We Just Clicked

‘Because we’re both here?’ I ask. I always find it weird bumping into colleagues outside of work; I seem to forget they have actual lives too, but if I’d really thought about it I should have guessed Luke and his selfie stick would be here.

‘I just never thought I’d get recognised in real life!’ Luke says, still gushing.

‘What? Oh,’ I say as the penny drops. Now it’s awkward. He thinks that I know him from Instagram, which is slightly offensive that he doesn’t remember who I am at all.

‘Do you want a selfie with me?’ he says, leaning in closer.

‘Have you got a big stick?’ I say, unable to resist.

A smile breaks out over his face and he pulls out his telescopic selfie stick from his trouser pocket.

‘I never leave home without it,’ he says with a wink.

‘Perfect,’ I say as he slots the phone into the stick. ‘Has anyone ever told you you look like Channing Tatum?’

He looks at me again and does the stomach ripple move. ‘All the time.’

He holds the stick out and leans into me.

‘Shall we do “Blue Steel” pouts?’ I say.

His arm drops and he turns to look at me, narrowing his eyes.

‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’ he says, lowering the stick and taking his phone off.

‘Yes, we met in the stairwell at McKinley’s a few weeks ago.’

His face falls.

‘You look different.’

‘More make-up.’

He nods his head. ‘You look good. So are you looking forward to this?’

He smiles at me as if there’s been no misunderstanding. How does he do that? I’d have been mortified and would have been halfway back to the train station by now. But there’s no hint of redness in his cheeks or flash of embarrassment in his eyes.

‘I’m Luke,’ he says, holding his hand out and I shake it.

‘Izzy,’ I reply, in disbelief. He has got to be the most self-assured person I have ever met.

‘Do you think we should find where this event is, then?’ he asks, scanning the lobby.

I glance round too. There are a few people sitting on comfy-looking, egg-shaped chairs reading papers or scrolling through phones. I join the queue to speak to the receptionist, who’s busy leaning over the large desk annotating a map for some guests.

‘Ah, back there,’ Luke says, pointing to a board spelling out the name of the event. ‘There it is.’

He holds up the selfie stick and takes a few photos of himself next to the light box.

‘Would you mind?’ he asks, handing me his phone. He leans his arm over the sign and poses.

‘Of course not.’

I snap away, trying not to laugh at his pout, which could give Victoria Beckham a run for her money.

‘I guess these will be OK, for stories,’ he says, looking through, and I bite my tongue.

We make our way to the queue to get our tickets scanned at the door.

‘What kind of content do you post?’ I ask.

‘Sort of urban male lifestyle – you know fashion, city living, fitness.’

My eyes sweep over his body and a shirtless Channing Tatum with all his ripped muscles pop into my mind.

‘Do you blog as well?’ I ask, trying to get those kind of thoughts out of my head.

‘I vlog on YouTube.’

Of course he does.

Tickets checked, we step into the room and it’s not quite the intimate setting I was expecting. It’s a huge ballroom with row upon row of seating and nearly every one is filled. I’d have expected a sell-out crowd if we were in London but I hadn’t expected it in Reading. Especially when I’ve paid £65 for the privilege. Maths isn’t my strong suit but even I can work out they’ve made a killing.

‘There’s two seats together over there. Shall we?’ he says, as if it’s a given that we’re going to sit together.

‘Sure, that would be great. I was supposed to be coming with my friend but she’s pulled a muscle and she’s pregnant,’ I say, drifting off.

‘Does she Instagram too?’

‘Yes, although she can’t work out what she wants to do. First she started off with pictures of her dog Bowser, but with his tight black curls it was impossible to tell his bum from his face. So she bought a cat called Molly McMittens and her feed became cute pictures before she found out she was allergic and had to give her away. Then she got married and she focused on weddings,’ I say, taking a breath. ‘After that she did a food thing – comfort food versus unusual ingredients thing – and now she’s pregnant so it’s a baby feed.’

‘Sounds like she can’t settle into her niche. It’s hard to find your calling.’

I try hard not to laugh.

We shuffle down a row of chairs where everyone sighs loudly and squeezes in their legs as we pass. None of them make eye contact, they’re all too busy on their phones.

‘So what’s your niche?’ he asks.

