Celebrities Don’t Date Bookworms (Texting the Boyband #1)

Chapter 5

five

Why—WHY—didn’t I look at my phone carefully before I pressed call?

“You’re not Sloane,” I said.

“I’m afraid I can neither confirm nor deny the fact that that is my name,” the boy said, amusement clear in his voice. “But if you were looking for a friend that you know is named Sloane… no, I’m not them.”

“Okay,” I said quickly. Honestly, I’d only caught half of what he’d said with how panicked I felt. “Well—bye.”

“Wait, wait!” He laughed. “You’ve already got me on the phone. We might as well talk, right?”

“Um…” Note to self: find out how to talk to guys. Cute guys. British guys. Guys who like to call you.

“Come on,” he continued. “Am I really that bad?”

Oh my gosh, I was going to hyperventilate.

“Of course not,” I said as smoothly as I could. “I just… I promised Sloane I’d call her, and if I don’t, sh e might get worried. Think I got kidnapped on my way home from school or something.”

“Are kidnappings common in Bibridge? That might make me re-think living here.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. In reality, I’d never actually heard of anything even remotely close to that bad happening—our city was somewhat big, but it wasn’t that big. “They happen all the time.”

“Sounds like you need a protector.”

“What makes you think I can’t protect myself?”

“Oh… I’m sure you can.” He paused for a moment, and the sound of his breath filled the silence. I wondered where he was right now. What he was doing. Was he in his bedroom? Was he with the other boys? Had he stepped away from them to talk to me? “So you’re the mysterious Eggo.”

I internally cringed at him calling me Eggo. I know I named myself in the group chat, so it was really my fault, but I hated to hear someone say it out loud.

“And you’re the mysterious Bay.”

“Quite a pair of names we’ve got.”

“Quite.”

“So… Eggo. Tell me about yourself.”

“There’s not much to say. I’m just your average all-American teen girl.”

“But… you’re Canadian.”

He was right, of course, but I just thought all-American had sounded cool to say. Why did he have to say something about it ?

I pretended to gasp. “What gave it away? My accent?”

“Just the fact that we live in Ontario.”

“You weren’t supposed to notice that.”

He laughed. “Sorry. I take it back.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But since you mentioned it… I guess you can just consider me an average teen girl. Nothing remotely interesting to see here.”

“So tell me all about being average,” he said. “I’m sure you make it interesting.”

I held back my giggle, but my face still flushed red. This wasn’t him flirting, right? No, that would be crazy.

“Well…” I said. Where should I start? “I have one sibling. A little brother who is absolutely way more popular than me. My bedroom is painted yellow because that was my favorite when I was like five, and my mom won’t let me change it, but I actually want it to be blue. And… I hate gym class so much that I sometimes pretend to be sick to get out of it. More often than not, actually.”

He laughed. “Do you make up diseases that don’t exist?”

“Not diseases, but I do sometimes make up ridiculous injuries. Like sorry, I sprained my brain.”

“I broke my blood.”

“I actually died, and you’re talking to my ghost.”

“Oh, that’s a good one! I’m going to start using that every time I feel dead inside at school.”

“So, every day?”

“Exactly.” He laughed again, and my only thought was that I wanted to make him laugh again and again because it was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

“So, tell me about yourself, mystery man,” I said.

“I’m just your average teenage boy,” he replied immediately.

“Then tell me about all your average teenage boy things,” I said. I rolled over onto my stomach and hugged my pillow. Even though I mostly said it to parrot his words back to him, I found myself actually interested in what was going on in his life. I knew nothing about these boys, and anything that gave me even the slightest glimpse was entertaining to me.

“Hm, okay… I also have one sibling, but it’s a sister who’s a year older than me. I grew up in London, but I moved to Canada when I was twelve.” That explained the accent, then. “I just moved into this house, and it’s a new build, so my room is still white, but I think that definitely needs to be changed.”

“I agree,” I said. “White rooms feel too much like a hospital.”

“Exactly,” he said, dragging out the last syllable. “You get it.”

I laughed. “So why did you move to Bibridge, average boy?”

“Well, that’s a complicated answer,” he said.

“I’ve got time.”

“I’m not a great storyteller.”

“Then tell it badly.”

“Some people in my life thought it would be a good idea. ”

I waited silently, expecting him to continue the story, but he didn’t elaborate beyond that.

“Wow,” I said, holding back a laugh. “You weren’t kidding—you are a terrible storyteller.”

