Two Kinds of Fame

Chapter 2 - The Promise

"Maddie, uh may I call you that?", he asked while stretching the back of his head, sounding a bit insecure and nervous while he spoke. "Yes, of course. All my friends call me Maddie", I reassured him while sending him a warm smile.
"Uhh Maddie, you have quite the carreer built up, but how old are you?", he looked me intensly in the eyes, a nervous shine peaking through his hazelnut coloured ones.
Eventhough, we had just met a few hours ago, there was a clear chemistry in the air. It was so easy to talk to Daniel, I don't even have the words to describe. But I knew nothing, could ever happen between us, I was still a minor and Daniel was already 25 years old.
"Uh... I'm 17.", I sighed as I broke our stare and suddenly the ground seemed the most intersting thing in the entire world.

"Oh...", my sudden confession seemed to have left him startled and no other words were coming out of his mouth. His eyes refused to meet mine as he stared at the horizon, where the sun was setting. The view was absolutely breathtaking and I didn't have the courage to break our silence, so I simply enjoyed the view.

"You know I was hopping you'd say you're 19, 20, 21 or hell even 18, but 17 damn...", he sighed as he simultaniously laughed at the situation. He let himself fall onto his back, which smoothly met the green and bushy grass. I mimicked his actions and stared at the sky before turning my head in his direction.
"May I ask why you are so interested in my age all of the sudden?", I asked while facing him with a small smile playing on my face.
"Nothing, just curious", he still refused to meet my eyes and kept staring at the sky, which portrayed a beautiful mix of pink, yellow and orange colours. We fell into a comfortable silence and I took this opportunity to grab my phone and recorded a video to post in my story taking in the beautiful scenario in front of me. While I was doing so, Daniel started laughing, which only made me laugh too.

"What?", I asked in between breaths, as I stared at him puzzled.
"Ohh you're such a girl, of course you were going to post something on your stories", he teased me while mimicking my concentrated face, which was trying to get the most insta-worthy shot I could.

"Well, it's part of my job too, you know? Being active on social media and all. It pays quite well", I stated in matter of facts.
" Oh I know trust me", he laughed mischeviously and snapped my phone from my hands, typing his username on the searchbox. No surprise there, I already followed him, duhhh. "Oh come on, were you really expecting me to not be following you. I'm an F1 fan okay?", I took my phone from him and quickly searched my name on his following list. "Oh but look, you do not follow me!", I stuck out my tongue to him, while laughing like a little child.
"Excuse me if I do not know every Disney Channel actress there is. I haven't watched that channel in quite some time you know. But I can fix that quite quickly. Will just take me one minute to fix my unforgivable lack of knowledge of Disney's biggest star, who goes by the name of Madison Mendes", he took his phone from his back pocket and quickly entered Instagram following me. Simultaniously, he took this as an opportunity to take a shot from the sky and post it to his story. "Pfff, who's the girl now?", I rolled my eyes, not having stopped laughing during our entire exchange.
"You know, it's part of my job too?", he wiggled his eyebrows, provoking me.
"Ohhh that's low Ricciardo, using my own words against me. And actually your job is to drive really fast cars around in circles. I'm sorry to disappoint you"
"Then your job is to pretend to be other people if we want to take it in the literal sense! Such a goofball you are."

Suddenly, my phone started to ring and the screen lit up with the letter G hovering on top of a picture of me and J hugging. You know back in the time when everything was okay and not extremely messed up.

"Shit", I cursed under my breath, not picking up my phone yet.
"Guess your boyfriend is calling", he half-joked, half-talked seriously. I could see him staring at my screen and I simly side-eyed him and simply answered with a "he's not my boyfriend", not wanting to justify any further mine and G's envolvement.

I picked myself up and walked about two meters away from Daniel before answering the call. "Hello G, what is going on?"
"I just saw your story... Who is the guy laughing in it?", I rolled my eyes, first at his question, second because he was clearly drunk.
"Jack, we've been through this, we are NOT dating anymore, I don't have to explain anything to you.", I talked firmly. "Have you been drinking?", I already knew the answer to this but I had to ask anyway.
"Baby, I miss you so fucking much and now I'm seeing all over your fan pages that you're with this driver guy somewhere in the fucking UK."
" What the fuck, Jack. No just shut up! You lost me when you were unable to control yourself. It was me or the alcohol", at this point, I didn't even realize I was shouting as Daniel approached me, signaling me to calm myself down. I simply mouthed him a "sorry", as Jack rambled on the other side of the line how hard it has been for him ever since we broke up. I decided to interrupt his sorry-ass and quickly hung up the call, not wanting to take more of his bullshit. I was so done with him making up excuses for not being able to control himself, I offered him all the help I could.
After hanging up, I exhaled deeply and let out a frustrated sigh. Daniel was standing right behind me as I turned myself around only to be facing him. We looked each other in the eyes and simply said nothing as he embraced me. It felt right to be in his arms. How could this feel so right and so wrong at the same time?
We broke our embrace but didn't distante ourselves. However, I couldn't look him in the eyes and once again the grass seemed like the most intersting thing ever. He pulled my chin up forcing me to look up at him. "Wanna talk about it?"
"Not really to be quite honest.", he simply nodded his head and we fell into a comfortable silence, only to be interrupted by my phone once again, which signaled me I had a new message.

MUMS: Maddie, time to go. Meet at the entrance.

"Uhm, I guess I have to go", I informed him, still not being able to completely look him straight in the eyes.
"Oh already?", he sounded disappointed. "I was having fun with you, now I've gotta go back there and make small talk to continue impressing Red Bull and how do you say it: Oh yeah keep my job.", only him to make me laugh after the call I just had.
"Yeah early flight tomorrow, gotta be on set on monday."
He didn't respond, he simply grabbed my hand and pulled me farther away from the house to where we couldn't be seen. Before giving me any time to process, his hands were on my waist pulling me closer to him. This was the moment he kissed me for the first time. Before I knew it, we were breaking our embrace, panting for air. I was in complete shock and out of words. Daniel didn't say anything either, he just took my phone and entered his number. "Here", he handed me my phone back. "I hope we'll meet again soon, Maddie." And with that I simply left and went to my hotel, only to catch a flight the next morning back to my home in LA.