Simply Complicated - McFly and Youtube - 1

Chapter One

Carrie

“Dougie, calm down. You Skyped YESTERDAY.”

“Shut up, Tom.” Dougie, my brother’s bandmate, was absolutely bouncing off of the walls. His (well I use the term loosely; we all loved her) best friend from Essex was coming down to visit again. They’d been friends for YEARS before the band formed. She’d been here a month ago and several times before that but never got a chance to really do anything. She was staying for three months this time, courtesy of Dougie. “I don’t think we should let Dougie drive.” Harry said, giving him a look. Everyone laughed.

“I’ll pick her up.”

“Don’t leave him with us!”

“I’m leaving him with you.” Tom got all dramatic and threw his hands up into the air and then reached for me as I made for the door. “No Carrie. You can’t do this to me!”

“Yes I can.”

“WHY CARRIE? WHY?!”

“Bye, Tom.” I shut the door behind me and unlocked Tom’s car.

One Direction was playing. I decided to be hipster. I turned the volume up to 40 and started singing the wrong words to Kiss You (I think?). I rolled my eyes at myself and carried on driving to the train station to meet Ella. The drive was boring and I suddenly wished that I’d brought my over dramatic brother with me, or at least one of the other boys.

I sat on a bench on platform three at the train station. I was sat cross legged listening to music with only one cupcake ear bud in and texting my friend, Charlie, with one hand.

Charlie: Why is a physics book always unhappy?

Carrie: Because he’s in love with a chemistry book.

Charlie: No.

Carrie: His wife left him for a biology book?

Charlie: No.

Carrie: He’s secretly an English book.

Charlie: Carrie, why?

Carrie: You asked. I answered. What about… someone drew a penis on the back cover and he can’t reach it in the shower to rub it off.

Charlie: No, Carrie, no one drew a penis on his back. Would you like the answer?

Carrie: No! No, I think I got it! He got dropped in a muddy puddle. When his pages dried, they were all crinkled and his girlfriend’s (you remember the chemistry book?) straighteners are broken.

Charlie: IT HAS A LOT OF BLOODY PROBLEMS!

Carrie: Alright, no need to use the shouty caps on me.

Charlie: There was definitely a need to use the shouty caps. Are you coming over tomorrow?

Carrie: Meanie. Yeah I think so.

I looked up from my phone when I got a tap on my shoulder. Ella was here.

Charlie: Alright. What are we doing?

Carrie: I don’t mind. I have to go. Dougie’s friend’s here.

I locked my phone and pushed it into my pocket before standing up to give Ella a hug. “How’ve you been?”

“Miserable; I’ve missed Dougie so much.”

“I know what you mean. He’s been bouncing off the walls all day. He can’t wait to see you.” Ella smiled. I took two of four bags off of her and helped her carry her things to the car.

I started the engine and turned on the radio. “You got a car then?” Ella asked me.

“It’s Tom’s.” I said with a bit of a pout. Ella laughed at me. We sang loud and off key to whatever song came onto the radio all the way home, whether we knew the song or not.

Ella

As I walked through the front door of Dougie’s house, I couldn’t help but grin. I hadn’t seen these idiots for a month, and now I was getting to stay here in London for 3 months. I don’t see why we hadn’t done it earlier; At 26, there wasn’t exactly school or parents getting in the way, and YouTube wasn’t exactly fixed into one place. I could make videos wherever I went. As I walked into the living room, everyone cheered, and I was suddenly suffocated by a mass of hair and guys aftershave.

“Jesus Dougie, we skyped YESTERDAY! It’s not like we haven’t seen each other for years.” I laughed, wrapping my arms around him and hugging back. After about five minutes of Dougie attempting to choke me, Tom pulled him away from me.

“Doug, let the girl breathe.” He said, shaking his head and pulling him back. I turned to see where Carrie had gone, and saw her struggling with my bags in the hallway. I rushed to help her, gushing several “sorry”s and “let me help you”s. Her politeness got to a certain high; She definitely should have waited for me to help her before trying to move all my bags.

After placing my last bag on my bed, me and Carrie sighed, collapsing on the rug.

“I just wanna stay here forever. Do we have to move from here? This rug is comfy…”

“Same… It’s so warm and fluffy…”

“MEOW! MAARVIN! MEOW!”

“MAAAARVIIIIN?”

“MEOOOWW?”

“Why are they looking for Marvin in Dougie’s house?” Carrie asked, confused as to why the ginger cat would be here.

