why. ‘Well you know its my birthday, I have family over there who want to see me, but i’m spending the morning here, I hope thats okay?’ ‘Of course it is!’ Nareesha said. ‘We will just have to party hard in the morning!’ Siva chimed. ‘Not so sure about that’ I added and laughed. They were all so understanding, it was brilliant. We all talked about what I was going to do over there and Siva was telling us places we had to visit. ‘Who you staying with?’ Max asked. ‘Auntie Emma’ ‘God I love that woman’ He sighed and I looked at him strangely. Michelle flicked him on the arm and he laughed. ‘Come on, Emma is a legend’ everyone agreed and nodded their heads. Emma’s love was infectious, I have never known anyone who didn’t like her.

Sophie got in the shower and you could hear footsteps running from every direction. I ran to the kitchen from upstairs and I was the last one there, everyone was already seated and ready. ‘Right, lets do this’. We laid out the plan of the anniversary party and checked we had everything and everything would arrive okay. Jay signed us up for different things so we all had our own things to buy/prepare, he was awfully organised bless him. We all chatted about what times to meet and who would buy what where when we heard the bathroom door unlock. Soph walked out with wet hair, walked past and smiled then walked upstairs. We all let out a deep breath. ‘Ok, now that was close’ Jay said and everyone giggled. ‘I feel like im part of the fbi almost’ Nathan said and smiled to himself. ‘Before you try to look part of the fbi, quit while you’re ahead’ I said and gave him a cheeky grin. Jay packed everything away and couple by couple everyone started to go home. Nath and I had just gathered all our stuff and placed it by the door ready to leave when I went to go see Soph upstairs. I heard straighteners beeping in the main bedroom so I knocked and walked in to see Sophie. ‘You alriiii- what are you doing?!’ I said and walked over to her. Soph was currently sprawled out across the bed and she lifted her head, tears running down her face. ‘Oh god’ I turned around and closed the door then went and sat next to her and rubbed my cardy under her eyes. ‘I just wanted to spend the day with him you know? Its not much, but I can’t even spend my own anniversary with my own boyfriend’ She sniffed and just grabbed my cardy and wiped her eyes again. ‘… Its fine’ I looked at her and chuckled. ‘Soph, we’re gonna have an amazing day. Jay will make the following day extra special you know he will’ ‘But what if he forgets, it could happen’ I raised my eyebrow. ‘Doubt it’ ‘Not helping’ ‘Oh yeah, right’ ‘You know, don’t worry i’m probably over thinking it’ ‘Well i’m only a phone call away’ ‘And a street’ ‘Yeah.. calling will be easier’ ‘Why?’ ‘We’re er moving stuff around at home’ ‘Oh, okay’. She sat up and I hugged her, then walked downstairs where Nathan was waiting. We thanked Tom and Kelsey and got into the taxi they had called for earlier.

The next days went quickly, Monday through to Tuesday we were in the hotel’s private hall putting up decorations and sorting out music… Jay had only just realized he hadn’t organized food so he quickly rang a couple companies and sorted it out. It took a whole two days, but it was totally worth it. The hall looked beautiful, it was filled with candles and lights, Sophie will love it. It was so tempting to just sleep in that hall over night, we were all really tired but we all made sure everything was perfect, thanked the hotel and told them we would be there tomorrow. We rang Sophie’s friends and family and made sure everyone was definitely coming, then we went home and made sure we were ready for tomorrow. A nine month anniversary usually isn’t such a big deal, but Jay told us how much it meant for Sophie to go through everything with him, his memory was getting so much better. All the help he gets from Sophie is amazing. He told everyone else he had a surprise too, I couldn’t wait to see all their faces.

Wednesday had finally came and all the girls came round Nathan and my flat to get ready, we all faffed about and Nathan rolled his eyes every couple of minutes. ‘Girls, we aren’t going to a wedding’ ‘We still need to look nice!’ I ran over to a mirror by the door to check my eye liner then opened the door- ‘Come on girlies! Yes, including you Nath’ They all laughed and we walked outside and saw a little van. ‘What did Jay do’ Michelle said as she walked over. ‘Guys Jay just organized this to take us down there, hes literally planned everything like this’ ‘Aw, same old Jay’. The journey was quick and as soon as we got to the hotel we ran into the hall and checked everything was okay, obviously it was perfect. People started gathering in and the place started getting packed. I felt my phone go off in my pocket and looked at who was calling. ‘Jay you alright?’ ‘I’m literally picking her up now, we will be there in two- make sure everyone’s silent and-’ ‘We have it sorted! The whole shout and surprise and, yes, yes we got it’ I hung up and told Nathan who was ringing and what he said. ‘Hey everyone! They will be here in a minute, remember what to do?’ Nathan called out and got nods and yes’s as replies. Just as the room went silent, the huge double doors opened and Jay walked in with his hands covering Sophie’s eye’s.

Chapter 12

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:56:43 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

I held back Hollie’s hair and rubbed her back as she was sick. I knew you got morning sickness when you were pregnant, but surely that should have passed by now? She hasn’t been sick for the past couple weeks so this was weird. She hadn’t eaten much at dinner and no one else was feeling ill or anything so it wasn’t the food, she hadn’t had a drink either. I tried to comfort her with ‘It’s okay, just let it all out’ but I knew she’d be freaking out because of the baby. ‘Want me to go get Nath?’ I asked and she gently nodded her head. After tying her hair back I left to find Nathan. He was still in the front room playing truth or dare with everyone else so I sat beside him and whispered that Hollie needed him upstairs and with that he left. Jay looked across the circle at me and mouthed ‘everything okay?’ I nodded back and carried on like nothing was wrong. A little while later after some crazy dares, lots of extremely revealing truths and a good few shots in each of us, I dragged Jay upstairs with me to go see how Hollie was doing. Admittedly we were both a little drunk and it took us nearly a minute to get up a single flight of stairs because of our giggling. I knocked on the bathroom door and Nathan let us in. He took one look at us and said ‘You guys are drunk.’ Jay laughed and said ‘Hey now, that’s not fair, I happen to see my drunkenness as a rather jolly experience and you’re putting a rather large downer on it!’ I sat by the bath and couldn’t stop laughing, I loved that boy, and one day I’d marry him. I looked to Hollie and whispered ‘You okay darling?’ ‘Yeah I’m much better now, why are we whispering?’ ‘Because it’s a secret of course!’ ‘Oh god Soph, you’re the worst drunk ever!’ she laughed and attempted to pick me up off the floor.

Once we were all back downstairs we decided we’d put another film on, but this time the girls got to pick. Rooting through Toms DVD’s I found something amazing at the back. ‘Thomas Parker! You have Finding Nemo?!’ All the girls were instantly excited and we ran to put it on. As we all recited every single word, the boys looked at us like we were crazy. ‘How do you even find the time to remember all these lines?’ ‘Siva, you acted out Star Wars earlier and you think this is weird?!’ Nareesha replied. We all burst out laughing and whipped out our air light sabres, attacking Seev in the process. ‘Okay okay you win!’ he shouted. As the film finished we all said our goodnights and tried to find a bed or sofa to crash on. Me, Jay, Max and Michelle all ended up camping in the lounge and by the time we’d stopped chatting and settled down to sleep it was already 4 in the morning. Everyone was going to be in awesome moods in the morning…not!

Hollie’s POV:

