Over the course of the next few weeks I slowly but surely became more and more comfortable around the camera. Nate was as always a wonderful boyfriend and never pressured me to be on when I didn’t want to.
I was finally beginning to understand why Nate had fallen in love with daily vlogging throughout the course of 2014. It was a diary of a sort and I had kept a diary throughout my teen years only to ditch it for my photography blog later.
The content of my blog also changed; it became a lot more personal. I had finally decided to make a post introducing my face officially to the blog since a lot of people had seen it in Nate’s vlogs anyhow, I couldn’t see the harm.
I knew I had a very supportive blogging community and felt like I could go to them if I needed a little cheering up. The comments interested in my relationship with Nate had thankfully also decreased.
I was sitting in Nate’s bed while he had to go out for an interview. I spend half my time in his flat now and he had even given me a key. I had freaked out a bit when he had handed it over but been eternally grateful. He acted like it was no big deal but I saw the sparkle in his eyes as he saw my excitement. He was so happy about my reaction and it was a big deal for him too.
I sighed and tried to focus on writing my post. It had become a habit of mine to daydream about Nate and think about our previous conversation. When it happened I usually called him up to tell him that I loved him but I knew that he would be busy and I retained myself and focused on the task at hand.
“Hi.
I honestly don’t know how to begin. If you’ve been a loyal follower over the course of the last four months, you might have noticed that my focus has changed slightly. I’ve become more open, writing more than ever to comment my photos.
I’ve also begun to share more and more of my personal life and although it scares me, the positive response is pushing me to be brave. I am a human being and I think that might be why you reconnect with me.
I’m not a robotic photographer without a face. My name is Abigail Clover and I’m a nineteen-year-old girl who studies business and communication at London University although I’m taking a gap year after having finished my first year. I live in London with my sister Emma Clover; she’s a YouTuber and absolutely the best sister one could wish for. Check her out: www.youtube.com/EmmaClover.
I love watching Friends reruns, I am addicted to photography (I can’t see a photo opportunity and not pull out my camera) and I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow older.
Below are a selection of photos of me and some of the best people I know: family, friends and my boyfriend. I hope you enjoy them and like that you can now put a face to all those endless of post. Have a nice day or night and leave a comment below, letting me know a few facts about you.”
I sighed, feeling satisfied with my text but also a tad afraid. I had been gathering in photos for the last whole month. Firstly one of me in a summery outfit in my parents garden, then two of Emma and I laughing and chasing each other around our flat, then a photo of Kristina and I chatting at a café enjoying our beverages, a photo of Nate and I at dinner with Zoe, Alfie, Niomi and Marcus, one with Nate and I embracing and finally a close up of my eyes.
I heard the front door being unlocked very quietly and knew that Nate was probably on his way to surprise me.
I was proven right when he jumped into the bedroom saying some unrecognisable and holding his vlogging camera.
My hair was in a messy bun and I wasn’t wearing make-up but I was cuddled up in one of Nate’s TRYXE sweatshirt. I was under the covers and grinned widely at him.
“Damn, why weren’t you scared?” he said disappointed.
I laughed. “You’re about a subtle as a bull in a china shop, love.”
He pouted and turned the camera to face himself. “I promise I will get you sometime.”
“Nope!” I said loudly before erupting in laughter as Nate threw himself unto the bed and started tickling me. That wasn’t fair, he knew how ticklish I was.
He turned off the camera and said, “you have to get ready to get back to yours.”
“Why?”
“Can’t you remember? Emma and I are going to film today! How could you forget? Emma has sent be a text every single day since we agreed on the date.”
“Oh, that’s right. Thank you for that by the way,” I said and kissed him.
“It’s not a favour. I think it’s going to be funny! She’s going to teach me how to model on my channel,” he told me.
I started laughing again. Yes, that would indeed be funny. Emma had gotten a few small contracts here and there, mostly modelling clothes for photo-shoots but she wasn’t sure that was her passion anymore after having begun YouTube.
“Don’t you think I can do it?”
“You’re a gorgeous man but you don’t know how to model, honey,” I said.
“You’ll see! Now get dressed and come with me,” he said and lifted me out from under the covers in one shift movement. He still worked out every other day and even came with me on my bi-weekly runs sometimes too.
“Right away, sir.”
Two hours later our flat looked disastrous. Nate and Emma had made a catwalk, a make-up section and set up for a photo-shoot. Naturally I had been the camerawoman and it had been a struggle keeping it still while Nate tired to venture down the homemade catwalk in high heels. Once he had stumbled and I had been worried that he had broken his ankles but luckily he was okay. He had also allowed Emma to give him a bit of make-up on and it had been hilarious seeing Nate to try and imitate Emma’s poses for the photo-shoot part.
I had gotten a full workout of my non-existent abs by the time they were finished. We took a short break to clean before shooting Emma’s video but none of us wanted to clean up, so we ended up sitting on the couch chatting instead.
“Hey sis, I never got to tell you that I loved your new post! You two look so cute together!” Emma told me.
“Thanks,” I said, blushing slightly.
“What? I didn’t see that,” Nate said and pulled out his phone.
I purposely hadn’t told him about the update because I wasn’t sure of when I wanted to post it and had forgotten to mention it as the rush with the collabs.
“This is great, Abbs. Did you deactivate the notice on my phone again?”
I smiled. I had done that again. This would make the third time. I knew how much it annoyed him that he wasn’t one of the first people to comment on my posts and I liked messing with him.
“Just for that, I’m tweeting the link,” he said confidently but glanced quickly my way as of to gain my approval anyway. I kept smiling, indirectly telling him that it was all right.
