15 Seconds Of Fame

FIVE

Kailani Hale

Mackenzie and I scrambled to my car to group-call Jade and Zoey, who were losing their minds at the number of subscribers we had gotten in the past few hours. For some reason, it hadn't crossed my mind to let them know about my meeting with Charlie. To be fair, Zoey wasn't the friendliest person and over the years I've been in the band, I'd conditioned myself not to talk to her too much.

"This is crazy!" Zoey squealed through the phone.

"Someone explain to me how this happened," Jade urged. I nodded at MacKenzie to repeat what I'd told her.

"Kai ran into Charlie St John last night at the café and to make a long story short, she gave him our social media handles, he checked it out, loved it and now we have over ten thousand 'Saints' following us," she explained, not taking a single breath in between clauses. Over ten thousand was almost ten thousand more than before.

"Wait a minute," Zoey huffed, "You met Charlie St John?"

"Well, yeah-"

"He was in town? Is he still here? Can we meet him?" Zoey continued to interrogate me about him, and frankly, I couldn't blame her.

"He was in the café this morning, he's probably still in town," I told her. I looked out of the window as small droplets of water began to fall against the glass.

"Do you realise what this means?"

"What?"

"More subscribers, more content. We have to make more videos," Jade explained.

"MacKenzie had the idea of doing original songs, and I stand with her on that," I chimed, looking at MacKenzie, who was fidgeting with the fringe of her skirt again.

"Original song? The arrangements for the band is going to take forever, do we have the time? We haven't posted a video in nearly a month, I say we do something quick and easy like a cover," Zoey suggested. Playing it safe was a good idea, but it wasn't a bad idea to explore more interesting alternatives that might grab the attention of morecpeople on the Internet.

"We can do both," I said when I saw MacKenzie's face change after Zoey shot down her idea," I'll work on the original arrangements with Mackenzie, Jade and Zoey, get us the sheet music for the covers, it should be easy enough."

"Alright, we shall reconvene in two days for another practice session, same time as usual at Kai's place," Zoey said in a posh accent, then hung up for dramatic effect.

"I have to go, too. I'll talk to you later," Jade said sweetly to MacKenzie before leaving the call.

"Thank you for having my back there," MacKenzie said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

"What are friends for?" Calling us friends was a leap from what I'd considered us to be before our hang out, but I was happy to be making progress with her.

Everything with Charlie had dominated my thoughts for the next few hours, demanding to be at the top of my head at all times. I couldn't help but wonder when I'd see or talk to him again. The closer we got to the band practice, I managed to clear him from my thoughts, but only because I was worried that I'd somehow messed up the arrangements and the hole in my heart that was once filled by Evan was still a fresh wound. I wondered what he was doing. Now that he didn't work at the Café or spend time with me anymore, he had plenty of time to himself after classes. I'd tried phoning him, but it killed me every time it went to voicemail and I didn't see him answering anytime soon so I gave up.

As I got ready for my next shift , I heard my phone vibrate against the desk on the other side of my room. The notification was from my personal Twitter account. I'd been getting a lot of followers and messages despite being mostly inactive. There were a considerable amount of messages from Charlie's fans asking about him as if we were friends, but I sifted through them until my eyes touched down on one that I'd missed from the day before.