Nate’s arms surrounded by body and kept me physically still but my mind was racing. I still hadn’t gotten over the fact that I had just reunited with my lovely boyfriend yesterday and that we hadn’t seen each other properly in a month.
My body was shaking. A fair amount of Louis’ viewers also watched Nate and it wouldn’t take long for the news to spread. It was reaffirmed by the fact that his phone was buzzing and I heard notification after notification bling in.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into my hair.
I removed my head for his shoulder and placed my hands on his cheeks.
“You have nothing to be sorry about, honey. It’s not your fault, heck it isn’t even Louis’ fault. We knew it would happen eventually.”
He pulls me into a hug again.
“I know but I’m scared. You know Caspar’s girlfriend Gaby? There were a number of different reasons behind their breakup but one thing I know Caspar hated was when viewers were being intrusive and left mean comments on her Instagram account. I don’t want anyone to do that to you.”
Honestly, I was scared as well. I felt violated in some way, knowing that that footage of Nate and me was out there but we had been showing affection in public and deep down we knew that there could be consequences.
My phone started ringing and I was my sister’s number.
“It’s Emma,” I told Nate.
“Probably calling to tell about the whole ordeal,” he said. “I’m going to phone Louis, he keeps texting. Do we want him to take it down and cut the part out?”
“No,” I said and shook my head. “He doesn’t have to.”
Emma was frantic when I finally answered the call.
“Abbey! Did you see? In the airport?”
“Yeah, Ems. I did.”
“Are you alright? Do you want me to come over?” she asked concerned.
“Not right now, but maybe in an hour or so? I need to talk this over with Nate, but thank you, Em.”
“Of course. Phone me if you need anything.”
We both got off our phones at the same time. We went to sit on the couch. I’m not sure how long the silence hung between us.
“Are you okay?” Nate asked and gently stroked my hand.
“Yes. I just checked my previous blog posts with you. The comments are filled with the news.”
“Yeah, my Twitter and Instagram are blowing up and a few of my daily vlogs as well. How do you want to handle this?”
“Why don’t you send out a tweet confirming it? There’s no point in denying it and that would be cruel to your viewers.”
Together we constructed a tweet.
“Yes, I have a girlfriend. She is amazing, lovely and I love her. That’s all you should need to know. Please don’t start rumours.”
As the swoosh sound exited his phone as he pressed send, I felt my stomach doing the same.
As always when Nate tweeted he got a lot of replies. Actually the tweets came in so fast on his computer that I couldn’t even really read them all. Nate tried to pause here and there and after some time, we got the jest of what people thought.
Someone thought that his girlfriend was Tina, the fellow YouTuber that he had hooked up with long ago. Some offered congratulations and some seemed really sad that he was “off the market”. Mostly though people just asked who I was and after a heated debate with Nate, I allowed for him to write a follow up tweet containing my name.
“Her name is Abigail and she lives in London too. She doesn’t have either Twitter or Instagram.”
“I just don’t get why you don’t want your site linked. I would send a lot of traffic your way,” Nate said and I could see he was really struggling to understand my point of view.
He was naturally much more confident than I and for a while he had had all of his social media connected; YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine and whatever else I didn’t know about. I never had had any of those types of accounts and I had never been one to expose myself like that.
“I don’t like being exposed like that. Now, can we please to something else?”
We snuggled up on the couch and watched Friends reruns for the tenth time. I knew every line by heart and it was lovely mind-numbing to just watch and not think. After we finished watching a quarter of a season both our stomach’s growled and we ordered Nandos. I stuffed my face even more as to distract myself.
“I’m going to vlog a bit,” Nate told me.
He always gave me a heads up as he was about to film. At the beginning I had really disliked the fact that he was a daily vlogger but I had gotten used to it over the course of our relationship.
I smiled at him and nodded. Now, I loved to watch him vlog and to watch his vlogs, especially over the course of our month of separation I had become quite addicted to them. I had been waiting faithfully by my computer as they went live most nights.
“Hey guys, I’m sorry that I havn’t vlogged very much today but it’s just been one of those lie-in days watching Friends reruns and eating Nandos,” he said and flipped the camera to show the table.
“I’ve been travelling for so long now and it’s been absolutely amazing but it’s good to be home. I’ve certainly missed my friends and family. And a certain special female as well…” his voice trailed off as he looked behind the camera and his eyes found mine.
He was asking permission to mention me. This vlog would firstly to up tomorrow and by then a lot of people would already have heard the news revealed today.
I swallowed nervously and gave him a very careful nod.
His face broke into a smile and I could see that he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I knew he had hated to keep this from his viewers. On one of our endless phone calls while we were apart, he had mentioned to me how many times he had to edit out the times he had mentioned me. I found it adorable how he just wanted to tell everyone about me.
“You might have seen in FunforLouis vlog from yesterday that a girl greeted me at the airport as I arrived home from Italy. That was my girlfriend Abigail. We haven’t wanted to say anything because she is rather camera-shy. Aren’t you, Abbs?”
