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

Chapter 15

fifteen

After Sloane left, I couldn’t stop thinking about Hudson, as much as I wanted to think about literally anything else. I thought I just needed some time to let the news of this to sink in, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it, and rerunning the moment in my mind over and over again. I needed to watch something else or do… something to stop myself from dying of embarrassment at the memory of this.

I laid down on my bed and opened my computer. I was totally set to start watching a show or something, but instead, I found myself searching for Take Five videos—like that was going to help the obsession. The first things to pop up were their music videos, and an article all about them, and their lives. Two weeks ago, clicking on that probably would have been helpful since I’d known almost nothing about them, but now, I had a feeling I knew more about Hudson Shaw’s life than any of them did. Did they know that he still talked to his friends back in London, or that he hated long noodles, and even numbers, or that if he had to choose that he would rather live in an attic than a basement? Did they know that he was shy as a kid, but always loved to perform on stage, or that his sister was his best friend in the world for the first six years of his life?

Did they know that he was in love with me?

I was sure the image he presented in interviews and other things fans got to see was different than who he was anyway. Wasn’t that the reason I hadn’t realized who he was all this time? Wasn’t that how I’d somehow fallen for Bay while hating Hudson at the same time? If I said that to Sloane, she would probably disagree since she somehow seemed to think that he and I were meant to be based on Hudson and I’s interactions in real life, but I wasn’t convinced that she was right. I wasn’t ready for her to be right.

The next search result after that did pique my interest, however: a YouTube channel simply titled “Take Five Vlogs.” As far as I knew, none of them were major players on social media; sure they all had it, but it was the typical celebrity pages that were posted on only occasionally, and probably only by their PR team. What would they have to post on YouTube?

I clicked the link and glanced over the videos. From what I saw, there were less than twenty proper videos, but there were a significant number of livestreams spanning the past couple of years. In fact, the first video seemed to be from when they got put together as a band on the show .

I bit my lip as I hovered my cursor over that first video. I knew I wasn’t actually doing anything wrong by watching these videos—they were available to the public, and I had every right to look at them. But it also felt a little weird to look back at this archive of Hudson over the years when he couldn’t do the same with me. I barely even had any photos from two years ago because I was mortified by the past, and wanted to erase it as much as possible. Was it wrong for me to do this? Or was that just the nature of dating a celebrity?

I sighed and grabbed my phone. My first thought was to text Sloane, but I already knew what her answer was going to be, and it felt like cheating to ask her just to validate my feelings. No, I needed to outsource this question to somebody else, and unfortunately I only had two options: Twitter—where I had amassed far too many followers to be comfortable, especially since most of said followers were only there to interrogate me about how I got the boys to follow me—and the group chat—which Hudson was in, and would definitely see. That would definitely be weird for me to do, but my only alternative was to make the decision myself.

Ah, what the heck? It would be a power move.

Group name: I promise this isn’t a group chat, Dad

Members: Ni-Ni, Bay, Sharky, Tis Moi Luca, Not Zesty, Eggo

Eggo

Theoretically

If you could watch some old videos (like vlogs) of your crush

Would you?

As I waited for any of them to respond, I looked over their names again and wondered who was who. Obviously Bay was Hudson, but what about the rest of them? The only one that seemed obvious was that Ni-Ni was probably Neil. I thought back to when they first added me to the group chat. They kept calling me Z, which I’d thought might stand for Zesty, but now that I thought about it, one of the boys had a name that started with Z too. Zach, I thought. I pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled it out:

Bay = Hudson

Ni-Ni = Neil

Not Zesty = Zachary

That left… Jude and Finn. Tis Moi, Luca and Sharky. Neither of their names made sense with Luca, though. Actually, none of the boys’ names did. But hadn’t “Luca” mentioned at one point that he didn’t use his real name at school? So Luca was his real name and whatever he went by in Take Five wasn’t… but unfortunately, that didn’t narrow anything down for me at all. I sighed and looked at the names again. Sharky… what kind of nickname was that? Who would choose to be called that in their group chat? I put the names and nicknames together in my mind. Jude—Sharky. Finn—Sharky. And then I laughed to myself as I realized what it was. They named him after a fish because his name was Finn .

Sharky = Finn

Which left Luca to be Jude. There was a possibility for flaws in my puzzle-solving skills, but I had a feeling I was right. At least it all made sense this way. My phone screen flashed on with a notification and I looked at it.

Tis Moi, Luca

That feels oddly specific

A factor of this I hadn’t taken into account was that the boys might figure out what I was talking about. They were all in the videos too, after all. But they also didn’t know who I was in real life, so it wasn’t that embarrassing. At least, that was what I was going to tell myself, so I didn’t feel like crawling in a hole to die.

Eggo

It might be

But I will not be explaining

Ohhh should I make a poll?

POLL: Should I watch my crush’s old vlogs?

Options: DO IT or NAH THAT’S CREEPY

Sharky

I think I’ll need more context

Why would it be a bad thing?

Eggo

I think it might be crossing the line to watch old videos of him when he doesn’t know about it

But they are online, so like it’s his own fault

But it would also mean I would know a lot more about him than he does about me

And he won’t know it

Sharky

Are you going to tell him you watched them?

Ni-Ni

I feel like I’m taking a philosophy test right now

Eggo

This is the modern day trolley problem

I think he will find out

I probably won’t bring it up, but like he’ll know

He would know if he looked in this group chat. But I wasn’t going to tell them that.

Tis Moi, Luca

I think you should watch them

If only for the drama

Eggo

You have to vote in the poll!