It was the morning after the night before, everyone was still sleeping and no wonder, it was 7.34am. I always woke up early after nights out, guess my brain just hates me. I still had that bad feeling, but it was very dull now so I guessed it would go away. I stood up and wrapped the blanket I had been sleeping under around me and walked into the kitchen, my mouth was so dry. I closed the door quietly so I wouldn’t wake anyone up while fiddling around, the numerous amount of times I had stayed here and still didn’t know where things were. I opened all the cupboards and finally found a cup and poured myself a glass of water and gulped it down. I sat at their little breakfast table and saw the pile of magazines and picked the top one and looked at the front page. “Tom has had one too many!” was a headline and showed a picture of Tom with Kelsey pulling faces at paps. Some of the stories we heard were so ridiculous. I flicked through the rest of the magazines and found a page in one about mother care, I really shouldn’t be reading this. But before I knew it I had nearly read everything, I was actually finding it really interesting? I flicked through the rest of the pages about caring and feeding for your baby then rested my head against the table, this was going to be a lot of hard work. I kept my head down for a couple of minutes wondering if I could sneak in a couple more minutes of sleep before I heard footsteps behind the door and someone opened it and closed it quietly as I did. I lifted my head and turned around to see Siva. ‘You alright darlin?’ I nodded and told him I had a bit of a headache. He looked over my shoulder and saw the page I was looking at. ‘We all know don’t worry, you don’t have to keep it a secret anymore’ He chuckled and walked over to the fridge to poor himself some orange juice. ‘…What?’ I tried to act cool but my heart raced, who would have told him? Who would have told everyone? ‘I’m joking love?’ He turned around and gave me a confused smile. ‘Oh, oh of course, sorry i’m so tired’ ‘You look it’ ‘It was a rough night Seev you can’t blame me!’ He squinted and rubbed his eyes. ‘You know, I can’t really remember a lot’ I rolled my eyes and walked over to a draw to grab a cereal bar. I stopped in front of it and smiled to myself and pointed ‘D’ya know what this is?’ ‘Very funny’ ‘Too bad its not attached to a seat ay?’ ‘Ha ha ha, seat draw, there I said it’ We laughed together then realized everyone was still asleep and continued whispering. ‘So why were you reading that anyway?’ Oh god. ‘Um’ I am such a bad liar. ‘Its just interesting you know?’ I looked up at him then closed the magazine quicker than he could say seat draw. ‘Well, no not really’. I didn’t blame him, guys don’t think about this stuff until it finally hits them that they might be a daddy. ‘Wait! I remember, you were sick last night!’ He looked shocked then returned to look at me. ‘You okay?’ ‘Yeah, yeah i’m fine now, sorta’. Just then a huge wave of pain came into me and I dropped my cereal bar and held my stomach, then everything returned back to normal. I looked up and Siva was there staring at me ‘You do realize you said you were fine?’ ‘I am, honestly, I must have had something last night that didn’t get on with me’ ‘Yeah, maybe’. I saw him quickly glance at the magazine I was reading through then look back to his orange juice. I changed the subject quickly. ‘Is everyone still asleep?’ ‘Yeah, well apart from Soph, she said she heard you get up and was gonna come see you in a minute’ ‘Bless her’ ‘You know how much she worries about you?’ ‘I know, I know. I feel like I don’t deserve such a good friend like her sometimes’ He told me I was stupid and carried on drinking his orange juice. ‘How long did Soph say she would be?’ I heard the door open again and turned around. ‘About a minute, and did I lie? No I did not’ Sophie walked in and hugged me. ‘How you feeling?’ ‘I’m okay’ ‘Okay? Hollie did you not see what happened to you a couple minutes ago?!’ Siva waved his hands in the air nearly dropping his drink and told Sophie. ‘You are an idiot’ She said. ‘Yeah, that’s what Seev said’. Suddenly ‘rude boy’ by Rihanna started playing and they both span around- ‘What the’ I blushed and pulled my phone out of my pocket to see who was ringing me. ‘She would have that as her ringtone’ Sophie said. I laughed and saw “Auntie Emma” pop up on my phone, I walked out of the room and answered it.

I had called Emma yesterday morning and told her everything, we were so close and she knew things about me even my parents didn’t. She was a head nurse in Ireland so she was always busy and returned my calls at the strangest of times. ‘I want to see you Emma’ I said and placed my hand on my forehead. ‘You hang in there sweetheart it will be okay’ ‘But Emma, you are like an expert, I want to see you about it’ She umm’d and ahh’d on the phone, and while she was hesitating I opened the upstairs bathroom to make sure no body was listening in, which they weren’t thank goodness. ‘If you visited me love you would have to stay for a couple of days, you can’t come and see me one day then go home the next, you would be exhausted’ ‘You know I wouldn’t mind doing that’ ‘That’s true, okay then what would your parents say, they wouldn’t let you travel alone!’ ‘You are just looking for excuses auntie! My parents would obviously let me stay with you for a couple of days, and my friends would understand, a couple of them might even come’ ‘Well Nathan wouldn’t let you travel alone would he’ ‘Exactly! Or Soph!’ ‘I do like that girl you know’ I laughed. Sophie was almost as close to Emma as I was, whenever I went to see Emma I took Sophie with me, Emma could be our age. She acted exactly like us and could pass for a teenager. ‘You could stay in the cabin I guess’ She said and I crossed my fingers. ‘Pleeeeeeeeeease! I really want to have your advice and see what you think, you are the expert. Oh, and I am making puppy dog eyes right now, just thought i’d let you know’ I heard her giggle at the other end of the line and she sighed. ‘Fine, 3 days max, you know i’m a busy woman’ ‘YES’ ‘And make sure you don’t come alone’ ‘I wont!’ ‘And bring money and’ she went on for a couple minutes but I just jumped up and down in the bathroom and grinned. ‘Thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou’ I rushed and told her I loved her and I had to go, she said goodbye and I hung up. I was so excited! She was exactly the person I needed to talk to, since I hadn’t even told mum or dad yet, it was perfect.

I walked out of the bathroom and ran downstairs, Nathan was waiting at the bottom and grabbed my hand. ‘Whats wrong?’ I said and looked into his eyes. ‘Nothing, they’re all fine, i’m just worried about you’ ‘Nathan i’m fine’ ‘Siva told me what happened in the kitchen’ He looked down and put his hand on my stomach. ‘Hollie’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Are you okay?’ Right, now I got it. I nodded and ran my fingers through his hair. ‘Seriously, I’m fine!.. but I have to tell you something’ He raised his eyebrow and took a step back. ‘Whenever you say that something big is going to happen, or you’ve done something, what have you done this time?’ ‘.. I’m going to Ireland’ There was a long pause and he waited for me to explain, so I did. I told him about the whole phone call and how I needed to see Emma. ‘Oh dear not crazy Emma’ he smirked. ‘Yes, indeed crazy Emma’. ‘What are you going to tell the others?’ ‘That its a family trip’ ‘Well you have to tell Sophie the truth’ ‘Of course i will you nugget’ ‘Okay okay! Just checking’ ‘How will I tell her though? Will she come with me?’ ‘Well I guess we will find out’ He nodded his head behind me and Soph walked around the corner. ‘You alright guys?’ She grinned and walked towards us. So I had to tell her now, not as much planning time as I thought I would have had.

Chapter 11

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:51:10 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

I woke up to a knock at the door. From what I could remember in my sleep deprived state we weren’t expecting anyone, but whoever was at the door would be greeted by my pyjamas. I opened the door and Hollie and Nathan were stood there smiling, then their smiles disappeared as they saw what I was dressed in. ‘Shit! Oh my god, I totally forgot about today. Damn it. Come in guys, I need to go get Jay up.’ I ran into the bedroom but hesitated before waking him up. Jay had been having trouble sleeping recently due to the broken leg and ribs and this was the first time in a long time that he’d had a decent length one. He looked so beautiful. I crawled over to his side of the bed and kissed him. His eyes slowly opened. ‘Well that’s a lovely way to be woken up’ he said with a grin. ‘So why don’t I get the same treatment!?’ I giggled. ‘Anyway, I totally forgot, everyone’s going round Tom and Kelsey’s…like now! You need to have the quickest shower of your life whilst I get changed. Scram!’ ‘Can’t you come with me?’ he said with puppy dog eyes intact. Oh god, the boy made me weak at the knees. ‘No JayJay, not this time, now come on! Go go go!’ He mumbled on his way to the bathroom and I heard him getting into the shower as I pulled on some shorts and a vest top and my converse. Going back into the lounge Nathan looked at me. He looked upset and I wanted to ask why, but after yesterday something held me back. I didn’t have to wait long however as he stood up and walked over to me, taking hold of my hands. ‘Sophie, I’m honestly so sorry that I lied to you yesterday, Jay wanted the whole thing to be a surprise and then when you started to think he was cheating, I panicked! I thought Jay would catch on and play along so it wouldn’t ruin anything, I didn’t think he would freak out. I’m really really sorry.’ ‘Yeah me too’ Hollie whispered. ‘Oh come on you two, put a smile on those faces and give me a hug! I forgive you, and hey, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have been so quick to freak out. I made things so much worse. It’s all behind us now, we’re gonna go have fun and it’ll be just like normal.’

When Jay had finished in the shower and was dressed, he came out and apologised to them for acting the way he did yesterday. They were really understanding towards him and Hollie told him every single detail about it all so far, even about when she remembered what happened in France. Jay was so happy for them both, his eyes were glistening when he was listening to Hollie talk. Nathan was going to make such a good dad, as was Jay one day. All the boys would be amazing fathers and a smile crept across my face as I imagined us all in 10 years time. All married and all with beautiful children. The boys would still be making number one hits and causing as much mischief as possible. I got down from the counter and said ‘I hate to break up the party guys, but we have somewhere we need to be!’ and with that we left for Tom and Kelsey’s.

When we turned up we found that Kelsey and Nareesha has cooked us all an amazing dinner of lasagne with different types of home made breads to go with it. Max and Michelle had decorated the front room with a secret agent theme and Tom and Siva had gone out to get some action themed DVD’s. It was just like the good old days, dinner and snuggling up to watch films with the gang. I’d missed this and it was exactly what we all needed.

