Hey Stranger || Jerrie

Chapter 9

Jade loved traveling by private plane. Not just for the obvious amenities such as the lack of crying children and the extra plush, spacious seating, but also because she was able to get work done while on the plane. And for Jade, that meant working on the song she'd started the previous week before with Perrie. She knew she should probably catch up on sleep, but she wanted to get the song perfect before meeting Perrie face to face for the first time. She knew she may have been pulling rank when she told Karl and her tour mates that she would be using her guitar on the plane, but she made it up to them by providing them each with their own pair of personalized Beats. Jade didn't give flashy gifts often, she thought it was show-offy, but she figures this was a good exception.

After sending a text off to Perrie, Jade quickly checked her email, looking through an agenda of upcoming media appearances between shows that Karl had sent her. She was just about to turn her phone off, knowing the plane was about to start moving, when she received a text from an unknown number.

Unknown Number: It’s Leigh-Anne. I know who you are. I haven’t told Perrie yet, but only because she’s asleep. So you have until she wakes up to convince me to keep quiet. And I’m just warning you, I’m stubborn and don’t change my mind easily.

"s**t, s**t, s**t," she muttered under her breath, running a hand through her hair.

Karl had obviously seen Jade’s distress out of the corner of his eye across the aisle and removed his headphones. He gave Jade a quizzical look and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Leigh-Anne, Perrie’s roommate figured it out. She knows who I am," Jade spoke quickly, her breathing coming faster.

Jade’s cousin and manager to her credit managed to contain his eye roll, he'd been the one who'd wanted Jade to be upfront with Perrie from the beginning. "Has she told Perrie?" Karl asked.

Jade shook her head, staring at the phone in her hands as if it was explosive counting down, reading to explode without a moments notice. "Not yet."

"Jade, breathe," Karl unbundled his belt and knelt down in front of his younger cousin. He placed his hands on top of Jade’s, steadying them. "Before you do anything, breathe." He took a deep breath and gestured for Jade to imitate him. Before Perrie, Karl had been the one who would help Jade through her panic attacks. After all, he was the only one who knew the truth behind them and why they started. After Jade took a minute to calm down, Karl continued, "Now what you're going to do is call Leigh-Anne. You're politely going to ask her not to tell Perrie and reassure her that you will tell Perrie."

Jade nodded and with shaking fingers she dialed the unknown number. It wasn't that she didn't want Perrie to know, it was just that she was afraid if she wasn't the one to tell her, she would lose her.

Leigh-Anne picked up on the third ring, but before Jade could even say anything, Leigh’s angry voice rang through, "You have exactly three minutes.”

Jade felt oddly calm in that moment, because she realized there was only one answer to Leigh-Anne’s insistence. "I l..." she began, only to be immediately cut off by Perrie’s irate friend.

"Actually, I changed my mind. I'm talking first. For starters, what the f**k? Are you filming an episode of Punk'd or something? Is Ashton Kutcher going to show up at Perrie’s so-called date with you and break her heart? Do you think that's funny? Because I don't."

Leigh-Anne took a pause to catch her breath and Jade took that as an opportunity to interject, "No!" She insisted, "I'm not cat-fishing her, or whatever. It's real, it's all been real."

Leigh-Anne obviously hadn't expected that answer and it took her a moment to recover with a new plan of attack. "It's obviously not all been real since you've been lying to her about who you are."

"I, I haven't been lying. At least not entirely," Jade stumbled over her words. "Only lying by omission."

"That's just as bad in my book," Leigh retorted. "She cares about you and you're just some celebrity who's having her fun with some average girl on the side so that she doesn't have to deal with paparazzi."

"That's not true," Jade spat back, realizing she sounded like a child throwing a tantrum. But Leigh-Anne was right, or partially right at the very least. A big part of why she loved her relationship with Perrie was because it was hers and hers alone. That wasn't all of it though. "Maybe you're right," she sighed in to the phone.

"What?" Leigh-Anne hadn't expected Jade to give in, let alone sound so dejected about it.

"My relationship with Perrie, whatever it is, is untainted by the life I live," Jade explained. She became aware of the fact that Karl was still sitting with her, a reassuring hand on her knee. "With Perrie I don't have to worry about her intentions. I don't have to wonder if she only pretends to care about me, or if she just tolerates me for what I can do for her. What I can do for her status. She doesn't force me to show her and our relationship off to the world to show that I care. I know we're not in a relationship, and honestly I don't know what we are. But I know what we have, and that's trust. Which, yes, I understand the irony of saying that in this situation, but I trust that she cares for me and she trusts that I care for her. And to me, that matters more than the omission of my full name and my career."

"s**t," came the mumbled voice on the other end of the line.

Several long moments of silence passed before Jade finally gave a voice to her concern, "Leigh-Anne, are you still there?"

"For the record you're not on my list anymore," she responded.

"What?"

"The list of celebrities I'd sleep with."

"Okay?" Jade spoke, confused. She wasn't sure where Leigh-Anne was heading with that.

"So you're obviously new at the list thing, since you're a celebrity yourself, but you can't have anyone you'd realistically meet on your list. It defeats the purpose."

"Right."

"So you can't be on my list for several reasons. The first being the fact that we're talking and we're going to be meeting each other next weekend.," Leigh-Anne explained.

"And the second?" Jade asked, trying not to get too excited about the fact that Leigh-Anne was talking about their standing plans as if they were still a sure thing.

"The second is that you're basically already dating my best friend, and while I can't predict the future, it's against girl code to bang your best friend's girlfriend."

Jade inhaled sharply. She wasn't someone who liked to dance around a fact, so she was getting slightly irritated at Leigh-Anne’s antics. She just wanted to know if Leigh-Anne was going to tell on her or not. "What exactly are you saying Leigh-Anne?" She finally asked.

"I'm not going to tell Perrie," Leigh assured her, but after hearing Jade sigh in relief, she added a stipulation, "But you will be telling her. I'm assuming you were planning to tell her at your concert, but I will now be helping you with that. Nobody knows Perrie better than I do, even if Jesy insists she does, and I know what would freak her out and what she would appreciate. So I'm going to help you plan it."

A soft smile spread across Jade’s face as she listened to Leigh-Anne. Even she had to admit that Leigh-Anne could be of great assistance to her. "Deal," she nodded in to the phone.

"After Zayn, Perrie deserves the world, so it's going to be perfect."

"I know," Jade agreed. The co-pilot stuck his head out from behind the cockpit door and explained they were next in line for takeoff. "Hey Leigh-Anne, can we finish talking about this tomorrow? My flight is about to take off."

"Yeah," Leigh responded. Before either woman hung up, Leigh-Anne added, "Oh! One more thing!"

"Yes?"

"You and Perrie are both so goddamn whipped," she laughed before adding, "Bye Jade."

Jade let out a laugh and shook her head as she hung up. "It's going to be okay," she smiled at Karl, who gave her a thumbs up before heading back to his seat.

Before she turned off her phone, she decided to send off a tweet.

@AmeliaThirlwall: A new friend can come in the most surprising ways #ThankYouLA

After her phone was off and stowed away, she got back to working on her song, a new line in the second verse already repeating itself in her head.