Nate woke up before me and when I woke I found him on his computer editing as usual. He flashed me a tired smile. I knew that although he absolutely loved conventions, he always became exhausted because he worked on overdrive trying to meet everybody and hang out with as many people as possible.
“Good morning, handsome,” I said softly and nuzzled up next to him. “What’s going on today?”
“Well, in an hour I have to head over to the green room and prepare for the main stage events with all the other Brits. Then we also have a collective interview. Then I have a break for lunch, and then an individual interview and then Vidcon should be finished. There is a party later for content creators though.”
“Sounds busy, and don’t you have to get up really early tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m doing a shoot with Seventeen Magazine and I have to leave at 7 am,” he sighed. “When are you going?”
“I’m here to the 30th, like you but the next two days Emma and I will be staying with out brother. You can come too,” I said casually although I was a bit on edge about introducing him to my brother.
“You’re serious?”
“Of course! I’ve been staying with you for two days now.”
“That’s cool, thanks hun. I’ll just cancel my hotel room in LA. But actually we better start getting ready, you can’t really come back stage today though,” he said hesitantly.
“I figured and I really wouldn’t want to. Too much of a hassle. I would actually like to spend some time with Emma if I can catch her, I’m pretty sure she’ll want to see the main stage performances though if she and her friends can get in.”
“I can help with that. How many friends are we talking about?”
“It’s the three girls she’s stayed with for the last couple of days,” I said feeling a bit guilty that I had left my little sister to fend for herself. Although Nate had agreed that she could stay here if she needed. He was ever the gentleman.
“I’ll fix some special tickets, now help me get ready?” he said and jumped out of bed.
“You know more about style than I do, but sure,” I laughed.
Hand in hand Nate and I walked to a conference room in the hotel where we met Zoe, Alfie, Tanya, Jim and Joe. It wasn’t even 9 am yet still all of them looked so gorgeous. Nate had gone for his favourite black trousers, red converse and a tie-dye blue T-shirt. I was comfortable in my skinny jeans, big hoodie, black converse and my hair in a high bun.
Everyone was chatting when a very pretty brunette walked into the room. Everyone yelled Ingrid and I nearly jumped out of my seat.
She was an American beauty guru and seemed so incredibly nice. I didn’t want to intrude too much as she clearly wanted to catch up with her friends but she very sweet.
Next another American brunette with the most amazing curly hair I had ever seen strolled in and immediately ran to Zoe.
“That’s Colleen, you remember I showed you Miranda Sings?” Nate asked me.
I did remember. The girl with the slick back hair and too much red lipstick, I hadn’t liked her. I knew it was an act and Colleen seemed so much sweeter and bubbly as herself. Still, I could understand the urge to hide behind a façade, a role; it might be easier than to expose yourself completely.
When I spoke to Colleen she said that she did in fact have a channel as herself as well and she was even more happy when people subscribed to that because that was the real her.
The group needed to head of and got into cars to drive them to the green room. As it had become customary Nate quickly pecked my cheek before he left. It was a small gesture that meant so much to me and I didn’t even care that anyone around could see.
As I headed out to find Emma, I was clutching the tickets in my hands. Nate had talked to Gleam who in turn had talked to the convention and I had gotten four tickets to cut the line to the main stage. The pass around my own neck was already a special guest’s guest kind of thing and allowed me to do it anyway.
Emma was sitting with the three of her friends in the queue and vlogging when I approached. She didn’t turn the camera to me but said:
“Guys, I’ve got to go. My sister finally reappeared!” and proceeded to turn the camera off.
She gave me a big hug and it made me realise how much I had missed her by not having seen her in only one day.
“I missed you,” I told her.
“Naw, you had too much fun with your bae,” she laughed. “But you feel guilty for leaving me.”
“What’s a bae?” I inquired.
“Some think it’s just a fun way of saying babe while others argue that it stands for Before Anyone Else. Come on let me introduce you to my temporary roommates.”
The three girls seemed really lovely and I wondered how Emma had managed to find such nice girls to stay with.
“Actually, I have a surprise,” I said and four pair of eyes turned to me. “Since I kind of ditched you, Ems, and you girls were kind enough to make sure that she got a place to sleep, I got you these passes.”
I handed them the passes and then made gestures to indicate that they should keep their voices down.
“Wait, this is front of the line passes to the main stage!” one of them hissed excitedly.
I nodded.
“You’re officially the best sister ever!” Emma said. “We probably would have made it in anyway but now we can sit in front.”
I felt a little bad that it would mean cutting the line of those many people that had waited for so long. Still, I was glad that it didn’t mean someone got pushed out of the queue.
They got up and followed me to the security in front of the doors. I felt envious eyes in my back and wanted to offer up my pass to all of them. But I couldn’t since it would mean that I wouldn’t be allowed back into Nate’s room or the backstage activities as selfish as it was I was enjoying to be a VIP.
The security eyed the tickets and my pass and then allowed us passage. The next couple of performances were a bit of a blur. I noticed that Jim was on with someone called Sorted Food and he was failing miserably at cooking but it was hilarious to watch.
