Love in the Limelight

Chapter Twenty Seven: Don't you, forget about me

I stood in the shower letting the warm water fall over my body and my face as I stared at the shampoo bottle in a mindless state. It felt like I had been there for a while now but the feeling of the water was soothing and comforting.

It was the closest thing I had to being in Josephs arms.

The way it made me feel. The warmth of the water wrapping round me was as close as it could get but still no where near the same. My thoughts then led to seeing him again at work tomorrow, then it trailed off to work and having to go back. I was dreading it.

I still hadn't looked at my phone as it was still in Sam's care, not that I wanted to see everything people were saying. My memories from when I had just broken up with Chris were still running through my mind as clear as the day they happened. All the comments and the DMs and the articles and the Paparazzi. The therapy and the depression being the worst as I had to relive it all to start to even get back to being myself again.

A knock at my door brought me out of my stare.

I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower before i grabbed a towel to go answer the door.

It was Sam with a tray of food.

"Ok day 3 and one last attempt to get you to eat babes, you have to eat something." she said in a stern tone. I walked back to my bed leaving the door open to signal she could come in.

She shut the door behind her and sat on the edge of my bed and sat the tray on my bedside table. I was sat on the opposite side up against the headboard. "How you feeling about going back tomorrow?" she asked as she reached out and touched my hand. I sighed and held her hand, her mouth lifting in one corner with a small smile. "Like I would rather take a very long walk off a very short pier." I replied with a small scoff. Sam squeezed my hand before hopping onto the bed properly crossed legged in front of me.

"Its going to be fine Billie, we know these guys too well and they all know it would be wrong for anyone to want to pry on your personal life like that." she stated confidently "Besides I don't think that anyone will want to mention anything to you after the meeting we had today." I shot a look of dread at her, confused as hell. "Meeting? what do you mean?" I asked, scared for the answer.

"Well a bunch of us, all people you know and are close to, were called into a meeting today and we went over the fact that these articles had made headlines and that if we heard any gossip or people talking or anything that they should tell the brothers so they could have a word with them." She said, putting her hands on my knees giving them a reassuring squeeze. "Oh my god, really? I don't even know how I feel about that to be honest" I said as I started picking my lip nervously, my leg starting to bounce a little. "Yes really Billie, the brothers and the other guys all care about you and you know that they were all there for you when you were going through all that shit with Chris and how much it affected you so we all want to just nip it in the bud now."

I felt a tears prick my eyes, I can't believe that they would do that for me, part of me slightly relieved. I took a deep breath. "Just means ill have to get the Brothers something pretty as a thank you." I laughed quietly.

"Well the brothers don't really read any of that stuff as you know so they didn't even know it was going on until they were told and asked if we could have a meeting about it all with only people you trusted."

"Wait what? Who brought it up to them?" I questioned.

"It was Joseph."

I felt my heart melting, the tears finally making their way down my cheeks. "He booked a meeting with them on his day off, told them that there were articles and stuff about you that were affecting you extremely negatively and he wanted to make sure you felt comfortable coming back to work. Obviously the brothers agreed considering how much they helped you the first time and so we had a meeting. Nothing personal was said obviously we were all just told that if we heard chatter to tell the brothers or saw these articles to ignore them and not bring them up with you." she said with a small reassuring smile, she grabbed a tissue for me from the bedside table and handed it to me.