“Uhhh…”

I looked at Carrie, trying to not look guilty. Suddenly, a ball of ginger fur was rubbing its face into my side. I looked over at the cat, seeing Marvin, happy as ever, nudging my side with his head. I rolled over, picking him up and standing up myself. I helped Carrie up, and we both walked slowly downstairs. When I got to the bottom, I stopped abruptly in my tracks. Danny was perched on the bottom step, on his hands and knees, holding a can of cat food. Marvin jumped out of my hands, rushing over to the open tin and stuffing his face into the contents. Tom rushed over, shouting the poor cat’s name. I swear, if he wasn’t with Gi, I’d think that Tom was in a relationship with Marvin.

Speaking of Giovanna, where was she? I hadn’t seen her since I was last here, which was when I first found out she was pregnant. As if my thoughts had some degree of telekinetic power, there was a knock on the door at that moment. Gi, Izzy and Georgia walked in, all carrying several heavy-looking shopping bags, Georgia more than the others. They all placed their shopping on the floor, and all hugged me one after the other. When it came to Gi, I noticed her bump.

“Woah! You’re huge!”

“I’m a boat!” she joked, and Tom shouted something from the living room that sounded something like, “A CUTE boat!”

She sighed in defeat, and we all walked back into the living room, Danny coaxing Marvin in with the tin of half-eaten cat food.

Me, Carrie, Tom, Gi, Dougie, Marvin and Lara somehow managed to all squish onto one three-seater sofa; Me, Tom and Lara on the bottom row, Dougie sat on me, Gi sat on Tom and Marvin curled into Lara’s lap.

We sat like that for about half an hour of boredom, before Harry finally stood up (knocking over a mug in the process) and declared;

“I’m hungry. Let’s go to a restaurant!” And so, that’s what we planned to do.

Carrie

“No, Tom, I like Dinosaurs more!” I rolled my eyes and unlocked my phone password.

Carrie: The boys are scaring me.

“Excuse me, Dougie. Whose ideas were the Dinosaur That Pooped books?”

“MINE!”

Charlie: When aren’t they scaring you?

Carrie: When I’m at home.

Charlie: Fair enough. Hey wanna hear one of my amazing science jokes?

“Oh yeah, SURE, Dougie. We ALL believe you.” Tom stuck his tongue out at Dougie. I rolled my eyes. I thought Tom was the mature one.

Carrie: Is it as amazing as the last one?

Charlie: YES!

Carrie: No thanks.

“Well you should! I’m telling the truth! I LIKE DINOSAURS MORE!”

“No, no, NO! That’s a LIE! I like them more!!!”

Charlie: What did Al Gore play on his guitar?

Carrie: I said NO THANKS. Get Your Head In The Game: High School Musical.

“I think you’ll find that I like dinosaurs more.” Danny raised his hand and joined the conversation.

Charlie: I thought we were over this film. No.

Carrie: Busted. She Wants to Be Me.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP; WE ALL LIKE DINOSAURS EQUALLY!”

“Yeah, but some more equally than others…”

“YOU STOLE THAT FROM ANIMAL FARM!”

Charlie: Stop being so full of yourself, Carrie. No.

“Shut up, Dougie, I like them more.”

Carrie: Says the one who prides himself on sharing a name with Charlie Simpson. Still Not Ginger?

“What happened to the equality thing?”

Charlie: Well, actually, Carrie, MY HAIR WAS BRIGHT RED. No. Not that one.

“I THREW IT OUT OF THE BLOODY WINDOW AND IT GOT HIT BY A CAR!” I slammed my hands on the coffee table. My little outburst got the attention of everyone in the room. I sat back down again and went back to texting Charlie.

Carrie: Darling, I Do. BriBry.

Charlie: Carrie it’s OBVIOUSLY an algorithm.

Carrie: Yes, Charlie. Obviously.

Everyone was staring at me. “What?”

“You.” Danny said.

“What about me?”

“You shouted.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Charlie: Well it was obvious to me…

Carrie: That’s because you’re a nerd.

Charlie: NERD FIGHTERS UNITED!

Carrie: I don’t even know with you anymore.

It got to about four before we (we being us girls) decided it was time to get ready for the meal out tonight. We’d need about two hours to get showered, choose outfits, dry our hair, make our hair look good, do our makeup, get dressed in the outfits we’d chosen and force stupidly tight shoes onto our feet. “I’ve got some dresses upstairs. It’ll save us from going home. And Gi and Georgia, you both bought dresses anyway, didn’t you?” Lara said.

“Yeah, I did. How else am I going to go out at night with this?” Giovana said, pointing to her whaled baby belly. We all laughed and Tom rolled his eyes. He came up behind her and kissed her neck and said, “That baby bump is gorgeous.”