‘Lifestyle with an affordable living slant to it. I felt too many of the influencers have a London bias and the clothes and accessories they feature are too expensive for normal people. So I tend to focus more on high-street brands.’

It still feels weird saying that out loud. It’s how I’m now pitching myself to brands – pretending that was always my intention when I started my blog and my Instagram account, when really I’d started going for cheaper products because I couldn’t afford the designer price tags.

‘How many followers have you got?’

‘Just over 15,000,’ I say a little proudly.

‘Nice,’ he says, ‘I’ve got 18,000.’

Of course he has more. He holds his phone above his head and snaps a selfie without flinching in embarrassment like I would.

‘I’m working on ways to get it higher,’ he says. ‘I want to reach 30k by Christmas.’

‘That’s ambitious,’ I say, shocked. That’s a huge undertaking.

‘I’m hoping Small Bubbles will help.’

‘That’s why I’m here too,’ I say, pretending that it’s not to try and make Lara my new BFF.

‘So do you get much free stuff?’ he asks, taking photos of the room.

‘I get a few clothes, mainly from smaller companies, homeware like candles and photo frames and beauty products. I have enough mascaras to last me a lifetime.’

‘I see you make good use of it,’ he says, laughing for the first time.

I feel a little stupid that I put on extra make-up today like I would for my Insta photoshoots, in the unlikely event that Lara might have seen my feed and recognise me.

‘I once read this article about Claudia Winkleman where she said that she’s almost unrecognisable without her eye make-up and I thought it was a good idea, you know, so that I can go out incognito without being hounded when I become a mega influencer.’

‘Important to prepare for these things. I’m the opposite though. I want to be recognised wherever I go.’

Of course he does. I secretly like that he’s more of an Instagramwanker than I am; it means he doesn’t judge me. I remember once trying to explain my eye make-up strategy to Becca and she was not impressed.

‘What’s your Insta name?’

‘This underscore Izzy underscore Loves.’

He types, clicks and swipes.

‘I’ve followed you,’ he says, raising an eyebrow.

‘Oh right,’ I say, pulling my phone out of my pocket. I open up my app and click on the hearts to see that Lukeatmealways has just followed me.

‘Luke at Meal Ways? Where’s Meal Ways?’

He doesn’t look impressed.

‘It’s Luke at Me Always,’ he says with added emphasis.

‘Oh, right,’ I say, wondering if he could be more vain.

I turn my attention back to my phone. I’ve already mentally pictured what his content will look like. Moody photos of him and his smouldering good looks against beautiful backdrops. I tap ‘follow’, feeling smug as I scroll through his photos – I was right. I have to hand it to him, though; it’s a beautifully curated feed.

There’s a sudden ripple of excitement in the audience as the lights start to dim and music starts to play out through the speakers.

‘I guess this is what we’ve been waiting for,’ whispers Luke.

I give him a smile and sit on my sweaty hands as I’m beginning to have palpitations. I’m sure Luke would like to think it’s because he got so close that his aftershave worked its pheromonal magic, but it’s actually because Lara has just glided onto stage. She strikes poses to the beats of the music until it dies down. Everyone whoops and claps and there are camera flashes everywhere. I watch Lara basking in the attention. She’s lapping it up like this is what she was made for.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ she says when the adoration dies down and she steps up to the podium. ‘Now, who’s ready to become an influencer?’

The whole audience raises their hands. I sit up a little straighter just in case she’s going to pluck one of us out of the audience to make our dream come true.

‘Well, you’re not the only ones. There are over 23 million Instagram users in the UK alone and one billion worldwide. Not everyone is going to become an influencer, and it’s certainly not going to happen overnight. It’ll take hard work, time and perseverance. But that’s how I did it – and now I have over 6 million followers.’

She pauses, and there’s an applause that she laps up again.

‘So, let me take you on the journey of how I became Small Bubbles…’

‘Wow,’ I say as the lights go up.

Luke nods next to me. ‘That was quite a show.’

‘Wasn’t it?’

I’m even more in love with my idol now than when I came in. And given the amount of time I spend watching her on Instagram stories, I didn’t think that was possible. I might not have the blueprints to Instagram stardom like I’d hoped but I do feel enthused that it is possible to go from zero to hero.

We stand up and we head towards the aisle.

‘So are you going to queue up for a selfie?’ he asks.