“Hey!”

“You’re welcome to try to prove me wrong.” I was prying so much that it was actually embarrassing, but I was desperate to know more. The boys had been so secretive about their lives in the group chat, and I was curious by nature. I always wanted to know everything I could about anyone I met.

Bay huffed a laugh. “All right, let me try again. Like I said, I’m your average teenager, but up until last year, I was even more average than most. But then… something happened that changed my life a bit. A lot. And even though it was a good thing, it was overwhelming, and it seemed like nothing was ever going to slow down or ever go back to normal again. So, my parents and… other adults in my life thought it might be a good idea for me to come live here for a while to give my life some more stability while I finished high school.”

I was desperate to know what that ‘something’ he referenced was, but I knew he probably omitted it from the story for a reason, and I wasn’t going to pry. Satisfying my curiosity wasn’t worth pushing his boundaries.

“Why Bibridge, though?” I asked. “Do you know people from here or something?”

“Kind of,” Bay said. “I mean, it’s—yet again—complicated. I don’t actually live with my family, I live with the other guys in the group chat. The thing that happened affected all of us, so this was our solution. One of the guys has some family here, so they’re acting as our guardians to make sure we don’t die and all that.”

“I can’t imagine living with anyone other than my family,” I said. As much as my parents and brother got on my nerves sometimes, I couldn’t imagine moving away from them. Even the thought of going to college in a couple of years filled me with dread. “Do you miss them?”

“A little,” Bay said. “I just moved here recently, but I’ve been living away from them on-and-off for almost two years now, and I’ve gotten used to it. It feels like I’m just away at boarding school or summer camp.”

I wondered what could have happened in his life that made him move away from his family so young. His mention of boarding school made me think it was something like that. Like whatever that good-but-overwhelming-thing was meant that he had to move somewhere else for a while and lose the stability they thought living here would bring him.

“How do you like it here?” I asked.

Bay paused like he was really thinking through the question. I appreciated it—I wasn’t just making small talk to pass the time, I really wanted to know.

“I’m liking it more and more by the day,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked. “Why’s that?”

“Because moving here introduced me to you.”

I was pretty sure my heart stopped beating. Scratch that—I was pretty sure my whole freaking body was shutting down.

“Technically, that could have happened from anywhere,” I stuttered out. “You know, since we met in a group chat.”

“No, we all got new local numbers when we moved here, so we wouldn’t have added you by accident if we weren’t here. Besides… I’m hoping that at some point, you’ll let me meet you in person, too.”

The idea of letting any of the boys from the group meet me in person made me want to break out in hives. How I presented myself over text and in real life was completely different from one another, and I didn’t have any hope that they would like both. The fact that he had gotten through this much of a call with me and didn’t hate me was a good sign, but it was no guarantee.

“I don’t know…” I said. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“Which boy you are in that photo you sent,” I said. “I need to make sure I’m not wasting my time on someone who wears ugly hoodies.”

Bay laughed loudly. I pictured him in my head, sitting in his hospital-like bedroom, maybe on his bed in the same way I was, his head thrown back in a laugh. I wondered whether the other boys could hear him and if they were wondering who he was talking to. If they asked, would he tell them? I wasn’t sure why, but I hoped he wouldn’t. I liked the idea of this being our own little secret meeting.

“I’m the one wearing the navy Disney World hoodie,” he said. I put the phone on speakerphone and pulled up the photo in the chat again. He was the boy in the middle, one of the three who was grinning at the camera. Though, unlike the other two, his wasn’t a wide, toothy smile. Instead, it was a grin, almost a smirk even. It was hard to judge someone based solely on the bottom half of their face, but if I had to, I’d say he was pretty cute.

“Good choice,” I said. I looked at the sweater a little more closely and noticed that it seemed older. If I had to guess, I’d say it was from the 70s or 80s. “Vintage?”

“My dad’s,” Bay supplied. “I swear half my clothes are from him.”

“That’s cute. Like a way of staying close to him even when you live far away.”

“Exactly.”

A brief silence followed, and I glanced at my clock. It wasn’t that late, but if I wanted to get through to Sloane tonight, I had to do it soon. “I guess I should go,” I said. “It's getting late.”

“But there’s no school tomorrow, right?” Bay asked cheekily. I briefly wondered why he knew the school schedule—we should have had school tomorrow, but they made it an emergency PA Day for some reason—but I pushed it out of my mind. It was probably just a lucky guess or something. “Surely you can stay up for a little bit longer?”

