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“This is your website. You are my client. This website is a representation of you, ergo me,” she insisted. “It has to look good. Not fucking beige,” she bit out, composure broken, and I had to swallow my laughter again.

“It looks good! I swear! Hey look – seriously Becka. It looks great. Thank you.”

“I don’t even know why I’m bothering,” she groaned, propping her elbows on her desk and putting her head in her hands.

My smile faded as I watched her. “Becka,” I cajoled. “Look at me. Stop rubbing your face.”

With a heavy exhale, Becka dropped her hands and stared at her phone.

“This might end up being nothing,” I said reasonably. “But you won’t know unless you try. Actually try. Think about it. You’re living with your folks, rent free. You’ve got time to figure it out.”

“What if it does end up being nothing though?” Becka asked so quietly I had to lean in to hear her.

“What if it ends up being something?” I countered.

Becka scoffed. “Says the girl who turned nothing into something.”

I laughed at the way she casually called my blog ‘nothing’, although she wasn’t wrong, exactly, because at what point did a hobby casually turn into a career? Even I had to admit that the way I’d fallen into journalism was kind of ridiculous.

“Exactly,” I said with all the authority of someone who had successfully winged it. “So pay attention and just copy me.”

Chapter 33

July 17th

Paris

Someone had clearly leaked GVibes travel plans.

Some companies did it deliberately because hype at an airport makes for great engagement, but almost no one did it for foreign travel, because the foreign press, airport security and the airport terminal itself were beyond the company’s control.

And no one was controlling this.

The airport wasn’t just a tinderbox. It was a fucking inferno.

We’d just arrived in Paris from London on a commercial flight, and even though their schedule hadn’t been announced, clearly someone had taken note of the group’s presence at Heathrow and made it public. Everyone knew the next stop on the tour was Paris. It didn’t take much deductive reasoning to figure out which airport they’d be flying into.

I’d seen some pretty intense airport situations on the tour. Masses of fans waving pickets and signs chaotically over the heads of crowds, shouting the names of their favourites. But all of those crowds had been expected. Barriers had been erected.

This was not that.

This was not a well-behaved huddle of Vibers. This was a mob of people who’d descended on Charles de Gaulle airport with barely an hour of notice.

No one was prepared. There were no cordons, and nowhere near enough security, and by the time we cleared passport control and approached the arrivals hall, we could hear the screaming.

GVibes’ security team was trying their best to hold the crowd back, but it came at them from all sides – pushing and pulling like a tide where all they could do was keep going. To stop would mean being overwhelmed.

“This is totally FUBAR,” Jackson yelled to be heard over the hysterical screams, and I still barely heard him.

The other staff and I managed to hurry through the crowd by avoiding the main crush until we made it outside to where our transport was meant to be waiting. The bus was there, crew already having their luggage stored underneath while they filed on. Jackson and I joined the queue, but while we waited for our turn, the screaming exited the terminal, encapsulating the huddle of black-clad security who had somehow managed to keep the members together.

I saw Jihoon. His eyes found mine through the shifting gaps of people as they surged around him. He held my gaze, and I searched his face for distress, but he wore that careful mask of detachment he’d always been so good at slipping on when the world treated him like a zoo animal. I hated it.

Someone bumped into me from behind, breaking my line of sight, and then he was gone.

I stumbled and nearly went down, but the crush of people kept me upright. Jackson was gone, I couldn’t see anyone I recognised. People were pushing to get on the bus, but I kept getting shoved back further and further.

“Jackson!” I yelled, trying to look over my shoulder, but it was like being in a moshpit. I was surrounded by people, and all of them seemed to be flowing in one direction.