Hollie’s POV:

We hadn’t had a chill out weekend in so long, it was so nice to finally be able to sit down and relax with everyone. Tom and Siva had just arrived with a ton of action dvd’s and they sat in front of the dvd player sorting out which one to put in first. They wouldn’t tell us which ones they had got so it was more of a surprise, they did cute things like that sometimes. We were all sat in our couples along the sofa and cuddling into each other when ‘mission impossible’ turned up on the screen. Best. Film. Ever. ‘Popcorn anyone?’ Jay said jumping up to go to the kitchen. ‘SHH’ everyone glared at him then fixed their eyes back to the TV. ‘Jeesh.. fine then!’ He walked off and we could all hear ruffling in the kitchen. I looked around and a few people were rolling their eyes, this was a typical Jay so we all ignored it. ‘THIS IS THE BEST BIT’ Sophie gasped and we all laughed. Next we walked a couple James Bonds, Die Hard, followed by Return Of The Jedi, non-related but we had to put it in the mix some when. ‘God wouldn’t you just love to act out the whole of Star Wars’ Siva said. ‘I would actually love that?!’ I heard Soph say. ‘Agreed’ I chipped in. Siva had that smile on his face which meant he was up to something. ‘No, Siva you have done this enough we are not acting out’- Nareesha was too late. ‘I AM YOUR FATHER’ Siva strutted around the room breathing heavily and pretended to wave about a light sabre, he walked up to Nathan and pretended to chop of his arm and he played along. ‘Nooooo!’ Nathan crawled across the room and we just all stared. Did that really just happen? All us girls looked at each other then burst into laughter. ‘You guys are creeps honestly’ Max said from the corner. We all laughed again and a few people walked off into the kitchen to clean up. I stayed in the sitting room with Soph and we cleared up the stack of dvd’s and just kept giggling. ‘Why do I feel like that’s not the last time we will witness that?’ She said. ‘Oh god, we’re going to see that many more times aren’t we’ I said and we continually giggled. ‘On a serious note, you okay?’ She looked concerned. ‘Yeah honestly, i’m fine’ I smiled at her then we stood up and walked into the kitchen to find the others.

‘FWUFFY BUNNIYES’ ‘hahaha you completely failed!’ I opened the door to see Michelle, Tom and Kelsey playing fluffy bunnies, which was always attractive. ‘What the hell are you guys doing, wait, yeah its pretty obvious’ I turned to Nath and gave him a strange look. ‘How many do they have in their mouth so far?!’ ‘8’ ‘Are you joking?’ ‘I wish i was’. We all stared and waited for someone to give up. It didn’t take long, about a minute later Tom flew marshmallows out of his mouth like a projectile and ran into the bathroom. We were all in hysterics and Soph went to go check if he was alright. This is what happened when you all played ‘hard core’ games. They came back laughing and Soph nearly fell over. ‘He headbutted the sink! Oh my god major six pack coming on’ She laughed and laughed and we all joined her. ‘That’s right, you all laugh! Its cool! Lets just laugh at Tom!’ and we did, we really did. ‘You know what we have to do now guys’ Max said with a sneaky grin. ‘Oh god’. We all knew what he was talking about, and no one was going to tell him no, so we all walked into the sitting room and sat in a circle, and grabbed a bottle. Max spun it and it landed on Jay. ‘Oh brilliant’ he said and looked at max. ‘Jay, truth or dare’ ‘Urrrrmmmmm… truth, i’m not brave enough yet’ He did the famous Jay grin and looked around waiting for Max to think of something. ‘Do you prefer Avatar, or Sophie’ everyone made their best ‘oooooo’ sound effects, and we all chimed in at how hard a decision it was. ‘Sorry Soph, but i’m gonna have to go with Avatar’ he winked at her. ‘You didn’t even take 5 seconds to think that over!’ She gasped and pretended to ignore him then laughed. ‘Hahaha i’m only joking! Of course I prefer Soph, as much as I love Avatar, she comes first before anything else’ she turned around and went to go sit on his lap and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Eww get a room guys..’ Nath said and Soph stuck her middle finger up at him and laughed. I started to feel really ill and just lent forward a bit hoping it would go away and no body would notice, but it kept getting worse and worse and I felt like I was going to throw up. It was this feeling from my stomach and it honestly didn’t mix well. I heard everyone laughing around me and having different dares, I was there but everyone’s voices just muffled and I looked to Soph next to me and groaned. I whispered to her ‘this doesn’t feel good’ and held my belly. She whispered back to me ‘Hollie, Hollie are you okay?’ ‘Yeah, I need a breather’ I stood up and went to the bathroom and she followed after me. ‘Whats wrong Hollie?’ ‘It just doesn’t feel right’ I winced and ran the tap then splashed water onto my face. I was sure I would be okay soon, it just wasn’t right.

Chapter 10

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:33:12 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

When Hollie opened the door she looked shocked to see me, I was going to question her expression but instead I burst in tears. ‘I called Siva. He’s not there Hollie, he lied to me and now he’s probably with some girl!’ I felt so angry and confused. Why would he do this? How could he do this? After everything we’d been through together! All the weekends away, trips abroad to shoot videos, the monthly anniversaries he’d celebrate. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Hollie pulled me inside and I could hear scrambling in the kitchen as she led me to her room. ‘Sophie, Jay loves you-’ ‘And I love him! So much. I can’t, I don’t want to be without him and I’m scared I’m going to lose him.’ I was really crying now. Jay meant everything to me, for the 8 and a half months we’ve been together we’ve seen each-other every single day. He’s taken me on tour, to all the interviews, even America and back! If I didn’t have Jay, I didn’t have anything. Hollie looked like she didn’t know what to do and went to get Nathan. When he saw the state I was in he came running over ‘Oh Soph come here, Jay is not cheating on you I promise. Hollie we have to tell her, it’s only fair.’ ‘We do?! Ummm okay.’ He held my hand and said ‘This whole thing’s my fault, I’ve been freaking out about having a baby and I confided in Jay. We told him he couldn’t tell anyone and I guess he assumed you didn’t know. He was texting and calling me, I’m sorry for all the confusion. I kinda forgot Jay’s not great at being subtle.’ ‘Oh god, I feel so awful, I should have trusted him. Wait, he said he went to see Siva, but he’s not there, is he here?’ Hollie smiled and said ‘He’s hiding in the kitchen, probably eaten all my biscuits as well!’ We all laughed and I ran to the kitchen and jumped on Jay. ‘I’m so sorry Jay, I’m so sorry.’ ‘Eh? What for?’ ‘I thought you were umm, cheating. But Nathan’s explained everything and it’s so lovely of you to help him like that, but no more secret calls and texts okay! I know Hollies pregnant!’ Jay stared at me, then looked to Hollie and back to me. ‘Hollie’s what? You’re pregnant?’ Now I was completely confused, they said Jay knew, but he doesn’t? ‘What the hell is going on here?’ I said quietly, looking to my best friend.

Hollie’s POV:

‘Jay you know’ I stared at him and nodded. ‘You’re pregnant?!’ He stared back at me not catching on. ‘When the hell did this happen? Who knows?! Oh my GOD’ he paced around and looked to Sophie. ‘Am I the only one who doesn’t know?’ I sighed, today wasn’t my day. ‘Look, Jay, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. Just with your memory at the moment I was going to tell you when you got better but, I don’t know okay it’s hard at the moment’ he didn’t do anything he just looked at the floor. ‘Jay Soph thought you were doing things behind her back so I told her you knew everything. All I can do is apologise, I’m sorry’. Nath got no response from him. ‘… Have you forgotten or do you actually remember the bit where your cover up plan didn’t work?’ Sophie glared at me. ‘Sophi’- ‘No, no there will not be any excuses i’ve had enough, you can all have your fun and games but you will tell me whats going on’. I stared at her and I opened my mouth but nothing came out, I couldn’t think of anything to say, I couldn’t ruin Jay’s anniversary suprise for her, but I hadn’t actually done anything wrong and she was currently thinking i’m the worst friend in the world? Jay also hated me for not telling him about the pregnancy, how did I get myself into all this? ‘Jay I know this is probably not the best thing to say right now but, please don’t tell anyone, please’ ‘I wont’. He didn’t look at me once, before walking through the hallway and going out of the front door. ‘Give him time, you know he’ll understand’ I heard Nath say behind me. ‘But what if he doesn’t?’ No body answered me, Soph was still standing there awkwardly and i told her to sit down. I told her that Jay was going for a special interview for a little job whilst he wasn’t touring and that it was meant to be a secret suprise for her. ‘You can’t tell him i told you’ ‘Of course I won’t, right okay that explains the phone calls now, oh god i’m sorry for having a go at you, you were just trying to make everyone happy.’ That made me hurt inside, I was still lying. And all this lying for everyone else. I felt horrible and just faintly smiled at her, she told me she was going to Kelsey’s tomorrow or something to plan a little get together and invited me along, I couldn’t really say no. All i wanted to do was stay at home and feel bad, I hated this.