If I had been tense before, I was on the point of exploding now.
“Yes,” I said very quietly.
Nate smiled widely and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“I hope that you guys doesn’t get offended by the fact that I haven’t told you. It’s my personal life and even though I chose to share a lot of it with you through these dailyvlogs, there are still aspects that I want to keep private. And please don’t start any rumours about Abigail or our relationship. As off now we don’t really want to share anything. Right?”
He looked at me for affirmation again. I nodded again, still perplexed by what was happening in front of me. Nate turned the camera down and shot it off.
“Do you want to get in the shot with me?” he asked.
“No!” I exclaimed as my initial reaction but then I forced myself to consider the situation. I had always had great difficulties overcoming obstacles but I had changed a lot. My travels had made me even braver and given me more apatite for life. So, why shouldn’t I get on camera with my boyfriend?
“Actually, I will.”
Nate almost fell of his chair. He stared at me with wide eyes and mouth open.
I chuckled. “Surprised?” I asked him and pecked his lips.
“Yeah, but I think it’s great.”
“I’ll be like this though,” I said and gestured at my onesie, plain face and unruly hair.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he said and found my lips again, deepening the kiss.
Nate turned on his camera.
“Guys!” he exclaimed and I couldn’t help but laugh at his excitement.
“I just convinced Abbs to be on camera. Prepare to see the most beautiful girl in the world,” he said and pulled me to sit next to him.
In my fit of laughter, I didn’t resist at all.
“Is there anything you would like to say to my viewers?” Nate asked me as he wrapped his arm around me.
I tried to forget that I was on camera and that they could see me and said what I would have if I had been in front of a computer writing it instead.
“I just really wanted to thank you for all the support that you give Nate. It is because of you that he is doing this and that he gets to do this. I know that he always tries to consider what you want to see when he films and he tries to make everyone happy. I don’t appreciate the people leaving mean comments. Please constructive criticism is one thing but like that old saying goes from Thumper ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all’.”
I turned to look at Nate and saw him looking at me with total admiration. That was one trait of our relationship I loved, we completely admired each other.
I had purposely been hiding partly behind my hair and really did make myself as small as I could but I had been on camera and I had said what I wanted to say. I jumped up from my seat and sprinted out of shot.
“Hey, get back here!” Nate said and moved to get me but still kept the camera focused on him. We both laughed as he pulled me into his embrace. He then cut off the camera.
Emma skyped me about an hour later.
“How goes, sis?” she asked.
“Very good actually, you might have seen the tweets from Nate and I was just on camera before,” I said, still high from the experience.
“Really? Oh my gosh, I would never imagine that you had the courage to do that but this isn’t the first time you would surprise me. I wanted to ask if you and Nate something, if you don’t mind?”
“Sure. Nate!” I called and within a few second Nate popped himself down besides me on the bed.
“Hey Emma, isn’t it great that it’s finally out?”
Nate had been in a chipper mood all evening.
“I agree completely and I wanted to ask you something regarding that. I’ve been asked a lot of questions about your relationship and if I am in fact Nate’s girlfriend’s sister,” Emma said while making quotation marks about the last three words.
“I bet you’re chuffed about that,” I said laughingly, since I knew Emma loved attention. No matter how she got it and I had learned not to hold it against her. It was just who she was.
“I wanted to ask if I could post this picture on Twitter?” she said and held her phone screen up to the camera.
As it focused on the image on the phone, Emma kept talking; “I edited it a bit and put on the shipname.”
It was a photo of Nate and I snuggled up in a chair. That was at my brother’s house in LA, that night that I had wandered down and Nate had come and found me. My entire body was curled up against his chest and we were both sleeping. It looked beautiful but I felt very awake that I was only wearing knickers and Nate’s large T-shirt that just covered my bum but my legs where entirely exposed. Nate was also topless but I was covering most of his torso with my body. In the bottom corner was written Natigail.
“Is our shipname Natigail?” Nate asked and then paused shortly. “I really like that.”
He squeezed my shoulders.
“I’m so glad you like it. I think it fits you most and the only other really was Nabby which sounds like nappy. And it sounds a bit like nightingale.”
I focused on Emma’s eyes through the screen. She knew that Nightingale was my favourite story my Hans Christian Andersen.
“You can post it,” I said and surprised them both.
“I love you,” Nate said and kissed my cheek. He had been longing for me to agree to post couple-like photos.
Emma squealed and tapped on her phone excitingly.
“Done,” she said.
Nate pulled out his phone and found Emma’s page. She hadn’t just posted the photo, she had also attached a short text:
“My amazing sister and her kind boyfriend. They’re the cutest! #Natigail”
Nate immediately pressed retweet before I could stop him.
“Did you just retweet?” Emma asked excitingly and as Nate nodded she jumped off the bed. I knew she would be doing her happy dance behind the camera.
Well, now everything was fessed up to and literally everyone who wanted could get a glimpse into our relationship. Oddly enough, I was utterly calm.
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Sorry for the long wait! I hope you enjoy this chapter :D What do you think of the shipname? :)