Then came what most people waited for. What I also most was looking forward to seeing. The British YouTubers got called on stage and the screams was so loud that I tried to cover my ears discretely.
The ten YouTubers all looked so happy when they saw the cheering crowd, they lined up left to right: Alfie, Marcus, Tanya, Jim, Nate, Zoe, Joe, Louise, Louis and with Caspar walking around between them.
They played the ‘Most Likely To” game and it was so funny, Caspar did a great job hosting although I thought I could spot a bit of insecurities at some moments. The boys ended up doing handstands and later Zoe nearly fell over laughing. Caspar was joking around with all of them and the way everyone interacted with each other was so touching and real, no one could doubt the friendship between all of them. My eyes mostly stayed on Nate and I caught him looking at me a few times as well.
The best part of it all was their short speeches at the end where they in turn told how much they loved their viewers. Nate’s words still rand in my ears when they excited the stage.
“Most people here started YouTube because we were bored and thought it was fun. For us, this has now become a way of live and a way to reach out to so many people. We love every single person that watches our videos and now we make them for you to have fun watching them as well as us having fun making them. That’s the most perfect thing ever! I just want to say thank you for all the support and that we see all the wonderful response and it means the world to us. Thank you!”
We stayed and watched the next few performances and they were very entertaining. YouTubers had grown accustomed to performing and because of the interactive way YouTube works they always seemed to know what people wanted to see. It was quite the experience and I kind of hated that I hadn’t been to main stage at all yesterday.
As I walked out with Emma and her friends, their mouths didn’t stop talking. Eventually the attention turned to me.
“Thank you so much, Abigail! We were so close we could almost touch them!”
“How did you get those tickets?”
I froze and glanced quickly at Emma for support, she looked just as clueless as I must have. I didn’t want to tell them that I was dating one of the famous YouTubers. Hanging out with them I assessed that they would most likely freak and post about it on their social medias. They were true hard-core fans.
So I came up with a lie, or really a half-truth.
“I know one of the talent managers from Gleam and asked her if she couldn’t score me some tickets.”
They freaked anyway.
“Which one of them?”
“Lucy,” I answered, as it was actually her that Nate had asked.
“Oh my God, then you can get to meet all the YouTubers that Gleam represent? Like Zoe, Alfie, Marcus, Nate, Tanya, Jim…” her voice trailed off.
“Could you set that up?” another one asked.
I was feeling very uncomfortable. Emma remained silent, I could see that she wanted to cut in and help me but didn’t. I assumed it was because she didn’t want to appear ungrateful to the people that had hosted her for the last couple of days, which was completely understandable.
“No,” I said firmly. “I can’t do that. They are very busy here on the last day.”
The second part was true. Still, I didn’t like lying and kind of wished that my relationship with Nate were common knowledge. That was until I remembered that that would probably cause even more problems.
“Oh,” the girls sighed.
“I know you really want to meet them but I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, we met Jim yesterday and Malfie the day before that. We are queuing for Tyler now.”
I hadn’t even realised that we had walked over to the meet and greet area. Apparently we had just made it into the amount they allowed and the rest of the people that came after weren’t allowed in it. Tanya and Troye’s queue filled up quickly after.
It was kind of chilling just sitting in the queue and chatting with all of the people. What was even more amazing was the fact that Korey came running in with pizzas! Tyler had ordered, I don’t even know how many pizzas for ‘his people’. They started with the people in front of the line and then headed down it.
When they reached the end, I saw his gaze pause at me.
“Abbey, right?” he said and gave me a hug. “What’re you doing here?”
I felt a lot of eyes on me. I had just met Korey yesterday but he already talked to me like I was an old friend. Obviously he was confused that I was queuing to meet Tyler since I had met him twice already.
“Korey, this is my sister Emma and I’m sure she would like to tell you a thing or two about updating on your channel,” I said and redirected the attention. Luckily Korey just went with it.
“Yeah, Kohl you might want to consider updating, a lot of people love you. Especially now that you’re living in LA!”
He actually stayed and chatted for a while before pulling me out of the queue and walking out of earshot.
“What am I missing?”
“That no one knows about me and a certain guy,” I said, not even daring to say his name. “And my sister just loves Tyler and I want to spend time with her.”
“Got it, well she you later maybe,” he said cheerfully and was on his way.
I kept messaging Nate although the wifi was spotty at best. He had been out to lunch and was now doing a couple of interviews and some signings.
We ended up waiting flipping 6 hours before we got to Tyler. He looked a bit tired but hid it very well. Since we were the last and Tanya and Troye’s queues had just finished, it meant that the room was pretty much empty.
I stayed back and let all the other girls get photos and hand him their presents. Emma was of course vlogging to the last second and then I lined up to take photos of them. They did weird poses and seemed to get along really well.
Emma’s friends had been ushered out by security and when I lowered the camera, Tyler recognised me.
“Abbey, you’re my last person?” he said sounding amused.
Korey had dug out behind the curtain but I saw that the vlogging camera stayed by his side.