The next day Nath and I turned up to Sophie and Jay’s with a box of chocolates, it was the least we could do after yesterday and for the…large confusion. We walked up the little steps in front of her door and knocked, and waited to greet her.

Chapter 9

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:44:18 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

I looked at the clock on the bedside table, 3:32am. Who the hell was calling at half 3 in the morning? Finding my phone I saw Hollie flash up on the screen. This had better be important. ‘Hello?’ I croaked. ‘Sophie! I remembered! The nurse said I was 7 weeks in, it was France! I actually remember..well, you know.’ I paused before replying just to check I understood. ‘So what you’re telling me is, you called me at half 3 in the morning, to tell me you remember having sex? Am I right?’ Jay stirred beside me so I got up and padded to the lounge. ‘Yes! Well, kind of. Thing is I never even remembered doing it, Soph we were all drunk. Actually I wasn’t even that drunk, but you and Jay were out of it.’ ‘Oh my god Hollie, we were in the next room, that’s gross. That was meant to be a fun weekend away, not one full of sexy-time for you! Especially when there was only a thin wall between us!’ I heard her trying to cover up her laughter. ‘I’m serious! That’s just too weird. Do NOT do it again okay?’ ‘Okay, sorry Soph, I just didn’t even remember most of that night at all, I kind of got excited when it all came back to me. I promise no more sex when you’re around.’ I could never stay mad at her for long, especially when she came out with lines like that! I told her not to worry and to go back to bed and hung up the phone. I crept back to bed and Jay had wrapped himself into a ball with the duvet. ‘What are you actually doing?!’ I giggled, climbing back in. As he pulled me into the heap of duvet with him he said ‘It got cold without you.’ ‘Come here you soppy git!’ and with that I curled up carefully into his chest and kissed him softly.

At breakfast Jay and I decided we’d have a lazy weekend at home just watching films. Throughout the first 2 films Jay was continuously texting which was weird for him. He never really managed to have his phone with him for this length of time, he lost it nearly every week! The flat phone then began to ring and Jay looked at me funnily before I answered. There was a girl on the other end asking for Jay. I passed over the receiver and he went and sat in the bedroom talking. What couldn’t he say in front of me? I could hear his voice but I couldn’t make out what was happening. Almost half an hour later he came back in and sat down without saying a word. ‘Who was that?’ I asked. ‘Uhh, no one, a friend from school.’ He’d been acting strange all day and I had no idea why. At a guess I would have said it was something about the accident or not being able to remember certain things, but that wouldn’t explain all the texts and secret phone-calls? So many different explanations were running around in my head so I told Jay I was going to the shop for some bits and rang Hollie as soon as I left. Nathan picked up ‘Hello?’ ‘Hey Nath it’s Soph, is Hollie there?’ ‘She’s actually gone out but she’ll be back any second, anything I can help you with?’ I didn’t know whether to ask Nathan or not, he was one of Jays best friends. ‘Umm maybe, you know Jay even better than I do, has he ever, umm, cheated?’ ‘Do you mean at scrabble’ he laughed. ‘Nathan I’m serious.’ ‘No Soph he hasn’t, he’s a good guy, he wouldn’t. Is everything okay?’ ‘Yeah it’s all good, when Hollie gets in can you get her to give me a call?’ ‘Sure thing, see you later Soph.’ I hung up and realised I was still standing outside the door. I was about to leave when Jay opened the door ‘Oh, hey. I’m uhh, just gonna go see Siva for a bit, that okay?’ ‘Yeah of course it is, have fun.’ I watched him half walk half hobble down the stairs and when he was out of sight I let myself back into the apartment. As soon as I’d shut the door the phone rang and it was Hollie ‘Hey Soph, Nathan said you called? Everything okay?’ ‘Ummm I’m not really sure to be honest, Jay’s acting weird. Secret texts and phone-calls, when I ask who it was he’s really blunt, no names or anything, and just now he said he was going to see Siva, but I really don’t think he is, the way he said it didn’t exactly scream honesty. I’m worried, if there’s something wrong he always tells me so it can’t be anything bad? Hollie, what if there’s someone else?’ I’d worked myself up and could feel the tears running down my cheeks. ‘Sophie what are you talking about, Jay’s not cheating on you!’ ‘How do you know? He’s Jay bloody Mcguiness! A singer in a boy band who has a hell of a lot of fans who’d do anything for him, he could have his pick! There’s nothing to stop him!’ ‘Sophie he’s not cheating I promise you, whatever he’s doing you’ve got the wrong end of the stick okay?’ She sounded nearly as desperate as I did which made me even more concerned. If she was so sure he wasn’t cheating, why sound so panicked? ‘Hollie, what’s going on?’ ‘Nothing, look I have to go, someone’s here, I’ll talk to you soon yeah?’ ‘Yeah okay, bye.’ There was something wrong, something that she wasn’t telling me.

Hollie’s POV:

I put the phone down, answered the door and hugged Jay. ‘You are stupid my friend’ ‘She knows! She knows everything i can tell, my plan to suprize her with an amazing party on our anniversay isn’t going to work’ he looked down before walking through the door and saying hi to Nath. I followed behind him and walked into the kitchen. ‘No, no you are in trouble’ Nathan said. Jay looked up from the biscuit tin and hesitated. ‘What? Whats wrong?’ ‘Jay she thinks your cheating on her’ I said and saw the shock on his face. We told him everything Sophie thought and the phone calls, he had never been good with secrets and making things non-obvious, so planning a suprise party for Soph was incredibly cute, but could never go down well. ‘Jay you have basically invited everyone who we want to go and booked a place, so I, well we, will do the rest, okay?’ He nodded. ‘I just wanted to do everything’ ‘You have done nearly everything! I will just go down and decorate the place myself and get some music, it will be fine and everything there is your idea!’ ‘Yeah I guess’ he smiled and grabbed a couple biscuits. ‘Wait, why did you come over anyway?’ ‘I need to ask you both something’ ‘Do we need to sit down?’ I joked and jumped up to sit on the worktop. ‘Maybe, but, since Soph and I have been going out for so long, my memory is still not back to normal but i’m getting there and i know how much I love Sophie and I just, I want to propose at the party’ There was a brief pause before anyone spoke. ‘Mate, are you sure?’ Nath said and looked at me. ‘Honest to god, I think that sounds like an amazing idea, oh Jay, she will love it!’.

For about an hour Jay wrote out plans and drew pictures of what he wanted at the party, he figured out the cost and ordered some more decorations off my laptop, which he would so be paying me back for. I texted Soph quickly to make sure she was okay and ‘i’m fine’ was the answer I received. She was not happy with me. I really wanted to tell her, but i couldn’t, I obviously couldn’t, it will all pay off but seeing her think something is wrong seriously upsets me. I suddenly remembered the big news.. and looked down at my belly. I couldn’t stop looking, there was life inside there.. it was so odd thinking about it. ‘You alright Hollie..’ Jay said looking concerned. ‘Oh erm yeah just’ I jumped down from the worktop and walked out. ‘She’s alright mate, just emotional about everything give her time’ I heard Nath say. ‘Oh.. okay’. He was telling the truth, I was emotional, just Jay must have thought it was about the proposal and the party and Soph, Nath knew what it was about and lied, i was emotional but lying about it didn’t feel right. I walked back through the hall way and was going to go to the toilet to freshen up when i saw movement through light behind the front door. Who would even? They knocked and I heard Nath shout from the kitchen ‘Can you get it babe?’ I walked over and opened the door- oh my god. ‘Sophie! Oh wow its Sophie!’ I raised my voice and made sure they could hear me in the kitchen, this could not be good.

