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Jealous definitely isn’t an adjective he’d use to describe himself. He tries not to be the least bit jealous, but when he flicks down the screen, refreshing his newsfeed once again, and sees them bickering back and forth, he can’t help but feel the jealousy flow through him.
He doesn’t know why the two of them are ignoring him like this.
By telling James he’s finally using his twitter, he thinks he’s solved the problem. James even tweets about it, and they joke within replies as he packs for Botswana. He waits for them to follow back. They never do.
He verifies his account, thinking the blue checkmark will change everything.
It doesn’t.
The nights in Botswana are cold and quiet. The complete opposite of the warm ones he spent there with Jeremy and James. It takes him a while to fall asleep, cocooned in his sleeping bag, layers of clothing fighting to keep away the chill. His mind wanders and he wonders what he’s done to upset the two of them.
He can’t think of anything.
He tries to get their attention with replies that he knows they’ll laugh at. When Jeremy posts the picture of the modified Mini, he knows that if he makes a joke at James’s expense, it’ll be laughter all around.
But it’s never seen.
He wonders if he’s missed something along the way. Has something happened while he’s been away?
He searches for clues in his downtime: when they can’t find the elephants, while he’s waiting for the bucket to fill up for his ‘shower,’ and as his body tries to stop shivering at night.
It doesn’t take him long to reach the tweet.
James May and I have decided we are not going to follow Richard Hammond
When was this decided? Why? What had he done for them to make this decision?
He can’t exactly ask them. How do you bring that up in conversation without seeming like a narcissistic twat?
The camaraderie between Jeremy and James in their tweets is undeniable. They always say that they hate each other, but everyone knows that they’re best mates. He sees that within their replies to each other.
But why doesn’t he fit into this equation all of a sudden?
He thinks it can’t get any worse. But then he sees Jeremy’s latest tweet about filming and although he won’t admit it, his heart breaks a little.
Not all top gear items feature Hammond. We can manage without him this evening.
Of course he was aware of the start of filming. Jeremy had been anxious to begin for weeks; he’d been carbon copied on all the emails from Andy. As far as he knew, James wasn’t needed for that evening’s filming either. It was just going to be Clarkson being Clarkson with a supercar. With probably too many power slides and Andy shaking his head as Jeremy got back into his filming groove.
When someone tweets him and asks if it bothers him that they don’t follow him, he feigns ignorance. Deep down it worries him that something is obviously going on back at home that he’s not aware of. Is he not wanted anymore? Did he do something wrong?
He convinces himself that he’s only mentioned in the tweet because he’s made everyone aware that he’s in Botswana with elephants. He convinces himself that everything’s fine. He convinces himself that once he’s back home and filming with them that everything will go back to normal.
He can’t help but refresh the page again.