I went through all the trouble of making it

Sharky

It took a lot of work, did it?

Eggo

Shush

Tis Moi, Luca voted DO IT in the poll

Sharky voted DO IT in the poll

Eggo

The majority have spoken

Guess I’m doing it

Sharky

We are absolutely not a majority

Eggo

We’re half

If I count myself

And that’s close enough to a majority

Tis Moi, Luca

@Ni-Ni I see you lurking

You better vote

I know where you live

I have a water gun, and I’m not afraid to use it

Ni-Ni

You wouldn’t dare

Tis Moi, Luca

Try me

Ni-Ni

Ughhh

What kind of videos are these?

Tis Moi, Luca

She said they’re vlogs

Gosh Neil, get with the program

Ni-Ni

Luca…

Tis Moi, Luca

What?

OH CRAP

EGGO LOOK AWAY

CLOSE YOUR EYES

FORGET WHAT YOU’VE SEEN

WHY CAN’T I UNSEND THE MESSAGE

It took me a second to remember why Luca would be so worried about the fact that I saw Neil’s real name since I knew it already. In my mind, I thought that even though they didn’t know I knew they were actually Take Five, they thought I knew their real names, which, of course, made no sense at all. I felt bad for making him freak out so much, though, so I tried to think of a way to make him feel better about it.

Eggo

Still roleplaying as Take Five? ;)

Hopefully, he would accept that. Theoretically, I could just tell them that I knew, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that yet. This group chat was the only part of my life that was untouched by this confusing mess Hudson and I had going on, and I wanted to keep it that way. Sure, we only ended up here because of the group chat, but I liked my anonymity here. I liked that they knew me as Eggo, and not Megan. I wasn’t sure how I would cope with both Hudson and all the other boys finding out who I was in the same day.

Bay

Yeah we’re just quirky like that

My heart clenched at the sight of his name. Bay. It felt wrong to see it now that I knew who he really was. Like the name was tainted by my new knowledge.

Bay voted DO IT in the poll

Sharky

There

Now it’s a majority

Even without Ni

If only he knew what that meant.

I guess I didn’t have to feel bad about watching the vlogs anymore, then. He’d given me permission. It still felt a little weird, but who was I to argue? Maybe there was something in them that he wanted me to see. Maybe he thought it would help sway me over to his side.

Eggo

Well ok then

Guess I’ll head off to do that

What are you guys up to tonight?

I was half-expecting them to say that they were flying their private jet across the country to go to their favorite restaurant or that they had some TV appearance to go to. Of course, they wouldn’t because they didn’t think I knew—but that made me wonder about how truthful they were being when they did tell me their plans. I thought back to all the times they told me they were doing something as a group, and wondered how many of those had been famous-people things. Boy band things.

Tis Moi, Luca

We’re going out for dinner

Sharky

Speaking of which

@Bay hurry up

Bay

Coming

Great. I was going to spend my evening watching old vlogs of him from when he was on The Next Great Boy band while he went out with the boys, and had a fantastic, glamorous time. And that was enough to remind me that it didn’t matter how I felt about him, I couldn’t date him. He was one of the most famous pop stars in the world, and I was just… me.

The most boring girl on earth.

Texting With: Hudson (Bay)

Hudson (Bay)

So

What do you think of the videos

Megan

Shush

You’re not supposed to know about that

Hudson (Bay)

You’re the one who brought it up in the group chat

Megan

Would you rather I make a separate group chat without you?

What I didn’t tell him was that after watching all the videos, I suddenly understood all the Take Five fangirls.

I was originally only planning to watch a couple of the vlogs from when the reality show was on, but once I watched two, I was completely engrossed. The videos mostly comprised of the boys updating their fans on how the wet went, and their progress, followed up by a small Q sure they probably dreamed that they would be famous one day, but there was no way they thought it was going to happen as fast as it did. And if that was the case… then I had definitely misjudged them.

That was the same thought that spiraled through my mind all night and the next morning as I went to school. My mom, of course, played Take Five music for the whole ride to school, giving me no space to think about anything else. Not that I would have been able to, anyway. What was I going to say to Hudson when I saw him at school? What could I say? Even if I tried to talk to him, would he want to talk to me too? His vote on the poll made me think that he would probably would, but how could I be one-hundred percent sure?

I guess I couldn’t. But that was the fun of love, wasn’t it?

As always, I got to class before Hudson. As I waited for him to show up, my leg was bouncing so hard that it actually felt like a workout. I was glad I didn’t have anyone sitting too close to me to complain about it, like Lily had when she sat next to me in math last year.

When he did come in, I watched his movements carefully, feeling like I was seeing him for the first time again. The way that he made sure to smile at everyone who was looking at him, but didn’t stop to talk to them. The pithiness in his shoulders, and his wide eyes, like despite being famous for over a year, and already having gone on his first world tour, he still wasn’t used to the attention he got from fans. And most of all, I noticed the way his smile shifted when he looked at me, like it was going from a tight, perfect one to a relaxed, genuine one. Had that always been how he smiled at me? How had I never noticed it before?

He slid into his seat and nodded at me.

“Hey,” he murmured. “How are you?”

I watched him for a second, the simple answer of “fine” on my lips. He wouldn’t hold it against me if I said it—but it would feel like I was turning my back on the idea that the two of us could be anything more than classmates. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

“Tell me a secret,” I said.

His eyes widened, and his lips parted in surprise, but it didn’t take him long at all to recover.

“I want to spend more time with you. Away from school,” he whispered. He tilted his head. “Your secret?”

“I want that too.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

My smile widened. “I guess I’m going out with you.”