Chapter 8

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:33:43 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

Jay was coming home! He’d only been in the hospital a couple of days, but he’d made an amazing recovery so the doctors had agreed to let him come home. The sooner he was in familiar surroundings, the better. I hadn’t been at home much, but when I was, it was weird without him there. He made the place brighter and without him there it didn’t feel like home to me. We’d parted ways with Hollie and Nathan when we’d left the hospital, they needed some time alone after finding out that Hollie was definitely pregnant. Even though she had Nathan, I knew she’d need help, and whatever she needed I’d be there no matter what. Hollie and I had gone to the same high school. We hadn’t talked much, but we’d known each other. I knew she was in a relationship with someone famous, but she’d never told anyone who. We’d all figured that he had to be famous after limos would pick her up from school in the summer. It was only after I’d begun seeing Jay and I was introduced to all the girlfriends that I found out it was Nathan. Ever since then we’ve become such close friends. I guess I felt I was able to talk to her because I’d known her previously. I really regretted not getting to know her in school, she’s amazing! I’d be lost without her. I smile crept across my face and I heard Jay behind me. ‘Umm, Soph? We just gonna stand out here or what?’ I unlocked the door to our apartment and let Jay go in first. ‘This is my place?’ He asked. ‘It’s our place, we live together JayJay.’ ‘Oh cool! So uhh, we share a bed?’ I laughed, ‘Yeah, but I’ll sleep on the sofa so don’t worry.’ He looked at me like I was out of my mind. ‘Soph don’t be silly! I’m not kicking you out of your own bed! We’ll share as always.’ ‘Are you sure? I don’t want it to be weird for you.’ If Jay couldn’t remember me much, sleeping in the same bed would be weird, really weird. And not just for him. ‘It’s okay, really. A lot of my memory is coming back. It’s almost nice having forgotten everything, when it comes back I get to be there all over again, like our weekend in France!’ ‘Jay! Oh my God you remember France!’ I dropped my bag and jumped on him, holding him tight. A tear fell down my cheek as we stood there just holding each other. France had been such a special time for me and I couldn’t express in words how happy I was that Jay had remembered it. It was nearly two months ago now. Hollie and I had had a bit of a rough time with journalists publishing stories claiming we were cheating on the boys. They’d found a picture of us and a couple friends from school and span a ridiculous story in the paper. Nathan and Jay were completely understanding about it all and took us away to France to take our minds off everything. It had been a total surprise to us both and we were even more excited when we were told we were going by ferry! Growing up by the sea, Hollie and I had grown to love it, but living in London had taken us away from the beaches. The journey there had been amazing and we’d re-enacted Titanic when Jack and Rose were on the front of the ship, much to the amusement of the other passengers. When the ferry had docked, we got off and the boys had arranged to have a hire car waiting for us. They’d even booked us into an adorable cottage right on the beach. It was surrounded by trees and really private so no one would bother us. Jay and Nath wouldn’t let us do anything, we offered to make them lunch but they told us no, we were to sit on the beach and relax. A half hour later and the boys called us in and led us down a little track by the side of the cottage. There was a small clearing at the end and in the middle was a large blanket and a picnic! I remember Hollie and I looking at each other with grins on our faces before running towards it, leaving the boys behind us. The picnic was packed with new, amazing looking foods and a bottle of wine. We were over the moon and so thankful that they were being so good to us. We had an unforgettable lunch and maybe got slightly tipsy! Hollie and I had tried to sleep it off and I hadn’t quite fallen asleep when I heard Nathan ask ‘How are you two then mate? It’s been like 6 months hasn’t it?’ ‘Nearer 7, but yeah, we’re doing really well. We’re actually moving in together next week!’ Nathan laughed to himself, ‘Mate you’re gonna love it. Living with Hollie is amazing; we have such a laugh all the time! Neither of us are very good cooks though.’ Now it was Jays turn to laugh. ‘Soph’s an amazing cook! When we’ve got the apartment set up, you guys should all come over for dinner.’ ‘Yeah that’d be good, cheers Jay.’ After a while, Nathan finally said ‘I’ve never seen you this happy mate, you really love her don’t you?’ I felt Jay stroke my hair, ‘Nath, I’m gonna marry her.’

In the evening, Hollie went out for dinner with Nathan and Jay had taken me somewhere else. France was such a beautiful place and after walking through the village for a while, we’d found an adorable little restaurant in an alleyway. Dinner was gorgeous and Jay was the perfect gentleman. On the way home I told Jay I was tired and he proceeded to pick me up and carry me the entire way home. As I draped my arms around his neck, I kissed him on the nose and reminded myself I had to tell Hollie my amazing news.

Hollie’s POV:

I woke up as the sun was setting, it was so beautiful. Nathan told me he was going to take us out for dinner in a little diner in the village, Sophie and Jay had already gone off to find a restaurant and it was nice to have some time with Nath. We held hands and walked along a little rocky pavement next to a river, I couldn’t ask for anything better. As we got closer to the village we saw a little well with little children running around it and I gasped ‘Nathan I haven’t seen one of these in years!’ I grinned and felt like I was a child all over again, I ran over and grabbed a euro out of my pocket, turned my back to the well and closed my eyes. I concentrated and… couldn’t think of anything to wish for? ‘Nathan’ ‘Yeah?’ ‘This is ridiculous, I can’t think of anything’ I opened my eyes and he was just standing there with a confused expression on his face. ‘My life is perfect at the moment, I have you and that’s all I ever want’. Nathan told me I was being silly and came over and cuddled me. ‘Ewww’ we turned around and saw all the little kids making disgusted faces at us and pointing. ‘Ewww cuddles!’ Nathan shouted and ran to them arms wide open, bless- their little screams were incredibly cute. I grabbed my camera out of my back pocket and got pictures of him doing his monster impressions. Yes, I fell in love with that. He jogged back towards me and I showed him the photos, he took the camera and aimed it at us both. ‘Smile!’ I grinned to my hearts content and he took the photo. ‘Aww’ we both held hands again and walked into the village.

He took me to a little restaurant called ‘le dîner peu’. It was on the corner of a little street and nearly empty, there were candles around the place and it had beautiful live music. We had our meals and Nathan said we had to go straight home. Apparently Sophie told Nathan she had news to tell me? I wasn’t sure whether to be excited or worried, so I just felt a little bit of both. We were nearly home when we popped into a little shop to get a couple bottles of wine since there weren’t any at home, along with some crisps and chocolate. French chocolate, is amazing. We walked up a little path and I saw the cottage. ‘How on earth did you manage to even find this place?’ I said to Nathan. ‘Well, that doesn’t matter does it?’ he turned and smiled at me and I just agreed, not sure whether I actually wanted to know when I thought about it. I knocked on the door and Sophie answered literally grabbing me and ran me off down a little hall. ‘Its fine! Yeah! See you later then!’ I heard Nathan shouting. ‘Women’. I turned around and laughed then looked back to Sophie. She had brought me to a little room at the end of the hall and closed the door. ‘1. Where’s Jay, 2. What the hell are you doing?!’ I flicked her on the head and waited for an answer. ‘1. He’s in the shower. 2. We’re getting married’. ‘WHAT’ ‘But he doesn’t know it yet’ ‘Come again?’ ‘You know when we were sleeping? Well I hadn’t quite drifted off when I heard Jay telling Nathan he’s going to marry me’ ‘Oh my god’ ‘I know’ ‘Oh.. My god’ I squealed slightly and hugged her tight. ‘This is amazing Sophie!’ ‘Yeah but I know, when I shouldn’t, I’m not meant to know and I do, that ruins it, I should have been asleep and I heard it, I’m marrying him, wow’ ‘You always talk too much when you’re excited, come on its going to be amazing so calm down! I can’t believe it, you’re going to be Sophie McGuiness’ ‘Don’t say it so loud!’ She grinned and jumped up and down a little. ‘Come on, it will be amazing no matter what happens, Nath and I got a couple drinks on the way home, lets just casually have a drink with them whilst secretly celebrating’ She laughed ‘Oh go on then’. We walked out of the small room and we saw Nathan and Jay standing at the end of the hall. ‘Have a nice mothers meeting?’ Jay called still wrapped up in a towel. ‘Oh it was brilliant Jay!’ I shouted as we walked towards them and started laughing. ‘What were you both talking about?!’ Nathan asked. ‘That’s for us to know, and for you to never find out’.

Funnily enough, a couple hours later everyone was tipsy. Sophie had her camera out and was taking mug shots of everyone and I was too tired to even care. In fact, I didn’t have a care in the world right now! I was with the people I loved and was having a great time, I was so happy. Sophie and Jay were sat in front of each other with a couple shots left and were discussing something I really thought I shouldn’t be listening to, so I got up to see what Nath was doing. I walked through into the kitchen and saw him pouring another glass of wine. ‘Babe you’ve got a beer in there?’ ‘This is for you, ya wally’ ‘Oh! Thank you’ I laughed, I was such an idiot. As we walked back into the room I walked over to the music, it wasn’t loud enough. I turned it up and started joking around with Nathan, our dance moves were amazing. Or so we thought. Sophie and Jay were laughing at us but joined in. Sophie hates dancing, but if Jay wanted her to dance, she would. He cuddled her and moved her hands as they laughed and span around, Jay tripped over his own foot and landed on the Sofa. ‘Jay!’ Sophie fell on the floor almost crying with laughter. She stumbled over to him and they were sat there in hysterics. They needed to go to bed, we all know what a hazard Jay is when he is tipsy. I smiled at Soph and pointed upstairs, but she violently shook her head. ‘Come on Soph, we’re here for a couple more days’ Yeah, she didn’t budge. I rolled my eyes and told Jay to go to bed because there were some skittles there, have I ever seen him run so fast? No. Sophie skipped along behind him and they went to bed. Nath was chuckling to himself on the sofa so I sat next to him. ‘Nath, what are you doing?’ ‘Do you ever get that feeling when you get a feeling’ … ‘What?’ ‘You know, when like, tea!’ I laughed so hard, he was gone. ‘Nathan why am I so sober?’ He passed me my glass of wine and poured vodka in it, oh god. He literally held it to my mouth and waited for me to chug it, what else could I do? And, the next bits, were a bit fuzzy. I remember kissing him, he span me around whilst holding me from under my knees and arms and he carried me to our bedroom downstairs. I stretched my arm down and opened the door for him before kissing him on the forehead. He laughed and opened the door.

