Wot you sayin'?

Fit as a Fiddle

"Hey Darryl?" I went to the medic man who was definitely my best friend of the staff at Strictly. Dianne didn't count. Dianne was my love. Besides, technically she was a cast member, I should say.

Darryl was talking to Chloe, one of the runners. They were having lunch together. "Hi Joe. How are you doing?"

"Oh no, don't worry about that, you're having lunch, so I can talk to you later."

He must have seen the serious look on my face, so he turned to Chloe and she said she'll scamper off. "I'm OK, thanks. I'm just concerned about Dianne. She's been quite dizzy and fainted once this week. She's been a little lethargic ever since."

"Where is she now?"

"In my dressing room," I said, blushing. "She's taking a nap." The corner of his mouth twitched a little bit, probably in response to my embarrassment. He maintained his professional approach despite the hilarity of the situation though. Darryl knew fairly early on when we started to fancy each other, but he was one of the few who didn't tease us about it, unlike Captains Neil and Stacey. You could see in his eyes that he knew something was going on, especially when Dianne and I were doing the American smooth, but was too professional to outright say it. "Is there anything I can actually do?"

"Just leave her to rest when she can. She'll be fit as a fiddle, I'm sure of it. She doesn't really have to do too much in your salsa, does she?"

"No, but she has got quite a big part in the pro's group dance. She actually gets married." Darryl laughed. "I don't know how to feel about that."

"How do you feel about your dance this week?"

"Shitting myself."

"Not literally I hope. Oh, excuse me." The conversation took a less serious turn, so he held up his sandwich and ate it.

"No, that was last week... Does puking count?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Honestly, those lifts are just like being on a rollercoaster ride. In one of the tech runs, one of them went horribly wrong. But luckily I'm not scared of heights."

"Gives you a newfound sense of respect for the girls being lifted, doesn't it?"

"Definitely. I mean I respect them anyway, but it's times like this, occasions like this, where I respect them on a whole new level."

"I think you're going to do really well with this one. Are you enjoying it?"

"Massively. I'm actually smiling all the way through it without being prompted. It's so much fun, even with those lifts." I gestured to his sandwich and said, "On that note, I'm going to leave you alone to eat your lunch whilst I take a nervous dump."

"Lovely." He didn't even sound disgusted. "Enjoy."

"Cheers. Thanks for the pep talk. I'll let you know if anything else crops up." He knew he could count on me to do that.