Pretend It's Okay

3 - First shoot

It was another early morning for Jade. Her alarm activated at five am to wake her up in time for the long drive. Today was the long awaited day to progress Jade's solo career.

Her first music video was being filmed in the other side of London today, having closed off a couple of roads for a few hours. The label had organised that knowing they couldn't prevent the public taking photos, but they didn't want anyone jumping into the video.

Jade was a bit surprised when she was told this. She wasn't an established solo artist but they had the power to close roads. It had been so difficult getting approval for this in the Power music video.

Snippets of the single had already been released as an audio clip so the fans already knew the vibe of the song. It was what they expected and this is exactly what Jade was going for. She didn't want to confuse anyone with the direction she was taking her album and wanted to retain as many Little Mix fans as possible.

Jade had never been the best in the morning, becoming as difficult as Perrie to wake up over the years if not even more difficult. No one quite knew why, assuming Jade was tired out by their busy schedule whereas anxiety around the schedule made it harder for Perrie to sleep.

Knowing this about Jade, she wasn't surprised when Zack called her. Jade had made it out of bed and had just gotten dressed, now preparing to tame her thick curly hair. It just needed to look presentable until Aaron could properly style it for the shoot.

"Hi babe. Are you up? It's quarter past five." Zack asked, and Jade could hear traffic in the background. He was already on his way, having left early to meet up with Jamie and make sure they had everything.

"Yeah I'm up. Who's idea was it to start so fucking early?" Jade complained, putting Zack on speaker so she could brush her hair. She really wasn't a morning person and had been busy the night before having pictures taken for more promotion.

"Nathan." was all Zack said. Nathan was the video director so he had the final say in most things. Jade had creative control to make the video what she wanted it to be but Nathan was the one who knew what he was doing to make the video look the best. He was very popular in the industry and worked on very tight timings so Jade knew to respect these.

Grumbling quietly at the frustration of dealing with her hair whilst half asleep, Jade managed to get it near enough to tie up out of the way and threw a cap on. Zack was audibly laughing down the line and this relaxed Jade a bit.

Everyone there was her friend and they were all there to make her look good. It just hurt that her absolute best friends weren't going to be there. The other Little Mix girls always made the video shoots more enjoyable, Leigh often doing silly skits and dares that made them all laugh whilst Perrie kept spirits high with her constant happiness.

Jade really wanted to have the girls in a music video with her again but her management had shut down that idea very quickly. It wouldn't look good on her if she had her former band mates in her first solo video and had vetoed the idea for quite possibly the entire first album.

"I'll let you go. The car will be outside in fifteen minutes. Make sure you eat something before leaving." Zack reminded Jade as with her thoughts being preoccupied with the day ahead she was more likely to forget about food.

"Okay. Bye." Jade replied and hung up. She didn't have a huge amount in as she hadn't been shopping for a few days so ended up making some toast and ate it whilst packing her bag for the day. Mimi followed her around hoping to steal any dropped food but there wasn't anything. Holly was coming over to check on Mimi during the day and Jade would hopefully be back around dinner time.

Once her shoes were on Jade crouched down to say goodbye to Mimi. The dog had been a constant in her life after the break up and Jade found herself often worrying about leaving Mimi alone.