-‘OH MY GOD’ I jumped up and looked at the time, 3.30am, I was back at mine and Nathan’s flat in London. I was dreaming?! But I remembered everything, I remembered what happened and how and- “NATHAN” I turned over and saw Nathan sleeping next to me. ‘If you don’t wake up now I will smack you’ He turned over and wiped his eyes. ‘Whats wrong babe?’ ‘I remember France, it was France’ He looked confused. I couldn’t wait, I dialled Sophie’s number and prayed she would pick up.

Chapter 7

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:22:16 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

‘He’s doing okay,’ I said with a smile. ‘Seriously though, you do look like roadkill, you camp in the lounge again?’ ‘Yeah, I need to stop doing that; it’s not even my lounge!’ Hollie laughed. As she began to walk upstairs I called up ‘Oh and I wanna talk to you all about last night! Jay remembered some stuff! Gather everyone up when you come back down?’ ‘Okay!’ she called and ran off into the bathroom. I walked into the kitchen to grab a water from the fridge and all the girls were sitting round the table chatting. I explained to them about last night and how I was sorry I’d left without saying. They all understood. Everyone was being so supportive and I can’t express in words how much it means to me. We had a group hug and I went to go find Nath and Seev to apologise to them. All the boys were playing FIFA on the PS3, so I decided not to interrupt their game (previous experience had warned me otherwise) and sat and watched the four of them play. They really weren’t very good. ‘You guys suck at this, you know that right?!’ They replied with yes’s and laughter and it was then that I apologised to them about yesterday’s events. Nath and Seev were totally cool about it. The boys all had such laid back natures and I loved them all for it. Hollie came bounding down the stairs with wet hair and said ‘want me to get the girls?’ ‘Sure,’ I replied, ‘But don’t you wanna go outside and shake first?’ ‘Har har very funny’ and off she went to the kitchen. A minute later everyone was in the lounge and waiting for me to talk. ‘Okay, so you all know I stayed with Jay last night’ ‘Yeah you did!’ Tom laughed. ‘Shut it Parker! So yeah, I showed him the flips from being on tour and just days out you boys have all had and he remembered some of it. In a couple of flips he could tell me what people said next and with some of the pictures I took he could tell me where they were taken and stuff about the day. I mentioned all of you at some point and he could talk about you all a little. It’s still a bit patchy but he’s getting there.’ ‘That’s great Soph!’ Nareesha said, ‘Yeah, he’s gonna be just fine’ I replied.

A couple hours later Hollie and Nathan had come back to my apartment with me to make sure I got some sleep. I’d said I was fine but they’d insisted. Nathan and I had fallen asleep on the sofa. ‘Shit!’ We both jerked awake when we heard Hollie’s shout from the bathroom. Nathan ran to the door and banged on it with his fist, ‘Hollie? Hollie what’s wrong, are you okay?’ ‘I need Sophie, get me Sophie.’ Nathan called me over and I knocked on the door. ‘Hols, you okay in there?’ She opened the door and pulled me in, slamming it shut behind me. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ ‘Oh god, please don’t freak out.’ I was worried now, she was acting really weird. ‘Hollie why would I freak out, what the hell’s going on?’ She leaned in and whispered in my ear ‘I’m pregnant…’ ‘WHAT?!’ ‘Shhhhhhh!’ I couldn’t believe it. There was no way Hollie was pregnant, no way. She couldn’t be. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’ ’Nope, look at the test, positive.’ These tests could sometimes be wrong and after I’d pointed that out she showed me 3 more from the bin, all saying positive. ‘Hollie, what are you going to do? I mean…do you want it? What if Nathan doesn’t want it? Nathan’s the dad right? When did you even? Actually I don’t wanna know.’ ‘Soph, you’re rambling, chill out, I’m the one with the problem here!’ ‘Sorry. When are you going to tell Nath?’ ‘No time like the present I guess’ and with that she walked out the bathroom. I stayed put for a couple minutes to give them some time and I could hear their voices, mainly Hollies. I couldn’t get my head round it; Hollie’s going to have a baby?! An actual human being! After five minutes I came out the bathroom to see Nathan on the sofa looking shocked and Hollie beside him stroking his hair. I sat down against the wall opposite them and just stared. ‘Okay, what?’ Holly asked after a while. ‘I can’t believe you guys had sex!’ ‘Sophie! That’s not the issue here!’ ‘Well it’s bloody relevant!’ She looked at me, almost suspicious, and said ‘Yeah like you and Jay never did.’ ‘That, is totally different!’ ‘How’s that different?’ Nathan piped up. ‘I didn’t end up pregnant. That’s how. Look that doesn’t even matter, important question is, do you want it?

Hollie’s POV:

‘I would never have an abortion.’ I said to Soph. ‘I can’t believe it’ I could hear Nathan muttering to himself. I carried on stroking his hair, and he looked up at me. ‘I would never let you have an abortion, we’re keeping it’. We all sat there for a brief couple of minutes and didn’t say anything. ‘Maybe all the tests were wrong’ I said. ‘All five of them?’ Sophie pitched in. ‘Good point…I still don’t understand though, we used protection!’ I said to her. ‘You know when we all came back here a couple weeks ago for a celebration and everyone was reeeeeally drunk, and you two didn’t?..’ the look on her face was a ‘i don’t like talking about this but i have to’ face so i smirked a bit. ‘Oh god’ I heard Nathan say under his breath. ‘HOLY there’s a baby in here?!’ I lifted up my top and looked at my stomach in awe. Nathan stared at it and cursed a few times. ‘We are going to need to get you a lot of help aren’t we’ Sophie sighed and looked at me. ‘What are we, oh but, how-’ Nathan sat me down and turned my chin so I was facing him. ‘Hollie, I am going to love you no matter what happens. I will support you through this, we are keeping the baby and I am so sorry for putting you through this’ he smiled nervously at me and I didn’t know what to say. ‘Stupid penis.’ Sophie burst into laughter across the room and me and Nathan turned and looked at her. ‘Oh god sorry, it’s just funny Hollie was being completely serious then and’ -she carried on laughing. ‘Sorry sorry, it’s not your fault babe, we’re going to get through this’ I said. We all discussed this for about an hour and tried to clear things up. I can’t believe it, I’m pregnant… What was this going to do to his career? What were our parents going to say?! Oh god.

I told them I wanted to go to the hospital to confirm it, neither of them saw the point but I told them we could go see Jay as well and that convinced them. We called a taxi and on the way there Sophie held my hand and Nathan rubbed my belly, this was so unreal. How was this happening, it shouldn’t be, I’m only 18. ‘Guys’ I said. ‘Yeah?’ ‘I’m going to keep this from everyone for a couple of weeks, and you can’t tell anyone’ I looked at them both. I wasn’t ready to tell everyone, I could hardly believe it myself. They asked me why and I told them, they understood and said they would do anything for me. I was so lucky to have them both, where would I be without them? We turned up to the hospital and I told them what I needed. Luckily enough a midwife was on her break and said she would give me a quick check. We all sat in the room as she gave me a special pregnancy test that was 100% accurate and we waited for the results. ‘Honey what made you think you were pregnant?’ She asked me. ‘I’ve been feeling really sick in the mornings and my eating has changed’. That was literally it, I didn’t even smile at her, I was so nervous and just wanted the results. ‘Positive’ she said out loud. I looked at Sophie and Nathan and they quickly smiled, but one of those smiles where you have to? ‘Love you do know this wasn’t recent?’ She looked at me. ‘What?’ Nathan said from across the room. ‘7 weeks’ she said. ‘No. Way.’ She nodded. I stared at Nath. ‘France’ we both said out loud. Me, Nath, Sophie and Jay had all gone to France for the weekend for a getaway and…yeah. ‘You guys didn’t?!’ I heard Sophie say. ‘Yup’ I looked at her. ‘Urm, well thank you’ I said to the nurse.