I look at the line already gathering down the aisle. Lara’s standing in front of a table, leaning against it and the first audience member goes up and beams away with her as she has her photo taken.

‘Well, I thought I might as well, as I’m here. You know, it might boost my followers.’ I try and keep my voice casual as if I hadn’t given it much thought.

‘Me too,’ he replies nodding, and we make our way over to the queue.

‘So have you been working at McKinley’s long?’ I ask as we shuffle slowly forward.

‘About six months, I was an estate agent before.’

I know I shouldn’t stereotype but he lives up to it, being over-confident, over-styled and over-aftershaved.

‘I bet you were good at that.’

‘Absolutely, I was so good I could have sold an igloo to an eskimo.’

‘Yet you still left?’

‘The sales weren’t fast enough,’ he says, shrugging. ‘How about you?’

‘I’ve been there two years. It was only supposed to be a stop-gap.’

‘Isn’t that what everyone says? But let me guess, the dream is to become an influencer, quit your job and live happily ever after.’

‘Pretty much,’ I say, nodding. I’ve always known it was a ridiculous dream but seeing a whole ballroom of people trying to do it too has really hammered that point home.

‘Me too. The sooner I quit the rat race, the better.’

‘I used to work in advertising up in London, I was a copywriter before I… before I joined McKinley’s, and I was going to try and move into marketing but then my Instagram started to take off and I thought I’d see where that went. It’s a lot easier to have the time and mental head space to run my feed without worrying about work and long hours like I used to.’

‘I can imagine. Let’s hope we’ll both be quitting our jobs before we know it, thanks to that talk,’ he says with a wink. ‘Did you live up in London too?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say, thinking of the shiny flat I shared with Cameron and how quickly I left.

‘Isn’t it a bit of a comedown living in Reading?’

‘Actually, I live in Basingstoke.’

‘Bloody hell, that’s even worse.’

A surge of hometown pride ripples over me. ‘It’s actually got a lot going for it.’

He raises a sceptical eyebrow.

‘It does. There are couple of cool bars now and a few decent restaurants.’

‘Because London doesn’t have any of them.’

‘And it’s got good shops and we’ve got an ice rink.’

‘You’re really selling it. Although ice rinks are pretty good places to go on dates; if I take a woman who can’t skate she’ll be clinging onto me all night.’

‘Is that the only way to get a woman to touch you?’ I say, laughing.

‘Oh believe me, women are always touching me. I’m like one of those guys from the Lynx adverts.’

I think of the adverts with the guys dousing themselves in aftershave only to be surrounded by dozens of beautiful women pawing at them. The only thing that I can imagine Luke having in common with that scenario is the dousing himself in aftershave.

We’re edging closer to the front of the queue and my heart is starting to race. I’m thinking what I’m going to say to Lara. The queue moves forward every thirty seconds or so, which means I’ve got thirty seconds to convince her to become my new BFF.

‘Wow, look. That girl’s dressed in Lara white,’ says Luke, pointing at the woman at the front of the queue.

Lara’s always dressed top-to-toe in white and the young woman is following suit. She’s wearing a white summer dress, which was either an optimistic outfit choice on a cold day, or she wanted to colour co-ordinate with Lara and it was the only white thing she owned.

‘So try-hard,’ he says, slipping off his jacket to reveal a tight white T-shirt.

I look up and down the queue and I notice everyone is dressed in fifty shades of white.

I look over at Lara standing in her top, fluffy cardigan, stone-washed jeans and brogues, all of which are white. I’m going to totally clash. I’ve worn the trendiest thing I own which is a pretty, vintage-style tea dress that a local designer sent me, and I’ve teamed it with black biker boots and a leather jacket to hide the safety pins I use to hold the dress together as I can’t get the zip done up. I thought it would make me look super on-trend, but it’s so bright compared to her – I might as well be wearing neon. How did I not think about that?

‘Izzy? Are you OK? You’ve gone all pale.’

‘Have I?’ I say, pleased. At least my face might match her style.

‘OK, so are you two having your photo taken together or singularly?’ says a bored-looking PR woman as we reach the front.

‘Oh, I think—’

‘Together,’ says Luke.