“Yeah! It’s sexy!” Dougie shouted.

“Watch it!” Tom and Lara shouted back at him. I rolled my eyes.

“Okay so we all agree that Gi has a lovely baby bump. We only have an hour and 45 minutes left to get ready, though.”

“Crap. Dougie only has one shower.” Gi said.

“Does he?” Lara asked. I face palmed.

“YOU LIVE WITH HIM!”

“Oops…”

“Yeah, oops.” I rolled my eyes and laughed at her. I went to the top of the stairs and shouted to Dougie, “Doug, you only have one shower. What do we do?”

“Don’t make too much noise, girls!”

“DOUGIE!” Tom came to the bottom of the stairs.

“Hiya, Tom.”

“Ello. I came to give you a solution that doesn’t involve sex and keeps Gi with me at my house.”

“Proceed.”

“Gi, Izzy and Georgia can come back to mine and get ready.”

“Why Izzy and Georgia?”

“Lara and Ella will want to stay here and I’m never letting you into my house. Ever. Again.”

“Okay, come on, it was ONE TIME.”

“You chased Marvin up the stairs and I couldn’t get him out from under my bed for over a day.”

“I didn’t know he had a phobia of the Ghost Busters!” Tom rolled his eyes.

“You only have an hour and fifteen minutes left.” I ran back to Lara’s room to share Tom’s solution to the shower problem. Izzy and Georgia grabbed their things and went home with Giovana to get ready.

I was wearing a dark navy blue dress with peachy coloured flowers. Lara had bought it, thinking she’d find use for it at some point but never had. She told me I could keep it. I decided to keep in mind to give her a £50 note the next time I could afford to. My hair was an uncontrollable mess, as always, even after the masses of product I had to dump into it to make it look semi decent. I had minimal mascara on and lipgloss, deciding against the red lipstick that Lara had worn with her blue dress. We tried to convince Ella to wear a bit of makeup but she highly offended Lara by flipping her off. Ella had on a red dress with black flats. Lara was lending her a black leather jacket because she hadn’t actually packed anything that would go with this particular dress to keep her from freezing to death.

I pulled out my phone as we were all getting ready to leave.

Carrie: We’re on our way to get you now. We’ll be about ten minutes.

Charlie: BUT I HAVEN’T HAD ANY TEA YET

Carrie: Charlie, honey, tea does not take ten minutes to make and drink. If needs be, you can drink it in the car.

Charlie: Fine. See you soon.

I looked up from my phone and everyone was already arguing.

“No I get the front seat.”

“Uhm, no. Gi gets the front seat.”

“But, why?” Dougie whined. He really did act like a four year old sometimes.

“Shotgun has the biggest airbag.”

“Uhm, Tom? Did you just say something about someone’s tits?” Dougie asked, trying (and failing) to be polite.

“No! I was trying to make my nerdy fact about airbags in the front seat of cars sound cool…”

“Well you failed miserably.” I piped in. “Gi gets the front seat on the way there. Dougie can have it on the way back. Everybody’s happy.”

“Except me.”

“Tom, you don’t count.”

We split into a group of seven and a group of five. Tom was driving the seven seater and Danny was driving his five seater. Danny and Georgia were sitting in the front and I was in the back on my own until we picked up Charlie, which wasn’t going to be for another ten minutes. Danny started the car and Georgia started playing with the fingers on his left hand. The car was an automatic, so it wasn’t as if he particularly needed it. They started talking about something to do with their house and coffee tables so I pulled out my phone.

Carrie: Danny and Georgia are being soppy.

Charlie: Shush, Carrie. I’m making tea.

Carrie: Fine then, grumpy. I’ll see you soon.

I had to endure the soppiness of Georgia kissing Danny’s fingers every five seconds for the next ten minutes all because of Charlie and his bloody tea.

I knocked on the door. Four times.

Carrie: Charlie. Open the door.

Charlie came to the door, his shirt half tucked in and neither of the two buttons done up. He had a tooth brush shoved into his mouth and his hair was out of place. I sent a look to Danny, who laughed. Georgia rolled her eyes. I held up one finger to say that I’d be a minute. I stepped into the house and shut the door behind me. “Charlie, would you like some help?” He nodded. I brushed his hair to the left a little bit so it looked semi decent and did up his buttons. “Did you leave yourself like two minutes to get ready or something?” I said, indicating to the damp hair and the mess he’d made of himself. Charlie mumbled, “Yes,” around his toothbrush.

“Well done.” I said, untucking his green t-shirt. I removed the toothbrush from his mouth and set it down on the kitchen sink. I did up one of the two buttons and patted his chest. “You’re a grown man, Charlie.” He grinned at me.