‘Jay is ready to come home now by the way, it’s just flashed up on my desktop’ she said to us. Sophie’s face lit up and she literally ran out of the room. I got down and hugged Nathan. ‘This is all my fault’ I couldn’t help but to cry, I wasn’t ready. He wiped the tears away and guided me out of the room, I walked in silence to Jay’s room and all the way Nathan was telling me how it would be fine. We walked through the big doors and you could see straight away Sophie and Jay were returning back to normal, he was hugging her and turned around to gather his things. He heard us come through and saw us being emotional- ‘You guys okay?!’ ‘We’re just really happy to see you Jay’ I faked a smile and went and hugged him. We all stood around chatting for a bit then we walked out, couples hand in hand, some knowing more than others.

Chapter 6

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:52:54 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

I felt bad sneaking out on everyone, especially Hollie, but they were all desperate to see Jay and Tom and Max had known him much longer than I had so I couldn’t really say no. Hollie will figure out where we’ve gone, I know she will, I just hope she’ll understand why. We walked down the road a little before Max flagged down a taxi. ‘Thanks for coming with us Soph. Sorry we didn’t let you tell Hollie.’ It’s okay Max, so what did you two bring?’ I said as we got in. ‘I brought my guitar and my headphones. Jay would always say I wore them too much so I figured he might remember them.’ ‘Good idea Tom, Max, how about you?’ ‘Well, we don’t really have any idea what’s missing, so I brought his iPod. I thought maybe that would trigger some memories?’ I smiled at the boys. The most excitable two were so calm about the whole thing. ‘Max I grabbed the flip camera from your room, I hope that’s okay?’ ‘Course it is Soph! Come here, you look knackered.’ He pulled me in and stroked my hair as I lay against him.

When we arrived at the hospital 20 minutes later, I signed in for all of us and led the boys up to Jay’s room. ‘Just be yourselves’ I told them and opened the door. ‘Hey JayJay, how you feeling?’ I asked. ‘Better thanks, leg’s a bit sore though. Hey! Max and Tom! Right?’ Jay looked to me for clarification and I nodded. ‘Y’alright mate?’ Max asked. ‘Yeah, it’s really good to see you both.’ I sat down on the end of Jay’s bed and Max and Tom took a seat on the chairs by the window. ‘Who’s in a band then?’ Jay joked, gesturing to the guitar Tom had placed by his chair. Tom look confused, ‘What? Jay, do you know what your job is?’ ‘…I have a job?’ Max took over when tears began to form in Tom’s eyes. ‘Yeah Jay you do. You’re in a band with me, Tom, Nath and Seev. We’re called The Wanted.’ Jay looked stunned. I was stunned. He remembered the boys but not being part of The Wanted? He broke the silence by saying ‘So what you’re telling me is, I can sing?’ ‘Yeah mate, really well! You can play the drums a bit too! We’ve done two tours, loads of radio and school visits. We’ve even got a few festivals booked up for the summer. Do you er, do you remember any of our songs?’ Jay’s face showed an expression of searching until eventually he shook his head. ‘Hey Tom,’ I said, ‘how about you play All Time Low? I’m sure Jay would love to hear it?’ Tom took his guitar out of his case and the two of them began to sing All Time Low. Jay had his famous cheeky grin on and I felt relaxed enough to join in with Max and Tom. I loved to sing. Jay and I would always sing together and I helped him to write songs sometimes. We’d spend hours singing together and sometimes even sing in the street and parks just for a laugh! After the boys had played a couple songs, Max gave Jay his iPod and then they both excused themselves to go to the bathroom. Tom winked at me as they left and I knew they were letting me have some time alone with Jay. ‘Sing me another song?’ Jay asked. ‘You have a beautiful voice.’ ‘How about we sing one together?’ I suggested. ‘You’ll see how much of an amazing singer you are!’ ‘Okay…I erm, I like Coldplay. But I guess you knew that already right?’ I nodded and went to get Tom’s guitar. He wouldn’t mind me using it just this once. I’d learnt to play guitar when I was little and Parachute by Coldplay was the first song I’d ever learnt to play. As I was playing I looked at Jay and started to sing. He joined in with me at the chorus and he sang the second verse himself. I could feel myself welling up and bit my lip to stop myself. He has such a beautiful voice and I didn’t know if I could ever really live without him. When we’d finished our song, I asked ‘do you remember how you ended up in here? How it happened?’ ‘I remember pain, a lot of pain, and then the rest is just black. Would you tell me?’ I didnt want to have to relive the moment again, but he needed to know. I hoped it would jog his memory. He motioned for me to come and sit up beside him and as I did he held my hand. I squeezed his hand and began. ‘It was Tom’s birthday and we were all going out to a club. He’d gotten us a couple Taxis and when we got there I realised I’d left my phone inside. You said you’d help me to try and find it and Hollie spotted the taxi we’d been in parked across the road. Being a gentleman you offered to get it for me and…’ my voice trailed off. I could feel the tears coming and I refused to cry again infront of Jay. Putting his arm around me he said ‘You’re doing really well Soph, I know it’s not easy.’ This is stupid! I’m meant to be comforting him! Not the other way around. I carried on with Jay still holding me close. ‘You went to get my phone for me and a car came round the corner. It was speeding and didn’t have time to stop. It hit you pretty hard and you ended up against another car. There was so much blood. Most of what happened is kind of blurry, I passed out a couple times.’ ‘Wow,’ he said looking amazed, ‘it sounds like I’m pretty lucky to be here!’ ‘Yeah you are! Jay you shouldn’t even be in here. It’s my fault you were hit by the car, it should have been me.’ Letting go of my hand he looked at me like I’d just slapped him. ‘Sophie are you kidding me? It was a freak accident and it definitely shouldn’t have been you. There’s no way I could be as strong as you if it were the other way around. You’ve been amazing. Now listen to me, I don’t ever want you to say that again okay?’ ‘Okay. I’m sorry. I just can’t bear to think of ever losing you. You’re my life Jay. I need you.’ Tears were falling down my cheeks but I didn’t care anymore. Jay had seen me at my best and he’d seen me at my worst. I didn’t need to be strong all the time and he respected that so I just let them fall. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket a minute later and checked to see who was calling. ‘Jay I need to get this, I’ll be back in a sec.’ As I left the room as Tom and Max came back. I picked up the phone ‘Hollie, hey. Listen before you say anything-’ ‘Sophie, you should have told me you were going to see Jay. You left without a word, and I thought we were all going one at a time? You can’t just take whoever you please, it’s not fair on the rest of us.’ ‘I’m sorry okay! But Tom and Max wanted to see him so much and I couldn’t say no could I? They’ve known him longer than we have, it’s not like I can take ownership of Jay! Yes I should have told you and I’m sorry that I didn’t, but he’s my boyfriend and he doesn’t even remember who the hell I am Hollie. I’m such a mess right now. I went the wrong way about this but at the time I figured it wouldn’t do any harm and that you guys would understand. Listen, I’m gonna stay the night here with Jay, I’ll make sure the boys are home soon. Tell the others I’m sorry?’ I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line and awaited her reply.

Hollie’s POV:

