THE SECRETS WE KEEP.

- GIVE AND TAKE.

JOES POV:
With my uber pulling outside of the quaint, yet bustling, practise hall the reminder of Dianne's daily words resurfaced in my mind - this was the dreaded Thursday practise. From the beginning of the week this day had become the talk of the town, with almost every professional in a mile radius ranting over its importantance for showing improvement. And Dianne, she was no different. If there was any mistakes the topic would be brought back around to our missing of a vital day of practise. However, even if the repetitive conversation of it was draining my energy for the experience, it was obvious that this must mean a lot to not only Dianne but for the whole group of celebs and pros. Even after years of watching along with my nan, the two group numbers never rang a bell in my head that they might happen soon. Seeing all the celebs every week with their pros I had always thought this would have been easy, I mean all you are doing is dancing. Yet, every week was beginning to get every more difficult to remember the routine to a certain standard. And now, with the glooming rain cloud over my head of remembering this, the thought of messing up even one step worsened by a thousand.

While my driver rushed off for his next pickup, my next destination had already been carefully planned out with the help of Dianne. By the side of the building lay an alley, shaded of course by greenery and other various plants which hid away the residents from any human sighting, a lane frequented by hidden Strictly lovers needing a moment of peace before the reality would hit them. Diannes previous knowledge of this shocked me truly, but all I could do was trust her word for that no person could spot you from that angle. To her, and some others, my actions may come across as insane or too precautionary, but it can just take one click to ruin everything not just for me, but for Dianne's career and reputation. We both knew, no matter how much it was killing us to admit it, that once we step foot inside that building, we would have to act like we were just dance partners, with no intimate contact or showing any signs of attraction to one another. Even if it was hard, all of this would be worth it when it is all over.

And there she stood, looking as beautiful as ever on an early start, the girl I had grown so fond of in such a short space of time. A cheeky grin was plastered across her lips as she read across her phone screen, her dangling strands of red falling down the sides of her face to frame her chin almost perfectly. She had clearly noticed my creepy staring, as her arms were now slid around my torso with her head lay rested sideways against my chest. "Hey.." A quiet mumble came from the head on my chest, half her face nuzzled into the checkered material of my shirt. "Hello you.." I slightly leant down to place a gentle kiss onto her cheek, only resulting in her face being pushed deeper into my chest, where she was almost getting underneath my shirt to hide her noticeable blush.

Since our relationship was beginning to take a serious turn an agreement was put in place that no matter how hard it would be, anywhere a camera could see us, we would have to show our relationship as purely professional. This would mean not just outside areas, it would include any space that was not just ourselves. And with my growing closeness everyday to my fellow competitors, having to hide this amazing, unexpected thing from them was as hard as it would get. I closed over my eyes, hoping to savour these last few moments of her in my arms, where we remained in close position for longer than we should. The dreaded lift of Dianne's head and her shuffle to be released from my grip, along with her mumbled "I guess I better go.." made me want to hold onto her for even longer. Yet I remained silent, only placing a gentle kiss onto the top of her head and letting her slip free of my hands. "Bye Joe.." With the sadness evident in her eyes when she gave me a final peck on the lips, she slithered away from our spot back to the carpark, where it would appear as if she had just shown up.

Without the little body of Dianne snuggled into my side to provide me with comfort as well as heat, the freezing cold of a usual November day blew through me to the point of the hairs on my neck standing up. It was a joy to feel the heat radiating from all sides of the room when I entered the training building. It was not hard to know where to go next; without direction, you would know to follow the echo of omnious battle scene music from every Sci-Fi movie known to man. It's clear that every week an unbelievable amount of blood, sweat and tears goes into every routine for a Saturday night, with the pros showing off the carefully planned choreography. For me, it is not only the dancing that sells the effort, it is how they portray this through the set design and makeup and costumes. Maybe for me as a non-dancer, my eyes are drawn to the atmosphere around them to make it feel almost real.