Charlie locked the door behind us and we got into the car. “Oh, you were in there a while, young lady. Enough time for a quickie, I’d say.” I gave him a certain look and he laughed. Georgia rolled her eyes and grabbed Danny’s hand again the second he started the car and placed his hand on his leg. The restaurant was a twenty minute drive from here, but at least I now had Charlie.

Ella

Getting out of the car was a bit of a mess. When I opened my door, Dougie decided he would fling himself out of the car. While I was still inside. Dougie ended up face-first in a muddy puddle, and me and Lara had to help him up.

“26 years and you still don’t know how to get out of a car properly. Douglas Lee Poynter, are you ever going to learn?” I laughed as Lara reprimanded Dougie, dabbing at his sopping face with a tissue from her bag. I watched as the other car pulled up, and Charlie, Carrie, Danny and Georgia got out. I still couldn’t help but roll my eyes at Georgia’s outfit- An expensive designer dress with several diamond accessories. The money, undoubtedly, had come straight from Danny’s pocket.

I shot Carrie a look as if to say “Is she really wearing THAT?”, and she mouthed a very exaggerated ‘I KNOW’.

We all walked into the restaurant together, Charlie and Carrie arguing over jokes (what?), Lara trying to calm Dougie down, Tom trying to mollycoddle Gi, and Danny, Georgia, Harry and Izzy being normal couples. I was stood in the midst of it, and considered taking out my camera and filming the experience. Needless to say, I did, which started a vlogging debacle, by which I mean that Carrie and Charlie both also started vlogging next to me. Tom started to look very sad, to which we all shot him several “aww”s and “What’s wrong?”s. After a we had sat down at a long table, Tom finally spoke up. “I forgot my camera!” He whined, resting his head on his hands like a grumpy toddler. Me and Carrie laughed at him while he tried to ask Gi for her phone. “Why do you want MY phone, Tom?”

“So I can record from it!”

“You have your phone, don’t you?”

“I don’t wanna waste the battery…”

“But wasting mine is completely fine?”

“Uhm…”

“Exactly. Pick a meal.”

After Tom admitted defeat, I noticed that Dougie was holding a children’s menu, rather than an adult one. “You alright there, Doug?” I asked, trying to sound as concerned as possible without laughing. “I’m going to show them that I love Dinosaurs more than them. I’m ordering the turkey dinosaurs!” he declared, puffing out his chest as if to look mightier-than-thou. We all laughed at him except Tom, who had to start the argument again, by saying, “If you ate them, they’d die! You obviously don’t like Dinosaurs at all!” We all rolled our eyes, choosing a meal from the menus while the two fully-grown boys squabbled like fighting children. Even the subject was similar.

The waiter walked over, and asked us all what we wanted. Dougie, being a smart child from the island of intelligence, started yelling profanity at the top of his lungs. With it being about 6pm in a fancy restaurant, I don’t think it went down too well.

“PENIS!”

“Dougie! Shh! People are STARING!”

“FUUUCK!”

“DOUGIE!”

“PHIL TOPS!”

“NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR PHAN OBSESSION DOUGIE! SHHH!”

“I RAPED A MONKEY!”

“Douglas Lee Poynter shut up right now or I will CALL YOUR MOTHER!”

“NO SHIT FUCK DON’T CALL MY MUM I’LL STOP”

“Thank you.”

I smirked as Dougie sat back in his chair, evidently admitting defeat. My joy didn’t last long, however, as seconds later the waiter from earlier was walking over to our table. Everyone glared at Dougie, and he looked back at us with wide, innocent eyes. Unfortunately, it didn’t work so well on the waiter.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

“What? Why?”

“Because of the screaming and childish behaviour coming from your table, we have received copious amounts of complaints. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had scarred several children, too. So please, just leave.” Everyone else started to stand, when I stopped them.“Wait. If we agree that these two,” I said, gesturing to Tom and Dougie, who had been making the majority of the noise, “Cannot talk unless in a whisper for the rest of the duration of our meal. That way, we get our meal, you get your custom, and your other customers aren’t bothered by us.”

He seemed to contemplate this, before finally he sighed and gestured for us to go ahead.

We all quietly revelled in the success, while trying to wait for our meals as quietly as possible. When they finally came around, Dougie and Tom had already decided between themselves to sit with their arms folded and a finger on their lips- just like primary school children. Lara and Gi were having an in-depth conversation about shoes, Carrie and Charlie were ending their respective vlogs (I had ended mine shortly after the whole waiter debacle), and once again, the only normal people left were the Judds and Joneses.