I glanced at my door. My mom didn't like me to stay on the phone too late at night. But my door was closed, and if I kept quiet, I could probably get away with it.

“I guess so,” I said slowly. “But if my mom comes in here and asks who I'm talking to, you better be prepared to pretend to be Sloane. Really play it up too—Canadian accent, high-pitched, talking about math, or... Something.”

Despite being a teenage girl, I suddenly realized I had no idea what teenage girls actually talked about. I couldn’t even think of what Sloane and I usually talked about outside of school stuff, even though we rarely spoke of that. I guess I was just bad at thinking of stuff on the spot.

“Will do,” Bay said. I pulled out my messages and sent off a quick text to Sloane.

Megan

Can’t call tonight! Mom wants me to “spend time with the family”

I felt a twinge of guilt for lying to her, but I also knew she would probably understand. All this group chat and boy stuff was really new, and I didn’t know how to explain it to her. Plus, I knew that if I said anything about a boy, she would get on my case about who he was and why I hadn’t told her before, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that onslaught yet. I didn’t want to get her hopes up over a boy that I barely knew. One that I would probably never even meet in person. She wouldn’t understand… or at least, that was what I was telling myself to feel be tter about hiding it. The guilt only got that much worse when I got the text back:

Sloane

No worries!!

I’ll call you tomorrow xx

She was so sweet to me, and all I did was lie to her in return. To make myself feel better, I added in the text I meant to send earlier and forgot about.

Megan

Thanks for understanding!

Actually I think my mom’s taking me shopping tomorrow. Want to come?

“Tell me more about yourself,” I said to Bay.

“I already said everything interesting.”

“That can’t possibly be true.” I looked around my room for something else to bring up. Some sort of prompt to get him talking. The only thing that provided inspiration was my diary. “Tell me a secret.”

“A secret?”

“Yes,” I said more confidently. “Tell me something that nobody else knows about you. Or that almost nobody knows.”

“I can’t tell you a secret,” he said. His tone was light-hearted and teasing rather than serious or truly scandalized. “I barely even know you.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s perfect. What does it matter if I know your secrets if I don’t know who you are? ”

He paused like he was thinking. “You make a good point.”

“So… Tell me a secret.”

“I don’t like long noodles,” he said. I almost burst out laughing. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“What?”

“Wow, I really needed to get that off my chest.”

“Is this some moral objection or…”

“They’re just… wrong. I don’t know.” Despite how hard I was trying to hold my giggles in, one escaped at that. “Hey! Do not mock my secret.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I promise I’m not mocking.”

“Well, I shared a secret, so now it’s your turn,” he said. “Tell me something nobody knows about you.”

“I…” Wow, thinking of facts about myself was difficult. What could I tell him that nobody knew about me? I told Sloane pretty much everything. And sure, I could lie and tell him something that only she knew, but that felt like cheating. He’d shared something real with me, and I should have to do the same for him.

“Harder than it seems, isn’t it?” Bay asked.

“Shush, I’m trying to think.” The only secret that I was actively keeping from Sloane was about the group chat, and he obviously knew that, so I was probably going to need to think of some obscure fact that I didn’t usually think about to give him. “I think crocs are the most comfortable shoes in the world, even if they’ re kind of ugly.”

“Hm…. Can I share a second secret?” Bay asked. I made a noise of approval. “I’ve never owned a pair of crocs.”

I gasped. “What? How come?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “My parents just never bought them for me as a kid.”

“Well, we need to rectify that immediately.”

“I’ll get right on it. In fact, I’ll go buy them tomorrow. What color should I get?”

“Well, I have pink ones,” I said. “So you could get the same color and we could match.”

I expected him to immediately veto the idea, but instead, he said in a fond voice, “Sounds perfect. It’s too bad we wouldn’t be able to wear them at school, though.”

“If we could, then we would realize each other’s identities,” I said.

“Would that be so bad?”

Yes.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Would it?”

His silence was enough to answer me. At least we were on the same page: on the phone, good. In real life, bad.

“I’m glad you called me,” he whispered. “Even if it was by accident.”

“I’m glad I called you,” I echoed. “And next time, it won’t be an accident.”

“Next time?” he asked.

“Next time,” I repeated firmly, as if that was enough of an answer.

And I guess it was.