Masquerade (Liam Payne)

Chapter 4 ~ Tammy

Chapter 4 ~ Tammy

I can’t stop smiling as I scroll down my timeline. I’ve won two hundred and sixty seven followers since my date with Liam Payne. He might be an all-goody boy but Grimmy was right, great publicity. Plus, it was fun to make fun of him, seeing how his face changed with every word I said. Clearly he can’t take a banter. But anyways, almost all the tabloids and gossip shows were talking about us and our supposed relationship. It’s fun how they think that we go on a date with someone once and we’re already in love and in a serious relationship. Man, people are dumb sometimes.

And this was the most fun part: fans of his little boy band were attacking me! Telling me to back off, to never touch Daddy Direction again, to stay away and many other colourful insults. To be so young they know how to swear. I’m impressed and flattered. My mentions are going crazy and all their hatred only makes me look tougher, more rebel-like… which can only boost my image. They think they are harming me somehow when in fact they are only helping me.

The band’s account also got a lot more followers and that makes me really happy, more people are listening to our music. This awful blind date with Liam did in fact help us so that’s the only reason I don’t yell at Grimmy for setting me up with a boy like Liam. It’s not like he is not hot, if you look close you see how built he is, the sharpness in his features and other good things about him, but he is too good for me. It’s like telling a hurricane to take care of the garden. It’s just impossible.

“I knew it. I fucking knew it. I’m so proud of you, Tammy, for finally accepting the truth,” Emma says as she makes her way towards me, and for the first time that morning I look up at her to meet her eyes. She brings a magazine in her hands and I’m pretty sure I’m in it because of my date with Liam. Magazines are quick, the date was only three days ago.

“You knew what? That I’m better than you?” I suggest and she rolls her eyes. “But everyone knew that already, Emma.”

So this is one thing you need to know. Girl bands are not always nice, we’re massively competitive. We all want to stand out in the band and it’s hard when every single one of us is so good, so it’s always like this, always fighting for who is the best one.  But we all know I am.

“Pff, don’t even try, Tammy. And I’m talking about you finally accepting you’re a boy! I always knew you liked girls.”

She shows me the cover of the magazine where there’s a picture of me from one of my favourite photoshoot sessions where we dressed like were-wolves. We look so awesome in those pictures. But next to me there’s an old picture –it must be old because he doesn’t look like that anymore– of Liam with straight and longer brown hair, like Justin Bieber. In that picture he looks like a baby boy. Well, baby girl. It’s like the editors of that magazine looked for the two pictures where we looked the most different from each other and put them together.

And I like it. I burst out laughing.

“I always knew you weren’t a girl. You couldn’t be one. You got your sex changed or something and you finally accepted it by dating this other girl!” Emma points at Liam and I laugh only harder. I don’t blame her, Liam does look like a lesbian in that picture. “Don’t you feel better?”

I put my laptop aside and rise to my feet. The girls and I are always teasing each other, and by teasing I mean we are awfully cruel with out jokes. But that’s okay because if someone tries to tell us something, we’ve already heard it before and it doesn’t affect us. There are certain topics off limit, like you can’t mess with Emma’s mum. Or Leanne’s style or Skyler’s music, and don’t even think of asking about my past. That’s buried deep in the mud and it will never see the light of day again.