‘Great. Gets us through quicker. So you’ll get two photos taken but with the same device. No touching Lara,’ she says in a stern voice, her eyes narrowing on mine as if she knows I’m a super-fan who won’t be able to control myself. ‘If you want to make it look like you’ve got your arm around her you can balance your hand on the table behind like so.’

She demonstrates with the same tired enthusiasm as cabin crew pointing out emergency exits.

The PR woman drifts off to prise away the girl having her photo taken with Lara and it’s our turn. I’m so excited. Luke has to give me a little nudge as my feet don’t appear to be working and we’re directed to stand on either side of Lara.

‘Hi,’ she says, beaming. ‘You two a couple?’

‘Oh, no, we’re colleagues,’ I say with a high-pitched squeal.

‘Oh, that’s a shame. You look like you’d make a cute couple and couples always do really well with brands on Insta,’ she says with a hint of sneer. ‘There’s always so much content for them – first they have the big wedding, then they do the house renovation, then they have babies. Anyway, are you ready for the photo?’

The PR woman stares at me so I make sure that I leave a safe distance between me and Lara when I balance my hand on the table. My hand makes contact with another hand and I immediately jump. At first I think in horror that it’s Lara and that I might get ejected before I get my selfie, but it’s only Luke. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief when his hand tries to hold mine. I snatch my hand away, grazing Lara’s fluffy cardigan in the process.

‘Smile,’ says another PR woman, who snaps a photo on Luke’s phone.

‘Thanks for coming,’ says Lara. She moves forward, only I go with her. I look down in horror and see that my watch is stuck on her cardigan.

‘Come on, Izzy,’ says Luke, going to grab my other arm before he gasps.

‘What’s going on?’ asks the PR woman, surging forward.

Lara bends down to get a bottle of water off the floor and I go along for the ride, not wanting to rip her expensive-looking cardigan.

‘Oh my God. Is she touching me?’ she screams.

‘I’m not touching you,’ I say, flustered. I’m aware the whole room is watching me. ‘It’s just my watch. Look, my hand is here.’

I do a wave but it’s fruitless as Lara can’t actually see my hand behind her.

‘A watch? Who in this day and age wears a watch? Why would you when you have a phone!’ she shrieks.

‘I’ve always worn one,’ I stammer. ‘I’ve never got one stuck before.’

Of course the first time had to be now.

I turn to Luke for help, but he’s holding up his phone – he’s actually filming this.

‘Hey!’ I shriek in a tone to rival Lara’s.

He shrugs and puts his phone down.

‘Get her off me. I can feel her touching me,’ says Lara.

The two PR women push me out the way so that I’m as far away as I could be without dislocating my shoulder. They examine the stuck watch in such a way that anyone would think that they were performing open heart surgery.

‘There’s a thread that’s wrapped right around it. We could cut it,’ says the woman who took the photo.

Lara gasps in a way that lets them know that’s not an option.

‘If I could just—’ says one of the women twisting my arm round impossible angles, ‘aha, got it.’

My arm falls and I rub my aching shoulder.

Lara turns and glares at me, before her hand flies up to her forehead.

‘I need a moment,’ she says loudly. She storms up the stage stairs and into the wings.

‘I told you not to touch her,’ the PR woman hisses and I start to back away. ‘God knows how long she’ll be. Do you remember when the woman touched her arm in Birmingham? She didn’t come back for 40 minutes.’

The other PR woman nods her head and, along with all the people in the queue, gives me a frosty stare.

‘Thanks, sorry, I’ll leave,’ I stutter. I hurry out of the room in fear, only stopping to catch my breath when I reach the safety of the lobby.

‘That was intense,’ says Luke, who did his best to distance himself when Watchgate was going down.

‘Not quite to plan,’ I concede.

By now Lara was supposed to have followed me on Instagram and we’d be meeting after the event for cocktails to cement our new-found friendship. I fear the only reason she’d want to know my name right now would be to take out a restraining order against me.

‘Photo looks good though,’ he says, showing me.

He clearly means of him and Lara, who look in perfect harmony in their white outfits and perfect smiles. I, on the other hand, stick out like a sore thumb with my bright dress and my goofy star-struck grin plastered on my face.

‘Hmm,’ I say, thinking that it doesn’t really matter what I look like, ‘I can’t post that now.’

‘Come on, she didn’t even look at you and I reckon after all those pictures she won’t even remember who the person with the watch was.’

