"Oooh cool! Yeah, I think I will." He smiled, and Alex sighed in relief. More time with Sammi, and without all the guys? She'd take that any day. "I was actually going to go down there anyway to practice on my own, but I'll go with you instead."
"Cool." She said meekly, strangely turning a little shy. Wasn't she just scolding him a minute ago?
Sammi inhaled and got up, going for the door. "You coming?"
"Y-yeah!" She scrambled up to her feet, pushing her stuff into her bag and taking off after him.
"Hey, Sammi! Wait up!"
They stopped en route to the studio per Sammi's suggestion at a Starbucks. Sammi ordered a tall decaffeinated mocha chino, and Alex ordered...
A Coke.
"Why. Just why." Sammi snatched his drink from the counter and chucked Alex's to hers, which she caught with ease. "Nobody goes to Starbucks to buy a freakin' cola, Ally."
Alex pouted, guzzling her fizzy soda from the bottle as she sulked. "Well I'm sorry that I'm not all fancy like you with your flamin' extra tall caffeine mocha cappuccino whatever."
"Mocha Chino. And it's decaff."
"Just leave me be, alright? Yes, I'm a child in case you didn't know, not grown up enough to drink that stuff. I just don't like coffee, it tastes like bitter hot water with ground up dirt, and smells like tobacco."
The blonde boy facepalmed. She had no respect for coffee whatsoever. To him, that stuff was liquid gold. That, and beer of course.
"Urgh, whatever, you weirdo. One day, you'll agree with me, I know it. You know why?"
The way he asked that question with a glint in his eyes made Alex feel unusually suspicious. She answered with a certain amount of hesitation and unease in her voice. "... Why?"
Sammi grinned like a small child, as if he had been waiting ages to say this. "'Cause ya see Ally," He slipped his arm around her shoulders, to which her eyebrow raised questioningly. "Coffee is just like me... Hot and delicious, and once you try, completely addictive."
This time, Alex facepalmed, if only to hide her red cheeks. "You still being like that, huh?! Didn't I tell you to pack that in?" She sent him flying away with multiple smacks to his shoulders. How close did he need to get to her? They were in a public space too, what if one of his fans saw and got the wrong idea?!
She could see it all in her head. Photographs of them both together and a newspaper heading that read: "TAYLOR'S NEW GIRLFRIEND, SHORT BUT IS SHE SWEET?", photographers following them everywhere, and crazy fans wanting to kill her for getting close to their idol.
Nope.
She didn't want to go there, thank you very much.
"Awh, you're such a spoilsport, Alex." Sammi pouted playfully, completely unharmed by Alex but laughing as he rubbed his shoulder. "C'mon." He lead her out of the coffee shop, which made Alex feel thankful as the air was cool and helped her embarrassment dissipate.
At the studios, Alex found Aidan in the practice room, a few sheets of paper in hand, and pacing back and forth with a confused look furrowing his face.
"Hey," Alex waved. "I'm here!"
"Oh, hey," He finally seemed to notice the two of them stood by the doorway. "Thanks for coming, I really do appreciate your help, Alexa."
"No probs! S'what I'm here for, ya'no, as your assistant manager, 'n all that. Save Chelsea coming all the way down here when she's so busy."
"Alex," Sammi hissed besides her. "Not so English. Aidan sucks at understanding you to begin with."
"Oh yeah... Sorry." She apologised to Aidan, then skipped over besides him and leaned over his shoulder to see what he was holding in his hands.
It appeared to be some scribbled notes written in blue pen, presumably what Aidan was thinking about saying. Judging by the pile of twenty of more balls of scrunched up paper that were tumbling out of the bin in the corner of the room, it hadn't been going quite as well as she had hoped.
"So..." He looked at her right in the eye, his green eyes pleading for help. "What do I say?"
"Well..." Alex attempted to quickly read over what he already had, which wasn't too hard as his writing was pretty perfect. It was mainly just about the band and how they came together, and while it was the truth it wasn't what anyone would particulary look forwards to hearing in a concert. "You could try actually throwing in an 'thank you to all of you amazing fans out there, we love you all' or something jazzy like that in there. The fans will expect to hear some words of love from you."
The three ended up sitting down in the middle of the room on the wooden floor, notes sprawled around them.