I was furious but i completely understood, if this had happened to Nathan i would have done exactly the same thing. ‘I will, i don’t mean to sound so harsh Soph its just anything could have happened and we would have missed it’ ‘As soon as i get home i will tell everyone about it, i promise’ ‘you know your an idiot sometimes?’ She could tell i wasn’t as angry by now and she let out a little laugh. ‘oh shut it. Jay sends his love to everyone over there, i will come home tomorrow morning at 11ish’ ‘okay, byebye’ i hung up. Me and Nathan were still standing in the corridoor and we had both had the phone to our ears so we could both hear. ‘i do get her point’ i said to him. He nodded, ‘babe you should just chill now, shes fine and she needs some alone time with him anyway’ ‘i know i just worry’ he rubbed my back and we walked into the lounge. Everyone had gathered there and we told them what had happened. Nathan and i sat on the edge of the sofa and we both saw siva at the same time. ‘siva what the hell happened to your face?!’ Everyone chuckled as we gazed in awe at siva. ‘Everyone thought it would be funny to draw on my face whilst i went for a nap.’ He glared at Nareesha and she went into fits of laughter, they were so relaxed? Nathan was right. I was so stressed, everyone else had realized everything was fine and we just needed to return back to normal. Jay would be fine again soon and everything would be as it was again. I had a little smile on my face as a realized it wasnt the end of the world. I saw the eye liner on the table next to me and secretly grabbed it.. Kelsey had seen and covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing, Nathan was gazing at the tv and i was pretty sure he wouldnt notice. I quickly drew a little line like a moustouche and he turned around and said ‘what was that for? What was that for?! Get out, get out!’ Everyone was laughing and he took the eyeliner out of my hands and tried to draw on my face, i quickly jumped up ‘cant catch me nath you cant catch me!’ He chased me around the room and we ran into the hall, i came to a halt as i heard the front door open and the next thing i knew i felt a bump and there was a nathan on me (oh god) We looked up at the door and max and tom walked through and looked really scared. They probably thought i was still going to be angry, they casually walked over us like they hadnt seen us and walked into the lounge. They both got to the lounge door and turned around. ‘oh we didnt see you two little love birds there! Did we interrupt?’ ‘this is not what it looks like!’ They both muttered something and laughed and walked through the door. I stared up at Nathan and giggled. He leant down and kissed me on the nose and just stayed there. ‘Babe, we can’t go talk to them if you just lay there’ ‘if i lay here!’ Oh no he wasnt- ‘would you lay with me!’ He wasn’t. ‘and, just forget the world!’ Oh he was. He gave me goosebumps, he climbed off me and pulled me up. We looked at each other and just burst out laughing. ‘You are a nutter Nathan you know that?’ ‘only for you’ god i felt weak at the knees. He winked at me and we walked through into the lounge again. ‘apparently you are really gonna tell us off, but we waited for you and Nathan to become civilised again, you know we dont like interupting’ ‘you are a massive muppet’ i said to Tom. He and Max always made fun of us, but it was all a laugh. ‘on a serious note, do you want us to explain?’ Max said. ‘We know everything and so do they, soph rang us’. ‘Thank god for that’. We all casually chatted like normal, and things were slowly going back into place. One by one people started to drop off to sleep, i felt myself going but wanted to stay up because Michelle was talking about her holiday to america which sounded amazing. I placed my head on Nathans chest on the sofa we were sitting on and felt him stroking my hair, i couldnt stay up any longer, i was going to say night to everyone but i just fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning to voices, everything was still fuzzy and i had a massive headache. ‘i just want a bloody cup of tea!’ I heard Nathan whining. I lifted my head and stared at him. ‘IM FREE!’ He literally ran to the kitchen and seconds later i could hear the kettle boiling. Didn’t even say ‘mornin’, I rolled my eyes and i was the only one in the room, everyone was probably off having showers and having breakfast, i need to stop camping out in the lounge. I walked through the hall way to go upstairs and get ready for a shower when the keys in the door unlocked and sophie walked through. She smirked at me ‘you look like roadkill’. I ran up to her and hugged her- ‘How is he?’

Chapter 5

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:37:26 -0400

Sophie’s POV:

‘Why is everyone shouting?’ I said faintly. I was tired, really tired. I couldn’t believe all that had happened. I was convinced I was going to wake up and Jay would be lying there next to me, but no. I couldn’t quite get my head around all of it, I mean, Jay was right there infront of me awake and breathing-two things I genuinely didn’t think he’d be doing again. He was going to be okay! Me on the other hand, I had no idea what would be in store for me. ‘Sorry Soph,’ Hollie replied in answer to my question, ‘we’re all a bit shaken up.’ ‘I know.’ I walked over and gave her a hug. She was shaking a little so I stood next to her, holding her hand. Nathan could see that we were struggling and stepped in to help out. ‘Jay, are you sure you don’t know who Sophie is?’ ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I feel like I’ve met her before, like you’ll sometimes remember a face from a crowded street. I’m sorry I have to ask, but who is she?’ I stepped forward. ‘Your girlfriend,’ I whispered, ‘I’m your girlfriend…if you’ll still have me?’ Nathan turned to me and said ‘You two need some time to chat. We’re gonna go home and let people know what’s happening. Come home when you’re done, I’ll make sure a cab’s waiting.’ ‘Okay, thanks Nath.’ I hugged them both goodbye and watched them leave. As I turned back to Jay, he looked into my eyes for a minute before asking ‘How did we meet?’ I’d always wanted to tell the story of how we’d met, but I never thought in a million years that I’d have to be telling Jay. I sat on the end of his bed and began. ‘I used to work in a coffee shop around the corner from where you boys all used to live. You’d all come in nearly every day. After like, a year and a half? You’d all come in for your drinks and when I brought them over you said, quite loudly, that you didn’t think waitresses got the thanks they deserve. You got down on one knee and asked me to have dinner with you as a thankyou. I said yes and you took me to the nicest restaurant I’d ever seen in my life-Pippa’s. When we’d finished we walked into town and you told me that actually you’d liked me for a while but didn’t know how to ask me out! We went out every single night after that for the next month. You said you hated the social convention of only really seeing eachother at the weekends, so you always had something planned, just incase I was free. It took me 4 days to fall completely in love with you JayJay.’ I had a huge smile on my face as I finished and so did Jay. ‘Wow, that sounds…amazing! I didn’t think I was that adorable!’ I laughed, like a proper belly laugh. It felt good to laugh after all the worry of the past couple days. ‘Sophie, it’s pretty clear I really like you, even love you. I obviously believe you’re worth it so I don’t want us to break up. Let’s try it and see what happens yeah? I fell once, I’ll do it again.’ ‘Thanks Jaybird.’ I said yawning. ‘Soph, when’s the last time you had a decent sleep? You look shattered.’ ‘I feel it. Will you be okay if I go home to shower and change?’ ‘Take as long as you want, I’ll be fine.’ I smiled and said ‘I’ll be back this evening, see you later JayJay.’ I left his room and went to find my waiting taxi. I told the driver where to go and tried to sleep for the half hour journey.

When I woke up, we were stuck in traffic. I text Hollie asking where everyone was and her reply said that they were all round Max and Michelle’s. I saw that I was only 5 minutes away from home so paid the driver and got out. The short walk home was hot. It made me realise how exhausted I was, but I didn’t have time for sleep, I needed to go see everyone. I wanted to tell them that Jay and I were going to be okay, that he was going to be okay. I put my key in the lock and opened the door. The cool air of my apartment hit me and I stood in the doorway for a while before having a quick shower, changing and leaving to walk to Max’s which was 10 minutes down the road. When I knocked the door Siva answered. I could see the pain in his eyes and before he’d said a word, I hugged him. He tried to smile but it just looked as if he were about to cry. He took a deep breath and said ‘Hollie has something she wants to tell us but she wanted to wait for you.’ ‘Okay, thanks Seev, and hey, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.’ He held my hand and walked me to the kitchen where everyone was piled around the table. Everyone smiled back when I said hey and then looked to Hollie. ‘Okay guys, you all know how much we love Jay,’ everyone around the room nodded in agreement, ‘well, I know how we can help him…’

Hollie’s POV:

Everyone stared at me and waited for me to carry on. ‘How about we try to jog his memory? It sounds pathetic me just saying it, but bare with me. How about we each visit Jay and tell him different memories or bring him special things? I know it’s the sort of thing you see in movies, but it might work? It’s worth a shot right?’ ‘Why didn’t I think of that!?’ Sophie said in shock. ‘Hey, I know i’m not usually the brains in situations like these!’ ‘Or any!’ Tom exclaimed from the other end of the table much to everyone’s amusement. It was so lovely hearing everyone laughing again. For the first time I actually got the feeling that everything would be okay.

It was late, all the girls and boys had separated into different rooms. The girls in the kitchen sitting on work tops and around the table, and the boys were all in the lounge. We were all still talking about Jay, we just all needed our own time. Earlier I had asked Soph how their relationship was and she told me how Jay was so understanding and that they had decided to keep together as boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s so tough for her, I wish I could go back and make sure none of it had happened. ‘You okay Hollie?’ Kelsey said. I looked up and all the girls were staring at me. ‘Oh, yeah.’ I smiled. ‘I was just thinking.’ They all smiled back and carried on with their conversations. Sophie was making tea for everyone whilst filling in Michelle and Nareesha with all the details from our time at the hospital. I started talking to Kelsey about when we could visit him next, when Max and Tom walked through the door. ‘Are the drinks ready yet?’ Max asked Soph. ‘Almost, I’ll bring them through in a second’. ‘Can’t you bring in the ones that are already ready?’ That was weird? ‘You boys must be thirsty, well okay.’ She replied. They wanted to talk to Soph privately. I could tell. Nareesha took over making the rest of the drinks whilst Sophie grabbed two mugs of tea and headed to the lounge with Max and Tom. The girls had no idea and all piled around Michelle who was showing them funny pictures of Max on her phone. They didn’t notice me walk away and stand by the door. I could hear Soph faintly, talking to the two of them. ‘You’re going to see him now!?’ She said. ‘We couldn’t wait any longer, we still haven’t seen him and we really need to Soph.’ Tom said. ‘We wanted you to come so you could bring photos and stuff, we didn’t tell anyone else because we don’t want to cause a drama.’ I could hear Sophie sigh ‘Okay then.’ I heard footsteps go upstairs and then back again a few seconds later. What were they playing at? Max had photos on a big display board outside his room, Soph must have grabbed some. The front door opened and whoever was holding it tried to close it quietly, but failed. I flung open the kitchen door and saw Nathan do the same with the lounge door. ’ I ran up to him. ‘Did you hear any of that?’ I asked. He stared at the front door. ‘The whole thing.’