Forced | cake au ✓

Chapter ONE

Edited - 8/25/18

Calum

Patricia was sat on her desk in front of us, face buried in her hands in a clear sign of distress. Since we've arrived in her office, she hasn't spoken a word. The three of us were beginning to worry.

Finally, she lifted her head then stared directly at me.

"I'm assuming you know why I asked you boys to meet me here immediately." That had me fidgeting nervously. I couldn't help but stare down at my lap as I nodded, hearing my bandmates mumble their answers.

"Calum, would you mind telling me what you think you did wrong?" Patricia asked. Her voice was calm, even though I'm pretty sure she's about to burst in fury any minute now.

"W-Was it the tweet?"

"Yes, Calum. It. Was. The. Damn. Tweet!" She almost growled, standing up and slamming her palms down on her desk.

"I'm really sorry about that." My voice was losing confidence.

"Do you know what a huge problem this is?" Patricia began pacing around the length of her office. She was a mixture of desperation and annoyance, using her hands to gesture as she spoke. "Journalists are having a field day writing hate articles, your fans have began feuds against one another—all this and you've just released your album last week! For a band that has your popularity, I'm sorry to say but it seems that even your sales have been affected."

"Patricia, Cal didn't mean to tweet it." Michael spoke up from beside me.

"Yeah, he was drunk. It was a mistake." My other bandmate, Ashton, piled on. I was situated between the two, feeling worse by the minute.

"And how many times have I told you boys not to tweet while you were hammered? I would take your stupid dirty tweets over this."

"I'm really sorry, Patricia." I mumbled, not knowing what else to say. It was really my fault for posting that stupid tweet, of course people would take it the wrong way. I was drunk beyond belief. I didn't even fully realize what it was I tweeted until the following day.

"I know you're sorry, Calum. I also know you didn't mean to say what others think you meant. But no matter how sorry you are, it still caused a big problem, your band has already been getting a bad image."

The olive-skinned woman leaned back on her chair, twiddling her thumbs with a worried expression morphing her face. I'm glad Patricia knew I wasn't actually what the articles were calling me, but I knew how an issue like this could ruin musicians likes me. To say that I was concerned about what might happen to my band was the understatement of the year.

"Is there anyway to fix it?" Ashton asked as he tried not to show how worried he actually was, but I knew better. Michael was even chewing on his bottom lip. They both forgave me for what I did, though it was obvious they were bummed about what the media's been saying about it.

"Deleting your tweet didn't work, obviously it didn't. What we need is a plan to turn all this bad publicity into a good one." Patricia tapped her polished nails on the arm rest of her leather chair. Silence settled around the room, but the look of concentration on her face made it seem like you could hear the gears turn in her head.

It didn't take too long until her eyes widened and a smile overtook her lips. "I think I just thought of something that could work."

"Really?" It was ridiculous how in-sync the three of us were sometimes. It didn't even seem to phase Patricia anymore.