"So you have to use yourselves being adored and fancied by all the girls to your advantage. After all, most of your fans are teenage girls, and most of them will love just you guys on your own, but think that your music is cool too. So, I'm gonna throw in a little fanservice speech, around about here..." Alex pulled a pen lid off with her teeth, and scribbled messily on a sheet of paper. "And of course, you're gonna have to provide some actual visual and physical fanservice."
At the sound of that word, Sammi pricked up. "Did you say fanservice, Alex?" He said cheekily. Alex rolled her eyes and pointed her pen towards Aidan, who almost jumped.
"I was talking about Aidan's fanservice. From the videos I've seen of you guys performing, it seems to be mainly Ryan and of course Sammi that have the most fanservice, followed by Taylor, but I've never seen you do anything. Not even like, a little cheeky peek at those abs of yours. And," She spoke in a quiet voice. "You also have the least amount of followers on Insta, too. So... If you wanna start gaining some more fans, you're gonna need to be more committed to the fanservice."
"Committed to the fanservice?" Aidan echoed, slightly unsure of what she meant.
"Yeah! C'mon, let's see what you got. Not you, uh... Like... Your moves. Yeah, let's see your moves, 'kay?"
Alex helped Aidan to his feet, and held her hand out. "So... Shall we work on the basic stuff first?"
"Okay, I guess. I mean anywhere is good to start, but I still feel a little embarrassed..."
"You'll be just fine, Aidan. Promise." She gave a small, sincere smile, and Aidan could feel her kindness. He hadn't expected her to just turn up because he asked, but she had done. And now she had given up her free time to come over here and try to help him out.
He tried not to smile too widely as he thought, she's so passionate... It's no wonder Tay's falling for her.
"Alright, so," He focused on Alex as she instructed him. "Would you, um... You mind..."
She mumbled something incoherently.
"What did you say? Your face is all red, Alex." Sammi laughed loudly, pointing to her cheeks.
She rolled her eyes at him, and turned around to face Aidan. She could act 'cool' and confident, right? It was nothing. She asked a little more loudly this time, "Aidan, would you mind slipping your shirt off for me, please?"
Aidan's face reddened, and his mouth nearly dropped open.
Keep it cool, keep it cool, Alex told herself, feeling Sammi's gaze burning into her from behind.
"Uh, okay. Sure," said Aidan hesitantly, who was a little uncomfortable about the idea of stripping in front of a girl, unlike the other boys who he knew would quite happily take their shirts off at any opportunity. That he knew from personal experience...
He shuddered at the memory.
His fingers grasped the edge of his white tshirt and yanked it swiftly over his head, then he stood with his shirt in his hand and his body exposed. He suddenly felt incredibly awkward seeing Alex's cheeks turn pink.
There was a long moment in which no one spoke, the awkwardness truly settling into everyone. Aidan's body wasn't exactly close to Ryan's. With his tshirt on, it seemed he was lean and skinny, which Alex had hoped might have been concealing some nice muscles underneath.
She had no such luck. That boy's chest was as undefined as she was short.
She coughed lightly to break the heavy silence that stuck in the air, and spoke with an unsettled firmness to her voice. "You look great, Aidan."
He murmured a quiet thank you.
"But perhaps, you might think about working out some? You know, really build up those abs."
"What abs?" Sammi chimed in, laughing even louder than before. "You're like a twig, Dan. These my friend are what you call abs."
Before Alex could react, Sammi had already thrown his shirt off on the floor somewhere.
Just seeing him stood a few feet in front of her with his well defined chest muscles on display almost gave Alex a heart attack. She clutched madly at her chest as she gasped for air and hurriedly averted her eyes, finding it was somewhat difficult to breathe now.
"How's my fanservice, Ally?" Sammi looked towards Alex hopefully, a cute finish to his voice. When she didn't answer, he looked towards Aidan. "Hey, how come she's not answering me?"
"You might want to try putting some clothes on first?"
"Try that yourself..." Under his breath Taylor whispered, "Skinny twig..."
Aidan scoffed and looked the other way. "Shirtless hoe."
"What you sayin' about me?!" Sammi ran over and would have grabbed Aidan by the collar had he been wearing one, so instead he pushed his chest.
"Guys, chill!"
The boys looked over to where Alex was just turning