“Yeah, my sister here,” I said and put my arm around her, “is a very dedicated Tyler Oakley watcher. Nice to see you again.”
“Abbey, you met Tyler and didn’t tell me? We’ll have a serious discussion about this!”
Tyler laughed his signature laugh. The security told us that we needed to get going but Tyler dismissed them.
“This is friends,” he said calmly.
Then I saw Nate poke his head out of the curtain. I dodged around the security and gave him a big hug.
“What’s this, Tyler? Stealing all my girl’s time?” Nate joked, still holding me.
“You know, you’ve been replaced,” he said and pulled me out of Nate’s arms and into his.
I laughed. This was too funny. “Yeah, it the hair. You can’t compete,” I said jokingly.
Emma was just observing this this mouth gaping open.
Tyler led me back stage and Nate went over to hug Emma.
“Good to see you again, and thank you,” I heard him say before I was out of earshot.
On the other side, Troye was waiting and greeted us with a big grin.
“Troye?” Emma exclaimed when she saw him, desperately trying to keep her voice low.
“Hello,” he said a bit unsecure.
“My sister,” I explained.
“I can’t wait for TRXYE! I’m going to pre-order it when it get home! Will we get more sneak peaks soon?” she bombarded him with questions.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and whispered “calm down”.
She did and even apologised to Troye.
“No need for that. It’s amazing that you’re so excited.”
“I know this might be totally inappropriate but could I get a quick ten second of vlog footage with all of you four?”
I felt my cheeks heat up. That was inappropriate of her to ask but to my surprise the boys all agreed. Korey had already been in his vlog when he had delivered the pizzas.
“Come on, but we might want to go out into the meet and greet area. No one’s supposed to be back here,” Nate said.
I pulled out my camera to take a photo with all of them but first she vlogged.
“As you saw I just met Tyler Oakley but guess what! Now Korey Kohl, Troye Sivan and Nate Hayden is here also!” she said and showed the boys who all smiled genuinely.
I snapped photos as she talked.
She stopped recording. “Thank you SO much,” she said.
The security guy walked back over.
“I better go out the right way, I need to catch up with my friends. I’ll write to you later, Abbey!” she said before she ran off.
I followed the boys back backstage and put my arm around Nate and he swung his around my shoulder. Korey then vlogged Troye and Tyler speaking about the meet-up, while Nate and I stayed out of shot.
“What’s next?”
“We’re going out for dinner and drinks,” Tyler exclaimed.
“Yeah and I think Connor, Niomi and Marcus is coming too,” Troye said.
“I think they are,” Korey confirmed.
Nate looked at me.
“Let’s go!” I said smiling.
We quickly went back to the room and got changed. Nate stayed in his trousers but put on a dark green shirt. I ditched the jeans and the hoodie and put on my long sleeved green dress. Looking presentable, we went out and met up with the six others. They all looked so dapper with the boys in their shirts and Niomi in a beautiful white dress.
We got a table at the Pizza kitchen and I got seated next to Connor and opposite Nate. Marcus vlogged very briefly and I thought it might be at my expense, Tyler only vlogged the toast when we all got our drinks. Nate went for a beer while I went with a virgin mojito.
Everybody was pretty tired after a long weekend of activities but it was very chill and fun. I got to talk more in depth with everyone and no one seemed to mind that I was there. It was like I had been accepted into the group and it felt amazing.
Afterwards Tyler and I headed back to the hotel since he didn’t feel like going to the YouTube party. All the others went but I wasn’t feeling up for it either way since parties wasn’t really my scene and I felt exhausted. Tyler did too but still he kept conversation with me.
“Did I ever thank you for that extra time spent with my sister?” I asked.
“I think you did. Multiple times,” he laughed and then yawned.
Immediately I yawned too. It was so contagious.
“Well, just one more time. Thank you,” I said.
We were walking like a couple, me with my arm around his as we pulled support from each other.
There were still people in the lobby and they pointed at Tyler and me. Security went over to stop them but like the kind person he was, Tyler agreed to take photos with them. I offered to take the photos and while they mostly talked to Tyler, one girl turned her attention to me.
“Who’s this, Tilly?” she asked.
I saw Tyler slightly flinch at the nickname, that was Troye’s personal nickname and he didn’t like it when other people used it.
“She is a new friend I made here at Vidcon,” he answered.
When everybody had had their photos taken, we finally headed up to our rooms. In the lift, Tyler gave me a hug.
“Very nice meeting you, Abbey. Take care of my boy, okay?”
“I promise. Now go get some rest,” I said with a kind voice.
“Yeah, I’m pooped. See you later, maybe.”
“Maybe,” I said smiling, really hoping that I would see him again.
I barely made it out of my dress before I was asleep in the bed. I was exhausted. I didn’t even register as Nate climbed into the bed four hours later.
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That was the last chapter about Vidcon. Hope you don't think it's been too much. I've had so much fun writing these three chapters. I've already written the next chapter as well and might upload it in a couple of days. I'll do it before though, if someone wants it? In it you finally gets revealed some of the secrets surronding Abigail and Emma's brother.