Emma fished up her phone and went to Nate’s page to show me.
“I love her for her courage – couldn’t be prouder to know such a wonderful girl www.puresimplephotos.me/2014/08/me.html “
This caused me to grin so wide that my cheeks hurt.
“You’re so cheesy,” I told Nate.
“Yes, I am and you love it. Still, I wish you would get a Twitter so I could actually tag you,” Nate said.
I didn’t want to discuss that again. I didn’t want a public profile and Nate knew that. He was just hoping that he could talk me into it anyway. He might be able to over time but today wasn’t that time.
“Should we get started with the video for Emma’s channel?” I asked.
We set up at our couch, which was one of Emma’s regular filming spots, the other being the bed in her room. She had insisted on doing the Guess The YouTuber tag, which Nate hadn’t done with anyone yet.
I had been instructed to find photos of YouTubers and zoom in on a particular place, making it difficult to identify them. I had tried to find YouTubers that I didn’t know that well but I had also included all of those whom I had met in person.
I had agreed to participate off camera in Emma’s video as well and to show them the photos. I pressed start on Emma’s camera and gave her the tumps up.
“Hello guys, this is the one and only Emma Clover and today I am doing my very first proper collab with a fellow YouTuber. It only took, what? Almost four months from the start of my channel. That’s not bad is it?” Emma asked Nate who at the moment still was out of shot.
“No, I went six months, I believe,” Nate said.
“Actually, only five months,” Emma corrected him. She had been a YouTube fanatic for about 18 months and of course she had stalked Nate back in the day. He had always been one of her favourite YouTubers.
She turned to smile at the camera and I could feel my heart melt as I looked in the viewfinder. She was so beautiful and charming to look at.
“Guys, if you couldn’t identify the voice… Today I’m here with… SillyNate,” Emma said and pulled Nate into shot.
“Hello Emma’s channel,” Nate said politely.
“You might know that Nate here was one of the people who inspired me to start my own YouTube channel and that is why today I wanted to humiliate him by how much better I am at recognising YouTubers than him.”
“What she means is that we’re going to be doing the Guess The YouTuber challenge but she’s a bit cocky.”
“We’ll see when I win, boy,” Emma said teasingly. “I’ve got my sister behind the scene and she’s going to show us a very zoomed in photo of YouTubers and the first to guess who it is gets a point and the loser gets sprayed with water in the face.”
Nate turned to look at Emma, I wasn’t sure she had cleared that last part with him but his expression was absolutely hilarious.
“It’s only water,” I said to secure him.
“Fine, fine. But you’re setting yourself up, girl! I’m going to smash you,” Nate said.
I showed them photo after photo and their initial guesses were mostly off point. Emma was on point with a few of them though and I got the pleasure of shooting water in Nate’s face with a child’s water pistol.
They were taking the challenge very seriously, sitting at the edge of their seats and spitting out name after name. Emma started fiddling with her hands and Nate was rushing his fingers through his hair, tell tails for both of them that they were focussing.
In the end Emma did end up winning over Nate with 9 out of 15 correct. That meant that I emptied an entire water pistol, splashing it on Nate’s head. Needless to say, Nate’s T-shirt was pretty soaked when they finished.
“So that is it, that clearly proved that I was the better YouTube fan and Nate’s can’t even recognise his own friends,” Emma said in a teasing tone.
“How can you recognise Joe’s hair in two seconds?” he questioned.
“Joe has great hair!” Emma said as explanation. “But jokes aside, thank you very much for being on my channel, Nate. You know it meant the world to me and hopefully you guys thought it was a fun video. I can assure you that it was fun to make but not as funny as the one we did on Nate’s channel. Tell them about it.”
“Emma’s an aspiring model and I thought it would be a good idea to get her to give me some tips on modelling. So she got to put make-up on me, got me in heels and much more which you can check out on my channel. Now, don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to Emma if you’ve come over here from my channel. She’s a very new YouTuber but I think she is one to watch out. Let’s see how many subscribers we can get her by the end of the day. How many do you have now?”
“Oh, I have almost 40.000,” Emma said shyly. “But that’s it, guys. I’ll see you next week with a new video or you could just go to Nate’s channel to watch our video over there. Bye!”
“Bye!” Nate shouted.
Emma had been a bit cocky in the beginning of the video but she had calmed down as the video had progressed. I knew that she was just acting like that because she was nervous. To her Nate was still one of her inspiration and I knew it had been a dream of hers to film with him for a while. I was just happy she’d become more and more relaxed.
I turned the camera off and we finally cleaned the flat. We were pretty tired after that and decided to order Nandos. Afterwards we watched We’re the Millers, which Nate and I thought was hilarious but Emma found too cliché. She headed to her room half way through and left Nate and I alone on the couch.
We snuggled up next to each other and watched the end of the film. Then Nate put on one of my DVDs of Friends and snuggled up next to me again. I didn’t even make it through two episodes before I was snoring away.
Later I felt Nate tugging at me softly before lifting me off the couch.
“I can walk,” I mumbled.
“You don’t have to, love. I don’t mind carrying you.”
He laid me gently on the bed and covered us with the duvet. I rolled over and nuzzled into his chest.
“I love you,” I whispered, not even aware I was saying the words.
“I love you, Abbs. Now go to sleep,” he said and gently stroked my hair.
I breathed in deeply and drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
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I hope you enjoy this chapter. I've wanted Emma and Nate to collab for so long! By the way the links doens't lead to anywhere - it's just what I imagine the links would look like! If you're feeling nice, comment and tell me what you think of this story so far :D