‘You think?’ I ask, hopefully.

‘Of course. I’ll even promise I won’t put the footage on YouTube.’

‘You’ll delete it instead?’

‘OK, I barely got anything before you shouted at me anyway.’

We walk back out of the revolving doors and we stop on the pavement and I’m about to say goodbye when he leans close to me and holds up his camera. ‘Say, “Cheese”.’

I automatically smile before I realise what’s happening.

‘Huh,’ he says looking at it. ‘Look, she was right, we do make a good-looking couple.’

I look at the photo and whilst Luke is so far from my type, you’d never know that from that photo. We do look good together.

‘So this has been fun, we should meet up again,’ he says.

‘We should?’

‘Definitely,’ he says, fixing his eyes on mine. I almost get the impression that he’s coming on to me. Although my non-existent love life is testament to the fact that this isn’t really my area of expertise.

‘Right, well, I better go and catch a train,’ I say before I turn and hurry towards the station in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ he shouts down the street and I turn and give him a half-hearted wave.

It takes until I get seated on the train until I feel brave enough to pull out my phone to check if Watchgate has gone viral, only to see a picture of Luke and me pop up on my feed. He must have posted whilst he was walking.

Lukeatmealways

What a night. Not only did I get to meet the gorgeous @small_bubbles but I got to meet the equally gorgeous @This_Izzy_Loves too. Our eyes met across a crowded room of Instagrammers #instalove #smallbubbles #instaconference

Hashtag Instalove? So he was being flirty.

I could not imagine a man that I’d want to date less. Let’s just hope he forgets me like the first time I met him. I don’t really have a whole heap of experience of letting men down gently and something tells me Luke and his giant ego doesn’t have a whole lot of experience of being on the receiving end of it.

Chapter 6

I scroll through a contract template on my computer, trying to ignore the fact that Mrs Harris has being trying to catch my eye for the last ten minutes. I start to fill in the details of the new client when Mrs Harris clears her throat loudly.

I notice Colin’s face is mere inches away from the paper on his desk as he tries to keep his head down, quite literally.

‘What do you need, Mrs Harris?’ asks Cleo.

‘Ah, Cleo love. What a poppet you are. I didn’t want to disturb you when you were so busy. Plus, I need Izzy and her skills for this job.’

‘What skills does she have that I don’t?’

Mrs Harris sighs. ‘The ability to not get too distracted. I need Izzy because she’ll stay mission-focused and won’t start flirting with the first stud muffin she sees.’

‘Stud muffin,’ says Cleo, giggling.

‘What would my mission be?’ I ask, looking up over my screen.

‘I just need you to pop down to Adjustments. I’ve heard some rumours that they’ve got muffins today.’

‘Stud ones?’ I say, setting Cleo off again and earning a tut from Mrs Harris. ‘There are biscuits over in Accounts; I could grab you one of those instead?’

That would save me a set of stairs to walk down.

‘No, no, I think the muffins downstairs are supposed to be very good. Be a poppet, get me one or two. I’m a bit hungry, forgot my lunch today.’

‘Right,’ I say, knowing she buys her lunch in the canteen. ‘So this has nothing to do with the rumour that Jason is testing out a recipe for the next stage in the competition?’

‘Izzy, however could you think that of me? That I could resort to such – such underhand espionage? All I want is to not waste away at my desk.’

‘We wouldn’t want that now, would we?’

I could probably do with stretching my legs, so I pick a folder out of my in-tray to give myself a cover story for my walk around.

‘And whilst you’re there, stop at the second floor and see if Mary in Billing has baked anything or Miles, he’s on that floor too?’

I mock-salute and head off on my mission. I walk down the stairs thinking of Luke posing here before and it makes me nervous that I’m going to bump into him. Not that he’d be here now: it’s raining, making the light in here terrible.

I still can’t get over that photo he posted the other night. We work in the same office block so the odds of bumping into each other are statistically quite high. I’ve started walking round the office with a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, reminding me of when I moved between lessons at school, hoping I’d bump into one of my crushes. Only this time, it’s the opposite. I’m trying not to bump into him. I’ve never been very good with unwanted advances from the opposite sex although luckily for me it doesn’t happen very often. I’m just hoping that I won’t see him for a few weeks and he forgets who I am, again.